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ESP COURSE DESIGN

LANGUAGE INSTITUTE

“UNIVERSIDAD DEL ATLANTICO”

TEACHER RESEACHER

ADRIANA PATRICIA ALVAREZ RODRIGUEZ

UNIVERSIDAD DEL NORTE

ESPECIALIZACION EN LA ENSEÑANZA DEL INGLÈS

BARRANQUILLA

JULY-2006

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION------------------------------------------------------------------- -4

CHAPTER 1: RATIONALE

1.1 THE CONCEPT AND EVOLUTION OF ESP IN LANGUAGE TEACHING --- -------7

1. 2 DESCRIPTION OF THE CONTEXT OF THE RESEARCH----------------------------9

CHAPTER 2: NEEDS ANALYSIS………… ……………………………….……………….. 12

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY--------------------------------------------------14

2.1. DESCRIPTION OF THE INSTRUMENTS HAVE BEEN CHOSEN-----------------------15

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS TAKEN FROM NEEDS ANALYSIS STUDY------------18

4.1 ANALYSIS OF THE INSTRUMENTS--------------------------------------------------------18

4.1.1 TEST BASED ON MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES---------------------------------18

4.1.2 DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE SKILLS ------------------------------------------------ -20

4.1.3 ACTITUDES OF THE STUDENTS TOWARD LEARNING--------- -------------- ---------24

4.1.4 LEARNING NEEDS QUESTIONNAIRE…………………… ………… … … …… …..27

4.1.5 INTERVIEW TO TEACHERS--------------------------------------------------------------------- 30

4.2 LIST OF FINDINGS --------------------------------------------------------------------------------35

4. 3 TARGET AND LEARNING NEEDS-------------------------------------------------------------36

CHAPTER 5: PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS----------------------------------------------38

5.1 OBJECTIVES------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------38

5.1.1 TREATMENT OF THE FOUR LANGUAGE SKILLS ----------------------------38

5.1.2 ABOUT THEIR LEARNING STYLES ----------------------------------------------38

5.2 METHODOLOGY------------------------------ -----------------------------------------39

5.2.1 STRATEGIES AND ACTIVITIES --------------------------------------------------39

5.3 SOME OTHER IMPORTANT FEATURES………………….……………….…….39

CHAPTER 6: MATERIAL EVALUATION------------------------------------------------------------------40

6.1. INTRODUCTION THE ROLE OF MATERIALS---------------------------------- 40

6.2. DESCRIPTION OF THE CONTEXT………………………… ..…………………40

6.3 GOAL AND OBJETIVES OF THE COURSE------------------------------------- --43

6.4. EVALUATING THE CURRENT MATERIALS………………………………….44

6.4.1. EXTERNAL FEATURES OF CURRECT COURSE BOOK--- ----------------- 46

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6.4.2. INTERNAL FEATURES OF CURRECT COURSE BOOK-----------------------49

6.4.2.1. ANALYSIS OF ONE UNIT…….……………………………… ……….49

6.4.2.2. INTERNAL FEATURES OF THE IDEAL MATERIAL AND THE MATERIAL IN USE……...59

6.5. DECISIONS ABOUT THE CURRENT TEXTBOOK……… …… … ………...…………62

6.6. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS……… …………………………………...…...………63

CHAPTER 7: COURSE DESIGN……………………………………………………………………...64

7.1 APPROACHES TO COURSE DESIGN…………………………………………………… 64

7.1.1 APPROACH TO EDUCATION…………………… ………… ………… ……………. 66

7.1.2 APPROACH TO LANGUAGE…………………………………………………………….67

7.1.3 APPROACH TO LANGUAGE LEARNING………………………………………………68

7.2 GOALS AND OBJECTIVES………………………………………………………………. 72

7.3 CONSTITUENT ANALYSIS…………………………………… ……………………........73

7.4 TEACHING POINTS……………………………………………………………………… .75

7.5 SYLLABUS FOCUS…………………………………………………………………………..78

7.6 SYLLABUS SHAPE…………………………………………………………………………..79

7.7. METHODOLOGY……………………………………………………………………………81

7.7.1 TEACHERS ROLE--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------.82

7.7.2 LEARNERS ROLE…………… ……………………………… …………………………82

7.7.3 CLASS ORGANIZATION……………………………… …………………………………82

CHAPTER 8: EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT…………………………………………………..84

8.1 LEARNER’S EVALUATION---------------------------------------------------------------------------84

8.2 COURSE EVALUATION…………………………………………………….… ……………90

CHAPTER 9: CONCLUSIONS…………………………………………………………………………..91

REFLECTIONS ABOUT THE RESEARCH PROCESS------------------------------------------- -------91

BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………………….93

CHAPTER 10: APPENDIX (SAMPLES OF DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENTS FOR

NEED ANALYSIS)---------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------- ---96

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INTRODUCTION

This research consists on designing an ESP course for first level students of English in the

language institute of Universidad Del Atlántico. This investigation represents a personal

challenge because this institution gave me the opportunity to become a professional and

now it is time to contribute as a professional to its development.

The principal objectives of this paper are:

To acquire theoretical framework about the type of study (ESP) and its importance

for the improvement of English language teaching.

To know the students and its context, in order to make effective the research, and

finally design the appropriate English course for this group of learners.

To establish the type of methodology which is going to be used, to collect

information about the students learning process.

To design and apply the collect-data instruments to identify the students learning

styles, their preferences and needs.

To process the information to get to needs analysis and its pedagogical implications

To design a course taking into consideration all its parameters: views of education,

language and learning; goals and objectives of the course; the syllabus, content,

methodology and the evaluation; which are very important for every course design.

To design materials with activities that may achieve the goals and objectives of this

course design

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This paper is organized by chapters, and here is a brief description of them:

Rationale: this chapter has a theoretical background, concepts about ESP and its

importance for the improvement of English language teaching. It also contains the

context of the research, which will describe important features of the institution, and

the specific group of learners.

Needs analysis: this chapter will explain what needs analysis is and why it is an

essential part of this investigation.

Methodology: in this chapter I will show the type of methodology to be used to

collect information about the students learning processes and the description of the

instruments or techniques to be applied.

Results from needs analysis study: this chapter will describe the results found

after the application and analysis of collect-data instruments to identify the students

learning styles, their preferences and needs.

Pedagogical implications: in this chapter I will analyze the Results taken from the

needs analysis of the instruments and define what needs to be changed, modified or

reinforced in the classroom; in other words, I will determine the pedagogical

implications of the course design.

Material evaluation: this chapter will analyze if the material the class is using, fill

expectations of the course in terms of student needs in their learning process. This

evaluation helps to take decisions about the material this group of learners need to

use.

Course design: this chapter contains all the decisions taken from the previous

chapters because it defines the approaches to education, language and learning this

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course has. It also establishes goals and objectives of the course. And it determines

the syllabus, content, methodology and the evaluation; which are important for

every course design.

Conclusions: this is the final dissertation of the paper in which there is reflection

about the importance of doing this kind of research for our professional

development.

Bibliography and Appendices: These are the last two chapters of the papers. The

first contains the references of all the books I used to support my ideas. And the

appendices contain the instruments were designed to collect students information

for the needs analysis.

All these chapters drive the investigation to finally design the ideal course including a

set of materials (this is a separated bound booklet) in which the students will learn the

target language according to their necessities, lacks, and wants. In addition, this course

design pretends to look ahead, because it wants to transcend creating materials to be

used for every teacher who wants to teach the language considering learners needs; this

is going to be a little contribution to improve the quality of English teaching.

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1. RATIONALE

1.1 THE CONCEPT AND EVOLUTION OF ESP IN LANGUAGE TEACHING

ESP (English for specific purposes) emerged at the end of the World War II, as a response

to the different demands of society in that time. When the United States became a powerful

country, the necessity to study English increased notably. Many countries wanted to

establish relationships with this nation in order to balance their technological and

commercial development. Because of this need, the idea of acquiring a language changed.

Previously, learning a foreign language was a cultural or an academic issue; at that

moment, learning English became the only tool to have access to the information in the

different fields that were transforming the world (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987).

The necessity to be updated with the changes in science, commerce and technology, created

a new generation of English learners with specific purposes in the acquisition of the

language; and consequently, big changes in language teaching. The traditional way to

teach a language was centred on the acquisition of linguistic features based on grammar

rules, and furthermore, the aim of knowing a language was basically communication

without having in mind any specific situation; with the new demands and the desires of the

people to be competitive in their jobs with good English proficiency, many teachers started

to design English courses with specific objectives (ESP); for example, special English

courses for secretaries, doctors, technicians and so on. Likewise, some researchers

discovered that linguistics was more than a set of rules and began to teach ESP courses,

taking into account different aspects like context, the student’s intention and the purpose of

communication.

So what is ESP? It could be defined as an approach to language learning which is based on

learner needs. It does not mean that it is a product obtained by a commercial demand, it

actually means that its emphasis is based on the analysis of the nature of specific varieties

of language uses; and all decisions as to content and method depend on learner’s reasons

for learning the language.

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ESP at the beginning had concentrated on language at the sentence level, the second phase

shifted attention to the level above the sentence. Later on, the study of the syllabus became

involved with the emerging field of rhetorical and discourse analysis; which studies how,

when and where a sentence can be used in discourse, considering aspects like context, the

participants and the purpose of communication. Moreover, it is relevant to mention that

ESP focuses its attention on the learner. In other words, the students’ needs, interests and

attitudes toward learning are very important in their process to acquire the language. This

was the contribution of the educational psychology in the rise of the approach.

Finally, there is a fundamental task in the development of ESP: the course design, which

consists on the construction of an appropriate course determining the learners’ needs and

interests. It is necessary to establish the different descriptions of language, the models of

learning, and the analysis of the learner needs; in order to apply the course design with the

selected learners.

There are the two main branches of ESP: EAP (English for academic purposes), EOP

(English for occupational purposes). It means that according to the ELT (English language

target), each course design has a specific objective and belongs to a type of ESP. For

example, ESS is an approach centred on the social sciences; and the different branches of it

are the courses that could be created according to the type of ESP (1987).

In a course design, “Needs Analysis” is an important feature that defines the learning needs

of students in the process of acquiring a language in a target situation, and how they might

best master the target language during the period of training (West, 1994). Each student has

necessities, lacks, wants related to the process of learning a language. According to that, the

needs analysis establishes a set of questions which are important to define the target needs

of the learners in order to design an effective ESP course.

The fundamental questions in needs analysis basically answer: Why is the target language

needed? How will the language be used? What will the content areas be? Who will the

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learner use the language with? Where will the language be used? And when will the

language be used? (1987 p. 59)

To gather all the answers to the questions above, it is necessary to use data collection

instruments, such as: surveys, questionnaires, interviews, and others. These are useful to

carry out the searching process.

1.2 DESCRIPTION OF THE CONTEXT OF THE RESEARCH

Education in Colombia must be analyzed from two different points of view, public and

private institutions. Definitely the quality of education depends on economical aspects. For

this reason, private institutions, which have appropriated human and technological

resources for teaching, have students with a good level of English. In contrast, public

institutions, especially the elementary and high schools do not have enough resources and

the students do not obtain even the basic level of the language required by ICFES (Instituto

Colombiano de Estudios Superiores).

About public education, there is big gap between educational policies and everyday life in

Colombian classrooms, especially when we talk about English teaching. For example, the

standards established by the government for learning English, based on European models

proposes, to study the language in a communicative way, it means that students must be

prepared to use the language in their future jobs or studies. Further, it proposes special

training for language teachers of public schools. However, the teachers training process has

not covered the millions of teachers who actually need it. Perhaps there is not enough

economical support for it, and the real fact is that, many teachers continue teaching isolated

grammar rules, which lowers the students’ proficiency of English in this country (MEN

(Ministerio de Educación Nacional), 1995).

According to the last concerns and the evident necessity of learning English, many people

go to language institutes to acquire English, and for that reason this research will study in

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detail the academic situation of a language institute in which the most of students come

from public high schools.

This research was carried out in a first semester class of the English courses at the

Universidad Del Atlántico. This is a public university located in Barranquilla, Colombia; it

has its language school which is open not only for students of the institution, but also for

the community in general. For that reason, the population of the language courses is varied:

some of the learners are studying a career in the university, because one of the requirements

for graduating for most of the careers is to have good English proficiency; and others are

high school students, working people, or students who come from different schools.

The aims established for the language institute are:

To give materials that allow the learners to use the language in real situations.

To teach authentic language that stimulates spontaneous conversations

To develop students’ motivation in their language learning process.

The most important features which really define this institute are fundamentally:

The courses give the community an opportunity to study English with low prices;

because the institute works with the support of the government.

The teachers are professionals in language teaching, all of them graduated from the

language teaching college of the university.

The years of prestige that this public university has gained through time.

The institute offers six levels of English, each level takes a semester. At the end of these six

semesters the institution gives the students a document that certifies the course has been

approved. Furthermore, there are different schedules. From Monday to Friday, the students

have classes two hours a day; and on Saturdays four hours.

The English courses use, in all the levels, the guide book Spectrum edited by Prentice Hall

Regents. This series is formed by six books; each one has cassettes and workbooks. Besides

covering the guide books, the teacher can use extra material related to the content of the

book. The resources the institution has for the teaching-learning process are limited; they

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just have tape recorders and cassettes available every day. There is a television, a DVD and

a VCR, but these are not enough for all the teachers and sometimes they are not working.

Likewise, there aren’t any computers available for classes, and the lack of this important

technological tool is a big weakness the courses have.

About the teaching aspect, teachers are free and autonomous to design the set of activities,

and strategies appropriated for their students taking into consideration: the English course

works based on the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), there is a

different percentage for each skill in every level, but emphasizing in the first two skills than

in the last two. In other words, the main purpose of the course is to develop conversational

skills, and the ability to communicate through the language in any situation. According to

that, the percentage of the skills and also the evaluation has to be quantitative (using the

percentage) and qualitative because they have to prepare progress reports with observations

about the process of each student.

This research will reveal a set of difficulties that were found in a first level class of the

English courses. The class is formed by 23 students around the ages of 14 and 22; most of

them are studying and belong to a low-middle class family. Although all of them have been

familiarized with the English language, because learning English is obligatory in the

curriculum of Colombian education [see art. 23 Ley general de la Educación 1997], their

linguistic competence in English was not good at the beginning of the semester, with some

exceptions.

There are many difficulties which could be identified in class through everyday interaction;

it means that when you drive a learning process in a class, being the teacher, you take

advantage of your classroom interaction to play the role of researcher (Allwright and

Bailey, 1991 p.2). Some issues noticed at the beginning of the process with this particular

group were:

They do not follow instructions in class easily.

They do not express doubts in the moment the explanation was given.

They sometimes do different activities rather than those which were assigned.

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They talk among themselves when they are supposed to pay attention to an

explanation or to do an individual activity.

It is also important to mention positive aspects in the students; such as, their punctuality,

their good attitudes toward the teacher and their classmates and their responsibility with the

assignments. These aspects demonstrate they are not having motivation problems. So, what

is the real issue?

Probably, students are having problems of attention and concentration, because they are not

doing class activities according to their learning abilities. So that, it could be assumed that

the design of materials considering their learning styles and the use of their intelligences;

may solve their difficulties at the beginning of their language learning process. Therefore,

the following question research emerges: What issues and what kind of materials could be

designed, in the first level of the English courses in the Universidad Del Atlántico, to teach

English using the different personalities of the students?

