Korean Job Discussion Forums

[SeoulMan6]

Calling university instructors!

My university has very little structure to its program. For example, there is no list of what grammar, vocabulary, skills, etc. are to be taught at each level. We are given a textbook for each course and that becomes the "goal". I'm finding this to be a major problem.

Does your university have specific course goals so that you know what to teach and what your students have learned previously?

If so, would you mind sharing so that I/we don't have to reinvent the wheel?

Your help would be much appreciated!

[D.D.]

Are you there to teach conversational English or to teach grammar and vocab?

[SeoulMan6]

[Young FRANKenstein]

[SeoulMan6]

[PRagic]

In general, consider your 'goals' to be whatever is outlined in the book you were assigned to teach. The assigned title of your class might help to clue you (and the students) in, too.

Is it a conversation book? If yes, then your broad goal is to facilitate conversation. Is the book taught over one semester? If yes, then your goal is to cover the material in the one text book, plus, time considered, whatever else you think may be important for the students in your professional opinion.

Too bad your department can't answer your question, and too bad ESL professionals aren't included in the program development stages. Seems like you want concrete examples from others' university programs, but I doubt you're going to get many. Besides, even if you did, it is dubious as to whether or not it would be applicable to your specific school and situation.

Roll with it. And, hey, a little LESS structure is sometimes what you need here to get the ball rolling!

[Young FRANKenstein]

[SeoulMan6]

I'm shocked that university instructors are content to have no goals beyond getting students to speak and covering what is in the book. I'm not satisfied having Pearson-Longman (or Cambridge, etc.) tell me what I'm supposed to be teaching.

To me, conversation class is not just conversation practice. It's about learning HOW to have a conversation in English, and that includes teaching a variety of skills and information including grammar, vocabulary, conversation micro-skills (see Brown's Teaching by Principles), conversation strategy, functions, tasks, etc. This is where I want to have set goals and standards.

My classes are labeled things like "Intermediate Conversation." Without goals, how do you label some as ready for the intermediate class or having enough knowledge and ability to warrant a passing grade?

I AM an EFL professional and I want to create standards in my department. I assumed that other universities around Korea would have these already and we wouldn't need to completely re-invent the wheel.

Anyway, thanks for the responses and good luck.

[Young FRANKenstein]

[ddeubel]

It sounds like you are looking for some standards by which to base student achievement (and goal setting ) upon. The WIDA are the major world standards (outside of MFLs area). http://www.wida.us/standards/elp.aspx

I use and think the functional approach of Canada's "Benchmarks" where student achievement is rated upon what they can do with language, are invaluable. See them here. http://www.doxtop.com/browse/1e941d0b/ont-curr-guidelines-k-12-esl.aspx

The SOLOM (Student Oral language observation model) is a rubric which gives a non criterian reference assessment of speaking ability. You can use it to give a more placement/generalized assessment of speaking fluency.
http://www.doxtop.com/browse/bf79b7fd/solom-rubric.aspx

But for that matter, you might take any of the objectives from any textbook like Interchange etc... (these guidelines are located at the front) and pull from those and make your own achievement standards. It is invaluable to have some way to assess and achieve in a classroom or what's a heaven for?

cheers,

DD
http://eflclassroom.com

[SeoulMan6]