Do you agree? I do!

Has this ever happened to you?  =o/
Some humour for the weekend!

The four skills

Teaching the Four Skills in the Primary EFL Classroom

Marcos Peñate Cabrera
mpenate [at] dde.ulpgc.es
University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (The Canary Islands, Spain)

Plácido Bazo
pbazom [at] ull.es
University of La Laguna (The Canary Islands, Spain)

Introduction

The teaching of English as a foreign language is now one of the most important subjects in most European primary schools. The implementation of English has brought along the need to establish clear objectives that are different to the ones traditionally assigned to secondary schools. While in secondary schools we still find, in many cases, a teaching based in the formal aspects of the language, i.e. grammar; primary school teachers have had to adopt a different approach as the age of the children make the teaching of formal aspects not advisable. As a result of this point of view, the different Educational Departments have decided to establish, as the main purpose of the EFL teaching, the development of the four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. However, the implementation of this approach has not been trouble-free as many teachers insist on asking their children to understand every single word they listen to or read, or expect their pupils to write or speak without making the mistakes normally found in the process of acquiring any language.

The main purpose of this paper is to provide some guidelines that we hope can be useful to teachers of English as a foreign language in primary schools.

Listening

Listening is the language skill which learners usually find the most difficult. This often is because they feel under unnecessary pressure to understand every word. To achieve the aims related to this skill, the teacher plays an important role that is defined in the following steps.

1.    It is important to help pupils prepare for the listening task well before they hear the text itself. First of all the teacher must ensure that the pupils understand the language they need to complete the task and are fully aware of exactly what is expected of them. Reassure the pupils that they do not need to understand every word they hear.

2.    The next important step is to encourage pupils to anticipate what they are going to hear. In everyday life, the situation, the speaker, and visual clues all help us to decode oral messages. A way to make things a bit easier to the pupils is to present the listening activity within the context of the topic of a teaching unit. This in itself will help pupils to predict what the answers might be. The teacher can help them further by asking questions and using the illustrations to encourage pupils to guess the answers even before they hear the text.

3.    During the listening the pupils should be able to concentrate on understanding the message so make sure they are not trying to read, draw, and write at the same time. Always give a second chance to listen to the text to provide a new opportunity to those who were not able to do the task.

4.    Finally, when pupils have completed the activity, invite answers from the whole class. Try not to put individual pupils under undue pressure. Rather than confirming whether an answer is correct or not, play the cassette again and allow pupils to listen again for confirmation. You may be given a variety of answers, in which case list them all on the board and play the text again, so that the class can listen and choose the correct one. Even if the pupils all appear to have completed the task successfully, always encourage them to listen to the text once more and check their answers for themselves.

Speaking

First of all, we must take into account that the level of language input (listening) must be higher than the level of language production expected of the pupils. So we have many speaking activities used in the first levels that enable pupils to participate with a minimal verbal response. However in the last levels, pupils are encouraged to begin to manipulate language and express themselves in a much more personal way.

In primary schools two main types of speaking activities are used. The first type, songs, chants, and poems, encourages pupils to mimic the model they hear on the cassette. This helps pupils to master the sounds, rhythms, and intonation of the English language through simple reproduction. The games and pair work activities on the other hand, although always based on a given model, encourage the pupils to begin to manipulate the language by presenting them with a certain amount of choice, albeit within a fairly controlled situation.

In order for any speaking activity to be successful children need to acknowledge that there is a real reason for asking a question or giving a piece of information. Therefore, make sure the activities you present to the pupils, provide a reason for speaking, whether this is to play a game or to find out real information about friends in the class.

Once the activity begins, make sure that the children are speaking as much English as possible without interfering to correct the mistakes that they will probably make. Try to treat errors casually by praising the utterance and simply repeating it correctly without necessarily highlighting the errors. And finally, always offer praise for effort regardless of the accuracy of the English produced.

Reading

In order to make reading an interesting challenge as opposed to a tedious chore, it is important that pupils do not labour over every word, whether they are skimming the text for general meaning or scanning it to pick out specific information. Other things to keep in mind are:

1.    When choosing texts consider not only their difficulty level, but also their interest or their humour so that children will want to read for the same reasons they read in their own language: to be entertained or to find out something they do not already know.

2.    As with listening activities, it is important to spend time preparing for the task by using the illustrations (a usual feature in reading activities for children), pupils' own knowledge about the subject matter, and key vocabulary to help the pupils to predict the general content of the text. Discuss the subject and ask questions to elicit language and to stimulate the pupils' interest in the text before they begin reading. Also make sure that the pupils understand the essential vocabulary they need to complete the task before they begin to read.

