THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM Department of English Centre for English Language Studies Open Distance Learning MA TEFL/TESL/Applied Linguistics/ Translation Studies Name Alex Small Student id number 821917 Country where registered Japan Dissertation title An Analysis of the Subjective Needs of Japanese High School Learners Submission date 20 March 2012 Submission First submission Name of supervisor Gregory Hadley DECLARATION I declare: a) that this submission is my own work; b) that this is written in my own words; and c) that all quotations from published or unpublished work are acknowledged with quotation marks and references to the work in question. d) that this dissertation consists of approximately 13,000 words, excluding footnotes, references, figures, tables and appendices. Name: Joseph Alexis Small Date: 20 March 2012 AN ANALYSIS OF THE SUBJECTIVE NEEDS OF JAPANESE HIGH SCHOOL LEARNERS by ALEX SMALL A dissertation submitted to the College of Arts and Law of the University of Birmingham in part fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Teaching English as a Foreign or Second Language (TEFL/TESL) This dissertation consists of approximately 13,000 words Supervisor: Gregory Hadley Centre for English Language Studies College of Arts &Law University of Birmingham Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT United Kingdom March 2012 ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to improve the design of an EFL Oral Communication course syllabus using needs analysis. Though the concept of needs analysis was introduced into TESOL syllabus design over 30 years ago, it remains underutilized in General English contexts such as the one in this study: a Japanese senior high school.
A limited needs analysis of learners’ subjective needs (defined as beliefs, preferences, and goals) was proposed as the basis for syllabus design suggestions. Limitations to the model were explored, as the participants were adolescents with limited experience with communicative English. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with four students enrolled in Oral Communication II in the 2011-12 academic year. The results found that students expressed their needs primarily in terms of enjoyment.
Learners were also found to have a number of beliefs about language learning and that their goals for language use were mainly personal as opposed to career-oriented. Finally, syllabus design changes were proposed that meet the subjective needs of learners in this context. While needs analysis can only make limited contributions when learners are the only source consulted, the syllabus can nevertheless be made more relevant and motivating through careful, critical investigation. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to take this chance to extend my gratitude to a number of people who helped me get to the end of this dissertation in one way or another.
First, I would like to thank my friend Jake Arntson, without whom I would have never started this MA program. Had it not been for his suggestion, I would probably have never taken such an enormous plunge. I would like to thank Christopher Sullivan for giving spot-on advice that no one else had in my many years of this program. I would also like to thank him for inadvertently providing me with the magic words I needed to write the draft for this 12,000 word paper: Well-planned, well-referenced, but terribly written.
I would like to thank my supervisor, Gregory Hadley, for his crucial comments in the early stages of this dissertation, and for much-needed encouragement in my darkest hour toward the end. Also, I would like to thank the anonymous interviewer who assisted me with this project. It would not have been possible to interview the participants in this study in their native language and to collect the data I did without her help. Finally, I would like to thank both my wife and my daughter for doing their best to put up with my many long years in this program.
CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Statement of problem 1 1.2 Purpose of paper and research aims 2 CHAPTER 2 BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW 5 2.2 Specifying an approach to needs analysis 7 2.1 Issues in needs analysis 8 2.2 The case for a limited needs analysis 9 2.3 The case for analyzing subjective needs 13 2.3 Conceptual models of subjective needs 15 2.1 Language learning beliefs 15 2.3 Differentiating between beliefs and preferences 17 2.4 Language learning goals 19 2.4 The limitations of subjective needs analysis 20 2.1 Limited knowledge of learners 21 2.2 Mistaken beliefs of learners 22 2.3 Competing, non-linguistic goals of learners 24 2.5 Conclusion 24 CHAPTER 3 METHOD 27 3.2 The researcher and interviewer 29 3.4 Analysis 31 CHAPTER 4 RESULTS 33 4.1 Enjoyment-Class style-Study 34 4.2 Improvement-Enjoyment-Class style 37 4.3 Peers-Effort-Class style 41 4.4 Teacher-L1/L2-Peers-Assistance 43 4.5 Proficiency-Goals-Abroad-Speaking 46 CHAPTER 5 DISCUSSION 50 5.1 Discussion of methods 50 5.2 The relationship between researcher, interviewer, and 52 students 5.2 Discussion of fit between subjective needs, course aims, and 53 effective pedagogy 5.1 Discussion of beliefs 54 5.2 Discussion of preferences 58 5.3 Discussion of goals 62 5.1 Team teaching and use of L1 65 5.2 Simplification through routines and repetition 66 5.5 Non-linguistic syllabus elements 68 CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION 70 6.1 Summary of findings 70 6.2 Limitations of the study 70 6.3 Recommendations for further research 70 6.4 Final thoughts 72 APPENDIX 1 Excerpts from MEXT 2003 Course of Study 73 APPENDIX 2 Results of classroom preference questionnaire 78 APPENDIX 3 Interview schedule: Interview round 1 79 APPENDIX 4 Interview schedule: Interview round 2 80 APPENDIX 5 Interview schedule: Interview round 3 81 APPENDIX 6 Summary of findings to date: Student A 82 APPENDIX 7 Summary of findings to date: Student B 83 APPENDIX 8 Summary of findings to date: Student C 84 APPENDIX 9 Summary of findings to date: Student D 85 APPENDIX 10 List of codes used in data analysis 86 REFERENCES 87 LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 Details about OCI and OCII in 2011-12 academic year 7 Table 2.2 Data on students enrolled in OCI and OCII in 2011-12 7 academic year Table 2.3 Two trends in needs analysis studies: ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ 12 Table 