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SUMITTED TO:
ASIFA SULTANA
SENIOR LECTURER
BRAC UNIVERSITY
SUBMITTED BY:
Abstract
speaking and listening skill. The paper is divided into two parts. The first part talks of
procedure conducted for needs assessment and in second part, a course syllabus and related
materials established based on those needs assessment. The target group was pre-intermediate
students (class ten) aged around 15 to 17.The survey conducted in15 students of The
Viqarunnisa Noon School & College where all the participant were female. Test, observation
and questionnaire were used as method of analyzing and assessing. Both primary and secondary
research has been conducted. Data collected from both manual source (such as textbook) and
Introduction
The purpose of this study was to examine the English language need of teaching speaking and
knowing good English is one of the burning needs for the students. When Bangla medium
schools are not good enough for serving this purpose, English medium schools are introduced.
Fortunately, English medium schools have proved effective in this purpose. On the other hand,
English medium schools are creating a breach between mass people of our country. It is quite
natural that as English medium schools doing something more than traditional teaching.
Therefore, the maintenance cost is also high which is not in the grasp of mass people. In spite of
knowing the stander maintained in English medium schools, they are unable to admit their
children there because of high costing. Though Bangla medium schools are giving much for
teaching L2, but neglecting an important feature of language learning, that is, communicative
skills (speaking and listening). For this reason, their (students of Bangla medium schools)
communicating comprehend and sing level in English is not usually that high as that of students
and listening skill tilted as Oral English for students of Bangla medium in a hope of making
the situation better for them (students of Bangla medium schools). This is a very short course,
with limited but focused syllabus, that we are expecting to be included in the syllabus of pre-
English, the lessons and classroom activities will be student centered and students will be
To investigate needs of students is a necessary part for establishing any course. For this reason,
we conducted our needs assessment with a similar group (pre-intermediate) at The Viqarunnisa
Noon School & College located in 1/A New Bailey Road, Dhaka, is one of most promising
schools in Dhaka city. The needs assessment was conducted among 15 students of class 10 of
this school to identify their present proficiency level and their needs or achievements that they
and the stakeholders (especially parents) looking forward to. This study tried to get as close
investigation as possible to detect the target groups needs because for the succession of course it
As an EGP course, it has particular importance in educational purpose. Our planned course will
help student to overcome the speaking and listening weakness. There is a significant distinction
between students of English medium and Bangla medium in our country. The succession of this
course will help in a great extent to lessen this inequality. Furthermore, to get answer of this
crucial question-Is this course a real need of the target group?, we collect information from
stakeholders including parents, teachers, previous students and target students (appendix 3).
A NEED ASSESSEMENT STUDY ON SPEAKING AND LISTENING SKILL 5
Literature review:
Need Analysis(NA) is the essential step in foreign language curriculum design. David Nunan
argues that NA is the starting point of the design of a syllabus or a curriculum. It is a significant
importance to design a focused course which caters to the needs of different stakeholders,
including learners and language teaching institutions. This paper will review of the definition of
The main purposes of needs analysis are to find out language skills a learner need to learn. It
should be something he or she can carry ;For example, university student - college students.
Needs analysis help to identify a gap between these two level of students. NA will determine
what collage students already know and they should learn next. Thus, the study of needs analysis
includes external and present needs as well as possible and unrecognized needs. Needs analysis
provides teachers and learners an outline about the courses by exchanging information on
learners needs and assess them for their improvement. Learners needs give directions to
teachers in selecting the effective activities and materials. As a result, needs analyses are an
important part of language program development and evaluation for the students. Therefore,
more needs analyses are necessary to define different students and teachers needs in addition to
Needs Analysis focused on identifying learners' real world communicative requirements so that
courses could be designed reflecting these and preparing users for their future use of the target
A NEED ASSESSEMENT STUDY ON SPEAKING AND LISTENING SKILL 6
language.Need Analysis mainly focus on the syllabus of the students. These students can be
beginner, lower intermediate, pre intermediate, intermediate adult learners etc. Needs Analysis
may be changed by the basis of students needs.Needs Analysis mainly work on improvement the
syllabus of the students. What they need to learn, which method should be appropriate for them,
what types of learner are they etc. these types of questions are element of the NA.
Various authors have discussed the different meanings of NA, according to Widdowson, needs
refer to the present and future requirements of learners, what they expect to learn when they
finish the language course. Widdowson mainly wanted to say that NA not only focus on the
syllabus of the learners but also work for upgrade the syllabus and try to fulfill the needs of the
students and stakeholders also. No matter what needs are considered to be, objectives should be
Firstly, in order to test students listening capability we asks students to listen three audio clips
that are classified in three levels as easy, medium and hard. We take this test after their last class
with permission of their teacher. This test takes overall 12 minutes. We divided the test sessions
in two sections each. In the first section we hear them an audio clip with duration of 2 minutes.
