ASSIGNMENT – IF

SUBJECT ASSIGNMENT:
INDIVIDUAL FACTORS IN THE
LEARNER’S DEVELOPMENT

Students’ names: Paula Araceli Diez

Laura Victoria Padilla

Date: February 28th, 2019

1
 ASSIGNMENT – IF

Assignment instructions:

Design a questionnaire to retrieve information on a group of students and their

learning needs.

The assignment has to include the following sections:

a) Description of the context the questionnaire is designed for (institution,

characteristics of the course, number of students, etc.).
b) Questionnaire proposal.
c) Justification of questionnaire design: all the questions included in the
questionnaire must be justified regarding the group of students it is
designed for and the contents covered in “Individual factors in the learner’s
development”.

2
 ASSIGNMENT – IF

INDEX

INTRODUCTION…………………………………………...………………………………....4

CONTEXTUALIZATION………………………………………………………………….…..5

QUESTIONNAIRE PROPOSAL……………………………………………..……………....5

JUSTIFICATION OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN……………………..……………6

CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………………….9

3
 ASSIGNMENT – IF

Introduction

In our globalized world, learning a second or even a third language is becoming one of
the biggest obligations in a person´s career. University degrees demand certain level of
second language proficiency in order for students to graduate, and job requirements are
no stranger to these demands, since a high level of proficiency in all four skills is
becoming one of the most common requirements for jobs around the world. Therefore,
it is not surprising that language courses are trying to incorporate the best language
learning methodologies in order to guarantee second language acquisition. Sadly, there
is no clear answer to which methodology works the best and up to this date, second
language research continues evaluating methodology after methodology. Much of this
evaluation is carried out in class within institutions which wish to improve their teaching
methods and are willing to provide both the students and the teachers with the tools
necessary to carry out these classes. However, as Palacios, Gassò and Ball, have
claimed the value that institutions have given to the teaching of a second language is
conditioned by different variants presented in and by the students (p. 55). Therefore, it is
difficult to find a right answer and simply teaching the same things to all students does
not seem to be the best solution. Taking all this into consideration the question is: what
can teachers do in order to better teach their classes and make sure their students´
intentions for the language are covered? First of all, language level needs to be sort out.
It is a reality that no student will be equally proficient in the language, but high differences
in language proficiency might be one of the greatest problems teachers are faced with.
Mix-ability classrooms present the challenge of how to give information in a way that it is
not too easy for some students but it is not too difficult for the others. Input should be
presented in a way that it is at a correct level for all students ideally as Stephen Krashen
(1985) suggested, it should be kept at a level of input +1, in which the information
presents a challenge but it is not in any way too abstract or difficult for the students to
acquire it. Keeping this theory in mind, it is difficult to provide input to classes that are
too different. Therefore, the first step to consider is a placement test. As Jeremy Harmer
(2015, p.367) puts it, these tests help student get to the correct class based on the
syllabus and the material that will be used in the course. Another possibility established
by Harmer is the use of diagnostic tests. These tests will show the problems students
have, so that teachers can tackle them. Taking all this information into consideration, it
could be said that the questionnaire we are going to present, was thought for a group of

4
 ASSIGNMENT – IF

learners that are at the same level (A1), and who have already done a placement test to
know whether they are at the right course or not.
Once students are divided in their respective language level it is essential to gather
information in order to find out who the students are and what their language needs are.
In order to do this, a brief introduction of the situational background will be provided.

Contextualization

We are going to focus on a particular course of fifteen students, who are attending a
private school in Argentina. This institution is characterized for having courses with a
small amount of pupils, so that lessons can be more customized. As regards the class,
the pupils are at the first year of secondary school, and as it was previously mentioned,
they have been placed into this A1 English level group because they had a placement
test.
Some of the pupils know each other from primary school, but there are some students
that are new at this school. However, although there might be new students, it is
important to highlight the fact that all of them have some knowledge about the English
language, since it is an essential requirement this school has. Furthermore, it is known
that many of the students from this institution have learning disabilities or special needs
that demand attention. This is why teachers cooperatively work with the school
educational psychologist. For this reason, although there are not several students within
the class, the teacher has to be ready to cater for every learner’s needs.
Taking into consideration all the above mentioned ideas, the teacher will provide the
learners a questionnaire during the first English language lesson in order to get to know
his/ her students in a better way.

