Reflection 5

Reflection on "A curriculum framework for corporate language programs"

People have the tendency to think that those who work for foreign companies have good command of English. Contrary to this belief, they don’t. I worked for foreign companies for nearly six years altogether, and I noticed that as few as 20% of the employees have average or above level of English language proficiency. Although this rough statistic is only based on my own experience and assumption, many people with similar background will agree to it. The company I worked for once implemented a language program because the head of the company felt a need to improve his employees’ communication skills. Being an US-based company, almost every employee of all levels and all departments were required to have a certain level of English proficiency. Otherwise, effective communication could not be achieved. So, I guess the goal of the language education was to establish efficient communication within the organization and also with the headquarter office. The company assigned Minbyungchul Language Institute in charge of the program. What they did first was to conduct a placement test which divided the employees into two levels- intermediate and beginner. Only two employees (including myself) were exempted from the program because of their good command of English. In the beginning stage before the lessons started, the manager of the institution as well as the instructor was involved. Two of them worked together do develop a curriculum in which they took business context into account and made a decision of how the lessons would be carried out. Other decisions such as how many hours’ instruction and when and where the program will be held were done by the company. The program consisted of two 1&1/2 hours’ lessons per week for each group, which was done in the company’s conference room early in the morning before they started to work. The instructor was required to report the learners’ attendance and performance to the company, so she conducted a test at the end of each month. The employees picked up some expressions from each class, and they found the classes very enjoyable. However, the program was initially designed to last for only 6 months, and the company wanted to witness some improvements within that short period of time. I think the company’s approach was product focused rather than process focused; it failed to see language learning as a process.

Reflection 4

Reflection on Course Planning and Syllabus Design

After reading this chapter, I came to realize that a course designer or a text material developer should consider a lot of things in order to produce a successful syllabus. I’ve never been in syllabus making position, but from the view point of the user of English language related books, I’ve certainly witnessed various kinds of syllabus frameworks. The very first book I was impressed with was ‘English Grammar in Use.’ Before encountering this book, I studied grammar with the help of famous books like ‘Sungmun English Grammar’ and ‘Man-to-Man.’ However, I found them really hard, and some grammatical items never made sense to me. They made me feel really frustrated. On the other hand, ‘English Grammar in Use’ was totally different from these books; it was absolutely sensational. The moment I started studying this book, I felt so relieved from the long-lived stress and pressure. It provided not only easy explanation of grammatical points but also examples of everyday-life conversation. I could easily utilize those expressions in real world, which helped me practice the grammar and communication skills at the same time. One of grammatical syllabus’s drawbacks is not addressing communicative skills, but this is not the case with this great book. One of the reasons why I found Korean grammar books very hard was because example sentences were often very formal and literature-like. Therefore, it was almost impossible to associate learning grammar with improving speaking skills. However, ‘English Grammar in Use’ is like killing two birds with one stone; you have easy grasp of grammar and increase communicative skills. Whenever I taught secondary school students, I used this book. Whoever knows this book is very blessed.

Reflection 3

Reflection on Goals & Objectives

This chapter provided me an insight into various perspectives of language teaching and learning. I always thought of language teaching only in terms of linguistic and communicative context, but I realized that language can be taught as an intensive and specialized form of social studies as well. Luckily, I encountered this view during the workshop in Hawaii. Dr. Crookes gave us a lecture on Critical Applied Linguistics and Pedagogy, and I was totally amazed. Being exposed to a totally new concept, I couldn’t understand the lecture in the beginning. However, I gradually grasped what critical pedagogy intends for while doing a group work. We were put into groups of four and generated a lesson plan in which social issues and concerns are embedded. Our group dealt with the perception of beauty in Korean society, and other groups touched on issues like racism and violence. In our group’s lesson plan, which targeted for female students at a vocational high school, students were to discuss distorted perception of beauty in our society and the causes for such views. Our intention was to let them discard the wrong perceptions and build self-respects. While this type of lesson could improve students’ linguistic and communicative abilities, more focus lies on social studies. I thought, ‘Wow, this is like catching two birds with one stone!’ Within the framework of education or pedagogy, critical language teaching contains a lot of values. Dr. Crookes mentioned that it’s worthwhile for language teachers to expand their aims or goals to change the world in better way. I think critical language teaching is so wonderful!

Reflection 2

Reflection on Situation Analysis (Richards, pp90~pp107)

Just like those teacher resisting new curriculum because they don’t want their routines to be disrupted, many people including myself fear changes. It’s true that change is inevitably accompanied by confusion, a lot of work, and conflicts. However, once the change turns out to be a good thing, all those troubles become worthwhile. For instance, when I was working for a company, I was using a rather old-fashioned system for various purposes. It took me quite some time to get used to using the system, and I also had to train new comers. Although I felt that the system was highly inefficient, I became very comfortable with it once I got used to it. So, when a new director announced that the system would be replaced with a new program, I felt resistance inside myself. I was very short-sighted. Learning to use the new program meant extra time and efforts. Also, discarding the current system meant wasting the training time efforts that I put into educating employees. There were other people who felt the same way, especially those who have been using the system for a long time. As expected, during the transition period, it took even more time to do a certain task using the new program. I almost thought that was an unnecessary change which cost a lot of money. However, soon after I got accustomed to the new system, I found myself to be the supporter of it. In fact, change could save time and efforts by a great deal. I realized that the new director made the right decision about the change. He must have assessed the advantages of the change before making the decision. Not all changes turn out to be good, but in this case, the change was definitely good. The famous book, ‘Who moved my cheese?’ gave me the same lesson. Without changes, we will always fall behind others and never experience the world beyond the wall. Like the phrase, ‘no pain, no gain’ implies, often times, changes are made at the cost of some troubles or sacrifices. I should bear this in mind and try to willingly accept new challenges.

Reflection 1

Reflection on “Needs Analysis” (pp51~71, Richards)

Analyzing needs is often the most essential step, and therefore comes the very first when developing or designing something regardless of fields. I worked for a company as marketing personnel for some time, and my job involved needs analysis, too. Without needs analysis, I could not develop any of the strategies and tactics, which were the outcome of my job. Like mentioned in the book, needs analysis was not as simple as it sounds but required complex procedures. Although needs analysis in language teaching requires different elements and steps from the ones I did while performing my job, both types use the same procedures. I used questionnaires, interviews, meetings, and observation to collect necessary information. I considered collecting and analyzing information was the most important step in carrying out needs analysis.
Learning various techniques and effective procedures will be necessary in order to perform precise and accountable needs analysis since it is the very first step in designing a course. Without a reliable needs analysis, the course is likely to fail in meeting the learners’ requirement. It is also very important to note that needs analysis can be done as ongoing process so that teachers could constantly evaluate and revise the course.

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