CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background Of The Paper

The term curriculum refers to the lessons and academic content taught in a

school or in a specific course or program. In dictionaries, curriculum is often
defined as the courses offered by a school, but it is rarely used in such a
general sense in schools. Depending on how broadly educators define or
employ the term, curriculum typically refers to the knowledge and skills
students are expected to learn, which includes the learning
standards or learning objectives they are expected to meet; the units and
lessons that teachers teach; the assignments and projects given to students; the
books, materials, videos, presentations, and readings used in a course; and the
tests, assessments, and other methods used to evaluate student learning. An
individual teacher’s curriculum, for example, would be the specific learning
standards, lessons, assignments, and materials used to organize and teach a
particular course.
In many cases, teachers develop their own curricula, often refining and
improving them over years, although it is also common for teachers to adapt
lessons and syllabi created by other teachers, use curriculum templates and
guides to structure their lessons and courses, or purchase prepackaged
curricula from individuals and companies. In some cases, schools purchase
comprehensive,multigrade curriculum packages often in a particular subject
area, such as mathematics that teachers are required to use or follow.
Curriculum may also encompass a school’s academic requirements for
graduation, such as the courses students have to take and pass, the number of
credits students must complete, and other requirements, such as completing

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 a capstone project or a certain number of community-service hours. Generally
speaking, curriculum takes many different forms in schools.

1.2. Problem Formulation

1. What is needs analysis ?

2. What is the focuses of needs analysis ?
3. How to purposes needs analysis ?

1.1 Purpose Of The Paper

1. To know about needs analysis
2. To know about the focuses of needs analysis
3. To know about the purposes of needs analysis

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 CHAPTER II
THEORY AND DISCUSSION

A. Definition Of Need Analysis

a. What are needs?

Learners often find it difficult to define what language needs they have and cannot
distinguish between needs, wants and lacks. who made a distinction between
needs (the skills which a student sees as being relevant to himself or herself),
wants (those needs on which students put a high priority in the available, limited
time or in other words it is what learner feels she/he needs), and lacks (the
difference between the students present competence and the desired competence
or what learner does not know). who advocate a learning-centered approach in
which learners’ learning needs play a vital role. If the analyst, by means of target
situation analysis, tries to find out what learners do with language, then learning
needs analysis will tell us “what the learner needs to do in order to learn
(Hutchinson and Water, 1987).

b. The users of needs analysis

A needs analysis may be conducted for a variety of different users. For example,
in conducting a needs analysis to help revise the secondary English curriculum in
a country, the end users include curriculum officers in the ministry education, who
may wish to use the information to evaluate the adequacy of existing syllabus,
curriculum, and materials; teachers who will teach from the new curriculum;
learners, who will be taught from the curriculum; writers, who are preparing new
textbooks; testing personnel, who are involved in developing end-of-school
assessment; and staff of tertiary institutions, who are interested in knowing what
the expected level will be of students existing the schools and what problems they
face.

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Determining the likely audiences is an important first step in planning a needs
analysis in order to ensure that the information they needs is obtained and that the
needs analysis will have the impact it is designed to have. Therefore, the
audiences might be involved in small-case needs analysis such as done by a single
teacher on his or her class would consist of the teacher, other teachers, and the
program coordinator.

Needs analysis, involving the identification and evaluation of needs, is a tool for
decision making in the human services and education. Decisions can be varied,
including such as resource allocation, grant funding, and planning. In other words,
needs assessment is a process of evaluating the problems and solutions identified
for a target population. In this process, it emphasizes the importance and
relevance of the problems and solutions.is really about defining who the users are,
defining their tasks and goals, their experience levels, what functions they want
and need from a system, what information they want and need and understanding
how the users think the system should work. User-centered design has also been
linked to the identification of required job performance skills, the assessment of
prospective trainees’ skills and the development of objectives.

Put simply, whereas requirements analysis focuses on the elements needed to be

represented in the system, needs analysis focuses on the requirements related to
the goals, aspirations and needs of the users and/or the user community and feeds
them into the system requirement analysis process. The main purpose of needs
analysis is the user's satisfaction.

As it focuses on the needs of the human, needs analysis is not limited to

addressing the requirements of just software, but can be applied to any domain,
such as automotive, consumer product or services such as banking. Although it is
not a business development tool, it can be used to help in the development of a
business case. The example :

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  campus facilities affect student reactivity

Quality education comes from the right learning process in the classroom.
This can be measured from a variety of variables, ranging from the
establishment of effective communication between lecturers and students,
academic support facilities, and efficient management of service
performance. one of the success of the learning process lies in the effective
and efficient utilization of learning facilities. If these aspects are fulfilled,
the success of the learning process has a great chance.

