Unit 14 · Learner needs
Learner needs are the various personal, learning and (future) professional needs that influence how someone learns a foreign language — from a need for praise, security or challenge to a need to become more fluent or to use English for giving presentations. Recognising them and trying to meet them is part of being a good teacher.
◆What are learner needs?
When a learner learns a foreign language he or she has various kinds of needsThe language, language skills or learning strategies a learner still has to learn in order to reach their goals, which are the things they want personally and professionally which are connected to their learning. For example, a learner might need to have good … click to keep open · see glossary which influence his/her learning. They could be personal needs such as a need for praiseTelling learners that they have done well, e.g. Good work! , to encourage them and build their confidence. click to keep open · see glossary, learning needs such as a need to become more fluent, or professional needs such as a need to learn English for giving presentations. Recognising and trying to meet learner needs are part of being a good teacher.
◆Key concepts
Look at this table and think how the different kinds of learner needs might affect what a teacher does in the classroom:
| LEARNER NEEDS | |
|---|---|
| Kind of needs | Reason for needs |
| Personal needs e.g. security, challenge, support, praise, movement, goals, learning expectations, other psychological or physical needs | age gender cultural background interests educational background motivation personality |
| Learning needs e.g. specific ways of learning, specific target language, specific language subskills, exam strategies, learner autonomy, working at a suitable level | learning styles past language learning experience learning gap (gap between the learner’s present level and the target level of language proficiency) learning goals and expectations for the course level of skill and knowledge availability of time exams |
| (future) professional needs e.g. specific subskills, specific vocabulary and grammar, specific functions, specific text types | professional language requirements for employment, training or education |
(based on ‘What do teachers really want from coursebooks?’ by Hitomi Masuhara in Materials Development in Language Teaching, ed. Brian Tomlinson, Cambridge University Press 1998)
Learners’ needs can affect many things related to their learning, e.g. which methods or approaches they like the teacher to use, what topics interest them, what language and skills they need to focus on, what materials they prefer, etc. To meet learners’ needs, schools often provide different kinds of courses, e.g. activity-based courses for younger learners, medical English for doctors, study skills courses for learners wishing to go to an English-medium (where all subjects are taught in English) school or university, Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) courses for students needing to learn another subject in another language. Meeting learners’ needs helps to motivate learners, making their course more relevantA connection with a situation or the subject you are thinking about or discussing. For example, verbs and tenses are relevant to grammar. click to keep open · see glossary to them.
◆Key concepts and the language teaching classroom
Read these tips and tick the ones which are most important for you:
- Adults or older teenagers with specific professional, general or academicThings which are connected with education or connected with studying in schools, colleges or universities. For example, in school, maths is an academic subject; playing football is not. click to keep open · see glossary goals for learning English need courses that meet their needs. Here, for example, are some different kinds of professional, general and academic English courses. Notice the differences between them.
- A 3-day intensive course on exam strategies for students taking a university entrance exam.
- A series of one-to-one lessons over eight weeks on business presentation skills.
- A six-month course for future tourists focusing on social and daily survival English.
- A year-long course on writing academic essays and reading academic books and articles.
- A short summer course in an English-speaking country for teenagers, involving lots of sports, trips to tourist sites and chatting with English teenagers.
- A once-a-week course for a small group of accountants focusing on English for accountancy, and held in the learners’ company, a large accountancy firm.
- A four-week online course on writing business letters in English.
You can see that to meet the future needs of learners these courses vary in length, frequency, class size, language skillThe four language skills are listening, speaking, reading and writing. See develop skills, subskills, receptive skills, productive skills. click to keep open · see glossary focused on, type of English, teaching methods and activities.
- Learners at primary or secondary school may not yet have professional or academic needs, but they do have personal and learning needs. Primary age learners, for example, have a particular need for praise and for play, teenage learners may have a need for more autonomy and recognition of their individuality. Learners may also have special needs such as dealing with dyslexia.
- Teachers can find out about learners’ needs through observation, questionnaires or through discussing them with students.
- Some choices the teacher can make to help to address learners’ personal and learning needs are shown below:
Learner needs How the teacher can address learners’ needs Personal needs Choosing (a) suitable:
- materials and topics
- approach to teaching (e.g. activity-based or topic-based learning)
- pace (speed) of lessons
- activities
- treatment of individual learners
- skills and language
- interaction patterns (e.g. whole class, group, pair or individual work)
- types of feedback (comments on learning)
Learning needs Choosing (a) suitable:
- materials and topics
- approach to teaching and assessment
- activities
- interaction patterns
- language and skills
- level of language and skills
- learning strategies
- workload
- Meeting learners’ professional needs is especially relevant to older learners who may be going to study at an English-medium university, get a new job or start new job duties. All these areas have their own uses of language. There are many books and websites available that have materials and activities for these kinds of needs, and that will help teachers understand what the language and skills characteristics of these areas are.
