Needs analysis (ESP) Communicative language needs for your job ? Please try to answer the following questions You can do it individually or in small groups

Your job / professional activities 1 How often do you read coursebooks other than the one you use? What do you read them for?   2 Would it be useful to be able to read journal articles about language teaching? How good are you at this? Fluent? Manage with difficulty? Too hard / don’t try? 3 Would it help your teaching to search on-line for www ideas and materials? How good are you at this? Fluent? Manage? Too hard? 4 Do you design and write materials for your learners? No problems? Need someone to help / check? Would avoid / too hard? 5 Would you like to be able to write articles of journals like ELTJ? Alone? Collaboratively? Do you need help with various stages of this process? Generating ideas? Planning content? Organising ideas? Writing up?

6 Are you likely to do empirical curriculum research and development in your future job? Materials evaluation and design? Course design? Test design? Collaborative action research, e.g. for solving problems and deficiencies? Any other kind of research, such as SLA, learning styles, etc.? Would you do such research alone or collaboratively?   7 For which aspects of such research would you use English? Literature review? designing research project? Collecting data? Analysing and discussing findings? Discussing with colleagues? Writing up reports? If you would use English do you need to improve any of these skills? Which? 8 Might you be asked to lead school based in-service training / teacher development sessions? Would you be expected / like to do this in English? How easy / difficult would this be at the moment? Could you easily address your colleagues in English? Present new ideas? Discuss theory and practice? Organise training tasks? Orgainse and provide feedback? Answer questions? 9 Might you be asked to supervise beginning teachers? When discussing lessons would you use English? How easy is it to talk about teaching and learning in English? What are the difficulties?

Academic reading   When you read a book or article about ESOL, do you: a) read it quickly first before deciding whether to read it carefully? b) use a dictionary much? c) guess the meaning of many words? d) take notes in handwriting? e) mark and / or copy sections? f) read aloud?

h) question the evidence and its sources? i) read on screen ? g) question the arguments and assumptions?   h) question the evidence and its sources? i) read on screen ? j) cut and paste sections into a file? k) follow up on author’s references? l) look for a source arguing an alternative point of view? m) try to remember the main points? n) think about the relevance of arguments and ideas for your own teaching context? o) discuss the reading with someone else?

Speaking in English   Which do you think are more (y) / less (x) important when speaking in class + any comment: a) having something relevant to say? b) developing / keeping to the point others are discussing? c) that the tutor understands what you are saying? d) that your classmates understand you? e) to use correct grammar? f) to be able to pronounce words accurately?

g) to be able to remember the words needed?   h) to speak fast i) to look at your audience? j) ask questions when you don’t understand? k) say when you disagree? l) give reasons for an opinion? m) keep what you have to say brief? n) pause often? o) define terms? p) having notes to speak from? q) keeping notes of what others say? r) Other ………

(there are no doubt many more). Your turn!   I’ve tried to come up with some questions, the responses to which I think might provide information on some of your possible language needs, future and present (there are no doubt many more). Can you investigate some other aspect of your colleagues’ / students’ language needs? and / or What are some of the questions you might ask a group of learners you have taught, to find out about something of which you feel ignorant, and which might help inform your planning and teaching?