ELT Journal Volume 55/2 April 2001 © Oxford University Press 133

Implementing ELT innovations: a needs analysis framework

Alan Waters and Ma. Luz C. Vilches

Implementing an ELT innovation involves analysing a range of needs so that asound strategy for maximizing the potential for adoption and ownership of theinnovation can be developed. The quality of the implementation process,therefore, depends on the picture of needs underpinning it. This paper presentsa model for trying to account for such needs as adequately as possible.

The model is in the form of a matrix. First, on the vertical axis, we distinguishbetween two main levels of need: ‘foundation-building’ vs. ‘potential-realizing’needs. Then, on the horizontal axis, and intersecting with the verticaldimension, we identify four main interlocking areas of need, illustrated byreference to a recent major ELT innovation project in the Philippines. Weconclude by using the model to locate areas of priority and neglect in currentinnovation implementation practice.

Introduction The initial development of an ELT innovation, especially one involvinglarge-scale curricular reform, tends to take place via a process of high-level discussions and agreements among ‘top management’. In this way,for example, a Ministry of Education and a foreign aid agency may decideto develop a new ELT textbook. However, in most cases those who willactually design and implement the innovation, and those who will formthe majority of its ‘end-users’, are not involved in these consultations. Asa result, when the attempt is made to put the innovation into practice, itcannot be assumed that ownership at these levels has already beenestablished. Rather, it will usually be necessary to build towards thisgradually, by catering appropriately to a range of innovationimplementation needs. This paper is concerned with identifying thebasic characteristics of such needs. The model we have developed for thispurpose is in the form of a matrix. We will first of all discuss its verticaldimension, in relation to levels of need, and then its horizontal aspect,with respect to areas of need.

Levels of need In the first instance, innovation implementation needs can be thought ofas forming themselves into a number of hierarchically-arranged levels(see, for example, Maslow 1970: 39–46; Fullan 1991: Part I; Hersey andBlanchard 1993: 473¤).

Familiarization At the most basic level, there is the need for familiarization. This involvesthe innovation implementation team, on the one hand, in becomingproperly familiar with the innovation situation, and on the other, in thepotential innovation users likewise being adequately informed about thebackground to, rationale for, and possible direction of the innovation.Thus, for example, in a textbook development project, needs at this levelmight be catered to by meetings in which the initial innovation concept isexplained and a proper needs analysis is conducted, involving arepresentative cross-section of those who will use the textbook, as well asthose, such as heads of department, supervisors, and others, who will beresponsible for overseeing its use, and so on. On this basis, a ‘workinghypothesis’ can be developed about the shape that the innovation mighttake in practice.

Socialization At the next level up there are the socialization needs. These involveproviding opportunities for the innovation prototype to be modified bythe same group that provided input into the needs analysis process, sothat the model at this phase of its development is checked for its matchwith the prevailing socio-cultural educational preconceptions of thisgroup. At this stage in a textbook project, therefore, consultationmeetings could be held, in which the participants—teachers (and, ideally,also learners), heads of department, supervisors, trainers, and the like—are given a chance to provide feedback to the design team on how wellsamples of draft materials do or do not fit in with and extend previousapproaches, and, as necessary, to suggest how they might be modified.

Application The third level up is concerned with the need for application. This is to dowith ensuring that the process by which the users actually test theworked-out innovations is monitored and supported in such a way thatthe necessary level of personal, practical understanding and expertise isbuilt up. To use the example of a textbook development project onceagain, meeting needs at this stage might involve a programme of school-based project work, in which teachers are supervised closely in theirattempts to put the new materials into practice, followed by furthersupport in the form of related trouble-shooting meetings.

Integration Finally, at the topmost level, there is the need for integration. Here, scopeshould be given for the innovation to become the personal ‘property’ ofthe users, through its further development, in ways determined as far aspossible by the users’ individual priorities. In a textbook project, thiscould be done by linking teachers’ attempts to get the best out of the newmaterials on an everyday basis to their schools’ and their ownprofessional development programmes, supported and superviseddirectly by the host educational system.

The picture can be made clearer and simpler than this, however, byconflating these four levels into just two basic, overall strata. Thus, needsat the first and second levels can be seen as concerned with achieving aninitial conception of a proposed innovation, and its ‘ratification’. In otherwords, they are to do with establishing a basis on which furtherunderstanding and development can be built—what may therefore be

134 Alan Waters and Ma. Luz C. Vilches

called foundation-building needs. Needs at the third and fourth levels, onthe other hand, can be seen as mainly to do with establishing ownership,at first in a relatively generic manner, and then in a more personal way,of the significant features of the innovation. These needs are thusconcerned with capitalizing on the potential for further understandingand development created by the satisfaction of needs in the first mainstratum—or, in other words, what we might call potential-realizingneeds.

