Language Needs of Computer Learners

Abstract

This study aims at describing the language needs of computer learners. Needs analysis is described as an act of finding out the necessity for which the trainees or learners desire language in order to study efficiently.  Due to the fact that the English language is an official language in Nigeria, the computer trainees find it difficult to use English for the Computer appropriately. This paper suggests ways of tackling the difficulty. The trainees’ needs are grouped into three categories: communicative needs, grammatical needs and lexical needs. The trainees need to be motivated and committed to the act of learning the computer jargon. The findings reveal that while communicative needs are beneficial in increasing verbal interactions between learners; the grammatical needs are useful in discriminating grammatical categories and their functions and in learning simple sentences; and the lexical needs are useful in mastering the code used in the computer. Grammatical, communicative and lexical needs are important to the learners in order to attain proficiency in their training.

Key words: Linguistic needs; needs analysis; computer learners; communicative needs; grammatical needs; and lexical needs.