2. NEEDS ANALYSIS

One of the aspects which distinguish an ESP course from a general English course is the

awareness of need. Needs analysis is the part of an ESP course design in which we analyze

learners, in order to discover information relevant for an effective learning process.

According to this, two questions emerge: what do we mean by “needs”? What kind of

information should a needs analysis tells us?

Needs analysis has been studied for many years under different approaches. West (1994)

stated some stages of needs analysis in language teaching; in the early 70s needs analysis

was applied just in occupational courses EOP, then it focused on academic language

courses EAP. And since the 80s, needs analysis changed its focus to be used in general

language learning; taking into account the analysis, not only of a target situation, but also of

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deficiency and strategies in the process. But what is “need”? According to the language

centred-approach, need would be “the ability to comprehend and/or produce the linguistic

features of the target situation” (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987 p59). In other words, a need

is what exactly students will be required to do with the language in a target situation , and

how they might best master this language during the period of learning.

To know what kind of information I should need to tell the students, it is necessary to look

at needs analysis in terms of target needs, which consists on what learners need to do in the

target situation, and learning needs, which consists on what learners need to do in order to

learn. When we analyze target needs it is important to establish three concepts: necessities,

which means what learners have to know to function effectively in the target situation;

lacks, which are the things they do not know exactly or the gaps they need to fill in the

process; and wants, which are their interests and desires with respect to the target language.

As soon as we have established target needs identifying necessities, lacks and wants; the

next step is to establish learning needs. The main purpose of determining learning needs is

to define the “route”, how are we going to teach what learners need? What strategies,

activities and skills they need to use to get to the “destination”; that has been determined by

the target needs analysis.

In sum, the needs analysis is an essential feature of an ESP course design, because it gives

us the elements to determine what and how we need to teach the language in an appropriate

way. Now it is time to establish how it can gathered the information for the needs analysis;

the next chapter is going to present the different techniques may be used to collect this

specific information.

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3. METHODOLOGY

This chapter will describe the different procedures to carry out the research. The first step is

to define what instruments are going to be appropriated to collect the information in order

to answer the question research (What issues and what kind of materials could be designed,

in the first level of the English courses in the Universidad Del Atlántico, to teach English

using the different personalities of the students?). First of all, it is necessary to clarify that

this is classroom research, which could be defined as an investigation centred on classroom

events that basically, try to answer questions or solve problems emerged from the process

itself. (Allwright, and Bailey, 1991).

There are many techniques to collect information, each has its advantages and

disadvantages, here I will mention the most common in classroom research: observations,

interviews, written questionnaires, surveys, and data tests.

Observation:

This is one of the most useful instruments to get information in a classroom. The

effectiveness of this technique depends on the use of resources like: tape recorder, or video

camera; also the design of a checklist with the criteria to be observed or charts in which you

can take notes. When you observe a class, you notice many things that I could call

constants, they mean, behaviors and situations that always happen in a class; such as,

students talking when the teacher is explaining something, students always wanting to

translate everything to Spanish, fear to participate or be first, etc. all those real aspects are

difficult to gather in other kind of instruments like surveys or interviews. However, some

students change their normal behaviors when they feel observed by a different teacher, and

this aspect can affect the authenticity of the information; but I am sure that this is a good

experience for every teacher-researcher.

Interview and survey:

These instruments consist on producing a set of questions, in order to get specific

information. They can be applied face to face or in a collective way. If you want

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spontaneous opinions the interview with open question is a good option. But if you want

specific answers you should make a survey. The disadvantages of these two techniques are

basically logistic in nature. Because, if you have a big group of students; it is very difficult

to apply a face to face survey or interview. It is also very hard to tabulate spontaneous

answers.

Questionnaires and tests:

These two instruments are mostly based on a set of written questions which might be

formulated with options answer directly, or open-ended questions. This is a very good

technique for big groups of students, but its design requires a lot of time; and it is also

difficult to tabulate open-ended questions.

After a brief look at the most common data-collection instruments in classroom research. I

can assume that all of them are effective; its choice depends on the question research and

the context in particular.

2.1 DESCRIPTION OF THE INSTRUMENTS WHICH HAVE BEEN CHOSEN

For this research the following instruments were designed:

Data test based on multiple intelligences: I decided to design this instrument, based on the

theory of multiple intelligences established by Howard Gardner (1993), because I consider

if we teachers discover the kinds of intelligences are predominant in the students, we can

find different ways to teach them in a better way. The main purpose of this instrument is to

identify the kinds of intelligence that the students use in order to find their learning styles,

personalities and preferences. The test is formed by 10 questions, each one with four

options of answer. Each option has a symbol which represents a kind of intelligence; taking

into account that every intelligence area, Gardner has recognized, is demonstrated through

specific talents, skills, and interests:

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LOGICAL /MATHEMATICAL

VERBAL/LINGUISTIC

VISUAL/ SPATIAL

MUSICAL/RHYTHMIC

BODILY/ KINESTHETIC

INTERPESONAL

INTRAPERSONAL

In the application of this test, there are more advantages than disadvantages. The use of

pictures with the options, made this instrument appealing for students. Also they like to

answer personality tests because they love talk about their lives. On the other hand, some

students had problems with the vocabulary but this is not a disadvantage because they

learnt new words. Maybe making four options limited the students’ preferences and this

may be a disadvantage, for that reason, I gave them the opportunity to write a fifth option in

special cases.

The second instrument is also a test which collects personal information about the

students and how they develop the four language skills in the English class. It is divided in

two parts. In the first one, the learners have to write their general information in the

following order: name, age, date and place of birth, occupation, marital status, address,

neighbourhood, people who they live with, family and their hobbies; in the second part

there is a test about the development of the language skills, it contains ten sentences related

to the four language skills (listening, speaking , reading and writing), each sentence

contains four options that must be numbered from one to four, one being the most

important and 4 the least.

The main objectives of this instrument are: to know how important language skills are for

the students, identify their learning styles by considering what kind of activities they prefer

to do inside and outside class, and to know more about their lives and interests.

About the advantages and disadvantages of this instrument, the first part is very important,

because it asks for specific and personal information which provides basic data about the

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students’ lives. Moreover the last two items of this first part, related to the family and

hobbies, gave the learners the opportunity to write about themselves, what they like, what

they want. In the second part, however, there is a disadvantage because students have to

number in order of importance four options which obviously limited their responses;

because, probably for them some options could have the same importance in the process.

The third instrument is a survey; it has twelve (12) statements related to their

behaviours in class and the methodology used. Each statement has five categories of

evaluation: 1. Most of the times (la mayoría de las veces) 2. Frequently (con frecuencia) 3.

Sometimes (algunas veces), 4. A few times (pocas veces) and 5. Almost never (casi nunca).

The learners only have to select one of the categories in order to indicate how often each

statement they carry out in class. The main purpose of this survey is to gather students’

opinions about their behaviours in class and methodology employed. This quantitative tool

is very easy to tabulate which is an advantage for the researcher and the way it is presented,

through a chart, makes students can understand and answer the questions easily, which is

also an advantage.

In addition, the survey has six open questions in which they evaluate their learning

process. It means that each student reflects about what he/she has learnt considering his/her

difficulties and strengths and evaluates the group learning process in general. It is important

to mention that the principal objective of the six open questions is to find students

reflections about the process. Because these reflections indicate their level of awareness

about what they are learning and how they are doing it. This part of the survey not only let

learner express their opinions about the learning process, but also let me know other

important aspects about the classes I perhaps missed to mention in the chart.

The last instrument centred on students is the learning needs questionnaire. It

contains five open questions related to necessities, wants and lacks of the language learners.

The open questions are effective to have a complete idea about why the students are

studying the language, what they need the language for and what they like to do in class.

The big advantage of this questionnaire is the students’ freedom to give their opinions

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without any limitations, and besides, this specific document is going to be vital to the needs

analysis development, important feature of this ESP course design.

Likewise, the opinions of other teachers are meaningful to develop the research.

Due to that, a structured interview with ten questions was designed. Three of the ten

questions are closed, the rest are open; and the general purpose of them is to have

different teachers’ points of view about the students’ performance according to the aims

of the institution for the first level. The interview, which was created for being

recorded, collects different first level teachers opinions about the common strengths and

difficulties found in the language learning process of the students, and also the different

constraints found in the teaching process. This last instrument is a very essential tool to

identify the frequent constraints teachers have to deal with in every class; this kind of

technique also allows teacher researchers to share and learn from other teachers;

different experiences, teaching strategies and methodologies.

4. RESULTS FROM NEEDS ANALYSIS STUDY

4.1 ANALYSIS OF THE INSTRUMENTS (Results)

This chapter will present the results found after the application and tabulation of the data-

collection instruments. In every instrument, I will describe the procedures used to tabulate

the information, presenting charts and paragraphs explaining the process in detail, and

making assumptions based on the different results.

4.1.1 TEST BASED ON MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES

Data test based on multiple intelligences is the first instrument I applied for the

investigation; its main purpose is to identify the kinds of intelligence that students

develop in order to find their learning styles, personalities and preferences. The test is

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formed by 10 questions, each one with 4 options of answer. Each option has a symbol

that means a kind of intelligence established by Howard Gardner (1993).

LOGICAL /MATHEMATICAL

VERBAL/LINGUISTIC

VISUAL/ SPATIAL

MUSICAL/RHYTHMIC

BODILY/ KINESTHETIC

INTERPESONAL

INTRAPERSONAL

After the application of the test, I tabulated the information taking into account how many

times each symbol was selected in the eighteen tests (because the class is formed by 18

students) and I made a percentage for each kind of intelligence; to get the percentage I

multiplied the number of times each intelligence is repeated in the test by eighteen, that is

the quantity of tests applied; and I divided this result between the number of answers. The

following chart contains the results:

Results

types of

Intelligence

No. of

answers

Percentage

of class

answers

%

Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence 32 29,6

Musical intelligence 44 40,7

Visual-Spatial intelligence 33 30,5

Intra-personal intelligence 45 5,0

Inter-personal intelligence 62 57,4

Math-Logic intelligence 14 12,9

Verbal-Linguistic intelligence 23 25,5

The purpose of this second tabulation is to define what types of intelligences are

predominant in the class.

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The results show us that the 57.4 % of answers belong to the inter-personal intelligence

which means that most of the students are very sociable people who like to learn interacting

with others. 40.7% of the answers belong to the musical intelligence, it means that a great

amount of students like music, activities related to sounds and they like to learn through

rhythms. 30.5% of answers belong to the visual-spatial intelligence, it means that many

students consider they have visual-spatial abilities and prefer to learn through images.

29.6% of answers belong to the bodily-kinesthetic intelligence which means that a

considerable part of students love activities that imply movement and prefer to learn by

doing. 25. 5% of answers belong to the verbal- linguistic intelligence, it means that some

students prefer to learn by reading, writing and have abilities to produce oral discourses.

12.9 % of answers belong to math-logic intelligence; it means that only a few students like

to learn by numbers or quantities. And 5.0% of answers belong to the intra-personal

intelligence, it means that a very small quantity of students like individual activities

because as it was mention before the majority prefer interaction.

4.1.2 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE LANGUAGE SKILLS

The second instrument is also a test which collects personal information about the students

and how they develop the four language skills in the English class. It is divided in two

parts. In the first one, the learners have to write their general information in the following

order: name, age, date and place of birth, occupation, marital status, address,

neighbourhood, people who they live with, family and their hobbies; In the second part,

there is a test about the development of the language skills, it consists on ten sentences

related to the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), each sentence

contains four options that must be numbered from one to four, one being the most

important and four the least.

The main objectives of this instrument are: to know how important language skills are for

the students, identify their learning styles; considering what kind of activities they prefer to

do inside and outside class, and to know more about their lives and interests.

21

In the tabulation process, I only took the second part of the test, because its first part just

provided me students’ general information that was very important for the description of

the context. After the application of this instrument I tabulated each question taking its

options one by one, because the students had to number each option from one to four in

order of importance. So that, in the following charts I will present three columns, the first

has the four options were designed for each statement, the second contains the addition of

the numbers that students answered in every option, and the third column has the

percentage obtained in every option. In order to understand the following graphics, it is

important to clarify that the option which has the less percentage, is the most important for

the students in the development of their language skills.

However, in this chapter I am not going to show the tabulation process of each question; I

am just going to analyze relevant information for the investigation, taking into account

needs, lacks and wants of the students with respect language skills

The second item (see chart 1) of the test is an affirmation that students have to complete,

numbering the four language skills in order of importance; it says in the English class. I like

to learn best by…this item was designed with the purpose of knowing the perceptions of the

students about their learning processes. The results of the tabulation show: the 20% of

answers indicate the most of students consider they learn best by speaking, the 23% of

answers by listening, 28% by reading and the 29% by writing. This result is very important

because it determines that students feel comfortable speaking and prefer speaking exercises

in class.

Chart 1

2. In the English class. I like to learn best by…

Options No of answers Percentage

Listening 42 23

Speaking 36 20

Reading 51 28

Writing 53 29

22

This third item refers to specific activities related to one of the language skills; the speaking

one. It says; to practice speaking, I prefer... The results indicate that they prefer to practice

speaking by talking to the teacher, which is really surprising and contradicted, because the

results had shown until now that they preferred to interact with their classmates instead of

the teacher. What I can assume of this, is that probably they need to practice with the

teacher because they think it is a more affective speaking exercise because they can learn

more and receive corrections and feedback from the teacher. There is something else that I

can infer; if they prefer to practice speaking with the teacher is because there is a good level

of confidence between teacher and the student; which is a very positive aspect for the

investigation.

The fourth item refers to specific activities related to other of the language skills; the

reading one. It says; to practice reading, I prefer… The results indicate students like to read

conversations and stories, because I consider it implies interaction. The fifth item refers to

specific activities related to the listening skill; to practice reading, I prefer. This result

indicates students like to practice listening with TV programs, movies and songs, which a

expected result if we consider the results of the first instrument about multiple intelligences.

The sixth item refers to specific activities related to the writing skill; to practice writing, I

prefer… and the options numbered by students in order of importance are common writing

activities in class. The results indicate students like to practice writing with exercises from

book, which means they do not like to write long texts like diaries.

The seventh item of this instrument (see chart 2) has only three options, so that, students

have to number them from one to three in order of importance. The item is an affirmation

that says I like to learn English, and the options are *reading books, *talking to my friends

*songs and movies. This item was designed to know the level of importance that each one

of these activities has for the students; this information will help in the design of the

methodology for this course. The tabulation shows that: Students like to learn English with;

in first place (31% of answers) reading books, in second place (34% of answers) song and

23

movies, and in third place (35% of answers) talking to my friends. It is important to

mention that the percentages are very similar which indicates students like to learn with the

three activities, however the exercises from the book in the first place, means that, the

existence of a guidebook let them feel sure of their learning process.