3.    While the children are reading the text, move around the class providing support if pupils need it. Where possible, encourage pupils to work out the meaning of vocabulary as they come across it, using the context and the supporting illustrations.

4.    Do not encourage pupils to read texts aloud unless this is to learn a play or recite a poem. Reading aloud inhibits most pupils and forces them to concentrate on what they are saying as opposed to what they are reading and the meaning is very often lost.

Writing

In primary schools, EFL pupils progress from writing isolated words and phrases, to short paragraphs about themselves or about very familiar topics (family, home, hobbies, friends, food, etc.)

Since many pupils at this level are not yet capable either linguistically or intellectually of creating a piece of written text from scratch, it is important that time is spent building up the language they will need and providing a model on which they can then base their own efforts. The writing activities should therefore be based on a parallel text and guide the pupils, using simple cues. These writing activities generally appear towards the end of a unit so that pupils have had plenty of exposure to the language and practice of the main structures and vocabulary they need.

At this stage, the pupils' work will invariably contain mistakes. Again, the teacher should try to be sensitive in his/her correction and not necessarily insist on every error being highlighted. A piece of written work covered in red pen is demoralizing and generally counter-productive. Where possible, encourage pupils to correct their own mistakes as they work. If there is time, encourage pupils to decorate their written work and where feasible display their efforts in the classroom.

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The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. VIII, No. 12, December 2002
http://iteslj.org/

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http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Bazo-FourSkills.html

Do you spik inglish?

1. 

More about cats

1. 
   

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

The Witches

One of my favourite books. The Witches by Roald Dahl.

1. 

About cats!!

1. 

   Kitty listening to music!!

Pronunciation can also be a difficult thing to learn! Take a look and you will see what I mean!

Writing can be a tough thing to do. Here you have some useful tips to take into account!  ;o)

Needs assessment? here you've got some ideas!
We would love to hear some ideas from you too!

Oral questionnaire

What’s your name?

How old are you?

When is your birthday?

How is your family composed?

What things do you like doing in your free time?

Name three things that you like and three things you can’t stand.

What do you do? Do you use English at work? How often?

What was the first word you learnt in English? How old were you?

What is your favourite English word? Why?

Have you ever studied English before? Where? When?

Why do you want to study English? How can English help you in your everyday life?

How much are you exposed to the language?

Which of the following activities do you do in English?

-          Listen to music

-          Watch videos/TV programs

-          Watch movies

-          Play videogames

-          Read books

-          Read newspapers

-          Visit interactional websites to improve your language

-          Write e-mails

-          Conferencing

-          Others:

What is your strongest point in English? What is your weakest point?

What kind of activities do you enjoy the most? What kind of activities do you enjoy the least?

What are your expectations as regards this course?

[Full] 3rd Rock from the Sun S01xE01 - Brains and Eggs

AFFECTIVE FACTORS IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

SELF-ESTEEM

Self-esteem is a term used in psycohology  to reflect a person’s  overall evaluation or appraisal of his or her own worth. Self-esteem encompasses beliefs (for example, "I am competent" or "I am incompetent") and emotions such as triumph, despair, pride and shame. A person's self-esteem may be reflected in their behaviour, such as in assertiveness, shyness, confidence or caution. Self-esteem can apply specifically to a particular dimension (for example, "I believe I am a good writer, and feel proud of that in particular") or have global extent (for example, "I believe I am a good person, and feel proud of myself in general").

Dr Stanley Coopersmith (1967: 4-5), defined self-esteem as:

…a personal judgement of worthiness that is expressed in attitudes that the individual holds towards himself, …and indicates the extent to which the individual believes in himself to be capable, significant and worthy.

     Research has shown that a student who feels good about himself is more likely to succeed. Holly (1987) compiled a summary of many studies and pointed out that most indicated that self-esteem is the result rather than the cause of academic achievement. In addition, Dr Martin Covington (1989)from the University of California carried out an extensive review of the research on the relationship between self-esteem and achievement, concluding that “self-esteem can be modified through direct instruction and that such instruction can lead to achievement gains. ”This statement is consistent with the experience of the writer, who has conducted two research projects (Andres, 1993, 1996)in the area of self-esteem, and the findings have led her to conclude that self-esteem can be modified and enhanced in the foreign language classroom, and that significant gains can be observed in the area of EFL/ESL learning. This point is considered to be of the utmost importance in the classroom: as teachers we can exert an influence both on the performance and well-being of our students. As Brown (1994)says, good teachers succeed “because they give optimal attention to linguistic goals and to the personhood of their students. ”