Questionnaire proposal

Answer the following questions about you

1) What is your name?

2) Are you new at this school?

3) What topics do you remember having

learnt in English last year?

5
 ASSIGNMENT – IF

4) What do you want to learn this year?

5) What do you need from the teacher to

be successful this year?

6) What’s your hobby?

7) What do you want to be great at?

8) What are your favourite songs in

English?

9) What do you want me to know about

you?

10) How do you think we should use

technology/the Internet in class?

11) Can you access online platforms

easily when you are not at school?

12) How do you feel about online

English platforms?

13) Do you think series and videos on

YouTube are a good way to study
English?

14) What type of videos do you check

online?

Justification of the questionnaire design

As West (1994) mentioned a need analysis is an information gathering tool first designed
in India but that it had its boom in the USA in the 1960´s when schools needed to
identified students´ needs in order to justify their budget. West also mentions that another
motive which influenced the importance of need analysis was the behavioral objective
movement which claimed accountability in the educational system and demanded to
have objectives that could be measured. As it can be seen need analysis have proved

6
 ASSIGNMENT – IF

to be essential tools for curriculum design as it is our case above all because research
has proved that NA works better when they are ´linked to a discrete set of communicative
situations’ (Tudor, 1996, p.70).

Furthermore, Richards (1990, p.2) mentions the following benefits for needs analysis:
1. It provides teachers with input to contextualized in students learning processes.
2. It helps setting objectives and content into specific language need making learning
more meaningful.
3. Needs analysis are a source of data that will allow the evaluation of an existing
program.
4. It helps teachers make better decision because it provides insight into local needs.

As regards the questions from the questionnaire, these have been carefully selected
taking into consideration several factors, especially the students’ background and their
ages. All the questions are in English for two main reasons. Firstly, as Krashen (1981, p.
45) states, “people learning foreign languages follow the same route as they acquire their
mother tongue, hence the use of the mother tongue in the learning process should be
minimized”. For this reason, we consider that it is essential to minimize the use of the
learners’ native language from the very beginning. Secondly, as all the pupils who attend
the school have some English knowledge, it is not necessary to give them the
questionnaire in their native language, since this activity can be considered as another
way of practising the second language.
The first question is intended to know the name of the student who did the questionnaire.
It is extremely important to ask the pupil’s name and that this kind of questionnaires is
not anonymous, since the teacher is trying to get to know every single student a little bit
more. Question number 2 is made for the teacher to see which learners come from
another school, and thus take this into consideration if later on there are topics that some
students understand and know better than the others. As regards question number 3,
the educator asks it because he/she pretends to activate the learners’ schemata and
check if they recall some of the topics they have previously learnt in the English lessons.
Questions number 4 and 5 focus on knowing more about the students’ expectations. It
is important to explore what teachers can do to facilitate learning and to help students
achieving high learning outcomes. In relation to this, Wilkins (1976) states that “research
in different discipline areas has revealed that expectations are a potential source of
student academic achievement and success” (cited by Ketsman, 2012, p.2). For this

