Teaching Writing - Week 5 - Syllabus Design and Lesson Planning

Introduction: Hello and welcome to Week 5 of the course Teaching Writing for the Bachelor's in English Teaching at ULACIT in term IIC 2023. In this class we will talk about the importance of considering students needs and contextual factors when planning the learning experiences of a writing course. This will provide a good introduction to your Needs and Context Analysis project. We will also take time to review your fourth creation and preview the task for creation number five.

Today's Goals:

• Review your fourth writing activity creation.
• Explore individual and contextual factors that affect writing instruction.
• Contrast journaling with other writing techniques.

Guiding Questions:

• How can we help student connect their ideas in extended texts?
• How can we discover students needs in a writing course?
• How can micro-journaling provide options for student writing development.

Task 1: Activity Type Demo - Narrative Frames Activity

Nearly every week of this course you will submit a unit writing activity creation in order to build a portfolio of writing activity types. 

• Characteristics: What are the features of narrative frames tasks?
• Example: What activity did you create?
• Strengths: In what ways are narrative frames tasks potentially beneficial?
• Challenges: What potential limitations or challenges are associated with them?

• Additional Considerations: CLICK HERE

Task 2: Reading Exploration - Syllabus Design and Lesson Planning

Let's discuss the following questions regarding the assigned reading for this week, "Syllabus Design and Lesson Planning".

• First Things First: What is a syllabus? What is its purpose and what elements should it contain?

• Design Factors: Hyland says that a syllabus is influenced by these three factors.
• "It shouild begin with the needs of the _____ and incorporate these."
• "It should take account of wider curricular goals, both within and outside of language teaching."
• It will reflect the _____'s philosophy of writing, including a view of language and learning."

• Quote: Hyland goes on to summarize the process of creating a writing syllabus.

• "...learning to write needs to be seen in the context in which it occurs, so that what we know about writing and learning are linked to the particular students and environment we are going to face. This process starts with a fact-finding stage to discover the current proficiencies and wants of the students and the constraints of the learning situation in terms of time, resources, and so on. It then identifies, as far as possible, the competencies and tasks that will be required of students in target contexts. The teacher then uses this information to decide on course objectives and writes the syllabus so that they can be achieved (p. 55-56)."

• Your Task: Your research project in this course involves the first three steps in syllabus design. You won't actually develop a syllabus. However, you will take into consideration student needs and contextual factors to develop a series of recommendations to help a particular group of students improve their writing ability. Here are those steps:

• "Consideration of the students (personal goals, proficiency levels, interests, etc.)
• Consideration of the learning context (duration, resources, relationships to other courses
• Consideration of the target context (future roles of learners and the texts and tasks they need)"

• Present vs Target Analysis: One of the ways to think about student needs is to analyze their present situation and contrast it with their target situation. What do you understand that to mean? 

• Let's Look at this Together: CLICK HERE

• Data Collection: Hyland mentioned a number of data collection techniques. How might you gather information about students' present and target situation? In order to gain a better picture about the situations, it is important to triangulate your approaches to data collection. What does triangulation mean?

• Let's See some More: CLICK HERE

• Exploring the Context: Read this quote from Hyland about the importants of analyzing the context in addition to the needs of the learners. 

• “In addition to learner issues, teachers need to ensure that their writing syllabi will operate successfully in the local context, acknowledging the opportunities and constraints presented by the situation in which the course will run. By analogy with needs analysis, this is sometimes referred to as means analysis and involves consideration of the teachers, methods, available resources, facilities, and the relationship of the writing course to its immediate environment (p. 64).”

• Work in Progress: Let's finish by considering a final quote from Hyland. 

• “We should also note that needs analysis is not a ‘done-once-then-forgotten activity.’ Behind every successful writing course there is a continuous process of questioning and revision to check the original results, evaluate the effectiveness of the course, and revise objectives (p. 67).”

• Your Course Project: CLICK HERE

Task 3: Micro-Journaling

Let's finish today's class by previewing your creation assignment for this week.

• Assignment Guidelines: CLICK HERE

References: 

Hyland, K. (2003). Second Language Writing. Cambridge University Press.