Curriculum Development

Curriculum Need Analysis & Curriculum Situational Analysis

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A.      Background of Study

            Needs analysis (also known as needs assessment) has a vital role in the process of designing and carrying out any language course, whether it be English for Specific Purposes (ESP)  or general English course, and its centrality has been acknowledged by several scholars and authors (Hamp Lyons, 2001; Finney, 2002).

            In general terms, need analysis refers to the activities involved in gathering information that will serve as the basis  for developing a curriculum that will meet the learning needs of a particular group of students. In the case of language programs, those needs will be language related. Need analysis was introduced into language teaching through the ESP  movement . From the 1960’s, the demand for specialized language programs grew and applied linguists increasingly began to employ needs analysis procedures in language teaching. By the 1980’s, in many parts of the world a “needs-based philosophy” emerged in language teaching, particularly in relation to ESP and vocationally oriented program design. Need analysis (in the formal and technical sense) is relatively new in language teaching circles. However, need analysis have been conducted informally for years by teachers who wanted to assess what language points their students needed to learn.

Curriculum is changing in line with the challenging of contemporary era. Curriculum as a set of education which should be prepared by considering some factors that influence the curriculum itself. There are some situational factors that influence curriculum development, thus considering these situational factors, it is vital for the schools or teachers who are involved in the process of curriculum development, to pay close and thorough attention on the betterment of English subject curriculum. This topic is relatively crucial because teachers or curriculum developers need to know factors that influence their product, namely, in this case is curriculum.

B.     Research Questions

1.      What is need analysis?

2.      What are the purposes of need analysis?

3.      What are situational factors that influence curriculum development?

CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

A. Definition of Need and Situational Analysis

     1.    Definition of Need Analysis

            Need analysis is defined by Richard Platt and  Weber as “ the process of determining the needs foe which a learner or groups or  learners requires a language and arranging the needs according to priorities.”The target population in a needs analysis refers to the people about whom information will be collected. For example, in conducting a need analysis to determine the focus of an English program in public secondary school in an EFL context, the target population might be Policy makers, Ministry of education officials, Teachers, Students, Academic, Employers, Vocational training specialists, Parents, Influential individuals and pressure groups, Academic specialists, Community agencies.

2.      Definition of Situtional Analysis

            Situation analysis is an analysis of factors in the context of a planned or present curriculum project that is made in order to assess their potential impact on the project. The goal of need analysis is to collect information that can be used to develop a profil of the language needs of a group of learners in order to be able to make decisions about the goals and content of a language course. A language curriculum is a function of the interrelationships that hold between subject-specific concerns and other broader factors embracing socio-political and philosophical matters education value systems, theory, and practice in curriculum design, teacher experiential wisdom and learner motivation.

B.  The Users of  Needs Analysis and Situational Analysis

            These may be conducted for a variety of different users. For example, in conducting analysis to help revise the secondary school English  curriculum  in a country, the end users include:

1.      Curriculum officers in the ministry of education, who may wish to use the information to evaluate the adequacy of existing syllabus, curriculum and materials.

2.      Teachers who will teach from the new curriculum

3.      Learners, who will be taught from the curriculum

4.      Writers, who are preparing new text book sand  involveing in developing end-of-school assessment

5.      Staff or tertiary institutions, who are interested in knowing what the expected level will be of students exiting the schools and what problems they face.

C.      The purpose of  Needs Analysis and the goal of Situational Analysis

Needs analysis in language teaching may be used for a number of different purposes, for example:

1.      To find out what language skills a learner needs in order to perform a particular, such as sales manager, tour guide, or university students

2.      To help determine if an existing course adequately addresses the needs of potential students

3.      To determine which students from a group are most in need of training in particular language skills

4.      To identify a change of direction that people in reference group feel is important

5.      To identify a gap between what student are able to do and what they need to be able to do

6.      To collect information about a particular problem learners are experiencing

            The goal of situation analysis is to identify key factors that might positively or negatively affect the implementation of a curriculum plan. The factors are sometimes known as SWOT analysis; S=Strengths (the factors have positive impact to the curriculum), W=Weakness (the factors have negative impact to the curriculum), O=Opportunities (the factors give opportunities for improvement), and T=Threats (the factors should be reduced). These can be summarized in the form of a list and the profile developed for discussion within the project team, ministry, funding body, or institute). Rodgets (1984) describes elaborate matrix that can also be used for estimating the difficulty of implementing new programs.

D. Situational Factors that Influence Curriculum Development

1.  Societal factors

            Since English becomes international language, English learning has been part of education curriculum in every country in the world. English in some countries has status as second language and some as foreign language. Such status makes those countries treat English learning differently in terms of the curriculum. Regardless of this distinguishable status of English as second or foreign language, in terms of the English learning curriculum, societal factors which affect the curriculum need to be put into account.

Some of societal factors that affect curriculum development arepolicy makers in government, educational and other government officials, employer,   the business community, mtertiary education specialists, parents, citizens, students.

2.  Project factors

            Curriculum project are typically produced by a team of people. Project are completed under different constraints of time, resources, and personal, and each of these variables can have a significant impact on a project.