Chart 2

The ninth item of this instrument (see chart 3) is an affirmation that says I understand

better... this item is a little similar to the last one, but its difference consists on its focus; the

first one refers to the students abilities to understand the language in class, and the second

to their learning styles. This item was designed to know the level of understanding of the

students, according to the behaviours in class. The tabulation shows that: Students

understand better when they; in first place (18% of answers) listen to the teacher and the

tape recorder, in second place (26% of answers) take ideas and write them down the

notebook and (26% of answers) Practicing with examples and creating new ones, and at last

place (30% of answers) Seeing graphs, charts or diagrams from the book or the board.

These results indicate students understand better when the teacher provides oral texts, as we

see in the results of the last item, they definitely understand when they develop their

listening abilities.

Chart 3

7. I like to learn English:

Options No of answers Percentage

Reading books 34 31

Talking to my friends 38 35

songs and movies 37 34

9. I understand better:

Options No of answers

Percentage

Seeing graphs, charts or diagrams from the book or the board 53 29

Listening to the teacher and the tape recorder 33 19

Taking ideas and writing them down the notebook 47 26

Practicing with examples and creating new ones 46 26

24

Finally, the tenth item of this instrument (see chart 4) is an affirmation that says in my future,

it is going to be important: this item is very important for the investigation because its main

objective is to know the goals of the students in relation to their English studies. According

to the tabulation in the future it is going to be important for students; in first place (15% of

answers) to speak English, in second place (22% of answers) to understand English, in third

place (26% of answers) to read English, and at last place (35% of answers) to write English.

These results indicate students are going speak and understand more in their future; it

makes me assume that they need to develop since now more oral than written skills in class.

Chart 4

4.1.3. ATTITUDES OF THE STUDENTS TOWARD LEARNING

Survey

The third instrument is a survey; it has twelve (12) statements related to their behaviours in

class and the methodology used. Each statement has five categories of evaluation: 1. Most

of the times (la mayoría de las veces) 2. Frequently (con frecuencia) 3. Sometimes

(algunas veces) 4. A few times (pocas veces) 5. Almost never (casi nunca). The learners

only have to select one of the categories in order to indicate how often each statement they

carry out in class. The main purpose of this survey is to gather students’ opinions about

their behaviours in class and methodology employed, using a quantitative and specific

instrument. In addition the survey has six open questions in which they self-evaluate their

learning process. It means that each student reflects about what he/she has learnt

considering his/her difficulties and strengths and evaluates the group learning process in

general. It is important to mention that the principal objective of the six open questions is to

find students reflections about the process. Because these reflections indicate their level of

awareness about what they are learning and how they are doing it.

10. In my future, it is going to be important:

Options No of answers Percentage

to speak english 26 15

to read english 49 28

to understand english 39 22

to write english 63 35

25

In the tabulation process of this instrument, I took to analyze only five of the statements of

the chart because; they are the most appropriate for the study. The rest of the information

does not concern specifically to the investigation, it was designed with the purpose of

knowing the students points of view about the development of the classes and some other

aspects just important for the improvement of the teacher methodology.

The following chart explains the level of frequency each statement was assumed by the

students. In the first column we can see the sentences, then there are five columns; each one

of them is level of frequency, as it was explained before. I analyzed the frequency of each

sentence, counting the numbers of frequency of all the answers; according to the result of

the addition I located each sentence in a level of frequency, putting an asterisk in the

corresponding column. It is important to mention that each column has two numbers

separated by hyphen which indicates the number of answers that identify each level.

Level of

frecuency

Sentence

1. La

mayoría de la

veces

(1-18)

2. Con

frecuencia (19-36)

3. Algunas

veces (37-54)

4. Pocas

veces (55-72)

5. Casi

nunca (73-90)

Pido explicación a la

profesora cuando no entiendo algo.

* (36)

Participo

voluntariamente en

clase.

*

(40)

Practico lo que

aprendo fuera de

clase.

*

(43)

Me gusta que me

corrijan mis errores de

manera inmediata.

*

(23)

Realizo tareas y

asignaciones de

manera correcta y

puntual.

*

(32)

26

The first affirmation analyzed in the chart says: Pido explicación a la profesora cuando no

entiendo algo; its translation would be, I ask for explanation to the teacher when I do not

understand something. This information is very important for the research because of two

reasons: first, it pretends to know if the students have the enough level of confidence to tell

the teacher their doubts and concerns about the subject matter; and second, this is also a

good way to encourage awareness of their learning process.

The addition of answers shows that frequently students ask for explanation to the teacher

when they do not understand something; this result indicates that students feel free to

express doubts and be aware of their difficulties.

The second affirmation analyzed in the chart says: Participo voluntariamente en clase; its

translation would be, I participate voluntarily in class. This information is also very

important for the research because it pretends to measure the students’ motivation toward

learning the language and their capacities to interact in class. The tabulation shows that

most of student participle in class sometimes which means that maybe they do it when they

consider it is necessary and when they feel sure that they are going to do it well.

The third affirmation analyzed in the chart says: Practico lo que aprendo fuera de clase; its

translation would be, I practice what I learn outside the class. This information is very

important for the research because it helps to see if the students are applying the

knowledges of the language in their lives. This also let us to have an idea of their needs

with the language, if they need it for immediate purposes, or for a long or short future. The

tabulation shows that sometimes students practice what they learn outside the class. This

result indicates that most of students maybe practice but not in real situations because,

according to their context, they need English for short future purposes.

The fourth affirmation analyzed in the chart says: Me gusta que me corrigan mis errores de

manera inmediata; its translation would be, I like when correct my errors immediately. This

information is very important for the research because it helps to see students’ perspectives

about the way should mistakes be corrected in class. This information also let us know

27

how important is the correction of mistakes for students in their learning process. The

tabulation shows that students frequently like to be corrected immediately, this result

indicates that students consider very important the correction of mistakes in class and they

prefer when these are corrected at the moment; which is a very surprising finding, because

we tend to think the contrary due to the fact that an immediate correction affect students

fluency.

The fifth affirmation analyzed in the chart says: Realizo tareas y asignaciones de manera

correcta y puntual. its translation would be, I do homeworks and assignments in a correct

way and puctual. This information is very important for the research because it helps to

measure students’ level of responsibility with the activities which imply to work outside the

classroom. It is important to clarify that there are many factors that contribute or affect the

students’ level of engagement, such as: time availability, economical and emotional

problems, and in some cases, learning disabilities. The tabulation shows that students

frequently do homeworks and assignments correctly and punctual; this result indicates that

students do their best effort to be responsible in spite of the difficulties they could have.

According to the results, all the affirmations analyzed were in the second and the third

highest levels of frequency; and this is a good result, because it indicates that, most of

students have positive attitudes and behaviours toward their learning process of the

language.

4.14. LEARNING NEEDS QUESTIONNAIRE

This instrument centred on students is the learning needs questionnaire; it contains five

open questions related to necessities, wants and lacks of the language learners. The open

questions are effective to have a complete idea about: why the students are studying the

language, what do they need the language for and what do they like to do in class. The big

advantage of this questionnaire is the students’ freedom to give their opinions without any

limitations, and besides, this specific document is going to be vital to the development of

needs analysis, important feature of this ESP course design.

28

For the analysis, we took just two of the five questions because these are the most relevant

for the research. The rest of the questions were also designed for the needs analysis, but in

the application process there was not enough clarity about what did they have to answer?,

So that the students answered the questions from a different point of view; which is a

common disadvantage in the use of open questions.

For the tabulation process, I read all the answers of each open question, and according to

them, I defined some categories, then I added all the answers and I divided this result

between the numbers of answers of each category in order to get percentages, as you can

see clearly in the following charts:

1. ¿Por qué y para qué estas estudiando inglés?

Categories No of answers Percentage

Por afinidad y/o deseo 11 38

Competencia laboral 10 34

Por deseo de ampliar conocimientos 4 14

Superación personal 4 14

2. ¿Qué aspectos de la clase de inglés crees que se deberían incrementar, mejorar y/o cambiar?

Categories No of answers percentage

Contenido 2 11

Método-actividades 2 11

Recursos 5 28

Competencias 5 28

Comportamiento 2 11

Nada 2 11

TOTALES 18 100%

The first question of the instrument is: ¿Por qué y para qué estas estudiando inglés? Its

translation would be: why and what for are you studying English?. The main objective of

this question is to know the principal reasons which the students are in the learning process.

According to the different answers, I defined the following categories: *por afinidad y/o

deseo (for affinity and/or desire), it means all the answers related to like or preference for

the language; *competencia laboral (working competence), it means all the answers related

29

to the professional development; *por deseo de ampliar conocimientos (for the desire of

extending knowledges), it is related to the fact that some students wants to study English

just for having new knowledges and a different way to express ideas; *superación personal

(personal overcoming), this last category means all the answers that express desires of

being proficient in life, driving to improve in the subject matter, and/or learning the

language as a personal challenge.

The tabulation shows that eleven (11) students answer * por afinidad y/o deseo (for affinity

and/or desire), this is 38% of answers; ten (10) * competencia liberal (working

competence), this is 38% of answers; four (4) * por deseo de ampliar conocimientos (for

the desire of extending knowledges), this is 14% of answers; and also four (4) *superación

personal (personal overcoming), this is 14% of answers. These results show that most of

students are studying the language because they really like it, and this is the reason which

their motivation in class is very notable.

The second question of the instrument is: ¿Qué aspectos de la clase de inglés crees que se

deberían incrementar, mejorar y/o cambiar? Its translation would be: what aspects of the class

do you consider we should increase, improve or change? The main objective of this

question is to know different opinions of the students about general aspects of the class.

According to the different answers, I defined the following six categories: *contenido

(content), it means all the answers related to topics and syllabus of the level; *método-

actividades (method-activities), it means all the answers related to the methodology;

*recursos (resources), it is related to all the educational aids we must use in class;

*competencias (competences), it means all the answers related to the development of four

language skills. *comportamiento (behaviour), it means the way students behave in class;

and the last category *nada (nothing) means when the students answer that everything in

class is good and they do not want to change anything.

The tabulation shows that two (2) students answer something related to * content, this is

11% of answers, and these two students referred specifically to their desire of extending

some topics they consider important in the content of the level; other two (2) answer

30

something related to *method-activities, this is 11% of answers, and both consider the

importance of having more homeworks; five (5) answer *resources, this is 28% of answers,

and they talk about the necessity to improve the cassettes and to have more resources in

class; other five (5) answer * competences, this is 28% of answers, in this question four

student were interested in the development of listening and speaking skills, and just one

student in writing; in the category *behaviour, two (2), this is 11% of answers, talk about

respect between them because they have problems when they have to agree about

something in class; and about the last category *nothing, two student say they do not want

to change any aspect of the class.

These results show every student has its point of view about things must be changed and

improved in class, and for the investigation I have to consider all of them.. Therefore, we

can assume that students want to increase the development of oral competences, they want

to have more resources in class, more homeworks, group activities that encourage respect

to their different opinions, and tasks to go deep in the topics they like.

4.1.5. STRUCTURED INTERVIEW TO TEACHERS

The opinions of other teachers are meaningful to develop the research. Due to that, it was

designed an oral structured interview with ten questions. Three of the ten questions are

closed, the rest are open; and the general purpose of them is to have different teachers’

points of view about the students’ performance according to the aims of the institution for

the first level. The interview, which was created for being recorded, collects different first

level teachers opinions about the common strengths and difficulties found in the language

learning process of the students, and also the different constrains found in the teaching

process. This last instrument is a very essential tool to identify the frequent constrains that

teachers have to deal with in every class; this kind of technique also allows teacher

researchers to share and learn from other teachers; different experiences, teaching strategies

and methodologies.

31

This interview was designed to know different opinions of some teachers in the institution,

about the development of the classes, and other specific aspects related to the investigation.

Three first level teachers were interviewed and the following paragraphs are going to show

their answers using three categories: consensus which means the agreements and parallel

opinions in the answers of the three teachers, dissension which means the differences in

opinions and disagreements, and particularities which is referred to the characteristics,

peculiarities in the answers of the teachers, and moreover, not expected comments and

opinions; common aspect involved in the development process of an oral interview .

The interview has ten questions and was developed orally and recorded completely but we

are going to show and analyze only the answers of the questions we consider are

appropriated for the research (see the transcripts of the interviews in appendix chapter).

The tabulation is presented through charts, each one of them contains the question and

columns; the first one says teachers and we identify them as T1, T2 y T3; the second

column has opinions and/or answers of the teachers; and the third show if there is

consensus, dissension and particularities between them.

2). What difficulties and strengths have you found in the academics development of the students?

DIFFICULTIES

TEACHERS T. OPINIONS/ ANSWERS CONSENSUS/DISSENSION/PARTICULARITIES

T 1 Speaking and listening

skills

consensus

T 2 Speaking skills

(pronunciation,

intonation)

consensus

T 3 Speaking and listening

skills

consensus

2). What difficulties and strengths have you found in the academics development of the students?

STRENGTHS

TEACHERS T. OPINIONS/ANSWERS CONSENSUS/DISSENSION/PARTICULARITIES

T 1 Writing skills particularity

T 2 Motivation consensus

T 3 Motivation consensus

32

The first question tabulated is the second of the interview and was designed with the

purpose of knowing the strengths and difficulties the teachers have found in the academic

development of the students. According to the results, all the teachers agree that students

have difficulties to develop their oral skills; two of them agree that one of the learners’

strengths is their motivation toward learning, and one teacher says they have strengths in

writing.

3). Do you think the percentage that was established for the language skills in good to carry out the first

semester? TEACHERS T. OPINIONS/ANSWERS CONSENSUS/DISSENSION/PARTICULARITIES

T 1 No, the percentage for

speaking is too high because

the students don’t have too

much previews knowledge of

English and also have poor

vocabulary.

Dissension with T2

Consensus with T3

T 2 Yes, because speaking is a

very important skill and it

could help to improve the

others

Dissension

T 3 No, because I think speaking is

natural process that comes

after a well developed listening

skill, so oral and

comprehension should comes

first

Consensus T 1

Dissension T 2

In the question: do you think the percentage that was established for the language skills in

good to carry out the first semester? There is consensus between T1 and T3 in the fact that

they think the speaking percentage is too high for the first level, on the other hand, T2

thinks the percentage is good. It is important to clarify that although with this investigation

we are not going to change the percentages that were established by institution, the

information let us see the opinions of the teachers who are the ones dealing with it.

6). Which educational aids do you regularly use in class, beside the text?

TEACHERS T. OPINIONS/ANSWERS CONSENSUS/DISSENSION/PARTICULARITIES

T 1 Only the guidebook and

sometimes songs and

exercises from other books

because I have not enough

time and resources to do

something else.

Some similar aids and particular situations

33

T 2 Songs, movies, exercises

from the guidebook and

others and games.

Some similar aids and particular situations

T 3 The guidebook, I design

activities related to the

content of the level, I also

use songs games and

projects.

Some similar aids and particular situations

In the question: Which educational aids do you regularly use in class, beside the text?

There is consensus in the use of songs, T2 and T3 use games, and T1 says that there is not

enough time and resources to do something more than songs and exercises beside the

guidebook.

7). Have you found in the students’ behaviours, problems of attention and concentration?

TEACHERS T. OPINIONS/ANSWERS CONSENSUS/DISSENSION/PARTICULARITIES

T 1 Yes. consensus

T 2 Yes. consensus T 3 Yes. consensus

8). What do you consider are the reasons which they are having these problems?

