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Designing Language Courses: A Guide for Teachers is a clear and comprehensive overview of course design. This text provides a practical guide to designing language courses by encouraging teachers to explore ways of planning and organizing content, and evaluating materials.
Practical and accessible, this book comprehensively covers everything you need to know to design, develop, and deliver successful online, blended, and flipped language courses. Grounded in the principles of instructional design and communicative language teaching, this book serves as a compendium of best practices, research, and strategies for creating learner-centered online language instruction that builds students’ proficiency within meaningful cultural contexts. This book addresses important topics such as finding and optimizing online resources and materials, learner engagement, teacher and student satisfaction and connectedness, professional development, and online language assessment. Teaching Language Online features: A step-by-step guide aligned with the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) for Languages: Learning, Teaching and Assessment, and the World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment (WIDA) standards Research-based best practices and tools to implement effective communicative language teaching (CLT) online Strategies and practices that apply equally to world languages and ESL/EFL contexts Key takeaway summaries, discussion questions, and suggestions for further reading in every chapter Free, downloadable eResources with further readings and more materials available at www.routledge.com/ 9781138387003 As the demand for language courses in online or blended formats grows, K-16 instructors urgently need resources to effectively transition their teaching online. Designed to help world language instructors, professors, and K-12 language educators regardless of their level of experience with online learning, this book walks through the steps to move from the traditional classroom format to effective, successful online teaching environments.
Crystal-clear and comprehensive yet concise, this text describes the steps involved in the curriculum design process, elaborates and justifies these steps, and provides opportunities for practicing and applying them. The description of the steps is done at a general level so that they can be applied in a wide range of particular circumstances. The process comes to life through plentiful examples of actual applications of the steps. Each chapter includes: examples from the authors’ experience and from published research tasks that encourage readers to relate the steps to their own experience case studies and suggestions for further reading that put readers in touch with others’ experience Curriculum, or course, design is largely a 'how-to-do-it' activity that involves the integration of knowledge from many of the areas in the field of Applied Linguistics, such as language acquisition research, teaching methodology, assessment, language description, and materials production. Combining sound research/theory with state-of-the-art practice, Language Curriculum Design is widely applicable for ESL/EFL language education courses around the world.
Curriculum Planning with Design Language provides a streamlined, adaptable framework for using visual design terminology to conceptualize instructional design objectives, processes, and strategies. Drawing from instructional design theory, pattern language theory, and aesthetics, these ten course and unit design principles help educators break down and clarify their broader planning tasks and concerns. Written in clear, direct prose and rich with intuitive examples, this book showcases insights leading to effective curriculum design that will speak equally to pre-service and experienced educators.
Curriculum Design and Praxis in Language Teaching presents a variety of methodologies and theoretical perspectives for current and future postsecondary instructors in the areas of linguistics, second-language acquisition, and world literatures. Offering valuable insights for instructors, the materials presented in this book integrate perspectives and resources from various target languages, world regions, and cultures into areas related to teaching and learning within the field of language. From critical assessments of the current academic curriculum to the fine-tuning of lesson planning, the essays in this collection address the innovative design and implementation of traditional, blended, and online language courses. Including inter-artistic approaches, case studies, and practical guides, this book provides theoretical and hands-on suggestions regarding how to mindfully reinforce students’ socio-cultural engagement and linguistic development both inside and outside of their language-learning classrooms. The innovative ideas for language pedagogy presented in this book – including implementing technology, enhancing engaged spaces of learning, and adapting to the ever-changing field of pedagogy – represent agile ways of blending old and new approaches to carry forward into twenty-first-century postsecondary classrooms.