Management of academic support facilities is one of the keys to success in

improving learning productivity because with the use of appropriate
learning facilities, educators will be easier to deliver learning material, and
students will more easily accept the material. In addition, students can also
train themselves to play an active role in learning by utilizing learning
facilities as a medium of communication. Utilization of learning facilities
is very important to achieve learning objectives.

object facilities can be in the form of a library, to support student

knowledge and make it easier to find references in making papers. And
and also a large parking area, can make it easier for students to secure their
respective vehicles without worry and give the impression of neatness to
the campus environment.

B. Focuses of Needs Analysis

Needs analysis is a process of collecting and analyzing information about learners

in order to set goals and contents of a language curriculum based on their needs. It
examines what learners already know and what they need to know. Many scholars
indicate that knowing about learners’ needs such as “their learning objectives,
language attitudes, expectations from the course” are necessary in order to design
an efficient curriculum. By gathering such information, therefore, the needs

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analysis can guarantee that the course will contain the relevant and useful things
for students to learn.

There is a wide range of information that can be gathered in needs analysis.

According to Hutchinson and Waters as cited in Nation & Macalister (2010),
needs are divided into target needs and learning needs. They suggest that the
information of target needs can be analyzed by looking at: “necessities, lacks and
wants” (Nation & Macalister, 2010). Besides that, they also make another major
division to collect the data of needs. There are present knowledge and required
knowledge, and objective needs and subjective needs. Hence, they roughly make a
pair that “lacks fit into present knowledge, necessities fit into required knowledge,
and wants fit into subjective needs”.

According to Dudley-Evans, needs analysis holds some aspects that include target
analysis, the present situation analysis and the learning needs analysis. The
present situation analysis deals with the identification of learners’ ‟ weaknesses or
lacks‟. Meanwhile, the target and learning needs are also known as the objective
needs and the subjective needs. The analysis of target or objective needs looks
into the requirements of the language used in the contexts where the course
participants likely have to use English. The learning or subjective needs analysis
examines the learners’ perceptions toward what the course should be like. In other
words, the analysis of objective needs should reveal the language skills or the
language focus that should be developed more so that learners are able to cope
with the target situation in the future. In addition, such learning styles and
expectation of learners cannot be ignored in the organization of courses as they
might foster their learning.

Other information that is necessarily identified is about students’ necessities, lacks

and wants. Firstly, necessities deal with “what the learner has to know in order to
function effectively in the target situation”. As the illustration, if the purpose of
the course is to prepare students to enter the university, the needs analyst should

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analyze the kind of language needed to do assignments or used in every day
university class. Such information about the language element that is mostly
demanded can be gathered though interview with the university students who are
considered having enough experience on the target situation.

Secondly, according to Nation and Macalister (2010), lacks analysis involves

looking at where the learners are at the present. It can comprise what is being
learners’ strengths and weakness on the target language. There are several ways of
gathering this information: 1) looking at the documents of students’ learning
product in the previous; 2) interviewing the teacher who is responsible of giving
marks or grades; 3) interviewing the students on how they perceive the
assignment and how they deal with it; and 4) providing test that measures the
language proficiency of students.

Lastly, Nation and Macalister (2010) also describe “wants” as what the learners
view about what they need and what they think useful for them. Regarding this
element, Berwick and  Brindleyas cited in Kaewpet (2009) state that the learners’
needs of English depend on “various expectations, interpretations and individual
value judgments”. On the other hand, Vandermeeren as cited in (Kaewpet, 2009)
points out that the researchers or the needs analysts also have attitudes concerning
language needs, “which inevitably influence their choice of objectives and
interpretation of the findings”. Since this type of information is subjective, it
should be seen whether the learners’ views and the needs analyst’s views are the
same or not. It is therefore important to ensure that the interpretation is taken from
the various perspectives, which might consist of the learners, teachers, and
institutions.

There are a number of tools for collecting the information in this needs analysis.
Nation and Macalister (2010) said that “information about objective needs can be
gathered by questionnaires, personal interviews, documentation (for example,
gathering exam papers or text books and analyzing them), observation (for

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example, following a learner through a typical day), informal consultation with
teachers and learners, and tests. Subjective needs are discovered through learner
self assessment using lists and scales, and questionnaires and interviews”. As the
example, some of the tools were employed by Kayl (2008) in his case study on
“Developing an ESL Curriculum Based on Needs and Situation Analysis”. In
order to collect the data, he observed students in an adult ESL program, gave
students questionnaires to determine their needs, and then interviewed the teacher
with the same purpose.

