Course planning

To plan a course, we need to know as much as possible about the student. Specifically, we
need to know their level, their goals, their learning preferences and expectations, and their
interests. From these, we can negotiate objectives with the student. These can be long term
(i.e. "I want to feel more comfortable when I take part in meetings") but we must have some
short term ones as well, which we can realistically achieve during the package (i.e. "I want
to be able to interrupt and disagree politely").

Needs analysis and goal setting

The best way to find out about the student's needs is by conducting a thorough needs analy-
sis. Here are some example questions from the Preply English materials:

Based on the above, you can set goals with your students. Here's a TIP: the best language
learning goals are SMART = specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound!

Do you remember Jamal from the previous unit?

Imagine that you have just had your first lesson with him and you have found out that he
needs to have meetings in Hungarian but he often struggles when he doesn't agree with
something in the meeting. He doesn't want to sound rude, but he wants to get his message
across.

Based on this, his tutor helped him set smart goals for the next 8 lessons:
I want to be able to…

1) be able to interrupt people in meetings & express when I disagree..🎯 SPECIFIC

2 learn at least 10 new expressions for this... 📏 MEASURABLE
3) and sound much more assertive... 🏆 ATTAINABLE
4) in these business meetings... 🤓 RELEVANT
5) by the end of this month… TIME-BOUND

Goals
Now that we have our SMART goal, the tutor can start to think about the activities that
would allow us to achieve these goals, as well as the language the student will need to ac-
quire to achieve these goals.

Here, we might decide that for the student to learn how to interrupt and disagree politely in
6 hours, we want to:

learn phrases to interrupt politely, learn phrases to disagree politely

practise paraphrasing (to say things like "If I understand correctly, you mean that ... . I admit
that I am not sure about this because…") and practise these phrases in simulated meetings

The plan
So, how will these be sequenced?

This is where, knowing the length of my student's classes, I can build a course plan. (Let's
say 60 minutes each, twice a week = 8 lessons),

Here is an example course plan for Jamal:

Lesson 1
Phrases to interrupt politely, with pronunciation and intonation, and practice
Lesson 2
Paraphrasing skills: strategies and practice
Lesson 3
Practice: interrupting and paraphrasing + introduce some useful vocabulary (e.g. issue, over-
come obstacles, get around a problem, etc)
Lesson 4
Review: vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar corrections from previous lessons + re-
view of useful modal verbs (e.g. I don't think we should, I think we may want to...)
Lesson 5
Politeness: listening exercise to understand the difference between language that is always
polite / impolite and language which might be either depending on the context
Lesson 6
Polite phrases to disagree, with pronunciation and intonation, and practice
Lesson 7
Practise phrases to interrupt and disagree
Lesson 8
Assessment

There is no obligation to stick to this syllabus to the letter. In fact, good teachers seldom fol-
low a lesson or course plan to the letter, as this would normally mean ignoring the emerging
needs, wants, and gaps in the learner's knowledge. After the second lesson I might notice
that the student's pronunciation of /v/ is so inaccurate that it causes confusion, or that his in-
security in terms of interrupting stems from the fact that his listening comprehension is lack-
ing. In these cases, I'd renegotiate the syllabus with the student, adding a lesson or two on
what's emerged or integrating a 20-minute listening or pronunciation practice slot in each
lesson, cutting out some of the other content. So long as I negotiate with the student and I
communicate the reasons for the changes, it will come across as professional and thoughtful,
not as scatty and disorganised.

Assessment
Assessment is important. Without proof that the goals of the first package have been
achieved, why would the student buy another one?

Here, the last lesson could be a meeting simulation where the teacher speaks too much and
the student has to interrupt and disagree politely 5 times, for example. The "meeting" could
be recorded, and teacher and student could watch it together, looking for evidence that the
goals of the package have been achieved, as well as other elements which need improving in
the next package.