Develop the main components of a course design plan for your target population.

It should include a syllabus outline based on your selected

students’ outcome goals, the duration of the program, length of lessons, class size, placement considerations, number of instructors
and so on. Another component of this assignment is for you to research current foreign language methodologies that are appropriate for
the needs of your target population.

By Snea Thinsan

Course Title: A Remedial Course on Academic Reading for First-year Graduate International Students (School of Education, Indiana
University)

Rationale:

While reading is claimed by many researchers as a key skill for academic success in the graduate study, few or no efforts by the U.S.
universities have been dedicated to identifying the weaknesses, problems, and causes related to academic reading skills and to providing help
via necessary remedies for graduate students who have just come to the U.S. for their first experience with education in which English is the
language of instruction, unless they have been admitted with a condition that they must take some extra English classes.  While many students
do well in adjusting to the academic demand in the U.S., a substantial number of new comers who are not assigned to any English program
prior their program of study find it challenging to adjust to the amount of reading and the academic demand in terms of depth and sophistication
of content they read.

These students, despite having taken the TOEFL test with at least a minimum required score, find the actual academic reading more
demanding than the TOEFL test.  They have often expressed the following complaints: they read too slowly and rarely finish all the required
readings before classes; there are too many difficult words; the sentence structures are complicated; there are types of texts they seldom read
before in English; and they do not really understand what they have read, and so they struggle in the seminar discussions as well as in writing
their first assignments.
 

These students, however, are not totally inexperienced with the academic work, because most of them have learned up to the master's level
from their home countries.  Therefore, the course is expected to be a review and tactic-training as well as refinement sort.  Meanwhile, the texts
in English may seem new to these students.  Because they are concurrently experiencing the imminent need to read for their classes during the
first year of their graduate work, the design of this course will be developed around the text types and even the authentic texts they are using. 
The tasks involved in reading (before, during and especially after) that actually are required in their courses have been built into this design,
making it more like a content-based instruction (CBI) approach (Richards & Rodgers, 2001).

The following describe the nature of content-based instruction that fit this course design:

First, CBI sees language as text or discourse, as Richard and Rodger (2001) state:

CBI addresses the role of language as a vehicle for learning content. This implies that the centrality of linguistic entities longer than single
sentences, because the focus of teaching is how meaning and information are communicated and constructed through texts and discourse. The
linguistic units that are central are not limited to the level of sentences and subsentenial units (clauses and phrases), but are those that account
for how longer stretches of language are used and the linguistic features that create coherence and cohesion within speech events and text
types." (208)
On this token, this course design marries well with the description in that it has focused on helping the students decode the messages in the
authentic texts selected from the pool of texts the target students are actually using.  The treatment of language points varies from the word,
phrase, sentence to discourse levels. Of course, the actual goal of this course does not truely the content as in a course like English for Nursing
offered to Nursing students or as in language art classes, but the course does intend to encourage the students to actually encode the content
in the selected texts in order to perform the common tasks that they would also perform in their credit courses.
 
Also, CBI stipulates that language use should draw on integrated skills; that is, it views language use as involving several skills together. The
design of this reading course, therefore, involves tasks that the students have to do with other skills, especially speaking and writing.
 
And since the content-based instruction approach suggests that language is purposeful.  The design gears toward classroom activities in which
the students are prepared to read with clear purposes and undertake tasks that would normally accompany or proceed the actual academic
reading for their credit courses.
 
In light of theory of learning, this course also follows what Richards and Rodgers (2001) summarize.  
They state that "people learn a second language most successfully when the information they are acquiring is perceived as interesting, useful
and leading to a desired goal" (209). It is planned that this course design gears every detail toward the actual language use that should increase
the students' motivation and useful learning.  Richards and Rodgers also emphasize that "students learn best when the instruction addresses
the students' needs (210), and that "teaching builds on the previous experience of the learners (211). The latter is reflected in this design in that
the learners' needs have been identified and the course seeks to enrich their experiences by giving the tasks to do that remind them of what
they have probably learned but not yet mastered, and then enrich or refine them as appropriate or needed.
 