ATTRIBUTION THEORY and SELF-EFFICACY 

Attribution theory (Weiner, 1980, 1992) is probably the most influential contemporary theory with implications for academic motivation. It incorporates behavior modification in the sense that it emphasizes the idea that learners are strongly motivated by the pleasant outcome of being able to feel good about themselves. It incorporates self-efficacy theory in the sense that it emphasizes that learners' current self-perceptions will strongly influence the ways in which they will interpret the success or failure of their current efforts and hence their future tendency to perform these same behaviors.

According to attribution theory, the explanations that people tend to make to explain success or failure can be analyzed in terms of three sets of characteristics:

• First, the cause of the success or failure may be internal or external. That is, we may succeed or fail because of factors that we believe have their origin within us or because of factors that originate in our environment.
• Second, the cause of the success or failure may be either stable or unstable. If the we believe cause is stable, then the outcome is likely to be the same if we perform the same behavior on another occasion. If it is unstable, the outcome is likely to be different on another occasion.
• Third, the cause of the success or failure may be either controllable or uncontrollable. A controllable factor is one which we believe we ourselves can alter if we wish to do so. An uncontrollable factor is one that we do not believe we can easily alter.

There are four factors related to attribution theory that influence motivation in education: ability, task difficulty, effort, and luck  

•     Ability is a relatively internal and stable factor over which the learner does not exercise much direct control. 

•    Task difficulty is an external and stable factor that is largely beyond the learner's control. 

•     Effort is an internal and unstable factor over which the learner can exercise a great deal of control. 

•      Luck is an external and unstable factor over which the learner exercises very little controL

WILLINGNESS TO COMMUNICATE

In SLA, willingness to communicate (WTC) refers to the idea that language students (language learners) who are willing to communicate in the second language (L2) actually look for chances to communicate; and furthermore, these learners actually do communicate in the L2. Therefore, "the ultimate goal of the learning process should be to engender in language education students" the willingness to communicate (MacIntyre, Clément, Dörnyei & Noels: 1998). Language programs that do not instil this are therefore failed programs.  

Pyramid Model

A pyramid model has been established that describes learners' use of the L2. As the learner moves up the pyramid, the learner has more control over the act of communicating in the target language.

The model, with six layers, has a total of twelve constructs. The layers, from top to bottom, are:

• Communication behaviour
• behavioural intention
• situated antecedents
• motivational propensities
• affective-cognitive context
• social and individual context

 INHIBITION

Inhibition is closely related to self-esteem: the weaker the self-esteem; the stronger the inhibition to protect the weak ego. Ehrman (1993)suggests that students with thick, perfectionist boundaries find language learning more difficult than those learners with thin boundaries who favour attitudes of openness and the tolerance of ambiguity. As Brown (1994)noted, language learning implies a great deal of self-exposure as it necessarily involves making mistakes. Due to the defence mechanisms outlined above, these mistakes can be experienced as threats to the self. It can be argued that the students arrive at the classroom with those defences already built and that little can be done to remove them. However, classroom experience shows that the teacher 's attitude towards mistakes can reinforce these barriers creating, in the long run, learning blocks, or the self-fulfilling prophecy: “I can't do it. I 'm not good at it. ” In short, , this produces in the learner a deep-seated fear of inadequacy and deficiency. Fortunately, we are witnessing that a growing number of language teachers are becoming increasingly aware that focusing on students' strengths rather than weaknesses is a powerful way to break down learning blocks and overcome inhibition.

RISK-TAKING

        Linguists defined risk-taking as an ability of being eager to try out new information intelligently regardless of embarrassment in linguistics. Risk-taking is not only the third affective domain in personality factors but also one of the important parts in learning second language. Because of a strong intention of achieving success on learning something they yearn for mastering, language learners are willing to absorb new knowledge from their teacher spontaneously but how to interact with teacher? The easiest manner is to take the risk. Although it may be impulsive and too awkward to make a mistake, a good learner should require this characteristic to succeed in Second Language Acquisition. According to Brown, “interaction requires the risk of failing to produce intended meaning, of failing to interpret intended meaning, of being laughed at, of being shunned or rejected. The rewards, of course, are great and worth the risks” (2001, p. 166). In other words, risk-taking is a crucial interactive process to learn a language in the ESL/EFL classroom. Therefore, if a language learner interacts with the teacher automatically, he/she can acquire a foreign language without any difficulty.

