 One major factor influencing the content of any syllabus is the learners’ assumptions about the purpose of language learning.  Learners’ purposes can vary according to how specific they are and how immediately learners wish to employ their developing language skills.

 A sound educational system should be based on an analysis of learners needs.  Needs analysis refers to a set of procedures to collect information about learners and from learners.  These techniques have been borrowed from other areas of training like industry and technology.  Needs analysis in planning educational programs emerged in the 1960s through the ESP movement.

 To find out what language skills a learner needs to perform a particular role.  To help determine if an existing course adequately addresses the needs of potential learners.  To determine which students are most in need of training.  To identify a change of direction that people feel is important.  To identify a gap between what students are able to do and what they need to be able to do.  To collect information about a particular problem learners are experiencing.

 The term ‘needs’ is defined in a number of ways as wants, desires, demands, expectations, motivations, lack, etc. they are often described in terms of linguistic deficiency as the difference between what a learner can presently do and what he/she should be able to do.

 However, Porcher (1977) achieves that a need is not a thing that exists & might be considered ready-made. It is a thing that is unstructured, the center of conceptual networks.  What is identified as a need is dependent on judgment and reflects the interests & values of those making such a judgment. So, all stakeholders may have different views as to what needs are.

Immediate: learners can easily determine their own language needs such as when there is a specific program. Unimmediate: learners are not aware of them, e.g. students learning English as a secondary school subject in an EFL context.

 Here learners are not consulted. Their needs have been decided for them.  Therefore, NA includes the study of perceived and present needs as well as potential and unrecognized needs.

Apriori: NA is part of the planning that takes place as part of the development of a course. Time & resources are available to plan, collect & analyze the relevant information. This apriority approach requires long term planning & assumes adequate time & resources.

 During:  In some cases, long-term planning is not an option. Little may be known about a group of learners.  Here, NA is carried out as part of the delivery of the course.  Goals, content & the teaching approach are shaped by information collected during the teaching of the course.

 Posteriori:  At other times, the bulk of information about the needs may be collected after the course is finished.  It is used for obtaining a more comprehensive view of learners’ needs as a basis for evaluating & revising the program.

 Identifying the users of NA depends on its scale. With the small-scale NA, the audience might consist of the teacher, other teachers & the program coordinator.  In case of the large-scale NA, there will be multiple audiences & determining them is an important first step to ensure that the information they need is obtained.  It is important to remember that not all key audiences are to be identified at the beginning. Also, the relative importance of various audiences will change during the study.

 The target population in a NA refers to the people about whom information will be collected. Typically, in language programs, these will be language learners or potential learners, but others are also involved.  Policy markers, ministry of education officials, teachers, students, academics, employers, parents & so on. Within each target group, subcategories of respondents might be needed to provide different perspectives on needs.

 It is important to note that in a large-scale NA, sampling is required. Sampling involves asking a portion of potential population instead of the total population & seeks to create a representative sample.

 Not only on why learners want to learn the target language, but also about such things as societal expectations, constraints & the resources available for implementing the syllabus.

 There are two major types of need analysis.  Learner analysis is based of information about the learner. The central question is for what purposes is language being learned?  Task analysis is employed to identify & categorize the language skills required to carry out real-world communicative tasks & often follows learner analysis which establishes the communicative purposes for which language is learned.  Central question is: what are the subordinate skills & knowledge required by learners to carry out real-world communicative tasks?

 Objective factual information does not require the attitudes & views of learners to be taken into account. Biographical information such as age, nationality, first language, etc. is said to be objective.  Subjective information reflects the perceptions, goals, & priorities of the learners.

 This model is for syllabuses with a narrow focus such as ESP syllabuses.  The assumption is that there are certain aspects of the language which are peculiar to contexts in which it is used. Therefore, they are different from General English syllabuses.  Munby’s model includes the following nine elements:  1. Participant: It is about the learners’ language skills & identity. It is similar to learner analysis. 

 2. Purposive domain: It is about the purpose of language learning.  3. Setting: It is about the environment in which language will be employed.  4. Interaction: It is about the people with whom the learner will interact and also their roles.  5. Instrumentality: It refers to the medium (spoken/written, receptive/productive), the mode (monologue/dialogue, written/ spoken, heard/read), & the channel (face-to-face/indirect). 

 6. Dialect: It is about any dialect or variety the learner needs to speak.  7. Target level: It is about the degree of mastery to be gained.  8. Communicative event: It is about productive or receptive skills to master.  9. Communicative key: It is about specifying the interpersonal attitudes & tones to master. 

 NAs vary in their scope & demands from a survey of a whole school population to a small group is a single institution.  Sometimes a team of personnel is assembled, & at times two or there interested teachers are involved.

 A variety of procedures can be used & the type of information required depends on the procedures adopted. A triangular approach is advisable since any one source is incomplete.  The followings are the most common types:

 1. Questionnaires: the most common instruments. Easy to prepare, with a large number of subjects, information is easy to tabulate and analyze. Used for different kinds of issues. They can be structured (close-ended) or unstructured (open-ended).  Problem is that information obtained may be fairly superficial & will need follow up steps.

 2. Self-ratings: consist of scales that students or others use to rate their knowledge. Problem is that information is only impressionistic & imprecise.  3. Interviews: they allow a more in-depth exploration than a questionnaire. Take long to administer. Feasible for small groups only. Usually used before designing a questionnaire.  They can be structured or unstructured.

 4. Meetings: allow a large amount of information in a short time.  Problem is that information may be subjective & reflect ideas of more outspoken members of a group.  5. Observations: observing learners’ behavior in a target situation. It is a specialized skill & requires training because people perform differently when they are being observed (Hawrthorne & Halo effects)

 6. Collecting learner language samples: data on how well learners perform on different language tasks & documenting their problems. They can be through written or oral tasks, simulations, role plays, achievement tests and performance tests.  Because needs are not objectives facts but subjective interpretations of information, a great deal of consultation is needed with the various stakeholders to ensure that the conclusions drawn are appropriate and relevant.