Essentially this course is not designed to be too formally structured, but structured enough so that the students and the instructor(s) have some
ground on which to start.  Some flexibility is built in to allow the students to reflect on what they are doing in the actual classes and for the
instructors to tailor or adjust the details of the lessons to suit the emerging issues within the planned themes. As can be seen in the syllabus
outline, the content for the two days within each week in the later weeks (i.e. from week 6 onward) is not divided for the instructors.  Time for a
test, feedback and review also has been inserted in Weeks 5 and 6 to allow for more serious formative evaluation, feedback, and review to take
place.  It is hoped that this will benefit the students more than simply running through a list of themes weekly without encouraging them to make
a connection or take reflective actions.
 
If we run through the parameter for course design suggested by Dudley-Evans and St. John (1998), we can see that this course is an extensive,
non-assessed type in which students are with immediate needs and the teachers act as a coach or consultant, rather than a strict provider of
knowledge.  Also, the objectives or students' performance goals do not go as far as stating criteria for the success (i.e. how many percent). 
 
Finally, as an EAP class for virtually heterogeneous group, this course has pretty narrow focus, although the texts cannot be fully specific in only
one specific sub-field of study, e.g. math education, or psychology.
 
 

Placement considerations:

This class is intended for first-year graduate international students at the School of Education, Indiana University, who received low  TOEFL
and/or GRE scores, especially in the Reading Comprehension or verbal sections, and who feel that they cannot cope well or benefit enough
from their reading while undertaking their master’s or doctoral courses.

 Although this course is targeted at incoming or first-year graduate international students, students in other years who feel strongly that they
need help can also apply.  

Personal information including English learning history, English proficiency records, and pre-test scores will be kept for the instructor’s
information and for comparison with the post-test results.
 

Duration of the course:

This is a 40-hour, extensive course, non-credit, non-assessed course to be run for 10 weeks, starting at week 3 and ending in Week 12 of each
semester.  The students will meet twice a week, two hours each, in the evenings. The second meeting of the week is expected to be devoted
for hands-on, authentic tasks following the introduction to the tips and analysis of common features on the first day.

Class size and instructors:  An ideal class size would be 12 students, one main instructor, who facilitates the lessons, and two experienced
graduate students as assistants, who assist during class activities. The main instructor could be one person throughout the course or one with
some experts invited for certain themes.  Since this is going to be a free class with volunteer instructor(s), the reality would make it difficult to fix
that there must be one teacher, although that would be ideal because the whole course is expected to develop with the idea that connection,
review, and integration of ideas, skills or principles can be implemented as the class progresses.

Outcome goals:

The students, at the end of the course, will be able to:

 Read with increased speed and with more accurate comprehension;

 Be able to identify the grammatical structures that underlie meanings of the texts both at sentence and discourse levels;
 Be able to identify non-linguistic features that help them understand academic texts of various types better, e.g. graphics, illustrations,
and special features of different genres or text types required for them to read;
 Be able to perform tasks associated with their reading, e.g. note-taking, summarizing, preparing points for class discussions, annotate
articles, write an abstract, write a literature review,  and so on;

(Note: See more specific objectives in the Syllabus Outline.)

  

Syllabus Outline:
Part I:

Time Themes Objectives Language Points Vocabulary Tasks Evaluation

SWBAT: associated with Plans
reading
Week I -speed reading - identify factors - simple, compound Based on texts - discuss main - Q/A
Day 1 & related to reading and complex (selected from the points of the - Reading
comprehension speed sentences actual texts currently articles read exercises
- break phrases - phrases used by the target
within sentences students)
appropriately and
move eyes
accordingly
Week I - read given texts Same as above Same as in Day 1 - Classroom - observing
Day 2 within designated discussion students’
time and respond to responses
questions about them to questions
correctly after their
reading
Week II Dealing with - guess meanings of - Context clues Based on texts - summarizing - checking
Day 1 difficult words difficult words from (synonym, (selected from the given students’
contexts antonym, modifying actual texts currently paragraphs summaries
- identify which word clause, used by the target - paraphrasing and/or
to skip and which to paraphrased clues, students) given paraphrased
look up etc.) paragraphs paragraph
 