According to Brown, “The key to risk-taking as a peak performance strategy is not simply in taking

the risks. It is in learning from your ‘failures’. When you risk a new technique in the classroom, try a new approach to a difficult student, or make a frank comment to a supervisor, you must be willing to accept possible ‘failure’ in your attempt. Then, you assess all the facets of that failure and turn it into an experience that teaches you something about how to calculate the next risk” (2001, P.428). In this case, it is essential to accept the fiasco and internalize it as the learning experience. Afterward, language learners can master that language gradually. 

ANXIETY

As learners we have all encountered this feeling, which is no doubt closely linked with self-esteem and inhibition. Any task that involves a certain degree of challenge can expose the learner to feelings of self-doubt, uneasiness or fear. Behind these emotions lies the question: shall I succeed? As second language learning is a highly demanding task, it is very likely to raise anxiety in the learner. Anxiety can be considered a negative factor in language learning, and several teaching methodologies in modern approaches indicate that anxiety should be kept as low as possible.

    Brown (1994)makes the distinction between trait anxiety —the permanent predisposition to be anxious —and state anxiety as the feeling that is experienced in relation to some particular situation. Many studies (e. g. Horwitz et al. 1986; MacIntyre and Gardner 1991; Young 1991; Phillips 1992)conducted on state anxiety indicate that foreign language anxiety can have a negative effect on the language learning process. Conversely, Bailey (1983, in Brown, 1994)notes that a certain concern or anxiety is a positive factor. This kind of anxiety is described as facilitating the learning process. In her actual classroom experience, the writer has witnessed that just as tasks without a certain amount of challenge can undermine the learner 's interest, assignments without balance and enough support can be disheartening as they can submerge the learner into a state of emotional dullness or paralysis. In sum, a certain degree of concern, anticipation and curiosity can be useful and even necessary to achieve, but too much anxiety can have an inhibiting effect and impede the process of successful language learning. 

 EMPATHY

Empathy, the ability to put oneself in another's shoes, is also predicted to be relevant to acquisition in that the empathic person may be the one who is able to identify more easily with speakers of a target language and thus accept their input as intake for language acquisition (lowered affective filter). Empathy appears to interact with other attitudinal factors. Schumann (1975) suggests that "... the natural factors that induce ego flexibility and lower inhibitions (assumed to relate to increased empathy) are those conditions which make the learner less anxious, make him feel accepted and make him form positive identifications with speakers of the target language"

Empathy in oral performance of second language acquisition

   Empathy refers to people’s willingness and ability t identify with others .it is thought to be relevant to second

language learning, because learning a second language involves taking one new identity. This also has correlation with learner’s personality. The biggest step in taking on this new identity is learning to pronounce the second language in a more or less native speaker way. This is a very major step, because for all of us, as adolescents and adults, how we speak and pronounce our first language is an essential feature of our identity. Thus in China, for example, speaking with a Hunan or Bejing accents is an essential part of a person’s identity as a Hunanese and Bejinger. When learners pronounce the second language in a more or less second language way, they temporarily lose their first language identity and take on that of another person—they empathize. The ease with which learners are able to empathise depends on the flexibility of their ego boundaries. Some people are more flexible and less inhibited than others and they find it easier to accommodate two identities, the first language and the second language. Various experiments have been carried out to try to measure the level of learner empathy and match it with ability at pronouncing the second language. The results are very mixed. No definite connection between empathy and second language oral performance has been established. This paper holds the idea that it does , however ,seem likely that learners who are naturally open , flexible and adaptable and who are sensitive to and interested in other people , are more likely to feel comfortable using the second language(taking on the second language identity) than learners with very fixed and inflexible personalities.

EXTROVERSION/ INTROVERSION

     The notion of extroversion/introvertion stems from trait theories of personality developed  in psychology.  Trait theorists try to identify this in a human being’s personality that is relatively stable, and it is believed, at least partly innate. The majority of studies on the personality research in SLA have looked at the relationship between the extraversion-introversion dimension of personality and different linguistic variables relating to oral performance. To some extent, extrovertion-introvertion dimension of learners’ personality indeed affects the oral performance of their second language. The effect of the extraversion-introversion dimension on second language learners is obvious and remains stable over time.

