Abstract: This paper based on researches about needs analysis all over the world, mainly introducing some definitions about needs and some models about needs analysis, of which this paper will focus on “Hutchinson and Water (1987) Model”. Besides, this paper will choose students from No.13 middle school of Longquan District as participants to study the characteristics of English learning needs and what feature them. In consequence, the result provides scholars with data to learn about students from rural areas and English teachers and adjust their teaching styles. The results indicate that English learners from rural areas, owing to learners’ active and passive learning needs like a lack of advanced teaching infrastructure, unconsciousness of the importance of learning English, and national curriculum regards English as an important subject, they consider getting good grades in exams as their final learning goals. Passive learning needs make language learners cannot improve their English learning efficiency and develop their learning needs and also cannot make language teachers improve their teaching efficiency.

Key words: passive learning  needs analysis  rural areas  English teaching

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1 Introduction-6

1.1 Background and significance of the study-6

1.2 Structure of the study-7

2 Literature review-8

2.1 Review of related theories-8

2.1.1 The definition of needs-8

2.1.2 The models of needs-9

2.2 Review of related empirical studies at home and abroad-10

2.2.1 Needs analysis research at home-10

2.2.1 Needs analysis research abroad-11

3 Methodology-13

3.1 Research questions-13

3.2 Participants-14

3.3 Research methods-14

3.3.1 Questionnaire-14

3.3.2 Interview-15

3.4 Methods of data analysis-16

4 Findings and discussion-16

4.1 Characteristics of language learners’ learning needs-17

4.1.1 Participants’ opinions about English learning-17

4.1.2 Participants’ opinions about four skills-18

4.1.3 Participants’ own desire for learning English-19

4.1.4 Participants’ opinions about the teaching resources disparity between the two areas-20

5 Conclusions-22

5.1 Implications-22

5.2 Limitations-22

5.3 Suggestions for future research-23

Appendix-24

Bibliography-25

Acknowledgements-26