CC BY
21International scientific-practical conference on the topic of "Problems and perspectives of modern technology in teaching foreign languages"
THE IMPORTANCE OF NEEDS ANALYSIS IN LANGUAGE
TEACHING
d https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7352639
Tillayeva Nilufar
Lecturer of the department of foreign languages Journalism and Mass Communication University of Uzbekistan
ABSTRACT
The research paper depicts information about implementation needs analysis in Language teaching, particularly EAP/EGP courses and design the proper curriculum to achieve the desired outcomes. The planned needs analysis tend to focus on identifying the learners' need and offer appropriate EAP course for the target learners. The types of needs analyses and effects of conducting needs analyses will be discussed in this research. There are a lot of ways to conceptualize the ESP/EAP course, as Taba (1962) stated:" Curriculum process includes 7 steps: diagnosing needs, formulating objectives, selecting and organizing contents, selecting and organizing learning experiences and identifying evaluations. Due to Hyland (2006) reliable and valid Needs analysis (NA) can be lead in three ways: through Triangulation which data collection based on research and sources; through Prolonged engagement which data base collected by observing and collection of information over a long time; through Participant verification by discussing with participants. Our current NA will cover all this phases partially.
Morever the research will highlight the main components of needs analysis such as sutiation analysis and its impact on developing curriculum.
Kew vocabulary: needs analyses, objective, EAP, ESP, Triangulation, Prolonged engagement, Participant verification
Introduction
One of the main steps in needs analysis is definitely what sources and methods are supposed to be used to collect data. According to Long (2005), one is likely to use both deductive and inductive types of procedures. Deductive methods refer to experts' intuition, observation, whereas inductive type involves surveys, instructed questionnaires and performance tests. To determine our learners need we mostly focus on inductive methods to conduct our needs analysis and then to develop an appropriate curriculum for our course.
International scientific-practical conference on the topic of "Problems and perspectives of modern technology in teaching foreign languages"
Hyland (2006) states that to achieve the validity and reliability of needs analysis, it should address three main phases:
Triangulation - administering the variety of data collection methods;
Prolonged engagement- using data collection again after a period of time
Participant verification- involving students to discussions about needs analysis and its reality.
NA (Brown, 1995) is a systematic collection of subjective and objective information which is needed to define students' requirements within context which affect the teaching and learning process. Data collection for NA can be gathered by different ways and involves stakeholders such as students, ESP teachers and other personals. Resources help to determine students' lacks and wants (PSA-present situation analysis) referring to information about their previous and current learning experiences, cultural backgrounds, job related future plans and expectations from the ESP/EAP course. As for their needs, it refers to (TSA-target situation analysis) teachers' requirements from learners in order to achieve learning outcomes of the intended ESP/EAP course. As commented Hutchinson and Waters (1987) target situation analysis is concerned with "needs" the present situation analysis addresses learners "lacks and "wants".
Methods and materials
Course information.
Target Learners: 2nd year-students of Academic lyceum/High school whose main domain is exact science.
Objectives: As the country is establishing sustainable position on a global scale the employees in this sphere often have to cooperate with foreign specialists and it is undeniable fact that financial managers nowadays are encountering difficulties in using English in terms of business and finance terminology and cultural norms. Employees need EAP course to enhance their language proficiency skills to deliver a message in both in and written forms.
Time allotment: Optional course, twice a week for 3 hours. Duration of the course is 6 months.
Contents: Students are expected to develop their 4 language proficiency skills integrating grammar and enlarging the related vocabulary. As the course is EAP critical thinking will be applied through case study and problem solution tasks.
Interaction and instruction: In order to meet learners needs instructions are planned to be provided taking CLT approach method into account.
International scientific-practical conference on the topic of "Problems and perspectives of modern technology in teaching foreign languages"
Conducting needs analysis. Procedure
Today's teaching programs and principles, including in academic lyceums are based on the standards of curriculum development set by the Ministry of High Education. There is set out objectives and mission of the subject, particularly stated teaching hours with a sample for different educational places, several requirements for both teachers and learners according to determined levels and teaching standards for CLT. Establishing the content of curriculum development takes a number of procedures which involve all stakeholders from educational authorities to employers and learners themselves via making some needs analysis
Target students have had EGP courses at secondary schools but they are not aware of business English. They need EAP/ESP course which prepares them to use English in the job related situations. As it has been mentioned initial plan for ESP/EAP course intends to involve some steps which should be implemented by stakeholders. Therefore, each educational establishments must develop their own curriculum focusing on their own learners' needs.