2.4 Distinction between language learning beliefs and classroom 19 preferences Table 3.1 Typical sample selection criteria and method 28 Table 3.2 Biographical data of student participants 28 Table 3.3 Biographical data of interviewer and researcher 29 Table 3.4 Interview schedule 30 Table 3.5 Summary of terms used in data analysis 31 Table 4.1 Beliefs, preferences, and goals related to enjoyment, class 37 style, and study Table 4.2 Beliefs, preferences, and goals related to improvement, 40 enjoyment, and class style Table 4.3 Beliefs, preferences, and goals related to peers, effort and 43 class style Table 4.4 Beliefs, preferences, and goals related to teacher, L1/L2, 45 peers, and assistance Table 4.5 Beliefs, preferences, and goals related to proficiency, goals, 48 abroad, and speaking Table 4.6 Summary of results 49 Table 5.1 Summary of the potential impact that the methods of this 51 study had on results Table 5.2 Summary of fit between belief statements and OC course 58 Table 5.3 Summary of fit between preference statements and OC 62 course Table 5.4 Summary of fit between goal statements and OC course 64 Table 5.5 Summary of salient features of conversation 67 Table 5.6 Summary of proposed syllabus changes as a result of needs 69 analysis Table 6.1 Proposed direction for future needs analysis research 71 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 Theoretical and actual influence of stakeholders on syllabus 6 design Figure 2.2 Needs analysis as a ‘black box’ 9 Figure 2.3 Framework of needs analysis used in this study 26 Figure 4.1 Association frequency between enjoyment, class style, and 34 study Figure 4.2 Association frequency between improvement, enjoyment, 37 and class style Figure 4.3 Association frequency between peers, effort, and class style 41 Figure 4.4 Association frequency between teacher, L1/L2, peers, and 43 assistance Figure 4.5 Association frequency between proficiency, goals, abroad, 46 and speaking CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The purpose of this study was to investigate what learners at a senior high school in Japan believe, what they want, and the goals they pursue in elective Oral Communication (OC) classes. A wealth of research has been done on how and why communicative language teaching (CLT) has failed to gain traction in Japanese secondary education despite the top-down efforts by the Ministry of Education (MEXT). Less common, however, are studies that apply syllabus design procedures in order to develop context specific, bottom-up solutions (a notable exception being Watanabe 2006). This study was an attempt to apply needs analysis procedures to better inform the design of a specific high school course syllabus.
OC was chosen due to its position outside the orbit of examination-prep oriented required English classes, for the relative leeway available for teachers of OC to experiment with alternative methodologies, and for OC’s status as a course created specifically by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) for communicative purposes.1 Statement of problem English language education in Japan’s secondary schools, in which grammar translation is the dominant method (Gorsuch 2001, Porcaro 2006, Kikuchi 2009), has been widely criticized. The grammar translation method, which is linked to preparation for the entrance examinations of Japanese universities (Gorsuch 2000, 2001, McVeigh 2002, Kikuchi 2009), is a “one size fits all” approach that fails to take student needs into account (Murphey et. 2008:2), has demotivated students (Murphey, Falout, Elwood, & Hood 2008, Kikuchi 2009), and has not lead to significant proficiency gains (Reesor 2003:57-58). 1 As part of a larger effort to address the problems with grammar translation, OC classes were introduced to Japanese senior high schools through the 1989 Course of Study developed by MEXT.
OC was made mandatory for students at all schools in 1994 (Taguchi 2002). For a variety of reasons, MEXT’s communicative goals have not been widely realized. Porcaro (2006:157) observed many OC classes and described them as a “charade” because teachers focused exclusively on difficult topics outside the experience of young students, and on language form instead of meaningful communication. Taguchi (2005) observed OC at two schools and concluded that the class style was identical to traditional grammar translation.
Research suggests that the top-down introduction of OC has been largely rejected by teachers due to the continued importance of university entrance examinations, conflict with teacher beliefs, lack of training in communicative methodologies, and concerns about classroom management (Gorsuch 2000, 2001, Taguchi 2002, Reesor 2003, and Nishino 2011). Due to resistance from teachers at the local level, MEXT quietly dropped the requirement that OC be mandatory for all students nationwide (Small 2009:5). One neglected factor in the research is that MEXT does not outline a complete syllabus for OC. In the 2003 Course of Study (MEXT 2003), a wide range of language functions and forms are available, but little guidance for selection of language content (see Appendix 1).
Notably, there is no mention of student evaluation, course evaluation, course goals, or other essential parts of a language syllabus, which are presumably left to individual schools. Since textbooks typically are the syllabus in high schools (Porcaro 2006:156), and none of the textbooks approved by MEXT meet the Ministry’s stated communicative goals (Browne & Wada 1998:105, Reesor 2003:61, McGroarty & Taguchi 2005 (in Taguchi 2005), Ogura 2008), the lack of attention to sound syllabus design at the national or local level for OC stands out as a problem.2 Purpose of paper and research aims This study is part of a larger effort by the author to apply course evaluation and needs analysis toward suggestions which will lead to incremental improvement of currently existing OC syllabi (Small 2009, 2010, 2011b). For this study in particular, I was 2 interested in the frequently occurring notion of incorporating students’ subjective needs—their personal wants, desires, and expectations (Brindley 1984:31, in Nunan 1988:44)—into the syllabus. Murphey, through data collected from university-aged students (e.
Murphey et al. 2009), has suggested the lack of a student voice in Japanese secondary schools as a key factor in lack of student motivation to learn English, and lack of success in learning.