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Teach English in Wushen Zhen - Huhehaote Shi — Hohhot

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Summative Task Assignment Title: Why Are Level Tests and Language Needs Assessments Important to the Design of Business English Courses? This essay relates to my experience with the designing of Business English courses. At the beginning of the course design process for my Business English clients, I always ask myself the question, “What am I going to teach?” Although the answer to this question may appear to be simple to some Business English teachers who teach using a text book, for others, the answer to this question may be perplexing. The needs of some Business English clients often require complex sets of communicative competencies that go beyond those addressed within some of the Business English textbooks on the market. In these cases, Business English teachers may be required to come up with their own course design. I find that the careful creation of a Language Needs Assessment and Initial Level Test is a vital step to take when designing a Business English course. Failing to carefully choose the contents in order to provide opportunities to assess company needs or evaluate student levels within these instruments can be a precarious omission in the course design process. I view the Language Needs Assessment as the instrument that reveals what to teach based on company needs (vocabulary and grammar), as well as where the student’s competencies should be upon completing the course. The Level Tests are useful instruments to evaluate where students are in terms of their proficiency in the English language. I believe that, ideally, both Language Needs Assessments and Level Tests should complement each other in some form. An important task for the teacher to fulfill is to then find the commonalities between the contents of the Needs Assessment and the Level Tests. I use Content Analysis to carefully examine the contents of the job descriptions of the employees I will be teaching and to establish commonalities. I usually obtain the job descriptions from the Human Resources Department of the client for whom I am working at the time. Within those job descriptions, I often find explicit or implicit information relating to the particular jargon and communicative skill needs appropriate for those students. For example, if the job description provided by my client is for a group of industrial engineers, it may include responsibilities such as keeping up to date with safety manufacturing standards (reading), creating specifications for manufacturing processes (writing) and coordinating activities with management staff (reading, listening, writing and speaking). Given the prior sets of employee responsibilities, the Language Needs Analysis may include the following: Frequency of Language Use In each of the following work situations, select the number that best describes the amount of English you are required to use in that situation. Select 0 if you never have to use English and 5 if you are required to use it all of the time. Keeping up to date with safety manufacturing standards Never 0 – 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 Always Creating specifications for manufacturing processes Never 0 – 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 Always Coordinating activities with management staff Never 0 – 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 Always Assuming that the answers to the prior areas of language use are in the affirmative ranges, the next task is to design an Initial Level Test that includes questions regarding vocabulary and grammatical structures revealed by the Language Needs Assessment. I administer the Initial Level Test at the beginning of the course to establish a baseline that evaluates where students are in terms of their proficiency in the English language. At the end of the course, the same level test is administered once again as End Level Test. Measuring student skills before and after the course with the same level test serves to show my clients the improvements that were made from taking the Business English course. It is also important to mention that the more homogenous the employee job descriptions are, the easier it is to find commonalities between the Language Needs Assessment and the Level Test. The more heterogeneous the employee descriptions are, the more challenging it is to find the common ground between the Language Needs Assessment and the Level Test. If the job descriptions have wide variations, and the creation of separate Language Needs Assessments and Level Test for each of the different types of job descriptions is not feasible, then a possible solution is to find generic Business English vocabulary and grammatical structures that can apply to most, if not all, of the job descriptions that are used within the course design process. Summative Task Assignment Title: Why Are Level Tests and Language Needs Assessments Important to the Design of Business English Courses? This essay relates to my experience with the designing of Business English courses. At the beginning of the course design process for my Business English clients, I always ask myself the question, “What am I going to teach?” Although the answer to this question may appear to be simple to some Business English teachers who teach using a text book, for others, the answer to this question may be perplexing. The needs of some Business English clients often require complex sets of communicative competencies that go beyond those addressed within some of the Business English textbooks on the market. In these cases, Business English teachers may be required to come up with their own course design. I find that the careful creation of a Language Needs Assessment and Initial Level Test is a vital step to take when designing a Business English course. Failing to carefully choose the contents in order to provide opportunities to assess company needs or evaluate student levels within these instruments can be a precarious omission in the course design process. I view the Language Needs Assessment as the instrument that reveals what to teach based on company needs (vocabulary and grammar), as well as where the student’s competencies should be upon completing the course. The Level Tests are useful instruments to evaluate where students are in terms of their proficiency in the English language. I believe that, ideally, both Language Needs Assessments and Level Tests should complement each other in some form. An important task for the teacher to fulfill is to then find the commonalities between the contents of the Needs Assessment and the Level Tests. I use Content Analysis to carefully examine the contents of the job descriptions of the employees I will be teaching and to establish commonalities. I usually obtain the job descriptions from the Human Resources Department of the client for whom I am working at the time. Within those job descriptions, I often find explicit or implicit information relating to the particular jargon and communicative skill needs appropriate for those students. For example, if the job description provided by my client is for a group of industrial engineers, it may include responsibilities such as keeping up to date with safety manufacturing standards (reading), creating specifications for manufacturing processes (writing) and coordinating activities with management staff (reading, listening, writing and speaking). Given the prior sets of employee responsibilities, the Language Needs Analysis may include the following: Frequency of Language Use In each of the following work situations, select the number that best describes the amount of English you are required to use in that situation. Select 0 if you never have to use English and 5 if you are required to use it all of the time. Keeping up to date with safety manufacturing standards Never 0 – 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 Always Creating specifications for manufacturing processes Never 0 – 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 Always Coordinating activities with management staff Never 0 – 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 Always Assuming that the answers to the prior areas of language use are in the affirmative ranges, the next task is to design an Initial Level Test that includes questions regarding vocabulary and grammatical structures revealed by the Language Needs Assessment. I administer the Initial Level Test at the beginning of the course to establish a baseline that evaluates where students are in terms of their proficiency in the English language. At the end of the course, the same level test is administered once again as End Level Test. Measuring student skills before and after the course with the same level test serves to show my clients the improvements that were made from taking the Business English course. It is also important to mention that the more homogenous the employee job descriptions are, the easier it is to find commonalities between the Language Needs Assessment and the Level Test. The more heterogeneous the employee descriptions are, the more challenging it is to find the common ground between the Language Needs Assessment and the Level Test. If the job descriptions have wide variations, and the creation of separate Language Needs Assessments and Level Test for each of the different types of job descriptions is not feasible, then a possible solution is to find generic Business English vocabulary and grammatical structures that can apply to most, if not all, of the job descriptions that are used within the course design process.


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