Basic Curriculum Design
Under the umbrella of English lies many smaller domains. It is not feasible to help your students conquer all of them at once, so your choice in domain will guide the creation of your curriculum. Depending on the language proficiency of your students, their desires, and the requests of your employer, here are list of a few possibilities to draw from:
Survival English: If your students were dropped in the middle of an English-speaking country, what would they need to know how to say or understand? Think finding a bathroom, getting directions, shopping, ordering food, buying a bus ticket…
Conversational English: This type of English is just like what it sounds. It involves the vocabulary and grammar necessary to talk with others in casual conversations like with your neighbors, friends, or family.
Business English: This is a specialized type of English geared towards conducting business and engaging in the work force. This might include job interviews, product presentations, sales pitches, requests for a raise, negotiation of benefits, or requests for time off.
Academic English: With this branch of English, you would prepare your students to thrive in an educational setting, especially, perhaps, at a university. Lecture comprehension, textbook reading, essay writing, debates, asking questions, and participating in class discussions are all possible skills you might tackle under this umbrella.
This list is certainly not exhaustive, but can help get your mind thinking about the different domains you are used to using in the English Language. Once a choice is made, student needs and course outcomes can be identified.
Student Needs
The needs of your students will shape your entire curriculum and be the framework for each individual lesson plan. Determining exactly what those needs look like will differ based on the program, your supervisor, and your students.
In well organized and supported programs, like the one you will soon work for, it is likely that you will not be required to determine the needs of your students yourself, but will be handed a list of the said needs by your supervisor. These needs will be in the form of expected student outcomes from the class, usually beginning with the phrase, “Students will be able to…” For instance, “Students will be able to learn and use 200 vocabulary words from the textbook in basic sentences” or “Students will be able to listen to and distinguish 50 minimal pairs” … the possibilities are endless.
If no list of needs is provided by your employers, then two options remain in determining the needs of your students: your students can determine their own needs, or you can determine them for your students. Consider asking your students what they hope to get out of your class! Do they want to be prepared to participate in a job interview in English? Order food? Describe their symptoms to a doctor? Talk to their grandkids about school? Even if your students are at a beginning language proficiency and cannot explain to you verbally, they have expectations and hopes in what they will take away from your class. You can prepare a handout with pictures of different tasks and ask them to circle three that they want to learn how to do in English. Gather up the sheets, and gear your class towards the most popular requests! Even with some input from your students, you should still form your own outcomes in writing following the “Students will be able to…” format. Adhering to the SMART goal setting acronym (Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) is also a good idea! For example, if your students said they wanted to learn how to participate in a job interview, your outcome might say, “By the end of the course, students will be able to explain their past work experience and the strengths they have to offer an employer using at least five connected sentences.” This will make it easy to know if your lessons are helping your students achieve your/their goals!
Course Design
Armed with class outcomes and a vision of the type of English you want to teach, you are ready to organize your curriculum! The first item to consider is how long you will have your students for. Two weeks? Two months? Two semesters? Based on your time frame, you can space out your given outcomes over the course of time. How you organize your content is up to you. Some teachers prefer to begin the course with the material they consider most essential for the students to learn to ensure it is given adequate time. Others address the easiest outcome and work up to the hardest to build student confidence in the material. Others alternate with hard and easy material to offer breaks for the students to recover. I know it is never fun to hear, but there is no “right” choice!
Whichever way you decide to organize your curriculum becomes the skeleton of your coursework. The meat that fills it in will come from your weekly/daily lesson plans! To structure your lesson plans, you should create baby learning outcomes for your students. What will they be able to do by the end of your class? For example, if one of your overarching course outcomes for your students is our previous example of, “By the end of the course, students will be able to explain their past work experience and the strengths they have to offer an employer using at least five connected sentences,” you may create a smaller objective of, “By the end of class, students will be able to provide three of their personal strengths in list form.” Since this particular outcome requires little grammatical skills, your lesson will likely center on developing the vocab necessary to share their strengths. Through your daily activities and lesson plans, your students will achieve your daily outcomes and, in turn, the overarching course outcomes, one step at a time.
