The Online Delta: Module 3

Delta Module
Three
Needs Analysis

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 The Online Delta: Module 3

Contents
Needs  analysis  –  Discovering  learners’  needs ....................................................................................4
Considerations  in  Needs  Analysis .......................................................................................................6
What  types  of  information  do  I  need  to  gather? ...............................................................................8
When  is  it  the  right  time  to  doo  Needs  Analysis?  ……………………………………………………………………….9  
 
Where  should  I  look  in  order  to  gather  data  for  needs  analysis?....................................................11
Avoiding  Token  Needs  Analysis…………………………………………………………………….13
Question  words……………………………………………………………………………………..13
Negotiated  Syllabus  ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..16    
 
What  should  I  do  with  all  this  information? ....................................................................................17
What  if  the  results  of  my  needs  analysis  are  ambiguous  or  contradictory? ..................................17
The  usefulness  (or  not)  of  Needs  Analyses .......................................................................................18

Other  problems  with  Needs  analyses ................................................................................ 19

Advice  to  candidates  an  Suggested  reading  on  needs  analysis ......................................................20

Appendices ........................................................................................................................................21

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The Online Delta: Module 3

Needs Analysis
In Part 2 of your Extended Assignment you will be discussing the needs of the
learners you will be writing about for your specialism. You will be using the findings
from your research into their needs to help to inform your choices within the course
proposal that you submit.

In this section we will explore the principles of needs analysis from a practical point
of view, as well as investigating some of the theory behind the use of needs
analyses and the way they are described and implemented.

After working on this section you should have a better idea as to how to approach
this part of your assignment. We will examine a variety of different types of needs
analysis and encourage you to consider the advantages and problems with each.
You will be directed to a small amount of suggested additional reading that you may
like to do in order to find out more about this area.

Objectives
By the end of this section you will have:

• Investigated different approaches to needs analysis

• Analysed a variety of needs analysis examples

• Focused on areas you need to take into consideration when implementing a

needs analysis

• Designed a needs analysis for the group of learners that you are intending to
use for your Module Three Extended Assignment.

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Discovering Learners’ Needs
The first stage in any course planning model is to establish what the learners’ needs
are.
Needs Analysis

The idea of analysing the needs of a particular group of learners comes predominantly
from the teaching of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). A needs analysis is carried
out by teachers or course planners in order to get information from and about learners.
The course is then planned using this information as its basis.

Why do people enrol for an English course? Or why do parents, employers or

national educational systems enrol them?

To learn English, obviously - but what does that mean, exactly?

People learn languages for all sorts of reasons. Some people have an
immediate and specific need to use a language for a certain purpose, while
others are learning out of general interest, or because they imagine the
language will turn out to be useful in ways they can't predict at the moment.
And others are learning simply because English is a subject on the
educational curriculum - a subject which they may or may not find particularly
interesting.

In the contemporary era, English is rather a special case among languages. If

someone sets out to learn, let's say, Icelandic as a foreign language, it's
probably because they've either already got, or else would like to establish,
some sort of relationship with Iceland - with the country, with the native
speakers of the language and their culture. But English, nowadays, is widely
used in contexts completely divorced from the countries and cultures where it is
a native language, and for many learners it's a more-or-less neutral medium of
international, cross-cultural communication. For some, it's essential in order for
them to function optimally in some specific occupational or academic role which
they already occupy or which they expect to move into. For others, knowledge
of English is an investment for the future, an accomplishment that will be
advantageous in unforeseen ways - in professional or academic roles, or more
generally as the language of the global community.

A distinction is conventionally drawn between integrative motivation, i.e. the

motivation to identify with, or integrate with, the native speakers of a language
and their culture, and instrumental motivation, i.e. the motivation to learn a
language as a tool to achieve other purposes, without reference to its
geographical or cultural origins.

Of course, it's possible to have a mixture of these two types of motivation,

but instrumental motivation is particularly, and increasingly, relevant in the
learning of English nowadays.

This has various implications for the content of courses; it suggests, for
example, that it might not be important to include materials which have a British

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 or American setting, or which practise listening to native speakers, or which
attempt to teach native-like pronunciation; in fact, such things may even be
demotivating and counter-productive.

So some learners' needs will be more clearly definable than others'.

But in any case, the more precisely we can identify learners' needs, the more
able we will be to provide them with an appropriate course. This includes
providing value for money, since someone, somewhere - maybe the learners
themselves, maybe their employers, maybe the country's taxpayers, etc. - is
paying for the teaching.

You have probably used needs analyses before, perhaps you use them all the time.
Look at the task below. If you have some examples of a needs analysis you have
recently used, it might be a good idea to have it in front of you at this point.

Task 1: Needs Analysis (20 mins)-

Make some notes on the following question:

1. What sort of information should be sought by a needs analysis?

Now look at the examples of Needs Analyses in Appendix 4 and consider:

2. What sort of information is sought by each?

3. The 4 examples are different. Decide which sort would fit your teaching situation
best, and why.

Forum Share : Post your answers on the Discussion Forum. Do other CPs who
work in similar contexts to you have the same opinions?
See Appendix 1 for commentary on this task.

Needs analysis can take many different forms. Alternatives to a “straight” needs
analysis form or questionnaire could be:

• Setting up a whole class discussion, or smaller discussion groups. You would

need to consider carefully how you would structure the discussion to maximise
participation, and the type of questions you asked would be important, to ensure
that you gained the sort of information you were seeking. A disadvantage to this
type of approach is that the teacher relinquishes control.

• Individual tutorials. Again, structuring these would be important, and learners

would need to be very clear as to the purpose of the tutorial.

• Learner journals – if learners have been encouraged to keep a journal of their

learning and views and impressions on lessons, their own progress etc, this can
provide valuable information to the course planner.

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• Observation based – it is possible to derive a certain amount of information
about a group from observing them, particularly in relation to learning styles, but
also in terms of linguistic competencies. This relies on good monitoring skills.

• Homework based – Looking at the homework of a group of learners may be

instructive for a teacher in terms of deriving information about their language
competence and possible needs.

• A combination of the above, depending on the circumstances.

