Educators use the need assessment method to find gaps among students in different disciplines. When conducting a need assessment, the teacher should consider learners’ needs to determine where gaps exist and devise requisite improvements (Coombe et al., 2020). A proper need assessment generates findings that assist teachers in crafting programs to benefit learners. Therefore, educators should implement recommended solutions to address ensuing gaps.
Analysis
The subject requires that at the end of the term, the learners should read different books and demonstrate proper comprehension. The syllabus also provides that learners should demonstrate comprehension skills through writing a summary of the read book, noting new words, showing their pronunciation, and using such new words to construct grammatically correct sentences. On the flip side, the formative assessment showed that 80% of the learners could read the book fluently. Again, students demonstrated significant strides in identifying new words. However, 60% of the learners showed difficulties in showing correct pronunciation for the new words and constructing sentences. Thus, need assessment played a pivotal role in identifying such gaps for effective solutions.
Findings
Most face little difficulties in reading different types of books. This situation occurs because virtually every learner is a native English speaker. Every learner read the passages fluently, although some could not observe punctuation marks appropriately. The learners showed difficulties in writing a summary of the book. The challenge came from their quick reading without special attention to detail. Instead, most learners could only highlight the disjointed storyline of the book and mention a few characters without elaborating their role in the book. Thus, the teacher should develop a solution to address learners’ inadequate comprehension skills and boost their summaries.
Additionally, different types of formative assessment, such as quizzes and oral questions, exposed learners’ weaknesses. The learners identified new words with little or no difficulties. The unfamiliarity of words made it easier for students to identify them. In addition, showing correct pronunciation for new words posed difficulties due to variation between spoken and written English. Further, a review of the summative assessment confirmed the findings from the formative assessment about the learners’ inadequacies in constructing sentences using the new words. Difficulties ensued because most learners could not determine whether the new word constituted a verb, noun, or adverb. Against that background, many students would wrongly use words hence making their sentences incorrect. Accordingly, the teacher should devise effective mechanisms to resolve these difficulties and enable the learner to construct grammatically correct sentences.
Recommendations
The teacher should categorize learners in small groups and encourage them to highlight the new words. Small groups enable students to discuss among themselves and determine the correct position of the new word in the sentence. In doing so, learners will construct grammatically correct words.
Next, the teacher should introduce and teach learners how to use a dictionary. This resource will come in handy in describing the new words. In using it, the learners will discover the meaning and the pronouncing of the new words. Further, the teacher should introduce the chunking method to break the paragraphs into simpler but meaningful words.
Reflection
Teaching the English language to native speakers appears easier in theory. However, when it comes to adhering to grammatical rules, the challenges become more than expected. Native speakers experience difficulties with pronunciations and constructing grammatically correct sentences. Again, teachers should not overlook reading skills because sometimes, learners read quickly and fail to observe punctuation marks. Therefore, teachers should implement the recommendations to achieve expected outcomes.
References
Coombe, C., Vafadar, H., & Mohebbi, H. (2020). Language assessment literacy: what do we need to learn, unlearn, and relearn?. Language Testing In Asia, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40468-020-00101-6.
write