Needs Analysis in ESP

1. Introduction
 Whereas English for General Purposes (EGP) traditionally does not specify needs, ESP is
distinguished by its high awareness of needs (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987).
 Conducting needs analysis is “the corner stone of ESP and leads to a much focused course”
(Dudley- Evans and St. John, 1998: 122)
 It is an important first step in course design as it involves the process of establishing the
what and how of a course(Basturkmen, 2010)
 Needs analysis in ESP refers to a course development process:
a. Of the language and skills that the learners will use in their target
professional or vocational workplace or in their study areas
b. The perceptions of their needs and the practical possibilities and constraints
of the teaching context
 The information obtained from this process is used in determining and refining the content
and method of the ESP course
2. Needs Analysis General Overview
 Considered as the basic principal of ESP area (Robinson, 1991, p.7)
 Many researchers (Munby, 1978; Richetrich & Chancerel, 1987; Hutchinson & Waters,
1987...) consider NA as the major defining feature in ESP
 Long (2005) confirms that NA is an essential step in any language course design that can
provide detailed and selective goals in addition to academic support to meet the learners’
needs in the course time frame
3. Definitions of NA
 Many scholars have contributed to the growth of NA concept in ESP area (Robinson, 1991;
Johns, 1991; West, 1994; Seedhouse, 1995; Jordan, 1997...)
 Pratt (1980, p.79) defines NA as "an array of procedures for identifying and validating
needs, and establishing priorities among them"
 Holec (1980, p.1) considers NA as "classical procedures by which a link can be established
between the learners and the curricula".
 Iwai (1990, as cited in Sanghori, 2008, p.3) the term NA "generally refers to the activities
that are involved in collecting information that will serve as the basis for developing a
curriculum that will meet the needs of a particular group of students"
 NA can be described as "what learners will be required to do with the foreign language in
the target situation, and how learners might best master the target language during the
period of training (West, 1997, p.1)
Importance of NA :
 plays an important role in refining and evaluating ESP courses (Lindsay &
Knight, 2006)
 is a the starting point in the course design process in which different data will
be gathered to help the practitioner to decide about the course focus, content
4. Types of Needs
 According to Dudley-Evans and St John (1998), many scholars introduced major terms
where “needs” are described differently such as:
 objective/subjective (Brindley, 1989)
 perceived/felt (Berwick, 1989)
 target situation/ goal oriented and learning, process oriented and product-oriented
(Brindley, 1989)
  necessities, wants and lacks (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987)
 Under the main term “need”, Hutchinson and Waters (1987) state that it covers two types,
namely: Target Needs and Learning Needs.
4.1 Taregt Needs
 Target needs denote what the learners need to do in the target situation
 Needs “are perhaps more appropriately described as “objectives.” (Robinson, 1991)
 According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987, p.55), the term “target needs” is broken down
into: Necessities, Lacks, and Wants:
a. Necessities
 the type of need determined by the demands of the target situation
 They are also named “Objective Needs” (Jordan, 1997)
 what the learner needs to know in order to function effectively in the target situation
b. Lacks
 They refer to what the learners do not know or cannot do in English
 The gap between the existing language proficiency of the learners and the one required at
the end of the language course (Jordan ,1997)
c. Wants
 referred as ‘Subjective Needs’
 related to learners’ motivation, readiness and attitudes to learn
 Bowers (1980 as cited in Jordan, 1997) claims that students will learn best what they want to
learn
4.2 Learning Needs
 demonstrate how students will be able to move from the starting point (lacks) to the
destination (necessities)
 Robinson (1991, p.7) defines learning needs as “…what the learner needs to do to actually
acquire the language.”
 Hutchinson and Waters (1987) stress the fact that a relevant NA must take into
consideration not only the target situation needs where the question “What the learners need
to learn” is central, but also the learning needs, that is, “How the learners will learn”
 Learning NA looks for information about:
 the learners
 learning styles and strategies
 language skills
 selection of teaching materials
 the setting and the time load
5. Significance of NA Process
 is eventually a highly pragmatic activity based on highly contextualized situations (Tarone &
Yule, 1989)
 is considered as a fundamental step in all types of language learning and teaching situations
whether for specific purposes or general purposes, besides it matches any learning program
with the real life needs of the learners
 Richards (2001) discusses this issue from the angle of curriculum design; he considers NA as
‘fundamental’ to the planning of language courses it serves different purposes which enable:
 To find out what language skills a learner needs in order to perform a particular
role, such as sales manager
 To help determine if an existing course adequately addresses the needs of potential
students.
  To determine which students from a group are most in need of training in particular
language skills.
 To identify a change of direction that people in a reference group feel is important
 To identify a gap between what students are able to do and what they need to be able
to do.
 To collect information about a particular problem learners are experiencing
He also stresses that the information to be collected will help in identifying
general and specific language needs and content of language program
it will provide data to review and evaluate the existing program
 NA can play a vital part at all stages of ESP course design by bringing in relevance and
giving the learning experience more precision
 Needs Analysis enables the practitioners to design relevant course
6. Approaches to Needs Analysis
 Jordan (1997) presents five main approaches to NA: Target-Situation Analysis, Present
Situation Analysis, Deficiency Analysis, Strategy Analysis and Means Analysis
6.1 Target-Situation Analysis
 First introduced by Chambers (1980), who defines TSA as “communication in the target
situation.”
