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Hutchinson and Waters, 1987; Berwick, 1989; Seedhouse,
1995.

The importance of carrying out a NA is emphasized by
Fulcher (1999), McDonough (1984) and Carrol (1980).
According to Iwai et al. (1999), the term NA refers to the
activities that are involved in collecting information that will
serve as the basis for developing a curriculum that meets the
needs of a particular group of students.

NA can be used for various purposes. It can be helpful in
determining whether a program should be implemented by
finding out if it matches the goals and objectives of the
learners of a language. Also, using NA as a part of a program
can help improve various componenets of the program and
make these more oriented to the needs of learners. NA can
also help in evaluating an existing program and if deficiency
is found, it can help in establishing the need for introducing a
change and what kind of change will match the needs of
learners and simultaneously be accessible to teachers. Hence,
it can be clearly said that the NA process focuses and builds
on learners' accomplishments and abilities rather than
deficits, allowing learners to articulate and display what they