Jennifer Escobedo

Teaching & Learning 409

Part 1 Needs Analysis Tool & Justification

Justification:
There is a lot to consider when creating an analysis tool for a course directed towards
ELL students. Some components I tried to incorporate in my analysis questions are simplicity,
clear and concise directions, and language course relevance. As a teacher it is important to ask
your students questions that will help guide you to teach them better; therefore I made sure every
question had relevant usage for a language course. It is also important to create questions that are
simple and clear because that will generate the most accurate responses from your students.
Creating questions that are too elaborate could confuse your students and skew their answers,
which would not be beneficial for determining their position in the course. The five categories
Brown discusses are very useful for teachers trying to understand how their students are doing in
the course because it includes information about your students that is very necessary for a
successful learning environment.
The first of the five categories introduced by Brown is problems (Brown, 1995). In my
opinion, this is the most important category for needs analysis because if a stunt is having an
issue in the course it needs to be addressed as soon as possible. I have noticed that one of the
most common reason students suffer in a course is because they don't vocalize the issues they are
experiencing. By creating a needs analysis tool that asks the students if they are having problems
you can become aware of their issues and work to fix them. The questions I created for
addressing problems in the course are numbers five and eight. I tried to keep them simple in
vocabulary and gave options to choose from to make it easier to answer. I feel that by having
answer options for your questions you can eliminate confusion and direct their responses.
I found it somewhat difficult to write analysis questions for the categories attitudes and
abilities because those two categories are very similar. I had to focus on the wording for the
questions for these two categories because there is a fine line between the two. When asking
students what their abilities are I originally worded question #2 as How confident do you feel
about your English reading abilities? Although it is asking about the students abilities the word
feel makes it an attitude question rather than a abilities question, therefore I decided to remove
the word feel from the question.
Analysis questions under the priorities category were the easiest for me to create
because asking students what is important to them is a simple concept. I made answer options for
both priority questions because that allows me to narrow done the students focus when
answering the question, and it eliminates confusion for the student. I want to do a broad question
and a more in depth question for priorities. So question three has broad categories which are
reading, writing, speaking, and listening; question four has more in-depth options which are
grammar, pronunciation, and culture.
Over the entire questionnaire, the questions are concise and easy to follow. As a teacher I
feel that theses question could truly help me teach my students better in a language course. I will
definitely attempt to use the five categories Brown introduces as a template for creating
questions in my future classroom.
Name:______________________ Date:____________

Directions: Answer the following questions and turn into your teacher when finished.

Not At All Comfortable

Very Comfortable

1 2 3 4
5
1. How comfortable are you speaking to native English speakers? (Circle one.)
2. How confident are you about your English reading abilities? (Circle one.)

Not At All Confident

Very Confident

1 2 3 4

Reading Writing Speaking Listening

3. Which subject do you think we should focus on most in this course? (Circle one.)

Grammar Pronunciation Culture

4. Which subject do you think is most important to learn in this course? (Circle one.)

Reading Writing Speaking Listening

5. Which subject do you struggle with in this course? (Circle all that apply.)
 Reading Writing Speaking
Listening

6. Which is your best subject in this course? (Circle one.)

Too Fast Just Right Too Slow

7. How do you feel about how fast we are learning in this course? (Circle one.)

Reading Writing Speaking Listening

8. Are you having any problems with the language course subjects? (Circle all that apply.)

Music Art Food Sports

9. Which cultural subject do you enjoy most? (Circle one.)

10. Make a list of the social groups you belong to outside of this language course?
 Work Cited:

Brown, J. D. (1995). The elements of language curriculum: A systematic approach to

program development. New York: Heinle & Heinle.

Woodward, T. (2001). Planning courses and lessons: Designing sequences of work for the

language classroom. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.