As the textbook development example also shows, innovationimplementation needs are sequential and hierarchical in nature. Theytherefore have to be properly addressed at each of the two main levels,starting with the foundation-building level, and then building on thisfoundation at the potential-realizing level (see Fig. 1 below).

In other words, there has to be a first phase concerned with establishing asecure foundation for understanding and for the initial acceptance of theinnovation. Following on from this, there must also be a phase devoted tohelping the innovation user to capitalize on the prior phase byestablishing an ever-increasing level of personal ownership of theinnovation.

Areas of activity Having outlined the vertical dimension of our model, we will now mapout its horizontal axis. This consists of the core areas of developmentactivity, and, therefore, of need, which ELT innovation projectspotentially involve, namely curriculum development (includingevaluation), teacher learning, trainer learning, and ELT managementlearning.

1 Curriculum We define ‘curriculum development’ as any form of innovation activity development needs which is aimed at bringing about change in the way learners experience

the learning process, at the overall level of policies, goals, and so on,and/or in terms of the syllabus, teaching materials, teaching methods,and evaluation techniques.

Implementing ELT innovations 135

Potential-realizing

3 also at the higher level.

2 then building on the lower level

1 Needs must be addressed at this Foundation-buildinglevel first

figure 1Levels of need in the innovationimplementation process

This area of innovation activity can be related to the earlier discussionabout levels of need, as follows. ELT curriculum development hastraditionally involved two major but apparently opposing concepts of ELT

(see, for example, White (1987)). The first of these might be termed the‘traditional’ approach to ELT¡. Its stock-in-trade is a focus on form;whole-class teaching; pattern-practice drills; ‘up-front’ error correction;norm-referenced testing; and so on. These attributes help to createstructure, order, and a sense of belonging. Thus, from the perspectiveestablished earlier, such an approach can be seen as catering mainly(however implicitly) to the lower of our two main categories of need, i.e.the foundation-building level.

The second of the main approaches might be termed ‘modern’. Such anapproach tends to focus mainly on meaning; much of the teaching isdone in a pair or small-group work mode; the predominant activity is theproblem-solving task; error is tolerated, or even ignored; testing iscriterion-referenced, and so on. Such features tend to favour the creationof individualized opportunities for making learning personallymeaningful. This kind of approach is therefore geared mainly towardsthe higher of the two main categories of need, i.e. the potential-realizinglevel. The two approaches can thus be pictured as shown below:

Potential- ‘Modern’ realizing approach

Foundation- ‘Traditional’building approach

Now, many ELT innovation projects are concerned with attempting tointroduce elements of the ‘modern’ approach into a context dominatedby elements of the ‘traditional’ one. There is therefore a tendency for theinnovation development process to focus mainly on the higher level,while ignoring or under-rating the importance of the lower one, i.e. to be‘innovation-led’. However, it follows from the principles outlined in theprevious section that the key to satisfactorily catering to needs at thehigher level is to ensure that those at the lower level have first of all beenadequately attended to. Thus, for example, the confidence tocommunicate meanings comes from a secure classroom environment,and knowledge of language form. This is to cater to needs at the lowerlevel. However, there is an equal need for the classroom environment toprovide scope for individual creativity by learners, and opportunities forthem to manipulate language meaningfully. This caters to the higherlevel. Rightly conceived of, therefore, a sound approach to the ELT

curriculum innovation process must be based on attempting to integrateboth main levels of need.

136 Alan Waters and Ma. Luz C. Vilches

figure 2Curriculumdevelopment needs

The PELT Project We have attempted to adopt this approach in our work in the PhilippinesEnglish Language Teaching (PELT) Project™. We deliberately began theproject without any pre-conceived view of what might constitute adesirable alternative to the local ELT paradigm. Instead, itscharacteristics were first of all studied at first hand, in an attempt toproperly appreciate them. In the main, they were found to resemblethose of the ‘traditional’ approach just described. A consensus was thenestablished between the Project and its beneficiaries about how theexisting teaching methods might be minimally strengthened andextended by integrating them with a range of supplementary teachingmethods characteristic of the ‘modern’ approach. The resultingcombination came to constitute the curriculum innovation focus of theproject.

In this way, the model of teaching being promoted by the project becameone which tried to ensure that learners’ foundation-building needs werestill being catered to, while at the same time, by building on this basis,higher-level, potential-realizing needs were also taken into account to agreater extent than previously (cf. Clarke 1989).

