Reflectoin: A curriculum framework for corporate langauge program

When I worked in English Academy Institute and also in an English camp, I found out that it’s so hard to make everyone happy. At that time, everyone referred to the owner of the program or institute, instructors, students, and their parents. The reason was so simple that everyone has different ideas, goals, and preferences about their learning. Therefore, the assessment about the curriculum and the choice of the text was very controversial and it was often asked to fix somewhat even though it was already started. In this chapter, I also could see how difficult and complicated to design the curriculum to support the student, the instructor, the client, and the institution. It seemed really hard to make everyone satisfied with the most effective way of designing curriculum. Through this chapter’s lecture and whole course in this semester, I wish that I could get some ideas to get an effective framework for language program in my own way.

relfection (ch.6)

This chapter reminded me of a lecture by Jinhwa Lee in University of Hawaii. That lecture was about task-based language teaching and i was so impressed by her well summarized explaination; then, I could have a grasp of task based language teaching, and a task syllabus as well at that time.

I remember that tasks themselves should be the unit of language teaching and everything esle shoud be subsidiary. I thought TBLT and task syllabus were very fascinating since students can acquire appropriate target language when they focus on their tasks, and it's like a vehicle. Also, task syllabus is good as ESP since that is based on learners' needs.
Jinhwa Lee showed us some samples of tasks that can be used in the classroom. One thing that i remember was a task that students should order the pizza they want using a given brochure. In order to do that task, learners can get some knowledge, including some vacabularies related to pizza (various toppings, size, etc.) and sentences for ordering or requesting or asking.
Learners would be likely to enjoy doing tasks and they can also learn at the same time.
Isn't it a really efficient and effective way to deliver knowledge and language? ^^

reflection #3

While I’m reading this chapter, the lecture by Dr. Crookes in Hawaii was reminded in my mind, which was related with this topic, critical applied linguistics and pedagogy. In that time, it was unfamiliar but was very fresh, attractive and worthwhile topic to think about. Crookes encourages us to have ability to collect and analyze for empirical evidences. He also mentioned about the disciplinary knowledge on the basis of historical, cultural, and socio-cultural differences. He kept emphasizing that teachers should have critical views since there are many differences in class, gender, geography, race, and culture and develop critical social theory. And I was very impressed when I’m taught about the teacher research; action research. I felt teacher research in the real field, in the class should be done actively since the theory from the research is sometimes far from the view of teacher in the professional practice. Teachers should observe the class, do the documents, and collect data to get the real issue and problem; we need to do action as a teacher for our students.

reflection #2

This chatper reminded one of the challenges that i went through a few months ago.
After i learned about the students' autonomy in a methodology class, i really felt it's very essentail element for students' learning. Therefore, i decided to try to build up learners' autonomy and change from teacher-centered to student-centered. But, the result of my trial was not that good or even less efficient since their parents or that learner didn't expect that teaching method. They strongly beilieved and expected teacher-centered class is more effective to get a good result in a short period. Now, i can blame that kind of failure on myself, it was from my lack of situational analysis. ^^

Needs analysis

While I’m reading this book about needs analysis, I could keep thinking why I’ve never tried this by myself to learners that I’ve met. Needs analysis can be regarded as such a natural and fundamental basis for a teacher and a curriculum developer. I can remember one time; it was almost the first time that I taught my students. After I taught my students Data management, I really wondered whether they were satisfied with my class or not, and whether they achieved their learning goal or not. I called some students who were very intimate with me and I asked them some questions what they liked and didn’t like, what they want to learn more, etc. They kindly and honestly answered my questions although most of them had only good and positive comments. Still, it was very valuable information for my further teaching with them later on. Now I’m thinking it was a kind of needs analysis after a program though it was for my own need and satisfaction. At that time, if I conducted some procedures like questionnaire, observation, and collecting their language samples, it could be even more useful and effective way to assess and evaluate my teaching. After graduation, as soon as I get a chance to collect the data for needs analysis, I will make a chance to apply what I read using triangular approach to get the best result according to their needs. It is certainly essential element to keep up with fast-changing trend of teaching field according to dynamic and various their needs.

OK~!!!!!!!