A typical extravert is someone who is sociable, likes parties, has many friends, needs to have many people to talk to, craves excitement, takes chances, often sticks his neck out, acts on the spur of the moment, and is generally an impulsive individual.’  On the other hand, they described a typical introvert as someone who ‘is a quiet, retiring sort of person, introspective, fond of books rather than people: he is reserved and distant except to intimate friends. He tends to plan ahead, ‘‘looks before he leaps,’’ and distrusts the impulse of the moment. He does not like excitement . . . ’ (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1964, p. 8). These characteristics of learners’ personality will accordingly affects their thoughts and lives , of course ,including the learners’ activities for acquiring their second language. This study gives a close attention to the effects of extroversion on second language acquisition. 

Many SLA theorists claimed that extraverts are the better language learners. Extraverts, who tend to be sociable, are more likely to join groups, more inclined to engage in conversations both inside (Cook, 1991) and outside the classroom (Swain, 1985). As such they take full advantage of language-use opportunities. It has been suggested that extroverted learners will find it easier to make contact with other users of the L2 and therefore will obtain more input. The classroom learner may also benefit from being extroverted by getting more practice in using the L2. Furthermore extraverts are believed to be prone to risk-taking and are likely to try out a larger amount and variety of different word types and grammatical structures at a higher speech rate.  In recent years, a more nuanced perspective on the relationship between extraversion and SLA has emerged. In reviewing the literature on effects of extraversion on second language acquisition, two major positions are identified. The first advocates that“ extroverted learners will do better in acquiring basic interpersonal communication skills”. The second maintains that: “introverted learners will do better at developing cognitive academic language ability”.

Since extraversion is considered to be stable personality variable, its effect should appear in both L1 and L2 languages. Most studies reveal a positive relation between degree of extraversion and various measures of L1 fluency, and a positive relationship between extraversion and oral fluency is also shown by some experiments, such   as measuring a pictorial stimulus test on a sample of Spanish speaking adolescents who learn English as a second language (Rossier ,1976).  There are positive correlations between extraversion scores   and utterance length, amount   of filled pauses and speech rates.

 The linguistic variables that have most commonly been investigated are fluency , accuracy, and

complexity. This paper suggests that extraverted individuals may be more fluent when speaking in a second language. When fluency in oral performance is concerned, people can feel obviously that extraverted students achieve greater fluency in an oral production task compared to introverts. Significant correlations were also found between extraversion and global impression scores, and state anxiety and clause accuracy scores. Participants who are more extraverted produced better global impressions and those who were experiencing higher levels of state anxiety made more errors in their spoken use of clauses. 

 

 

Phew!! We don't need electroshock after all... Krashen said so!

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Table of Contents >
   Chapter 3. Assessing Community Needs and Resources >
         Section 7. Conducting Needs Assessment Surveys >

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Conducting Needs Assessment Surveys
Main Section	Contributed by Bill Berkowitz and Jenette Nagy

What is a needs assessment survey?

Why should you do a needs assessment survey?

When should you do a needs assessment survey?

How do you carry out a needs assessment survey?

You want to do something. You've got a bunch of people together. And you're just about ready to go out and act. Then someone comes along and says, "Wait a minute. Have you done a needs assessment survey?"
A needs assessment survey? Should you ignore that person, or tell him (politely) to get lost? Or should you listen to what that person has to say, and maybe even follow his advice?
This section will help you become clearer on what a needs assessment survey is, and on whether and when you want to do one and then, if you do, what to do next.

What is a needs assessment survey?

Very briefly, it's a way of asking group or community members what they see as the most important needs of that group or community. The results of the survey then guide future action. Generally, the needs that are rated most important are the ones that get addressed.
Depending on your resources (time, money, and people) a needs assessment survey may take many different forms. It can be as informal as asking around with people you know in your community: your postal carrier, the people you work with, the woman at the corner gas station. Or, it could take the form of a professionally-written survey that is mailed to hundreds of people. In general, however, true needs assessment surveys have some common characteristics:

• They have a pre-set list of questions to be answered.
• They have a pre-determined sample of the number and types of people to answer these questions chosen in advance.
• They are done by personal interview, phone, or by written response (e.g., a mail-in survey).
• The results of the survey are tabulated, summarized, distributed, discussed, and (last, but not least) used.

What is a need?

In most needs assessment surveys, a need means something that specifically relates to a particular group or community. It's not usually a universal need, such as the need for food or affection. But it's more than an individual need, as in I need a new couch for the living room, or I really need a vacation. Those may truly be needs, but they are not generally the types of needs that are assessed in needs assessment surveys.
Instead, such a survey usually asks about needs that concern your particular community or group. This could include hundreds of possibilities, ranging from trash on the streets to vandalism, or from stores moving out of downtown to ethnic or racial conflict. These are examples of needs that might be perceived as a group or community issue or problem.

