Module#9 Course Design: course syllabus & course cover letter

Cover Letter

Soo Hyun Kim
Ansan- si Gyeonggi-do, Korea .
(070)7760-8087
December 17, 2010

Antoaneta Bonev, Ph.D.
California State University, San Bernardino
5500 University ParkwaySan Bernardino, CA 92374

Course Syllabus
Course Title: Fun and Practical English 101
Instructor: Soo Hyun Kim
E-mail: shkim29@gmail.com
Year: 2011
Grade Level: 9th in EFL
Proficiency Level: Regular (or Intermediate)
Class Meetings: Five times a week
Time: 45-minute sessions
Duration: 1 semester (16 weeks)

Course Description

The purpose of this course is to improve students’ communication skills in English in speaking, listening, and writing their own plays as well as performing them. This will motivate the students to apply what they learn during class to actual usage. After this course, students will be able to express and communicate in various topics and will be able to write and perform according to what they learned during class. This course pursues not only enhancing English proficiency but also helping them to have interest in learning a language and applying them.

Course Outline by Quarters (i.e. quarter of 4 weeks)

1. Practical Communication (listening and grammar with special focus on speaking and writing)
2. Writing
3. Grammar
4. Presentation/Class Play

Standards

TESOL ESL Standards for Pre-K-12 Students: Grades 9-12
http://www.cal.org/resources/archive/langlink/0300.html

Goal 1: To use English to communicate in social settings
Students will:
1. use English to participate in social interaction
2. interact in, through, and with spoken and written English for personal expression and enjoyment
3. use learning strategies to extend their communicative competence

Goal 2: To use English to achieve academically in all content areas
Standards for Goal 2
Students will:
1. use English to interact in the classroom
2. use English to obtain, process, construct, and provide subject matter information in spoken and written form
3. use appropriate learning strategies to construct and apply academic knowledge
.
Goal 3: To use English in socially and culturally appropriate ways Standards for Goal 3
Students will:
1. use the appropriate language variety, register, and genre according to audience, purpose, and setting
2. use nonverbal communication appropriate to audience, purpose, and setting
3. use appropriate learning strategies to extend their sociolinguistic and sociocultural competence
.
Course Objectives

1. Students will use English to communicate in social interaction.
2. Students will speak and write English for personal expression and enjoyment.
3. Students will use learning strategies to extend their communicative competence.
4. Students will use English to interact in the classroom.
5. Students will use English to obtain, process, construct, and provide subject matter information in spoken and written form
6. Students will use appropriate learning strategies to construct and apply academic knowledge
7. Students will use the appropriate language variety, register, and genre according to audience, purpose, and setting.
8. Students will use nonverbal communication appropriate to audience, purpose, and setting.
9. Students will use appropriate learning strategies to extend their sociolinguistic and sociocultural competence

Course Policies

• All cell phones/pagers MUST be turned off during class time.
• Students are expected to attend each class. Daily attendance will be taken and 1 pt is awarded per day of attendance.
• Each student is expected to read assigned material prior to class and participate in class discussions.

Required Texts:

1. Elliott, R. (2006). Painless Grammar.
2. Hanyang University press (2005). Practical English Communication.
3. Haugnes, N. & Maher, B. (2009). NorthStar 2 Reading and Writing.

Grading Policy:

Attendance (1 pt per day) = 80 pts
Quizzes (3 Quizzes per semester x 10 pts) = 30 pts
Test (2 Tests per semester x 30 pts) = 60 pts
Playwright Assignment = 30 pts
Midterm Exam = 50 pts
Final Exam = 100 pts
Final Presentation = 100 pts
Total 450 pts
* Grades will be given according to the following scale:
A 400-450 pts
B 350-399 pts
C 300-349 pts
D 250-299 pts
F below 249 pts

Make up Work Policy

Students’ attendance must be 70% or better in order to successfully pass this course. Students shall be responsible for obtaining and completing make up assignments and tests after absences (with a note from home or from the doctor, i.e. an excused absence). Students shall be permitted to take tests administered in class ONLY due to an excused absence. For missed classes, the teacher may assign the student make-up work when he/she returns to class. All work must be made up within two days after the student returns to class unless other arrangements are made with the teacher.

