Needs analysis (also known as needs assessment) has a vital role in the process of designing and carrying out any language course, whether it be English for Specific Purposes (ESP) or general English course, and its centrality has been acknowledged by several scholars. (Brindley, 1989) offer definitions of different types of needs and accounts of various problems and limitations in making use of this concept, including ways in which we might usefully distinguish between needs identified by analysts and those expressed or experienced by learners. In his state-of-the-art article, ( West, 1994) gives a thorough overview of needs analysis in language teaching, including its history, theoretical basis, approaches to needs analysis, etc.
Consequently, the number of definitions for what can be considered ‘needs’ has led to a correspondingly wide range of definitions of needs analysis. Ellis gives us the rather straight- forward definition of needs analysis as ‘a procedure for establishing the specific needs of lan- guage learners’ (2003: 345–6). While this is certainly true, it is far too general to be of much use to the course designer. A more complete view is given in Brown (2006), which takes into account the range of sources from which information can be gathered as well as the number of stakeholders for whom that analysis.