TEACHERS T. OPINIONS/ANSWERS CONSENSUS/DISSENSION/PARTICULARITIES

T 1 Ages of the students consensus

T 2 Ages of the students consensus T 3 Ages of the students. consensus

In the questions: Have you found in the students’ behaviours, problems of attention and

concentration? And, what do you consider are the reasons which they are having these

problems? There is consensus between the teachers, and they are also agree that these

problems are because of the ages of the students, and in that sense, it is important to

mention that all our students have different ages, we use to have students since 14 until 25

years old. In addition I consider another constrain the fact that we use to have large groups,

most of the first level classes have around 25 students.

34

9). What strategies do you use to handle these problems in your class?

TEACHERS T. OPINIONS/ANSWERS CONSENSUS/DISSENSION/PARTICULARITIES

T 1 Respect to the differences of

the students particularity

T 2 Change the sites in order to let

the students work with

different partners everyday.

Consensus with T 3

T 3 Selecting activities which they

need to be concentrated and

change constantly sites in

order to let the students work

with different partners

everyday.

Consensus with T2 and a particularity

In the question: what strategies do you use to handle these problems in your class? The

main objective is to know the different strategies colleagues use to handle the problems of

attention and concentration students present. T1 says that respect is better way to handle

the problem but this tutor does not mention any specific strategy, T2 and T3 agree about

changing the sites of the student as a strategy to catch their attention, and T3 talks about

selecting activities to generate concentration but this person does not mention any of them.

10). Do you think the design of a course considering students’ needs, interests and learning styles could solve

their difficulties?

TEACHERS T. OPINIONS/ANSWERS CONSENSUS/DISSENSION/PARTICULARITIES

T 1 yes consensus

T 2 yes consensus T 3 yes consensus

For the last question, do you think the design of a course considering students’ needs,

interests and learning styles could solve their difficulties? It was necessary to explain more

clearly the objective of the research, in order to get a real opinion from the teachers. There

was consensus, as we can see in chart, and it is important to say that the three teachers

collaborated very positively in the process; specially T2, who showed a lot of interest

letting me observe the classes and we could share information which was an interesting

experience for me as a teacher-researcher.

35

4.2 LIST OF FINDINGS

After a detailed explanation of the process of tabulation and analysis of the data collection

instruments, here I present a list of findings and its possible pedagogical implications

Students learn by sounds and images which imply the use of audio-visual resources

Students prefer to learn by doing group activities which imply the assignation of

group tasks and projects.

Students love to listen to music which implies the use of songs in class.

Students like to make friends, so that they could learn easily using interaction.

Students have different strategies to learn, which are important to take into account,

these are: interacting with others, using visual images and sounds, and placing

things in a logical order.

Students are good at analysing others, talk about themselves, and arguing about

their ideas, which imply the development of cooperative learning and discursive

competences.

According to the multiple intelligences theory, most of the students are inter-

personal and musical, which imply the use of more activities specially related to

these kinds of intelligences.

Students need to develop the four language skills, but in special the oral ones.

Students feel comfortable speaking and prefer speaking exercises in class.

Students prefer to practice speaking through conversations.

Students like to practice listening with TV programs, movies and songs.

Students think it is necessary to do exercises from textbooks to understand better. It

implies the adaptation of some textbooks.

Students understand better when they listen to the information which implies the use

of more listening exercises.

Students need more to speak and understand than read and write English in a short

future.

36

Students are learning English because they like, it means they are motivated to

learn.

Students need more speaking and listening exercises.

Students need to practice more outside the class which imply the assignation of

projects and tasks those require socialization outdoors.

Students like to be corrected at the moment they have mistakes which implies the

use of cooperative and immediate evaluation.

Students lack of attention and concentration because the information has not be

presented in the appropriated way. It implies the use strategies and activities to let

them know they have different learning styles, in order to generate respect to their

differences.

4.1 TARGET AND LEARNING NEEDS

Now it is important to determine necessities, wants and lacks of the students for this

course design. For that reason, the following text will present the findings classified

into necessities, wants and lacks

Target needs

a. Necessities: what the learners have to know in order to function effectively the

target situation.

Students need to develop the four language skills, specially the oral ones.

Students need to develop communicative skills in order to be competent in

their professions and studies.

37

b. Wants: what learners want or feel they need

Students want to speak the language

Students want more listening practice opportunities

Students want to interact with others through the language

c. Lacks: what learners actually do not know about the target language.

Students lack correct application of grammar

Students lack diversity of vocabulary

Students lack opportunities to use the language outside the classroom

According to the target needs and taking into account students learning styles and

preferences, here are teaching strategies may be appropriate to carry out the course.

Use of audio-visual resources.

Use of strategies and activities to let them know they have different learning styles.

(Respect differences).

Assign group tasks and projects.

Use of songs and movies in class.

Use of multiple intelligence activities, specially those

related to the inter-personal and musical.

Use of cooperative and immediate evaluation

38

5. PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

The findings obtained from the data-collection instruments are valuable information for the

research, but, how might all this data be used and organized in the course design? This

chapter will analyze all the results in terms of pedagogical implications, in which all these

results are going to be presented in relation to objectives, methodology and other features

important to configure the course design.

5.1 OBJECTIVES

5.1.1 Treatment of the four language skills

The results of the tabulation, specially the test “the development of language skills”, which

collected information of how the students develop the four language skills in the English

class; show us: Students need to develop the four language skills; but in special the oral

ones, they feel comfortable speaking and prefer speaking exercises in class, and they need

more to speak and understand than read and write English in a short future. According to

those findings, it is necessary to focus the course more on the development of oral skills.

5.1.2 About their learning styles

Taking into account the results taken from instruments, specially the test of multiple

intelligences, about students learning styles I found: Students learn mostly by sounds and

images, and also prefer to learn by doing group activities in which they can interact with

others. These aspects drive me to emphasize the course in the development of cooperative

learning.

Moreover the cooperative work is closely related to the respect difference, because when

they work in groups they learn from others respecting different opinions and ideas. It is

very important to mention that one of the objectives of this course is that the students

should be able to work with activities according to their different skills and learning styles.

So that, I am going focus the course on activities related to the kinds of intelligences

student uses more to learn; the inter-personal and musical intelligences.

39

5.2 METHODOLOGY

The results gave me a lot of ideas for the methodology to be used in the course design. I

will present my conclusions in terms of strategies and activities.

5.2.1 Strategies and activities:

One of the most relevant findings shows students love to listen to music. Therefore, the

use of songs in class is a good way to teach them what they need to know. They also

Students prefer to learn by images which imply the use of visual resources like posters,

texts with a lot of pictures.

I also found students prefer to learn by doing group activities and interacting with

others. This result implies the use if socio-affective strategies which include activities

like: role plays, conversation, group tasks, oral presentations and socialization of

projects. Likewise, I found students need to practice more outside the class which imply

the assignation of projects and tasks in which they can use what they have learnt

organizing activities outdoors.

Some other results show that students are good at analysing others, talk about

themselves, and arguing about their ideas, which imply the use of cognitive and

metacognitive strategies like: produce different discourses and/or organizing ideas.

5.3 SOME OTHER IMPORTANT FEATURES

About the materials, the need analysis told me that students are lack of attention and

concentration because the information has not be presented in the appropriated way. It

implies the use of materials, in which they can receive the information from different

perspectives. On the other hand, I discover students like to be corrected at the moment

they have mistakes which implies the use of cooperative and immediate evaluation.

40

6. MATERIAL EVALUATION

6.1 THE ROLE OF MATERIALS

In the design of an ESP course, it is important to define appropriate material that may help

students achieve the goals have been proposed. According to that, this paper is going to

analyze the current textbook being used; and finally, it is going to establish the main

characteristics of the ideal material for this specific group.

To define appropriate material for a specific group of students, we may take into account

the interests of the learners, their context and some other aspects related to the process,

which help to determine whether the current material they are using is the correct one for

them, or it needs modifications to fulfil students learning expectations. Therefore, after a

briefly description of the context, needs analysis and the pedagogical implications, this

paper will contain the evaluation of the current textbook, analyzing its external and internal

features, and finally, the relation between this material and the ideal one in order to take

decisions about the final material we will design for the course.

6.2. DESCRIPTION OF THE CONTEXT

The research was carried out in a first semester class of the extramural English courses at

the Universidad Del Atlántico. This is a public university located in Barranquilla,

Colombia; it has its language school that belongs to the humanistic department of the

institution. The population of the language institute is varied: some of the learners are

studying a career in the university, because one of the requirements for graduating in most

of the careers is to have a good English proficiency; others are high school students,

working people, or students that come from different schools, because the courses are open

for the community in general.

41

The aims that were established for the language institute are:

To give materials that allow the learners to use the language in real situations.

To teach authentic language that stimulates spontaneous conversations

To develop students’ motivation in their language learning process.

The most important features which really define this institute are fundamentally:

The courses give the community an opportunity to study English with low prices;

because the institute works with the support of the government.

The teachers are professionals in language teaching, all of them graduated from the

language teaching college of the university.

The years of prestige that this public university has gained through time.

The English courses used, the guide book Spectrum edited by Prentice Hall Regents. This

series is formed by six books; each one has cassettes and workbooks. However, this book

was changed because it had too many years and the heads of the institution recognized the

importance of learning with up-dated material; so that, this semester we started using in

first level the new edition of Interchange edited by Cambridge.

Besides covering the guide books, the teacher can use extra material related to the content

of the book. The resources the institution has for the teaching-learning process are limited,

they just have available every day the tape recorders cassettes CDs from the textbooks.

There is a television, a DVD and a VCR; but these are not enough for all the teachers and

sometimes they are not working.

Likewise, there aren’t any computers available for classes, and the lack of this important

technological tool is a big weakness our courses have.

About the methodology, the English course works based on the four language skill

(listening, speaking, reading and writing). They use a different percentage for each skill in

each level, but they always make emphasis on the first two abilities than on the last two. In

other words, the main purpose of the course is to develop conversational skills, and the

42

ability to communicate through the language in any situation. According to that, the

teachers are free and autonomous to design the set of activities, and strategies appropriated

for their students, taking in consideration the percentage of the skills and also that the

evaluation has to be quantitative (using the percentage) and qualitative because they have

to prepare progress reports with observations about the process of each student.

The class is formed by 18 students around the ages of 14 and 25; most of them are studying

and belong to a low-middle socioeconomic status. Although all of them have been

familiarized with the English language, because learning English is obligatory in the

curriculum of the Colombian education [see art. 23 Ley general de la Educación 1997],

their linguistic competence in English was not good at the beginning of the semester

because most of them come from public high schools and, as they could express, they did

not have good experiences learning the language there.

Finally, as a result of some observations centred on the students’ behaviours in class, there

is a problem of attention and concentration, maybe because they are not doing activities in

class that focus in their learning abilities, so that, it could be assumed that the design of

materials considering their learning styles and the development of their intelligences;

definitely it may solve their difficulties at the beginning of their language learning process.

Therefore, it emerges the following question research: What kind of materials could be

designed, in the first level of the English courses in the Universidad Del Atlántico, to teach

English developing the different intelligences of the students?

43

6.3. GOALS OF THE COURSE AND OBJECTIVES

After the tabulation and analysis of five data-collection instruments and dairy

observations about the English learning process of the students, I define the

following goals and objectives for the course:

GOALS OBJECTIVES

TARGET Development of oral skills *students should be able to understand different oral input.

*Students should be able to produce oral input.

LEARNING Development of multiple intelligences

• Student should be able to work with activities according to their different skills and learning styles.

* They should be able to acquire oral abilities through the use of their intelligences.

HUMAN Respect differences *Students should be able to work together respecting their different ways of learning.

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6.4. EVALUATING THE CURRENT MATERIALS

One of the most important activities of EFL teachers is to choose materials for the classes;

there are many aspects we have to consider while doing this activity, due to that, we may

develop abilities to evaluate materials considering all the aspects involved in the process, to

finally decide the appropriated one for the students.

In the process of selecting materials, we have to analyze many factors. In the market we can

find a great variety of materials but, are their prices reasonable for the students? Is the

content appropriated for the level and ages of the learners? Is the information presented in

an understandable way? All these questions and many others, make difficult to take

decisions. Moreover, it is important to know that; According to Hutchinson, T. and Waters,

A. (1987) there are three different ways of turning the course design into actual teaching

materials:

1. materials evaluation: select existing materials

2. materials development: write your own materials

3. materials adaptation: modify existing materials

For an effective selection and/or production of materials, it is necessary to have an

evaluation process which is divided into four major steps:

The first step is DEFINE CRITERIA, which consists on the different bases to judge

materials. Moreover, it is important to establish some kind of rank order of factors taking

into account the two following steps SUBJECTIVE and OBJECTIVE ANALYSIS; the first

one analyzes the criteria of the specific course and the second how does the material being

evaluated realise the criteria.

The fourth step is the MATCHING process which consists of relating the subjective to the

objective, in other words, it is to analyze if the selected material fill out the expectations of

the course design in terms of materials requirements.

45

Finally the use of a checklist of criteria for objective and subjective analysis considering

aspects, such as: audience, aims, content and methodology. The checklist is a good

technique not only to choose existing materials, but also to create new ones; because you

can take ideas or aspects of existing materials and include them in your own production.

There are some other ways to evaluate teaching materials, for example Mc Donough and

Shaw, (1993) talk about internal and external evaluation of materials. The first consists of

having an external overview of how the materials have been organized, in other words

“what the book says about itself”, and some other aspects like: the intended audience, the

proficiency level, the type of language, the author’s view of language and the methodology.

The second consists of analysing if the external evaluation matches up with the internal

consistency and organization of the material; in this second stage, we need to consider the

treatment and presentation of the skills, sequencing and grading of the materials,

appropriacy of tests and exercises, self-study provision and teacher-learner balance in use

of the materials

In this specific case, the heads of the institution do the work of selecting textbooks and

define which one, teachers we must follow. Therefore, the textbook is mandatory and

cannot be changed. However, for this course design it is necessary to evaluate and analyze

the chosen book in order to identify its advantages and its disadvantages for the course, and

accordingly, be ready to design extra materials which may help to achieve all the goals and

objectives of the course.

The methodology to evaluate the specific textbook, will be based on some elements of the

two kinds of evaluation exposed before, the following charts will provide general

information about the external and internal features of the current textbook.

The first descriptive chart will present the external features of the textbook Interchange; the

first two columns contain the criteria and what the book says about each criteria. There is

no any kind of analysis, because it is just a description about the content of the book.

46

However, the third column contains some important comments I consider relevant for the

evaluation.

4.1 EXTERNAL FEATURES OF THE CURRENT COURSE BOOK

MAIN FEATURES COMMENTS

NAME

INTERCHANGE

THIRD EDITION

THIS IS THE LAST

VERSION OF THIS

BOOK.

