Innovating English Syllabus Design for Twenty-First Century Skills of 4Cs

English syllabus design plays as an essential role in the language curriculum. It helps the teachers to make a plan for their teaching performance. The syllabus should describe many skills to be taught. In designing an English syllabus, the teachers not only describe English skills in the syllabus but also other skills. The skills to be accomplished in English teaching and learning nowadays is 4Cs 21st-century skills such as communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. English teachers are suggested to do some innovations in designing the English syllabus based on 4Cs skills in order to prepare the students to face 4.0 society and globalization era. Considering the importance of these skills, the purpose of this article is to describe some innovations of English syllabus design for 4Cs skills. A library research method is used to provide an overview of the integrating of these skills into the syllabus design, including challenges faced by teachers in designing the syllabus based on 4Cs skills as well as a set recommendation for English teachers in designing English syllabus for 21st century of 4Cs. The article concludes with a discussion around the innovation of designing an English syllabus of 4Cs skills.

The Long road to TBLT

Michael H. Long was one of the earliest proponents of task-based language teaching, and his groundbreaking work on multiple dimensions of the proposal helped establish TBLT as a fertile locus for innovation at the intersection of research and practice. His work on TBLT over four decades led the way to robust research programs on syllabus design, needs analysis, methodological principles for teaching, pedagogic procedures including focus on form and negative feedback, task-based assessment, and program evaluation, among others. This article provides a review of some of Long’s major contributions to TBLT, addressing not only the theoretical and empirical aspects of his work but also the implementation of his ideas in practice and a few associated challenges.

Beyond Counting Clients and Surveying Satisfaction: Directly Measuring the Impacts of CTL Consultations

Evidence-based practice in educational development includes leveraging data to iteratively refine CTL services. However, CTL data collection is often limited to counts and satisfaction surveys, rather than direct measures of outcomes. To directly assess impacts of CTL consultations on course and syllabus design practices, we analyzed 94 clients’ syllabi (n=32 faculty, n=62 graduate students and postdocs), before and after CTL consultations. Faculty and non-faculty clients demonstrated significant change following consultations (6% and 10% gains in syllabus rubric scores, representing 50% and 31% of possible gains, respectively). We compared faculty clients to quasi-experimental control groups who did not receive consultations. Syllabi from non-clients scored lower and did not demonstrate similar changes across semesters. Attendance at a CTL seminar on course and syllabus design did not explain variation in clients’ syllabi. We discuss implications for assessment of CTL services. Additionally, we compare and contrast the affordances of syllabi and other teaching artifacts as data sources in direct assessments of CTL impacts.      

A Case Study: An Analysis Of Bilingual Syllabus Design In Yamuda Bilingual Boarding School In Takengon)

This paper analyzed syllabus designed by second grade teacher of elementary level in Yamuda Bilingual Boarding School Takengon. The data employed were a document which was the syllabus and interview result of the English teacher and principal. This is a qualitative case study which analyzed the data by using coding system. The result shows that the English teacher as the designer of the syllabus perceived her collective-planned syllabus positively because it had met the need of her pupils to master the target language and face globalization. Individually, she has a shallow understanding in constructing an ideal syllabus. She might understand the format but not the crucial aspect of syllabus design. Out of six aspects to be reviewed, there are only five aspects fulfilled by her in the syllabus. Yet she did not insert the local content to the syllabus design. Moreover, the syllabus designer neither gave her students a balance diet of language skills nor language aspects. She missed to describe the method used in teaching and learning process and employed a small number of games. On the other hands, this syllabus is a theme-based syllabus design which do favor for young language learners to pick up foreign language; the teacher had a good time table of assessment in order to see her students’ progress during and after the course. Finally, she also mentioned the teaching objectives which directed her to expand her teaching material.

Youth Employability: Fostering University-Industry Links in Syllabus Design

The potential of young people to be agents of social and economic progress continues to be undermined by massive unemployment. According to statistics on the Ministry of Public Service, Youth and Gender affairs website, youth unemployment in Kenya stands at 61%. This is very alarming yet according to the Global Youth Development Index and Report of 2016. Young people are a force for peace, democracy, equality and good governance, a catalyst for global consensus-building, and an essential resource for sustainable development and poverty eradication. It is interesting that among the unemployed youth are certificate, diploma and degree holders! Is there a disconnect between academic training and resultant qualifications on the one hand and youth employability on the other? Why are the youth unemployed when social media platforms, print and electronic media, and the internet are full of job advertisements day in day out? My hypothesis is that syllabi for the implementation of academic programmes in the Universities are devoid of employability skills which are a critical link in the University-Industry interface. To explore the hypothesis, this paper began by describing the 21st Century employability skills which are self-management and taking responsibility, working effectively with other people, business and customer awareness, decision-making and problem-solving, initiative and enterprise, communication and literacy, numeracy, and using ICT. Focusing on teaching in selected higher education institutions, this paper further reviews selected job advertisements to identify the salient skills that industry players seek in job applications. Next, the paper evaluates university course syllabi with the aim of establishing how these skills have been integrated. The paper recommends that University-Industry stakeholder engagement is integral to syllabus design and implementation in addition to fostering youth employability.

