Running head: NEEDS ANALYSIS PROJECT 1

Needs Analysis Project

Monchi Liu and Xiayu Guo

Colorado State University

Introduction

When course developers want to develop an effective course, they should conduct a

needs analysis first. It is essential because the needs analysis examines what the learners know

already and what they need to know. It makes sure the course contains relevant and useful

information to learn (Macalister & Nation, 2009). Most needs analysis research indicates the

importance of looking at tasks required of learners and to tailor language instruction based on

these tasks. Once course developers finish the needs analysis, they are able to identify students’

learning difficulties, and then they might do genre analysis to analyze specific language features

and structures that students will encounter in assignments.

In what follows, the content of this paper reflects a literature review that was completed

as part of a needs analysis project that we conducted in our E634: English for Specific Purposes

course. Specifically, this literature review outlines some of the methods of analyzing English

language learners’ needs (ELLs). This research helped my colleague and I understand the

importance of conducting needs analysis to ensure effective language teaching of a course.

Literature review

Students typically learn English for a purpose which is connected to their future study or

career; therefore, the design of the course should be based on the language skills students need.

In this case, needs analysis is very important, as it helps students know what they need to focus

on and helps teachers develop lesson plans. Needs analysis should be “concerned with the

establishment of communicative needs and their realizations”, resulting from “an analysis of the

communication in the target situation” (Chambers, 1980, p.30)). By looking closely at the target

language situation, it is believed that students’ needs can be more readily identified.
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When conducting a needs analysis, it is important for course designers to look at the

target situation in terms of necessities, lacks and wants (Brown, 2016, p. 55). Necessities refers

to what the students have to know in a target situation and to study effectively. For example,

medical staff need to understand medical English; businessmen need to read business letters.

However, for need analysis, it’s not enough for a course designer to only focus on necessities.

They must also consider what students have already learned and know, so they can decide on the

necessities students lack. Whether the students need instruction in finishing tasks in class will

depend on how well they can do it already. Necessities, lacks and wants may all be connected to

or reference a list of items such as competencies and skills that are needed to carry out authentic

tasks which can act as learning goals of a course (Macalister & Nation, 2009).

As for the definition of need analysis, there are many ideas. To some extent, needs

analysis is used with needs assessment (Brown, 2016, p. 3). Both of these two terms can be

abbreviated as NA. But what is NA? According to Platt, Platt, and Richards (1992)), “NA is the

process of determining the needs for which a learner requires a language and arranging the needs

according to priorities.” Needs assessments make use of both subjective and objective

information. However, this explanation is not accurate. It leaves out details. Brown (1995)

indicates that “NA is the systematic collection and analysis of all subjective and objective

information necessary to define and validate defensible curriculum purposes that satisfy

students’ learning requirements.”

The concept of needs analysis includes these factors (Dudley-Evans & St John, 1998, p.

125):

• The tasks and activities students are using English for.

• The elements that may affect students’ learning.

• Students current skills and language ability.

• The gap between students’ ability and course requirements.

• Effective ways of learning language.

• Knowledge of how language and skills are used in the target situation.

• What are students’ wants?

• Information of how the course will be run.

The approach and the sources of needs analysis are closely related to each other. There

are five main sources: published/unpublished literature, learners, teachers and applied linguists,

domain experts and triangulated sources (Long, 2005, p. 25). Course designers should familiarize

themselves with the published and unpublished needs analysis. Numerous written sources are in

both the public and private sectors. For example, in Basturkmen (2010), the author gave four

case studies about police English, medical English, English in academic literacies and visual

communication, and English for thesis writing. Course designers can look through the process of

needs analysis in these chapters.

Course developers design courses for learners, so they have to know learners’ necessities,

lacks and wants. Perception and actual needs in the discussion of both teachers and students can

improve the level of consciousness as to why they are doing and what they are doing (Long,

2005, p.26).

Triangulated sources are generally applied in needs analysis. “Triangulation of methods

are use of logs, non-participant observations, interviews, questionnaires, testing for those

working with a quantitative paradigm” (Long, 2005, p. 29). One of the most direct ways to

gather information is an interview. The analysts ask people what they think and do directly.

