5.2.1. What should I learn next?

Get a pencil and paper. Think of all the communicative needs you have experienced in recent weeks. In what situations have you needed to be able to comprehend the language? In what situations have you needed to speak the language? What topics have you needed to understand? You may find that you have listed things like “dealing with requests for bribes; explaining my reason for being here; listening to political speeches”, and so forth. Brainstorm with fellow language learners if possible. Make your list of communication needs as long as you can. Now, having listed your past needs, see if there are any additional communication needs that are currently coming up. Finally, add any needs to the list which you see arising in the intermediate or distant future. Once you've made an extensive list of your own past, present, and future communication needs, make a note for each need as to how serious a need it is in your life at this time. Some needs may not be all that serious, strictly speaking, but they may nevertheless be important to you personally. So for each need, make a second note as to how important it is to you personally. Finally, for each communication need in your list, make a note as to how much communication ability you have already developed in that area. For any area that constitutes a pressing need, or a strong personal desire, and where your current ability is clearly limited, you then design a plan of attack, which may involve activities in your sessions with your LRP, or during social visits, or in other contexts. (This basic approach to needs analysis is found in Dickinson, 1987.)

For example, suppose one of your needs is to read the newspaper in the new language. As you reflect on it, you feel it is not a really pressing need. That is, nothing in your life or work requires that you read the newspaper. At the same time, it is something that is important to you personally, for whatever reasons. You note that at the present time you have very little ability in this area. For your plan of attack you decide that for the next little while you and your LRP will use part of each language session to read the newspaper together. You find that quite a bit of vocabulary is specific to newspaper language, and so you work at using this vocabulary with your LRP in discussing the articles you read. In addition, while visiting socially, you plan to take a few minutes to discuss certain news items with various friends. Finally, you spend time in the evenings reading the newspaper on your own. Of course, this is a hypothetical example. You may never need or wish to read the newspaper in the language you are learning, particularly if there are no newspapers. The point is, identify your needs, plan your attack, and carry it out.

Your communicative needs may relate to situations in which you need to communicate: funerals, feasts, meeting a stranger on the path. Or they may relate to topics that you need to be able to comprehend and talk about: farming, hunting, trips to the city. As you redo your needs analysis once in awhile, you will discover that you have developed some ability in certain areas, but are feeling increased need in other areas. This will help to guide your ongoing language learning activities.