For the course planning aspect of your Module Three assignment, you might find it
useful to collect information from more than one source. Be sure to justify your
means of collecting this information in your assignment. Notice that some of these
techniques may be more time consuming than others.

Subjective or Objective?

It is important to consider how subjective or objective the information you have

collected is because you are going to use this information as the basis for the
design of a course. For example, if you use observation as a basis for information
gathering, this is a very subjective technique. It is not based on fact, but on your
judgement, and you may make wrong assumptions about a learner. Of course, this
could be true, to a certain extent about any means of data collection. By using more
than one technique, you can be more confident that your results will be accurate
and useful. Generally speaking, data you collect relating to a learner’s current use
of English (linguistic competence and occasions, perhaps in their job, in which they
use English), and to the situation in which they will be studying (number of lessons
per week, length of lessons etc.) is more objective. Remember, too, that there may
be anomalies i.e. a learner might state a particular preference, but this could seem
to contradict what you have actually noticed in observation. If this situation arises in
your assignment, it is worth commenting on.

In recent years, there has been much talk of needs analysis and its place in
establishing a programme of study for learners. As we have become more aware of
the need to involve learners more in the process of learning, we have come to
recognise that we need to involve them in the course design, to a certain extent.
The use of a needs analysis does not necessarily involve the learners in deciding
on course content, however. It is a question of how the needs analysis is set up. If a
teacher sets a questionnaire, gathers data, and then imposes a programme of
study, this is not really involving of the learners in decision making, though in most
cases there probably would be an element of discussion and negotiation.

Considerations in Needs Analysis

More has been written about needs analysis for ESP classes (for example, a group
of marketing executives from the same company) than for General English. This is
because it is perceived as being easier to identify the needs of a more homogenous
group such as is often found in ESP classes. It may also be because it is easier to
define the work-related communicative skills and tasks an ESP learner will need to
undertake, and to define these as course objectives. Indeed, needs analyses are
sometimes derided by General English teachers as a waste of time. Some learners,
after all, have very little idea of what they want or need to learn; they just want to
learn English.

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Task 2: Reading on Needs Analysis (15 mins)- self-study

Read the article by Seedhouse, Needs Analysis and the General English
Classroom.

1. What reasons does he give for the lack of systematic use of needs analyses in
General English classes?
2. Why was the needs analysis carried out and what type of needs did it focus on?
3. What do the results show?

4. How were the results implemented in practice? Would this kind of

implementation always be possible?
5. Did he follow the 5 point process for course design described earlier?

6. What conclusions did Seedhouse reach? Are you convinced by his

research?

See Appendix 2.
Arguments against the use of needs analysis have often been based on the fact that
many learners do not seem to be able to identify their own needs, but it could also be the
case that the questions they have been asked have been too general to enable them to
do so. Often, in negotiating course content, for example, teachers have asked their
learners to look at the contents page of a course book, or at a pre-prescribed sequence of
grammatical / lexical items, and asked them to rank them according to which they feel
would be useful to them. (See also Negotiated Syllabuses later in this unit). This is a very
demanding task. It assumes that the learners are used to considering language in the
same way that we as teachers are, and that they are confident enough to judge their own
competence. Assuming that they are able to do these things, there is no guarantee that,
at the end of the course, the learners will feel confidently able to use these items
accurately and spontaneously in authentic contexts. Indeed, a great deal of research
suggests that they will not be able to do so. We are all familiar with groups who ask for
more ‘grammar’ or ‘speaking’, which the teacher duly provides, only to find that in the end
of course feedback, the learners say that they wished they had had more and don’t feel
that they have made progress in these areas! It is as if the teacher has set themself up to
fail by creating false expectations in the learner. Many people would argue that this is
partly as a result of the way that the list has been presented in the first place. I know that,
if presented with a range of choices like this, I would err on the side of caution, not
wanting to miss out on anything. In the case of phonology, for example, a lay-person is
unlikely to be familiar with much of the terminology, or indeed the concepts. If presented
with a choice here, I would probably say “I want everything which is important”. Most
learners would identify pronunciation as something they think they would like more of. It is
often difficult for them to judge how they should prioritise this.

There is also the possibility that, in offering a wide range of choices, a group of
learners shows widely differing needs and preferences. It is then difficult to please
everybody – again a case of setting false hopes. You need to think about how you
might present these types of choices to your learners. Again, the issues of subjectivity
and objectivity arise. Particularly if we want our learners to be actively involved in the
needs analysis process, we need to ask them questions which can be interpreted as
objectively as possible, both by the learners and by ourselves.

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Paul Roberts proposes a simple solution to many of these problems in his article Genre Analysis: A way
out of the cul-de-sac.

What types of information do I need to gather?

The types of information which are important, and accessible, will depend to some extent on
your teaching context and the nature of your project, but are likely to include at least some of the
following:

• the learners - their age, background, personalities

• their level of English, their strengths and weaknesses
• their preferred learning styles
• their attitudes towards English and towards learning English
• their expectations about course content and teaching methodology
• their own motivations, aims and aspirations
• the contexts of their present and/or future use of English - including situations, topics,
functions, roles, relationships, skills, levels of performance and accuracy required
• the time, materials and resources available

Four Important NBs

NB Some of the items listed in the section above are, of course, not really 'needs', as such,
but they are all types of data which will inform the design of the course.

NB It may be helpful to separate out “wants” and “needs”. Wants = what the learners say they
want (or perhaps what their parents or employers or others say they want). Needs = what you
identify as significant lacks or weakness

NB Over recent years there has been a noticeable shift in focus on what can be included in a
Needs Analysis away from purely objective goals and linguistic information towards inclusion of
more subjective information, with humanism, learner autonomy and other personal factors
becoming more significant in considering needs.

NB Another consideration is the need to “go deeper”. For example, finding out that a student
needs “more grammar” is a relatively broad and, thus, relatively useless conclusion. Finding out
specific grammatical areas that need to be focussed on directly related to the purposes for which
they will need English is a different prospect altogether.

The following short description of “purpose mining” in the context of an ESP group of hotel
receptionists may help to clarify the idea of going deeper to reveal more than just a general, bland
statement that “We need English to work on Reception”

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 Purpose-mining
Ask the learners: "Tell me one specific task that you need to use English for".

