Novice-Low Target Language Syllabus
Syllabus
Blog 3: Novice-Low Target Language Syllabus
1. Instructor Information
Professor: Miss. Li & Miss. Huang
Email: Kylieli@udel.edu,
Phone number: 302-763-2782, 3027632806
Time: Monday, 5:00 - 8:00 P.M.
Room: Room 201
Office Hours: 2:00-3:30 pm on Friday
2. Course Description
This course builds on English Curriculum Standards for General Senior High Schools (2017 Edition, Revised in 2020). Students are expected to use their prior English skills and connect their previous experiences including interpersonal communication, variety of English, journey, natural disasters, and great people. The course has been designed for Grade 10 students who command about 2000 size of vocabulary, able to produce some daily conversations in speaking, understand the normal dialogues in listening, and read and comprehend some non-academic articles to improve their language proficiency and acquire basic knowledge about friendship, English language, and culture, traveling, earthquakes, and great people.
3. Learning Outcomes
At the end of this course, students will be able to:
1) Demonstrate ability to read and understand selected passages in the textbook
2) Demonstrate ability to communicate with other people around the five topics (Friendship, English around the world, Traveling, Earthquakes, great people), understand and interpret other's ideas, and present your own ideas of these topics
3) Demonstrate ability to write an email to a friend, biography of a famous people
4) Demonstrate understanding of English-speaking country's culture and society
4. Learning Resources
Textbook: New Senior English for China Students' Book 1, Peoples’ Education Press
Videos
5. Learning Assessment
In-class participation | 20% |
Major assignments | 25% |
Midterm | 25% |
Final project | 30% |
Total | 100% |
Mid-term:
Choose one of the topics below, make a 5-minute video about it in groups of 3-4. (It can be a presentation, a video, etc)
1. Interpersonal relationship
1.1. How to maintain a friendship?
1.2. How to create a harmonious atmosphere in a family?
2. Language and culture
2.1. Origin and development of English
2.2. Comparison of American and British English
3. Traveling
3.1. What's in your bag when traveling?
3.2. Share your travel plan for a 5-day trip
Final project:
Students need to hand in a portfolio that includes every after-class assignment and reflection (takeaway, learning strategies, performance) after every class.
6. Course Calendar
Topic | Week | Details | Assignments |
Interpersonal relationships | 1 | Lesson 1: talk about interpersonal relationships; learn some strategies on how to agree or disagree with other people appropriately | 1. Read an article in the textbook and answer questions 2. After-class reflection |
2 | Lesson 2: analyze an article in class and discuss friendship; learn how to write a letter | 1. Write an invitation letter to a friend 2. After-class reflection | |
3 | Lesson 3: listen to a tape about family; information gap activity | 1. Record a video to introduce your family 2. After-class reflection | |
English language | 4 | Lesson 4: history of English; watch a video, jigsaw; learn simple past time | 1. Make a timeline of the development of English 2. After-class reflection |
5 | Lesson 5: different kinds of English; identify potential difficulties in language communication; develop language learning strategies | 1. Read an article in the textbook and answer questions 2. After-class reflection | |
6 | Lesson 6: culture behind the language; do an online survey in groups and report | 1. Make a map poster of English speaking country 2. After-class reflection | |
Travelling | 7 | Lesson 7: learn about world map; watch a video and jigsaw | 1. Design a trip plan in groups 2. After-class reflection |
8 | Lesson 8: talk about places you want to go; learn to express wishes | 1. Prepare for a presentation 2. After-class reflection | |
9 | Lesson 9: describe a most impressive journey; group work and sharing | 1. Give feedback to your classmates; 2. After-class reflection | |
Earthquakes | 10 | Lesson 10: basic knowledge about earthquakes; watch a video on Tangshan Earthquake and group discussion | 1. Read an article in the textbook and answer questions 2. After-class reflection |
11 | Lesson 11: how to survive on earthquakes; listen to a tape; group discussion and report | 1. Watch a video and write some feedback 2. After-class reflection | |
12 | Lesson 12: read a short passage and discuss; role-play | 1. Read an article and write to answer the questions | |
Great people | 13 | Lesson 13: talk about a person you admire the most; group discussion and report | 1. Write a biography of the person you admire the most 2. After-class reflection |
14 | Lesson 14: good qualities of people; game | 1. Prepare for a debate 2. After-class reflection | |
15 | Lesson 15: debate on which quality you value more, wisdom or courage. | 1. Write a summery of your arguments in debate and provide feedback to your team members. |
7. Course Policy Document
Grading Policies | ||
A (93%+) | A- (90-92%) | B+ (88-89%) |
B (83-87%) | B- (80-82%) | C+ (78-79%) |
C (73-77%) | C- (70-72%) | D+ (68-69%) |
D (63-67%) | D- (60-62%) | F (below 60%) |
Attendance and Absence Policies
You are expected to attend every lesson. If you want to ask for an absence, please contact me to discuss. All the assignments are expected to be original and to be submitted on time.
