Course Design: Confident and Fluent Reading

COURSE TITLE: Confident and Fluent Reading

INSTRUCTOR: Julien Sanghyo Park

E-MAIL: juliensanghyopark@gmail.com

YEAR/QUARTER: 2011/summer

STUDENT PROFILE: 9^th grader ~ college/adult learners planning to take IELTS/TOEFL and achieve 6.5 on IELTS or 90 on TOEFL or higher within a year.

PROFICIENCY LEVEL: Mid ~ Upper Intermediate (EFL)

COURSE LENGTH: 12 weeks

TIME TABLE: (90minutes * 2)/week * 12
                 +one 60min. assessment session per 2 weeks

COURSE MATERIALS & REFERENCES:

l  Required textbook: Essential Reading 4 (Macmillan)

l  All materials used in the course will be provided in the form of a handout.

(extracted from Teacher’s File, etc.)

l  Recommended Reading: Speckled Band and Other Stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and other Intermediate ~ Upper Intermediate Leveled Macmillan Readers, Oxford Bookworms Library, etc.

l  Audio Files of the articles in the textbook are available at http://www.macmillanenglish.com/essentialreading/resources.html

COURSE OVERVIEW

Confident and Fluent Reading is designed for upper intermediate EFL senior high school or adult students who wish to become confident and fluent readers in English. This course offers both intensive and extensive approaches to reading, a wide range of engaging topics, and a full range of skills-building activities.

The aim of this course is to instill confidence and fluency in English reading in the learner. The students are required to either successfully complete Essential Reading 3 or equivalent reading material or demonstrate intermediate level of reading in English by providing evidence such as the scores in the placement test that is previously arranged or other international English proficiency tests.

The syllabus and learning activities in this course are developed to increase the student’s mastery and appreciation for reading as well as their critical thinking and study skills. Increasing the competencies in these areas will improve the level of achievement on the reading test in proficiency examinations such as IELTS, TOEFL.

STANDARDS

National TESOL standards

Goal 2, Standard 3
To use English to achieve academically in all content areas: Students will use appropriate learning strategies to construct and apply academic knowledge

Descriptors

• focusing attention selectively
• applying basic reading comprehension skills such as skimming, scanning, previewing, and reviewing text
• using context to construct meaning
• taking notes to record important information and aid one's own learning
• applying self-monitoring and self-corrective strategies to build and expand a knowledge base
• determining and establishing the conditions that help one become an effective learner (e.g., when, where, how to study)
• planning how and when to use cognitive strategies and applying them appropriately to a learning task
• actively connecting new information to information previously learned
• evaluating one's own success in a completed learning task
• recognizing the need for and seeking assistance appropriately from others (e.g., teachers, peers, specialists, community members)
• imitating the behaviors of native English speakers to complete tasks successfully
• knowing when to use native language resources (human and material) to promote understanding

COURSE GOALS & OBJECTIVES


Goals

To develop the advanced abilities of reading

To have enough reading confidence and fluency to achieve 6.0 or more on IELTS reading


Objectives

By the end of the course, the learner should be able to:
     successfully score more than 60 percent on mock reading comprehension test of IELTS or TOEFL.
     read passages with similar difficulty level of IELTS or TOEFL at 200 wpm or faster by the end of the course

ASSIGNMENTS

Most of the class activities rely on home reading tasks given in advance. Along with the specific tasks for every class, home reading essentially involves working out vocabulary used in the texts to enable students to analyze the texts and to fluently discuss the issues in English. Extra reading and references given after each odd numbered chapter are encouraged to fill in informative gaps or to cover the topics of particular interest found in the texts or raised in class discussions. Review exercises at the end of every two chapters in the textbook are given as homework.

The students are required to keep record of their reading speed for every reading material in the course, and submit it to the instructor at the end of each week.

In-class activities may also include reading comprehension tasks and exercises without initial home preparation. At the end of each unit, the students are required to do the writing assignment in the textbook and submit their work to the instructor for feedback.

