In Japanese colleges and universities, native speaker teachers in English departments are sometimes called on to teach courses that furnish English majors with the necessary tools to write their graduation theses in English. This study was undertaken at one university to determine what constitutes a graduation thesis, what aspects of the thesis are deemed important, criteria used to assess the quality of both the process and the product, what that process is, the meaning and importance of originality and research in such a thesis, the meaning of plagiarism and how it is treated, who can give help to the student, and what students see as helpful in thesis preparation. The results provide an analysis of student needs that may be useful to native English-speaking teachers in developing a thesis course syllabus. The report outlines the methodology used in developing needs assessment questionnaires, conducting and revising them, and surveying 29 teachers and 6 students. Results are summarized. Data summaries and questionnaires are appended. (Contains 12 references.) (MSE)