Often associated with the teaching of ESP (English for Special Purposes e.g. English for Bankers, Report-writing, etc), needs analysis is the process of identifying and mapping a learner’s language needs in order to inform course design and materials selection.
Through a combination of questionnaires and interviews, the course designer or teacher aims to identify the situations in which the learners will use English. The type of language required for the learner to operate in these situations is then determined using text and/or conversational analysis.
Text analysis involves examining sample texts which the learner will have to deal with in English. In examining these texts, the course designer or teacher attempts to identify features of organization as well as the grammatical and lexical components which distinguish these kinds of text.
Conversational analysis looks at the kind of interactions the learner will have to deal with for example, “answering a phone and taking a message” and then attempts to break these interactions down into a series of interlinked functions which are represented by specific components of the target language.
The results of these analyses together with subjective data collected from interviews with the learners is then used to inform course design both in terms of content and materials as well as methodology.
Though as previously mentioned, needs analysis is traditionally associated with the teaching of ESP, its principals are helpful in determining the attitudes, preferred learning styles and expectations of any group of learners.
At the beginning of any course of English, asking learners to identify and note down their language needs and expectations of the course provides a useful frame against which the course can be evaluated upon completion. With this in mind, needs analysis has given rise to the idea of “can do” statements – the learner being encouraged to state what he/she can do with language before beginning a course and what they hope to be able to do at the end of the course.
Not all teaching situations will call for such rigorous analysis of learners needs but it should be clear to all however that successful teaching must by its very nature take account not only of the learners’ level but also of their expectations and thus the principles of needs analysis have a role to play in every classroom.