Note that some surveys are very broad, and ask about any and all kinds of needs. Others are narrow, and limit themselves to learning more about one or two. Both kinds of surveys are common and helpful. Which to choose depends on what you want to find out.

 

Why should you do a needs assessment survey?

Try out these reasons. Do they make sense for you?

• To learn more about what your group or community needs are. A good survey can supplement your own sharp-eyed observations and experiences. It can give you detailed information from a larger and more representative group of people than you could get from observation alone.
• To get a more honest and objective description of needs than people might tell you publicly.
• To become aware of possible needs that you never saw as particularly important or that you never even knew existed.
• To document your needs, as is required in many applications for funding, and as is almost always helpful in advocating or lobbying for your cause.
• To make sure any actions you eventually take or join in are in line with needs that are expressed by the community.

And also for two more reasons, which are less commonly understood:

• To get more group and community support for the actions you will soon undertake. That's because if people have stated a need for a particular course of action, they are more likely to support it. And, for the same reason....
• To get more people actually involved in the subsequent action itself.

You may agree with some or all of these reasons. But you may still have concerns or objections. That's perfectly fine. Let's get them out on the table and deal with them as honestly as we can.
OBJECTIONS AND CONCERNS
I already know what the needs in the community are.
Maybe you do. Maybe everyone knows what they are, and there's no doubt about it.
If the building is burning, put out the fire. You don't need a needs assessment to tell you that. If the crime rate has doubled, do something about crime. And hopefully soon. Leave your surveys at home.
But a lot of the time, the needs are not quite so clear. You (and everyone else) have opinions and biases, but does everyone feel the same way? Wouldn't it be worth checking what other people think, just to clarify whether others share your point of view? You might or might not revise your opinions a little, but it's worth it to find out.
We're busy people. We want to get going.
Fine...but you wouldn't usually want to get involved in something that most of the community doesn't really care about. If you do a needs assessment, you will feel more comfortable knowing that what you want to do meets a real community need. Otherwise, you might be wasting your time.
We don't have the time to do a survey.
You probably do have enough time. The actual amount of time you need can vary a great deal. If you really wanted to do a full-scale scientific survey, you could spend a year or more collecting, tabulating, and writing up the data. But we're not normally talking about that kind of time investment.
You can collect useful data in hours, or even less. You can go to a meeting where your key audience is, and ask them a few questions, either verbally or with a printed questionnaire. All the forms come back to you in ten minutes. In about ten minutes more, you can get results that will be helpful.
If you have a choice, you may want to survey more people, with different questions, in different ways. There are many different degrees of comprehensiveness. But any surveying is almost always better than no surveying at all. It's likely that whatever time you can afford will be worth it.
Look at it this way: If you care about effective action, do you have the time not to find out about community needs?
We don't know how to do it.
It's not that hard. Just about anybody can write useful survey questions, with a little bit of guidance. You don't have to be an expert. The survey doesn't have to be perfect. And there may already be an existing survey that you can borrow from, or simply repeat.
In any case, others can help you. You can get professional advice (from a local university, for example). And you can test out the survey on a sample group, to work out the kinks (which are almost always present, even in surveys designed by experts).
People are already surveyed to death. They'll resent you for asking them yet again.
More often, the opposite is true. In fact, most people are rarely asked about what they think about community needs or projects. Usually, these projects seem to get going, or not get going, independent of collective opinion in the community.
When was the last time a group asked your opinion about community needs, as part of a formal survey? And if they did ask, did you resent them for it?
It's a myth that most people are assessed to death. The real problems are not assessing enough and not acting on the basis of assessment results.
Your concerns are valid. But we hope our answers make sense, too. So let's move on.

When should you do a needs assessment survey?

Some good times to do a survey include:

• When your group is just starting out
• When there is doubt as to what the most important needs are
• When your group members disagree on this point among themselves
• When you need to convince outside funders or supporters that you are addressing the most important community problems (Sometimes, these assessments are required.)
• When the community asks you to do it
• When you want to be sure that you will have community support for whatever you choose to do.

