Pages: 18-24

Abstract

The present study aimed at finding out different perceptions of Iranian EFL learners in teaching English ‎with respect to their own needs in order to shed light on the practice of language teaching in an EFL ‎context. It is surely worthwhile to investigate the possible perceptions among learners and attitudes ‎towards learners' needs, as they can influence the effectiveness of classroom instruction. To this end, a ‎‎4/5-point Likert-scale questionnaire based on Atai and Shoja's (2011) questionnaire called ''Needs ‎Analysis and Self-assessment'' questionnaire was developed, piloted with 15 EFL teachers who were ‎representative of the main group, validated, and administered to 120 Iranian EFL learners through mail ‎and in person. To enrich the data, 30 Iranian EFL learners were interviewed, too. The learners’ ‎perceptions of their own needs were compared using mean scores and standard deviations. In order to ‎determine whether there was any statistically significant difference between learners' perceptions ‎regarding their own needs, a questionnaire and interview were given to the participants. The results ‎indicated that there are not statistically significant differences among learners’ perceptions in teaching ‎English with respect to their needs for the whole scale. The results of the interviews confirmed these ‎findings, too. Based on the findings of this study, it is proposed that learners should be given more voice ‎and autonomy in different stages of English language teaching and learning especially “needs analysis”‎.