Overview of Curriculum Modules
The curriculum in 10362NAT Certificate I of the Spoken and Writing English has been purposefully planned and developed in order to teach English to the non-English speaking learners. The curriculum is divided into seven modules, one of them is compulsory, and the other six are elective modules include one written and one spoken text modules. The purpose of Module A, which is the compulsory module, is to teach the students learning strategies of basic level. While twenty hours’ time has been allocated for the teaching of Module A, eighty hours have been allocated for the rest of the modules. The spoken text elective has six modules namely Modules B, C, D, E, F, and G. Each of these six modules consists different learning topics, and the speaking section focuses on the listening as well as speaking skills of the students. The written text elective, on the other hand, has five modules, namely Modules H, I, J, K, and L. These five modules have cover different learning areas, and the writing section puts focus on the reading and writing abilities of the students. The numeracy elective has two modules – Module M and Module N. Each of these two modules is based on three separate features. While Module B is focused on improving the productive skills of the students by making them participate in small interactive sessions, Module C concentrates on enhancing the receptive skills of the learners through small conversations. The written elective modules are also focused on improving the productive and receptive skills of the learners. Therefore, it can be said that obtaining the Certificate I in Spoken and Written English requires the students to succeed in the completion of these seven modules.
The CSWE I curriculum is focused on addressing the general requirements of the learners. The purpose of the modules of this curriculum is to focus on four basic skills of learners, such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The modules have been set in way that they attract the interests of the learners and focus to improve a specific skill of the learners. As opined by De Silva and Hood (2009), the diverse objectives of the curriculum should align with the basic needs of the students. Nonetheless, the diverse curriculum of these modules may not always with all the needs of the students, as each person is unique in his own way and also the students have different backgrounds of education and language.
Module A – Basic Learning Strategies
Furthermore, these modules of English learning curriculum are designed to cover an extensive range of knowledge and topics, such as community, health, education, transport, and law, that the students, who are willing to stay and settle in Australia, must procure. The usefulness of these topics is that they help the learners to increase their English vocabulary and make it easier for them to take part in conversations with English speaking persons. Nevertheless, the teachers need to verify that the chosen topics are in accordance with the skills of the learners that need to be developed and improved. In addition to this, the teachers should also be provided with the options to allocate further tools based on their individual requirements of their own distinct teaching areas (Ansary & Babaii, 2002). However, this process does not clarify whether the topics chose by the teachers would interest the students and match their specific needs. Therefore, the teachers should discuss with the students about their interests and needs before selecting the topics. According to De Silva and Hood (2009), the teachers must select the areas, which they would cover in their teaching, according to the needs and interests of the students.
On this context, it should be mentioned that each student is unique, and therefore has different set of skills and needs. Thereafter, it is possible that the topics of the curriculum do not cover all the needs of each student. As observed by Kumaravadivelu (2006), the communication between the learners and teachers are crucial. The researcher further pointed out that, in order to address the needs of the students, the teachers could suggest various learning activities that make the students attentive and motivated. As these students have less confidence and are detached from learning process, it is required from the teachers to innovate learning activities like different games and role-plays could attract the students and engage them into interactions (Kumaravadivelu, 2006).
While some learners of this program have completed college courses, some may just have graduated from high school. Therefore, this program has the possibility of not being able to cover these mixed abilities and needs of the students, as a consequence, this turns into a challenge for the teachers. In order to avoid this challenging situation, it can be suggested that the teachers should keep this mixed requirements in mind while selecting the topics and designing the learning activities, and keep them simple and easy for the understanding of every student. The teachers also need to help and support the students to complete these activities. On this context, De Silva and Feez (2012) suggest that scaffolding should be provided to the students, who need it, for the betterment of their learning experience and outcome. In order to avoid the demotivation of the students due to their self-doubt, the teachers are recommended to always encourage and motivate the students to try, and make them less worried about their mistakes (Marr, Helme & Tout, 2003).
Elective Modules for Listening and Speaking Skills
The numeracy level of the learners in the same group could be different. Therefore, the teachers should be aware of what the students are learning in the math. As the informal numeracy differs with the formal class (Baker & Rhodes, 2007), the teachers must acknowledge the experiences of the students.
Developing and selecting the resources and texts for teaching is a crucial process. As identified by Thornbury (1999), E-factors and A-factors are the pedagogical principles, which the teachers of foreign languages must consider while evaluating the resources and texts before as well as after the teaching. The E-factors include efficacy, economy, and easiness, and the A-factors are interests, age, expectations, and the size of group.