In second section, we provide them a written script of the audio clip in a fill in the gap manner
where students should fill five gaps in 2 minutes. We repeated these sequences for three times as
test is taken on three different levels - easy, medium, and hard. Students were expected to listen
every word pronounced in audio clip and to complete a fill in the gaps on that vary aural snip.
The difficulty level was set on word level. For example- the word day is easier to comprehend
or guess than the word expand. The purpose of this test is to examining whether students
comprehending the audio clip and how sharp is their comprehension capability.
For examining speaking proficiency level, we conducted in-class observation of students of class
10 in The Viqarunnisa Noon School & College. Observation for detecting needs is an
objective process of needs assessment. Furthermore, it is quite time consuming and troublesome.
For a direct observation, we request some students after their school to cooperate us. For this
A NEED ASSESSEMENT STUDY ON SPEAKING AND LISTENING SKILL 8
section, we kept earlier 15 students who participate in the listening test. We asked them to
present address, family member and likes and dislikes. We evaluate them on three bases - their
pronunciation accuracy, fluency level and appropriate use of grammar, to find out what is the
However, for the sake of having more needs that are genuine information, we conduct a
questionnaire among the 15 students. The questionnaire was created with qualitative and
quantitative questions. The survey began with five of open-ended and close-ended questions
related to speaking needs in English language courses. Following next five questions are written
in likert scale format, which are the evaluation of the present speaking proficiency level. Rests of
the questions are categorized in multiple systems to identify the solutions of speaking obstacle as
well as writing skills. The students were asked to complete all questions and give their own
opinion. A short survey with scale questions and a few open-ended questions was chosen due to
time constraints. Before designing the course, the survey result will be reviewed by the course
designer. The survey was administered in the school premises at the end of class within 15
minutes.
A NEED ASSESSEMENT STUDY ON SPEAKING AND LISTENING SKILL 9
Findings:
From the results of the study, a number of important facts could be found. Those are:
The learners level of proficiency in the target language is not satisfactory. Therefore,
proficiency.
The stakeholders as well as the target group have positive attitude towards a course on
SamimaAkter 8 10 7 10 6 10 7
SaimaAkter 7 10 7 10 6 10 6.67
As we give the list of the students and their scores, the scores vary in every test of the students.
Their scores are not that much satisfactory. However, our education system is now running
creative learning process, but schools, especially bangla mudium, are not following this process
5
4.5
4
3.5
3
2.5 Pronounciation
2
1.5 Use of grammer
1 Fluency
0.5
0
A grade students B grade students C grade students
A NEED ASSESSEMENT STUDY ON SPEAKING AND LISTENING SKILL 11
On the ground of speaking evaluation, we divided students in 3 categories for making the result
easily understandable. Students are divided as their performance level, student who perform
comparably better were placed in A category, who performed less efficiently placed in B
category and whose performed least impressively were placed in C category. It was not so
successful methods because we observe many students to imitate the same structure. Some other
students could not even say more than two lines. However, this does not mean that they are not
capable of speaking. This can also mean that they are not feeling comfortable in speaking in
front of the students. The most frustrating thing in observing objectively was lack of students
Discussion:
communicative English language course. We have talk to parents, teachers and previous students
to get suggestions and tested students to check validity of the course. Based on survey and test
our country is burning need. The learners had previous experiences of learning English for
about10 years. Still their level of proficiency in English was not so good. However, they were
better in writing than speaking. They need to learn English to set a level as English medium
students. Thereby, focus should be given only on speaking and listening skill. Hence, they
should be exposed to extensive listening and speaking practices inside and outside
A NEED ASSESSEMENT STUDY ON SPEAKING AND LISTENING SKILL 12
classroom. Accordingly, role-play, group work, pair conversation, discussion, problem solving
task and preparatory or impromptu presentation can be introduced as class activities. On other
hand, textbooks, work sheet, audio and video clip, internet resource can be selected as teaching
materials.
Some limitations were found in the course of the study. The study is conducted in very small and
similar group. More teachers and students from diverse groups could reflect different results for
the study. Therefore, major findings can be doubted and even seem inappropriate in other
context. Listening and speaking are psychological phenomenon that takes place on a cognitive
level inside peoples heads, to test this cognitive process long time test and observation needed.
