Curriculum analysis and syllabus design

Project for Syllabus Change to Foster Productive Skills

Throughout the time I have been working for Escuela de Inglés Bristol, I have noticed that students lack productive skills fluency. That is to say, their oral and written skills are really below the level they are supposed to be. That is why I decided on trying to change the curriculum of syllabus in order to tackle this specific problemThe case of speaking
Every now and then I run into students from different levels -mainly intermediate and up- and try to start a conversation or get it going, they just cannot get themselves to produce a full correct sentence they just limit themselves to single words, nodding or just the usual phrases such as “I’m fine thank you!” So I thought that immediate action needed to be taken.The case of writing
Each time I get a new group I have notice that when they are asked to write something they just take ages and their production is fairly low or inexistent. That meant that the school’s syllabus does not focus too much on developing the writing skill. Personally, I think that writing helps consolidating language structure and organizing thoughts and ideas so I consider thisanother area for curriculum development and syllabus design.

Needs analysis

Now that the focus of the project is settled, the first thing to do is to conduct a Needs Analysis in order to have the necessary information as a starting point for future changes.

I have been thinking in conducting needs analysis at the institute I work for, to students who have already finished their first level,in order to find out if students needs are being or have been addressed/ met during their course.

Target group: Elementary students who are about or have already finished their first level.
Students who need English for Academic purposes such as postgraduate studies, scholarships, exchanges-
Students who want to learn English for pleasure.
Ages: mainly teenagers, young adults and adults.Occupation: Students, teachers, office workers, businessmen/women and housewives.

Users: Juan Pablo Alcaraz and Academic staff at the school.
Instruments: meetings and questionnaires.
Objective: Knowing if modification of the program is necessary. Or to check which aspects should be modified.
Needs analysis: to verify if students’ productive skills are being developed as they should and ifmeasures for dealing with time issues and lesson delivery should be carried on so as to meet their needs.

Sample Questionnaire

1.- Why did you decide to study English?
2.- What were your expectations of the course?
3.- Were your expectations met?
4.- Are you satisfied with the results?
5.- Do you feel that you have had enough listening practice?
6.- How do you feel about your oralperformance?
7.- Is there enough time for oral practice in class?
8- What about writing practice?
9.- Do you struggle when you need to carry out a writing task?
10.- Did you have enough reading practice?
11.- Do you feel there is enough room for practicing the structure?
12.- Do you think you got enough pronunciation practice?
13.- can you produce simple sentences in English without hesitation?14.- Do you think teachers move too fast/slow from topic to topic?
15.- Do you think there is enough time for assimilating the concepts?

This questionnaire was administered to 12 students and to make they all coincided that they needed more oral practice. Written skills did not seem to be a problem for some of them but it still needed attention.

Goals and objectives

In order totransform the curriculum and syllabus it is crucial to set goals and objectives that correspond to our student’s needs. We will give an example of how these need to be settled.

Goals

We are going to set the goals according to the three types of goals that exist which are: situational-centered, functional and structural.

Example:

Situational- centered goal: “The student will be able to find...