In this valuable resource, experts share deep knowledge including practical “how-to” and preventive trouble-shooting tips. Instructors will learn about course design and development, instructional methods for online teaching, and student engagement and community building techniques. The book contains successful teaching strategies, guidance for facilitating interactions and responding to diversity, and assessments, as well as future directions for online learning. With many field-tested examples and practice assignments, and with voices from students, teachers, and experts, this book arms instructors and administrators with the tools they need to teach effective and empowering online courses. This one-stop resource addresses all of the core elements of online teaching in terms that are universally applicable to any content area and at any instructional level. “A rare book in education: one that is not only highly useful but also intellectually coherent and based on robusta>, transferable principles of learning and teaching. All educators—in online environments and in brick-and-mortar schools—will find this an invaluable resource.” —From the Foreword by Grant Wiggins “We now know we can get increased participation with online tools to make thinking more visible and switch the traditional delivery of instruction to personalize learning. While it is inevitable that online learning will become an important skill for everyone, the ideas, concepts, strategies, design elements, and tools in the book by Thormann and Zimmerman can also be applied to blended learning.” —Alan November, Senior Partner and Founder, November Learning “The authors of this book have created an excellent resource for anyone interested in becoming an online instructor or improving his or her skills in online teaching. The authors share a wealth of step-by-step activities, examples of assignments and teaching strategies that will guide both novice and experienced teachers as they expand their skills into the online realm. Even as a ‘veteran’ online instructor the book provided me with new ideas to try in my next online class.” —Sam Gladstein, Coordinator, Edmonds eLearning Program at Edmonds School District, WA “Cheers to Thormann and Zimmerman for providing a must-read for online teaching. This clear and practical guide takes the instructor from design to implementation of online courses. The authors remove the anxiety about online teaching for those thinking about on-screen instruction, and provide new thinking and examples for those already immersed in it. It is a great guide for those entering the field and a superb resource for those actively engaged in it.” —Anthony J. Bent, Chairman, Global Studies-21st Century Skills Committee of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents Book Features: The building blocks necessary to create a successful online course. The know-how of long-time online instructors. Models for Skype conferencing with groups of students. Templates for course building, including sample assignments, activities, assessments, and emails. Detailed treatment of diversity in the online environment Joan Thormann is professor in the division of Technology in Education at Lesley University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. She edits a column on technology and special needs for Learning and Leading with Technology. Isa Kaftal Zimmerman is the principal of IKZ Advisors in Boston, Massachusetts, an educational consulting firm serving educators and stakeholders in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields.
This book focuses not on teaching techniques but on the strategic decisions which must be made before a course begins. It provides realistic advice for university and college teachers on how to design more effective courses without underestimating the complexity of the task facing course developers, and offers course designers both an understanding and a framework within which to clarify their own teaching purposes.
The book proposes a comprehensive framework for blended language course design. It builds extensively on existing literature on the subject and draws from empirical research presented therein. The framework will be of help for blended language course authors and designers, as well as publishers, heads of studies, teacher trainers, decision makers at all levels and also language teachers.
Course Design for TESOL offers a unique approach of integrating curriculum with teaching activities to allow language educators to utilize the text in a variety of courses in a TESOL program. Although the authors assume readers have a basic knowledge of English grammar, this textbook/resource is designed to be comprehensible to those who have not had an SLA or Applied Linguistics course. Because each language skill is discussed in detail in terms of important theories and concepts and actual teaching activities are included, the book can also be used in a Methods course or a combined Curriculum Design-Methods (or Methods and Materials) course. Part I explores the basic language acquisition theories and their influences on current teaching practices in the field. Part II then moves on to the core elements of designing a curriculum or course: conducting the needs analysis, setting of course goals/objectives, designing the syllabus, and writing lesson plans. Part III: Instructional Activities and Assessment Techniques features chapters on the teaching of listening, speaking, reading, writing, grammar, and culture. Within each of these chapters, the authors address the fundamental issues related to the teaching of each skill and then discuss the components of a good activity for that skill (and how to design one), and then offer four sample activities (one for each type of syllabus) and guidance on assessing that skill. The activities can be adapted for use in a variety of classrooms and settings. Part IV addresses contemporary trends--curriculum issues in North America and Europe (standards and educational policy), practices in teaching in Asia (particularly China and Korea), and technology-enhanced learning.
Within every picture is a hidden language that conveys a message, whether it is intended or not. This language is based on the ways people perceive and process visual information. By understanding visual language as the interface between a graphic and a viewer, designers and illustrators can learn to inform with accuracy and power. In a time of unprecedented competition for audience attention and with an increasing demand for complex graphics, Visual Language for Designers explains how to achieve quick and effective communications. New in paperback, this book presents ways to design for the strengths of our innate mental capacities and to compensate for our cognitive limitations. Visual Language for Designers includes: —How to organize graphics for quick perception —How to direct the eyes to essential information —How to use visual shorthand for efficient communication —How to make abstract ideas concrete —How to best express visual complexity —How to charge a graphic with energy and emotion