Course Assessments:• Quizzes (10 points)

There will be a quiz on week #2, #6, and #10. Quizzes will consist of what we have discussed in class as well as the reading assignment.
• Tests (30 points)
There will be a test on week #4 and #12. The tests will be given in a bigger scale than the quizzes and will consist of all our discussions as well as the reading assignment.
• Playwright (30 points)
During the last quarter (from weeks 13-16), students will be asked to write a play together in a group. They will be asked to write their own part first during the first week (week#13) per group and then they are to bring it altogether in order to come up with a one merging play. All student participation is required to earn the appropriate points.
• Final Presentation (100 points)
Students in their groups who have written the play will need to put on the play together as their final presentation. Each student will be evaluated according to their writing and performance individually as well as in their groups. All props, costumes, backdrops, etc., must be in place for the setting of the play.
• Midterm Exam (50 pts) and Final Exam (100 pts)
These exams will be cumulative of all the chapters covered and topics discussed. Midterm exam will consist of all the chapters covered previously and the final exam will consist of all the chapters covered during the entire semester.

Course Tentative Outline

Reading reflection on Grave(#4,8,9)

Conceptulizing Content

You may have experiences of thinking about getting through lessons without thinking about content. The product of conceptualizing content is a kind of syllabus in that it delineates what you will teach. It is still important to go through the process of conceptualizing content so that on the one hand you can understand how the syllabus is constructed, and on the other hand can become aware of your own priorities with respect to your students. One of the question which can guide you to conceptualize content is to figure out who they are, their needs and the purpose of the course. When designing a language course, there are a number of features which you can choose to highlight or to include in your map. You can consider of who your students are, their needs, why they are taking the course, and whether and how the course has been described to students or the public, as well as your own experience and preferences. Choice is a key, because you cannot explicitly focus on or do everything. Conceptualizing content, then, is a matter of articulating what you will explicitly teach. It also involves choosing the organizing principle or principles that will help to tie the content together.

Developing Materials

Materials development is the planning process by which a teacher creates units and lessons within those units to carry out the goals and objectives of the course. It is the process of making your syllabus more specific. When a teacher design a course, materials development means creating, choosing or adapting, and organizing materials and activities so that students can achieve the objectives that will help them reach the goals of the course. the process of materials development involves deciding how to put your teaching principles into practice.

Adapting a Textbook

There is the difference between writing a textbook and teaching from a textbook. Once textbook is written, it is fixed, whereas when you teach with it, you can make changes in how you use it. We need to consider the advantages and disadvantages of textbooks for minimizing disadvantages. There are two facets to understanding how to use a textbook. The first facet, getting inside the textbook, is important so that you know what you are adapting or supplementing. The second facet helps you to be clear about what you are adapting it to.

Assignment#8 Evaluation of Curriculum

This text book is designed for college student's practical English communication.
This text book is not intended to be comprehensive course in English.
The primary goal fo the book is to create a base of interesting and useful activities for communicative language teaching.
The book provides variety of stretagies which is dialogue, asking questions, pronunciation, and discussion questionsto achive the curricular goals that is English speaking proficiency.
Many activities being provided in pair and group.
The text book also contains the traditional for skills reading, writing, listening, speaking in each chapter fo this book.
This is because research shows that language acquistion is most effective when the four skills are developed in conjunction with each other. But the content of reading and grammar is not as well organized as the content of speaking.
The level of vacabulary and dialogue expression is comparatively low for collegue students.
Especially for advenced students.
Support materials are not sufficent to meet each level of studnets.

I found out the similarities between yellow rubric and my rubric:
1. Obfectives and goals is clear for the curriculum and appropriate for student's needs.
2. The lesson provide the opportunity for students to be active participants in the instrution, engaging them in listening, reading , speaking and writing in English.
3. A variety of resources are available to access all students.
4. Instruction is organized around goals that are tied to ESL/ELD standards and the core curriculum.

