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Deciding Objectives and Course Design - Coggle Diagram
Deciding Objectives and Course Design
Foundations
Register Analysis
Provides ESP instructors and course designers with a solid foundation for targeting and teaching ESP-focused grammar.
e.g. (EAP) ESP instructors and course designers identify and teach language features that characterise formal academic writing style.
e.g. (EOP) highlights grammar forms that are specifically used in target language settings (e.g. airline flight controller directions, nurse-patient interactions, hotel service encounters, etc)
Provides understanding of how vocabulary is distributed in and across texts.
The practice of targeting vocabulary that belongs to general, semi-technical and technical categories.
Coxhead's (2000) Academic Word List - used in textbooks worldwide. This is a great source of information when planning an ESP course for an unfamiliar discipline and teaching it.
Corpus analysis
Corpora and software tools allow ESP experts to complete detailed studies on the grammar and vocabulary of target texts easily -- Accurate description of language in various disciplines and fields of work.
Greater confidence in what should or should not be taught in class.
The ability to perform CA should be a goal of ESP learners, with the guide of the instructors -- Data-Driven Learning (DDL)
Rhetorical (discourse) Analysis
'Top down' perspective - links language form to language use.
Provides ESP course designers and instructors with more informed basis to decide what to include in ESP courses.
e.g. (EAP) Instructors can use insights from RA of academic texts to explain why certain logical connectors appear more commonly than others.
e.g. (EOP) RA can be used to explain the increased use of modal verbs in the language of telephone operators that need to respond to their customers politely and respectfully.
Not only will learners understand why the target language is used as it is, but they will begin to develop rhetorical awareness.
Looks at why particular language features are more or less frequent of others and;
How language users combined sentences and paragraphs to construct spoken or written texts.
Genre Analysis
Emerged from the work done in register and rhetorical studies. It became one of the most important principles used in ESP.
GA allows course designers and instructors to identify the communicative purpose, structure, style, content and intended audience of target texts.
With this knowledge, course objectives can be created that will ensure that learners are able to recognise genre features and use them to create language outputs, which helps them conform to the practices of their discourse community.
(EOP) Learners can use their knowledge of genre to create great business letters, reports, speeches, etc.
(EAP) Learners can improve their reading and writing of research articles, grant proposal, and their delivery of academic presentations.
GA goes beyond analyzing written and spoken texts. Some researchers are interested in examining how the texts of a genre evolve over time and blends with other genres.
Rhetorical genre studies group - focus on the context and community in which texts exist. Provides more insights why genres are created and how they facilitate communication.
Learning and Metacognitive Skills
Learning theories address behavior, cognition and affect.
Most ESP instructors aim to apply different learning approaches depending on various things (e.g. the needs of different stakeholders, the course's objectives, learners' background and expectation, etc).
e.g. EAP presentation course - behaviorist approach to improve pronunciations, cognitive approach to create the language in presentation slides, affective approach to give learners motivation, develop positive attitudes, show ways to reduce anxiety when making mistakes.
Learning theory also addresses sub-skills that facilitates reading, writing, speaking and listening .
To develop effective learning objectives, ESP course designers and instructors can analyze the learners' target language and identify the specific skills and sub-skills that members of the discourse community use.
In a study done by Jane Lockwood (2011), the researcher mentioned that studies related to genre analysis, discourse analysis and corpus linguistics have informed Glocal Financial Services (GFS) in their ESP curriculum design process. :pen:
Sequencing
What steps will be taken to achieve the objectives? How long will each step be? What is the order of the steps? -- these are stated in the lesson plans, syllabuses, overall curriculums.
General Principles of Sequencing
Nation and Macalister (2010) suggest general. principles as a guide to sequence learning objectives.
cover useful language items, skills and strategies instead of trying to teach everything at once.
Sequence items to give learners increasingly spaced, repeated opportunities to retrieve and give attention to target items in a variety of contexts
If items are learned together, make sure that the combination contributes to the learning process and interference effects are avoided.
Help learners make effective use of previous knowledge.
Train learners to monitor their learning gains to become independent language learners.
Courses should be designed where they give opportunities for learners to try doing the tasks themselves instead of focusing on teaching. It is also important to spend sufficient amount of time to let learners develop fluency in the language skills they have obtained.
Sequencing in Syllabus and Curriculum Specifications
Syllabus design
Specifies the content and sequencing of language, genres, and skills for a course.
Traditional English syllabus types used in ESP course designs
Content-based (recent trend toward English-mediated instruction (EMI))
Genre-based (mostly used today)
Notional-functional (1980s and 1990s)
Situational (communication language approach - mid 1980s)
Skill-based (mostly used today)
Structural (1960s and 1970s)
Task-based (mostly used today)
Sequencing patterns used in ESP course designs
Linear
Linear + revision units
Spiral
Matrix
Thread
Curriculum design
Specifies the goals for an entire language program, general sequencing, timing and duration of courses created to meet those goals.
Goals can be created in terms of learners' needs and the institution's vision or mission statement.