AUTHOR

JACK C. RICHARDS

DATE OF PUBLICATION

2005

LEVEL

INTRO

BEGINNERS,

NUMBER OF PAGES

241

STUDENT’S BOOK

TARGET AUDIENCE

ADULTS, YOUNG ADULTS AND

TEENAGERS

APPEARANCE

COLORFUL

PICTURES

MEDIUM SIZE

NICE COVER

WELL DISTRIBUTED SPACE

IT IS VERY APPEALING

BUT SOME STUDENTS

CANNOT BUY IT

BECAUSE OF ITS PRICE,

SO THEY CANNOT

ENJOY THE

COLOURFUL PICTURES

IT CONTAINS

COMPONENTS OF THE

MATERIAL

TEXTBOOK, TEACHER’S BOOK,

WORKBOOK

3 CDS FOR TEACHERS

1 CD FOR STUDENTS

THE STUDENT CD AND

THE WORKBOOK ARE

VERY GOOD FOR THE

STUDENTS TO STUDY

AT HOME , BUT SOME

OF THEM DON’T HAVE

THESE IMPORTANT

47

TOOLS BECAUSE THEY

SAY THEY JUST CAN

PHOTOCOPY THE

STUDENT BOOK

COMPONENTS OF THE

STUDENT’S BOOK

16 UNITS, PROGRESS CHECK (EACH

TWO UNITS), INTERCHANGE

ACTIVITIES (ONE PER UNIT), SELF-

STUDY SESSION (ONE LISTENING

ACTIVITY PER UNIT).

COMPONENTS OF

THE TEACHER’S

EDITION

ORAL AND WRITTEN QUIZZES,

WORKBOOK

ANSWER KEYS, PHOTOCOPIABLES

(ONE PER UNIT) , FRESH IDEAS (ONE

PER UNIT) AND

GAMES, TEACHING NOTES (PER

PAGE)

ALL THOSE

COMPONENTS ARE

VERY USEFUL BUT

NOT ENOUGH FOR

CARRYING OUT THE

CLASS.

COMPONENTS OF EACH

UNIT

SKILL-INTEGRATED

SESSIONS:

SNAPSHOT (INTRODUCTIVE INPUT

TO TOPIC OF THE UNIT)

TWO CONVERSATIONS,

GRAMMAR FOCUS (STRUCTURE

EXPLANATION AND EXERCISES),

LISTENING,

WORD POWER (VOCABULARY)

PRONUCIATION,

IT’S ORGANIZATION IS

INDUCTIVE WHICH

MAKES STUDENTS

CARRY OUT THE

ACTIVITIES EASILY

48

STRUCTURE OF THE

TABLE OF CONTENT

EACH UNIT IS DIVIDED IN TITLE/

TOPIC, SPEAKING, GRAMMAR,

PRONUNCIATION/ LISTENING,

WRITING/ READING AND

INTERCHANGE ACTIVITY.

IT LACKS ACTIVITIES

IN WHICH STUDENTS

CAN PRODUCE THEIR

OWN TEXTS,

SPECIALLY

CONVERSATIONS

AUTHOR’S POINT OF

VIEW ABOUT THE

SYLLABUS AND

APPROACH.

HIGH- INTEREST THEMES TO

INTEGRATE SPEAKING, GRAMMAR,

VOCABULARY, PRONUNCIATION,

LISTENING, READING AND WRITING.

STRONG FOCUS ON ACCURACY AND

FLUENCY.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE COURSE:

LANGUAGE IS BEST LEARNED

WHEN IT IS USED FOR MEANINGFUL

COMMUNICATION.

AUTHOR’S POINT OF

VIEW ABOUT

CUSTOMIZATION AND

ASSESSMENT

THE AUTHOR RECOGNIZES THE

IMPORTANCE OF ADAPTING THE

COURSE MATERIALS TO THE NEEDS,

INTERESTS, AGES, AND LEARNING

STYLES OF THE STUDENTS. THAT’S

WHY THE COURSE PROVIDES

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES FOR

TEACHERS LIKE GAMES, FRESH

IDEAS AND PHOTOCOPIABLES.

I AGREE, BECAUSE

EVERY TEACHER

NEEDS TO ADAPT THE

PUBLISHED MATERIAL

ACCORDING TO THE

NEEDS, INTERESTS,

AGES, AND LEARNING

STYLES OF THE

STUDENTS.

THE PROGRESS CHECKS SESSION

ENCOURAGES STUDENTS TO SELF-

ASSESS THEIR PROGRESS IN THE

SKILLS. IT ALSO HAS WRITTEN AND

ORAL QUIZZES FOR TEACHERS TO

EVALUATE THE LEARNERS.

THE PROGRESS CHECK

IS A GOOD TOOL TO

DEVELOP STUDENTS

SELF-ASSESSMENT.

49

4.2 INTERNAL FEATURES OF THE CURRENT COURSE BOOK

Now it is necessary to analyze internally the content, methodology and organization of the

book, in order to make, then, the comparison between the ideal materials students need and

the one in use, and finally decide what is missing and must be included in the design of

extra materials. I will analyze one unit of the book, because it will help to define if there is

coherence with the external features expressed in the textbook.

4.2.1. ANALYSIS OF ONE UNIT

The following is the analysis of the unit six taken from the textbook, in every page of the

unit; I will identify the objectives of the sessions, its different activities, and I will see if

they are related to the purposes of the author.

First of all, I will analyze every activity of the unit in the same order that it is presented in

the book. Every unit has the same sessions (snapshot, conversation, word power, grammar

focus, listening, pronunciation, speaking, reading, and interchange) but the activities vary

according to the topics of each unit. Before the analysis of each page, I will show a copy of

every page of the unit in order to make the study clearer; the first page is going to be

presented as exact as it is in book, and the rest of them are going to be reduced for being

more practical.

50

The first activity of the unit is the Snapshot:

Topic: transportation in the U.S

Objectives:

1. Introduce the topic giving input through pictures and listening to the vocabulary.

2. Contextualize the input checking the kind of transportation students use.

3. Encourage speaking, talking about other kinds of transportation

51

This is a good warm up activity to provide real information, it also fulfil the purpose of the

author, when it contextualizes the input in the checking exercise and promote speaking

through the question about other kind of transportation

The second activity is Conversation

Title: nice car

Objectives

1. Provide a situation giving them opportunities to listen and practice pronunciation

2. Introduce grammar in context.

This second activity, although it is a good opportunity to practice pronunciation and have a

listening input; it does not develop speaking competences, which is one of the purposes of

the author when he talks about the importance of conversations.

The third activity of the unit

Is the Word power:

Topic: family

52

53

Objectives:

1. Present vocabulary related to the topic.

2. Provide information organizing or categorizing vocabulary.

This is a good cognitive activity in which they complete sentences using the pictures and

information. However it is not meaningful for the students as it could be if it presents a

popular or famous family, for example.

The fourth is grammar focus:

Function: Simple present statements

Simple present statements with irregular verbs

Objectives

1. Provide grammatical structures including audio recordings of the input.

2. Provide controlled exercises to practice the input given.

3. Promote freer, more personalized speaking practice.

This is a very traditional but effective way to explain grammatical functions. Also, the

meaning of the sentences has sense for the students because all the sessions follow the same

topic, the exercise C is very important because it promotes learners production of ideas,

which is a characteristic of the communicative competence. And definitely, as the author

says, grammar is presented gradually and according to the level.

54

55

The fifth session of the unit is Pronunciation:

Syllabus: third- person singular –s endings

Objective:

1. Provide correct pronunciation of words influenced by grammatical rules.

This session is good to let students get familiar and recognize different sounds, but there are

not meaningful exercises to practice the information given.

The sixth session is a Speaking activity (WHO IS IT?):

Objective:

1. Provide communicative tasks that help develop oral fluency

2. Recycle grammar and vocabulary of the unit.

3. Promote interaction in class.

This exercise is a good opportunity to develop speaking skills and socialize in class. Also

students can practice the grammatical functions they have learnt, organizing and then

producing their personal information.

The seventh activity is another conversation that provides a situation in which they are

giving more input. And the eighth is another grammar focus session, it is important to

56

clarify that all the sessions in every unit follow the same parameters; that is why, analyzing

one unit is enough to see how the syllabus is presented in the whole book.

The ninth activity is listening:

1. Develop listening giving an oral input and a checking exercise.

2. Provide a listening input in order to develop oral comprehension of main ideas and

details.

3. Promote post-listening speaking tasks.

57

The activity is very good; all the recordings have a good sound quality in the whole book

listening activities. Moreover, they incorporate, as the author says, top-down processing

skills (e.g. making predictions), and bottom-up processing skills (e.g. decoding individual

words).

The tenth activity is Interchange:

Title: class survey

Objectives:

1. Expands on the unit topic, vocabulary, and grammar

2. Provide opportunities to consolidate new knowledges in a creative and funny way.

58

3. Promote fluency through interaction

This session is a task-based activity which is very important in every unit because it

always has communicative activities such as surveys, information gaps and games.

However, these activities are located at the end of the book, and this is a disadvantage

for the students who are photocopying the book per unit; each activity must be located

in its specific unit.

The last session of the unit is

Reading:

Title: What’s your schedule like?

Objectives:

1. Develop reading comprehension using a pre-reading question and a sequencing

information exercise.

59

3. Promote written production using personal information and peer work.

These sessions present a variety of text types which help students develop reading

strategies and acquire new vocabulary.

In summary, all the sessions of the textbook and the most of the activities are coherent with

the author’s approach; and even though it is a good and up-dated material, ̈no textbook or

set of materials is likely to be perfect” (Mc Donough and Shaw, 1993:65) specially because

we, as teachers, have to consider that every student has different ways to learn, different

learning interests and specific contexts. For that reason, in the following chart we are going

to see; which features of the textbook fulfil the expectations of the target group and which

do not.

4.2.2. INTERNAL FEATURES OF THE IDEAL MATERIAL AND THE MATERIAL IN

USE.

The following chart contains two columns: The first one shows the internal features that the

ideal material must have, according to the needs analysis and the pedagogical implications

of the course design; and the second column contains the internal features of the material in

use, according to the analysis done before. The two kinds of materials are analyzed in

terms of content, methodology, grammar syllabus and treatment of skills; because this is

the criteria I defined for this internal analysis, in other to organize the appropriate material

for the course design.

IDEAL MATERIAL MATERIAL IN USE

CONTENT (TOPICS)

Up- dated, entertaining and real topics.

The text book is up-dated and contain

many entertaining and real topics, like,

chats in the internet (p. 35), and

information about famous young people

60

(p. 100)

Contextualized topics and information

which stimulates cross-cultural

comparison and discussion.

The book has information about some

countries, and its cultures, but there is not

information about ours.

METHODOLOGY

Varied, but making emphasis on task

based activities, which promotes

interaction.

The book has varied activities, but it needs

more task based ones.

Group work Activities (cooperative

learning)

Every unit has a lot of pair activities but it

needs more activities for bigger groups

like the survey (in page 57).

Projects which let learners practice

outside the classroom

This material does not have these kinds of

projects

Songs for practicing listening and acquire

more vocabulary

It does not have songs

GRAMMAR SYLLABUS

Basic and meaningful structures for

beginners.

Basic structures for beginners following

three dimensions: meaning, form and use.

Graded, functional and with a context.

Graded, functional but the context in

which it is presented, sometimes it is not

meaningful for the students.

Complement grammar input given from

the book with Many activities which

It has a lot of good grammar input and

controlled exercises but it needs more

61

promote the use of the structures

spontaneously.

activities to practice and reinforce

spontaneously the input given.

TREATMENT OF SKILLS

Emphasis on the oral skills

Integrated skills but focusing on speaking

Activities which promote oral production

It has speaking activities but students need

more.

Songs which promote oral comprehension

and reinforce other listening activities

from the text book

It has a lot of good listening activities,

except songs.

Some authentic input like songs, pieces of

movies to develop oral and written

comprehension.

The book contains adapted material which

is necessary for this first level, but

learners need to have contact with some

contextualized material that the textbook

does not provide.

A few reading and writing activities which

develop written comprehension and

increase students’ lexis.

It contains good reading and writing

activities, but students sometimes want to

know more vocabulary and opportunities

to use it.

This chart shows clearly what kind of material students need and what the textbook offers

for them; and this information helps to define what kind of extra material needs to be

designed to fulfil the lacks of the material in use. In other words, the ideal material is going

be the complement of the material in use.

62

5. DECISIONS ABOUT THE CURRENT TEXTBOOK

The following chart is going to show the advantages and disadvantages of the material in

use, as a result of its analysis, and considering the main aspects that the material of the

course design need to have.

ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES

It is up-dated

Full of colors and pictures

Attractive topics

Supported materials

Balanced use of skills but

In special, speaking

Promotes interaction with a lot of pair activities.

A lot of good grammar input

and controlled exercises

Does not have enough oral

Production activities.

Lack of contextualized material; like

songs and short readings to develop

oral and written comprehension.

Does not encourage outdoor projects

More activities for big groups

More activities to practice and

reinforce grammar input

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6. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

In conclusion, the ideal material which will support the current textbook (Interchange,

third addition) must have the following characteristics:

• SOME AUTHENTIC TEXTS

When I say authenticity, I mean texts which can be created or adapted according to the

learners’ needs and its context “An authentic text for a student, then, could be one

which belongs to the appropriate topic for the student’s specialism” (Robinson, 1991). I

consider that some songs and short readings might be appropriated. Because, I found in

the needs analysis, these students like music, and there are many songs meaningful for

them, taking into account the influence is having English in our Latin music. On the

other hand, short readings can be interesting for the students, if the topics are

contextualized.

• TASKS THAT PROMOTE GROUP WORK AND SPEAKING PRACTICE OPPORTUNITIES OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM.

To prepare presentations or projects gives the students the opportunity to work outside

the classroom; to apply, practice and/or reinforce what they have learnt; and to acquire

more knowledge while interacting with others using the language.

• SKILL-INTEGRATED ACTIVITIES CLOSELY RELATED TO THE USE OF

THE PREDOMINANT INTELLIGENCES IN THE STUDENTS

According to the need analysis study, students need a lot of activities integrating the

four skills, but emphasising in the oral comprehension and production. Therefore

they need an extra material with skill-integrated activities, but with a listening and

speaking focus. This material also may have activities related to the predominant

intelligences in them (interpersonal, musical and visual) which implies the use of a lot

of conversations and group activities full of images and sounds.

64

7. COURSE DESIGN

This chapter will concentrate on the theory, planning, design and application to be required

in an ESP course based on students needs. Therefore, in the following paragraphs you will

theoretical support of decisions taken about the approaches to education, language and

learning for the course; the formulation of goals and objectives; the constituent analysis of

the objectives for selecting the teaching points; the selection of the appropriate focus for the

syllabus and syllabus shape; and the methodology the course need to be carried out.

7.1 APPROACHES TO THE COURSE DESIGN

Every ESP course design needs to have a theoretical support which may be possible its

applicability. Due to that, I will mention different approaches to course design and finally I

will focus on the appropriate approach for this course.

In the process of designing an English course the most important are learners’ needs,

therefore there are two well-established approaches to needs-based course design: the top-

down and the bottom-up approach (Moss, 1997).

The top-down approach, starts analyzing target needs in order to establish general goals and

objectives, from these objectives we derive teaching points, and when the content of the

course is defined we are ready to select materials, its sequence and structure. Finally we see

if it might be implemented through moving from top down, from the most general view of

the course to the specific teaching points and materials.

On the other hand, the bottom-up approach proceeds in a reverse order. Although the

process begins with needs analysis, this analysis is seen in terms of having got to know the

students on the ground, and then organise them in groups according to their interests,

65

English proficiency and goals. The next step is to decide the kinds of activities to be

selected, its sequence; theories of language and learning, and finally the development if

assessment, evaluation instruments and procedures which will involved the learner in the

process of assessing the success of the course and of his/her individual learning process.

