Curriculum Part 1

        I wanted to write something a little more substantial than my last few posts.  Summer has made me lazy.

        So, I wanted to talk about curriculum.  I had the opportunity to help rewrite a course while I served in the military.  Basically it was an older course designed with language acquisition in mind. The decision was made that the material and goals of the course were outdated and my office of three and then two was asked to rewrite and update the course for presentation at the next language manager's conference.  I want to take the time over my next few post and write a bit about how we got there and, perhaps, what we might have done differently.

        We decided to start with a questioning period.  We sent out requests to all our consumers, so to speak, and as we waited we, as a small group, began to deconstruct the course as it existed.  In sending out requests we essentially were searching for feedback from those actually using the knowledge from the course.  We asked them to tell us what worked and what didn't.  We made it clear that no issue was sacred and we were willing to change any and everything.  As I stated, this was to be a complete rewrite if necessary.  Of course, being able to use some of the existing material would have made the job easier, but we didn't want to arbitrarily limit ourselves.  

        As an instructor, I would not want to try and rewrite a course.  However, perhaps you are wanting to pitch the idea of a new course to your school or to some organization.  This type of approach would be an excellent starting point.  Get out there and ask questions.  Find out where the need is and try to build around that.  From a practical standpoint I would look at several sources for my initial information.  In most cases my first step would be to go to a mentor or someone whose experience I trusted and get their ideas.  Remember to take notes as it is easy to forget details.  If you work in a larger place you can talk to other instructors, even those teaching different subjects.  There could be some gem of creativity out there being used by a Biology teacher which you could adapt to language study.  It never hurts to ask for information.  I would also check back at my course feedback.  Sometimes students write something that makes sense ... joke intended!  Furthermore, I would perhaps just ask some former students or even current students.  Find out what they expected and if you met their expectations.  Lastly, I would search the internet and just take a peek at what others are doing around the world.  There are just too many resources on the internet to not take its content into account.

        Once the information is gathered, the next step is to put into some form of usable content.  From there we can start working with it as we build a new curriculum.  Personally, I like sticky notes all over a wall mounted board, but go with whatever works.  With sticky notes you can easily group and color-code information that you have gathered.  Be sure to take into account the amount of time you have available for the course overall and that it is broken into blocks that include not just periods for instruction, but also for review and assessment.

        As an example I want to use a pretty common topic that my adult ELLs always ask about; employment.  So, let us say we are working with a class that meets three hours a week for 15 weeks which is a typical college semester.  For example's sake the course will be ELL105 Employment in the U.S.  Let that work in your mind a bit and I will follow up with part two of this blog.

Vacationing With an Being from Outer Space

As the title suggests, I have been on a bit of vacation/break with an entity from outer space.  Actually he is our exchange student from China.  As I have stated many times, I have lived all over the world and many times I have lived in very close quarters to people from all walks of life.  I always thought of myself as pretty patient, understanding and even cosmopolitan, if you will.  Well, that was a mistake on my part. Over the course of our vacation, I was astounded to find myself very perplexed by the young man who has been sharing our house.  Was he, in fact, and alien?  He is very gifted in the analytical fields, but he seemed to have little to no understanding of anything else. He has been very much an introvert while here, so I decided to have him help with some gardening and other outdoor activities.  I soon discovered that he had never used a broom.  He was unsure of even how to properly hold it for sweeping.  I moved him to some light raking and he immediately turned the rake upside down and began to push it across the grass.  I wanted to laugh, but did not want to embarrass him too much.  Next we decided to do some walking and he got a blister the first day out.  Bikes were out as he did not know how to ride one.  I was just at a loss for words when I discovered how little about basic summer activities this young teen even understood.  To say the least, it was an interesting time.

I relate this brief story as a lesson.  Often we as instructors enter a class with preconceptions about our students based on what we see, think that we know, or have perhaps experienced in the past.  In this case I approached my student with the idea that he knew basic gardening etc.  Obviously, I was wrong and I found myself feeling a little guilty about my line of thought.  I should have been more patient and rewarded what he was capable of rather than bemoaning what he was not.  As an instructor it is important to be a bit humble at times.  We have to work with the students we have not the students we think we have.