Hi Friends,
This year I have to teach a weak form 3 class, 3 Jujur. Counting from A to J, this would be the 10th class. There are 32 students in the class. The first time I entered the class, I always ask the students the English marks they scored for last year's final examination. This, for me can give me the general idea of the students' proficiency level.
Next, I will initiate a discussion in the class to see how well the students can speak. If they refuse to speak, each of them will have to stand up, introduce themselves to the class and give a little information about their background(Typical, I know). Class streaming is done every year in my school, so this activity actually helps the students to get to know one another.
I found out that the students could not converse in English although they could understand me sometimes. When I started the lesson for that day, I made some of the students to stand up and read a text. To my surprise, I have a student who could not read at all. All he was saying was "Saya tak tahu bacalah cikgu." I persuaded him. Not wanting him to feel embaressed, I stood next to him, I helped him by whipering the word one by one and he repeated after me loudly for the class to hear. Well, that was for the first day, with one of the students.
In the next lesson, I asked the class to prepare 4 exercise books for English. One of the Malay boys behind was making some noise, trying to attract my attention. It turned out to be that he has not bought any exercise book at all for the year. Well, I let him off this time, but I warned him that he better be ready with the 4 books next time.
Two days later, I saw the boy (Hafizi) at the school canteen with the discipline teacher. When Hafizi left, I asked En. Hairi what was the boy's problem? Well, he turned out to be a son of a security guard who often beats him until his head bleeds (seriously!). Drinking pipe water is a norm since he has no money to buy drinks. And here I am asking him to buy 4 books for English? What was I thinking?
When I saw Hafizi again in my class, I asked him, "Kalau saya bagi awak buku budak yang sudah pindah boleh tak? Awak tukar nama kat depan, buku tu elok lagi." I was worried if he was offended. But, he looked at me and said, "Boleh lah cikgu". And guess what, since then, he never misses to hand-in his book to me and he completes all his work. (Later I went to MYdin to get a set of exercise books for him).
The point of this story is that, without realizing it, some of the things that I had done with my class are a part of needs analysis research. Getting to know the students' proficiency level and background really help teachers into the heart of the students. And mind you, my needs analysis research will not end here with 3 Jujur. Later, I need to find out the different aspects of language that need to be improved and on and on....
2 comments:
I do agree with you Aznizah about doing a needs analysis in our class except we don't specifically spell it out to our students why we do it. But one thing for sure is, we gather the information to plan for our lessons to suit the students' language proficiency. And asking them what they would like to include in their lessons is also a part of needs analysis process. In short, needs analysis is not just for developing a course or curriculum design but it is part of our daily routine too like...(should I change my present car for a smaller one...hehe :D)
That's right Kak Non. It's just that we don't put those things in writings. If we do ,the MOE will love us and perhaps asks all the other teachers to start doing needs analysis reports. ;)
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