And are there times when you shouldn't?
There are. A needs assessment is not necessary before every action, and especially:

• When there is absolutely no doubt what the most important needs in the group or community are
• When it is urgent to act right now, without delay
• When a recent assessment has already been done, and it is clear that the needs have not changed
• When you feel the community would see an assessment as redundant or wasteful, and that it would be harmful to your cause

How do these factors bear upon your own situation now? Do you think things would work better if you had some needs assessment data to guide you?
And please note: There are other ways to learn about community needs. You can do interviews with community members, or conduct observations, or study community records. And certainly, you should always check about surveys that might have been conducted in the past, and use them as best you can. You don't have to reinvent the wheel.

How do you carry out a needs assessment survey?

A step by step approach
Here's an important point to consider: Most effective community actions start with thought that takes place not in the community, but inside the thinker's head. Needs assessment surveys are no exception. So if you choose to do a survey here are some internal steps you should take, and decisions you should make, before any information is collected at all:
Helpful hint: An assessment can be conducted by one person, acting alone, but generally speaking, a needs assessment survey will be more effective and more useful if it is designed and carried out by a group. This is especially true when no one has special experience in this field. In most needs assessment cases, many heads will usually be better than one. So start by assembling a small group of interested people to help you answer the questions below, make decisions, and carry out the job.
1. Ask yourself: What are our reasons for choosing to do this survey? Why are we getting involved in this? The answers may be immediately clear to you. They may also include many of the reasons previously listed. But perhaps your reasons are not entirely clear. Asking these questions gives you the chance to become clearer.
2. Ask yourself: What are our goals in doing this survey? What do we want to get out of it? How will the results be used? Again, your goals (and uses) may be very apparent; they may also relate to your reasons above. But you ought to be able to state them before you begin.
3. Ask yourself: Are we ready to conduct this survey? Are we prepared to do the work that needs to be done, with high-quality effort? Before you begin, make sure your answer is Yes.
Our point of view: These three questions may seem obvious or trivial; but they are neither. Much success in community work, as in life, depends on prior preparation, both technical and mental. The better prepared you are, both technically and mentally, the more effective your work is likely to be.
Now for the more technical side of things. We'll go through steps, one by one:
4. Decide how much time you have to do the survey, from start to finish. How much time can you allow? Your answer will depend upon what is already known; upon the size of your target group; upon the importance involved; and upon the resources you have at your disposal. (How many people can help? How much money is available to spend?)
If nothing is known, the community is large, resources are low, and importance is high, your survey may take considerable time, several months or even more. But if the reverse is true, you could complete a good survey in a month or less.
These figures are approximations. We would like to be more specific, but there is no one universal answer to how much time a survey should take. A minimum standard might be this:
Collect enough reliable information from a representative group so that you are sufficiently confident in using that information to guide future action.
Apply this standard to your own situation. How much time do you think might be involved?
5. Decide how many people are going to be asked. If you are surveying the needs of a small or even medium-sized group, you can (and should) include every single person. But if you have a neighborhood of 5,000 people, or a larger community, you probably will not be able to ask everyone directly.
When the group is larger, you can make your survey available to everyone who wants to answer it. But a more objective technique, which will usually give you more reliable information, is to construct a sample -- a pre-determined percentage of the total group -- and to ask each member of the sample for their input.
6. Decide what kinds of people will be asked. For a smaller group, where you are asking everybody, this question will not arise. But with a larger group, when you are using a sample of the total population, you may want to be sure that certain parts of that population are included. For example, are you assessing community childcare needs? You'd then want to be sure to include parents of young children, and you might also survey or interview that group separately.
7. Decide what questions will be asked. These questions will depend upon the scope of the assessment. If you are asking about all possible needs in the community, then phrase your questions accordingly, and allow for a wide range of possible answers. On the other hand, if you are asking only about certain types of needs -- transportation, or violence prevention, for example -- then your questions will naturally be geared to them.
Either way, you have a choice between asking more quantitative, or closed-ended questions, and more qualitative, or open-ended questions. Closed-ended questions involve a choice among fixed alternatives -- you might state your degree of agreement with certain questions, or place your preferences in rank order. Open-ended questions allow more freedom; they give those answering the chance to say anything they want, even though the answers may be less precise. In many cases, your survey can include both types of questions.
8. Decide who will ask the questions. If you do interviews, the more people asking, the more ground you can cover. However, you'll also have to train more interviewers, both in general interviewing skills and in using a standard procedure, so that results don't vary just because the interviewers operated differently. If you use written surveys, this question is less relevant, but those who give out and collect the surveys should be thoroughly and uniformly instructed.
And remember: If you can, bring together a group to help you design the actual questions. Your group members will almost always think of good questions and ideas you wouldn't come up with alone.
9. Create a draft of the full survey. Include the instructions; this is an often-neglected part of survey work, but don't forget it. Your instructions will set the tone for those who will be responding.
10. Try out the survey on a test group. The test group should ideally be composed of the same kinds of people who will be taking the full survey. A test group will let you know if your instructions are clear and if your questions make sense. Even if your survey is perfectly clear to you, it may not be clear to them. You need to find this out before the full survey gets dispersed. Don't bypass this step: your test group is like a trial run, or dress rehearsal, which will help you get rid of the rough spots before you hit the big time.
11. Revise the survey on the basis of your test group feedback. Sometimes this test-and-revision process may need to be repeated more than once.
12. When you are satisfied that all necessary revisions have been made, administer the survey to the people you have chosen.
13. Tabulate your results. For closed-ended questions, this can be a matter of simple addition. For open-ended questions, you can code the results into categories. Get some feedback from others about what categories to use, because the ones you decide on will shape how you interpret the data -- the next step.
14. Interpret your results. Interpretation goes beyond simple tabulation. It asks the questions: What is the meaning of the results? What are the main patterns that occur? What possible actions do the results point to? It's helpful if a group of people -- perhaps the same people who carried out the assessment -- review the results and share their own interpretations. Because the same numbers can mean different things to different people, it may take a fair amount of discussion here to clarify the most nearly accurate interpretation of the information you have.
15. Plan future actions. Now comes the main payoff of your needs assessment survey, and your main reason for having done all this work. Bring the results and interpretations to your full group, and decide what to do next. A good answer may once again take thought and discussion, but you can now plan and implement future actions with greater confidence that those actions are based upon the real needs of the people you want to serve.
There are added benefits here, too.