2 Teacher learning The second of the areas of activity on the horizontal axis—and, therefore, needs of need—is teacher learning. Any attempt to change the curriculum—

whether indirectly through changes in teaching materials, for example,or more directly, through changes in teaching methods—implies a needfor teacher learning, i.e. opportunities for teachers to learn about therationale for the new form of teaching, to critically evaluate it, andunderstand how to get the best out of it.

The teacher learning dimension can also be mapped onto our emergentmatrix in terms of the two main levels of need, as follows: the first levelcan be seen as corresponding to an ‘awareness’ need, i.e. the building upof fundamental knowledge and skills by teachers about the curriculuminnovation in question, e.g. the new textbook, the new teachingapproach, etc., as well as the creation of opportunities for critiquing andquestioning it; the second level corresponds to needs associated with‘ownership’ of the innovation, i.e. the acceptance by users ofresponsibility for implementing, sustaining, and further developing apersonally meaningful version of the innovation.

Having described the two levels, however, it should be said that in ourexperience there is a tendency in ELT innovation projects to focus rathermore on the first level than the second. The most common vehicle forcatering to teacher learning needs in such projects is a short course ofone kind or another. However, the ‘culture’ of a training course is oftenvery di¤erent from that of the normal teaching situation (Rudduck 1981:164). In a course, removed as it usually is from the everyday pressures ofthe work-place, it is all too easy for the ‘ideal’ to supplant the ‘real’. As aresult, while a course may meet the need for teachers to be ‘inducted’into the innovation paradigm, it may not provide them with suªcientopportunity to make the ideas personally meaningful in terms of therealities of the context in which they normally work (cf. Joyce andShowers 1980).

Implementing ELT innovations 137

138 Alan Waters and Ma. Luz C. Vilches

In order to try to overcome this problem, therefore, a further device isrequired, one which addresses the potential-realizing level of need. Inother words, there is also a need for the innovation development strategyto include a school-based teacher learning element (here the term ‘school’stands for any kind of teaching institution), linked closely to the workdone at the foundation-building level.

In the PELT project, this component is known as the School-BasedFollow-up Development Activity (SFDA) (Waters and Vilches 2000).Under this system, teachers first of all attend a two-week course in whichthe teaching methods the Project is concerned with are introduced,evaluated, and tried out. However, this is not the main purpose of thecourse, since its primary function is to prepare teachers for the SFDA,which follows.

The SFDA programme consists of the execution of teaching developmentaction plans prepared by the teachers during the training course. Thefocus of the plans is on areas of teaching studied in the course which theteachers want to attempt to apply in their home teaching situations. Onreturn to their schools, the teachers execute their plans, in consultationwith their school ‘ELT managers’ (i.e. Heads of Department, orequivalent). In this way, the Project makes allowance for two levels ofteacher learning: one aimed at meeting ‘foundation-building needs’, theother geared towards ‘potential-realizing’ needs. The two levels are alsoclosely integrated, with the latter building closely on the former. Theresulting situation can thus be pictured as in Figure 3:

Potential- School-based teacher realizing learning (e.g. SFDA)

Foundation- Course-based teacher building learning

3 Trainer learning As already noted, ELT innovation projects generate a need for teacher needs learning. This, in turn, often creates a need to train a cadre of teacher

trainers, in order to facilitate the teacher learning process. In ourexperience, however, as with aspects of the previous areas of need, thefull extent of the trainer training need is not always recognized, sincefrequently trainers are only ‘trained’ in the sense of having attended theteacher training course, which they are then expected to handle astrainers.

We see the true extent of needs in this area as corresponding once againto our two-tier model. A foundation of understanding on the part of thetrainers about the content of the innovation should be constructed first ofall, so that they have the necessary in-depth grasp of what the teachers areexpected to learn. In the PELT Project, therefore, this has become themain focus of the first part of the Project’s trainer training programme.

figure 3Teacher learning needs

Implementing ELT innovations 139

However essential this foundation may be, the trainers’ role is not simplyto ‘teach’ the content of the innovation, but to maximize the potential forownership of the innovation by the teachers. The second part of the PELT

trainer training programme has therefore focused on preparing thetrainers for the latter role, by providing opportunities for them to gain apractical understanding of the nature of real teacher learning, and how topromote it, i.e. the methodology of teacher development. The situationcan thus be represented as follows:

Potential-Orientation to teacher

realizingdevelopmentmethodology

Foundation- Orientation tobuilding innovation content

4 ELT manager To be implemented e¤ectively, an ELT innovation project must obviously learning needs enlist the support and co-operation of the managers of the educational

system which is the host for the innovation. ELT manager learning,therefore, is our fourth area of development activity, although, onceagain, in our experience this category of need often tends to be under-rated or ignored in the ELT innovation process.

