Module #9 Course Design: Course syllabus & Cover letter





Eun Joo Lee

(032) 812-8845

Yeonsu-dong, , Incheon, Korea

December 17, 2010

Antoaneta Bonev, Ph.D.

California State University San Bernardino

5500 University Parkway

San Bernardino, CA 92374

Cover Letter

Dear Dr. Bonev and colleagues

This course is designed to help students improve to improve students’ grammar and reading skills. I designed this course by obtain idea through research and. I tried to project into the learner’s situation. Most students are tired of boring grammar, or perfunctory learning way that is just listening from teachers. This course is based on the attempt to solve the both hurdles in the debate interesting topics so that you can understand your own idea.

Teachers often find themselves explaining confusing customs and providing practical information. Often, teachers are a student’s only source of information about American life. With this course, I’d like to share both with you. This textbook connects grammar with American cultural context, providing learners of English with a useful and meaningful skill and knowledge base. Students learn the grammar necessary to communicate verbally and in writing, and learn how American culture plays a role in language, beliefs, and everyday situations.

This book is a great material to use to teach English various activities such as, a variety of contextualizes activities that keeps the classroom lively and targets different learning style, expansion activities which provide opportunities for student to interact with on another and further develop their speaking and writing skills, internet activities which encourage students to use technology to explore a wealth of online resources.

I hope this course will be a good chance for me to learn teaching style as well as for students to experience learning pleasure.

Sincerely,

EunJoo Lee 

Course Syllabus

Course Title : Intermediate grammar Course 1

Email: rachel8845@gmail.com

Instructor: EunJoo Lee

Year: 2010

Term Year : Three months (12 weeks)

Days : once a week
Class Time : each session 50 minutes
Grade laevel : 10th grade in EFL

 
Course Description
 

The purpose of this course is to improve students’ grammar and reading skills in English.
In this course grammar is presented in interesting and culturally informative readings, and the language and context are subsequently practiced throughout the textbook. This course connects grammar with rich, American cultural context, providing learners of English with a useful and meaningful skill and knowledge base.

 
Course Outline by Topic

Lesson 1   Grammar: the present perfect; the present perfect continuous

Reading: job resume and cover letter

Lesson 2  Grammar: passive voice: participles used as adjectives; Get+ participles

Reading: Charlie Chaplin

Lesson 3  Grammar: modals-the past continuous; the past perfect; the past perfect continuous

Reading: the titanic

Lesson 4   Grammar: the present and future; related expressions.

Reading: telemarketing

Lesson 5   Grammar: modal in the past

Reading: John Kennedy, Jr

Lesson 6   Grammar: adjective clauses; descriptive phrases

Reading: spam

Lesson 7   Grammar: infinitives; gerunds

Reading: charity and volunteering

Lesson 8   Grammar: adverbial clauses and phrases; sentence connectors

Reading: a nation of immigrants

Lesson 9   Grammar: noun clauses after verbs and adjective

Reading: a folk tale

Lesson 10  Grammar: unreal conditions

Reading: life 100 year ago


Course Goals and Objectives 

1.    Proficiency Goal:  Students prepare for school assignments and language tasks.

   -  Discussions, readings, compositions, and exercises involving higher-level critical thinking skills develop overall language and communication skills.

2.   Proficiency Goal:  students expand their knowledge of American topics and culture.

   - The reading in textbook help students gain insight into and enrich their knowledge of A merican culture and history. Students gain ample exposure to the practicalities of America life, such as writing a resume, dealing with telemarketers and junk mail, and getting student internships. Their new knowledge helps them adapt to everyday life in the US.

3.  Proficiency Goal:  students learn to use their new skills to communicate.

 -  The exercises and expansion activities in textbook help students learn English while practicing their writing and speaking skills. Students work together in pairs and groups to find more information about topics, to make presentations, to play games, and to role-play. Their confidence in using English increases, as does their ability to communicate effectively.

Objective

1.    Use correct grammar in talking and writing about variety topic.

2.    Write complete sentences in present progressive, future, simple past, and past progressive  tenses.

3.    Form verbs correctly according to modal verb tenses.

4.    Use time expressions, such as while and when, with correct verb tenses.

5.    Edit writing for punctuation

6.    Check writing for spelling.

Standards
TESOL ESL Standards for Pre-K-12 Students: Grades 4-8
http://www.tesol.org/s_tesol/sec_document.asp?CID=113&DID=315

Course Requirements

-  Students are expected to preview and review everyday chapter

-   Students are asked to do comprehension check up for self study

-   Students should participate (talk and listen) in class activities. Part of grade is based on participation.

Course Format

Class sessions will include lectures as well as interactive pair and group activities.