 West (1994), TSA is a form of Needs Analysis, which stresses on identifying the learners’
language requirement in the occupational or academic situation they are being prepared for
 Robinson (1991, p.8) argues that “a needs analysis, which focuses on students’ needs at the
end of a language course can be called a TSA.”
 Jordan (1997), TSA is best expressed in Munby’s model (1978) in which he focuses on the
learners’ needs at the end of a language course and the target level performance. He linked
the needs analysis to situations and functions and generated
“a Communication Needs Processor” (CNP): the basis of the NA approach
“a Communicative Competence Specification ” (CCS) : syllabus can be drawn up
a. There are two stages involved in Munby's Model:
* CNP
* He profile of needs which is derived from the CNP in terms of microskills and
micro-functions.
 Based on Munby’s model, Hutchinson and Waters (1987) suggest a framework that is
centred on asking questions about the target situation and the attitudes towards that
situation:
 Why is the language needed?
 How will the language be used?
 What will the content areas be?
 Who will the learner use the language with?
 Where will the language be used?
 When will the language be used?
b. limitations of Munby’s model : according to (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987;
John ,1998;West, 1994)
 inflexible ; does not include other affective factors
 time-consuming
 misses to prioritize the list of micro-elements and their linguistic functions
6.2 Present Situation Analysis
 first coined by Richterich and Chancerel (1980) as a complement to TSA (Robinson, 1991;
West, 1997; and Jordan, 1997)
 PSA ascertains the students’ state of language development at the beginning of the language
course
 The sources of information are: learners themselves, the teaching establishment and the
‘user institution’
 Broadly speaking, PSA addresses two aspects: “lacks” and “wants” (Hutchinson & Waters,
1987)
6.3 Deficiency Analysis
 Hutchinson and Waters (1987) consider as “lacks” can be directly linked to Deficiency
Analysis
 DA attempts to analyse the gap between learner’s present language level and the linguistic
proficiency level that he would reach (Dudley-Evans & St John, 1998)
 can be used as the basis of the language syllabus (Jordan, 1997) because it could provide
data about the gaps
6.4 Strategy Analysis (SA)
 deals with the :strategies that learners employ in order to learn a language
 focuses more on “the methodology employed to implement language programmes” (Nunan
1988, cited in Jordan 1997)
 SA attempts to establish how the learners wish to learn rather than what they need to learn,
West (1998, as cited in Sanghori, 2008)
 Allwright (1982, cited in Jordan, 1997) stresses that learners should take stand on the insight
of their needs, and in return addresses three aspects:
Needs: The skills that belong to learners themselves;
Wants: The learners’ needs that take precedence over any other ones;
Lacks: They imply the disparity between the learner’s existent know-how
and the desired one.
6.5 Means Analysis
 Munby’s model (1978) failed to consider logistics and pedagogy issues
 Holliday and Cooke (1982) introduce Means Analysis as an attempt to adapt language
course to local situations
 MA “looks at the environment in which a course will be run […] the environment in which
the project will take root, grow healthily and survive” (Dudley-Evans & St John 1998)
 In this approach the course designer or the teacher first identifies:
a. the relevant features of the situation
b. sees how the positive features can be used to advantage to accommodate what
would conventionally be seen as constraints
 MA included gathering information on the classroom culture, learner factors, teacher
profiles, and the status of language teaching in the organization.
7. Methodology and Factors in Conducting Needs Analysis
 ESP practitioners have a wide range of data collection methods to elicit the information needed :
7.1 Data Collection Methods for NA (HOW)
 Dudley-Evans and St John (1998), there are six main methods for data collection in NA,
which are:
 Questionnaires, analysis of authentic spoken and written texts, discussions,
structured interviews, observation and assessments.
 The use of DCM: to find out information about the learner in order to
o determine his objectives of learning the language
 o the skills that should be focused on
o the situation in which the language will be used
o whom the language will be used
o level of proficiency required.
 to obtain more NA information, different methods should be used simultaneously; this
method is known as triangulation
7.2 Sources for NA Data Collection
 Sources of NA data collection are other methodological aspects in NA that should be
considered
 Brown (1995) categorizes data collection sources into four groups:
i. The first is the target group: learners, teachers, and administrators
ii. The second group is the audience: refers to the people who are required to act upon
the NA results (course managers, supervisors)
iii. The third is the resource group: provide relevant information (parents, financial
sponsors, future employers)
iv. The fourth group is needs analysts: consultants from outside the institution or
members of the institution.
8. Procedures of Conducting Needs Analysis
 Brown (2009, as cited in Mohammadi & Nacer, 2013) explains his comprehensive
framework of NA that consists of three main stages with ten steps:
1. Get ready to do NA
Define the purpose of the NA
Delimit the student population
Decide upon approach (es) and syllabus (es)
Recognize constraints
Select data collection procedures
2. Do the NA research
Collect data
Analyse data
Interpret results
3. Use the NA results
Determine objectives
Evaluate the report on the NA project.
9. What do ESP practitioners do with Needs Analysis results?
 The outcome of a needs analysis should be:
 a list of goals and objectives for the parties involved
 should inform course content, materials and teaching activities
 testing and evaluation strategies
 Information on learners’ ability to use English, his or her subjective needs: in order to make
decisions on matters such as group division...
 Needs analysis be checked constantly in an on-going process to assess needs
whenever they are expressed.
 Pre-course NA is used to determine types of appropriate course content and materials,
during the course
 NA assures that learner and course goals are being met, and allows for necessary changes
 NA is used for assessing progress and planning future directions.