Needs-Analysis: The First Step in Content Development for Mobile Learning

Learner-oriented diagnosis of language learning needs has been in the limelight for at least three decades in curriculum design or language programme development schemes (Munby, 1978; Brown, 2009). Following a similar route, in the present study 81 tourism vocational high school students’ perceptions of English language learning needs are scrutinized. These students’ ‘real’ wants and lacks are also given consideration under the theoretical foundations laid by Dudley-Evans and St. John (1998). Through a multi-layered needs analysis, an appropriate and stimulating mobile language learning platform is aimed to be constructed whereby learners’ positive attitudes, language proficiency and technological literacy will be boosted in lieu of the traditional time-and place-constrained learning practices. To this end, students’ internal subjective needs were determined through questionnaires while hotel managers/academics/teachers’ views on students’ objective needs were explored through semi-structured interviews. The findings have revealed that the students’ vocational language needs remarkably outweigh the other types of needs per se. Under these circumstances, the results underline the inevitability of ‘needs-analysis’ in the construction of mobile language learning modules and platforms.