June 24, 2010.
MIIS ESL. Reading and Writing A. Needs Analysis/Management of the first class
Background
After a two-day orientation, it was the very first day of Reading and Writing A at MIIS summer intensive English program. This course was designed for beginners and six students were assigned to this class as a result of their placement test. Two students were from Japan; two from Korea; one from Russia; one from Saudi Arabia. Even though the course was aimed at beginners, Tara Bates, the instructor, expected the students to fall somewhere between low-intermediate and high-intermediate. She saw the first class as an opportunity to gauge students’ proficiency level and figure out their real interests. As an assistant teacher, I was allowed to observe the teacher and students from 10:30 a.m. to 11:50 a.m.
Narrative
While six students were sitting around the table, Tara and I entered the classroom. When I sat by one of the students, Tara passed around name tags and markers. She suggested that students and teachers wear name tags during the class to get to know each other. Because Tara said that she did not want to spend much time on an introduction, the students and teachers told their names and nationalities.
After the introduction, Tara administered a questionnaire that consisted of four sections. The first part of the questionnaire had seven questions asking personal information. The second part asked the students why they were studying English and if they were interested in the TOEFL. In the third and forth parts, the students could give their opinions on class readings (e.g. they like fiction, non-fiction, news articles etc.) and express what they wanted from the course. Tara went through each question with the students and make sure that they understood clearly. Every time the students confronted difficult words and phrases, she explained. She took “a good writer,” “polite,” and “good-looking” for example in describing a “good quality.” Tara said that the student would do an activity using some of their answers and thus the questions should be answered with complete sentences. Giving ten minutes to fill the form, Tara asked the students to raise their hands for further questions.
Finishing the survey, Tara moved to a vocabulary activity. She divided the students into two groups and gave a different picture to each group. One picture was a soldier in uniform and the other was an old woman carrying a child on her back. The students were asked to describe the picture with their group members and then choose one person who was going to explain their picture to the whole class. While the students were preparing for their presentation, Tara went back and forth between two teams and gave some vocabulary that was needed to depict their picture. For example, one student said, “I think he is young because he has no… has no…” and he did not complete the sentence. Tara told him, “… wrinkles. He has no wrinkles.” A few minutes later, each group described its picture and Tara wrote down words used by the students on the board.
Next, she asked the students to work in pairs and gave each group an envelope containing vocabulary cards. The students were required to classify the vocabulary into two categories: body part and adjectives to describe body. Tara wrote down the students’ answers on the board. When the students did not understand “knuckles,” “joints,” and “freckles,” she pointed to those parts of her body. The students got back to groups of three to explain the pictures once again. They used words that they had picked up from the activity this time. Following the descriptions of the pictures, Tara passed down a reading. She said the vocabulary that the students had learned right before came from this reading. While she read aloud, the students read to themselves. This lasted until the class was finished.
Reflection
Needs analysis is the prerequisite for language curriculum. Teachers and administrators can provide decent education services only if they know what their students really are. For this reason, teachers are advised to spend considerable time on needs analysis before they design course outlines and actually start teaching. However, in the real classroom situations, teachers are often required to finish needs analysis on the spot and lead the lesson during class hours. As mentioned above, the teacher did not have much information about her students, but she had to lead an eighty-minute lesson anyway. Besides that, the students were not fluent enough to express their opinions freely. I wondered how she would handle this troublesome situation.
The teacher did do the survey, but she did it in a way that I did not expect. The teacher went over the questionnaire with the students and kept checking if they understood correctly. I feel like this simple idea is a breath of fresh air because I have never seen a survey as an opportunity to learn or teach something. When I was a student, I regarded needs analysis as a tedious process. Thus, I was afraid that the students were under the impression that they had nothing to learn from filling the form. The teacher quelled my worry by simply reading the questionnaire with the students. I think that it gives teachers two advantages. First of all, teachers can give students opportunities to learn new vocabulary. As long as explanations about words and phrases are given, students may feel that they are learning something, not just wasting their time. In addition, teachers can assess the proficiency levels of student in real time. Based on the vocabulary that students do not understand, teachers may decide immediately what area student should work on and respond it quickly.
I was also impressed with the fact that the teacher used classroom activities as tools to analyze student needs. When the teacher and students were doing the vocabulary and reading activities, I could observe that she kept paying attention to the students’ responses. Based on answers or questions made by the students, she was testing their English proficiency. This was implicit so that the students did not realize that they were assessed by their teacher. As to needs analysis, the survey sometimes does not reveal what students need. It may be because students are not always enthusiastic about filling a questionnaire. Or, it may be because the questionnaire itself fails to extract significant responses from student. On the other hand, classroom activities may give a clearer picture about students. Students seem more relaxed and express themselves more freely when not knowing there are judged. In this sense, I think that it is worth trying classroom activities other than the survey for needs analysis. In fact, the course book of Reading and Writing A was decided according to the result of the survey and the teacher’s observation during the class.
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