 
Grading Scale

The passing grade is 80points.
Your grade will be based on the following
Homework completion  (15 points)

In-Class Writing  (20points)

Class Attendance/Participation  (15 points)
Quizzes /Test(including Mid-Term Exam)  (25 points)
Final  Exam  (25 points)
A: 100-92 ,  B: 91 -82 ,  C :81 - 72 ,  D :72 - 62 ,  F :61 - 0

 
Clourse policies

 -   Students come to class and be on time.

 -  Students are expected to attend each class-attendance will be taken.

 -  Each student is expected to read assigned material prior to class and participate in class.

 -  Students call the teachers if you are late, you are absent class.

 -  Make up assignments or tests will be given only if you missed the assignments or tests because you were seriously ill.

Course Tentative Outline

Assignment #8 Evaluation of curriculum (textbook)

  

 Book

- Title: Academic Listening Encounters

- Author: Kim Sanabria

- Publisher: Cambridge University Press

- Published: April 4^st, 2004

- Level: Intermediate ( non-native speaker of English preparing  to study in English at the community college or university level)

- Genre: reading materials with four-skill

COURSE EVALUATION

   This book was designed for non-native speaker of English preparing to study in English at the community college or university level and for native speakers of English who need to improve their academic skills for further study. The series consists of academic books help students improve their reading, study skills and writing and academic listening encounters books concentrate on listing, note-taking, and discussion skills.



The three main skills developed in the books are listening, note taking, and discussion. In addition to the content and vocabulary of what they hear, students are challenged by different accents, speeds of delivery, and other features of oral discourse. Tasks in the books guide students in techniques for improving their listening comprehension. These tasks also develop note-taking skills in a structured format that teaches students to write down what they her in ways that make it easier to retrieve the information. After these practice comes an invitation to discuss what they have heard, voice their opinions, compare their experiences, and articulate and their own. Additionally, each chapter gives students the opportunity to work on a project related to the exchange viewpoints with other class members, so making the material topic, such as conducting a survey or undertaking research, and teaches them the skills necessary to present their finding.

Similarities between yellow rubric and my rubric:

• The goals and objectives were distinctly appropriate for learning in this course.
• The course provides a variety opportunity for students to be active participants in the instruction, engaging them in them listening, reading, speaking and writing in English.

• Instructional resources have objectives that are clearly focused on language functions and opportunities for an integrated approach to language learning.

Differences between yellow rubric and my rubric:



-  Yellow rubric’s categories have more contents than mine. It was divided contents in detail but my  rubric consist wasn't very well organized in detail, such as, Yellow rubric Provide a variety of strategies for teachers, e.g. direct instruction or paired/group projects and Provide support materials and parent support materials.



I'd recommend this text book for intermediated college students and for preparing to go on to college who need to improve their academic skills for further study, such as, listing, note-taking, and discussion skills. The book was focus on intermediated level, but the vocabulary and topics was difficult for student who doesn’t have any background of American culture. But the textbook provide various materials and the content of the textbook meets the goals and objectives appropriately. To be more valuable this textbook, Teacher should prepare variety materials for helping the students the opportunity to take creative control of the topic at hand.

Module # 7: Reading Reflection (Graves Chapter 5)

Chapter 5 Response:   Formulating Goals and Objectives

Goals are more general and more long term, objectives are more specific and more short term. Before reading this chapter, it seems to understand easy but it was difficult to define what the goal is and what the objective is but I got a lot of fresh ideas from this book. Goals were defined as “a way of putting into words the main purposes and intended outcomes of your course” (p.75). Objectives are described as “statements about how the goals will be achieved” (p.76). One goal is related not only to one objective but possibly to several ones. Graves (2000) explained this “objectives serve as a bridge between needs and goals” (p.79). I thought objectives plays a role to lead to goals.

What I find most interesting is goals and objectives are not cast in cement (p.93) it can be fixed and immovable which are not good qualities of goals and objectives. Teachers are supposed to understand not only teachers’ goals for class but also students’ needs and goals. Teachers are informed guess at what they hope to accomplish given what they know about their own context, student’s needs and beliefs about how people learn, and their experience whit the particular content (p.93) As it says in the book, Goals should be gereral, but not vague and Objectives should focus on what students will learn (p, 94). If teachers have a vague idea about what they are going to teach, students cannot learn effectively. Teachers must have a clear idea and beliefs about goals and objectives when designing a course. This chapter leaves me impression. Not having any experience of teaching, I got a lot of fresh ideas of ideal teaching ways along with right goals and objectives that teachers should try to develop.

