A.
Introduction
With the
advent of the communicative approach, views on language teaching started to
incorporate communicative features into syllabus design. Accordingly, a central
question has been raised: what does the learner need/want to do with the target language? Rather
than, what
are the linguistic elements the learner needs to master? This movement
has led in part to the development of English for Specific Purpose.
In order to
cater for the learners’ specific purpose, it has become urgent to collect
information about the learners: their needs and wants. Therefore, relevant
techniques as well as procedures have been developed by needs analysts. These techniques
have been borrowed and adopted from other areas of training, particularly,
those associated with industry and technology.
In conducting
needs analysis, a variety of procedures can be applied and the kind of information obtained is often dependent on the type
of procedure selected. Since any one source of information is likely to be
incomplete or partial, a triangular
approach (i.e., collecting information from two or more sources) is
advisable. Thereby, many different sources of information should be sought.
Richards (2001: 59, 1st paragraph)
Thus,
this paper is going to focus on the procedures for conducting needs analysis.
B.
Discussion
The writer thinks that needs analysis was introduced
into language teaching through the English for Specific Purposes (ESP).
Therefore, based on the writer’s experience during studying ESP in S1, the
common procedures for conducting needs analysis namely as follows:
1.
Test: proficiency test, placement test,
diagnostic test, achievement test
2.
Interview, and
3.
Questionnaires.
