A Learner Needs Analysis In The Postmethod Pedagogy

A postmethod padagogy is a three-dimentional system consisting of padagogical parameters:particularity, practicality and possibility according to B. Kumaravadivelu(2001). So it seeks a combination of methods and actions towards a particualar group of learners in a particular socialculture. This kind of combination is open, integrated and flexible according to H.D.Brown(2002). It suggests different forms of classroom activities and tasks based on a particular group of learners, a paricular set of goals and a paricular institutional context. Postmethod padagogy more often discusses such EFL teaching approaches as the Whole Language Apprroach, the Content-bansed Approach and Task-based Approach. While Needs analysis has a history of two or three dacades in western countries ever since Richterich carried out the first needs analysis framework in 1972. "Needs analysis (also called needs assessment) refers to the activities involved in gathering informaton that will serve as basis for developing a curriculum that will meet the learning needs of a particular group of students."(J.D.Brown, 1995:35) According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987), any course should be based on analysis of learner needs. Generally, such information is gathered from questionnaires, interviews and obsrevation.This thesis presents some significant data about Mongolian non-English majors'learning needs, collected from questionnaires and interviews.The random selected objectives are totally 334 Mongolian non-English majors including 120 freshmen,118 sophomores and 96 juniors from different faculties in Inner Mongolia Normal University (IMNU). The questionnaire is designed on the basis of Hutchinson and Waters'(1987) need analysis framework. The reliability a value of the questionnaire is 0.8055 tested with SPSS 11.5 and the research data are analysed with Excel 2007 mainly by persentage. The survey information includes respondents' answers to the following questions:1. What are the purposes of the Mongolian non-English majors' learning English in IMNU?2. What Language skills are the students eager to improve? And what English level is needed to become efficient at their future jobs?3. What kind of material topics are the students interested in?4. What kinds of classroom activity are the respondents attached to?The first chapter, introduction, explains how the investigation questions emerged. Chapter 2, literature review, mainly invovles the following three parts:1) the birth of the postmethod padagogy and its concept, 2) needs analysis theory basis and it's analytic technique,3) the research of needs analysis at home. Chapter 3, reasearch procedure, indicates the research problems; sample extraction method; the design of the questionnair and the interview outline; the process of data collection. The fourth chapter, data analysis and findings are the main body of this study. The investigation content is made up of target needs analysis and learning needs analysis. Chapter 5, conclusion, reviews each of the major study findings and provides teaching suggestions and inspirations according to others' study results and the writer's personal teaching experience.