First, instructors analyze previous and current data related to students. Then they use proper methods for target and situation analysis to define their needs for ESP/ EAP course. As cited Woodrow, L (2000): Needs are the basis of most courses in ESP/EAP. Needs-analysis data is translated into course objectives and teaching aims through a series of steps." As she commented it is important to define learners needs which plays a great role to put appropriate objectives and teaching purposes. According to Flowerdew (2013), to develop curriculum, experts go through 3 stages: analyzing needs, investigating specialist discourse, determining the curriculum.
The first stage involves analyzing needs. In this level experts are supposed to determine what type of needs should be investigated. While discussing the needs of our learners, we decided that we had to address target situational analysis (TSA), present situational analysis (PSA) and learner situational analysis (LSA).
The second stage involves determining the linguistic features and forms, data collecting methods, approach. In this stage we tried to identify the methods and procedures which we are going to address. As our learners are need to use English while preparing reports, attending seminars, doing presentations we decided to collect data with the help of questionnaire and collecting some samples of writing reports. Of course, these procedures may require time to look through the written samples, but with the help of these procedures we can clearly observe the needs of our learners.
International scientific-practical conference on the topic of "Problems and perspectives of modern technology in teaching foreign languages"
The last stage is known as the "visible element" which gives opportunity to compose the curriculum principles. With the collected data we will be able to develop our curriculum which includes principles, course syllabus, assessment tools, lesson plans, materials.
Some needs analysis types are going to be implemented to identify the problems with the usage of English in Finance sphere. In order to meet the needs of the learners who are planning to work in international companies the appropriate curriculum and lesson plan are planned to be organized relying on the results of needs analysis.
To determine learners' needs and wants triangiulation can be very helpful as this three source such as survey among teachers, survey among domain experts who are studying at universities and survey among learners can give an initial understanding of the objectives of the course. Pprolonged engagement also will be implemented by observing the results of learners within eight years since the current curriculum which was provided by Ministry of Public and Higher Education. The results of both phases will be analysed and rechecked by conducting Participant verification process. In order to achieve more reliable outcomes and understanding about the process we are planning to conduct target and present situation analysis due to questionnaire which focus on their requirements and expectations from the course. According to Richards (2005) questionnaires tend to be one of the most usual instruments. It can be practical in terms of conducting and analyzing materials. On the other hand, the gained information with the help of questions can be imprecise because of badly organized questions. Therefore, while making up questions, one is supposed to consider and sort out questions with the help of which we can determine the learner's TSA,PSA , and LSA (Learning Situation Analysis). Chan (2018) states that based on questionnaire survey's results, he was able to receive some information about learner's both TSA and PSA. For example, for the question why you need English most, almost all participants of survey replied that they had to learn business English mainly for business meetings, cooperating with foreign investors. These information targets that the curriculum of the ESP/EAP classes is supposed to include the lessons with the help of which the attendants of course may get the specific knowledge they need in their fieldwork regarding to using an appropriate language, key terminology, and of course some pragmatic features.
The data collection requires mixture of various instruments. It is impossible to address all the needs of learners with the help of only one instrument of needs
International scientific-practical conference on the topic of "Problems and perspectives of modern technology in teaching foreign languages"
analysis. One should take into consideration that needs analysis is not a short term process, yet it demands the deep analysis of target learners' needs with implementing various ways of procedures. Therefore, we decided to use placement test so that we will be able to analyze the learners' not only needs but also the language proficiency in a more appropriate and accurate way.
In our plan for needs analysis we try to take into consideration 2 of these ways: triangulation by choosing diverse procedures to conduct and participant verification by direct approach which gives us an opportunity to involve learners' own decision, their "wants" and "needs" while preparing curriculum.
