Content (Syllabus Outline)

Building Teaching Skills Through the Interactive Web

Project Report

Planning and implementing a technology-enhanced change

Alenka Tratnik

Background

The learners

I teach full and part-time undergraduate, intermediate level students who take Business English as part of their first-year business and management study program. There are about 300 students enrolled in the program every year. Their ages vary from 19 to 27 years old. In my opinion, students are tech-savvy, achievement-oriented and attention-craving, but a bit less responsible and self-sufficient.

As regards learning, my students have a slight aversion to reading and practicing writing, and are oftentimes put off by reading comprehension tasks and creating writing assignments. Too often they would rather skip vocabulary acquisition/learning, reading business-oriented texts, they sigh over project-based learning, and they rarely do homework.

Additionally, one of the most challenging issues in teaching my students is low motivation. For this reason, it’s important that tutorials are stimulating, engaging, interesting, providing a hands-on experience. So our Business English lessons are designed to make students involved as much as possible through business-related assignments in and outside of school: case studies, fieldwork tasks, projects, surveys, etc. Interactive methods are generally better received and more appealing to my students.

The setting

In the English course, students are divided into sections of approximately 35-40 students, allowing an opportunity to learn in a more intimate and informal way. On average we meet 3 times a week for 3 hours over a period of 2 months in a lecture hall which can accommodate over 100 students or a mid-sized classroom with a standard classroom setting. The seating arrangement is traditional with straight rows of desks facing the front of the classroom which unfortunately doesn’t give enough room for moving about. Classroom facilities include one computer, an OHP, a projector on the ceiling, a projection screen and a whiteboard.

Moreover, technology isn’t integrated into teaching and learning process, and little has been done to ensure it in classrooms. There is a library on campus with only 4 computers students can use but with a limited access to the Internet. Students are only allowed to access some of the major academic and bibliographic databases (such as Web of Science, ProQuest, EIFL Direct) to find articles in academic journals.

On the other hand, most of my students have some sort of smartphones or tablets. At our faculty mobile devices aren’t banned, so most students are online all the time even during lectures, busily texting, browsing, chatting, oblivious to what the teacher is saying. At home, students use PCs or laptops to access the Internet.

Course goals

As mentioned, Business English is one of the compulsory first year subjects in the Bachelor of Management and Organization. All students are required to complete it. The subject is designed to introduce students to a range of business-related topics, build their language skills, and expose them to fundamental vocabulary upon which the study in business, management and economics is based. Throughout the course students progressively develop vocabulary and language skills.

Content (Syllabus Outline)

Students get acquainted with different current affairs/events and topics, in addition to the terminology from economics, politics, industry, commercial and business sciences, work organization, management, finance and banking, computing and informatics, transport, marketing, media, tourism, business communication and everyday life at B1/B2 on the Common European Framework of References for Languages.

Course objectives:

- broaden students’ communicative competences across general English borders,

- develop language competences, skills and strategies for reading and listening comprehension, in addition to spoken and written communication,

- get acquainted with miscellaneous modes of communication in a variety of business situations,

- develop business communication skills with skills of qualitative and effective interpersonal communication,

- foster reflection and discussion on a given topic in a foreign language,

- learn, understand and be able to use business English terminology and vocabulary,

- develop skills for using different resources (dictionaries, references, Internet),

- develop public speaking and presentation skills,

- learn about features, cultural and business etiquette of different EU countries and other countries in the world.

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 894