Harassment and Discrimination Policies
Our school does not discriminate against any person on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, genetic information, marital status, disability, religion, age, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law in its employment.
Late assignments
You are expected to complete assignments before the beginning of class time on the day stipulated in the syllabus. There is no grade penalty for missing deadlines, but you may not receive feedback as quickly or in as much detail.
Additional Policies
l You are expected to follow the Chines classroom rules including not being allowed to interfere with class discipline, text messaging on the phone, eating snacks, etc.
l You are encouraged to express your opinions freely in class, for or against, without raising your hand.
Hi, Xinyi~ Thank you for sharing your syllabus design. Your instructional design is generally good! Your curriculum design is based on the English Curriculum Standards for General Senior High Schools and is scientifically based. And you have listed several main topics that this course will involve in the course introduction, which can give students a certain psychological presupposition for the next course content, which is very good! In the teaching achievement part, you have considered the cultivation of intercultural communication skills, hoping to improve students' understanding on English-speaking country's culture and society, which is an aspect that many novice teachers often overlook. Regarding the assessment of the course, you have also adopted a combination of process assessment and summative assessment, which is very novel for English teaching in China.
ReplyDeleteI think this instructional design is a little lacking in the following aspects. First of all, the typesetting of the lesson plan can be improved a little more, and the visual feeling affects the reader's reading experience to a certain extent. Secondly, I think the teaching time is too tight. Basically, there are new course content and coursework every day. Will the frequency of knowledge input exceed the students' tolerance? Finally, you wrote the final exam in the course evaluation, but only the assessment form of the mid-term exam was written in the specific course calendar. Does the end of the term follow the mid-term assessment standards? In addition, I think it will be more perfect to arrange a classroom rule at the end of the lesson plan design~
Thank you again for your work!
Hi, Xinyi. Big applause for your well-organized, understandable and communicative syllabus. From your course description, you mentioned “Students are expected to use their prior English skills and connect their previous experiences including interpersonal communication, variety of English, journey, natural disasters, and great people”. I strongly agree with you, and students’ background knowledge, prior skills, personal experiences do help the learning. I notice that you design a mid-term presentation, I think it is very meaningful and interesting. I think students will not only learn from this task, but also help them summarize their past learning and raise their motivation for their further learning.
ReplyDeleteAndy
As for the suggestions that I can give you, first, I didn't find the arrangement about final project in your course calendar, so maybe you can add something in the end. What's more, you didn't give the course and classroom policy, which is important to set the classroom community and achieve the most effective learning.
DeleteHi, Xinyi!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your sharing! I think that your syllabus has clear learning objectives. Also your course description provides many interesting activities, such as making a map poster, designing a trip plan, recording a video and so on. These will greatly increase students’ interests in learning English. However, I think that it would be better if you can give students a choice of an office hour time in the part of instructor information. Secondly, we all know that students arrive in a class with individual differences. Maybe we can increase an analysis about the students’ level of proficiency, which will facilitate our teaching.
About the questions that you have asked about my syllabus design, the midterm will test students’ mastery of knowledge in week 1~ week 6. I would like to ask students to choose a project from the choice of writing an email to your friend with introducing your family and orally presenting your room decoration. Through projects like these, they can text students from a comprehensive view.
Hi, Xinyi. You have integrated listening, speaking, reading and writing in your lessons. And I really like the assignments and the mid-term presentation in your syllabus. They are task-based and interesting. I think your students will enjoy them, too!
ReplyDeleteHowever, You have written that the final project accounts for 25% in your learning assessment. But I can not find any information about the final project in your syllabus. I do not see the course policy document, either. You may need to check your syllabus again.
From Liangyujing Zeng
In your course description you have “English language and culture, traveling, earthquakes, and great people”. I’m curious as to how earthquakes connect to all of these, or if maybe, maybe you could use natural disasters and look more into interpersonal relationships or informal speech patterns by using that topic. It almost feels like the earthquakes part of the syllabus further down could almost be made for a different class entirely. If the goal is some sort of communication goal, then I think the lesson should revolve around communication with using earthquakes as the material, but the way it’s described it seems like learning about earthquakes is the main goal rather than the material which doesn’t align with the rest of the class. Communication during times of duress and disaster is an important skill and maybe that could be the focus of this section instead. But overall, I thought the syllabus did a good job meeting several different communicative criteria and outlining what is expect of the students.
ReplyDelete