Week II - tell correctly what Above and Based on texts - note-taking (to  
Day 2 certain pronouns or - References (selected from the include the
phrases refer to actual texts currently who, what,  
- identify correctly used by the target when, where,
techniques for students) why and the  
learning words from main outline of
the UWL (University given texts)
 Word List) on their
own  
Week Dealing with - identify the three - simple, compound Based on texts - Annotating the
III difficult types of sentences and complex (selected from the given - checking
Day 1 sentence correctly (at least sentences (review actual texts currently paragraph or students
structures and 90%) and expansion) used by the target groups of notes and
concepts - identify the basic students) paragraphs observing
elements of difficult the Q/A
sentences correctly participation
(e.g. Subject, Verb,
Adverbs, and
modifying phrases or
clauses) (at least
90%)
Week III - identify the common - Topic sentence/ Based on texts - Annotating the - checking
Day 2 anatomy of selected Thesis statement/ (selected from the given the
paragraphs from  Main idea/ actual texts currently paragraph or annotations
academic texts Supportive ideas used by the target groups of
correctly at least 90% students) paragraphs
Week Reading - identify features that - Non-linguistic Based on texts - Note-taking - checking
IV textbooks can help enhance features that enrich (selected from the the notes
Day 1 their comprehension the meaning of actual texts currently
(e.g. table of content, written texts used by the target
title and subtitles, - Common students)
graphics and characteristic of
illustrations academic
- take notes of the textbooks
main ideas and
supportive details of
a given paragraph
Week IV - identify thesis - Topic sentence/ Based on texts - Leading a - Observing
Day 2 statement, topic Thesis statement/ (selected from the discussion on the
sentences, Main idea/ actual texts currently the given discussion
supportive details of Supportive ideas used by the target chapter led by
given paragraphs - Transitional words students) selected
or phrases students
 - summarize the
given chapters from
books correctly

- identify signaling
words/phrases,
including transitions.
- prepare questions
for class discussion
of the given
chapter(s) that
capture the major
points of the text

 
Week V Checking the - Testing (on the content covered so far)
Day 1 progress &
Week V Feedback - Discussion of answers to the tests
Day 2 - Instructors elicit input from the students about their immediate needs and plan for Week VI’s
sessions.

 
Time Themes Objectives Language Points Vocabulary Associated Tasks Evaluation
SWBAT: or Functions Plans
Week Review and Open for students to bring problems they may have about the courses they are taking.
VI Troubleshooting (Planned according to the requests collected in Week V)
Part II
Week Reading theory- - identify the common - Passive voice - UWL in the - mapping relevant -
VII oriented articles anatomy of theoretically chosen texts theoretical Checking  
argumentative articles - Compare and arguments and students’
contrast their relationships products
- identify or differentiate with the author’s
the author’s positions and   position
others cited in the article - Writing literature
- Review review on their
- write abstract for the literature selected topic
given articles that captures based on the pre-
the authors’ arguments - Citing sources selected articles
correctly. (APA) (two) on the topic.
- Write an abstract
- write literature review
citing the relevant literature (Note: These
appropriately could be placed
in the “Associated
Tasks column)
Week Reading - identify the common - Any language - UWL in the - Writing annotated -
VIII qualitative characteristics and features that the chosen texts bibliography Checking
research anatomy of qualitative students identify students’
  articles research articles as problematic. - Writing a literature products.
- Language used review
- Write an annotated to paraphrase,
bibliography of their report, and cite - Write an abstract
selected articles (from their others work (e.g.
fields) that contain all the X argue that…..;
crucial elements. whereas Y
maintain that…,
- Write an abstract for a etc.)
given research article.
Week Reading - identify the common - Language used - UWL in the    
IX quantitative characteristics and to paraphrase, chosen texts
research anatomy of quantitative report, and cite
articles research articles others work (e.g.
- Write an annotated X argue that…..;
bibliography of their whereas Y
selected articles (from their maintain that…,
fields) that contain all the etc.)
crucial elements.
References:

Dudley-Evans, T., and St. John, M. J.  (1998).  Developments in English for specific purposes:  A multi-disciplinary approach.
          Cambridge, England:  Cambridge University Press.

Richards, J. C. and Rodgers, T. S. (2001). Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. New York: CUP