When they answer that, ask further questions that go deeper into the
previous answer and uncover more and more wide-ranging details e.g.
"What does the hotel counter look
like?"; "What's the first thing that happens?"; "What kind of questions does your
customer ask?"; "How do you feel when that happens?" etc.

Each time you get an answer, ask more, like a miner digging deeper into the
situation, moving slowly from the general situation down towards specific task
difficulties and
language problems.

Aim to build up a focused detailed picture of one or more specific contexts or

occasions where your students need English.

Analysing language ability

When initially finding about learners’ language level (i.e. at this Needs Analysis
stage – rather than when assessing progress and later outcomes) don’t fall into
the trap of only looking at, say
Grammar and Speaking. Any effective analysis might need to cover, to some
degree, all skills and systems (though only in so far as they are relevant to what
you already know about any needs or requirements).

Keep the map of 4 systems and 4 skills in your head. Unless you have a
sound reason to do otherwise, plan to find out something about all 8 areas.

language systems: grammar, lexis, phonology, written and spoken discourse

language skills: reading, writing, listening, speaking

A final point about needs analysis is a consideration of when it takes place.

When is the right time to do a needs analysis?

The answer to this may seem obvious – at the start of a course. However, course planning
also occurs mid-course i.e. we may want to stop and take stock prior to planning the next
phase of a course. This can sometimes make the design of a needs analysis easier.
Learners are more likely to be able to state preferences and choices based on recent
experience, for example, of activity or lesson types recently used by the teacher. It can be
helpful, then, in designing questions, to consider how much shared experience and
knowledge the needs analysis writer can exploit.

The most obvious right time is before the start of a course, since the needs
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 analysis will be an important factor in determining what the course consists of. For
this assignment, you are required to do the Needs Analysis at the start of the
project (though this could be in a middle part of a longer course). The resulting 20
hour programme should be a complete self-contained course in its own right –
though it could be one run as part of a longer, ongoing wider course (e.g. as part of
a whole year programme).

Of course, it's also important to conduct ongoing needs analysis during a course,
since the needs identified before the start will change in the light of progress
being made, while new needs and priorities may emerge as the course proceeds.
As a teacher, you are in any case constantly revising your impressions of what
would be useful for your learners to focus on, and this is a kind of informal
ongoing needs analysis. Particularly on longer courses, you may find it advisable
to conduct a more formal needs analysis at certain points during the course – and
this may be worth timetabling into your course programme.

Task 3: Overcoming Problems in Needs Analyses (20 mins)- self-study

How have the problems and considerations of needs analyses outlined above been
overcome (or not) in the different examples of needs analysis you looked at earlier?
(See Appendix for the examples).
Consider the following issues:

• Wording of choices (i.e. has jargon been used which learners are unlikely to
understand or be able to evaluate themselves on?)

• Expectations (i.e. are unrealistic expectations being created?)

• Subjectivity / objectivity (i.e. how open to misinterpretation is the data being

sought?)
See Appendix 3.

For your assignment, you will need to carry out a needs analysis with a particular
group of learners. The key word here is needs. Part of the thrust of your questions
will probably consider how and when your learners will need to use English, as we
have seen from the previous examples. This may differ radically from group to
group. Be careful at this stage to separate any existing syllabus you have from this
needs analysis. With an exam class, for instance, the outline of a syllabus will be
implied by the demands of the exam i.e. any group of learners studying for the
same exam anywhere in the world would have similar features in their courses.
However, within this exam syllabus different learners will have different strengths
and weaknesses (i.e. needs). The resulting course will be a marriage between the
learners’ needs, the supplied coursebook, and the demands of the exam. In the
case of your Module Three assignment, you are attempting to identify and define
needs for a minimum of 20 hours of a course of your choice, but not for the whole
course.

For further reading on needs analysis, see The Language Teaching Matrix (chapter 1),
English for Specific Purposes (chapter 6) and A Course in Language Teaching (module
12).

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Where should I look in order to gather data for needs
analysis?

The most obvious source of information is the learners themselves. You should certainly conduct
formal diagnostic tests to find out their linguistic strengths and weaknesses and identify priorities for
your course design. The list of other ideas below is adapted from Learning Teaching (J.
Scrivener 2005)

Consider:

• where learners are starting from: their present language level, current problems, etc.;
• what learners would like to learn (which may be different from what they need);
• how they want to study it (people have very different preferences about how
they learn things).

We might use formal gathering procedures (e.g. setting questionnaires, tests, etc.) or
approach it more informally (e.g. gleaning information from chats and activities over a period
of time).

Some key tools would be:

• writing: the learner writes comments, information, answers to questions, etc.;
• speaking: the learner speaks with you or with other students;
• observing: you observe the learner at work (in class or at the workplace).

Writing
The learners are asked to:
• fill in a questionnaire (e.g. about their work, interests, previous study, etc.);
• choose the best answer from a selection (e.g. ‘I like doing written work for homework,’ ‘I
like to do reading for homework,’ ‘I like to go over classwork for homework,’ ‘I don’t like
homework’);
• gap-fill (or complete) sentences (e.g. ‘In class, I particularly enjoy working on …’);
• delete the things that are not true for you (e.g. I never / sometimes / often have to write in
English);
• take a language test;
• tick the picture/diagrams that represent their use of English (e.g. pictures of office telephoning,
greeting customers, etc.);
• write a paragraph about topics set by teacher (e.g. ‘Your successes and difficulties with
speaking English’);
• write a letter/an e-mail/a note to your teacher (e.g. ‘Your hopes for this course’);
• write a homework essay about what you want to learn and why.

Speaking You can:

• interview learners individually or in pairs;

• plan activities to focus learners on specific issues, leading to discussion;
• ask learners to select (and reject) items from a menu or a set of cards, discussing their reasons
with each other;

• ask informally for advice about what would be useful to work on next lesson;
• collect oral (or written) feedback comments (e.g. about the usefulness of work you are doing) at the
end of lessons;
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 • show the intended coursebook for the course and discuss it together with the class (e.g. ‘Shall
we use it?’ ‘How?’ ‘How much?’ ‘Pace?’ etc.);
• get learners to help plan the course, the week or the next lesson;
• organise a social event at which informal discussions on needs arise;
• ask learners to describe/draw/make a model of their workplace or a diagram of their
company structure, etc.