However, the need assessment was too time limited to consider those sorts of critical analysis.
Besides this, variety of responses from survey could not be included elaborately in the finding
section; rather it was a mere representation repeated and common reaction by majority of people.
In conclusion, it could be commented that to improve the ELT situation in Bangla medium
schools in Bangladesh, curriculum guidelines need to be changed and all the strands of English
should be included in the assessment process. Therefore, some reformations in the examination
well-trained teachers are essential steps to the success of these reformations. Ideally, the Ministry
of Education should form a committee of the experts to identify national needs related to
A NEED ASSESSEMENT STUDY ON SPEAKING AND LISTENING SKILL 13
education, including the development of a national education policy keeping in mind the
References
Discussion of research findings. (n.d). Retrieved from
https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/sites/default/files/research_gateway_section7_discussion_
of_findings.pdf
Juan, L.I. (2014). Literature Review of the Classifications of "Needs" in Needs Analysis Theory,
http://www.journals.aiac.org.au/index.php/IJELS/article/view/535/447/
http://www.developingteachers.com/articles_tchtraining/clilpf_richard.htm.
A NEED ASSESSEMENT STUDY ON SPEAKING AND LISTENING SKILL 15
Appendix
1.1) Easy:
Thanksgiving Day is a harvest festival that is celebrated in the U.S. and Canada. Historically,
Thanksgiving was intended to give thanks to God, but more recently has become a more secular
holiday. In the U.S., Thanksgiving is observed on the fourth Thursday in November and in
[Source: internet]
1.2) Medium:
Providing fun and artistic projects for younger students is vital. As they expand and deepen their
knowledge of important topics, it is also valuable to allow them to let their creative juices flow.
Use various resources to help your students learn about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.Provide
students with black, brown, white, and blue construction paper, along with several photos of
MLK, Jr. Students will create a portrait of this great American hero.
[Source: internet]
1.3) Hard:
Using various resources such as library books, textbooks, and/or the Internet, students learn
about the life and accomplishments of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Students then write their
A NEED ASSESSEMENT STUDY ON SPEAKING AND LISTENING SKILL 16
personal dreams for the world. They may use notebook paper or a word processor to create their
work. When completed, they cut their writing page into the shape of a cloud; mount it onto a
piece of colored tag board or construction paper, cut that paper into a cloud shape as well,
display. You can add your own white clouds to the display
[Source: internet]
2.1) Easy:
a more secular ... In the U.S., Thanksgiving is observed on the fourth Thursday in
2.2) Medium:
.. fun and artistic . for younger students is vital. As they expand and deepen their
knowledge of important topics, it is also valuable to allow them to let their creative juices flow.
Use various .. to help your students learn about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.Provide
students with black, brown, white, and blue .. paper, along with several photos of MLK, Jr.
2.3) Hard:
Using various resources such as library books, textbooks, and/or the Internet, students learn
about the life and . of Dr. .., Jr. Students then write their personal dreams for the
A NEED ASSESSEMENT STUDY ON SPEAKING AND LISTENING SKILL 17
world. They may use notebook paper or a word . to create their work. When completed,
they cut their writing page into the shape of a cloud; mount it onto a piece of colored tag board or
. paper, cut that paper into a cloud shape as well, display. You can add your own white
to the display
3. Questionnaire
This questionnaire is part of an academic research. Your cooperation will aid the research. The
researcher promises to maintain strict confidentiality of your information. Please put a tick on the
Age:
Gender:
Profession:
a) Yes
b) No
If yes, why
a) Yes
A NEED ASSESSEMENT STUDY ON SPEAKING AND LISTENING SKILL 18
b) No
If no, why
Yes
No
a) Yes
b) No
If yes, why
a) Yes
b) No
If no, why..
Evaluate yourself answering questions (with tick mark) about your current speaking proficiency
1 2 3 4 5
7. Pronunciation accuracy
8. Speaking fluency
preparation
12. Why do you think speaking course is helpful for pre-intermediate students?
In this section, you can select more than one choice -----
What is the biggest lacking in the teaching of communicative English in Bangla Medium
schools?
a. Method c. Curriculum
c) Appreciate speaking
19. For a positive effect what should the duration of the course?
a) 3 months c) 6 months
b) 4 months d) Yearly
e)
As it was mentioned earlier, the purpose of designing this course it to lessen language
competence differences between English medium students and bangla medium students.
Therefore, the target group of this course is the students of pre-intermediate who wants to
improve their language competence in a environment which specially set for this purpose. As it
is an EGP course that only concentrating on speaking and listening competence, the goals and
Speaking goals:
improve fluency
Speaking objectives:
To enable them how to introduce themselves including topics like personal information,
To teach them how to ask for information and give information using full sentence.