ASSESSMENT & TEXT

To determine that the students have successfully completed the session of two chapters (2 weeks), There is

A vocabulary & review test is given to determine that the students have successfully completed the session of two chapters(2 weeks).

A final examination is given after completion of all the assigned units of instruction. Students must complete all course work at a 70% or higher mastery level to be eligible for the final examination.

The questions for the formative assessment and the final exam can be extracted from Test Generator CD ROM of Essential Reading 4 included in Teacher’s File.

GRADING SCALE

The grading scale given below should be applied to all coursework, tests, and final exams.

90~100% = A

80~89% = B

70~79% = C

60~69% = D

0~59 = F

COURSE SYLLABUS

Evaluation of Curriculum Materials (2)

Basic Grammar Course as a Cyber College Graduation Program by YBMSISA

Course Name: English Grammar
Course Length: 15 weeks
Students: College Students (English Major)
Level: Elementary to Intermeidate Low
Textbook: Basic Grammar in Use (Cambridge University Press)

Video-recorded lectures of a textbook by the instructor are included in the curriculum in most online language courses in Korea. In other words, an instructor and his or her own style and method are often considered as core components in the initial process of developing the curriculum rather than assigned after the curriculum is set. Sometimes, a whole curriculum is canceled or modified depending on the recruitment of the instructor. Therefore a particular rubric should be applied to the assessment of online course in Korea.

I chose a basic grammar class of a cyber college graduate program run by YBMSISA. Basic Grammar in Use published by Cambridge University Press is the textbook for the class. The program adopted a video-recorded lecture previously made for an online grammar class, but applied other necessary implements to be approved as an official college graduate program stated by the government. This interesting combination of both informal and formal education aspects has offered me a chance to think of how to see different forms of courses of today.

Since it is the basic grammar course for Korean students who are in EFL surroundings and developed according to the standard by the government, those categories related to ESL/ELD standards in yellow rubric do not make the case however I gave some points where I could find some evidence that parts of descriptions of ELD standards can be applied. Articles related to four domains and addressing needs of English learners at every level in them in the category of Instructional Resources couldn’t be applied as they are to the course since it was not a comprehensive course but a basic grammar course through video-recorded instructions. The textbook Basic Grammar in Use doesn’t have teachers’ Edition. As stated above, since the course already included the lecture by a set instructor in the curriculum, the article about it in the category of Material Design seems irrelevant. However this kind of online college graduate programs also assigns manager professors who are in charge of all the other jobs except for giving classes such as giving assessments and grading besides the lecture professor who does the video lectures. Therefore I think Teachers’ Edition may flexibly be replaced by manager professors’ manual for this kind of system. I also think it should be considered whether the manager professors should be regarded as instructional resources in this system. If so, the scores in III Instructional Resources where they will play roles to handle what are described in it will be different.

My rubric is designed for online English courses in informal sectors. So I have found out it should also need modification according to aspects of formal education setting as a college graduate program. The delivery mode along with advanced but convenient technologies and appealing graphics are very important aspects to decide the success of an online course in informal sectors, however in formal sectors assessments and grading count, thus the importance of interaction between the instructor and the student doubles, which not many students in informal sectors feel as necessary.

The course earned 4.0 point average out of 5.0 from yellow rubric, scoring relatively high in Instructional Content and Assessment and low in Material Design and Instructional Resources. In contrast, the result from the evaluation by my rubric has higher scores due to the points earned from technologies and media related categories. Yellow rubric assesses resources and materials of the course with the more detailed articles than mine whereas mine has more focus on what it looks like and how it is run such as technologies and media, which accounts for the majority of the budget in the field. The biggest difference is that yellow rubric is for general offline English courses in formal education while mine is for evaluating online courses in informal sectors. There should also be a consideration for the standards to apply; ESL/ELD standards are irrelevant in courses in Korea. The rubrics for different types of online courses in Korea also seem necessary as well as the universal one for the effective assessment.

Evaluation of Curriculum Materials (1)

Evaluation of an Online Course