Observation
• Set the students tasks to do in class that will allow you to observe them working, speaking and
using language. This will give you a chance to diagnose their language/skills problems and
discover more about what they need.
• If you have a one-to-one student, it may be possible to observe him at his workplace and get a
realistic idea of what he needs to do with English.
• Ask each learner to bring in samples of material they work with (or expect to work
with in the future): leaflets, letters, tasks, professional magazines, etc.

NB If the learners’ language level is low, many of the Needs analyses ideas could be used in their
mother tongue.

Don’t forget that other people who may be accessible and able to contribute relevant information
include:

• other English teachers and/or educational administrators (previous test results,

achievement reports)
• employers and potential employers (recruitment ads, job descriptions)
• teaching staff in other subjects, in the case of EAP, ESOL
• parents, in the case of Young Learners

Generally, the more sources of information you can use, the more complete and reliable a picture
you will be able to form.

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Avoiding Token Needs Analysis

The biggest danger with Needs Analysis is that it can all end up as a rather token exercise. Teachers
prepare questions that ask relatively little and get answers that reveal relatively little and, as a result,
the whole thing has minimal impact on the course that is subsequently planned (which may have
been the hoped-for outcome on the teacher’s part anyway!)

In asking big broad questions (as many Needs Analyses tend to do) such as “Do you need more
listening?” or “Do you need to use social English?” you are likely to get only broad, largely useless
responses.

The secret to a good Needs Analysis is finding a way to get answers that are actually true, relevant and
meaningful – and this is surprisingly hard to do. But the better the quality of the data you get out of the
process, the more the rest of your assignment will “write itself”! If you can find genuine, concrete,
addressable needs, then the planning of a course neatly starts falling into place. So...

• Prepare really useful questions and then plan a way of getting real answers out of learners
(and others).

For example, if you try to cram a quick questionnaire into 5 minutes at the end of a lesson you will
get virtually worthless answers. But plan the Needs Analysis as, for example:

• a three stage process – e.g. a few initial questions which learners answer – and from which you
prepare a detailed, more-focussed follow-on questionnaire – and which you allow quiet
focussed time for answering – and whose responses you later discuss one-to-one with some
or all learners

Something like this is likely to produce a valuable resource of data, quotes, statistics etc – and a
real basis for your course plan and tests.

At the other extreme, beware of a Needs Analysis that takes ages to complete or do and seems to
the students to take up an undue amount of course time. Learners can tire very quickly of being
asked to do things whose value is not immediate and obvious. Overconsideration of needs can be as
much of a sin as ignoring their existence completely.

Question words

One way of planning a Needs Analysis is to first consider what range of WH questions you could
ask the learner under a number of headings.

You can consider where the learner is starting from, where they hope to head to (the “target
situation”) and the route between the two (the “learning context). Ideas in the table below are
partially drawn from English for Specific Purposes, Hutchinson & Waters, 1987.

The sample focuses and questions are only examples.

Try using the question words and the column headings to generate more of your own.

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 And remember – some things are observable rather than askable of students!
Start Point
Who?
Who are you?
The learners’ identity and
language skills, inc age,
sex, nationality, command
of target language etc
Why? Why have you learnt
English before?
Was it your choice?
Other’s? Specific or general
aim?
What? What have you achieved
so far in learning
English?
Level, tests, books used etc
Objectives reached or
missed?
When? When did you last study?
Years ago? Weeks ago?
Not since school?
 
Learning context
Who are you in class?
What kind of learner are you?
What Learning style do you
have?
Why are you learning here,
now?
Compulsory / optional? Status
/ money / promotion?
Motivation in class, response
to method, energy, ability to
focus / study on their own,
need for direction / peer
support
What will you use to help
yourself learn?
Teacher(s), classes,
coursebook, exercises,
resources, materials,
workbooks, teacher
knowledge, out-of-class
opportunities
When will you study?
Dates, times, frequency and
whether the course is prior to,
or simultaneous with target
situation
Target situation
Who will you be in future?
e.g. Manager? Presenter? Guide?
etc
Why are you studying the
language?
The purposes for which the target
language is required
What language will you study?
What language items have
priority? 5 language systems; 4
language skills; tasks
Specification of variety and/or
dialect; e.g. UK / US?
content area / subjects / topics
(e.g. architecture, computers)
interpersonal attitude and tones
the learner needs to master
When will you use the
language?
Times, frequency, duration
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Where? Where did you study? Where will you study?
School? Privately? The educational setting – e.g.
private language school class
of six people, in-company
class of two
With With whom did you With whom will you study?
whom? study?
Teacher? (Trained? Friendly?)
Teacher? (Trained?
Friendly?) Other students? Other students? (Peers,
(Peers, strangers, friends, strangers, friends, same age,
same age, colleagues) colleagues etc ?)
How? How did you study? How How will the study be done?
was it? How should we work
together?
Traditional methods? Lots
of grammar? Difficult? Teaching methodology,
Enjoyable? learning styles, evaluation
methods, home study etc
Learning background?
Expectations?
How will you help the teacher?
How How much did you How much input / intake is
much? achieve? possible?
Do you feel you got where What is the working pace?
you wanted? Psychological How much is learnt? recalled?
effect of sucess or not? used? How fast does input
become intake?
 
Where will you use the
language?
Physical setting (at work, at
conferences, etc)
Human setting ( alone,
presentations etc)
Linguistic context (home / abroad)
With whom will you be
interacting
Peers, strangers, friends, same
age, colleagues etc ?
NS / NNS? Expert / layman?
relationship? (E.g. customer)
How will the target language be
used?
What kind of language?
the medium (spoken / written,
receptive / productive),
the type of text (lecture/technical
manual/informal convers. etc),
the channel (i.e. face to face,
indirect, telephone, meetings etc )
How much English do you
need? What is the target level?
The Target level – the degree of
mastery which you will need to
gain
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Task 4: Designing a Needs Analysis (45 mins)

Look back at the examples of needs analyses earlier in this unit (in Appendix 4). Decide if there is an
approach which particularly lends itself to your group. It may well be that you choose to combine
questions from a range of different sources. Design a needs analysis questionnaire. If possible, try it out
on a different but similar group of learners, or perhaps ask a colleague to do so for you. Look at the
data you obtain and decide if there are any questions which could be reworded to avoid
misinterpretation, or which could be made more directive.