7
 ASSIGNMENT – IF

reason, it is crucial to know what the learners want to learn in the English class and what
they need from the teacher to achieve their goals.
In relation to questions number 6, 7 and 8, these were chosen in order to know more
personal information about the learners and also, they can serve teachers to plan
activities taking into account what motivates them, bearing in mind that, as Nida (1956)
stated, “motivation is the most important aspect in a person’s learning of a foreign
language” (cited by Palacios, Gassò and Ball (n.d.), p. 32). Many students in EFL settings
have an extrinsic motivation to study English, which is based on a reward that comes
from outside the learner, such as the desire to get a good score on a test. As cited in the
TESOL article (2017, p.11) “rather than relying exclusively on extrinsic rewards to
motivate students, English teachers should also try to build their students’ intrinsic
motivation by encouraging them to consider rewards that come from within themselves”.
Some examples of this kind of intrinsic rewards could be a sense of accomplishment, or
the love of learning new things and creating.
As regards question number 9, this type of open questions allows the learners to
comment or express something personal about themselves and thus, allows the teacher
to get to know more about them. For this reason, if there is any particular detail the
students want to communicate to their teacher, such as something about their beliefs,
culture, personalities, and so on, they can feel free and confident to do it, since the
questionnaire will be read only by the educator.
On the other side, questions from 10 to 14 are closely related to the use of Information
Communication Technologies (ICTs) when it comes to learning English. According to
Çakici (2016, p. 75) “using technology has positive effects on teaching and learning
English. Technology can be applied to teaching practices to enhance and facilitate
foreign language learning”. Although it can be assumed that we are living in the
technological era and for that reason everyone has a computer and internet access at
home, we do not really know whether this is the case of all our students or not. This is
why it is important to find out more about this, since can serve the teacher to know if
he/she can give the pupils practical works to do on their computers or homework from
the school platform to do at their homes.
Finally, it is important to highlight the fact that there are several questions, either yes-no
or wh-questions, which teachers can give their students, but taking into consideration
some specific factors - such as the fact that the educator already knows the learners’
level of English, their age, and so on- we consider that this questionnaire is suitable for
this particular group of students.

8
 ASSIGNMENT – IF

Conclusion

In conclusion, by asking the learners these questions, the educator shows he/she is
aware of the different personalities, characteristics and needs they have. Moreover, as
Ur (2996) states, “there is no one right way for teacher to motivate students” (cited by
Palacios, Gassò and Ball (n.d.), p. 41). However, by knowing more about the students’
interests and preferences, the educator can prepare lessons bearing these aspects in
mind, so that the learners can get more involved in the class, and thus in learning English.
Finally, we strongly recommend to use two questionnaires during the same year with the
same course: one like the one proposed at the beginning of lessons and another one at
the middle of the year. In this way, by the middle of the year, if the students want to make
any other comment or suggestion as regards their relationship with the English language
or their interests, they can feel free to do them, and they will probably feel more confident
and rely more on the teacher, since they know him/her more than at the beginning of the
course.

9
 ASSIGNMENT – IF

References

❖ Çakici, D. (2016). The use of ICT in teaching English as a foreign language.

Retrieved from:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dilek_Cakici/publication/322294214_The_
use_of_ICT_in_teaching_English_as_a_foreign_language/links/5a6737eba6fdc
c72a589d238/The-use-of-ICT-in-teaching-English-as-a-foreign-
language.pdf?origin=publication_detail
❖ Harmer, J. (2015). The practice of English language teaching. Harlow:
Pearson/Longman.
❖ Ketsman, O. (2012). Expectations in the Foreign Language Classrooms: A Case
Study. The Qualitative Report, 17(53), 1-21. Retrieved from
https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol17/iss53/2
❖ Krashen, S. (1981). Second Language acquisition and second language
learning. Oxford: Pergamon
❖ Palacios, I., Gassò, E., Ball, P. (n.d). Individual Factors in the Learner's
Development. Barcelona: Fundación Universitaria Iberoamericana.
❖ Richards, J.C. (1990). The Language Teaching Matrix. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press
❖ TESOL International Association (2017) Principles of Language Learning and the
Role of the Teacher. Retrieved from: https://www.tesol.org/docs/default-
source/books/14077_sam.pdf?sfvrsn=2&sfvrsn=2
❖ Tudor, I. (1996). Learner-centredness as language education. Cambridge:
Cambridge Univ. Press.
❖ West, R. (1994). Needs Analysis in Language Teaching. Language Teaching
Journal.27/1, 1-19

10