• The actions you take are more likely to be supported by your group or community.
• Because they are supported, they are more likely to be successful.
• And let's not forget a basic principle of community work -- success attracts resources to your cause. Directly or indirectly, success can lead to more (and more favorable) publicity, to more members, to more dollars coming your way, to a variety of unexpected happy opportunities.

And many of those benefits might be traced back to your assessment. Aren't you glad you listened to that stranger who asked whether you had done a needs assessment survey?
Now, all that is left for you to do is:
16. Implement your actions. Which of course is the reason we do these surveys in the first place. The results are there to be used for action; and your group should have already agreed to use them, going back to the beginning.
Now you really are ready to act. But this is a topic for another section.
We're not quite through yet, however.  Very few aspects of community work are ever really finished, and conducting a needs assessment survey is no exception.
17. Repeat your assessment at regular intervals. Just as it makes sense to see a doctor once a year or so for a checkup, even if you're young and healthy, it makes sense to revisit community needs as well. Community needs can change; you want to be sure you know if, when, how, and why they do. For needs assessment is really an ongoing process just like community action itself.
Community needs or community assets?
We've taken some time to talk about community needs, since knowing them is fundamental for good community development work. But despite their importance, needs are just part of the picture. The other part, at least as basic, is community assets -- the skills, interests, capacities, and other resources that can be found in any community. Those assets ought to be identified, just as thoroughly as needs. That is the topic of the next Tool Box section - Chapter 3, Section 8: Identifying Community Assets and Resources.

We encourage the reproduction of this material, but ask that you credit the
Community Tool Box: http://ctb.ku.edu/

Resources
Print Resources
Berkowitz, W. R. (1982). Community impact: Creating grassroots change in hard times. Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Publishing.
Cox, F. M., et al., (Eds). (1987). Strategies of Community Organization. (4th ed.). Itasca, IL: Peacock Publishing.
Fawcett, S.B., et al. (1994). Preventing adolescent pregnancy: An action planning guide for community based initiatives. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas.
Neuber, K. A., et al. (1980). Needs assessment: A model for community planning. Beverly Hills. CA: Sage Publications.
Fawcett, S.B., et al. (1994). Preventing adolescent pregnancy: An action planning guide for community based initiatives. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas.
Neuber, K. A., et al. (1980). Needs assessment: A model for community planning. Beverly Hills. CA: Sage Publications.

Internet Resources
Needs Assessment Guidelines
Guidelines for and examples of needs assessment surveys for schools from the state of North Dakota.
Community Needs Assessment Survey Guide
The Community Needs Assessment Survey Guide by Stanley M. Guy, Utah State University Extension, is a guide for communities where the survey is conducted by the community government.
Conducting a Community Needs Assessment
A short article by Pat Bohse for the New Jersey League of Municipalities.

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