This approach works from the specific and individual students’ data to general concerns of

goals, content, methodology and evaluation.

Both approaches have been successful in some specific situations, but they present some

constrains in terms of structure, for example, the top-down could present in some cases lack

of flexibility and forget to consider individual learning styles. And the bottom-up could, at

times, give the impression of lack of direction. For these reasons, it was proposed a third

approach, the sandwich approach, which combines elements of the two approaches above.

This approach is the appropriated for this course design for first level students of the

English courses at the Universidad Del Atlántico, because its structure and coherence

contains the relevant aspects to carry out the course effectively.

This approach is formed by the use of data and theory in a horizontal plane making a

sandwich, it means that the information gathered from students and its community about

their needs, the situational constrains and the theory related to education, learning and

language learning constitute the bread and butter of the sandwich. As soon as we have

defined need analysis and the theory in a coherent way, it is time to fill in the sandwich

establishing goals and objectives of course, teaching point and specific objectives; and

finally, the syllabus design, which must have sequence, structure, materials production,

revision, modification, implementation and evaluation. The most important aspect of this

sandwich approach is coherence in the decisions taken, if you put appropriate ingredients

you will have a delicious and healthy sandwich in you hands.

66

7.1.1 APPROACH TO EDUCATION

People have tried to educate their children

in one way or another since the beginning of human life.

(Johnson, James et al, 1988: p 263)

The following paragraphs will explain the main features to be considered while

constructing the appropriate view of education for course design. These aspects are; the

polices established by Colombian education, the aims of the institution and the general

models of education.

After many years of changes and adoption of conceptions, the education in Colombia

nowadays is conceived as an integral process which makes possible to create critic, active,

innovative, productive, and responsible people able to contribute to the construction of the

country and the society wanted. According to all these qualities Colombian people must be

educated for, we as teachers have the big responsibility to not only teach knowledges but

also values and strategies to solve problems.

Furthermore, the Universidad Del Atlántico is in the process of educating people able to

solve problems in their professional fields and also be important and active participants in

the solution of conflicts in their communities. Moreover, with the language courses the

institution is offering to the community the opportunity to learn a foreign language which is

an important tool to be competent in the technological revolution our world is leading.

So that, this course design may look at the students, as active members of the society who

need to be competent in their jobs, interact with others and be problem solvers in the

community.

There are many models of education all over the world, but according to the context of this

course design, I will mention aspects of three models of education which I consider

matches the view of education of the country, the institution and the learner’s needs (Asken

and Carnell, 1998).

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The functionalist is a model of education which has, as its primary goal, the teaching of

specific skills and knowledge; I consider this aspect very important for my course design

because my students need to have specific knowledge and skills which may be useful and

practically applicable in society.

From the liberatory model of education, I take the flexibility of the relationships between

teacher and learners which are less hierarchical, and the facilitation of interpersonal

relationships; because my students are young adults who need to have self-confidence

while interacting with others.

It is also important to know that every student has abilities, preferences and learning styles.

Due to this, my course design will emphasize in the use of multiple intelligences to develop

individual potential, which is a characteristic of the client-centred model of education.

In sum, my course design sees education as a process in which students will not only learn

specific knowledge and skills to be used in their professional fields, but also values and

strategies to solve problems and interact with others.

7.1.2 APPROACH TO LANGUAGE

Every ESP course design might be supported by clear ideas about the nature of language.

Therefore, here I will give a brief outline of various ideas about language to be selected in

this course design.

The nature of language has been studied by many philosophers and linguists through out

time, who have established a wide range of definitions, concepts and dichotomies which

have been relevant in the development of linguistics studies. Nowadays, the language

teaching is still suffering changes because it is pretending to go further Chomsky’s

conceptions, which consider language as a relation between competence and a performance

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and not merely as a conventional symbol system regarding communication. “We thus

make a fundamental distinction between competence (the speaker-hearer’s knowledge of

his language) and performance (the actual use of language in concrete situations)”

(Chomsky, 1965. p4).

After Chomsky established the linguistic competence, Dell Hymes (1972) poses the notion

of communicative competence which transforms the language teaching as an interaction

between a speaker-hearer and a meaning situational context.

“El niño adquiere la competencia relacionada con el hecho de cuando sí y cuando no

hablar, y también sobre qué hacerlo, con quién, dónde, y en qué forma. En resumen. Un

niño llega a ser capaz de llevar a cabo un repertorio de actos de habla, de tomar parte en

eventos comunicativos y de evaluar la participación de otros. Aun más, esta competencia

es integral con actitudes valores y motivaciones relacionados con la lengua, con sus

características y usos, e integral con la competencia y actitudes hacia la interrelación de

la lengua con otros códigos de conducta comunicativa.” (Hymes, 1972).

This new view of language is very important to the design of this course, because it makes

conceive language as a dynamic system in which students learn the foreign language for

being able to use it effectively in a real context.

7.1.3 APPROACH TO LANGUAGE LEARNING

The way you lead a learning process depends on the way you conceive the concept of

learning. Due to this, it is important to establish the view of learning of this course design.

But, what is learning? According to Dennis Child (1986 p. 81) learning occurs whenever

one adopts new, or modifies existing, behaviour patterns in a way which has some

influence on future performance or attitudes.

There are two main approaches of learning: behaviourist (or connectionist) and cognitivist.

The first one assumed that humans learn when there is a stimulus; it means that

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behaviourist theories consists on the relationship between stimulus (input), response

(output) and reinforce (evaluation). The second one, on the contrary, concentrates on the

humans’ perceptions about learning, in other words, (p. 91) the emphasis is on adaptability

in the use of existing knowledge to form new insights rather than the mechanical repetition

of stimulus responses bonds.

As we can see, learning is natural condition of human beings. And even thought, this is not

an exclusive academic matter, teachers must consider it important because we teach people

with backgrounds, own personality, different ways of processing information, and all those

aspects generates diverse behaviours when they learn something.

Certainly, every student has a different learning style; each style is determined by

personality, preferences and the way we perceive the world. Many authors have

established terms and characteristics to define each different learning style. For example,

According to Carl and Myers, learners can be introverts or extroverts, sensing or intuitive,

thinkers or feelers, and judging or perceptive.

Each learning preference implies the use of specific learning strategies. So that, it is

necessary to focus on the different ways our students acquire the information we provide

them. Furthermore, it is important to know the concept of learning strategy and what kinds

of learning strategies might be employed according to each student condition. (Wenden,

1987. p 71) Learning strategies are techniques, approaches, or actions that students take in

order to facilitate the learning; (Oxford, 1990) in language learning, there are direct and

indirect strategies: the direct strategies are memory, cognitive and compensation; and the

indirect ones are metacognitive, social and affective.

The memory strategies are related to the way you acquire information and they might be

used in two different settings: the language classroom and a naturalistic language setting

outside of the classroom. The principal memory strategies are: the creation of mental

linkages (grouping, association and placing new words into a context), the use of images,

semantic maps, keywords and sounds to represent concepts, the reviewing and the

employment of physical actions.

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The cognitive strategies are related to the constructions of mental models based on:

practicing; which involves repetition, recognition, use of formulas and patterns and practice

naturalistically. Receiving and sending messages; which mean the way to get and produce

ideas. And finally the creation of structures for input and output; which refer taking notes,

summarizing and highlighting.

In the compensation strategies, the students use clues to understand and produce ideas in

the new language without having complete knowledge of it. These strategies help the

learners to keep on using the language, getting fluency, and making up possible lexical and

grammar limitations. (p. 47) The compensation strategies are: guessing linguistic features,

switching to the mother tongue unknown expressions, getting help, using mimics or

gestures, avoiding communication partially or totally, selecting the topic, adjusting and

approximating the message, coining words, and using circumlocution or synonym.

Metacognitive strategies (O’Malley. 1990 p.137) involve thinking about the learning

process, planning for learning, monitoring the learning task and evaluating how well one

has learnt. These strategies are essential, because they help learners to use the target

language in real situations and also to coordinate their own learning process. There are

three main metacognitive strategies. The first centres on the learning; it implies

overviewing and linking with already known material, paying attention, and delaying

speech production to focus on listening. The second is the arrangement and planning of

learning; it implies finding out about language learning, organizing, setting goals and

objectives, identifying purpose of a language task, planning for a language task, and

seeking practice opportunities. And the third is the evaluation of learning which focuses on

self-monitoring and self- evaluating.

The last two strategies are the social and the affective, (p.139) these involve interacting

with others in learning activities and using affective control to assist a learning task. These

two kinds of strategies go together, because a classroom is an interaction between

participants (students, teachers and context). Therefore, it is important to consider

emotions, attitudes, motivations and values that influence these participants in the learning

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process. The most important social and affective strategies are: the space for questions

(learners can express doubts and teachers can explain and verify issues), the cooperation

between participants, self-talk (reduction a anxiety by using mental techniques that make

one feel competent to do a learning task), and self-reinforcement (personal motivation by

arranging rewards for oneself when a language learning activity has been completed).

On the other hand, Gardner (1983) proposes the multiple intelligence theory, in which he

concluded that intelligence is centered in many different areas of the brain which are

interconnected, can work independently if needed and can be developed with the right

environmental conditions. The intelligences Gardner recognizes are: verbal-linguistic,

math-logic, spatial, bodily-kinaesthetic, musical, interpersonal, interpersonal, intrapersonal

and naturalist. Each intelligence area is demonstrated through specific talents, skills, and

interests.

This multiple intelligences theory has influenced considerably the educational community

all over the world; because it changed many educators thinking not only about the concept

of intelligence, but also the ways people can learn. Gardner recognizes three main ways that

his theory can be used by educators. These are by:

1. Cultivating desired capabilities and talents in our students.

2. Approaching a concept, subject matter, or discipline in a variety of ways.

3. Personalizing education as we take human differences seriously.

I can summarize that my view of learning for this course design is cognitivist because I

may provide my students with tools which contribute to help them develop their mental

processes using the appropriate learning strategies according to the intelligences they use.

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7. 2. GOALS OF THE COURSE AND OBJECTIVES

After the tabulation and analysis of five data-collection instruments and dairy

observations about the English learning process of the students, I define the

following goals and objectives for the course:

GOALS OBJECTIVES

TARGET Development of oral skills *students should be able to understand different oral input.

*Students should be able to produce oral input.

LEARNING Development of multiple intelligences

• Student should be able to work with activities according to their different skills and learning styles.

* They should be able to acquire oral abilities through the use of their intelligences.

HUMAN Respect differences *Students should be able to work together respecting their different ways of learning.

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7.3 CONSTITUENT ANALYSIS

Now, it is necessary to establish constituent analysis and teaching points; because

they let define what the students need to know and do, in order to achieve the

goals and objectives of the course.

Target goal

Development of oral skills

General objectives

1. Students should be able to understand different oral texts (conversations

and songs).

CONSTITUENT KNOWLEDGE

The sounds of English language

The lexical items related to the types of oral input to be selected

The difference between formal and informal conversations

The colloquial words and expressions in the selected texts

The grammatical functions related to the type of oral input to be selected.

The context and cultural aspects involved in the type oral input to be

selected.

CONSTITUENT SKILLS

To identify sounds of English language

To be able to apply in different contexts the lexical items related to the

type of oral input to be selected.

To compare formal and informal devices involved in a conversation

To identify and interpret colloquial expressions in the selected topics.

To understand grammatical functions related to the type of oral input to

selected.

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To be aware of context and cultural aspects involved in the type of oral

input.

2. Students should be able to produce oral input

CONSTITUENT KNOWLEDGE

Pronunciation of English sounds

The functions, structures to communicate in English

Lexical items related to the topic

The use of language functions in different contexts

CONSTITUENT SKILLS

To pronounce sounds of English

To use the language functions and structures in order to express what

they want

To select lexical items according to the topic

Learning goal

Development of multiple intelligences

Objective

1. Students should be able to work with activities according to their different

skills and learning styles.

CONSTITUENT KNOWLEDGE

Difficulties and strengths in their learning process

The abilities they can use to develop different tasks

CONSTITUENT SKILLS

To be aware of their abilities and difficulties in the learning process.

To use their abilities in order to select the appropriate task for them

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Human goal

Respect differences

Objective

1. Students should be able to work together respecting their different ways of

learning

CONSTITUENT KNOWLEDGE

People have different way of understanding/ interpreting ideas

Ability to learn from others

CONSTITUENT SKILLS

To listen to others in order to understand them

To accept other ideas and ways of learning

To learn by sharing with others

7.4 TEACHING POINTS

These teaching points help to identify what I need teach in order to achieve the

goals of the course. It is important to grade the level of knowledge students have

with respect to every teaching point; for this reason, in the following list, each point

is accompanied by a symbol. (o) Means students lack this point, and ( ) means

students know some about this point.

Target goal

Development of oral skills

General objectives

1. Students should be able to understand different oral texts (conversations and

songs).

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KNOWLEDGE

The sounds of English language

The lexical items related to the types of oral input to be selected

The difference between formal and informal conversations

o The colloquial words and expressions in the selected songs

o The grammatical functions related to the type of oral input to be selected.

o The context and cultural aspects involved in the type oral input to be

selected.

SKILLS

To identify sounds of English language

o To be able to apply in different contexts the lexical items related to the type

of oral input to be selected.

o To compare formal and informal devices involved in a conversation

o To identify and interpret colloquial expressions in the selected topics.

o To understand grammatical functions related to the type of oral input to

selected.

o To be aware of context and cultural aspects involved in the type of oral

input.

2. Students should be able to produce oral input

KNOWLEDGE

Pronunciation of English sounds

o The functions, structures to communicate in English

Lexical items related to the topic

o The use of language functions in different contexts

SKILLS

To pronounce sounds of English

o To use the language functions and structures in order to express what they

want

To select lexical items according to the topic

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Learning goal

Development of multiple intelligences

Objective

1. Students should be able to work with activities according to their different

skills and learning styles.

KNOWLEDGE

Difficulties and strengths in their learning process

The abilities they can use to develop different tasks

SKILLS

To be aware of their abilities and difficulties in the learning process.

To use their abilities in order to select the appropriate task for them

Human goal

Respect differences

Objective

1. Students should be able to work together respecting their different ways of

learning

KNOWLEDGE

People have different ways of understanding/ interpreting ideas

o Ability to learn from others

SKILLS

o To listen to others in order to understand them

o To accept other ideas and ways of learning

o To learn by sharing with others

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7.5 SYLLABUS FOCUS

The syllabus is a very important part of a course design because it defines what will be

taught. It is necessary to clarify that “one of the main purposes of a syllabus is to break

down the mass of knowledge to be learnt into manageable units” (Hutchinson and Waters

1987; p.85). Therefore, it emerges the following question, how can a syllabus be organized

in a course design? There are four syllabus approaches to a course design:

The language-centred is a syllabus approach which focuses its attention in the production of

texts and activities with the purpose of evaluating language forms and structures. The skill-

based approach, on the other hand, wants to facilitate learners the development of the skills

and strategies considered necessary in the target situation. The third approach to syllabus is

the learning-centred which focuses on the way language items or skills and strategies are

presented. And the last approach is the learner-centred, in which the selection of topics and

activities depends exclusively on the students’ wants and needs.

