ANALYSIS LEARNING

ANALYSIS LEARNING

1.        What are target needs?

Target needs’ is something of an umbrella term, which in practice hides a number of important distinctions.

a)        Necessities

Necessities’ the type of need determined by the demands of the target situation; that is, what the learners has to know in order to function effectively in the target situation. He or she will presumably also needs to know the linguistic features-discoursal, functional, structural, lexical-which are commonly used in the situations identified.

b)        Lacks

You also need to know what the learner knows already, so that you can then decide which of the necessities the learners lacks. One target situation necessity might be to read texts in a particular subject area. Whether or no not the learners need instruction in doing this will depend on how well they can do it already.

c)        Wants

It is quite possible that the learners’ views will conflict with the perceptions for other interested parties: course designers, sponsors, teachers. 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 the various participants in the learning process.

2.        Learning needs

What knowledge and abilities will the learners require in order to be able to perform to the required degree of competence in the target situation. It is naïve to base a course design simply on the target objectives, just as it is naïve to think that a journey can be planned solely in terms of the starting point and the destination. The needs, potential and constrains of the route (i.e. the learning situation) must also be taken into account, if we are going to have any useful analysis of learner needs.

3.        Analysing learning

To analyze learning needs, we can use a similar checklist to that used for target situation analysis:

a)        A framework for analysing learning

Why are the earners taking the course?

·           Compulsory or optional;

·           Apparent need or not;

·           Are status, money, promotion involved?

·           What do learners think they will achieve?

·           What is their attitude towards the ESP course? Do they want to improve their English or they resent the time they have to spend on it?

How do the learners learn?

·           What is their learning background?

·           What is their concept of teaching and learning?

·           What methodology will appeal to them?

·           What sort of techniques are likely to bore/alienate them?