English for Specific Purposes

Framework for Needs Analysis

MPhil Linguistics &TESOL
Shabana Ahmed
School of Education
Beaconhouse National University
shabana.ahmed@bnu.edu.pk
 Munby’s Framework of Needs
Analysis
• Munby’s Communicative Syllabus Design set
functions and situations within the framework
of needs analysis.
• He introduced communication needs processor
(CPN) which provided a framework for analysing
communication needs of the learners.
• It placed the learner’s purposes in the central
position within the framework of needs analysis
 Munby’s Framework of Needs
Analysis
• The concept of target needs became
paramount
• Subsequent research proved that function and
situation were also fundamental.
 Munby’s Framework of Needs
Analysis
With the development of the CNP it seemed
as if ESP had come of age. The machinery for
identifying the needs of any group of learners
had been provided: all the course designers
had to do was to operate it.

Hutchinson and Waters (1987: 54)

 Munby’s Framework of Needs
Analysis
• In Munby’s framework, the target needs and
target level performance are established by
investigating the target situation.
• 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 cited in
Songhori, 208, p. 32).
Elements of Munby’s Framework
1. Participants
• Information about the identity and language of
the learners: age, sex, nationality, present
command of target language, other languages
known and extent of command.
2. Communication Needs Processor
• Investigates the particular communication needs
according to sociocultural and stylistic variables
which interact to determine a profile of such
needs.
Elements of Munby’s Framework
3. Profile of Needs
• Is established through the processing of data
in the CNP.
4. Meaning Processor
• Parts of the socioculturally determined profile
of communication needs are converted into
semantic subcategories of a predominantly
pragmatic kind.
 Elements of Munby’s Framework
5. The Language Skills Selector
• Identifies the specific language skills that are
required to realize the events or activities that
have been identified in the CNP.
6. The Linguistic Encoder
• Considers the dimension of contextual
appropriacy.
 Elements of Munby’s Framework
7. The Communicative Competence
Specification
• Indicates the target communicative
competence of the participant and is the
translated profile of needs.
Elements of Munby’s Framework
• The predominant or the most frequently referred
to element of Munby’s Model is the
Communication Needs Processor (CNP) which is
the basis of Munby’s approach to needs analysis.
• It establishes the profile of needs through the
processing of eight parameters.
• The processing of these parameters gives us a
detailed description of particular communication
needs.
 Parameters of Munby’s CNP
Munby’s CNP includes the processing of eight
parameters:
1. Purposive domain: establishes the type of
discipline, and then the purpose which the target
language will be used for at the end of the course
2. Setting: the physical setting of the situation
where English will be used, and the psychological
setting specifying the different environment in
which English will be used.
 Parameters of Munby’s CNP
3. Interaction: identifies the learner’s
interlocutors and predicts relationship
between them
4. Instrumentality: specifies the medium,
mode, and channel of communication, i.e.,
whether it is face to face, radio, or any other.
5. Dialect: dialects learners will have to
understand or produce in terms of their
spatial, temporal, or social aspect
 Parameters of Munby’s CNP
6. Communicative event: states what the
participants will have to do productively or
receptively.

7. Communicative key: the manner in which the

participants will have to do the activities
comprising an event, e.g. politely or impolitely.
8. Target level: level of linguistic proficiency at the
end of the ESP course which might be different for
different skills.
 A needs analysis based on Munby’s Communication Needs
Processor (cited in Hutchinson & Waters, 1987)
Sample Communication Related ‘Micro-Function Language Form
Activity
Attending to customer’s 1. intention I will bring the menu
arrival 2. prohibit I’m afraid we’re
full/closed
3. direct Please follow me
Will you sit here please
Attending to customer’s 1 . suggestive May I suggest
the .....?
order 2. advise May I recommend the
…?
3. describe You may find …too
hot/spicy.
Serving the order 1. question Is …for you,
sir/madam?
 Hutchinson and Waters’ Framework
for Needs Analysis
• For some researchers, the analysis of target
situation needs is “in essence a matter of
asking questions about the target situation
and the attitudes towards that situation of
various participants in the learning process”
(Hutchinson & Waters, 1987, p. 59).
 Hutchinson and Waters’ Framework
for Needs Analysis
Why is the language needed?
• For work
• For study
• For a training
• For a combination of these
• For some other purpose (status, exams,
promotion)
 Hutchinson and Waters’ Framework
for Needs Analysis
How will the language be used?
• Medium: speaking, reading, writing
• Channel: telephone, face to face
• Types of text or discourse: academic texts,
lecture, informal conversation, technical
manuals, catalogues
 Hutchinson and Waters’ Framework
for Needs Analysis
What will the content areas be?
• Subjects: medicine, biology, architecture
• Level: technician, craftsman, postgraduate,
secondary school
 Hutchinson and Waters’ Framework
for Needs Analysis
Who will learners use the language with?
• Native or non-native speakers
• Level of knowledge of receiver: layman,
expert, student
• Relationship: colleague, teacher, customer,
subordinate
 Hutchinson and Waters’ Framework
for Needs Analysis
Where will the language be used?
• Physical setting: office, lecture hall, library, hotel
• Human context: alone, meetings, on the phone
• Linguistic context: own country, abroad
 Hutchinson and Waters’ Framework
for Needs Analysis
When will the language be used?
• Concurrently with the ESP course or
subsequently
• Frequently, seldom, in large amounts, chunks