The English language teaching enterprise in the Postcolonial Cameroon: A focus on the framework of needs analysis

It is an established fact that when most students in some non-native settings like Cameroon, leave secondary/high schools, their performance in written and/or oral communication is still relatively mediocre. This state of affairs has been an issue of several inquiries over the years. Most researchers attributed learner's poor performance to psychological, social and linguistic factors. This paper rests on the solid assumption that most learners find difficulties in expressing themselves in English at the completion of secondary school in Cameroon because the school curriculum is not designed within the framework of Needs Analysis. A number of issues will be addressed in this research endeavour. In it, we shall give an insight into the notion of Needs Analysis, establish its theoretical basis, explore some models and approaches of this theoretical framework within the ESL/EFL context and finally show its potential usefulness