Business English Needs Analysis: A Questionnaire for Tutors

A learner who asks for “business English” might need to clarify a deadline, explain a technical problem, answer an unhappy client, or prepare a presentation. Those are different teaching tasks. This needs-analysis questionnaire helps independent tutors and school teachers identify the situations a learner actually faces, then check the language they can already use.

Use it as the first part of a conversation, not as a test that assigns a level or promises a fixed course outcome. Self-reported confidence, frequency of use, and observed performance provide different kinds of information. Keep them separate until you have discussed them with the learner. A person can speak English daily and still want support with one unfamiliar task.

Allow 35–45 minutes for a first session, or send the questions beforehand and spend the lesson on the diagnostic tasks. The completed output is a one-page learning plan with two priorities, examples of success, and a review date. You can run this process with paper or an ordinary document; no survey subscription is necessary.

Before you send the questionnaire

Explain why you are asking and how you will use the answers. Ask for descriptions of communication tasks, not confidential files. A learner can write “a client project” instead of naming an account and can replace real figures with invented classroom numbers. Do not request client lists, internal passwords, private recordings, or material the learner is not permitted to share.

Let the learner skip a question or answer it during the meeting. If a company sponsor has separate goals, collect those goals as a separate brief and discuss any differences with the learner. Do not assume the sponsor's preferred topic is the learner's biggest difficulty. Agree which learning outcomes will be reported before collecting examples for that purpose.

For lower-confidence learners, offer the questionnaire in plain English and allow brief answers in another language you both understand. The objective is an accurate account of needs. You can observe English performance in the short tasks afterwards, rather than interpreting a misunderstood survey question as evidence of low ability.

Copyable learner questionnaire

Ask learners to use short answers and one recent example where possible. The questions below are deliberately task-focused; replace irrelevant examples with ones from the learner's job.

1. Role and responsibilities: What work do you do? Which responsibilities require communication with other people?

2. Communication partners: Who do you use English with: colleagues, customers, suppliers, managers, or people outside your organization?

3. Channels: Which do you use: email, chat, phone, video calls, presentations, or face-to-face conversations?

4. Frequency: Which English tasks do you do daily, weekly, occasionally, or not yet?

5. A successful moment: Describe one recent English interaction that went well. What helped?

6. A difficult moment: Describe one interaction that was difficult. What were you trying to achieve, and what happened?

7. Clarification: What do you say when a request, instruction, or question is unclear?

8. Listening: Which situations are hardest to follow, and what makes them difficult: pace, unfamiliar terms, several speakers, sound quality, or missing context?

9. Speaking: Which task would you like to handle more independently? Give an example rather than only writing “fluency.”

10. Writing: Which messages take too long to write or require someone else's help? What do those messages need to accomplish?

11. Upcoming task: Is there a particular meeting, presentation, interview, or new responsibility you want to prepare for? When is it?

12. Consequence: If communication goes wrong in your chosen task, what practical problem might follow?

13. Existing support: What already helps: templates, notes, colleagues, captions, dictionaries, or preparation time?

14. Practice preferences: Would you prefer roleplays, model analysis, short writing tasks, listening work, or a combination? Is there a format you want to avoid?

15. Available time: What lesson schedule and between-lesson practice time are realistic for you?

16. Evidence of progress: What would you be able to do after a useful first month that is difficult now?

Add one final invitation: “Is there anything important about your work or learning preferences that these questions missed?” Leave room for the learner's answer. A questionnaire should not make the tutor's categories more important than the person's own explanation.

A task-rating sheet that does not confuse confidence with skill

Ask the learner to choose four communication tasks. For each, record frequency, importance, confidence, and one example. Use separate labels for each column. Frequency might be daily, weekly, occasional, or upcoming. Importance might be low, medium, or high. Confidence might be “need substantial help,” “can do with preparation,” or “usually independent.”

Avoid adding these labels together to produce a supposed proficiency score. The scale is a discussion aid. A rarely used presentation task may be urgent because a presentation is scheduled next week. A daily chat task may already be manageable and need little lesson time.

Ask one follow-up for each high-priority task: “What would the other person need to understand or do?” For a status update, the answer may be identify the delay and agree the next action. This gives you a more teachable outcome than “sound professional.” Write the intended listener action beside the learner's original wording.

Run two short diagnostic tasks

Task A: clarify a deadline. Give the learner this fictional message: “Please send the updated version before the review. Use the numbers we discussed and include the main issues.” Tell them that the review time, version, and required figures have not been specified. Ask them to draft a reply of three to five sentences.

Look for useful clarification rather than a particular sentence. A possible response is: “Thanks. Could you confirm the review time and which version you need? I have the figures from Monday's discussion; are those the ones you mean? I'll include a short summary of the main issues once we've confirmed the details.” This is a model, not the only acceptable answer.