(EAP) individual courses within a program progress from basic (required status) to advanced (elective status)
(EOP) programs are aimed at specific workers. Courses at all levels may have an elective or required status, which depends on the employee's role and position and company's global strategy.
New recruits have to take short and intensive courses for a few days or weeks. Later, they have to continue with additional training programs and online courses.
Promoted employees need specialized English, so they have to take short and intensive courses which focus on advanced aspects of the language.
Addressing Subject Knowledge Problem
How can ESP instructors define learning objectives if they lack specialist knowledge about the target disciplines?
This issue can be mitigated through careful planning.
ESP instructors can design their classes using published ESP textbook that covers the particular target field.
:!: - BUT it's not really in line with the principle of ESP because few published textbooks will exactly match the needs of different stakeholders.
Instructors can modify the content of the textbook, but, this goes back to the original issue. How can instructors modify the textbook if they cannot define the objectives of the course due to their lack of adequate specialist knowledge of the target discipline?
Instructors work in a team with experienced administrators and subject specialists to create course syllabuses, lesson plans, materials, and methods.
:!: - BUT instructors will likely face questions from learners regarding the target discipline that they can't answer.
Wu and Badger (2009) found that most instructors used avoidance strategies rather than admitting their lack of subject knowledge.
Effective way to address this issue: embrace your ignorance and be honest. Introduce yourself to the class and the idea that the language of specialist subjects varies widely. Explain that the learners will not get all answers from this class and that they can discuss their questions with people in their departments, their supervisors, etc.
Get target language examples and find out how and why the language takes this form instead of making incorrect statements based on your assumptions and ignorance.
Do this by reviewing specialist literature, Internet-based searches, discussions with subject specialists. OR conduct a text analysis (tool: e.g. AntConc)
Take an interest in the field: find out how many people in the target setting use English, their expected general English proficiency levels, and what language issues they face.
Approaches to Course Design
Using the needs analysis conducted and theoretical information, course design is the process producing a syllabus, selecting and adapting or writing materials, developing methodology and establishing evaluation procedures.
Language-centred course design
Aim: to link target situation analysis and the content of the ESP course.
Prevalent in ESP and most familiar to English teachers.
Process:
Identify learners' target situation and select theoretical views of language.
Identify linguistic features of target situation.
Create syllabus.
Design materials.
Establish evaluation procedures.
Weaknesses
Might be considered learner-centred approach because it starts with learners and their needs, however, the learners are used to identify the target situation (restricted area of the language to be taught), then the learners no longer play a part in the process. However, in needs analysis, learners should be considered at every step.
Static and inflexible.
This approach seems systematic, however, learning is not systematic. Systematic analysis and presentation of language data will not produce systematic learning in the learner, unless they make the system meaningful to themselves. Learning is not a straightforward process.
Does not acknowledge and consider factors that must play a part in creating a course (e.g. the principle of good pedagogic materials is that they should be interesting).
Analysis of target situation data is only at the surface level. It reveals very little about the competence that is significant for the performance.
2. Skills-centred course design
Founded on two fundamental principles; theoretical and pragmatic.
Theoretical: Any language behaviour is possible because of certain skills and strategies that are used to produce or comprehend discourse.
Aim: To examine the competence that underlies the language performance. A skills-centred approach will have learning objectives concerning both language competence and performance.
e.g. Some Initial Considerations for Course Design by Michael Courtney (1988) - The researcher considered both competence and performance in the objectives of the course he was designing for trainee computer practitioners. :pen:
Pragmatic: ESP course should be helping learners to develop skills and strategies that will continue to develop after the course itself.
Aim: To make the learners better processors of information, not to provide specified corpus of linguistic knowledge.
The role of needs analysis in skills-centred approach
To discover the underlying competence that enables people to perform in the target situation.
Enables the course designer to discover knowledge and abilities that learners bring to the classroom.
Weaknesses: approaches learners as users, rather than learners. This approach concerns with the processes of language use, not language learning. Still too dependent on the target situation, does not really consider the learners. The learners are used to identify the target situation needs.
Process:
Identify target situation.
Analyze skills and strategies to perform in target situation + Theoretical views of language + Theoretical views of learning.
Write syllabus.
Select texts and write exercises to focus on skills/strategies.
Establish evaluation procedure
Example: Developing an English for Specific Purpose Curriculum for Asian Call Centres: How Theory Can Inform Practice by Jane Lockwood (2011) :pen:
Learning-centred approach
Why is it learning-centred and not learner-centred?
The learner is a factor to consider in the learning process, however, it is not the only one. The learning process should also consider the knowledge and skills the learner already has, the target of the learning, the route and speed learner takes to reach the target, and more.
To look beyond the competence that allows people to perform, and to discover how people acquire that competence, not the competence itself.
Learning-centred approach considers the learner at every stage of the course design process. Two implications:
Course design is a negotiated process. There is no single factor that determines the course's content. Both ESP learning situation and target situation will influence the syllabus, materials, methodology and evaluation procedures.
Course design does not move in a linear fashion from initial analysis to completed course. Needs and resources vary with time. The course design needs to have built-in feedback channels for the course to respond to developments.
:question: What are built-in feedback channels?