Forum Share: Post on the Discussion Forum the 3 most successful questions from your final
questionnaire for the discussion group to comment on.
See Appendix 4.

Negotiated Syllabus

In 1983 a symposium was set up in Toronto to discuss the issue of the future of syllabus design in
English Language Teaching. In a paper presented there, Breen put forward a very strong argument for
involving learners in the negotiation of classroom content. He wanted “to engage learners themselves in
the design of their own classroom syllabus” (General English Syllabus Design, p58). This process of
discussion is sometimes referred to as a negotiated syllabus, an idea which has increased in popularity
in recent years. In a sense, this is a misnomer, as we shall see later. But for now, let’s take the idea of
working through with students how their course should be organised. There are clearly advantages to
such an approach. It is likely that learners will appreciate the fact that their course is being designed in
a personalised way, and that they have the opportunities to make requests and state their preferences.
As we have seen, there can be disadvantages too, particularly if learners are not used to being asked
for their views. There can even be a danger that the teacher appears not to know how to go about
designing their course!

  17  
 What should I do with all this information?

Collating and considering all the information you have been able to gather will enable you to
decide what are realistic aims and objectives, what to include in your course, how the
various components should be weighted and which should be prioritised over others, and
what types of materials and methodology should be employed.

In your assignment, you will describe the needs analysis procedures you used and present a
summary of the materials, actual tests, questionnaires, etc. in the Appendices - these should
be clearly numbered and named for ease of reference. But make sure you do not leave the
work of interpreting the data to the reader; this is your job. The appendices are only for
checking out original sources and comparing them against your conclusions. The reader will
not plough through trying to make his or her own sense of the message conveyed by the
data.

Objectives can be formulated in terms of:

• the real-world tasks that learners will be able to fulfil

• the skills, sub-skills and strategies they will be able to employ
• the language items they will be able to understand and/or use

However the objectives are formulated, they should be fine-tuned to specify, as relevant:

• how well?
• how successfully?
• how accurately?
• how confidently?
• in what circumstances?
• at what speed? etc.

You obviously have to be realistic in assessing how far you can go towards meeting the needs you
have identified within the 20 hours available for the course you are planning.

The more precisely the objectives are stated, the easier it will be to evaluate the learners' progress
and achievement, and the success of the course.

What if the results of my needs analysis are ambiguous or

contradictory?

It's quite likely, in fact, that the results of your needs analysis will point in more than one clear
direction. Here are two possible scenarios:

1 A group of learners who use English in their work say in answer to your questionnaire or
interview that their most urgent need is to improve their grammatical accuracy, but observation
of them actually carrying out job-related tasks suggests that their level of grammatical accuracy
is quite high; the mistakes they do make don't have a detrimental effect on their performance,
and that in order to improve their performance they would benefit most of all from vocabulary
expansion and developing their interactive speaking skills. What should you do? You might
perhaps decide to include a small amount of work on grammatical accuracy initially, so that the
learners feel their expressed needs are being met. But you would probably decide to focus

  18  
 rather more on the needs you have identified, and include some class discussion based on
analysis of their performance, with the aim of persuading the class that your decision is well-
founded.

2 Your needs analysis reveals quite disparate needs among a group of learners, perhaps related
to different vocational or academic needs or aspirations. What should you do? You will naturally
try to ensure that all components of the course are as relevant as possible to all class
members. Perhaps there's scope for including activities in which by playing different roles,
different learners get the chance to practise different skills? One of the modern watchwords of
education is differentiation – i.e. allowing different people with different levels and skills to get
something useful out of being in the same class.

3 Similarly, you might find that two members of a class of ten appear to be strongly 'kinaesthetic' in
their learning style, while the other eight are broadly 'auditory' and 'visual'. What should you do? You
will probably decide to include a variety of types of activity which goes some way towards providing
for everyone's preferences of learning style; the result will inevitably be a
compromise. (However, be careful in using terms like 'kinaesthetic' as labels for people - the
labels are simplistic, and people are more complex!)

The usefulness (or not) of Needs Analyses

Needs analyses are not always as useful as teachers hope they might be. This may be because
learners (for some reason) have not taken their task seriously enough and have produced little
information, or information they have not thought very carefully about, or even untrue information.
This suggests that it is essential to carefully introduce a Needs analysis task so that learners
understand the importance and value of what they are doing and take an appropriate amount of
time to complete it.

One useful purpose in doing a Needs analysis (even if you entirely ignore the resulting data!) is to
allow learners to discover that other people in the room have different views, expectations and
needs than themselves. It’s natural that a student might imagine that everyone in class has
approximately similar ideas to his own; to discover the breadth of different views can be an
important ‘light-bulb’ moment, and thus a Needs analysis can be a vital awareness.

‘But, teacher – you know best’

Students may find the concept and practice of Needs analysis difficult. They may greet a
Needs analysis with comments such as ‘You are the teacher – you know best,’ ‘You decide. I
trust you.’ This may be because the learner genuinely doesn’t know what he wants or needs,
or it may be because he can’t be bothered or doesn’t think that it is a student’s job to think
about things like this.
Many students may have spent their whole educational career being told what to do all the time,
constantly presented with work that has included minimal elements of choice. They may never
have stopped to realise that what they learn and how they do it involves their own personal choice,
and that it is their own time and energy they are investing. It may be a real surprise to be asked
what they want or need, and not surprisingly they might need a clear explanation as to the purpose
of it – and guidance as to how to start thinking about and conveying their ideas.
Humans don’t necessarily think first and then write down their ideas. Often I don’t know what I think
about something until I start writing my ideas down; then I find during the process of writing that my
thoughts are becoming clearer and more structured. Maybe then I have to cross out the first two
paragraphs, but I needed to write them to get me to paragraph 3 (which is a cracker!). Your
students may find that the same thing happens to them when they start to wonder what their needs
are.