The purpose of the AEMP is to go beyond developing reading, speaking, writing, and numerical capabilities. According to Black and Yasukawa (2010), a new strategy must be developed, which the teachers could consider as social capital, as it is significant for the non-English speaking learners. Thereafter, the teachers must put emphasis on the students’ ways of expressing themselves, interacting, and the level of trust among them. On this context, the activity of role-playing could be helpful for the students. An addition that I can make to the Module G that is about understanding and recognising the Australian money through a role-playing activity between a bank employee and a customer on how to deposit money. This would benefit the students as they could employ this in real life to interact with each other.
It is necessary to use authentic texts, as it could benefit the students in terms of using the newly learned language in real life, being exposed to different cultures, and enhancing their learnings (Tomlinson, 2013). Various authentic texts, such as printed and audio-visual materials, can be utilised in classrooms. On this context, I can recommend a change in Module E that focuses on the recognition of general visual symbols by bringing the common traffic signs in the classroom. By bringing these traffic signs, which the students see everyday in the streets of this country, the students could be taught to recognise the traffic signals and understand the rules. It is important to mention that in the use of the authentic materials, it is evident that hiding sexism is not always possible. Therefore, as there are nine female students in this class, the teachers need to be conscious while using the authentic materials (Gary, 2002).
Elective Modules for Reading and Writing Skills
Using the modern technologies could benefit the students, and therefore, there is a demand for technological use in the classroom. It provides the students the opportunity to access the study materials and activities whenever they want, and communicate with persons living in distant places, as they are exposed to languages from multimodal representation (Tomlinson, 2013). Therefore, to make an inclusion in the Module A, which is related to reading and understanding time, I can prepare a video using clocks to demonstrate the students how to understand the time. The global texts could also be favourable for the learnings of the students (Tomlinson, 2012). A successful teacher always considers the needs and preferences of the students to ensure the best possible learning experience and outcome for them (Feez, 1998). As some students could be looking for employment, I would design reading text that has instructions on how to talk in the workplace.
As the teachers keep engaged in everyday management of the classrooms, the rate of submission of the assignments is also crucial (Feez, 1998). In cases where the learning outcomes do not meet the expectations of the students or the materials become too easy for them, the teachers are required to make change and adapt to new materials according to the levels of needs of the students. Interview, questionnaires, and surveys are significant in the process of learning (Huhta et al., 2013). Therefore, I would suggest maintaining a regular feedback system from the students on the difficulty level that they face and interest that they feel to do the activities. This would inform whether the activities were sufficient for the students’ needs and interest.
References
Baker, D., & Rhodes, V. (2007). Making use of learners’ funds of knowledge for mathematics and numeracy: Improving teaching and learning of mathematics and numeracy in adult education. Research Report, Maths4Life Project.
Black, S., & Yasukawa, K. (2010). Time for national renewal: Australian adult literacy and numeracy as ‘foundation skills’. Literacy and Numeracy Studies, 18, 43-57.
De Silva, J. H., & Feez, S. (2012). Text-based literacy education: Programming and methodology. Putney, NSW: Phoenix Education.
De Silva, J. H., & Hood, S. (2009). English for community membership: Planning for actual and potential needs. In Belcher, D. (Ed.), English for specific purposes in theory and practice (pp. 244-263). Michigan: University of Michigan Press.
Feez, S. (1998). Text-based Syllabus design. Sydney: National Centre for English Language Teaching and Research, Sydney, NSW.
Gray, J. (2002). The global coursebook in English Language Teaching. In D. Block & C. Cameron (Eds.), Globalization and language teaching (pp. 151-67). London & New York: Roultedge.
Huhta, M., Vogt, K., Johnson, E., & Tulkki, H. (2013). Needs analysis and the CEF professional profits in ESP. In D. R. Hall (Eds.), Needs analysis for language course design: A holistic approach to ESP (pp. 9-32). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Kumaravadivelu, B. (2006). TESOL Methods: Changing tracks, challenging trends. TESOL Quarterly, 40, 59-81.
Marr, B. et al. (2003). Re-thinking assessment: Strategies for holistic adult numeracy assessment. Melbourne: Language Australia. Section 1, Initial assessment.
Thornbury, S. (1999). How to teach grammar. Harlow: Longman.
Tomlinson, B. (2013). Materials development. In A. Burns & J. Richards (Eds.), The Cambridge guide to pedagogy and practice in second language teaching (pp. 269-278). New York: Cambridge University Press.
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