Designing an English Curriculum for Everyone

2018 ◽  
pp. 87-108
Author(s):  
Angela Bailey ◽  
Nayibe Rosado ◽  
Lourdes Rey
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Broad Spectrum ◽  
Curriculum Design ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Policies ◽  
Language Curriculum ◽  
English Curriculum ◽  
Foreign Language Curriculum

In this chapter, the authors demonstrate a practical view of a foreign language curriculum development in Colombia. Within the chapter, they give a brief description of language policies that guided the curriculum; a discussion of the research framework, methods, and data collection; and a reflection of the choices made with regard to education, language, and language learning. By triangulating existing policies, contextual and conceptual needs analyses, and existing classroom practices, the authors demonstrate a collaborative and flexible means of meeting foreign language teaching across a broad spectrum of inconsistencies. Conclusions review and discuss the importance of maintaining an open and adaptable perspective throughout foreign language curriculum design while establishing and creating a working, flexible English language curriculum.

Can-Do descriptors – Realigning English Language Curriculum at Higher Education Institution to CEFR

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 84
Author(s):  
Erda Wati Bakar
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
English Language ◽  
Education Institution ◽  
Ministry Of Education ◽  
Language Curriculum ◽  
English Curriculum ◽  
The Common ◽  
The University

The Common European Framework of Reference for Language (CEFR) has become the standard used to describe and evaluate students’ command of a second or foreign language. It is an internationally acknowledged standard language proficiency framework which many countries have adopted such as China, Thailand, Japan and Taiwan. Malaysia Ministry of Education is aware and realise the need for the current English language curriculum to be validated as to reach the international standard as prescribed by the CEFR. The implementation of CEFR has begun at primary and secondary level since 2017 and now higher education institutions are urged to align their English Language Curriculum to CEFR as part of preparation in receiving students who have been taught using CEFR-aligned curriculum at schools by year 2022. This critical reflection article elucidates the meticulous processes that we have embarked on in re-aligning our English Language Curriculum to the standard and requirements of CEFR. The paper concludes with a remark that the alignment of the English curriculum at the university needs full support from the management in ensuring that all the stakeholders are fully prepared, informed and familiar with the framework.

scholarly journals Integrating CALL into the Language Curriculum

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Benavides
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
Computer Assisted Language Learning ◽  
Language Curriculum ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Foreign Language Curriculum

This initial proposal aims at suggesting one way in which Information Technology in the form of CALL (Computer-Assisted Language Learning) could be integrated into the foreign language curriculum of the licenciatura programs in Colombia. This task can be carried out as the project within the different universities in order to support and improve the learning and teaching of English which is one of its main objectives.

scholarly journals English Language MOOCs in China: Learners’ Perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
Yan Ding ◽  
Hui-zhong Shen
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Curriculum Design ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Foreign Language Learning ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Future Design ◽  
Context Specific

<p>In the wake of rapid development of Language MOOCs (LMOOCs), numerous studies have proposed principles and guidelines to inform curriculum design. Very few of them have, however, reported on learners’ views. This study aims to contribute to this line of research by bringing in a learners’ perspective. It is based on a content analysis of 3,510 learner reviews on 41 English LMOOCs offered by a national MOOC provider in China. It focuses on Chinese EFL learners’ views of LMOOCs.  The results indicate that their views pertain mainly to seven categories: (1) content design of course videos, (2) presentation design of course videos, (3) MOOC program instructors, (4) assessments and assignments, (5) course settings, (6) forum discussions, and (7) technological environment, of which the first three are of the most importance to the learners. It is argued that Chinese EFL learners’ perception of English LMOOCs might be rooted in their engagement pattern with the courses, their perceptions of the role of teachers, the design of existing English LMOOCs, and a preference for the traditional way of foreign language teaching and learning they are acquainted with before engaging with the LMOOCs. The context-specific evidence could be used as an empirical base to guide future design of LMOOCs for foreign language learning in China.</p>

Authentic instruction in literary worlds: Learning the stylistics of concept-based grammar