The selection of an appropriate syllabus approach depends on a very important aspect: there

must have a relation between the syllabus approach and the course design in terms of the

view of education, language and learning; goals, content, methodology, roles of teachers

and learners, and the assessment. Having clear that aspect, I can say that my approach to

syllabus is skill-based centred because it centres its attention in the development of some

skills which is related to my goals. Moreover it matches with my course in terms of content

(communicative functions and strategies), methodology (interaction with authentic

material), teacher’s role (provider of knowledge, facilitator and monitor), learner’s role

(active language user) and assessment (various tasks according to the skill emphasis).

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7.6 SYLLABUS SHAPE

One of the most important decisions course designers Need to take when writing materials

is the selection of a syllabus shape. There are five types of syllabus shape: the linear format

is the traditional shape which is organized, in a strict order, making emphasis in grammar

or structures. The modular format integrates thematic and or situational language content

with a skills orientation and thematic integration. In the cyclical format the topic may be

worked more than once but every time it comes with a more complex level of difficulty, so

teacher can feel free of going back and forward the content in different ways and various

times in the course. In the matrix format the topics are varied and independent which allows

flexibility in its order and selection. And the story-line format in which the thematic has an

effect of continuity and it is mostly presented in a narrative way.

After a brief look at the different syllabus shapes, I consider modular is the appropriate

syllabus shape for the materials of this course design, because in this modular shape each

thematic or communicative situation is skill oriented and my materials need to have a lot of

activities integrating skills, specially the oral ones. Moreover the basic component of this

shape is the flexibility in the materials to be used, according to that, these materials, which

will support the current text book, will provide different tasks according to the intelligences

learners use.

The course will consist on modules, every module contains a thematic or situation with

activities which will supplement the input given in the current textbook interchange third

edition, each module will follow the same sequence of skill- building tasks, the different

tasks want to promote group work and speaking practice opportunities outside the

classroom, and the variety of activities will be closely related to the use of the predominant

intelligence in the students (interpersonal).

The following is the map of the course, which describes the scope and sequence of

the materials:

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SCOPE AND SEQUENCE

MODULES THEMES FUNCTIONS SKILLS

Listening Speaking Reading writing

1 MAKING

FRIENDS

INTRODUCIN

G YOURSELF

AND OTHERS (formal and

informal)

GREETINGS (formal and

informal)

To identify formal and

informal

introductions and greetings

Use the appropriate

expressions

to greet others

Select

situations and act out

conversatio

ns in the classroom

Relate gestures to

situations

Rewrite short

dialogues

and place expressions

according

to different situations

2

TELL ME

ABOUT YOU….

TALK (ask for

and give information)

ABOUT…

FAMILY, PERSONALIT

Y, AGES,

TELEPHONE NUMBERS,

JOBS,

BIRTHDAYS AND

ADDRESSES,

Identify roles

of each member of a

family

Share

personal information

with your

classmates

know family

members, occupations,

adjectives to

describe personality,

and numbers

through short readings and

conversations

Write

about members

of a famous

family and their

occupation

s, ages and personality

3

FAMOUS

PEOPLE

BIOGHAPHIC

AL

INFORMATION ABOUT

FAMOUS

PEOPLE: Nationality

Date of birth

Identify

famous

people according to

some of their

information Learn new

vocabulary

pronunciation and

expressions

Talk about

your

favorite famous

people

listening a song

Read

biographies

of famous people,

identify dates

of birth, nationality

and what

they did to become

famous

.

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7.7 METHODOLOGY

El verdadero maestro no es el que escoge celosamente los conceptos y conocimientos que

sus alumnos deben aprender, sino el que permite e induce al autodesarrollo, a cualificar el

pensamiento y crear alternativas frente a su vida cotidiana.

ConsueloMedrano

This part of the paper will focus on the methodology for the chosen syllabus of the course

design. There are many aspects to be considered in the selection and implementation of an

appropriate methodology, such as: roles of teacher, and learner, and type of activities for

class organization; which are going to be exposed in the following paragraphs.

When we talk about methodology for a course design, we mean the way how activities,

tasks and learning experiences selected should be carried out within the teaching- learning

process. Because, as Nunan (1988, p 158) points out, the methodology is “the study and

development of tasks and activities”.

There are several approaches or methods in English language teaching. But we will

highlight the two most important and contrasted ones: the audio-lingual method (Richards

and Rodgers, 1990 p. 31)that was developed during the World War II; and in which the

language is learnt by forming habits through imitation and repetition and the students learn

to use it automatically without developing thinking skills. And in the communicative

approach (1990, p 131), in which the language is learnt to be used appropriately, so the

students must learn to be competent using the language according to different situations and

contexts.

I consider the methodology of this course design follows most of principles of the

communicative approach, which are basically:

* The target language as a vehicle of communication, not just the object of study.

* learning to use the language forms appropriately, developing communicative competence.

* Communicative interaction encourages cooperative relationships among the students.

* The social context of the communicative event is essential in giving meanings to the

utterances.

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* The grammar and vocabulary are learnt from function, situational context, and the roles

of the interlocutors.

7.7.1 THE TEACHER’S ROLE

To establish the role of the teacher in a course design, it is necessary to base on the

principles of the syllabus focus and methodological approach which were selected.

According to the skill-centred syllabus the teacher is a provider of knowledge who gives

students the tools to facilitate their learning process. Likewise, for the communicative

approach, the teacher provides situations likely to promote communication in the

classroom. Following those principles, in this course design the teacher is going to be a

provider of information and creator of tasks in which the students can use the language

appropriately.

7.7.2 LEARNER’S ROLE

If the teacher is a facilitator of students learning process, so learners may be active

participants in it. They need to be competent users of the language in different contexts.

The most important responsibilities of the student in this course are: to communicate in the

language, expressing opinion and ideas, to be able to manage the process of negotiation of

meaning with others, and be free to communicate without paying attention to the errors,

because they are natural outcomes in the development of communication skills.

7.7.3 CLASS ORGANIZATION

Now it emerge the following questions: what type of criteria do I have to use for selecting

the appropriate activities for the course design? How can the classes be organized?

Every activity you carry out in the classroom, need to achieve a specific teaching-learning

goal and objective. Furthermore, the selection of activities depends on the teacher

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“assumptions and beliefs about how students learn and on the kind of methodology that

they believe best support this learning process” (Richards and lockhart, 1994 p 162)

Accordingly, the activities this course design will based on the development of four

macroskills, making emphasis in listening and speaking.

About the organization of the activities, I consider very important to have a lesson plan

every time you present activities. For that reason, I will present a lesson plan from one of

the classes of the course design, following a Richards structure (1994, p 162).

Lesson plan

Class: basic reading/ listening

Aims: To learn new vocabulary

To develop listening and reading skills

Resources: worksheet with the letter of the song and exercises, tape recorder and

a CD.

Activities:

1. Listen to the song “hips don’t lie” by Shakira.

2. Highlight with different colors the parts of the song where Shakira and the rappers sing.

3. Find the lines in which the last words are misplaced (have a similar pronunciation)

4. Match vocabulary with its synonyms

5. Answer the following questions about the content and context of the song

6. Listen to the song again and fill in the blanks

This is a class of the course design, in which I integrate listening and reading. I use a song

because it is an authentic material in which students can practice pronunciation and learn

more vocabulary. Moreover, in the activity number 5 students should answer questions

about the content and context of the song, it allows they develop communicative skills;

because every song is involved in a context, and expresses ideas and feelings, and this is a

very special song because it reflexes the mixture of the Latin and the American culture.

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8. EVALUATION

“No curriculum model would be complete without an evaluation component”

(Nunan, 1988: 116)

Every teaching-learning process needs to be evaluated and this is not the exception. The

evaluation is an important part of ESP course design, so that, in the following paragraphs

you will see its conceptions, main components and approaches, and how all these features

are focused in this course design for first level English students of the language institute at

the Universidad del Atlántico.

The term evaluation tends to be understood as the mere act of testing. Nevertheless it must

be clarified that testing is just a component of evaluation itself. Evaluation then is more

than a set of tests, it is a systematic process in which we collect and analyze relevant

information about the effectiveness and development of a group of people, or program in

relation to the achievement of the goals, objectives and specific objectives proposed.

In ESP course design we might look at evaluation from two different points of view:

Student’s evaluation, in which we assess the students performance in the course; and the

course evaluation, which is the evaluation of the course itself, “this kind of evaluation helps

to assess whether the course objectives are being met- whether the course, in other words,

is doing what is was designed to do” (1987, p 144).

8.1 LEARNER’S EVALUATION

First of all, it is necessary to point out that there is a difference between terms; assessment

and evaluation. Assessment refers to engage an ongoing process in which, the students are

measured according to the achievement of the course objectives through exams, quizzes, or

exercises in class. Whereas evaluation refers to the process of gathering information, in

other to make decisions.

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According to Hughes (1989 p 9) there are four types of assessment, its use depends on the

teachers purpose:

Placement tests: these are used to place students in the course more suited to their needs

Diagnostic tests: these are used to identify learners’ strengths and difficulties at the

beginning of a learning process.

Achievement tests: they assess the students in terms of the objectives the course has been

proposed.

Proficiency tests: they test whether the students are having sufficient commands of the

language for a particular purpose.

In the production of a test there are different approaches we can distinguish, I will expose

them in the following chart.

DIRECT TESTING INDIRECT TESTING

It Requires students perform the skill

we wish to measure.

It attempts to measure the abilities which

underlie the skills in which we are interested

DISCRETE POINT INTEGRATIVE TESTING

It refers to the testing of one element, It refers to the testing of many elements in a

completion of a task.

NORM- REFERENCE TESTING CRITERION- REFERENCE TESTING

It compares one student performance to

that of other students, placing the

student in a rate scale.

It classifies students according to his/her

abilities to perform some tasks

satisfactorily

OBJECTIVE TESTING SUBJECTIVE TESTING

It gives a score without a judgement It gives a score considering a judgement

Furthermore, it is important to know that the teacher is not the only person who can

evaluate in a classroom, there are three kinds of assessment: Self –assessment, in which

every learner can evaluate his/her progress; In Peer-evaluation the student can assess a

partner learning process, and the hetero-evaluation in which they can reflect about the

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learning process of the group of learners in general. This alternative for evaluation

constitutes a part of the metacognitive awareness they need concerning their own learning

processes. It is “…as an automatic part of our teaching, to enable learners to take more

responsibility for helping themselves progress” (Underhill, 2003 p 23).

Now, based on the previous information about assessment, I will set the main features of

the learner’s evaluation in this course design. Due to the skill-based character of the

syllabus, I consider direct and indirect testing are necessary to evaluate this group of

students. Also integrative tests should be required because its completion reflects the

communicative approach principles. Moreover, achievement tests cannot be avoided,

because they assess the students in terms of the specific objectives of the course.

Focusing on the context of the course design, the institution works with summative testing,

in which grades must be collected and presented, in a report paper at the end of every level.

The format of the report allows norm - reference testing because I have to place each

student in a rate scale. And it allows a balance between subjective and objective testing

because the final score is the result of many subjective and objective scores taken during

the learning process in the classroom. For example many grades might be taken from

multiple choice quizzes, which are considered as objectives; and others from role plays,

which are considered as subjective (1990, 19).

About the production of evaluation instruments, I concentrate on the design of charts in

which oral activities can be evaluated in a more systematical and objective way; because, if

the target goal of the course is the development of oral skills, it is necessary to produce

effective instruments to assess oral students production. Therefore, here is an example

could be used to assess oral activities. The activities are described in the assignment paper

(Figure 1) which is part of the materials design, then you will find the evaluation

instrument for the teacher, and finally, a special paper for students; in this evaluation

instrument students are going to self- assess their jobs and assess another group’s job.

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Figure 1.

To be presented by __________

THERE ARE TWO DIFFERENT ACTIVITIES YOU CAN PREPARE, CHOOSE ONE.

1. A famous family: find on internet information about a famous family,

and then prepare a presentation in which you can tell us about their

occupations, ages and personality.

2. Dialogue: Prepare a conversation in which you can ask and give personal

information about you and your family. Possible situations: first date with

someone you like and/or first day at school or job.

Very important!

Work in pairs or groups of three.

Use posters, clothes or decoration to recreate the situations.

Use the models and vocabulary provided by the teacher.

Don’t forget you can get feedback from the teacher before your presentation

Be organized bringing the material and instruments you are going to need

Be creative while preparing the activity.

Take minimum 5 maximum 10 minutes to present the activity

Enjoy your presentations

Miss. Adriana

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EVALUATION INSTRUMENT

UNIVERSIDAD DEL ATLÀNTICO – ENGLISH COURSES LEVEL I

OBJETIVE: To evaluate the students’ oral presentations

TOPIC: Family DATE: ________________

PUT A *SCORE ACCORDING TO THE FOLLOWING CRITERIA

1. TEXT/COHERENCE 4. PRONUNCIATION

2. TOPIC/ ORGANIZATION 5. ENTONATION

3. VOCABULARY 6. CREATIVITY

GROUP 1 Activity: _____________

STUDENT TEXT/

ORG

TOPIC/

ORG

VOC

.

PRON ENT CRE TOTAL

GROUP GRADE: ____

FINAL GRADE: ____

GROUP 2 Activity: _____________

STUDENT TEXT/

ORG

TOPIC/

ORG

VOC

.

PRON ENT CRE TOTAL

GROUP GRADE: ____

FINAL GRADE: ____

GROUP 3 Activity: _____________

STUDENT TEXT/

ORG

TOPIC/

ORG

VOC

.

PRON ENT CRE TOTAL

GROUP GRADE: ____

FINAL GRADE: ____

*The score established by the institution (from 1 to five).

89

EVALUATION INSTRUMENT

UNIVERSIDAD DEL ATLÀNTICO – ENGLISH COURSES LEVEL I

OBJETIVES: To self-evaluate my job and to evaluate another group’s job.

TOPIC: Family DATE: ________________

PUT A SCORE ACCORDING TO THE FOLLOWING CRITERIA

1. TEXT/COHERENCE 4. PRONUNCIATION

2. TOPIC/ ORGANIZATION 5. ENTONATION

3. VOCABULARY 6. CREATIVITY

MY GROUP 1 Activity: _____________

STUDENT TEXT/

ORG

TOPIC/

ORG

VOC

.

PRON ENT CRE TOTAL

GROUP GRADE: ____

FINAL GRADE: ____

GROUP _______ Activity: _____________

STUDENT TEXT/

ORG

TOPIC/

ORG

VOC

.

PRON ENT CRE TOTAL

GROUP GRADE: ____

FINAL GRADE: ____

90

8.2 COURSE EVALUATION

“Since the ESP course exists to satisfy a particular educational need, evaluation helps to

show how well the course is actually fulfilling the need” (1987: 152)

There are certain aspects I will consider for evaluating this course, these are: the elements

the course need to be evaluated, the methodology, and the participants should be involved

in the process. First, the elements my course needs to evaluate are basically: the coherence

between student needs and the goals and objectives which were established, completeness

on the theories and whether there could have a real applicability of them, and whether there

is a perfect agreement with the objectives, the methodology and activities in the course

design.

There are many instruments we can use to evaluate the course, like: surveys,

questionnaires, discussions, etc. Its effectiveness, appropriateness and efficiency depend on

the type of course and what we really want to evaluate. Finally I will say that this is an

ongoing process in which teacher-researchers, students, and the institutions can play the

role of evaluators.

