Introductory Module

Project Documentation

 

Listening & Pronunciation Level 4, English for Academic Purposes Program

George Brown College’s School of English as a Second Language

Molly Tuttle

University of British Columbia

 

To view introductory module click here.

 

SUMMARY

1.1 Implementation plan

1.2 Timeline

1.3 Team members

 

INTRODUCTION

2.1 Organizational Context

2.2 Opportunity Statement

2.3 Target Audience

2.4 LMS Use

2.5 Learning Objectives

 

INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGY

3.1 Presentation of Content

3.2 Communication Methods

3.3 Assessment Methods

 

COURSE STRUCTURE

4.1 Course Structure

4.2 Lesson Outline

   

SUMMARY

  • Implementation Plan

Develop and implement a new fully online Listening and Pronunciation component of Level 4 EAP (English for Academic Purposes) for George Brown College’s School of ESL.

  • Timeline
April 1, 2016 Development of online Listening & Pronunciation Level 4 Course completed for review and evaluation by lead teachers, supervisors and IT professional
May 9 – June 30, 2016 Pilot version of course will be delivered for one class of students and by one teacher during this academic session
July 4- August 26, 2016 Revised course will be delivered in all Level 4 courses during this academic session
January 2017 Listening & Pronunciation component will be implemented for all EAP levels
  • Team Members
  • Instructional Designer: 18 hours a week
  • Content Expert: 18 hours a week
  • IT Professional: 4 hours a week

 

INTRODUCTION

2.1 Organizational Context

George Brown College’s School of ESL, based in Toronto, provides English for Academic Purposes courses for international students and newcomers. Each level is 8 weeks long and there are 9 levels. After completing Level 8, students can transfer directly into most programs offered at George Brown College or other colleges. Currently students in all levels have two instructors each session, a core instructor four days a week (16 hours) and a listening/pronunciation instructor one day a week (4 hours).

2.2 Opportunity Statement

George Brown College’s strategic plan for e-learning outlines the objectives of ensuring that all graduates develop the skills to work with and be able to adapt to new technologies they will face in their work environments and have experience and comfort with e-learning to promote lifelong learning. (Contact North, n.d.) Moving the listening & pronunciation component of the course online would enable students to develop more skills using technology through task-based assignments and provide more flexibility to students.

2.3 Target Audience

The audience is students enrolled in English for Academic Purposes Level 4 at George Brown College. This level corresponds to with Canadian Language Benchmark Level 4. Currently enrolment for this level is approximately 100 students and there are 5 classes. Each class has about 20 students. Half of the students are international students and half are permanent residents in Canada. About half of the students work part-time in the afternoons/evenings or on weekends. Students come from diverse backgrounds. The current age range is from 19 to 45. All current students have access to internet, mobile devices and computers at home. Students have access to free wifi at the college, and computers labs are also available for students.

2.4 LMS Use

Blackboard is the LMS used by all programs at George Brown College for blended learning and distance education courses. All students gain access to Blackboard after they have registered as a student. There is 24-hour student support for Blackboard.. There is currently no instructional support for other LMS in the college. As the EAP program’s goal is to primarily prepare students for college studies at GBC, they need to develop more familiarity using this LMS in the EAP program.

2.5 Learning Objectives

Students will be able to:

  1. Use note-taking strategies when listening to intermediate level academic lectures of up to 5 minutes in length (chronology, process, classification, comparison/contrast and cause/effect)
  2. Demonstrate understanding of listening content by completing comprehension questions
  3. Use target vocabulary words from lectures by completing vocabulary activities related to meaning and usage
  4. Identify pronunciation features including –ed/-s endings, word stress (polysyllabic and heteronyms), sentence stress (content vs. function), pausing, and intonation at the sentence and paragraph level
  5. Apply pronunciation features to unit tasks
  6. Produce audio and multimedia content individually and collaboratively using online tools

INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGY

3.1 Presentation of Content

Course content is delivered using Blackboard tools. Weekly units are presented as learning modules. Units are ordered based on their levels of difficulty. In the listening section of the unit, different rhetorical styles (ex. process and classification) of lectures are presented each week. In the pronunciation section of the unit, students master syllables and words before moving onto sentences or paragraphs.