- Teachers cannot meet all their learners’ needs all the time. Making use of varietyTo introduce different things such as different types of activities or tasks, language skills, interaction patterns, pacing or timing into a lesson. Teachers try to include variety in their lessons, so that learners stay interested. click to keep open · see glossary within or across lessons can help though: for example, using different kinds of activities, different interaction patterns, different teaching approaches.
- Unit 9 for motivation in teaching and learning
- Unit 13 for learner characteristics
- Unit 15 for approaches to language teaching
- Unit 21 for lesson planning
✎Follow-up activity
(See page 241 for answers)
1
Look at these descriptions of two learners. Make notes on their possible learning needs in the English classroom. What would be the best kind of course for them?
| Pilar Age 5, female, Spanish father and mother, lives in Italy Shy Loves reading and drawing Will start learning English at primary school next year | Kulap Age 25, female, Thai, lives in Thailand Works as a shop assistant in a tourist shop – speaks basic English with tourists from many different countries Needs to improve her English for her new job working in a call centre for a bank Very sociable Started learning English at age 7 in primary school Has excellent grammar, weak speaking skills, good reading and writing skills Knows very little banking English Wants to learn quickly and to a high level Can only go to lessons after work |
2
Here are some teacher choices. Which of the learner needs on pages 79–80 do they aim to meet? Some choices may aim at more than one need.
- A Choosing to play the class an extract from a comedy show
- B Asking the learners what they are learning English for and what they want to do with it
- C Deciding to do more grammar work and fewer communicative activities with a class this term
- D Letting one learner work with his friend for pairwork
- E Deciding that three learners should do an easier task while the others do a more difficult one
- F Choosing to focus on the language of negotiation with a class of business people
- G Giving learners tips on how to do multiple-choice questions in preparation for an exam
- H Focusing on the specific common grammar errors of the class
- I Asking learners to decide what topics they would like to focus on this term
- J Deciding only to focus on correcting a learner’s pronunciation
Check your answers — answer key (book pp. 237–244)
1 Pilar
Pilar will probably need to develop her cognitive abilities in English through learning about the world, so a course with a content-based learning approach could be suitable for her at this stage.
It seems she will also need to receive lots of praise and encouragement from her teachers, and that she may well learn best by reading and drawing. A course containing a reading element and kinaesthetic activities would therefore be useful. It may be that later on she will need English to communicate with friends internationally.
Kulap
Needs to learn banking English. She needs to learn to understand people from all over the world speaking in English. She will also need to learn many expressions of politeness and firmness to use in her telephone conversations. She needs lots of practice in speaking, and probably in working collaboratively with others in an evening class. The best course for her might be a specialised one focusing on call centre language for dealing with bank clients.
2 Possible answers:
A interests, educational background, learner autonomy, cultural background
B learner autonomy, motivation
C educational background, learning gap (e.g. exams or poor accuracy)
D need for security
E need for security, need to work at suitable level
F professional language requirements
G exam strategies
H learning gap
I learner autonomy, interests
J learning gap, being understood, possibly professional or exam need, e.g. oral performance
💡Reflect
Think about these comments from teachers. Which do you agree with and why?
- There are 40 students in my class, but I can still find ways of meeting some of their needs.
- Sometimes my students just want to chat in English rather than study for their exam.
- I don’t think my students have any particular needs – they just have to learn English.
🔍Discovery activities
- Choose one of your learners, and over the next week or two try to identify his or her learner needs. You could interview the learner to help you do this. Write a description of the learner’s needs in your Teacher Portfolio.
- Look at some books on English for special groups, e.g. English for doctors, English for tourism, academic English. How are they different from the books you use at school?
- How could you adapt some of the tasks in your coursebook units to meet your learners’ needs?
- Do you know the meaning of these terms: intensive course, contribute, cooperation, learner-centred, energy levels, involvement, learner contract, raise awareness? Use the TKT Glossary to check your understanding of them.
✎TKT practice tasks
These multiple-choice tasks are exactly as in the book, but interactive: pick your answers, check your score, and retry anytime. The scoring uses the official answer key from the back of the book.
📖Glossary terms in this unit
Key terms highlighted in this unit — study them on the flashcards page.
Editorial note — OCR and reconstruction notes for this unit
Book pages 78–82 (pdf 83–87). OCR fixes: ‘Bnglish’→English; ‘CLAIL’→CLIL; the p. 79 sentence ‘needing 6 léarh another subject in another languages’ was re-read from the page image as ‘needing to learn another subject in another language’; ‘pages.79-80’→pages 79–80; ‘fernale’→female; the follow-up 2 option letter misread as ‘{’ is ‘I’. The LEARNER NEEDS table (p. 78) has a merged title row in print; it is rebuilt as a header row with an empty second cell because colspan is not in the allowed attribute set. The tips table runs across pp. 79–80 (pdf 84–85) and is rebuilt as one two-row table; its header cells are printed in italic in the book but rendered as plain <th>. Bold terms were checked against the page images, including CLIL, English-medium, school, skill, pace, interaction patterns, feedback, learning strategies and variety. The italic cross-reference note at the end of the tips (See Unit 9 … Unit 21) is carried in seeAlso, as in the other units.