NEEDS ANALYSIS
Download here.!
In general terms, needs analysis (also called needs assessment) 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 language programs, those needs will be language related. Once identified, needs can be stated in terms of goals and objectives which, in turn, serve as the basis for developing tests, materials, teaching activities, and evaluation strategies, as well as for reevaluating the precision and accuracy of the original needs assessment. Thus needs assessment is an integral part of systematic curriculum building. This chapter discusses the parameters necessary to perform a successful needs analysis, whether the analysis is intended to guide the creation of a new curriculum or to reevaluate existing perceptions of the students' need: Since sound needs analysis forms a rational basis for all the other components of a systematic language curriculum, examining the aims, procedures, and applications of needs assessment will create a sound foundation for further discussion of the curriculum.
Needs analysis (in the formal and technical sense) is relatively new in language teaching circles. However, needs analyses have been conducted informally for years by teachers who wanted to assess what language points their students needed to learn. Indeed, the various activities I labeled "approaches" in the previous chapter need to learn. Information sources for such informal needs assessments might include scores on an overall language proficiency test, facts gathered from background questionnaire that asks where and for how long students have had previous language training, or impressions gleaned from teacher and student interviews about the students' cognitive and linguistic abilities. Thus, two seem immediately obvious when thinking about needs analysis. First, informal needs analysis is not a new thing; indeed, good teachers since the birth of the teaching profession have been conducting some form of needs assessment. Second, needs analysis involves the gathering of information to find out how much the students already know and what they still need to learn In more formal terms, needs assessment is defined by Richards, Platt, and Weber (1985, p. 189) as "the process of determining the needs for which a learner or group of learner's requires a language and arranging the need according to priorities.
Needs assessment makes use of both subjective and objective information (e.g, data from questionnaires, tests, interviews, observation)." The definition then goes on to prescribe topic areas on which information should be obtained. Notice that the needs described in this definition are those of the learners involved and also notice that the students' language requirements are to be delineated and sequenced on the basis of both subjective and objective information la another definition of needs assessment, Stufflebeam, McCorrnick, Brinker hoff, and Nelson (1985, p. 16) point out that it is "the process of determining the things that are necessary or useful for the fulfillment of a defensible purpose." A key phrase in this broader definition is "defensible purpose."
This definition is attractive because it implies that the needs that are isolated must be defensible and form a unified and justifiable purpose. Pratt (1980, p. 79) states that "needs assessment refers to an array of procedures for identifying and validating needs, and establishing priorities among them. The key phrases that make this definition different from the others are array of procedures" and "validating needs. The first phrase indicates that a variety of information-gathering tools should be used. The second implies that needs are not absolute, that is, once they are identified, they continually need to be examined for validity to ensure that they remain real needs for the students involved.
In order to accomplish all this and actually perform a needs analysis, certain systematic steps must be followed. The remainder of this chapter will elaborate on these steps and provide suggestions for a reasonable set of procedures and steps to accomplish each. There will be three basic steps:
1.Making basic decisions about the needs analysis
2. Gathering information
3. Using the information.
The last of these steps will be demonstrated through examples drawn from the GELC program and ELI.
MAKING BASIC DECISIONS ABOUT THE NEEDS ANALYSIS
Before any needs analysis can take place, curriculum planners must make certain fundamental decisions. Who will be involved in the needs analysis? What types of information should be gathered? Which points of view should be represented? And how might points of view and program philosophy interact?
WHO WILL BE INVOLVED IN THE NEEDS ANALYSIS?
Four categories of people may become involved in a needs analysis: the target group, the audience, the needs analysts themselves, and the resource group While certain individuals may find themselves playing roles in several of these categories, the roles are quite different even when the same person occupies.
The target group is made up of those people about whom information will ultimately be gathered. The usual target group is the students in a program, but sometimes the teachers and/or administrators are also targeted.
The audience for a needs analysis should encompass all people who will eventually be required to act upon the analysis. This group usually consists of teachers, teacher aides, program administrators, and any governing bodies or supervisors in the bureaucracy above the language program.
The needs analysis are those persons responsible for conducting the needs analysis. They may be consultants brought in for the purpose, or members of the faculty designated for the job. In addition to conducting the needs analysis, this group will probably be responsible for identifying the other three groups. The needs analysts as individuals and as a group must be willing to divide up, share, and delegate responsibilities or the entire needs assessment process may prove unrealizable.
The resource group consists of any people who may serve as sources of information about the target group. In some contexts, parents, financial sponsors, or guardians may be included as sources of valuable information about the target group.