  19  
The process of writing (or talking) about things helps to give some form to thoughts that maybe didn’t
exist in any clarity until then. (I often find myself saying something like the content of this paragraph to
suspicious learners; it sometimes helps!)
You may still come across the 100% ‘abdicating’ student – one who gives up any right to
make any decision about his own future. It’s worth pointing out to such a student that he is crediting me,
the teacher, with magical, wizard-like ‘mind-reading’ abilities. My response will probably be to state that,
yes, I do know something about language and teaching, but I am not an expert on him and have no
insight into the inside of his head, his past life and learning, his preferences or his future plans.
I hope – by means of explaining why it is important – to encourage this learner to realise
that ‘learning’ is not another product that one buys ready-made off the shelf, but is something that has
to be adjusted and remade every time. It is a ‘living’ thing, not a piece of dead meat. I don’t always
manage to persuade every learner, but it’s worth trying! Curiously, the hard-line abdicator is often the
very same student who complains at the end of courses, saying how unsuitable and useless the course
was, and how the teacher knows nothing about what students need.

Other problems with Needs analyses

Other problems with Needs analyses may arise when the learners have not themselves
chosen to do the course (e.g. because the students have to attend secondary school or because a
course has been chosen and paid for by an employee’s company). Of course, in these circumstances, a
Needs analysis may serve an additional purpose: encouraging the course participants to start taking
ownership of their course, making choices about what they want or need (rather than assuming that
everything has already been decided and is cut and dried). When people feel they have some power or
responsibility over what happens to them, it can really change their attitude to it.

Of course, with any Needs analysis, there might be a danger that, in asking people what
they want or hope for, you might lead them to expect that everything they ask for will happen. Having
said that, I guess it’s much better to find out rather than to pretend that the differences don’t exist.

Cambridge Guidance

The following guidance is given in the Delta Modules handbook:

Length: 900 words

• Who is your specialist group? What are their main characteristics? e.g. age, educational and
language level, nationality, learning style(s), motivations, job, etc.
• How did you identify the needs of your specialist group? For example: Did you use a
questionnaire, interviews, examination results?
• What form of diagnostic testing did you use? What were the results of the diagnostic test(s)?
How did you use these in clarifying the learners’ needs and identifying language areas requiring
attention? What aspects did you focus on and why?
• What priorities have you identified from the above?

  20  
 Advice to candidates

• A portrait of the group of learners is needed with emphasis on language learning

background, motivation, learning styles, learning needs and level, and should
include comments on the candidate’s assessment of their strengths and
weaknesses.
Questionnaires and/or interviews may be used here.
• In order to adhere to the word count candidates need to provide brief, relevant
information.
• Candidates are expected to show awareness of principles of needs analysis and
diagnostic testing.
• Terminology should be used and referenced to its sources.
• Understanding of principles of needs analysis and diagnostic testing does not mean
purely stating lists of factors. Candidates need to show how awareness of these
principles has influenced their choice of diagnostic assessment procedures.
• Candidates are expected to choose appropriate diagnostic test(s) to diagnose the
group’s strengths and weaknesses. Simply using off-the-shelf placement tests is
unlikely to be sufficient. The diagnostic test(s) should address language and skills
areas (e.g. grammar, lexis, discourse, phonology, reading, listening, writing and
speaking) as appropriate to the learners’ needs and goals and the objectives of the
course.
• It is essential that candidates show how they have used the needs analysis and
diagnostic test data to identify learners’ needs and language areas which require
attention. This needs to be highlighted here in brief and then used to form the basis
of the course proposal in the next section.

Suggested reading on needs analysis

Brindley, G. (1990) The Role of Needs Analysis in Adult ESL Programme Design in
Johnson, RK, (1989) The Second Language Curriculum, (CUP.)
Graves, K. (1996) A Framework of Course Development Process – in Graves, K (1996)
Teachers as Course Developers, (CUP.)
Graves, K. (2000). Designing Language Courses – A guide for Teachers. Heinle &
Heinle. Gupta, K. (2007). A Practical Guide to Needs Assessment. Pfeiffer
Hutchinson and Waters (1987) English for Specific Purposes
(CUP) Nunan D (1988) Syllabus Design (OUP)

Richards JC (1990) 'Curriculum development in second language teaching' in The

Language Teaching Matrix (CUP)
Seedhouse, P (1995) Needs analysis and the General English classroom, ELTJ 49 (1)
(OUP)

  21  
Appendix 1: Needs Analysis

1. Your answer to this first question could have been very comprehensive. Alternatively you
could have said that almost any information is potentially useful to the course planner.
Information such as level, nationality, age, gender mix and occupation i.e. personal
information is extremely useful to enable the course planner to start to build up a mental
picture of the group. Other practical details, such as location of course, length of lessons,
frequency of lessons, length of course etc. are all things we generally expect to know prior to
planning for a new group of students. The type of language to be focused on (i.e. ESP or
general English) is also of primary concern. In fact, needs analyses vary a great deal in what
they seek to find out. Look at the examples below:

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Needs Analysis 1
Welcome!

Your name:....................................................................................................
Your job: ........................................................................................................
Why exactly do you need English?
.......................................................................................................................
When did you last need it? (give 3 examples)
1) .................................................................................................................
2) .................................................................................................................
3) .................................................................................................................
What is your specific target for these two weeks?
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
What will YOU do yourself to reach this target?
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
How will things be different after the course?
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................

Think of a time when you learned something successfully in the past. What helped
you to learn most?
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
When you learn, how do you feel about these:
Seeing things (pictures/videos/texts)?..........................................................
Hearing things (music/cassettes/talking)?....................................................
Moving about (roleplay/visits)? .....................................................................
Working with numbers and figures? .............................................................
What do you like doing outside your work?..................................................
.......................................................................................................................
So if you are ready to learn, sign here:.........................................................

  23  
 Needs Analysis 2

1. What would you like to be able to read more efficiently?

recipe magazine cheque sign advert
report play instructions story novel
notice poem text book menu essay
article message review bill interview
manual biography letter pamphlet newspaper

2. What would you like to be able to write more efficiently?

recipe notice note bill instructions
report letter essay cheque brochure
review message

3. What would you like to be able to listen to more efficiently?

joke lecture conversation chat advert
speech story song seminar interview
debate presentation anecdote argument radio programme
discussion play quiz

4. What would like to be able to do in speaking more efficiently?

joke interview conversation chat argument
discussion speech story lecture presentation

From Roberts, P. 1996 Genre Analysis: A Way Out of the Cul-de-sac International House
Journal of Education and Development Volume 3

  24  
Needs Analysis 3

  25  
   26  
From Richards, J. C. 1990 The Language Teaching Matrix Cambridge University Press
(chapter 1 Appendix 1)

  27  
Needs Analysis 4
Pre-Advanced Class – Needs Analysis

To help me tailor the course as closely as possible to your needs, please complete
this as fully as possible.
Name:

1. What do you need to do in English outside school? Is there anything which you
would like to be able to do, but can’t do yet?

2. Look at the following list of language areas. How easy do you find each one?
Mark yourself on a scale of 1 – 5 (where 5=no problem, 3=average and
1=difficult)
a. Speaking fluently ...........

b. Speaking accurately ...........

c. Understanding what is said to me ...........

d. Understanding when more than one person is speaking ...........

e. Reading short texts quickly ...........

f. Reading and understanding long texts ...........

g. Using language appropriate to different situations ...........

h. Writing different types of texts (e.g. reports / formal letters) ...........

Which areas are most important for you to work on? Please number them a, b, c
(where a is most important).

3. We can do a wide range of activities in the class. Which of the following do you
thin you would find useful ( ) or not useful (x)? Which are you unsure about (?)?

a. Project work (e.g. producing information packs, class magazines or

presentations for other classes in the school).

b. Individual presentations: 5 minute talks given by each member of the class on

topics of interest.
c. ‘field study’ trips: class outings to topical events during the day.

4. Which of the following topics would you be interested in discussing in class?

Please rank them in order of interest. (1=the most interesting etc.).
current affairs cultural events in London art
literature politics jobs & work
film & television cross-cultural issues social issues
Please add any topics which interest you to this list.

  28  
   29  
2. & 3. The 4 examples here differ significantly from each other. They range from
taking as their basis the situation within which the learning takes place (what
Hutchinson and Waters call a situation analysis), to an analysis of the types of
contexts in which learners might need to use English (Roberts calls this genre
analysis), to questioning them about their jobs, reasons for using English and
their preferred learning styles (so a mix of information is collected). Notice that
none of them asks learners to consider the structural / linguistic content of their
lessons except with reference to skills work.
Needs Analysis 1

This asks learners to relate English directly to their own lives by asking when they
last needed it. It asks them to set specific targets for their learning and it also seeks
information on preferred learning activities, an element of learning styles.

Note that the learners are asked to sign the document at the end. The reason for
this is to encourage them to really think about what they have said / written, it forms
a learning contract and places responsibility with the learner as well as the teacher
for achievement of course objectives. This should make learner involvement in mid-
course evaluation of the course easier.
Needs Analysis 2

This is simple in its conception. It asks the learners to consider genres or text types,
dividing them into listening and reading, and asking the learners to state which they
would like to be better able to listen to or read. The course is then designed around
the idea of genre so that language and skills development will come from the
analysis of each genre the learners have identified as important.

Needs Analysis 3

This asks for largely personal information in the form of learning preferences. It asks
the learners to consider how they would like to spend their learning time both inside
and outside class. It goes into more detail than Needs Analysis 1 and is the only
example here to ask learners about classroom interaction.
Needs Analysis 4

This asks learners to consider their immediate or short term needs in relation to
using English, to prioritise their own skills needs, to consider 3 types of classroom
activity (probably those which the learners are less used to doing in class), and to
state topic areas of interest as themes for lessons – the only needs analysis here to
specifically focus on this area.

Your choice of type of needs analysis is a personal one. It is most likely that you will
want to take ideas from more than one source. All of the examples here would need
setting up carefully, and learners who have been studying (regularly) recently are
probably more likely to make more informed choices than those who have not studied
formally for a while. You will probably want to consider ease of administration as a factor
in needs analysis design – compiling results is quicker and easier with simple yes/no
answers or ranking type questions, though these may give you less personalised
information.

  30  
Appendix 2: Reading on Needs Analysis

1. A general perception that needs in General English classes are too broad to be
specified. A lack of research and writing on how to analyse data, despite a lot of
literature on techniques for gathering data.

2. The needs analysis was carried out because the learners were not responding
well to or engaging with the assigned coursebook materials. The aim was to
establish the psychosocial needs of this particular group of teenage learners,
studying in Barcelona. The questionnaire itself focused on reasons for study,
favoured modes of study and problems areas. In its conception it was a simple
form, and so was relatively uncomplicated for the learners to fill out.

3. The results appear to be homogenous. Seedhouse interprets this as the

learners being able to identify their own needs. This could be debated – with any
questionnaire, there is always the possibility that people fill it out in a way that
they think they should (e.g. with ‘What would you do if…’ type questionnaires).
However, in as far as it discovered how the learners felt about their learning, it
provides some useful data. A final point here could be that it is not surprising
that a group of teenagers were interested in youth culture and wanted to be able
to express themselves as internationally sophisticated young people – most
younger learners teachers would have been able to identify that already!
Similarly, the learners’ desire to be entertained in class comes as no surprise.

4. In terms of implementation, the first issue to raise is that not every teacher
would be so free from institutional constraints. For example, working in a school
which is very results oriented, a teacher may find that they have to set tests
regularly and teach to those tests – parental and school pressure will dictate that
this is so. However, there were constraints in that the coursebook could not be
abandoned or changed, it was supplemented. The new materials were designed
specifically with the learners’ stated interests and needs in mind.

5. Although the needs analysis was carried out mid-course (rather than pre-course
as was implied as the norm earlier in this section), Seedhouse follows a very
similar pattern of course design, moving from the learners’ needs (taking
constraints and variables into account), to setting objectives, deciding on
content and activities, and considering evaluation techniques.

