NEED ANALISYS

ABSTRACT

Needs analysis can be a vital asset for teachers of English for specific purposes (ESP) to identify their
learners’ key requirements or needs and determine the areas in which they are lacking skills.

DEFINITION

Needs analysis it can be said that needs are what learners will be required to do with a foreign language in
a target situation, and how learners might best master the target language during the period of training
(West, 1994: 1). Analysis is essentially seen as the exploration process of communicative tasks, that is,
what the learners need to do with the target language (Al-Otibi, 1994).

Approaches to Needs Analysis

There have been various approaches to needs analysis. The most common approaches include deficiency
analysis, sociolinguistic model, learning-centered approach, target situation analysis (TSA), and present
situation analysis (PSA).

WHAT DO WE MEAN BY "NEEDS"?

 According approach: it is "the ability to comprehend and/or produce the linguistic

features of the target situation." the language-centered to

 Target needs: what the students needs to do in the target situation

 Learning needs: what the students needs to do in order to learn.

Target Needs

 Necessities: according to the demands of the target learner has to in order to situation, is
function effectively in that situation.

 Lacks : According to what the participants already knew, we decided what needs were
missing. There is a gap between existing skills and target skills.

 Wants: to accept what we have considered from an objective POV, we must say that the
needs do not exist apart from someone.

Gathering Information About Target Needs

Different ways in which information can be gathered about needs

1. Questionnaires

2. interviews

3. Observation

4. Data collection

5. Informal consultations

Important: the choice will depend on the time and resources available. And, needs
analysis is not a once-for-all activity. It should be a continuing process.

A Target Situation Analysis Framework

1. Why is the language needed?

2. How will the language be used?

3. What will the content areas be?

4. Who will the learner use the language with?

5. Where will the language be used?

6. When will the language be used?

LEARNING NEEDS

 What we have not considered yet is the route. How are we going to get from our starting
point to the destination? The whole ESP process is concerned not with knowing or doing,
but with learning.

 We need to take into account the destination or needs of a learning situation:

 A task that is enjoyable, fulfilling, manageable, generative, etc.

 A project in class can be guided in terms of its general orientation by the target situation,
but its specific content is a response to learning needs.
  For example, in a target situation students may need to read long, dull, complex texts, but
their motivation may be high because:

1. They like the subject in general

2. Job/Promotion prospects may be involved

3. They will carry out interesting experiments or practical work (based on the texts)

4. They like and/or respect the teacher/boss

ANALYSING LEARNING NEEDS

A framework for analysing learning needs:

 Why are the learners taking the course?

 How do the learners learn?

 What resources are available?

 Who are the learners?

 Where will the ESP course take place?

 When will the ESP course take place?

Study

In a class, there is one ESP student who feels bored when he is learning (not only in the class but
also out of the class). For example: when his friends anthuciastic to speak and discuss, he stays
silent. As a teacher, could you make an order based on the target needs from necessities, lacks
and wants to solve the problem?

APPROACH COURSES TO DESIGN

COURSE DESIGN

Course design is the process by which the raw data about a learning need is interpreted in order
to produce an integrated series of teaching-learning experiences, whose ultimate aim is to lead
the learners to a particular state of knowledge
APPROACHES TO COURSE DESIGN

I. Language-Centered Approach

II. Skills-Centered Approach.

III. Learning-Centered Approach

LANGUAGE-CENTERED APPROACH

 It is the simplest and more familiar kind to English teachers

 It is particularly common in ESP

 It aims to draw as direct a connection as possible between the analysis of the target
situation and the content of the ESP course

 A language-centered approach says: this the nature of the target situation performance
determines ESP course

It has a number of weaknesses ;

I. it might be considered a learner-centered approach because it starts from the

learners and their needs but in reality its not learner-centered. The learner is
simply used as a means of identifying the target situation

II. The language-centered process can also be criticized for being a static and
inflexible procedure

III. The language-centered analysis of target situation data is only at the surface
level. It reveals very little about the competence that underlined the performance

SKILLS-CENTERED APPROACH

 This approach aimed to help learners for developing skills and strategies which continue
after the ESP course by making learners better processors of information

 A skills-centered approach says: we must look behind target performance data to discover
what processes enable someone to perform. Those processes will determine the ESP
course

The skills-centered approach based on two fundamental principles:

 The basic theoretical hypothesis is that underlying any language behavior strategies,
which the learner uses in order to procedure
  The pragmatic basis for the skills-centered approach derives from a distinction made by
Widdowson (1981) between goal-oriented courses and process oriented courses are
certain skills and

Needs analysis plays two roles in a skill-centered approach:

 It provides a basis for discovering the essential competence that enables people to
perform in the target situation

 It enables the course designer to discover the potential knowledge and abilities that the
learners bring to the ESP course

Learning-Centered Approach

 This approach is based on the principle that learning is totally determined by the learner.
As teachers we can influence what we teach, but what learners learn is determined by the
learners alone

 In this approach learning is seen as a process in which the learners use what knowledge
or skills they have in order to make sense of the flow of new information. Learning is not
just a mental process it, is a process of negotiation between individuals and society.

 A learning-centered approach says: We must look beyond the competence that enables
someone to perform, because what we really want to discover is not the competence itself
but how someone acquires that competence

Summary

In conclusion, the results of the needs analysis help us as teachers to identify the students’
prospective professional needs, the students’ needs in terms of language skills and the students’
deficiencies in the area of language skills. Only after analyzing the students’ needs and
determining the objectives of the language course, we can select a material that meets the needs
of the students. Thus, needs analysis is the foundation on which we can develop curriculum
content, teaching materials and methods that can lead to increasing the learners ’motivation and
success.

Language-centered approach concentrates on performance Skills-centered approach concentrates

on competence Learning-centered approach concentrates on how to get competence.