WHAT TYPES OF INFORMATION SHOULD BE GATHERED?
Four Philosophies of Needs Assessment
According to Stufflebeam (1977, cited in Stufflebeam, McCormick, Brinkerbof, & Nelson 1985), four divergent philosophies can arise in a needs analysis:
The discrepancy philosophy is one in which needs are viewed as differences, or discrepancies, between a desired performance from the students and what they are actually doing. This might lead to gathering detailed information about what is needed to change students' performance based on the observed difference between the desired correct pronunciation of the English phoneme /p/ and the incorrect phoneme /b/the students are producing in place of it.
The democratic philosophy is one in which a need is defined as any change that is desired by a majority of the group involved. Whether this group consisted of the students themselves, their teachers, program administrators, or the owners of a private, for-profit language school, the democratic philosophy would lead to a needs analysis that would gather information about the learning most desired by the chosen group(s).
In the analytic philosophy a need is whatever the students will naturally learnt next based on what is known about them and the learning process involved : that is, the students are at stage x in their language development, need to learn x+1 or whatever is next in the hierarchy of language development. Thus this philosophy might lead to a survey of the existing literature on second language acquisition in search of the hierarchical steps involved in the language learning process.
Finally, a diagnostic philosophy proposes that a need is anything that would prove harmful if it was missing. This philosophy might lead to an analysis of the important language skills necessary for immigrants to survive in their adopted country. Thus a study might be conducted concerning the daily needs immigrants and then be extended to the types of language required to accomplish such survival needs.
WHICH POINTS OF VIEW SHOULD BE TAKEN?
Situation Needs Versus Language Needs
Objective Needs Versus Subjective Needs
Linguistic Content Versus Learning Process
GATHERING INFORMATION
Richards, Platt, and Weber (1985, P. 189) suggest that a needs assessment seeks information on:
1. The situations in which a language will be used (including who it will be used with)
2.T objectives and purposes for which the language is needed.
3. The types of communication that will be used (e.g., written, spoken, formal, informal)
The level of proficiency that will be required.
TYPES OF QUESTIONS.
In the process of gathering information, different types of questions should be considered. Rossett (1982) identified five categories of questions designed to identify the following: problems, priorities, abilities, attitudes, and solutions.
PROBLEMS
The broadest questions are those that have to do with problems. The purpose of these questions is to identify the problems that are being experienced by the people under assessment in the target group. Questions of this type tend to be very open-ended and exploratory like the following:
1. What problems have you been having with your English when you talk to native speakers at work? (Addressed to the students).
2. What do you think the most pressing problems are for your language students? (Addressed to language teachers)
3. What do you feel is the greatest source of difficulty with English among the foreign students in engineering? (Addressed to subject matter teachers).
What do you think are the greatest fiscal, organizational, and/or physical impediments to learning for the students in your language program? (Addressed to program administrators)
PRIORITIES
Questions of priority investigate which topics, language uses, skills, and so on are considered most important for the target group to learn. Such questions can be asked of any of the resource groups in the program. At a gross level, questions might be asked to find out whether reading, writing, listening, speaking, or grammar skills, needs were considered most essential.
ABILITIES
Ability questions focus on the students themselves, usually to determine the abilities of the students at entry. As I will explain in more detail in Chapter Four, such questions will usually be answered by using pretests designed either to measure the overall language proficiency of students or to diagnose their specific weaknesses. In either case, such information is exceedingly important for establishing a baseline or starting point for the program, as well as for delineating the range of abilities among the students. Both of these issues are in turn important for planning the starting level, scope, and sequence of a program.
ATTITUDES
Attitude questions are created to uncover information about participants' feelings and attitudes toward elements of the program.
SOLUTIONS
The last class of questions elicits ideas for solutions to perceived problems terms of what changes might bring about compromise and resolution. Such questions can also prove politically sound because solutions that are perceived a having come from within the program will tend to have greater backing and continued support than solutions that are perceived as imposed from above or from outside the program.
TYPES OF INSTRUMENTS
Existing Information
Existing information is the easiest category to explain. The purpose of this set of procedures is to utilize any preexisting information that may be available. Exiting information can include data sources within a program (such as files or records that may be on hand when the needs analysis begins), or external data sources (such as library resources or letters exchanged with other existing programs with similar students).
Tests
Observation
Interview
Meetings
Questionnaires
SELECTING AND CREATING PROCEDURES
-Characteristics of Procedures
-Advantages and Disadvantages of Different Procedures
CONSIDERATIONS SPECIFIC TO LANGUAGE NEEDS ANALYSIS
Discourse Analysis
Texts Analysis.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar