NEEDS ANALYSIS

REVIEW: What is ESP?

Hutchinson and Waters (1987) use ESP as an
approach rather than a product, by which they
mean that ESP does not involve a particular
kind of language, teaching material, or
methodology. They suggest that “the
foundation of ESP is the simple question:
 “Why does this
learner need to learn
a foreign language?”
The answer to the question relates to the
learners, the language required, and the
learning context, and thus establishes the
primacy of NEED in ESP.
That leads us to the
question…
What do we mean by
“needs?”
 “Needs may refer to students’
study or job requirements, i.e.
what they should be able to do at
the end of the course.”
(Berwick, 1989)
Thus, the first definition of
“needs” is synonymous to
“objectives.”
 Needs may also be synonymous to
“necessary” or those which the user-
institution or society view as “desirable
to be learnt from a programme of
language instruction.”
(Mountford)
 Needs may be regarded as “what
the learners need to do to actually
acquire the language.” This is
more of the needs in terms of the
“process” of learning.
(Widdowson, 1987)
Needs may also be synonymous to
the “personal aims” of the
learner.
(Berwick, 1989)
Needs may also be synonymous to
“lacks” or what students do not
know or cannot do in English.
(Robinson, 1991)
Therefore, what
does “needs
analysis” mean?
According to Iwai, et al. (1999), the term
needs analysis generally refers to “the
activities that are involved in collecting
information that will serve as the basis
for developing a curriculum that will
meet the needs of a particular group of
students.”
Various Terms (or Types) Related to
Needs Analysis
1. Target Situation Analysis
2. Present Situation Analysis
3. Pedagogic Needs Analysis
1. Target Situation Analysis
This is a needs analysis that focuses on the needs of the
students at the end of the language program; thus this
analysis focuses on the expectation, i.e. what the student
should be like. Under this type of needs analysis, we
have the following terms:
Necessities
Lacks
Wants
 Necessities
This is the type of need determined by the demands of
the target situation; that is, what the learner has to know
in order to function effectively in the target situation.
 Lacks
These are the gap between the target proficiency and the
existing proficiency of the learners (Hutchinson, Waters,
and Breen, 1979).
 Wants
These are the needs that learners are willing to pay for or
have the initiative to do.
 A Target Situation Analysis Framework
Who will the
Why is the
learner use the
language needed?
language with?

How will the Target Where will the

language be Situation language be
used? used?
Analysis
When will the
What will the
language be
content areas be?
used?
2. Present Situation Analysis
This needs analysis focuses on the level of the students’
language skills at the start of the language program, i.e.
looking into their strengths and weaknesses.
3. Pedagogic Needs Analysis
This is proposed by West (1998). This type of needs
analysis is an umbrella term that covers three elements,
namely:
Deficiency Analysis
Strategy Analysis or Learning Needs Analysis
Means Analysis
 Deficiency Analysis
This looks into the lacks of the learner.
 Strategy or Learning Needs Analysis
This looks into the strategies that learners employ in
order to learn a language (establishes the “how” the
learners wish to learn).
 Strategy or Learning Needs Analysis
Why are the
Framework
Who are the
learners taking
learners?
the course?
Learning Where will the
How do the
learners learn? Needs ESP course take
place?
Analysis
When will the
What resources
ESP course take
are available?
place?
 Means Analysis
This looks into the cultural differences among groups of
students (what works well in one situation may not work
in another).