A Power Point presentation about the Do's and Don'ts, as well as the guidelines and elements required and studied for several authors to achieve and conduct an appropriate Needs Analysis, especially in English for Specific Purposes (ESP).
1. UNIVERSIDAD PEDAGÓGICA EXPERIMENTAL LIBERTADOR
INSTITUTO PEDAGÓGICO DE CARACAS
DEPARTAMENTO DE IDIOMAS MODERNOS
PROGRAMA INGLÉS
CÁTEDRA DE LINGÜÍSTICA
NEEDS ANALYSIS:
WHERE ESP COURSES START
Curso: Seminario de ESP
Profesora: Nahir Aparicio
Autor: Sam Cruz
Caracas, abril de 2012
3. NEEDS ANALYSIS
Needs analysis (also known as needs assessment) has a vital role in the
process of designing and carrying out any language course, whether it be
English for Specific Purposes (ESP) or other general English courses.
It 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.
Formal needs analysis is relatively new to the field of language
teaching. However, informal needs analyses have been conducted by teachers
in order to assess what language points their students needed to master.
How do you carry out the needs analysis process?
Do you always carry it out?
4. TARGET SITUATION ANALYSIS
In the earlier periods, needs analysis was mainly concerned with
linguistic and register analysis; needs were seen as discrete language items of
grammar and vocabulary.
It later moved towards placing the learner’s purposes in the central
position. Consequently, the notion of target needs became paramount, and
research proved that functions and situations were also fundamental.
The term Target Situation Analysis (TSA) was, in fact, first used by
Chambers in his 1980 article in which he tried to clarify the confusion of
terminology.
How would you get acquainted with the students’ TS?
Do you think it is important to prepare yourself for and about it?
5. COMMUNICATIVE NEEDS PROCESSOR
It basically refers to the target needs and target level performance, which are
established by investigating the target situation, and making it the necessary starting
point in materials or course design.
In the CNP, account is taken of “the variables that affect communication needs
by organizing them as parameters in a dynamic relationship to each other” (Munby,
1978).
Munby’s overall model is made up of the following elements:
9.Participants;
10.Communication Needs Processor (particular communication needs according to
sociocultural and stylistic needs);
11.Profile of Needs;
12.Meaning Processor (sociocultural aspects made into semantic subcategories of a
predominantly pragmatic kind);
13.The Language Skills Selector;
14.The Linguistic Encoder: considers (the dimension of contextual appropriacy);
15.The Communicative Competence Specification.
6. PRESENT SITUATION ANALYSIS
Present situation analysis (PSA) may be considered as a complement to TSA. If
TSA tries to establish what the learners are expected to be like at the end of the language
course, PSA attempts to identify what they are like at the beginning of it.
A PSA estimates strengths and
weaknesses in language, skills, and learning
experiences. If the destination point to which
the students need to get is to be established,
first the starting point has to be defined, and
this is provided by means of PSA.
The PSA can be carried out by means
of established placement tests. However, the
background information, e.g.: years of learning
English, level of education, etc. about learners
can provide enough information about their
present abilities which can thus be predicted to
some extent. Needs analysis may be seen as a
combination of TSA and PSA.
7. PEDAGOGIC NEEDS ANALYSIS
The term “pedagogic needs analysis” is proposed as an umbrella term to
describe the following three elements of needs analysis. It covers deficiency analysis,
strategy analysis or learning needs analysis, and means analysis.
Deficiency Analysis refers to the approaches to needs analysis that have been
developed to consider learners’ present needs or wants may be called analysis of
learners’ deficiencies or lacks.
Strategy analysis has to do with the strategies that learners employ in order to
learn another language. This tries to establish how the learners wish to learn rather than
what they need to learn. Learners should be taught skills enabling them to reach the
target. Motivation and the fact that learners learn in different ways should be considered.
Means analysis tries to investigate those considerations regarding matters of
logistics and pedagogy that lead to debate about practicalities and constraints in
implementing needs-based language courses, providing info about the environment in
which the course will be run.
8. REGISTER, DISCOURSE, AND GENRE ANALYSIS
Register analysis focuses on vocabulary and grammar (the elements of
sentence). The main motive behind register analysis was the pedagogic one of making
the ESP course more relevant to learners’ needs. The assumption behind register analysis
was that, while the grammar of scientific and technical writing does not differ from that
of general English, certain grammatical and lexical forms are used much more frequently.
Discourse analysis focuses on the text –
and the levels above the sentence- rather than on
the sentence itself, and on the writer’s purpose
rather than on form. This approach tended to
concentrate on how sentences are used in the
performance of acts of communication and to
generate materials based on functions. One of the
shortcomings of the discourse analysis is that its
treatment remains fragmentary.
Genre analysis refers to the regularities of structures that distinguish one
type of text from another. The term ‘genre’ may be considered as the study of linguistic
behavior in institutionalized academic or professional setting, distinguishing four,
though systematically related, areas: Knowledge of the Code, Acquisition of Genre
Knowledge, Sensitivity to Cognitive Structures.
9. CONCLUSION
3.Environmental situation - information about the situation in which the course will be
run (means analysis);
5.Personal information about learners - factors which may affect the way they learn
(wants, means, subjective needs);
16.Language information about learners - what their current skills and language use are
(present situation analysis);
18.Learner's lacks (the gap between the present situation and professional information
about learners);
10. CONCLUSION
3.Learner's needs from course - what is wanted from the course (short-term needs);
5.Language learning needs - effective ways of learning the skills and language
determined by lacks;
7.Professional information about learners - the tasks and activities English learners
are/will be using English for (Target Situation Analysis and objective needs);
9.How to communicate in the target situation – knowledge of how language and skills
are used in the target situation (register analysis, discourse analysis, genre analysis).
11. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anthony, L. (n/d). English for Specific Purposes: What does it mean? Why
is it different? [Online artcle]. Available at: http://www. antlab.sci.
waseda.ac.jp/abstracts/ESParticle.html. [Consulted in: May 2012].
Haseli Songhori, M. (2008). Introduction to Needs Analysis. [Online
article]. Available at: http://www.esp-world.info/articles_20/doc/I
ntroduction %20to%20needs %20analysis.pdf. [Consulted in: April 2012].
Le Ha, P. (2005). Munby's 'needs analysis' model and ESP. [Online
article]. Available at: http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/ pta_october
_07_plh.php. [Consulted in: May 2012].