We see needs in this area as existing at the same two main levels as theother areas already discussed. In the PELT Project, foundation-levelneeds of this kind are catered to in a similar manner as for trainers, i.e.through a programme of ELT manager orientation meetings. Thepotential-realizing level is addressed by devolving responsibility to theELT managers for monitoring and supporting teachers in carrying outtheir SFDAs (see 2 above). This enables them to play their normal rolevis-à-vis their teachers, but in this case, with respect to the projectinnovation. This has resulted in a good deal of ownership of the projectby the ELT managers, since they see themselves as joint collaborators inthe PELT innovation process. The provision as a whole can be pictured asfollows:

Potential-Devolution of

realizinginnovation monitoring

and support

Foundation- Innovationbuilding orientation

figure 4Trainer learning needs

figure 5ELT manager learningneeds

140 Alan Waters and Ma. Luz C. Vilches

figure 6ELT innovationimplementation needs:areas of priority andneglect

School-based Methodolgy Devolution

‘Traditional’ Content Orientation

Conclusion We have tried to show that there are two main levels, and a number ofmajor areas of need, to be taken into account in the ELT innovationimplementation process. Figure 6 is intended to summarize what we seeas the current tendencies in this regard. The unshaded cells show theareas of need usually identified, as indicated in earlier sections of thispaper. The shaded cells, as also indicated, represent the areas of needthat we feel tend to be overlooked, or under-rated. However, as we havetried to show, they are nevertheless of equal importance.

Potential-realizing level ‘Modern’

Foundation-building level Course-based

1 Curriculum 2 Teacher 3 Trainer 4 ELT manager development learning learning learning

areas of need usually focused on

areas of need that tend to be under-rated or overlooked

We have also argued that it is important for the innovation dynamic tofollow the direction of the vertical arrow, i.e. to proceed in a ‘bottom-up’fashion, from the foundation-building to the potential-realizing level, inorder to take into account the psychology of the innovation process. Ofequal importance, of course, is the proper horizontal integration of eachof the main categories of need, as indicated by the dotted vertical linesbetween the areas of activity and the horizontal, two-way arrow. Ofcourse, implementing an innovation e¤ectively is not simply a matter ofaccounting one by one for each cell in the diagram, (although this is veryimportant), but also of striving for adequate vertical and horizontalintegration of each constituent.

To conclude, we believe that by the use of a framework of the kinddescribed, a sounder picture of the full range of needs involved in theELT innovation implementation process can be taken into account. Thisshould result in projects which are informed by a deeper and morecomprehensive understanding of the innovation strategies that are likelyto be e¤ective in any given development situation. It is also to be hopedthat the potential for such projects to succeed will thereby increase.

Received July 1999

Implementing ELT innovations 141

Notes1 The term ‘traditional’ is used here in a

chronological, rather than a qualitative sense.

2 The Philippines English Language Teaching

(PELT) Project is an in-service teacher-training

project of the department ... etc!!!

ReferencesClarke, D. F. 1989. ‘Materials adaptation: why leave

it all to the teacher?’ ELT Journal 43/2.

Fullan, M. 1991. The New Meaning of EducationalChange. London: Cassell.

Hersey, P. and K. Blanchard. 1993. Management ofOrganizational Behaviour (6th edn.). New Jersey:

Prentice-Hall.

Joyce, B. and B. Showers. 1980. ‘Improving

Inservice Training’. Educational Leadership 37.

Maslow, A. H. 1970. Motivation and Personality(2nd edn.) New York: Harper & Row.

Rudduck, J. 1981. ‘Making the most of the short in-

service course’. Schools Council Working Paper

71. London: Methuen Educational.

Waters, A. and M. L. C. Vilches. 2000. ‘From

Seminar to School: Bridging the INSET Gap’. ELT

Journal 54/2.

White, R. 1987. The ELT Curriculum: Design,Innovation, and Management. London: Blackwell.

The authorsAlan Waters is Director of the Institute for English

Language Education at Lancaster University,

England, and was the Lead Consultant for the

Philippines English Language Teaching (PELT)

Project from 1995–9. His current main research

interests are teacher learning processes, and the

application of ideas from management to the ELT

classroom.

Email: A.Waters@lancaster.ac.uk

Ma. Luz C. Vilches is the Executive Director of the

Ateneo de Manila Center for English Language

Teaching, Ateneo de Manila University,

Philippines and was the Co-ordinator of the

Philippines, English Language Teaching (PELT)

Project from 1995–9. Her main research interests

include the use of literary texts in language

teaching, and the training, of teacher trainers.

Email: mvilch@admu.edu.ph