Instructor-created video content is embedded from YouTube using Blackboard’s Mashup tool. Academic lectures are embedded as audio files. Slideshare presentations, polls, quizzes, audio files, discussion boards and Voiceboards are used for practice activities. For some end-of-unit tasks, students will use other tools, such as Prezi, to create content and upload it to the class YouTube channel (unlisted to increase privacy). Quizzes (using Blackboard’s test tool) measure listening comprehension skills and identification of pronunciation features.

3.2 Communication Methods

Instructor-to-Student Communication: The instructor will give announcements (using announcements tool) at the start of each week reminding students of unit activities, tasks, and quizzes (if applicable). Instructor will give students private feedback about their unit tasks and quizzes in the “My Grades” page. Instructor will act as moderator and participant for discussion board and Voiceboard interactions.

Student-to-Instructor Communication: Students can communicate with their instructor via email and Blackboard messaging.

Student-to-Student Communication: Students will communicate with each other via discussion board, Voiceboard, Bb messaging, emails, and also their preferred instant messaging service outside of Blackboard.

3.3. Assessment Methods

Quizzes

Students will be given 3 quizzes during this course. Each quiz will be divided into two parts. In Part 1, students will listen to an academic lecture of the same format (cause/effect, process, etc.) that they did notetaking and practice activities with in a previous unit. They will answer comprehension questions (multiple choice, ordering events, true/false, matching or short answer). Questions will be in a similar format to comprehension questions they did practice activities. In Part 2, students will identify pronunciation features in text and audio clips (sentence level and paragraph level). Each quiz will be graded out of 20 points. Quizzes will be worth 15% of the course (5% for each quiz). Students will have 30 minutes and one attempt to complete each quiz. They will receive immediate feedback about their score, but will not see the correct answers until the test is closed for all students. This option is selected to reduce the likelihood of sharing answers since the quizzes are graded.

Tasks

Students will complete seven unit tasks during this course. All tasks are productive in nature, student must use what they have learned to produce language output in authentic situations, and will evaluate require students to engage with learning technology. Four tasks will be completed individually and three will be done in pairs or groups. The each task is scored out of 20 points. For individual task, points are assigned by the instructor. For pair and group tasks, 16 points are assigned by the instructor and the remaining 4 points are determined through student self-assessment and peer-assessment. The ability to do group work is important skills for students to develop as they adapt to a new cultural environment at a Canadian college. Group work also increases the opportunity for meaningful language output during all phases of the task. Self-reflective practice was included for students to take more ownership of their learning and familiarize students with this type of assessment. An assessment rubric will be presented to students along with the instructions for each unit task.