I found out the diffrences:
My rubric tends to be less general and not specifically stated campare to yellow rubric.
For instance, as for assessment, yellow rubric has more general criteria which is resources, progressing, priorites and modifying.
But mine is limited and vague criteria provided.
Each category needs to be more evaluated in general and specific manner.

I'd recommend this text book for pre-intermidiate college students sho focus on their speaking proficienty, not reading or grammar proficiency.
If suppor materials provided to meet each revel of students the text book would be more available to assess all studnets.

Revised Course Evaluation Rubric

Graves ch#5 reading reflection

According to what Dylan Bate said "there are many worth and precious things that can be done" so if we don't state goals we can be easily distracted from what we need to assess.
"Stating goals helps to bring into our vision and priorites for the course"
Even thoug we state explicit goals if objectives are not appropriate the goals won't be achieved.
"Objectives are statements about how the goals will be achieved"
"The objective must relate to the goal"
I had a goal for my English proficiency in speaking and I set up most time spent on reading grammar book.
Reading grammar book was helpful a certain point but it did not achive my goal which is to improve ability to speaking in English.
Because my my objective did not identify expected outcome.
If the goal is not achieved throught the objective, the objective may need to be examined and changed or refined so that the goal can be reached.

Course Evaluation rubric

Module#6. Evaluation rubric rough draft

Evaluation Rubric Design – rough draft.

Even though rubrics are hard and time-consuming to design, but rubrics are definitely needed with assessments to assess the performance of students effectively.
Rubrics are scoring guides that teachers and children use to assess achievement on particular writing projects.
Rubrics are used for more reasons as well, which are that make instructor’s expectations clear to the student, show students how to meet the instructor’s expectations, help students evaluate the quality of their own work, and identify the specific elements an instructor uses to differentiate between the qualities of performances.

Rubrics apply elements of primary trait scoring to simplify the assessment and grading of children’s writing.
Rubrics can have 3,4,5 or 6 levels, with descriptors at each level. In most rubrics, the descriptors are related to ideas, organization, language, and mechanics, but they vary to fit the writing project.

Rubrics typically consist of task, criteria, range of performance.

Task: Writing friendly letters to develop relationships with audiences.
Criteria: organization, vocabulary, word choice, sentence, mechanics.
Range of performance:
-Exceptional Writer(14-16pts)
-Developing Writer(11-13pts)
-Beginning Writer(8-10pts)
-Emergent Writer(0-7pts)

Holistic Or Analytic—Which To Use?

HOLISTIC—views product or performance as a whole; describes characteristics of different levels of performance. Criteria are summarized for each score level.
(Holistic Example)
Friendly Letters
Exceptional Writer.(4)
-Organized structure.
-Essentially free of mechanical errors
-Essentially free of punctuation error.
-Clear and appropriate for audience.

Analytic-Separate facets of performance are defined, independently valued, and scored.
Analytic—pros and cons
-Sharper focus on target
-Specific feedback (matrix)
-Instructional emphasis
(Analytic Example)
Exceptional Writer.(4)
Letter has correct form
Number of paragraphs
Envelope included and correct format

There is steps in developing a rubric.
1.Design backwards-rubric first; then product/performance.
2.Decide on the criteria for the product or performance to be assessed.
3. Write a definition or make a list of concrete descriptors-identifiable-for each criterion.
4.Develop a continuum for describing the range of performance for each criterion.
5. Keep track of strengths and weaknesses of rubric as you use it to assess student work.
6. Revise accordingly.
7. Step back; ask yourself “ What didn’t I make clear instructionally? The weakness may not be the rubric.

There is the task of creating a grading rubric of 6 steps
1 ,Record the performance objective
2. Identify the dimensions/tasks comprising the performance
3. Identify the postential gradations of quality
4. Assign a point value to each gradations of quality
5. Identify the criteria for each gradation, and a total point value for the assessment.
6. Create the rubrictable.

The best rubrics are below
1. Analytic and holistic
2. Developmental
3. Generalizable and specific
4. Instructional

Reference
Rubric.ppt
Tompkins, G. (2008). Teaching writing balancing process and product. Library of congress cataloging in publication data, 86-91.
www. School.discoveryeducation.com.