Rubric for Course Evaluation

Module #5 Annotated Bibliography

This annotated bibliography is worked in collaboration with Young Sook,Jeon and Eun Joo Lee

Citation 1

Burygoyne, K.(2009). The comprehension skills of children learning English as an additional language. British journal of education of psychology, 79, 735-747.

Summary

This study aimed to the relative underachievement of children who are learning EAL demands that the literacy needs of this group are identified. To this end, this study aimed to explore the reading- and comprehension-related skills of a group of EAL learners. The background is the Data from national test results suggests that children who are learning English as an additional language (EAL) experience relatively lower levels of educational attainment in comparison to their monolingual, English-speaking peers. The sample for this study is the Data that are reported from 92 Year 3 pupils, of whom 46 children are learning EAL. The method for this study is that Children completed standardized measures of reading accuracy and, listening comprehension, and receptive and expressive vocabulary.

Results indicate that many EAL learners experience difficulties in understanding written and spoken text. These comprehension difficulties are not related to decoding problems but are related to significantly lower levels of vocabulary knowledge experienced by this group.

When it comes to conclusions, many EAL learners experience significantly lower levels of English vocabulary knowledge which has a significant impact on their ability to understand written and spoken text. Greater emphasis on language development is therefore needed in the school curriculum to attempt to address the limited language skills of children learning EAL.

Review

Many EAL learners experience difficulties in understanding and spoken text. It is not related to decoding problems but related to significantly lower levels of vocabulary knowledge. They need to develop their language skill in the school curriculum to extend their vocabularies.

Citation 2

Rechard, A. T.(2001). Developing listening skills to improve reading, Florida technological university, Orlando, Florida. 91, 261.

Summary

Most children learn to listen before they learn to read vocally. In order to speak, a child

has to listen to others speak, and in order to listen, a child must have someone speak to him or some sound made for him.

Reading is the process by which an author talks silently to a reader (listener) and reading is a kind of mental listening.

There are some stages of listening. At first, there is little conscious listening except as the child directly and personally concerned with what is being presented. Next, the child listens passively with apparent absorption but little or no reaction. Finally, listening becomes the act of forming associations, responding with items from own his experiences and reacting to what is presented. He begins to express his reactions through questioning commenting on what is said. listening is actually a more difficult process than reading to the extent that critical thinking and reasoning are demanded of the listener.

One of the justifications for teaching the listening skill is that listening comprehension is somewhat related to intelligence and reading ability even though they are not synonymous. Studies show high correlation between listening comprehension and  reading comprehension in the early school years. By the time of junior high school, children get more complete and accurate meaning and information from reading than listening. Then as the young person enters the adult world, critical thinking and evaluation become a determining factor often in his reaction to circumstance that confront him. These problems are not always written out in words but they are spoken. The young adult has to listen and then think through t the decision that must be made.

It has been reasonably assumed that when efforts are concentrated in teaching children to listen accurately that are only will the listening skill itself improve, but this skill will influence the total reading program.

Review

According to this article most children learn to listen before they learn to read. There are some stages of listening and reading is a kind of mental listening. Listening comprehe-

nsion is somewhat related to intelligence and reading ability. The young adult has to listen and then think through t the decision that must be made. When efforts are concentrated in teaching children to listen accurately that are only will the listening skill itself improve, but this skill will influence the total reading program.

Citation 3

Seung-Yoeun, Y.(2006). Mother brand English as an effective approach to teach English for young children as a foreign language in Korea, Reading improvement, 43, 185-193.

Summary

The rate of going abroad to study English has been increasing in Korea. The main purpose of studying abroad is to be fluent in English. There are two types of language learning as a second language. The first one is called simultaneous acquisition, which occurs when parents speak more than two languages. The other approach for second language learning is described as "sequential or successive acquisition" which occurs when children start to learn another language after the mother language is somewhat obtained

 Some parents want their children to learn English from early infancy in a second language, they need to provide exposure to English surroundings for their children to experience from early infancy. This English approach in South Korea is called 'Mother Brand English", which means this approach has been implemented and developed by many mothers This Mother Brand English has used meaningful ways that allow children to practice and develop the skills of reading, writing, speaking, and listening in an integrated way, Amazing benefits in this approach are that it has been developed by many parents who are not only advocates and but also researchers to implement new ways for their own children with their real love and interests. In order to implement mother brand English, parents have a critical role in planning an environment that encourages. children's learning English through many materials such as books and multimedia in daily life. Parents must be the first teachers and best English teachers for children in their whole life. Also, home should be the first language classroom for both Korean and English. These parents also implement English approach called Mother- brand or Home -brand English. They also meet together to study and teach their children once a week .as home school teachers. They develop new programs and share their experiences and empower each other. Some of them become professional English teachers and build English home schools in their home to teach other neighbor children.