2010 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria del Carmen Yáñez Prieto
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Ordinary Language ◽  
Language Instruction ◽  
Language Curriculum ◽  
American University ◽  
Learning Attitudes ◽  
Foreign Language Curriculum ◽  
Oral Interaction

Over the last few years, researchers have criticized the typical divides between the lower and the higher stages of the mainstream American undergraduate foreign-language curriculum. Roughly speaking, the lower levels are commonly characterized by meaning-focused, sentence-based language instruction with emphasis on oral interaction, whereas the higher levels tend to focus on formal, text-oriented instruction with an emphasis on reading, writing, literature and content-oriented study. This division has clear repercussions for the conceptualization of communication, language, and language learning in the mainstream foreign-language curriculum. One of the most notable consequences is the idea that literature is essentially different from ordinary language, and, therefore, a less ‘authentic,’ ‘real-life’ form of discourse. The present article presents an alternative, integrative, literature-through-language pedagogy founded on a stylistics-based approach to language. The study was implemented with a group of sixth-semester students of Spanish at an American university. This study examines how the learners’ acculturation into the conventional two-tiered curricular configuration shaped their language constructs and the ways they composed meaning in texts. This article also discusses how the alternative course impacted on the learners’ linguistic development, views of language, and learning attitudes.

scholarly journals Level of Knowledge Awareness and Use of Planning as Writing Strategy by EFL International Students in UUM English Intensive Course

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 319
Author(s):  
Mohammed Ahmed Ado ◽  
Mohammad Othman Ahmad Alsheyab
Keyword(s):  
International Students ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
Sampling Strategy ◽  
Language Curriculum ◽  
Planning Strategy ◽  
Writing Strategy ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Intensive Course

<em>Malaysian English Language Curriculum makes it compulsory for every newly intake student to master and pass the English Writing Tasks (EWT) as among the basic skills in the language learning processes. However, most of the English Foreign Language (EFL) international students face difficulties with the EWT during the English Intensive Course (EIC) leading to consistent mass failures. The possible reasons of these failures could be due to the neglect of the writing strategies. Hence, the central focus of this paper is to identify and determine the EFL international students’ level of awareness and the use of planning as writing strategy before writing English essays. To this end, convenient purposive sampling strategy was used where 50 EFL (postgraduate and undergraduate) international students drawn from Universiti Utara Malaysian EIC program were selected and administered Writing Strategy Questionnaires (WSQ). The participants hailed from various countries who used and learned English as a foreign language, namely; Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Palestine among others. The data were analyzed using SPSS. The findings revealed proportionate disparity between the EFL students that use planning strategy before starting writing English essays (usually true = 28%) with those that do not (usually not true = 28%). In terms of Revising Requirement for writing process before one start writing an essay in English, the findings revealed validity (40%) of participants’ responses at 82% cumulative. This is followed by “somewhat true” responses at 24% and 42% cumulative. These imply the EFL international students’ reasonable use of planning and having knowledge awareness of writing strategy</em>

Research in Language-Literature Instruction: Meeting the Call for Change?

2011 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 161-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Paesani
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Curriculum Design ◽  
Classroom Practice ◽  
Practice Research ◽  
Modern Language Association ◽  
Literature Instruction ◽  
Language Curriculum ◽  
Foreign Language Curriculum ◽  
Language Literature

The purpose of this review is to assess whether recent scholarship on language-literature instruction—the deliberate integration of language development and literary study at all levels of the foreign language curriculum—within the context of U.S. institutions of higher education reflects shifts in thinking regarding the role of literature in foreign language curricula. These shifts have come in response to the 2007 Report of the Modern Language Association Ad Hoc Committee on Foreign Languages, which recommended replacing the traditional two-tiered program structure with more coherent curricula that merge language and content, and to the general questioning of communicative language teaching as a viable method for language instruction and adequate preparation for advanced-level work in a foreign language. Current approaches to language-literature instruction and foreign language curriculum design favor multimodal language development that places equal importance on oral and written language and interpretative interaction with literature to construct textual meaning and establish form-meaning connections. This review surveys empirical and classroom practice research on literature in language courses and language in literature courses and concludes with a consideration of larger curricular issues and areas for future research.

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