LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Development and Validation of Needs Analysis Scale for
Secondary School Teachers of English

Vasundhra Saxena, M.A., M.Ed.
Nandita Satsangee, M.A., M.Ed., Ph.D.

Abstract

The present study has been conducted to identify the Language and Pedagogical needs of teachers of English at secondary level. There are three phases in the study.

In the first phase, an intensive review of literature related to English language teaching was done along with other measures for specification of the target skills required for efficient teaching of English.

In the second phase, content validity of skills required was established through expert judgments and final draft of the Needs Analysis Scale (NAS) was prepared.

In the final phase of the study, the reliability of the NAS was established through test-retest method.

It is expected that the NAS will be of interest to trainers, curriculum designers & policy makers towards the goals of English language teaching (ELT) in the native as well as non-native context. The scale will be further used to analyze the prioritized needs of the profession to design an innovative curriculum for pre-service teachers of English studying in B.Ed course in India.

1. Need & Relevance of the Study

In second language teaching, careful study of learners needs is considered as a pre requisite for effective course designing. One size- fits-all approach has been discredited by research findings on the specificity of the task. It is said that there is no such thing as General English because each profession has its own specific needs for the language.

General language courses (language for no purpose) courses at any proficiency level almost always teach too much to some learners which they do not need or too little of what they need to the others. The combination of target language varieties, skills, lexicons, genres, registers, etc. that each of these and other group needs varies greatly. Language teaching using generic programs and materials, not designed with particular groups in mind will be inefficient, at the very least and in all probability grossly inadequate. Just as no medical intervention would be prescribed before a through diagnosis of what ails the patient, so no language teaching should be designed without through needs analysis. (Long, 2005, p.3)

In India, in spite of studying English so many years in school, students in the regional medium schools are not able to understand what is termed as Standard English. The critical factor behind this lacuna is the teacher. It has been widely accepted that the language proficiency of the ESL (English as a second language) teacher-trainees in India is not up to the mark (Satsangee,1991.)

National Focus Group on Teaching of English (2006) has highlighted the field of curriculum development for teaching of English as a thrust area of research because of the urgent need to improve quality of English language teaching in India. In the scenario of globalization, job opportunities have become scarce and promotion to higher levels has become more difficult without adequate competence in English language skills. All states of India are trying their best to train their young ones in this essential skill. Mayawati, Chief Minister of U.P., has announced her decision to make English compulsory from the first class in U.P. But 'some teachers are finding it difficult to adjust to the new reality as their own knowledge of English is questionable.'(The Times of India, 2008, p.30)

To explore the cause behind this chasm of reality and expectations, the entry level of the ESL trainees was analyzed. It was found that the candidates were selected for ESL pre-service training based on their graduation degree with either English language or literature as one of the major subjects. It was observed that most of the B.Ed entrants had good background in literature but they are found less proficient in language skills. The syllabus analysis report of B.A. and B.Ed syllabi of the representative universities of U.P region also reveals that little weightage is given to the development of language skills among the students.

In the absence of proper training it becomes rather difficult for the ESL teacher trainees to perform well. The prospective teachers getting training are found weak not only from the language point view but they also lack the pedagogical competence in English language. This has been voiced by many other researchers in the previous decades (Indurkya, 1971, Singh, 1983).

Therefore, the present researchers felt a great urgency to find out the needs of the secondary level teachers of English. It has been accepted that the kind of English needed by the teachers of English is a specialized variety of English (Willis, Doff 1988). All the above given factors reinforced the need to develop an updated course for trainee teachers of English as a second language.

As Jordan (1997) writes that needs analysis should be the starting point for devising syllabuses, courses, materials and the kind of teaching and learning that takes place. Before developing a course, an instrument was required to frame the objectives and standard of that course. Thus the present study is conducted as an initial step for the development of an innovative and updated curriculum for the teacher-trainees of English, studying in B.Ed courses.

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