To improve their speaking by providing vocabulary sheet and other necessary phrase,
To involve them in various kind of activities such as, class participation, instant role-play
Listening goals:
To develop students listening skill; such as ability to skimming, scanning and inferencing
teaching how to scan, skim and inference details from a audio or video item
Listening objectives:
and synonyms
To make them able to interpret something through listening even though they do not
know the meaning of every word used in it ( word level-sentence level message level)
A NEED ASSESSEMENT STUDY ON SPEAKING AND LISTENING 23
Course Syllabus
Course name: Oral English
Total class: 14
Structure and Preplanned and Selected and well organized Excellent thoughtful
content organized vocal delivery of thought with representation of speech
presentation with time management with proper and efficient
traditional starting and introduction and conclusion
ending
Style Used note though hard Spoke in a natural way ,but True Confident was
work reflects through used note for extra details noticeable
presentation
Fluency and good Very good excellent
spontaneity
Accuracy good Very good excellent
Communication Eye contact Eye contact and body Eye contact , gesture and
with audience language able to involve audience
The syllabus designed focus giving on functions, activities, vocabulary and sentence
building. As it is an English speaking and listening course for real life use, most of the
activities and functions used in it are an artificial version of real life activity.
A NEED ASSESSEMENT STUDY ON SPEAKING AND LISTENING 29
In this course, direct method is used to teach students. it is chosen to ensure students
exposure to L2.Though it is hard for students to learn through direct use of L2 it fastens the
learning procedure.
Lessons are organized in a way the every week students will learn something in both
speaking and listening skill. Instead of teaching speaking and listening grossly, we tried to
teach it hand by hand. This process will help students connect speaking task and listening
Weekly test are mandatory to evaluate students improvement and to revise knowledge taught
in former classes.
A NEED ASSESSEMENT STUDY ON SPEAKING AND LISTENING 30
Material Design
Material can be defined as tools used in classroom and outside the class to teach a particular
lesson or unit. Material is board concept, which varies, in different context and different method.
cultural components, components of phonetics and phonology all are included. Materials are two
types pedagogical material and authentic material. Pedagogical materials are those which
particular designed for teaching(ex; text book) and real life things that used to teach are known
as authentic materials(ex; conversation, talk show etc.). According to Nunan (1989:54), authentic
material is any material which has not been specifically produced for the purpose of language
teaching.
comprise with 15 students, aged from 15 to 17. The learners are especially from bangla medium
background. The target teaching language is English/ all from Bangladesh. The course is for very
short period (one month) where the class meets thrice a week and the duration for each meeting
is 90 minutes. Lessons are organized in a way that a test will be taken at the end of every week.
As direct method is chosen for teaching, no use of L1 is allowed in the classroom. Materials used
are authentic materials while both authentic and pedagogical task are included.
Lesson
Day 1 Warm Up: Teacher will greet the students, ask Greeting
Introduce yourself
about their holidays, and wait for all the students to
Asking and giving
come. Teacher will break the ice in the first class and
information about person,
make a friendly environment that student feel his family, likes, dislikes
and aims in life using
motivated to speak up in the class.
complete sentences.
Day 2 Engagement: After the first class students will Day 2 lesson plan mainly
prepare themselves for their class work. Teacher will focuses on speaking skills of
give them some topic through which they will the students. Teacher will give
prepare a small presentation. In this way teacher will those topics (sports, hobbies,
list up the students skills and also can prepare his/her vacations, journey, culture etc.)
lesson plan for the students for upcoming classes. and observe their speaking
easy way.
Day 3 Engagement: On the third day, teacher will Show them audio/video clip
introduce the students with the listening lesson plans. and give some work sheets to
How they need to perform in the listening lesson solve, teacher will help them.
plan teacher will describe first. Then teacher will From this, they will know
show a demo listening lesson plan and will help about the native pronunciation,
A NEED ASSESSEMENT STUDY ON SPEAKING AND LISTENING 32
Day 4 Engagement: Again on forth day teacher will work Teacher will divide them into
on speaking lessons. In this class teacher will groups. They will know about
introduce a new speaking lesson plan, like- picture the group work. The students
describing. Teacher will make students in pair/group will feel motivated to give their
and give each pair/group one picture and they have best. Teacher will give them
to describe that picture in front of the class. If the various types of picture through
students work in groups then each student will get which the students can use their
1or 2 minutes to say about the picture. As they will imagination and make new
make a short story based on that picture. By this way story in a short time.