Results
Needs Analysis
1. Google form-Survey. Quantitative As the Needs analysis process is the first step of designing ESP course, is was conducted among the applicants of the course in order to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the learners and to provide proper topics and solutions through the course in order to achieve the desired outcome. The first data were collected by asking them to respond to the questioners in the Google form as a formal needs analysis and the questions in the survey mostly focused on TSA and PSA. Another advantage of using Google form is to give the learners freedom to think about their wants from the course seriously. They were asked to fill the form within 3 days and process is probably more efficient than paper and pen questioners. Furthermore, the result of the survey will be taken into account to build the connection between the target learners' existing language proficiency skill and business communication skills.
2. Report writing . Qualitative data collection. After getting the results for quantitative data collection the applicants were asked to write a report on the given task in order to collect qualitative data to design the courses and choose the proper teaching materials for the sessions. As the online survey result shows that most students' aim is to develop output skills writing and producing a piece of report in both written and spoken form give the instructor a chance to identify the weaknesses of the learners'grammar and vocabulary usage.
The results of needs analysis.
1. Google form survey. Quantitative data collection. From the data collection the majority of the respondents (68%) consider to use English in their future job. Even though the purpose of the using language is quite
International scientific-practical conference on the topic of "Problems and perspectives of modern technology in teaching foreign languages"
diverse, the demands requires to have a better language proficiency skills in terms of speaking and writing. The next question referred to the reason of learning English. According to the result the majority of the participants prefer to work for international companies where English is required highly. Nearly 70% of the participants and more than half of the learners considered the speaking and writing skills respectively more challenging. And they want to have a fluent and accurate speech despite the slow speaking skill rather than fast speaking with mistakes. According to the data almost half of the students are auditorium learner, however, there are significant number of kinesthetic and visual learners. For the question aout home assignment more than three quarters of the respondents' answers were positive.
2. Report writing . Qualitative data collection. The results from report writing process shows that most students are having problems with complex and compound sentences. The register of productive skills and enhancing the range of academic vocabulary is also should be addressed in the course syllabus according to the data collection.
Discussion
Needs analyses results in Designing course syllabus. Recommended course syllabus. This course is optinal and can be conducted as additional courses at hihg schools. The learners will develop the business english and enhance the productive skills. Receptive skills materials will be provided and input skills are also expected to be developed. This course may be suggested for both high school students and university students as an optional courses.
Objectives of the course
At the end of the course a student will be able to:
• to differentiate formal and informal register.
• to exchange the emails using proper topic related vocabulary.
• to interpret and present the information using bar chart, flow chart table and line graph.
• to make formal interactions or agreements with the partners or clients.
SUMMARY
Jack. C. Richards (2001) states that different types of the students have different language needs. Most importantly while conducting needs analysis that the process really leads to effective learning and teaching foreign languages have been
International scientific-practical conference on the topic of "Problems and perspectives of modern technology in teaching foreign languages"
discovered. As the quality of the lesson process really strts from conducting needs analysis and should be implemented in developing curriculum and identifing the objectives and outcomes of teaching and leaning process. The research and it's results pointed out the following achievements for both teachers and students. For teachers:
• Being aware of the learners lacks and wants beforehand
• Knowing what kind of sources and materials should be used in order to involve all learners
• Organizing learner-centered classrooms which motivates the learners
• Observing each of the students are motivated and feel special in the class For learners:
• Knowing the lesson is prepared focusing on their needs
• Knowing their destination at the beginning of the course
• Knowing the instructor is aware of the learners lacks and wants and he is always supportive
• Knowing where you can use this knowledge and skills
• Being user not only learner
REFERENCES
1. Chan, C. (2018). Proposing and illustrating a research-informed approach to curriculum development for specific topics in business English. English for Specific Purposes, 52, 27-46.
2. Flowerdew, L. 2013 Needs analysis and curriculum development in ESP. In Paltridge, B and S,Starfield. The Handbook of English for Specific Purposes, 325346.
3. Richards, J.C., (2001) Curriculum development in language teaching. Cambridge U.K: Cambridge University Press
4. Woodrow, L. 2018. Introducing Course Design in English for Specific Purposes. Routledge, USA, New York