 Many researchers have focused on studying about English language learning as a second language in English countries. Most of them have focused on the children in immigrant families to participate and adjust and learn the new culture and English.

But now in Korea some brave and challenging mothers innovating new English approaches as their home with their young kid. They have goals that their children come to possess the ability to use the English language as a vehicle to think and solve problems an "Mother Brand English" is a movement to influence children to experience linguistic and cultural diversity at home. It is

imperative that children understand a wide world with a variety of cultures and the English language as English learners. 

Review

The article focuses on the English approach called Mother-Brand English which is considered as an effective strategy in teaching English to young children in Korea. This approach has used significant ways that allow children to practice and develop the skills of reading, writing, speaking, and listening in an integrated way. Furthermore, it has been emphasized that such approach has been developed by parents who want their children to be proficient in the English language.

Citation 4

Nunan, D. (2001). Teaching English as a second or foreign language. Syllabus design. In Celce-Murcia, M. 55-65.

Summary

According to the author, syllabus is based on the broader concept of curriculum and syllabus design means the selection of the content of the curriculum. At first, content selection in curriculum includes linguistic features, and it is reflected in a grammatical syllabus. In 1970s, however, notional syllabus appeared opposing the previous syllabus. Then more recently, with the need of the adoption of a process approach, there has emerged task-based syllabus and content-based syllabus. Most recently, an integrated approach has been prevalent.

The author investigates each syllabus one by one chronologically. First, grammatical syllabuses, which are underlain that language comprises a finite set of rules combined in various ways to make meaning, are yet popular today. During the1970s, it was put in attacks on two aspects; one was the linear of sequence of grammar, which was not represent the complexity of language, and the other was revealed by the development of the field of second language acquisition: the questioning about the necessity of the sequential enumerating of grammatical fragments. Notional-functional syllabuses express various criteria on content of the syllabus: situational, contextual, and extra linguistic factors. The next flow of the designing syllabuses is the content-based syllabus, in which learners acquire the target language in the course of doing others, not direct teaching of language itself. It emphasizes that learners can acquire language in active engagement in communicating. Task-based syllabuses consist of two tasks. One is target tasks, which the learner might do outside of the classroom, and the other is pedagogical tasks, which is for pushing the learner into practicing with each other in the target language to prepare the learner for the real world. In the last part of this article, the author argues for integrated syllabus, which incorporates all of the key experiential and linguistic elements from grammatical syllabuses to notional-functional, to task-based, and to content-based syllabuses.

Review

This paper talks about the variety of the syllabus types chronologically. And the author details one by one to make readers understand the flow of the trend in syllabus design in the second language education. In curricula, syllabuses are so important and essential part that this article is helpful for second language teachers. However, it could be more beneficial if this article would present each example syllabus at each explanation of syllabus because some conception of syllabus is abstract without the detailed description and showing the examples

Citation 5

Eleni, G., & Rena. S.(2009). Implementation and Evaluation of an Early Foreign Language Learning Project in Kindergarten. Springer Science Business Media. 79-87 

Summary

This article explores the purpose was twofold. Firstly, it aimed at outlining the rationale for and the process of introducing an English language learning intervention to kindergarten children in a playful and supportive environment. This intention focused on developing children’s oral skills through participating in creative activities an interacting, on the other hand, it aimed at investigating the degree to which ‘rule play’ could contribute to oral skills acquisition and vocabulary development. For this purpose, an effectiveness study was conducted which revealed the positive effects of the intervention on early foreign language learning (86) Furthermore,. Children showing their eagerness and enthusiasm to learn a foreign language participated spontaneously in interactive and movement activities and communicated in simple English phrases. It was revealed that group work played an important part in the interaction between the teacher and the children. It was indicated that there was an ‘increase’ in children’s involvement in interactive and movement activities resulting into developing their oral skills.(87) In this context, the author suggested implementing the intervention and examining its effectiveness simultaneously across several kindergarten classrooms. By doing so, a broader and more complete picture about the effectiveness and the continuity of the specific early foreign language learning project could be ‘portrayed’. Furthermore, there is a need to extend the project with the same children in the first and second grades of primary school in order to achieve continuity and to record its effect on the same sample at certain developmental stages

Review

This paper shows that developing child’s oral skills through participating in creative activities an interacting. In my thought, the most important aspect is teachers’ role and interaction between the teacher and the children. Teacher’s Behavior is really influenced their activity participation in the learning. Concerning teacher’s encouragement, the children were offered with the opportunity to interact and communicate with the others. It is crucial matter to move on to next stage. In order to examine the impact of the intervention on children’s oral skills development, a tripartite study was designed and conducted by a teacher.