Article 8

July 26

This is the last chapter of the textbook, and it is about the experiences of Laura Hull in developing a curriculum framework for a corporate language program catering to business executives, and hence the name

"Chapter 8: A curriculum framework for corporate language programs." Hull was the director of these programs and while the other chapters' foci were mainly about the course, this chapter differs as her focus was more on the behind-the-scene planning and implementing of the individualized courses (198). Furthermore, another foci of Hull's experience are evaluation and finding a curriculum that would meet these four goals, which are also known as "the four C's": clarity, coherence, consistency, and continuity (178).

In problematizing the issue- or understanding and defining challenges in order to modify and make needed changes- she first did research, although she was challenged with limited time for preparation and few guidelines (198). Conducting research can be seen as the formative aspect of evaluation. She researched about her clients, making note of their individual needs so she can be able to address them. She also gathered insights from the students and teachers who were currently involved in the program on the areas of strengths and areas that needed to be improved. This evaluation the program was through the means of feedbacks and interviews (198).

Finding the solution in providing an effective training in the English language means addressing these three important aspects: 1) to assess learning needs, analyze learning styles, define specific, measurable, and time-achievable objectives, and participate in a planning program; 2) to implement a program plan through the practice of carefully selecting learning strategies to achieve those objectives; and 3) to design a self-study plan to continue their learning after their on-site work with the program (187).

And finally putting together the framework, which addressed the aspects above, was achieved in these steps: designing a learning plan,

implementing a learning plan, and setting up an ongoing learning plan even after the students left the program. This plan for the framework can be seen in outline form in "Appendix A: Curriculum framework" on page 194. In addressing needs which can be seen as learning goals are listed in "Appendix B: Sample needs assessment," page 196.

What I like most about this chapter is addressing individual needs as shown on page 196. It gives more concreteness to the learning goals as it is shown in this way. Having concreteness in learning goals helps teachers have specific objectives that they can manage and it is also beneficial to the students because their needs are addressed. In having these listed such as the ones shown in Appendix B gives a clear visual to the standards expected.

Image

Image of buildings. [Photograph]. Retrieved from http://www.yankeesecurity.com/buildings7_e.jpg.

Image of smiling man talking. [Photograph]. Retrieve from http://www.handsoncare.com/assets/images/Smiling_man_talking_on_cell_phone_1.jpg.

Article 7

July 19

This next experience is again located in Japan, but for a college elective for advanced listening comprehension. The chapter accounts the experience of Barbara Fujiwara and is entitled "Planning an advanced listening comprehension elective for Japanese college students."

This chapter attempts to understand the unique responsibility of teachers/course developers in the selection of materials and why decision this is critical. Also, it gives insight on how teachers organize the course and the role of the students in the developmental system.

Fujiwara sets up the course as a new experience for her and therefore she begins by observing language lab (LL) courses. She notes that LLs impressed her with the use of technology. However, because she was pressed for time in the development of the course, she was not able to review enough audio and video materials to be used in class assignments. And hence, this is where the students' role came in. Through input and suggestions by an essay assignment which functioned like an entrance exam for the elective in order to thin the over-enrollment, Fujiwara took some of these suggestions for her class- assigning group projects to analyze and present video or audio materials to the class. So, eventually, Fujiwara ended up with a textbook that she had chosen entitled How to Listen and a few other materials she had also chosen, and the rest of the materials were chosen by the students to base their projects on.

Fujiwara found that the choosing of materials was very critical. She also found that the choice was dynamic, depending on the students' needs and capabilities at a particular time. What I liked about this article was the process that Fujiwara went through, in which it was realistic. She started out with planning and mind-mapping in order to better conceptualize the course. Then she took students' suggestions to make the course workable for the students and to help her decide on the materials to use. She had deep and thoughtful self-reflections, taking into account her concerns and emotions, how she combined theories, decisions, and practice, and most of all observed how the course was affecting her students. Lastly, we could see through her honest journaling that her decisions were not perfect which I find very realistic. And although perfection was not the case, she strived for the betterment of the course in attaining her goals. The course was at its earliest stages, but she learned a lot and therefore understood how to make the following semesters better. For example, she decided to drop one of the textbooks, although she found the contents useful but because of its difficulty to be comprehended and the ability of her students, she chose to do away with it (164).

By the end of the course, her students said that it had been very helpful for them. They also greatly appreciated that their inputs were thought to be important. And they gave more suggestions in improving the course. With the students' reports, the goal of Fujiwara for the course- which is to "increase and improve [student] listening strategies and skills" through a variety of audio and video materials focusing on contemporary lifestyles and issues in the United States and the United Kingdom, and students will also be expected to practice these skills outside of the class- was achieved, and the variety of feedback reflects the unique needs of each learner (153, 165).

I also agree that having the right materials is very important for the learning of students. When I used to tutor ELLs, I found that the decisions for the right materials were vital. For example, because the private school that my students went to did not have a more comprehensible material for ESL, the students and I had such a hard time in getting an understandable, workable, and learnable information for them.

Images

McNamee, Win. March 2010. Cherry blossoms begin to bloom throughout Washington. [Photograph]. Getty Images. Retrieved from http://cache3.asset-cache.net/xc/80389902.jpg.