Having interviewers of the same race, ethnicity, sex, social class and cultural background as
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interviewees also increases the likelihood of obtaining good data, especially when attitudes and

research finding on related issues. Although time-consuming, unstructured and open-ended

interviews allow in-depth coverage of issues and have the advantage of not pre-empting

unanticipated findings by use of predetermined questions, categories and response questions

(Long, 2005, p. 36).

Acoording to Mohammadi & Mousavi (2013), there are ten general stages of needs

analysis. Getting ready to conduct a needs analysis includes defining the purpose of NA,

delimiting the students’ population, deciding upon approaches and a syllabus, recognizing

constraints, and selecting data collection procedures. Then, analysts should do the NA research:

collect data, analyze data and interpret data. Finally, analysts use the NA resource to determine

objectives and evaluate the report of NA project. When defining the process of needs analysis,

some perspectives are suggested as the purpose of doing so. Mohammadi and Mousavi (2013)

cite Stufflebeam et al. (1985) to identify four philosophies behind the aim of conducting NA:

• Discrepancy philosophy: the distance between students’ language requirements and what

they are able to do with language now.

• Democratic philosophy: the needs that are preferred by the majority of stakeholders

involved in the process of language instruction.

• Analytic philosophy: given learner characteristics and the learning processes, needs are

the next things to acquire.

• Diagnostic philosophy: like drugs for a prescription, needs are required elements of

language performance; harmful if not developed. (p. 1016)

There are always possibilities of discrepancies and conflicts between needs, especially between

necessities defined by instructors and the wants demanded by students. This factor should be
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taken into account. Jordan (1997, cited in Mohammadi & Mousavi, 2013) suggested a negotiated

syllabus and McDonough (1984, cited in Mohammadi & Mousavi, 2013) proposed a goal-

oriented needs analysis that enables instructors to be flexible to the courses.

Needs analysis is a significant stage in the teaching process for the determination of

course objectives. In spite of the importance, there are some issues that need to be analyzed and

resolved (Mohammadi & Mousavi, 2013). Three of them are found in data collection and needs

analysis:

• When learners are asked about their needs, they may not have the required knowledge

and familiarity with the future needs and requirements. This could cause a problem when

we interview students in real-life situation. For example, we want to explore what

students want and need to learn or the expectation of the course in the future, but they

may not give us satisfying answers. Their answers could be obscure. It may be due to

their learning habits and experiences. More specifically, Chinese students learn somewhat

passively; they are only guided by instructors but hardly have their own ideas.

• Language needs don’t necessarily lead to learning; hence, language analysis is needed

along with learning and teaching analysis. Some students may not understand specialist

words. Of course, this is a need, but specialist words should not be an individual module

or unit because those words can infer the meaning in context or look up the words in a

dictionary. The specialist words can be combined with academic readings in one module,

but they’re not necessarily used for a whole class.

• Learners don’t have the required awareness or metalanguage to talk about needs. For

example, students may not understand some facets that directly point at them, such as
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learning strategies and expectations of the course. They may have a better answer in their

native language.
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References

Basturkmen, H. (2010). Developing courses in English for specific purposes. Springer.

Brown, J. D. (1995). The elements of language curriculum: A systematic approach to program

Brown, J. D. (2016). Introducing Needs Analysis and English for Specific Purpose. Routledge.

Chambers, F. (1980). A re-evaluation of needs analysis. ESP Journal, 1, 25-33.

Dudley-Evans, T., & St John, M. J. (1998). Developments in English for specific purposes: A
multi-disciplinary approach. Cambridge university press.

Hutchinson, T., & Waters, A. (1987). English for Specific Purpose. Cambridge University Press.

Long, M. H. (2005). Second Language Needs Analysis, Cambridge University Press.

Mohammadi, V., & Mousavi, N. (2013). Analyzing needs analysis in ESP: A (re) modeling.
International Research Journal of Applied and Basic Sciences, 4(5), 1014-1020.

Macalister, J. & Nation, I. S. (2009). Language Curriculum Design. Routledge, 24

Platt, J., Platt, H., & Richards, J. C. (1992). Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied
Linguistics. Malaysia: Longman. pp. 242-243.