TCH LRN 409

Brianna Bell

“Needs Assessment” Fieldwork and Report

The purpose of my needs assessment tool is to determine the level of comprehension of

events that occurred in a book after reading it as a class, in a third-grade setting. With the results,

I will be able to determine if the student is understanding English orally, and written, and what

the student needs to further develop their understanding and learning of English.

After using my needs assessment tool, I learned that the ELL student I assessed was very

bright and had a good understanding of the English language. The student easily conversed with

other students and appeared to be happy and have friends in the class. After reading the book as

a class under the projector, the class had a conversation about the book and Rosie, the ELL

student, contributed to the conversation and appeared to have an understanding of what occurred

in the book, however, when given a sheet to write answers to, it appeared as if she did not have

the same understanding. Before Rosie’s family came to the US, she was not taught how to write,

and not much time was spent on reading, according to her teacher. She is able to communicate

with peers with ease, but academically, it is difficult for her to understand when she has to read

and respond with written answers on her own.

From the results of the analysis, I would spend time on helping Rosie learn how to read, and

show them how to recognize specific details or information. This was a problem when the

student worked individually. I would also spend time on writing and give ample opportunities for

the students to practice their writing. These appeared to be the biggest difficulties seen. Rosie

can understand easily when lessons are spoken and discussed, and since its obvious she is smart

and can understand it would be good to slowly incorporate more individual work time to

encourage her to practice and gain confidence on her reading on her own. To succeed
 TCH LRN 409

academically, Rosie should focus on independent reading and writing to gain confidence with the

non-verbal aspects of the English language

My assessment tool worked well gathering information for four out of the five categories

from Brown’s (1995) categories. These categories were problems, priorities, abilities, and

solutions. The category, attitude, was not easily obtained with my tool. With my tool, we were

able to identify problems the student runs into and has with the English language. From these

problems were able to identify what our priorities were in learning English, in this case, writing

and reading were the biggest priority from the student and the teacher. Rosie came to the US

with little English but has gained many abilities with the Language, according to her teacher.

And the final category, solutions, was easily collected by asking for feedback from Rosie, which

she happily obliged to give. Even though my assessment tool did not capture Rosie’s attitude on

English well, just from her actions in class and conversations with her she has a good attitude

and is willing to always try new things. For attitude, I needed to ask better questions that

captured her opinion more on her learning. My questions were basic and I did not get the result I

thought I would. Overall, my tool was good, but can be improved to get better results.
 TCH LRN 409

References

Brown, J.D. (1995). Chapter 2: Needs Analysis. In the Elements of Language Curriculum: A
Systematic Approach to Program Development. New York, NY: Heinle & Heinle.

O'Malley, J. M., & Pierce, L. V. (2009). Authentic assessment for English language learners:
practical approaches for teachers. New York: Longman.