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9. CONCLUSIONS

REFLEXIONS ABOUT THE RESEARCH PROCESS

Why is research important for teachers? That is the first question that emerges when this

process starts. In this moment it might be answered shows us the importance of each

situation that occurs in a classroom for language learning. So that, if we want to study the

learning process of a language; it is necessary to focus in the classroom. But how can I do

language classroom research? , what is it exactly? Where is it come from? What are its

main characteristics?

Definitely, the research was carried out answers all the questions above and also let see

learning-teaching process from different points of view which allow us to do a better job

with the students. Now we are involved with the current teaching-learning theories,

strategies and methodologies that contribute to the improvement of our current practice and

educational process as teachers.

The investigation is a useful tool to handle the common difficulties found in our everyday

classes. Besides it opens teachers’ minds because we find different ways to solve our

problems reading other teacher-researchers experiences, and creating strategies based on

principles, assumptions and given theories.

Doing research obviously is not easy, it is very important to have time and resources, and

you need the collaboration of students, other colleagues and the institution. In this

particular case everything has been positive because everybody has participated with good

actions, however time is never enough and the institution where the ESP course is going to

be designed does not have the resources to do research.

Nowadays, I see myself as a language teacher starting a learning process to become a good

researcher. To achieve the goal it is necessary to continue working on the acquisition of

research abilities like: observing, making assumptions, being critical and self-critical, being

92

analytical, developing and interpreting concepts and creations of strategies in order to solve

problems. These are the fundamental elements to consider when we are searching in a

classroom. Furthermore it is very important to have a good relationship with the students,

because the results of the research are going to be successful if you improve students’

capacities to interact with others, which must be the main language teacher purpose.

In conclusion, a good language teacher must be: sensitive, creative, communicative, with

well developed research skills to solve problems and good planner. Also there are some

elements to be considered: the syllabus, the method, the atmosphere and the co-produced

outcomes; which are three: the learner’s receptivity, their practice opportunities and the

input (Allwright and Bailey, 1991 p.28).

93

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ALLWRIGHT, Dick and Kathleen M. Bailey. (1991) Focus on the language classroom; An

introduction to classroom Research for language teachers. C.U.P.

ASKEN, Susan and CARNELL, Eileen (1998): Transforming Learning; Individual and Global Change. London; Cassell.

CUNNINGSWORTH, Alan. (1984) Evaluating and Selecting E.F.L Teaching Materials.

London: Heinemann Educational Books.

CHILD, Dennis (1986) Psychology and the Teacher. London: Cassell.

CHOMSKY, Noam. (1965) Aspects of the theory of syntax. M I T Press.

GARDNER, Howard. (1993) Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice. New York:

Basicbooks, HarperCollins publisher,

HOLMES, Jhon. (1986).The teacher as researcher: Pontificia U. Católica de Sao Paulo.

HUGHES, Arthur. (1989) Testing for language teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.

HUTCHINSON, T. and WATERS, A. (1987) English for specific purposes: A learning-

centred approach. Cambridge University Press,.

HYMES, Dell, (1972) Acerca de la competencia comunicativa, en: Forma y Fusión No. 9

Bogotá, departamento de lingüística Universidad Nacional, 1996.

JOHNSON, James et al (1988) Introduction to the Foundations of America. Education

USA. Allyn and Bacon Inc.

Ley General de la Educación (1996) Colombia: Editorial Unión Limitada LTDA.

94

MC. DONOUGH, Jo and SHOW, Christopher. Material and methods in E.L.T. Oxford:

Blackwell Publishers.

MEDRANO, C. (1999) El Maestro Como Elemento Crítico De La Sociedad, en Revista:

Participación y Educación. Universidad Del Atlántico

MEN (Ministerio de Educación Nacional). Bilingüismo en Colombia, meta en el 2009: en

revista virtual, www.colombiaaprende.edu.co, 2005.

MOSS, Gillian. (1997) Making Sandwiches: A combined Approach to course Design. Barranquilla. Universidad Del Norte.

NICHOLSON-NELSON, Kristen. (1998) Developing students’ Multiple Intelligences:

scholastic professional books. NY.

NUNAN, David. (2002) Methods in Language Learning. Cambridge University Press.

NUNAN, David. (1988) Syllabus Design. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

O’MALLEY, M and CHAMOT, A. (1990) Learning Strategies in Second Language

Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

OXFORD, Rebecca (1990). Language Learning Strategies. What Every Teacher Should

Know. New York: New House Publishers.

RICHARDS, Jack C. (2005) Interchange Third Edition, Cambridge University press.

RICHARDS, J.C and Lockhart, C. (1994) Reflective Teaching in second Language

Classrooms. Cambridge University Press

RICHARDS, J.C, and RODGERS, T.S. (1986). Approaches and methods in language

teaching: A Description and Analysis. Cambridge University Press.

95

ROBINSON, Pauline (1991) ESP today: a practioner’s guide. New York, Prentice Hall.

TOMLIMSON, Brian. (1998) Materials development in language teaching. Cambridge

University press.

UNDERHILL, Nic. (2003) Testing Spoken Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University

press.

WALLACE, Michael. (1998) Action research for language teachers: Cambridge

University press.

WARSHASWSKY, Diane. (1992) Spectrum 1: Prentice Hall Regents.NJ.

WENDEN, Anita; RUBIN, Joan (1987) Learner Strategies in Language Learning. Prentice

Hall International. London, 1987.

WEST, Richard. (1994) “Needs analysis in language teaching” in the magazine language

teaching, university of Manchester, January.

96

APPENDIX

TEST I

Choose the options you consider are correct according to your personality.

Name:_______________________

1. What do you like to study? 6. How do you study? Working in groups or with

Words another person.

Numbers

Images Building a model

Drawing or visualizing

Sounds

Quantifying and placing the

things in a logical order

2. What kind of sports do you prefer? 7. What kind of profession do you

like?

I don’t like sports Accountant

Golf or hiking

Music therapist

Swimming

Psychologist

Football or volleyball

Journalist

3. What do you do in your free time? 8. Sometimes have you ever tried

to…? Write your own book

To dance

Know the number of dogs that

To visit friends your city has

To listen to music Listen to the whole music

you have in one morning

To be alone Looking images and pictures

in clouds.

4. I’m sensitive to… 9. You are good at …

Music forming mental images of

yourself

Color

Finding analogies

Feelings

Playing sports or dancing

Movement

Speaking or arguing

10. In my childhood…

5. What is the most important? I made friends easily

My accounts I loved being outdoors

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My friends I enjoy drawing or painting

My books I spent a lot of time thinking

My CDs to myself and my future.

TEST II

PERSONAL INFORMATION QUESTIONS

A: Fill out the form.

Name: _______________________________________________________

Age: ______ date and place of birth: __________________________

Occupation: __________________________________________________

Marital status: ________________________

Address:_________________________ Neighbourhood:______________

Who do you live with? _________________________________________

Tell something about your family________________________________ ___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

What are your hobbies? ________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE LANGUAGE SKILLS

This test pretends to determine the development of your language skills.

B. Number (from 1 to 4) in order of importance the four options of each statement,

considering that 1 is the best and 4 is the worst.

1. Talking about the four languages skills, I think I do better.

Listening _____ speaking_____ reading______ writing_____

2. In the English class, I like to learn best by

Listening ______ speaking_____ reading______ writing_____

3. To practice speaking, I prefer:

Oral presentations____ Role plays___ Speak only to the teacher____

Speak to my classmates ____

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4. To practice reading, I prefer:

Articles___ stories___ Conversations____ comics____

5. To practice listening I prefer:

Songs___ The exercises from the book ____ TV programs or

Or movies____ The teacher and students’ dialogues in class___

6. To practice writing, I prefer:

Letters____ The exercises from the book___ Projects___ Diaries___

7. I like to learn English: (number from 1 to 3:1 the best, 3 the worst)

Reading books ____ Talking to my friends___ With songs and

Movies ____

8. I understand English

Listening to the teacher___ Reading the guide book___ looking for extra

material ___ Doing exercises___

9. I understand better

Seeing graphs, charts, or diagrams from the book or the board____

Listening to the teacher and the tape recorder ____

Taking ideas and writing them down the notebook____

Practicing with examples and creating new ones____

10. In my future, it is going to be most important

To speak English ___ To read English___ To understand English ___ To

write English____

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EVALUACION DEL PROCESO Y ESPECTATIVAS

LEARNING NEEDS QUESTIONNAIRE

Responde las siguientes preguntas:

1. ¿Por qué y para qué estas estudiando inglés?

_________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

2. ¿Te gusta la clase de inglés? Si ___ No___ ¿Por qué?

_________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

3. ¿Qué es lo que más te gusta de la clase?

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________

4. ¿Qué es lo que menos te gusta de la clase?

_________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________

5. ¿Que aspectos de la clase crees que se deberían incrementar, mejorar y/o cambiar?

Justifica tu respuesta.

_________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

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ENCUESTA

EVALÚE LAS CLASES Y SU PROCESO DE APRENDIZAJE

A. Indique con que frecuencia realiza o cumple cada uno de los enunciados, teniendo en

cuenta las siguientes variantes

1. La mayoría de las veces 2.Con frecuencia 3. Algunas veces 4. Pocas veces

5. Casi nunca

1. En la clase de inglés se desarrollan las cuatro habilidades de acuerdo a

los porcentajes establecidos. (Escucha 30%, Habla 40%, Lectura 15%,

Escritura 15%)

1

2

3

4

5

2. las actividades que se realizan en clase son instructivas y amenas 1 2 3 4 5

3. Entiendo lo que dicen en inglés la profesora y mis compañeros 1 2 3 4 5

4. Pido explicación a la profesora cuando no entiendo algo 1 2 3 4 5

5. Participo voluntariamente en clase 1 2 3 4 5

6. Me distraigo con facilidad en clase 1 2 3 4 5

7. Necesito traducir al español las cosas para poder comprenderlas 1 2 3 4 5

8. Practico lo que aprendo fuera de clase 1 2 3 4 5

9. Me gusta que me corrijan mis errores de manera inmediata 1 2 3 4 5

10. El texto guía es claro y satisface mis necesidades 1 2 3 4 5

11. Las evaluaciones son claras y me ayudan a descubrir mis fortalezas y

debilidades.

1 2 3 4 5

12. Realizo tareas y asignaciones de manera correcta y puntual 1 2 3 4 5

B. Responda las siguientes preguntas

1. ¿Qué has aprendido?

2. ¿Qué fortalezas y dificultades has descubierto en tu aprendizaje del inglés?

3. ¿Cómo crees que se podrían superar las dificultades?

4. ¿Tuviste problemas de atención y concentración durante las clases? Justifica tu

respuesta

5. ¿Te gustó trabajar en grupo? Menciona ventajas y desventajas

6. ¿Cómo evaluarías el proceso de todo el grupo en general?

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STRUCTURED INTERVIEW

This was designed to know another teacher’s opinion about the class.

Teacher’s name: _____________________________

1). According to the aims of the semester; what is, in your opinion, the level of English of the class in

general?

Very good Good Average Insufficient

2). What difficulties and strengths have you found in the academics development of the students?

______________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________

3). Do you think the percentage that was established for the language skills in good to carry out the first

semester? Yes No

Why? _________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________

4). What do you think about guidebook?

________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________

5). Is the institution giving us all the facilities for teaching English? Yes No

Why?___________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________

6). Which educational aids do you regularly use in class, beside the text?

________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________

7). Have you found in the students’ behaviours, problems of attention and concentration? Yes

No

8). What do you consider are the reasons which they are having these problems?

________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________

9). What strategies do you use to handle these problems in your class?

________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________

10). Do you think the design of a course considering students’ needs, interests and learning styles could solve

their difficulties? Yes No

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TRANSCRIPTS

STRUCTURED INTERVIEW

Here are the transcripts of the answers taken from the three teachers were interviewed.

1). According to the aims of the semester; what is, in your opinion, the level of English of the class in

general?

T1 T2 T3

- Good - Average - Average 2). What difficulties and strengths have you found in the academics development of the students?

T1 T2 T3

- I found that the students have a good level at writing; they can do the written exercises without the help of the teacher. At listening, I could see that they need to practice listening exercises and they same at speaking.

- Difficulties in pronunciation and the entonation. They are always interest in working when they are working in role plays. They want to work; most of them are motivated in class. They have the opportunity to work with extra-material.

- I do think students have difficulties while speaking and listening because for many of them this is the first contact with oral English. But they have a good attitude toward learning.

3). Do you think the percentage that was established for the language skills in good to carry out the first

semester? Why ?

T1 T2 T3

- No, because the 40 % percent in the speaking part, I think is too much for students that don’t know very much about vocabulary, and don’t have an effective Knowledge.

- Yes, speaking is a very important skill; the others are important too and help to improve the first one.

- No, because I think speaking is natural process that comes after a well developed listening skill, so oral and comprehension should comes first.

4). What do you think about guidebook?

______

T1 T2 T3

- I think it has a lot of very good readings and it has the basic themes students have to learn. But I think that the vocabulary is too poor.

- It’s Good, but it is not thing we can use in class, we can use songs, movies and many other materials.

- it is good, because it has good reading and conversations but I think it is not up-dated. So we have to use other kind of materials.

Note: I didn’t consider this information because it was gathered when we had a different guidebook.

103

5). Is the institution giving us all the facilities for teaching English? Yes No

Why?

T1 T2 T3

- No, because teachers and students need an English library to find our grammar structures and a computer lab to practice listening. We need implements to teach in a better way.

- No, because we don’t have extra materials and we have to go to other places to get them. They just give us the guidebook, the cassettes and the tape recorders.

- No, we don’t have a resource center where we can consult, we definitely need audio-visual aids

6). Which educational aids do you regularly use in class, beside the text?

T1 T2 T3

- I don’t use too much aids, because I teach English just on Saturdays and I have to finish a unit per Saturday. I don’t use too much aids, I just bring songs to my classroom, and I make exercises.

- Yes, I bring to class songs, movies, movies, exercises from the guidebook and others and games

- Yes, I design activities related to the content of the level, I also use songs games and projects.

7). Have you found in the students’ behaviours, problems of attention and concentration? Yes

No

T1 T2 T3

-Yes. - Yes - Yes 8). What do you consider are the reasons which they are having these problems?

T1 T2 T3

- I think they are in a difficult stage in their lives. They just come from high school and they are beginning a new process.

- The principal reason is that they are teenagers, not all of them but most of them. So its attention is always dispersed.

-The students have difficulties to pay attention, because they have different ages, and sometimes their interests are different.

9). What strategies do you use to handle these problems in your class?

T1 T2 T3

- Ok, I try to be tolerant and I use the love methodology. I think you have to treat good your students and respect their

- I used to changing the sites in order to let the students work with different partners everyday, and this strategy help

- I select activities in which they need to be concentrated and I change constantly sites in order to let the students work

104

differences. to catch its attention and concentration..

with different partners everyday.

10). Do you think the design of a course considering students’ needs, interests and learning styles could solve

their difficulties? Yes No

T1 T2 T3

- Yes - yes, it’s a good idea because each student is different

- of course, because we as teacher need to know students, what they want, what they like and need in the English class.