I'm a UX Designer based in the Bay Area, California.
I'm a UX Designer based in the Bay Area, California.
I'm a UX Designer based in the Bay Area, California.
English Conversation Course
Intensive 2 is an intermediate conversation course I taught at a university in Daejeon, S. Korea. It's an elective course for about 30 undergraduate students that meets once a week for two hours each session.
My role
content design
curriculum design
usability testing
teaching
Limitations of the required textbook
The required textbook, Roth and Aberson's Compelling American Conversations, doesn't fully represent students' needs, goals, and interests of learning English. It also lacks practice for improving listening and pronunciation. Despite there being some great uses for this book, there are still many weaknesses that need to be addressed to successfully design the 12-week course schedule.
Weaknesses
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only includes American perspective on conversations
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limited info on improving pronunciation & intonation
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not visually appealing (very few images)
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does not cover idioms
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chapters are short and have the same outline
(students may get tired of repetition)
Adapting the textbook to better suit student needs and interests
Over 4 months, my goal was to design and teach an engaging and effective course that improved students communication skills. I needed to adapt the textbook and write a course schedule that was better suited for my students. Additionally, I needed to supplement the book with materials that were relevant and used authentic language. I wanted to create a schedule that increases in difficulty as the course progresses, but also encompasses the course learning goals.
Needs analysis & how might we's
To design a successful class, I wanted a better understanding of students' needs and expectations. Prior to the semester starting, students are either tested into the class or have already passed Intensive 1. For those enrolled, I gave a quick online survey to see what they were interested in learning, why they are taking the course, and what their learning style is like.
Example survey questions
I compared the survey results with what the required textbook offers and found that there were some gaps as well as some opportunities to bring in new materials.
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In collaboration with faculty, I brainstormed how to adapt the textbook to better align with students' learning outcomes, needs, and expectations of the course. We also looked at previous course materials and used them to replace the drawbacks with better solutions.
Making necessary changes to the syllabus
Considering the context of the course, we had to re-order and omit some of the lessons in Compelling American Conversations to make it more student-centered and goal-oriented.
Some can be broken down into smaller discussions or omitted altogether to prioritize the class goals
Great and easy topics for small talk, so these
are better for the beginning of the semester
Job interviews can be intimidating for students,
so this is a lesson they should prepare and build
their skills for
Students expressed interest in travel and culture,
so these should be earlier in the semester to
transition into jobs and interviewing
We decided to use materials from YouTube as well as TED Talk to add valuable listening exercises and discussions. These resources expose students to authentic language that explore different cultures. TED Talk makes up for the textbook's focus on American English by offering videos exploring diverse cultures and accents.
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Feedback and actionable insights
While planning, I made some slight changes to make the experience better for my students. I also spoke with other teachers informally throughout the semester to see how the lessons were going to make further improvements.
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After the semester ended, I considered students' course feedback and made adjustments once again. The detailed feedback I received was mainly about the amount of homework, fun activities, and the videos. In those cases, I included similar activities/materials in more areas of the schedule. With help from other teachers, I also wrote a more comprehensive assessment plan to ensure students would get the most out of my future classes.
Intensive 2 Course Schdule
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Rationale for syllabus details
While writing the complete course syllabus, I had to consider the language so students would understand. It also needed to reflect the right language ability of students at the intermediate level.
An image of the required textbook prevent any confusion on which
book to buy
The description and goals are
meant to give a quick overview but also get students excited about the class
The time is also written in the
typical format seen in S. Korea
Korean here helps students understand the university's policies for grading and attendance
A meaningful learning experience
The process of designing a course and schedule in a collaborative work environment is ideal in academia; however, teachers always put their individual touch to our classes. So despite my team's own beliefs on learning and teaching, we came together to create a solid, student-centered course. Time constraints and some disagreements on materials made us plan for more organized meetings in the future. Also, constant shifts in student enrollment at the beginning of the semester made it more difficult for us to do certain group or partner activities. But assessing these specific situations and making those adjustments and iterations was crucial in designing a meaningful learning experience.
Key Takeaways
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Consistently asking for feedback from both teachers and students throughout the design process can really make the overall experience better for everyone
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Defining goals for meetings, research, and design are imperative​
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I can apply similar teaching/curriculum design skills to different user-centered experiences
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Writing a syllabus and schedule for non-native English speakers made me think about the language I used. It's not only important to explain the content correctly, but also to explain it so my students find it clear, concise, and understandable.