Furthermore, Kaewpet (2009) claimed that “learner needs should be analyzed on

an ongoing basis because they are likely to change over time, depending on
contextual and human affective variables”. Nation and Macalister (2010) also said
the similar that the times of needs analysis can include needs analysis before a
course begins, needs analysis in the initial stages of a course, and ongoing needs
analysis during the running of the course. Petrova (2008) added that the needs
analysis should be conducted before the course begins if nothing is known about
the target learners. On the other hand, if the purpose of needs analysis is
“evaluating and revising the program”, it is reasonable to conduct it when the
course is over. Thus, the needs analysis can be carried out in the particular time,
depending on its purposes.

C. Purposes of Needs Analysis

  Needs analysis is an initial step in designing a course which motivates
the subsequentcourse activities through its validity and relevancy. According to
Richards (2002), “on his discussion toward needs analysis, says that the first step
in conducting a needs analysis is to decide exactly what its purpose or purposes
are”. The following are some of the major purposes of needs analysis:
 
1. To find out the required skills a learner needs in order to perform a
particular role atwork place.

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 2. To examine the existing curriculum whether it adequately addresses the
needs of potential students.
3. To know the needs of a particular category of learners in order to train
them in aspecific skill.
4. To discover the gap between needs and abilities.
5. To collect information about a particular problem learners are
experiencing.
6. Information about the learners related to their purpose of pursuing a
learning program.Their attitude to learning English language, their
previous learning experiences,cultural background should also form a part
of this information gathering process.
7. To assess the effectiveness of the prevailing program.
8. Information regarding the preferred styles of learning or learning needs,
importanceof particular skills for the learners, role relationship between te
acher and learners, preferences for teaching learning activities etc.
Such information should include the anticipated outcomes or outlooks of a high
quality program, the role of assessment, the current status of learner’s success and
the content ofactual program. It also considers the concerns and attitudes of
teachers, administrators, parents and also the learners. While the data should
include samples of assessments, lessonsfrom teachers, assignments, scores on
state standardized tests, textbooks currently usedstudent perception and feedback
from parents. Mentioning the users of the needs analysis,Richards, (2002) has
expressed his view:A needs analysis may be conducted for a variety of different
users. Forexample, in conducting a needs analysis to help revise the secondary
Englishcurriculum in a country, the end users include curriculum officers in
theministry education, who may wish to use the information to evaluate
theadequacy of existing syllabus, curriculum, and materials; teachers who
willteach from the new curriculum; learners, who will be taught from
thecurriculum; writers, who are preparing new textbooks; testing personnel,
whoare involved in developing end-of-school assessment; and staff of

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tertiaryinstitutions, who are interested in knowing what the expected level will be
ofstudents existing the schools and what problems they face.

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 CHAPTER III

CONCLUSION

Basically, needs analysis is like a research that is carried out to find out the
information and answers of certain questions that are being asked. To conduct
needs analysis, it is important to set the questions and purposes as soon as
possible then use these as the guide in choosing the methods and tools for data
collections. Good needs analysis involves asking the right questions and finding
the answers in the most effective way (Nation & Macalister, 2010).

Good needs analysis covers a range of information of needs using a range of data
collection tools. Because needs are not always clear and are likely changing, it is
important that needs are gathered from the multiple perspectives at a variety of
times. The perspectives can vary according to the type of needs, the source of
information, the type of information and the tools for gathering the data. Overall,
needs analysis are useful and helpful in providing a range of information that is
used as a guide for the course design, syllabus design or curriculum development.

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 REFERENCES

Bourke,j.m. (2006). Designing a topic based syllabus for young learners. ELT
journal,60(3), 279-286

Benesch, .S. (1996). Needs Analysis and Curriculum Development in EAP: An

Example of a Critical Approach. TESOL Quarterly, 30 (4), 723-738.

Kaewpet, C. (2009). A Framework for Investigating Learner Needs: Needs

Analysis Extended to Curriculum Development. Electronic Journal of Foreign
Language Teaching, 6 (2), 209-220.

Kaur, S. (2007). ESP Course Design: Matching Learner Needs to Aims. English

for Specific Purposes, 6(1).

Kayl, H. (2008). Developing an ESL Curriculum Based on Needs and Situation

Analysis: A Case Study. Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies, 4 (1), 29-49.

Nation, I.S.P., & Macalister, J. (2010). Language Curriculum Design. New York:

Routledge.

Petrova, I. (2008). Need Analysis as a Starting Point for Designing A Syllabus for
English for Specific Purposes Course. MA Thesis. University of Tartu Department
Of English Language And Literature.

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