6. In conclusion, Seedhouse argues for needs analyses in General English. He

describes a rather neat set of circumstances under which a needs analysis was
carried out, with surprising results in terms of the outcome. In the examples he
describes, the teacher was able to respond very specifically to the needs of a
group of learners. This would seem to be a very persuasive argument in favour
of carrying out a needs analysis for every General English group. Do you think
the results would always be so tidy? Perhaps the key is in the design of the
questions the learners are asked. This group were asked to describe particular
attitudes to learning and preferred activities. The advantage to asking these
questions mid-course is that the learners all had some experience which they
could refer to in choosing their answers. The teacher was in a position to
implement the changes i.e. it would probably not be a good idea to mention
video as a mode of input if there is no video facility in the school! Obviously,
your reactions to this article will be different and personal. At the very least,
though, the research serves as a useful reminder to consider our target group in
terms of age, interests and motivation in planning a course. I suspect that the
results would be different in a scenario in which there were 12 learners ranging
in age from 16 to 76, with a range of social and even cultural backgrounds.

  31  
   32  
Appendix 3: Overcoming Problems in Needs Analysis
Choices / Jargon
Needs Analysis 1

The section on specific targets is rather vague. It is doubtful whether or not learners
would come up with achievable objectives in this section without further guidance from a
teacher, and in fact this is how it was intended to be used, in a one-to-one tutorial with a
teacher. It avoids the use of jargon throughout the first 2 sections by asking the learner
to use their own words. This, however, makes it slightly more time consuming than
offering boxes to tick or items to rank. The last part is simply worded.

Needs Analysis 2

This does not overload the learner, and asks them to relate the genres to their own
lives. It avoids the difficulties associated with making structures the starting point,
focusing instead on the types of language the learners will need to be able to use
via text types.
Needs Analysis 3

In itself this should not pose too many choices for the learners, since they are asked
to consider themselves. There may be occasions, however, when the learners wish
there was a ‘Sometimes’ category. It also assumes that the learners are used to
taking responsibility for their own learning and/or have recently been in a learning
environment.

Needs Analysis 4

This avoids the use of unknown jargon, categorising the skills work in simple
language and exemplifying the learning activities so that the learners can imagine
how they work. At the level this is aimed at there should be no lexical difficulties with
the topics mentioned. Specific language areas are not mentioned, and the
emphasis is on personal preferences rather than learners being asked to evaluate
their own strengths and weaknesses. This is an issue of wording – “How easy or
difficult…?” rather than “How good are you at …?”.

Expectations

Needs Analysis 1

Unrealistic expectations are avoided because objectives are phrased by the learner
(with a teacher’s help). Its contractual nature should ensure that the learner is clear
as to what they have stated.
Needs Analysis 2

It is possible that learners could feel that only listening and reading are to be
focused on in their course. It is important, then, that a teacher using this type of
needs analysis is very clear with the learners as to how this information will be used
and the types of lessons that will ensue. There is a danger that very different genres
be identified as important by different learners (see below).

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   34  
Needs Analysis 3

As there is no emphasis here on the content of the lessons, it is unlikely that

unrealistic expectations will arise, though there may be major differences in the way
that learners want to spend their time (see below).
Needs Analysis 4

Some of the questions here could be open to misinterpretation; question 2, for

example, does not preclude an anxious learner from ranking all the skills work as
very high priority. Question 3 could lead learners to believe that these are to be the
3 main learning activities in class time, and question 4, though offering other topics,
could be seen as restrictive – for example a learner could just choose politics as
important and dismiss the others out of hand. The careful setting up of this type of
questionnaire, then, is crucial to its success.

• Subjectivity / Objectivity / Interpretation

The more open questions can be more subjectively interpreted by learner and
course designer, but they also offer more choice and so are likely to provide more
information. Remember, though, that in offering choice, you need to be able to and
be willing to respond to learners’ demands. For example, you need to consider what
you would do if a whole group specified that they would prefer to work silently and
alone, mainly on reading and writing activities in class, and that they would rather
not do any homework. If there are situational constraints e.g. the learners’ employer
expects them to do homework 3 times a week, this needs to be made clear within
the needs analysis.

The issue of subjectivity often becomes apparent after a needs analysis has been
conducted, when a teacher discovers that, for example, a group of learners who all
gave high priority to group work, don’t appear to be benefiting from or participating
in it in reality.

All of the needs analyses here are relatively short, the longest being less than 2 pages
of A4. None of them contains language or information choices which would not be
understood by the majority of language learners. However, the potential problem of a
wide range of answers / preferences is not avoided. It is probably impossible to do so,
as the nature of individuals means that there will probably be a wide range within a
given group of learners. It is important that learners understand why they are being
asked to answer the questions, what you will do with the results, and that they see the
results – in this way a wide range of needs / wishes can be catered for.

Appendix 4: Designing a Needs Analysis

Your choice of an appropriate needs analysis will depend on a number of factors.

For example, if you are already familiar with your learners’ learning context (e.g. if
you are employed by their company), then clearly you will need to seek less
information of this type. In your own course planning it may be the case that you are
already provided with a great deal of information relating to the background and
previous educational experience of each member of the class. You may even have
taught them before.

For your assignment you are designing course for a group of learners you may or may
not already know. When you have the opportunity to observe them, it may be that you
feel able to describe their preferred learning styles very easily, and if you are familiar
with their learning situation, you will be able to focus on their linguistic needs.

  35  
Make sure, then, that you design a needs analysis which provides you with
pertinent information. And remember to state your sources of information so that if,
for example, you already know a lot about your learners’ preferred learning styles,
state how you know this. Otherwise your assignment will read as if you are making
sweeping statements.

Remember that it is important not to swamp the learners with questions, as

potentially they may feel that, from their point of view, they gain very little from
undertaking such an activity. It is, therefore, important that they understand why
they are being asked questions – many learners will not feel that they have a role to
play in course design because they will have no previous experience of being asked
for this sort of input. As a final reminder, they need to see how their input has
influenced the course i.e. it’s important that they get to see the results of the needs
analysis in some form. For example, if I had stated that for me learning to write
formal letters was a priority, that I had very little free time, and that I preferred to
work alone, and If I knew that most of my colleagues in the class felt the same way,
I would probably feel aggrieved to see a timetable for study in which there was no
writing, a heavy homework load and an emphasis on pair and group work!

Try out your needs analysis on a similar group if you can. This will help you to see if
there are any glaring omissions, or any ambiguous questions which don’t reveal as
much as you had hoped they would.

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   37