TEFL Practicum Course - Workshop 2

Teaching Professional English: Theory, design and approach

Mr Michael Robbs (Friday 12-3, Hellenic American Union)

In this practical and interactive workshop, students will examine the growing field of ESP(English for Special Purposes). They will learn how to design a professional ESP proposal and how to teach such a course. Participants will be expected to cooperate in groups and get involved in the workshop.

1. I can take into account the cognitive needs of learners (problem solving, drive for communication, acquiring knowledge etc.).

At the beginning of the teaching professional English course, I learnt that creating a student profile is really important for the teaching process. In order to understand what the needs of my students are, I can prepare a questionnaire and learn about what the students already know and what they still want to learn. I can also study their CV and find out how exactly they have used their English skills in the past. After I do that, I write down all of their needs, including both language and business skills to be taught. Eventually, I design my course syllabus so that each individual lesson can meet the needs of every student. At the end of the lessons, all of my learners’ needs that are in accordance with the specific course aims will have been covered.

2. I can plan specific learning objectives for individual lessons and/or for a period of teaching.

During the course, I gained the specific knowledge to discover what my students’ expectations and goals are for this course through questionnaires or interviews. After I have collected all of this information, I can state the learning objectives of my students before starting lessons with them. I create my syllabus and lesson plans according to those objectives. During my lessons, or in the last lesson, my students are assessed, so that I can be aware that the objectives that I set were sensible and achievable.

3. I can structure lesson plans and/or plan for periods of teaching in a coherent and varied sequence of content.

During the ESP course, I acquired all of the relevant information on how to structure lesson plans for my students. My lesson plans consist of: stages, materials, timing, interaction, activities and rational. Stages always contain an ice breaker and a warm up, to create a nice atmosphere for the lesson. Presentation, practice and production are the main stages and are interdependent with each other. Students are first introduced to a new topic with unknown words and grammar phenomena (presentation) and then try to enhance their new skills by doing exercises (practice). After that, they produce original work that is most of the times similar to real life situations (production). Stages also include short brakes and remedial work/assessment in the end. Material used, can be extracts from course books, videos, listening activities or exercises prepared by myself. I always manage time appropriately so that I can cover whatever I think is important to be taught in every lesson, devoting most of the time to practice and production. Finally, I plan activities, interaction and of course, a rationale behind my actions in order to monitor if I use the correct exercises in each stage and whether I cover the course objectives.

4. I can design learning materials and activities appropriate for my learners.

In the business English course, I came across the creation of lesson plans, but also, the design of appropriate activities and learning materials. When I design them, I take into consideration the age of my learners, their English level and their experience. I am in favor of activities that prepare them to face real life situations, so I try to create material that is most likely to help them in business-like conditions. I was educated to create activities such as information gaps, role plays, simulations, cloze, case studies and pronunciation practice. After having received more experience, I believe that I will clearly understand which situations are more likely to happen to each different professional field and design more appropriate activities every time.

5. I can evaluate and select a range of meaningful speaking and interactional activities to develop fluency (discussion, role play, problem solving etc.).

During the course, I was shown the importance of speaking and interaction when dealing with professionals. Business people are likely to use their English in various real life situations and have to be prepared for that. This is why, I select those speaking activities that are appropriate for my learners and can develop their fluency when speaking with foreigners. Most of the times, these activities depend on situations that usually happen when business people are interacting. I can assign my students a role, pretending to be themselves or someone else, in order to create a situation that may happen in their future interactions. Finally, I can encourage them to speak and have confidence in themselves when discussing or when solving a problem by mentioning some useful techniques (body language, expressions).In the future, I want to create videos where original dialogues (created by me,  my colleagues or students) will be distributed to my learners and will promote accurate pronunciation and ideas to help them create an authentic dialogue. Thus, I want to be able to record my students’ speaking activities, because this way, they will have the possibility to evaluate themselves and their progress at home.

6. I can evaluate and select valid assessment procedures (tests, portfolios, self-assessment etc.) appropriate to learning aims and objectives.

In the course, I was introduced to formative and summative assessment as ways to evaluate and improve my learners. As far as formative assessment is concerned, I am able to provide feedback to my students at the end of each lesson, after they have produced their own piece of work. I do not intervene in their working process. I always evaluate them based on whether they have achieved the objectives of the lesson. Regarding the summative assessment, I learnt that designing an individual lesson at the end of the whole course is an effective way to check my students’ progress throughout the lessons. I assign role play and simulation activities to them in order to realize if they can carry out whatever we have said in practice. It also functions as a way to revise whatever was discussed in previous lessons. The final lesson allows me to realize whether my students achieved the objectives that were set at the beginning as well as if they can correspond to similar tasks in their jobs in the future.