Task B: give a spoken update. Supply these facts: a practice project has finished its first draft; a colleague must check one section; the planned completion day is Thursday; that day depends on receiving the check by Wednesday afternoon. Ask for a 45-second update and one response to a listener's question.

A possible model is: “The first draft is ready. One section still needs a colleague's check. We expect to finish on Thursday if we get that feedback by Wednesday afternoon. If it arrives later, I'll confirm a revised completion date.” Ask a follow-up such as “What could change the date?” The answer should preserve the condition, not turn Thursday into an unconditional promise.

Teacher observation key

For each task, note whether the learner communicates the purpose, supplies necessary information, handles uncertainty, and gives the listener a usable next step. Use “independent,” “with prompting,” or “not yet observed.” Record a short quotation or action to support each note. Do not infer an entire language level from these two tasks.

In Task A, the key issue is recognizing missing information. A grammatically polished reply that simply says “I'll send it before the review” does not resolve the ambiguity. A shorter message asking “What time is the review, and which figures should I use?” may accomplish more. Discuss tone as appropriate to the relationship rather than insisting that a longer sentence is always more polite.

In Task B, separate pronunciation from message structure. If you understood every word but could not identify the dependency, work on organization and conditional language. If the dependency was clear in the written plan but not in speech, investigate pace, grouping, or a specific word. Choose an intervention based on what you heard.

Worked profile 1: a project coordinator

Fictional learner: Nora. Nora writes short updates daily and attends one weekly project call. She rates chat as comfortable, long email as slow, and speaking in calls as difficult. Her recent example is agreeing to a deadline before she understood which version was required. In Task A she asks useful questions; in Task B she omits the condition attached to Thursday.

A reasonable initial priority is spoken clarification and conditional updates, not a general email-writing course simply because Nora mentioned slow writing. Agree an outcome such as: “After preparation, give a one-minute update containing progress, dependency, and next action, then clarify one follow-up question.” Keep the email issue on a later-topic list.

A three-session sequence could include noticing missing details, practising a status update with changing facts, and combining the update with a short meeting exchange. Reuse the original diagnostic facts at the end, then give Nora new facts to see whether the skill transfers. Improvement on a memorized task alone is limited evidence.

Worked profile 2: a client-support tutor student

Fictional learner: Imani. Imani understands routine enquiries but struggles when a client rejects the first proposed solution. She uses prepared phrases, then repeats them when the conversation changes. In the writing task she clarifies the deadline well. In the spoken task she stays organized but cannot adapt when the listener asks for an alternative.

An initial priority is responding to a changed request while stating a clear boundary. Plan practice in acknowledging a concern, explaining what is possible, offering a realistic option, and checking agreement. The outcome could be: “Handle a two-minute client roleplay and finish with an agreed next step, without promising an unavailable service.”

Do not interpret this profile as a need to learn more advanced vocabulary automatically. Imani may need flexible combinations of language she already knows. Use a small set of changing scenarios and ask her to explain why each response fits, rather than supplying a longer phrase list every lesson.

Turn the findings into a one-page plan

Write the plan together using five headings: priority task, current evidence, target performance, practice approach, and review point. Include two priorities at most for the first short cycle. More can be kept on a waiting list. Read the plan aloud and ask the learner to correct anything that does not sound like their work.

For example: “Priority: clarify an unclear request. Evidence: identifies missing details in writing but accepts an unclear spoken deadline. Target: ask two relevant questions and summarize the agreed action. Practice: short audio or teacher-read requests, paired clarification, and a final roleplay. Review: after three sessions.” This is specific enough to guide lesson selection without promising a fixed proficiency gain.

For an online tutor, finish by agreeing what the learner can prepare between sessions. Ten minutes describing one anonymized communication difficulty may be more useful than an ambitious daily workload they cannot maintain. Offer a fictional alternative if workplace examples are unavailable.

Revisit the analysis and choose materials

At the review point, repeat one baseline task and add a similar unfamiliar task. Compare the same criteria, then ask whether the priorities have changed. A new responsibility at work may change the plan even when the learner has improved. Keep useful supports available instead of treating independence as a ban on notes, captions, or preparation.

For groups, collect individual needs first and look for shared tasks. Give learners different roles within a common scenario when their responsibilities differ. For B1 learners, shorten the prompts and provide planning frames; for B2–C1 learners, add an ambiguous request, competing priority, or follow-up requiring a reasoned response.

If the resulting plan calls for work on meetings, difficult clients, presentations, negotiation, or professional storytelling, inspect the Business English Pack. Check its lesson list against the priorities you agreed. It is an optional set of teaching materials, not a substitute for the needs analysis or a claim that one pack fits every professional.