Hannah Gookstetter Needs Analysis Fieldwork and Report

TCH LRN 409-01

October 29, 2018

Introduction
Every English Language Learner (ELL) deserves to have their needs met. In order to

ensure that we as teachers are meeting the needs of our ELL students by doing a needs analysis.

A needs analysis is essentially a questionnaire that assesses the needs of ELLs, which in turn

provides teachers with things they can improve and change about their classroom in order to

make it a more effective learning environment for ELLs. According to Brown (1995, 35), a

“…needs analysis refers to the activities involved in gathering information that will serve as the

basis for developing a curriculum that will meet the learning needs of a particular group of

students.” In the case of the needs analysis I did, the focus was not on developing a curriculum;

rather, it was on analyzing the needs of a specific ELL. The ELL I chose to do a needs analysis

on is a good friend of mine, Betsy Camacho-John. Betsy is a senior undergraduate student at

Northwest University, located in Kirkland, Washington. Although Betsy is not the ELL that this

assignment is necessarily geared toward, but she was once an ELL in an American K-12 public

school. Originally, Betsy is from Bolivia and her first language is Spanish. She had to learn to

speak English, which she learned from her parents and in public school.

Problems

One of the purposes of a Needs Analysis tool is to figure out what problems ELLs are

facing. According to Brown (1995, 43), questions that ask about problems are intended to

“…identify the problems that are being experienced by the people underassessment…” Based on

the questions asked with the Needs Analysis, Betsy faced a lot of problems while she was

learning English. Specifically, a problem she faced in her day-to-day life was discrimination

because she was unable to correctly pronounce words and communicate effectively with her
peers. In regards to problems in her schooling experience, Betsy had issues with writing and

reading. This was because she had to learn English and to read and write simultaneously. In fact,

she still struggles with writing to this day because of the intense grammar the comprises the

English language.

Priorities

Priorities are the “…topics, language uses, skills, and so on [that] are considered most

important…” by the person being studied (Brown, 1995, 43). In regards to what Betsy’s

personal, non-learning priorities, she enjoys spending her free time with family and friends. She

also enjoys going out to eat, watching TV shows and movies, going to the waterfront, going to

coffee shops, and traveling. All of these experiences more than likely impacted her journey to

becoming proficient in English. In regards to learning and educational priorities for ELLs, Betsy

considers the most essential skill for ELLs in the classroom to be the ability to read. Being able

to read and effectively comprehend what they are reading is important for ELLs when learning

English. Additionally, reading is a necessary component of everyday life: it is used when driving

and working.

Abilities

According to Brown (1995, 44), questions on a needs analysis that ask about ability are

questions that are intended to “…determine the abilities of the students at entry.” Questions of

the nature provide educators with a baseline for their student or their program and aid in

determining the range of abilities a student possesses (Brown, 1995, 44). One of Betsy’s greatest

limitations as a non-Native English speaker is the accent she has when speaks that appears from

time-to-time. She has also struggled with understanding certain words or grammar components.
However, because she learned English at such a young age, she has no major struggles at this

time. Before Betsy moved to the United States when she was at a very young age, she knew a

minimal amount of English. This changed when she began kindergarten where she learned to

speak enough English to hold a simple conversation. The first skill she first learned to do in

English was speaking. She picked up this skill by simply listening to native speakers speak with

one another. This was done by listening to the people around her speak, her mother helping her

learn to speak, and from watching TV shows where the characters spoke English.

Attitudes

Needs analysis questions about attitudes focus on discovering “…information about

participants’ feelings and attitudes toward elements of the program” (Brown, 1995, 44).

Although I was not asking Betsy questions about a specific program, I still got a feel for what

components are necessary for a successful ELL program based on her experience. According to

Betsy, the most important part of her journey in learning English was the impact her mother had

in her. Betsy’s mother was already fluent in English, so she was able to help Betsy learn English

easily through just speaking in English with Betsy. This shows that providing ELLs with a

chance to interact with native English speakers is important to their English development. The

components of English that Betsy considered that most challenging to learn was pronunciation

and reading. Specifically, she mentioned struggling with the digraphs “th,” “ph,” and other

digraphs that consist of silent letters. Based on her response, this shows that ELL programs need

to dedicated a decent amount of time on teaching challenging digraphs that other languages may

not have as they are so prevalent in the English language. When asked whether she thinks ELLs

learn English more effectively from learning how to read or write first, Betsy said that she thinks

it is important that these two skills are learned around the same time. Ultimately, she thinks that
learning to read is more effective because it aids ELLs in learning phonemes and how to

combine those phonemes. This helps ELLs better understand the relationships between letters

and words, which in turn aids them in learning to write.

Solutions

Needs analysis questions about solutions pertain to asking about plausible solutions for

the problems mentioned earlier (Brown, 1995, 44). When asked what could have been done to

the make English instructions she received more effective, Betsy thought that it would have

helped her more if both her content teachers and ELL teachers focused more on writing. She says

this would have helped her “…have a better foundation of writing skills” (B. Camacho-John,

personal communication, October 29, 2018). She continues to struggle with writing now, so this

could have been very beneficial to her. Overall, the only thing she would have done to change

her experience learning English is to learn English earlier and have better writing instruction.

Reflection

Overall, I think I learned a lot using my needs analysis tool. I never knew how important

writing instruction is to ELLs, yet I feel as though we spend a lot of time focusing on teaching

ELLs to speak English or how to read in English rather than writing. This has changed my

perspective on what we our focus should be on when teaching ELLs English. Writing is just as

important as reading and speaking as it is another form of communication that is commonly used

in the English language.

In general, I think my needs analysis tool was successful. My needs analysis tool was a

good assessment for learning, which is assessment that is intended to adjust instruction (Gottlieb,

2016, p. 242). One pro of my needs analysis tool is that it asked in-depth questions about the

participant’s previous experience with learning English. This helped me get a good sense of the
participant’s baseline abilities and where they would go next if they were to be placed in an ELL

program. Additionally, I think that my needs analysis tool did an excellent job of analyzing the

participant’s attitudes about their English instruction and the programs that they were in. One

thing that my needs analysis tool did not do so well was asking the participant for solutions to the

problems they stated. The questions pertaining to solutions I asked were not connected to the

questions about problems at all. If I were to use this needs analysis tool again, I would make the

questions for these two categories more connected so the responses connect more. However,

overall I think my needs analysis tool was successful and with some small modifications, could

be successfully used again.

 References

Brown, J.D. (1995). Chapter 2: Needs analysis. In The elements of language curriculum: A

systematic approach to program development. New York, NY: Heinle & Heinle.

Gottlieb, M. (2016) Assessing English language learners: Bridges to educational equity (2nd

ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.