  • Introductory Unit Task: Students will introduce themselves through a one-minute recording on VoiceBoard. One goal is to build a sense of community in the class, which is essential in a language class in which learning occur when students communicate with one another using the target language. Another goal of this introductory task is to familiarize the students with voice recording technology used in the course for discussion activities. Evaluation will be based on addressing the topics listed in the instructions.
  • Unit 1 Task: Students will interview their partner about their life from their decision to move to Canada until now. They will then record themselves retelling their partner’s story to the class using a recording tool while applying the pronunciation skills they have acquired in the unit. For instance, when retelling the story, they will have to use the correct “ed” sounds when talking about past actions. Using a recording technology enables learners to self-monitor and correct their pronunciation by applying the skills they have learned. Evaluation will be based on their use of unit pronunciation features (-ed and -s endings) and use of chronological organization.
  • Unit 2 Task: Students will work in small groups to complete compare/contrast Prezi presentations. They will have several topics to choose from, i.e., comparing Toronto to Vancouver. In terms of improving their digital skills, they will learn how to add voiceover to a presentation and upload it to the class YouTube channel using the unlisted video option in order to protect privacy. Evaluation will be based on use of compare/contrast organization and word stress, and previous pronunciation features. The technology will enable students to experience presenting multi-media content, as opposed to the audio-only limitations of Voiceboard.
  • Unit 3 Task: Students will watch YouTube videos that provide instructions. Using these videos as models, they will create and record an instructional video, i.e., a recipe, upload it to the class YouTube channel. The use of this helps to bridge classroom learning to authentic out-of-class learning. Students acquire not only the skills to learn from authentic materials from the Internet, but also contribute to back to the source. In this process, they will apply the process organization skills and pronunciation skills they have acquired in the unit. The evaluation will focus on these skills.
  • Unit 4 Task: Students will do a 3-4 minute Voiceboard recording about a Canadian news story of interest to them. Through this task, they will learn how to access news from authentic online sources and become more engaged in local events and issues. They will also practice relating information to others initiating a discussion about their chosen topic. They will be evaluated on organization of content and their use of sentence stress.
  • Unit 5 Task: Students will complete a brief online Myer’s-Briggs-style personality test. They will see how they have been classified based on their results. They will share their results using Voiceboard, and reflect upon whether or not they feel this accurately portrays them. They will be evaluated on their use of classification organization and pausing and thought groups.
  • Unit 6 Task: Students will work in small groups to create a cause/effect VideoScribe presentation. This technology was chosen because it enables voice recording, the ability to quickly create content and allows for substantial creativity. Student collaboration will increase meaningful language input and output. They will upload their videos to YouTube. Evaluation will be based on cause/effect organization and intonation.

COURSE STRUCTURE

4.1 Course Structure: There is an introductory unit and six content units. Each unit is one week in length and consists of practice activities and an end-of-unit task. There are also three quizzes after Unit 2, Unit 4 and Unit 6.

4.2 Lesson Outline: Each weekly unit is structured in the following way.

Part 1: Listening

  1. Introduction to lecture topic (video or slideshare) followed by 3 question quiz or poll to increase interaction
  2. Vocabulary – 3 sections: 1) Explanation (meaning and usage and pronunciation of target words), 2) Controlled practice for meaning (matching, classifying) and controlled practice for usage (gap-fill, T/F, multiple choice), 3) Freer practice activity (ex. student uses words to create own sentences or to write a short passage or in an audio file).
  3. Introduction to format of lecture and explanation of notetaking strategy (video file)
  4. Listen to lecture and take notes (lecture is repeated 2x)
  5. Comprehension check questions (embedded quiz with audio file (multiple choice, T/F, ordering, classifying, etc.). Students get feedback immediately and can see correct answers
  6. After completing the quiz, student can view a video of their teacher explaining a sample set of notes and giving students tips for improving their notes. Students also will have access to a PDF of the sample notes.
  7. Students are given the option of sending a picture of their notes to their teacher for personalized feedback
  8. Use Voiceboard tool to talk about discussion questions related to the listening

Part 2: Pronunciation

  1. Discover – students try to guess the rules about the pronunciation feature (matching, T/F or categorizing activity)
  2. Explanation – video presentation
  3. Controlled Practice activities (drilling, classifying sounds, identifying stress, chunking thought groups, etc.)
  4. Listening – students listen to model paragraph with target pronunciation feature (audio and text)
  5. Production – submit brief student-made recording on Voiceboard tool using the target feature (based on model)

 

References

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Contact North (n.d.) Preparing Students for the Future – A Strategic plan for e-learning at George Brown College. Retrieved on February 23, 2016 from http://teachonline.ca/sites/default/files/pdf/innovation-practices/preparing_students_for_the_future_-_george_brown_-_final.pdf

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Workshop by D. Langley (2013), Office of Teaching, Learning & Technology, U of Minnesota. Syllabus Goals vs. Objectives (PDF), Taxonomy of educational objectives (PDF)

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