The general goal of this will be to allow teachers-in-training to apply many of the concepts that they have learned regarding curriculum, course and material design and apply them to the evaluation of a hypothetical language learning program. We have been “hired” to evaluate and design an English language program for an English summer camp In the Philippines. The camp is a joint venture between a Philippine resort and the Mandela School. The Mandela School is private alternative school here in Korea. It has several campuses, a teacher training center and an international high school in the Philippines.
They have recently concluded their first summer camp and the post-camp evaluations have been disappointing. Although the students thought the activities were fun, they didn’t feel that they had been adequately prepared to speak and understand the English they needed to do these activities well. Several students said that learning how to scuba dive in English could have been a lot better if they had learned some of the vocabulary prior to the activity. They also didn’t feel that the summer camp adequately reflected the school’s mission statement of “learning by choosing;” that is, the students felt that they didn’t have very much choice about the activities that they could do.
Although numerous students expressed having specific problems with the language learning, they, nevertheless, had a generally positive experience. Eighty percent of the students replied “yes” to the survey question: “Would you recommend a friend to come to this camp?” And sixty percent of the students answered “yes” to the survey questions: “Would like to attend the camp again?” Camp administrators want us to take this into consideration when we design our curriculum for next summer; that is, the curriculum should be flexible enough so that students who attend the English summer camp more than once will be exposed to more and more English.
One major stipulation is that our program and curriculum recommendations must fit within the school’s educational philosophy and mission statement, because thirty percent of the students felt that the camp did not adequately reflect the school’s motto: “Learn by choosing." A summary of the Mandela School’s educational beliefs follow below:
Attendance is mandatory. Participants who arrive to class 10 minutes or more after the start of class will be considered late. Participants who are late 3 times will receive 1 absence. Any participant who misses 4 or more of all class meetings WILL receive an F in the course. More important than attendance is participation. I expect participants to be active in class discussions and to complete all oral and written assignments BY THE DUE DATE. If assignments are handed in late without prior permission from the instructor, 10% for each late day will be deducted from the grade. Finally, participants in this course will have several opportunities to apply the skills learned in lectures, discussions and workshops by engaging in various "in-class" activities and projects.
Due week 4: Students will need to answer the following questions for a specific theme/topic/area of study: What vocabulary, expressions and grammatical structures will the learners need to be successful in this summer camp? Students will analyze their theme/topic/area of study and compile a list of possible study points.
All students will be involved in different aspects of the same needs analysis project. The mid-term project consists of producing a report describing the needs analysis data we will collect, an analysis of that data, and implication for course and curriculum design.
Although the camp administration will be responsible for most of the materials and lesson plans, we have been asked to design a Unit Plan for the three-week camp, and to create a scope and possible sequence of work with suggestions for implementation (means) and learning outcomes (ends).
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Week/Date |
Readings |
In class activities/Assignments |
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Week 1 |
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Introduction to course |
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Week 2 |
"Needs Analysis" from Curriculum Development in Language Teaching |
Discussion/Lecture: about reading |
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Week 3 |
"Needs Assessment in Language Programming: from Theory to Practice" from The Second Language Curriculum |
Discussion/lecture:
about reading Group Work: Language Needs Identification |
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Week 4 |
"The Place of Grammar Instruction in the Second/Foreign Language Curriculum" from New Perspectives on Grammar Teaching in Second Language Classrooms |
Language Needs
Identification Due Discussion/lecture: about reading Introduce: Project #1 |
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Week 5 |
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Workshop: On creating a needs analysis |
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Week 6 |
"Promoting learner autonomy through the curriculum: Principles for designing language courses" by S Cotterall - ELT journal, 2000 |
Discussion/lecture: about reading
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Week 7 |
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Peer Editing: Students edit and finalize their needs analysis instruments |
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Week 8 |
Formulating Goals and Objectives from Designing Language Courses |
Needs analysis due |
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Week 9 |
Defining Learning Objectives for ELT from ELT Journal, 1985 |
Discussion/lecture: about reading |
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Week 10 |
Course Planning and Syllabus Design from Curriculum Development in Language Teaching |
Discussion/lecture:�about reading |
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Week 11 |
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Workshop: On syllabus design |
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Week 12 |
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Group Work: Ends/Means Specification - course goals and SLOs |
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Week 13 |
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Group Work: Ends/Means Specification - course goals and SLOs |
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Week 14 |
The Empirical Evaluation of language teaching materials from ELT journal, 1997 |
Discussion/lecture: about reading |
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Week 15 |
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Conferencing: I will give feedback on project #2 before you submit for evaluation |
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Week 16 |
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Project 3 Due |