Needs analysis

Needs analysis

1. Whose needs?

   • 2. Whose needs are to be analysed? (the student's; the sponsor's institution or country; the specialist department...) 3. Who performs the analysis? Who decides what the language needs are? (sponsor; teacher; student; researcher/consultant...)
     • 4. What is to be analysed? (target situation; present situation; deficiencies; strategies; means; constraints; necessities; lacks; wants ...) 5. How is the analysis to be conducted? (tests; questionnaires; inter-views; documentation ...)
       • 6. When is the analysis to be undertaken? (before the EAP course/tuition; at the start of the course; during the course; at the end of the course ...) 7. Where is the EAP course to be held? (in the target country, e.g. UK; in the student's own country; in a third country ...)

2. Target-situation (TSA)

   • model devised by Munby (1978).
     • to be systematic and comprehensive inevitably made his instrument inflexible, complex and time-consuming' (West 1994).
   • communicative syllabus design
   • 'Communication Needs Processor' (CNP)
   • the product is a profile of the students'
   • 'communicative competence specification',
   • routes via a 'language skills selector' or via a 'meaning processor' and 'linguistic encoder'.
   • practical constraints should be considered at the start
   • the language items chosen for practice in ESP/EAP should reflect those used in the real world

3. The process of determining the need for which learners requires a language and arranging the needs according to priorities, using both subjective and objective information.

   • Should be the starting point for devising syllabuses, courses, materials and the kind of teaching and learning that takes place. ("The Why")

4. Present-situation (PSA)

   • Richterich and Chancerel (1977/80)
   • the students themselves, the teaching establishment and the 'user institution'
   • surveys, questionnaires and interviews.
     • TSA and PSA: combination of the two approaches.
   • information is sought on levels of ability, resources and views on language teaching/learning.

5. Strategy

   • Allwright (1982)
   • a distinction between needs, wants, lacks
   • preferences in group size
   • correction procedures
   • methodology
   • methods of assessment.
   • to raise awareness of cultural differences
   • learner training and the development of learner autonomy become important.

6. Means

   • Holliday and Cooke 1982
   • cultural attitudes, resources, materials, equipment, methods.
   • to adapt language courses to local situations: 'constraints'.

7. Language audits and constraints

   • for companies, regions or countries
   • provide data
   • propose training or educational policies
   • over a period of time

8. Deficiency, Learning-centred approaches

   • Hutchinson and Waters (1987)
   • learning as a 'process of negotiation between individuals and society'
   • target needs' (situation)
     • How will the language be used?
   • 'learning needs' (what the learner needs)
     • Why are the learners taking the course?
   • sub-divide target needs into 'necessities', 'lacks' and 'wants'.
   • Both 'necessities' and 'lacks' can be regarded as being objective.

Images and files in the map