Need
Analysis
Presented by:
Maryam AL-Oufi
Supervised by:
Prof. Antar
Abdallah
Subtitles of
needs analysis
I- The meaning of NA
II- The importance of NA
III- Divisions of NA
IV-Tools of NA
a-Necessities
b-Lacks
c-Wants
V-Perspectives that NA can vary according
to them
VI-Times of NA
VII-Evaluating NA
a- Reliable needs analysis
b- Valid needs analysis
c- Practical needs analysis
VIII-Issues in NA
a-common core & specialized language
b-Narrow focus- wide focus
c-critical NA
Present
-ation
content
I-The meaning of need analysis
It examines what the learners
know already and what they need
to know.
II-The importance of need
analysis
It makes sure that the course will
contain relevant and useful things
to learn.
III-Huntchinson and Water division of needs
Target needs: what the
learner need s to do in the
target situation.
Necessities:
What is
necessary in the
learners’ use of
language? E.g.
do the learners
have to write
answers to exam
questions?
Learning needs: what the
learner needs to do in
order to learn.
Lacks: What do
the learners lack?
E.g. are there
aspects of writing
that were not
practiced in their
previous
learning.
Wants: What
do the learners
wish to learn?
Another way to look at needs is to
make a major division between:
1- present knowledge
lacks
2- objective needs
required knowledge
necessities
and subjective needs
wants
IV-Needs Analysis Tools
A-Necessities:
The first thing to look is the demands of the target
tasks. That is, what will the learners have to do when
they do university study?
Listening to lectures, writing assignments and tasks,
and sitting exams.
- let’s take an assignment as an example.
1-We could analyze the kinds of language needed to
do an assignment, by doing vocabulary analysis. Is it
necessary to have a large vocabulary to write a good
assignment or a limited ones.
2- We can look at past assignment topics to see the
kind of discourse: descriptions, analyses,
comparisons.
3- We could interview university staff to see what
they expect in a good assignment.
4- Another source of information would be to look in
course outlines and other departmental information
to see if there are any guidelines on writing
assignments.
5-Access to assignments from successful students in
previous years could be a useful source of
information.
6- We could also look at the timeframe involved in
writing an assignment.
B-Lacks:
involves looking at where learners are at
present. How good are the learners at writing
assignments now?
Sources of information about lacks:
1-Looking at the assignment that the learners have
just written.
2-Observing students’ writing can give some insight
into these conditions.
3- Another source could come from the university
lecturer who marks the assignment. This information
could be gathered by using a think-loud protocol as
the examiner marks the assignment.
4- The learners themselves are also a very useful
source of information. This information can be
gathered by interviewing them.
-Learners’ general proficiency
contributes to the way they handle any
language task.
-To gather data about this, we can
interview them, get them to sit tests,
or we can get them to do selfassessment using a prepared checklist.
C-Wants:
Learners have their own views about what they think is
useful for them. Information about this is useful in working
out whether the learners’ views and the needs analyst’s
views are the same or not. If they are not the same, then
the curriculum designer may need to rethink the results or
persuade the learners that there is a more useful view of
what they need.
We can gather such information about lacks
through:
-an interview
-a questionnaire
This table briefly suggests a rang of tools by taking the case of an English for
academic purposes course which is preparing learners of English for
university study.
Type of need Focus
Method
Example
Necessities
Self report
Proficiency test
Level of vocabulary
knowledge
Level of fluency e.g. reading
speed
Analysis of texts
Analysis of exams &
assignments
Proficiency
Situations of Self-report
use
Observation and
analysis
Review of previous
research
Lacks
Wants
Proficiency
Self-report testing
Vocabulary test
Situations of Self-report,
use
observation and
analysis
Examiners’ reports
Analyzing of tasks
Wishes
use
Records of choices of
activities
Teachers’ observation
Self-report,
observation
V-Needs are changing so it is important that needs are
looked at from a variety of perspectives at a variety of
times. The perspectives can vary according to:
Type of
need
(lack, necessities, wants; or
present knowledge, required knowledge
objective and subjective needs)
Source
of information
(Present or past learners, teachers, present or
future tasks and materials, future colleagues,
assessors, or teachers)
Data
gathering
tools
(text analysis, frequency counts, interviews,
questionnaire, observation, negotiation and
discussion, reflection on experience)
Type of
information
(learning goals, preferred styles of learning,
learners’ commitment to learning.)
VI-The times of needs analysis:
Before
a
course
begins
During
the
running
of a
course
At the
end of a
course
A-Reliable needs analysis: involves using
well-thought-out, standardized tools that
are applied systematically.
-Rather than just observing people
performing tasks that learners will have to
do after the course, it is better to
systematize the observation by using a
checklist.
-The more pieces of observation and the
more people who are studied, the reliable
the results.
B-Valid needs analysis: involves looking at
what is relevant and important.
Consideration of the type of need that is
being looked at and the type of
information that is being gathered is
important.
-Before NA begins it may be necessary to
do a ranking activity to decide what type of
need should get priority in the NA
investigation.
C-Practical needs analysis: is not expensive,
does not occupy too much of the learners’ and
teacher’s time, provides clear, easy-tounderstand results and can easily be
incorporated into the curriculum design process.
Issues in NA
Common
core and
specialized
language
Narrow focuswide focus
Critical needs
analysis
Common core and specialized
language
What are the content selection stages that a
special purposes language course should follow?
From a vocabulary point of view, the learners
should first focus on a common core of 2000
words, then focus on general academic
vocabulary of their particular disciplines, then
focus on the specialized technical words.
Narrow focus-wide focus
Detailed systems of NA have been set up to
determine precisely what language learner with
clear needs should learn.
-If language learners have more than very shortterm goals for language learning not only satisfies
immediate needs but also provides the basis for
the development of control of the wider language
system.
Critical needs analysis
Benesch (1996) points out that NA is affected
by the ideology of those in control of that
analysis.
-That is, the questions they ask, the areas
they investigate, the conclusions they draw
are influenced by their attitudes to change.
-For this reason, it is worth considering a
wide range of viewpoints when deciding on
the focus of NA.
Task I Needs analysis for a writing course
You have been asked to design a writing course for learners of
English who intended to go on to university study in English.
As a part of the fact-finding stage you have decided to carry
out a needs analysis.
Type of information
Source of the
information
How the information
will be gathered
Thank you for your listening