1 Needs Analysis, Critical Ethnography, and Context: Perspectives from the Client---and the Consultant Ann M. Johns & Leketi Makalela Needs Assessment: A Brief History From the revival of English for Specific Purposes in the post-World War II period to the present day, Needs Analysis (NA), and its accompanying approach, Target Situation Analysis (TSA), have been central to English for Specific Purposes (Dudley-Evans & St John, 1998; Hutchinson & Waters, 1987; Johns & Dudley-Evans, 1991; Robinson, 1991; Long, 2005; Belcher, 2009). In her volume, Ideas and options in English for Specific Purposes (2006), Basturkman conflates needs assessment and target situation analysis, as will be the case in this chapter, to argue for their importance to the ESP movement: ESP is understood to be about preparing learners to use English within academic, professional, or workplace environments, and a key feature of ESP course design is that the syllabus is based on an analysis of the needs of the students. [Italics ours.] Thus, in ESP, language is learnt not for its own sake…but to smooth the path to entry or greater linguistic proficiency in these environments (p. 19). In fact, as Belcher (2006) points out: It is probably no exaggeration to say that needs assessment is seen in ESP as the foundation on which all other decisions are, or should be, made (p 135).