At the first sight, this may seem t

At the first sight, this may seem to be a very logical procedure. It starts with the learner, procedus through various stages of analysis to a syllabus, thence to materials in use in the classroom and finally to evaluation of mastery of the syllabus items. However, logical and straightforward as it may seem, it has a number of weaknesses:
a) It starts from the learners and their needs, and thus it might be centred in any meaningful sense of the term. The learner is used solely as a way of locating the restricted are. Thereafter the learner plays no further part in the process. As we have seen, however, when considering needs analysis, the learner should be considered at every stage of the process.
b) The language – centred process can also be criticized for being a static and inflexible procedure, which can take little account of the conflicts and contradictions that are inherent in any human endeavor. Once the initial analysis of the target situation is done, the course designer is looked into a relentless process. And unfortunately we have to admit that we do not know enough about how the mind actually goes about creating its internal system of knowledge.
c) One of the alluring features of this model is that it appears to be systematic. But in so doing engenders the false belief learning itself is systematic- that the systematic analysis and presentation of language data will produce systematic learning in the learner. But the most important point here is that it must be an internally – generated system not an externally imposed system. The fact that knowledge has been systematically analysed and systematically presented does not in any way imply has it will be systematically learnt. Learners have to make the system meaningful to themselves.
d) The language-centred model gives no acknowledgement to factors which must inevitably play a part in the creation of any course. Data such as that produced by a needs analysis, its not important in itself. Data must be interpreted, and in interpreting we make use of all sorts of knowledge that are not revealed in the analysis itself. What is actually happening in the language – centred approach is that an analytical model is also being used inapporopriately as a predictive model. If materials are based on the language-centred model, then either there are other factors being used, which are not acknowledge in the model, or and sadly this is what seems so often to be important at all. As a teacher once remarked at a seminar