UNIT 14. LEARNER NEEDS

LEARNER NEEDS 

This unit taught me that when a learner is learning a foreign language he or she has many different needs; personal needs which is the need for praise. Learning needs, to become more fluent and professional needs, learn English for giving presentations.

There are reasons for needs for the kind of needs.

 

There are many tips that we as teachers have to be very careful of, firstly if your learners; adults or older teens have the same specific professional, general or academic goals for learning English it is important to make them meet their needs. Their needs can be discovered by the teacher through observation, questionnaires or discussing them with the students. Primary or secondary school learners may not have yet professional or academic needs.

Finally, teachers cannot meet all their learners’ needs all the time, but making use of variety in or across a lesson can help, by using different kind of activities or interaction patters and also different teaching approaches.

EXTRA USEFUL MATERIAL

VIDEO

• Bruneau-Balderrama O 1997. Inclusion: Making it work for teachers, too. Clearing House , 70(6): 328-331.
• Donald D, Lazarus S, Lolwana P 2007. Educational Psychology in Social Context. 3^rd  Edition. Cape Town: Oxford University Press
  
• Engelbrecht P, Green L (Eds.) 2005. Promoting Learner Development: Preventing and Working with Barriers to Learning. Pretoria: Van Schaik