EMP absolute and variable characteristics

English for Specific Purpose appeared due to an urgent demand for an international language worldwide in the fields of Business, Trading, Medicine, Law, Tourism and since the increasing awareness of General English Curriculum does not fit the learners’ specific needs, especially in higher education. Designing an ESP course is a never – ending process which requires permanent improvement and changing in the syllabus, design and ESP teaching materials used within classrooms. The aim of this study was to analyze the challenges that arise in teaching English for Medical Students by examining the ESP absolute and variable characteristics. Some practical suggestions are also given in order to overcome these problems.

AN ECLECTIC APPROACH IN SYLLABUS DESIGN: A PRELIMINARY STUDY OF ONE-TO-ONE TEACHING INDONESIAN FOR SPEAKERS OF OTHER LANGUAGES

The industry of BIPA (Indonesian for foreigners) has extensively increased both at home and overseas. As a result, its teaching needs to be well-planned and organized. Supported by the view that no best method for all, eclecticism can be selected as approach to teaching. This paper is purposed to describe the initial stages of syllabus design particularly for one-to-one teaching Indonesian using eclectic approach. Carried out by descriptive research as part of research and development design, non-structured interview, observation, and open-ended questionnaire were as instruments to collect the information about learner and previous teaching process. Using a framework of syllabus development by Graves, need analysis and first draft syllabus were taken place. The need analysis reveals the learner characteristics and need of learning, such as age, gender, motivation and expectation. Moreover, grounded by the result of gathered information from need analysis, the developed syllabus is then a combination of task-based approach of language learning and structural-based syllabus which embraces accuracy and fluency as well as covers the features of eclectic system.

Pengembangan perangkat pembelajaran ekosistem berbasis inkuiri dengan sumber belajar danau betok untuk mengembangkan keterampilan dan sikap ilmiah siswa kelas VII SMPN 1 Tiris Probolinggo

The objective of this research was to produce a learning instrument based on inquiry in ecosystem with Betok Lake as learning resource were valid and viable to used. The model of development on this research was using Borg and Gall’s model. The result of this research is the learning instrument consist of syllabus, design learning, assessment instrument, students’ worksheet, and handout showed was valid with the validity 96.2 percent. The test result showing that the scientific attitude were 83.33 percent with good criterion, scientific skill were 81.79 percent with good criterion, and knowledge students were 79.30 are fill the KKM. The implementation assessment showed 93.7 percent value which is means that learning instrument was applied so well. Tujuan penelitian ini untuk menghasilkan produk perangkat pembelajaran berbasis potensi wilayah yang valid dan layak digunakan. Penelitian ini menggunakan model pengembangan Borg & Gall (1983). Hasil dari penelitian ini adalah perangkat pembelajaran yang berupa silabus, RPP, instrumen penilaian dan bahan ajar (LKS dan handout) yang valid dengan nilai validitas 96,2 persen. Hasil uji coba perangkat pembelajaran menunjukkan bahwa nilai rata-rata sikap ilmiah sebesar 83,33 persen dengan kriteria baik, keterampilan ilmiah sebesar 81,79 persen dengan kriteria baik, dan rata-rata nilai pengetahuan sebesar 79,30 sehingga memenuhi KKM (Kriteria Ketuntasan Minimal). Hasil penilaian keterlaksanaan pembelajaran menunjukkan nilai 93,7 persen yang artinya perangkat pembelajaran terpakai dengan baik.

Translating texts on business and economics: some pitfalls for perspective translators

The current study aimed at investigating the most common translation problems that students of the additional professional education program “Translator for specific purpose” of Kazan Federal University had while translating texts on business and economics from Russian into English. To fulfill the aim of the research 61 participants were given authentic materials from periodicals for translation. The texts contained lexical - phraseological features that belong to the most common difficulties in translation: economic terms, non-equivalent vocabulary, neologisms, idioms, euphemisms, abbreviations. The findings of the study showed that the students have good understanding of translating the main economic terms and know the techniques in translating. The biggest challenge they faced were connected with translating idioms and faux friends. Neologisms seemed to be not difficult but quite challenging. Interviews that followed the translation tasks helped to identify perspective translators’ subjective difficulties and techniques they tackled them. The data obtained from the participants’ answers could provide profound information for syllabus design.