The following project factors need to be considered:

1.   Who constitutes the project group and how are they selected?

2.   What are the management and other responsibilities of the team?

3.   How are goals and procedures determined?

4.   Who reviews the progress of the project and the performance of its members?

5.   What experience do members of the team have?

6.   How do members of the team regard each other?

7.   What resources do they have available and what budget to acquire needs resources?

8.   What is the time frame of the project? It is realistic, or is more or less time needed?

3.  Institutional factors 

A language teaching program is typically delivered in an institution such as a university, school, or language institute. Different types of institutions create their own “culture,” that is, setting where  people interact and where patterns emerge for communication, decision making, role relations, and conduct. Morris (1994, 109) observe:

In addition to the human side of institution, the physical aspects need to be considered. Institution factor thus relate to the following kinds of questions:

1. What leadership is available within the school to support change and to help teachers cope with change?

2.   What are the school’s physical resources, including classroom facilities, media and other technological resources, and library resources?

3.   What is the role of textbooks and other instructional materials?

4.   What is staff morale like among English teachers?

5.   What problems do teachers face and what is being done about them?

6.   What administrative support is available, within the school and what is communication like between teachers and the administration?

7.   What kind of reputation does the institutions have for delivering successful language programs?

8.   How committed is the institution to attaining excellent?

4.  Teacher factors

            Other factor which affects the curriculum development is teachers in which the curriculum will depend on. Institution or school consists of administrator and teachers. In a school, there are teachers having different characteristics, language proficiency, teaching experience, skill and expertise, morale and motivation, teaching style, beliefs and principle.

Some teachers perhaps do not object to the change of curriculum because they are well trained before or rich of experience, but there is uncertainty for some untrained teachers.

Some teachers who have time for teaching will not object when they get additional class but some busy teachers perhaps object because it will be heavy loads for them.

The following questions help us to identify teachers’ factors which affect the curriculum development process:

1.   What kinds of teachers currently teach in the target school or institution? What is their typical background, training, experience, and motivation?

2.   How proficient are they in English?

3.   What kinds of beliefs do the teachers typically hold concerning key issues in teaching?

4.   What teaching loads do teachers have and what resources do they make use of?

5.   What are the typical teaching methods teachers use and believe in?

6.   To what extent are teachers open to change?

7.   What opportunities do they have for retraining through in-service or other kinds of opportunities?

8.   What benefits are the proposed new syllabus, curriculum, or materials likely to offer teachers?

5.  Learner Factors

Learners are the key participants in curriculum development projects and it is essential to collect as much information as possible about them before the project begins. Here the focus is on other potentially relevant factors such as the learner’s backgrounds, expectations, beliefs, and preferred learning styles. The project designers may be operating from a set of assumptions about education, schools, teachers, and students that is culturally bound and at odds with the beliefs and assumptions of the learners.

These questions will give us a view about the learner or student factors:

a.    What are the learners’ past language learning experiences?

b.   How motivated are the learners to learn English?

c.    Are they homogeneous or heterogeneous group?

d.   What type of learning approach do they favor ?

e.    How much time can they be expected to put into the program?

f.    What learning resources will they typically have access to?

6.  Adopting factors

Adoption factors are factors which exist when the curriculum is adopted by teachers. It is closely related to the teachers factors explained above. When the curriculum is offered to the teachers, by considering the changes in the curriculum, some teachers may be ready to accept the changes while others might resist it, because the changes in the curriculum perhaps affect the teachers’ beliefs and their principles in teaching students.

Some following questions should be considered:

1.   What advantages does the curriculum change offer? Is the innovation perceived to be more advantageous than current practices?

2.   How compatible is it? Is the use of the innovation consistent with the existing beliefs, attitudes, organization, and practices within a classroom or school?

3.   Is the innovation very complicated and difficult to understand?

4.   Has it been used and tested out in some schools before all schools are expected to use it?

5.   Have the features and benefits of the innovation been clearly communicated to teachers and institution?

6.   How clear and practical is it? Are the expectations of the innovation stated in ways which clearly show how it can be used in the classroom?

Compare the following pairs of items, for example, and consider which would be easier to explain to the group of teachers:

·         computer-based learning versus cooperative learning

·         communicative pair work versus consciousness-raising activities

·         a functional syllabus versus a task-based syllabus

·         a product syllabus versus a process syllabus

·         a content-based curriculum  versus a negotiated curriculum

·         audiolingualism versus the Natural Approach

·         the Structural Approach versus Communicative Language Teaching

Practically is also a significant issue. A methodology that can readily be turned into teaching materials and textbooks will generally be easier to adopt than one that exist only as a set of guidelines. For this reason Communicative Language Teaching is much more widely adopted as a teaching approach than the Natural Approach. The support networks available in promoting or explaining an innovation may also be crucial.

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.

A situation analysis is a key foundation for any sound intervention. It helps to ensure a programme’s relevance and to find out the best course of action (e.g. strategies, entry points, partnerships)

BLIBIOGRAPHY

English for Specific Purposes world, Issue 4, 2008, www.esp-world.info Introduction to

Needs Analysis. Mehdi Haseli Songhori 24

Finney, D. (2002). The ELT curriculum: A flexible model for a changing

Hamp-Lyons, L. (2001). English for academic purposes. In: Carter, R. and Nunan, D. (Eds). The Cambridge guide to teaching English to speakers of other languages. (pp. 126-130). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

Miller & Seller, 1985. Curriculum: Perspective and Practice. Longman. New York.

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

Richards, J. C. & Renandya, W. A. (Eds). Methodology in language teaching : An anthology

of current practice (pp. 6979). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Richards, Jack C. 2001. Curriculum Development in Language Teaching. Cambridge

Language Education.