Need

Analysis
 Presented by:
Maryam AL-Oufi
Supervised by:
Prof. Antar
Abdallah
 I- The meaning of NA
II- The importance of NA
III- Divisions of NA
IV-Tools of NA
a-Necessities
b-Lacks
needs analysis
c-Wants
V-Perspectives that NA can vary according
Subtitles of

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 Present
b-Narrow focus- wide focus
c-critical NA -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 Learning needs: what the

learner need s to do in the learner needs to do in
target situation. order to learn.

Necessities:
What is Lacks: What do Wants: What
necessary in the the learners lack? do the learners
learners’ use of E.g. are there wish to learn?
language? E.g. aspects of writing
do the learners that were not
have to write practiced in their
answers to exam previous
questions? learning.
Another way to look at needs is to
make a major division between:

1- present knowledge required knowledge

lacks necessities

2- objective needs 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 self-assessment 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 Proficiency Self report Level of vocabulary
Proficiency test knowledge
Level of fluency e.g. reading
Situations of Self-report speed
use Observation and Analysis of texts
analysis Analysis of exams &
Review of previous assignments
research

Lacks Proficiency Self-report testing Vocabulary test

Situations of Self-report, Examiners’ reports

use observation and Analyzing of tasks
analysis

Wants Wishes Self-report, Records of choices of

use observation activities
Teachers’ 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:

(lack, necessities, wants; or

Type of
present knowledge, required knowledge
need
objective and subjective needs)
Source (Present or past learners, teachers, present or
of infor- future tasks and materials, future colleagues,
mation assessors, or teachers)
Data (text analysis, frequency counts, interviews,
gathering questionnaire, observation, negotiation and
tools discussion, reflection on experience)
Type of
(learning goals, preferred styles of learning,
infor-
learners’ commitment to learning.)
mation
 VI-The times of needs analysis:

Before During
a the At the
course running end of a
begins of a course
course
 VI
Ne I-E
ed val
s A ua
na tin
lys g
is
 a l y s is i s a
Nee d s a n
s e s s m e n t
kind o f a s
u s c a n b e
a n d t h
a t e d b y
evalu s
r i n g i t
conside l i d it y
b i l it y , v a
relia i ty .
p r a c ti c a l
an d
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-to-understand results and can
easily be incorporated into the curriculum design process.
 Issues in NA

Narrow focus-
Common wide focus
core and
specialized
language

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 short-
term 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 How the information

information will be gathered
Thank you for your listening