Image of language lab. [Photograph]. Retrieved from http://ninitalk.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/language_lab.jpg.

Image of textbooks. [Photograph]. Retrieved from http://www.estudiainglesonline.com/textbooks.jpg.

Article 3

July 8

Chapter 3 is Johan Ulvin's experience regarding an ESOL course development for a Boston nursing home in which he focused on determining student needs. In "Designing workplace ESOL courses for Chinese health-care workers at a Boston nursing home," the author notes that although the course did what it was designed to do after observing and analyzing the needs of the students for three weeks, it had failed his students. Our further exploration will reveal why he had felt so. However, on the bright, as he became more involved in the classroom, he was able to accurately identify the students' needs and therefore, went on to improve the course.

After his ninety hour observation and came up with a course with already defined set of needs, he executed his course plan on his students. Eventually, he found this particular plan to be ineffective because it did not include the input of the students, neither did it include the other factors that are unique to this group of Chinese immigrants and other individually unique needs. Therefore, he revamped the program in which he considered the input of the students. In addition to that and discovering unique needs, Ulvin also made trusted relationships with his students and used student experiences in their learning.

We can see this improvement of course program in the tables on pages 46-47. In Table 1, we see that the needs and goals of the Chinese students were defined by the supervisors, nurses, department heads, and trainers. But there came a shift in the system as seen in Table 2: student experiences were included in decision making and other problems of the students that needed to be addressed were also included.

In the end, Ulvin found that course development does not exist "in a vacuum," but rather is indeed an ongoing process, that involves the active input and participation of the learners (58).

I believe that his progression between the two processes is a great improvement. Education, course development, and assessments are becoming increasingly focused on involvement of students. I learned that students being involved with various ways of assessments, in which not only written but also oral, affect, and production, makes assessment less threatening. I especially admire Ulvin's method in which he involved himself in his students' trust and used their experiences in making significant connections with the lessons. When I was learning English as a second language, I was very interested and learned best when I had the chance to make connections between English and my own primary culture and language. I was also very willing to share them.

Images

Image of Chinese flag. [Photograph]. Retrieved from http://drjamesgalyon.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/china-flag.jpg.

Image of student and teacher. [Photograph]. Retrieved from http://extend.schoolwires.com/clipartgallery/images/26256131.jpg.

Article 5 & 6

July 7

For the past several articles, I have always written extensively about the authors' point of view and experiences. However, I was thinking what would I have left to write for my reflection paper, especially if I would be writing so much in detail for every chapter then I everything would become too long? So tonight, I am modifying my reflections into something more concise in order to cover all chapters substantially.

Chapter 5, entitled "Designing an EAP course for postgraduate students in Ecuador," the experiences of Maria del Carmen Blyth who was a curriculum developer, foreign language teacher, and teacher trainer in several nations- Armenia, Egypt, Tanzania, Singapore, and Ecuador. I really liked her unique take on journal writing and mind-mapping. Through these two methods, she was able to ponder, reflect, and analyze data, thoughts, and experiences in order to accomplish her goal which was to answer the question, "What is the purpose of the course?" To go further into depths of her purpose, it is to provide language training that would be useful even after the 100 4-hour course. In my university education courses, I was taught the significance of meaningful self-reflections through journaling. With Blyth's experience I can more see why this is so- to understand my own experiences,

understand the needs of the students, choose activities and materials, and be able to map these out into thoughtful connections.

A couple of the methods that she used that I think would be very helpful are in Appendix B: School evaluation form (105) and Appendix D: Course evaluations. Appendix B evaluates the student's proficiency in English, which is highly invaluable because it not only acts like a progress report card, but the instructor can see the strengths of the students to build confidence upon and the weaknesses to work on and strengthen. Appendix D is the student's evaluation of the class on whether it has been useful to them and whether they have learned (and what did they learn).

Chapter 6- "Designing a writing component for teen courses at a Brazilian language institute"- on the experiences of Maria Estela Pinheiro Franco. Her problem and the problem of the Alumni in which she is supervising for the teenage program is that young students start out with a great proficiency in writing in English but by the time they become teenagers, their skills in writing greatly retard, although their speaking skills become high. Therefore, Pinheiro's goal is to develop a course in which writing will be practiced and improved. In achieving this, her objectives were to improve on vocabulary, grammatical skills, sequencing literature, sequencing in writing, and learning to write drafts and essays. Although, the task was daunting with the various student levels and needs to be catered to, she developed activities that interest and challenged her students. Furthermore, she arranged the activities into progressive levels of complexity, amount of writing required, concreteness to abstract concepts, and being able to put these skills together (148).

Another thing that I think was such a benefit for Pinheiro's course is that she had formal, as well as informal, input about teachers from their students. This prompted modifications and made the course more workable for the students' learning. Lastly, Pinheiro had the institution's support on what she was doing for her students.

Images

Writing man image. Retrieved from http://www.ics.uci.edu/~dramanan/teaching/ics139w_fall09/writing_man.jpg.

Steven Boyley. " Mindpapping." 1998. Retrieved from http://www.nlpmind.com/images/mind_mapping.gif.