Before coming to this program I had difficulty designing the curriculum for the classes I was teaching. I based many class sessions on my intuition. My first curriculum design experience was in 2016 when I joined the American Center, U.S. Embassy Moscow where I developed youth programs such as Children’s Club and annual summer children’s camp. The only thing I was mostly sure about was developing a syllabus. Writing a course goal and student learning outcomes was a difficult task to do. I remember that one day, the American Center director sent us an email that the program outcomes we were writing should use a specific set of verbs, and it would take me a lot of time to develop the outcomes that would follow the new rules. Later in 2021, I was awarded a scholarship by the U.S. Department of State to participate in the Camp Fundamentals for Youth Recreation in English (CampFYRE) course administered by the American English Institute at the University of Oregon and led by Lara Ravitch, where I learned about ABCD student learning outcomes, Bloom’s Taxonomy (Bloom et al., 1956), needs analysis, and classroom assessment techniques. My participation in the course made me want to learn more about curriculum design, seek more training, and eventually pursue a master’s degree in Language Teaching Studies here at the University of Oregon. I am glad that I was able to expand my theoretical and practical knowledge of curriculum development and become more confident and aware of the choices I make when I design tasks and courses.
Scope & Sequence Chart (1).pdfFor my LT 548 Curriculum & Materials Development class, I worked on developing the NavigateUSA “integration” ESL course that is aimed at adult refugees, asylees, asylum seekers, and parolees from post-Soviet countries residing in the United States. This is the context I am interested in both professionally and personally and I was glad I could develop a course from scratch while paying attention to important elements of curriculum design. I was able to develop a needs analysis, course goal and student learning outcomes (SLOs), scope & sequence chart, syllabus, conceptual map, and lesson plans that included elements of instruction differentiation. I am particularly proud of the scope & sequence chart that I have developed for the course, which can serve as a “manual” for other instructors who teach community ESL programs to immigrant populations, especially displaced persons. Since this is a community program, it has many constraints such as physical space for learning, budgeting, and motivation. Macalister and Nation (2019) recommended conducting a thorough needs analysis that will focus on students’ needs, wants, and lacks. I would also add that being aware of the context is key to building a curriculum, especially for displaced persons, who may have experienced trauma and sudden changes as displaced persons frequently have to leave their countries on short notice (Chiswick & Miller, 2001).
For my LT 539 Design for Learning Language Pronunciation class, I continued my work on developing the NavigateUSA “integration” ESL course that I started in LT 548 Curriculum & Materials Development. In this class, I developed a resources collection project for instructors in a similar context as a guide to help them navigate pronunciation. Pronunciation is an aspect of a language that is often overlooked, seen as not important, or where instructors lack knowledge, training, and experience (Celce Murcia et al., 2010; Derwing & Munro, 2015). I wanted to design a collection project that could be used as a guiding reference on how to teach North American English pronunciation to displaced persons in the United States as it is also something that regular community ESL programs do not focus much on. I see pronunciation as an important aspect of language learning where the learner needs to develop knowledge of both segmental and suprasegmental features. While developing a project, I also focused on creating lesson plans that instructors can use in their classes. The lesson plans were developed while keeping in mind the principles of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), especially Celce-Murcia’s (2010) Communicative Framework for Teaching Pronunciation that consists of the following five steps: (1) description & analysis, (2) listening discrimination, (3) controlled practice, (4) guided practice, and (5) communicative practice.
LT 539 RCP A Kotov (1).pdfIn LT 536 Design for Learning Language Systems class, for my final project, I focused on Service Learning as it is an important element for raising integrative motivation among learners, especially learners who are displaced persons. Furco (1996) wrote that the purpose of service learning is to “increase students’ civic engagement and sense of social responsibility, whereas structure involves integrating a project or experience within a course.” Service learning can serve as a useful tool to understand a new culture and language while also sharing students’ own culture with others. Service learning can take various forms, for example, volunteering, facilitating a conversation club session, or even producing materials in own language for others or translations. Learners benefit from participating in service learning as they not only communicate in the target language but also build pragmatics awareness and meaningful relationships with community members, which fosters learning and decreases affective filter (Krashen, 1985). Service learning as part of experiential learning is also critical in terms of language acquisition in the first two-year period of arrival in the new country (Stevens, 1999).
Because I am embarking on the journey of teaching Russian, in my LT 536 Design for Learning Language Systems class, I decided to create a lesson plan for first-year students of Russian at the college level. I started designing the lesson plan by exploring the syllabus and curriculum of Russian classes at the University of Oregon. As a first step, I made sure to outline a course goal and student learning outcomes (SLOs) and include information about the context. As this lesson plan is aimed to be used in real-world situations I also created a needs analysis survey that can be adapted by instructors if needed. The communicative language teaching (CLT) approach is used throughout the lesson and students participate in controlled practice activities such as fluency circles (Celce-Murcia et al., 2010). Students are also using schemata by identifying Cyrillic alphabet letters by comparing them to Roman letters that look alike and Greek letters that many students have seen in Greek organizations on campus.
LP 3 RUSS 101 (2).pdfReferences
Bloom, B. S., Engelhart, M. D., Furst, E. J., Hill, W. H., & Krathwohl, D. R. (1956). Handbook I: cognitive domain. New York: David McKay, 483-498.
Celce-Murcia, M., Brinton, D., Goodwin, J. M., & Griner, B. (2010). Teaching pronunciation: a course book and reference guide (Second edition.). Cambridge University Press.
Chiswick, B. R., and P. W. Miller. 2001. “A Model of Destination-Language Acquisition: Application to Male Immigrants in Canada.” Demography, 38 (3): 391–409. doi:10.2307/3088354
Derwing, T. M., & Munro, M. J. (2015). Pronunciation fundamentals: Evidence-based perspectives for L2 teaching and research. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Krashen, S. D. (1985). Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. University of Southern California (pp. 30-31).
Macalister, J., & Nation, I. P. (2019). Language curriculum design. Routledge.
Stevens, G. 1999. “Age at Immigration and Second Language Proficiency among Foreign-Born Adults.” Language in Society, 28 (04): 555–578. doi:10.1017/S0047404599004030.