Day 5 Practice: As the teacher introduced about the Teacher will give them activity
listening lesson plan in the first listening class, so and set a specific time for the
this class will mainly focus on their listening task. The students will do the
practice. Teacher will give them activity and set a tasks, like- fill in the blank,
specific time for the task. The students will do the find out the unknown
tasks, like- fill in the blank, find out the unknown vocabulary, difficult
Day 6 Practice: As the students already did two of the Students will choose their own
speaking classes, they are now known with the topics and teacher observe their
speaking lessons. Now this speaking practice lesson performance, skills, grammar,
class teacher will ask students to choose the topic as pronunciation and choice of
their own, because in the first class teacher choose vocabulary. After that teacher
the topics for the students. In this class teacher gives will give them feedback about
opportunity to the students to choose their own topic their performance and give
Day 7 Practice: Third day of listening practice teacher will Teacher will give them activity
now give little bit hard tasks to the students. Teacher and also set a specific time for
will give them activity and also set a specific time the task. The students will do
for the task. The students will do the tasks, like- fill the tasks, like- fill in the blank,
in the blank, find out the unknown vocabulary, find out the unknown
pronunciation etc.
A NEED ASSESSEMENT STUDY ON SPEAKING AND LISTENING 34
Day 8 Practice: In this speaking class teacher will ask the Again picture describing, but
students to collect some pictures for their speaking his time students will choose
class. Teacher will collect all the pictures and shuffle the pictures and select them for
them. After that again teacher will set the students in their presentation.
Day 9 Practice: Again this class will set up for listening Learning process will be same
lesson plan. This time listening lesson plan will also as before but the task will be
be little bit harder than before. Tasks will be harder harder, as it is ongoing process.
Day 10 Practice: Speaking practice will go on like before. Teacher will provide students
Teacher will give them cue card and ask them for cue cards and this time students
will help students to cut off their shyness, will feel to presentation.
Day 11 Practice: Listening practice will go harder this time. Audio tasks given.
Day 12 Practice: Speaking practice will be given this time Work in pair.
of others.
Conclusion:
Syllabus design is a compact work where involves analyzing, assessing, investigating, planning
and organizing, lacking in any of these works can make great effect overall curriculum. Knowing
this fact, we have gone through all the process and have used all sorts of methods, strategies and
hypotheses needed for the syllabus establishment. Based on need assessment, we have planned
this course so that we can meet both the needs of students and the expectations their parents. The
syllabus and materials used in this course are worth for purpose. As we believe teaching
speaking and listening skills means enable someone to converse in a practical context, we have
focus more on activities and spontaneous performance. Most of speaking and listening test are
planned in a manner that students could perform easily. Vocabulary and sentence structures were
A NEED ASSESSEMENT STUDY ON SPEAKING AND LISTENING 36
taught as supporting material. Material and task used are authentic and taken from the real life
activity.
A course like this should be included in the curriculum of Bangla medium schools for pre-
medium school is going backwarded because of the curriculum which gives no or very little
as a great degree, our government schools or other less expensive schools are entirely ignoring
these skills. Therefore, this is high time to move on from traditional teaching system to
standardized systems and use standardized method for better improvement of the students.
A NEED ASSESSEMENT STUDY ON SPEAKING AND LISTENING 37
Reference
Bourke, James M.,(2006). Designing a topic-based syllabus for young learners. ELT Journal,
60/3 , (n. p), doi:10.1093/elt/ccl008
Heinle& Heinle.
Su, Shao-Wen.(2011). A Content-based English Listening and Speaking Class for Hospitality
Purposes,Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 1, 935-940, doi:10.4304/tpls.1.8.935-
940
A NEED ASSESSEMENT STUDY ON SPEAKING AND LISTENING 38
Appendix
Speaking teaching materials:
a)Video on Self-Introduction :
https://youtu.be/dOlCQrRraMA
b)Picture description:
c) Map description:
A NEED ASSESSEMENT STUDY ON SPEAKING AND LISTENING 39
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL0sDXCzRu0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL0sDXCzRu0
Activity: 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB1qS1_DpY8&list=PL5798543EBC1F48DC&index=
2
Topic :
Number of speaker:
Main theme:
A NEED ASSESSEMENT STUDY ON SPEAKING AND LISTENING 40
Activity: 2
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fesl.about.com%2Flibrary%2Flistening%2
A) The shop is a mess B) She is nervous C) she doesn't have her glasses
A) 2 B) 4 C) 3
Activity: 3
Are these news was in the audio clip, if yes give tick mark , otherwise give cross sign