Designing EAP reading courses at the university level

Use of English and Communications courses are part of the curriculum of virtually all tertiary education programs in Nigeria. The need for such courses is especially relevant in a country like Nigeria where the language of instruction at the tertiary level is a second language in which students' proficiency levels are often disappointing. In this paper an attempt is made to make relevant generalizations about the effectiveness or otherwise of existing approaches to the teaching of these courses, concluding that the existing situation falls short of expectation. The paper proceeds to take a look at relevant scholarly insights into the leaching of English as a second language, and drawing from these, prescribe emphasis on reading as the only viable alternative, in view of the problems identified. Introduction The teaching of English language courses has become a permanent feature of all or at least, most courses or programmes in tertiary institutions in Nigeria. The compulsory teaching of such courses, of course, is necessitated by the need to enhance the competence of the students in English-the sole language of instruction at the tertiary level in Nigeria. It is clear that this imperative is made more pressing because English is a second language for the overwhelming majority of those studying in institutions of higher learning in Nigeria. It is very obvious that in recent times, there has been a decline in the ability of our students to communicate effectively either in written or oral media, regardless of what kind of pass in English they came in with. Also, some considerable degree of drop in communicative ability is also obvious among many graduates of our institutions regardless of whether they passed our English and communication courses. Obviously, the low quality of intakes from secondary school must be the dominant factor operating in this situation. However, when we consider the fact that our Use-of-English and communication courses are supposed to serve as opportunities for communicative skills improvement, especially for academic and post-graduation occupational purposes, we need to assess and take stock of our methods. In this regard the frank question, which we need to sincerely address, is whether our efforts are yielding the desired result. It is the belief of this writer that the answer to this question must be negative in view of what we can easily discover from the general observation of our students and the products of our academic programmes. Where there is a problem with the products, we must, among other things, scrutinise our methods. In the words of Cook (1991) "the proof of the teaching is in the learning" (P.3) In view of the above, this paper summarizes problems with the objectives and the content of most use of English courses, with additional insights into problems associated with the teaching methods. Thereafter, an attempt is made to give insights into past and present approaches to language teaching (especially seconds language teaching) and, drawing from these, the paper brings in the relevance of reading. General insights are also given into the salient question of selection of materials for a reading programme. This paper does not contain the technical nitty-gritty of syllabus design. It is simply an attempt to provide food for thought aimed at forming a general theoretical background for the subsequent design of relevant syllabuses for Use of English course in our institutions of higher learning

2014

The planning of courses including designing curriculum and syllabus is often ignored in English language teaching and teacher training. Harmer (2000) states that decisions about course content are very often not taken by teachers, but by some higher authority. Even many institutions present the syllabus in terms of the main textbook to be used - by a certain date, teachers are expected to have covered a certain number of units in the book. At the same time teachers are often provided with a list of supplementary material and activities available. Yet, the graduates of such programs as English teacher training are often required to carry out course design task without having received sufficient training to do so. As a matter of fact, course design requires specialized expertise which can be gained through learning and practice. Designing courses is unlike preparing one's own teaching as it should be understood by others who will use the design. Therefore, it is very urgent ...

A great body of work related to extensive reading (ER) has been amassed over the past two decades. In recent times, much of the research has moved beyond the basic and focused on the many intricate facets of this relatively new field. But how does one go about starting an ER program? What are the steps one must take to get a program up and running? This paper takes a step backward and brings the reader to the starting line of the development of a 4-semester, 1st-and 2nd-year university ER program in order to answer many of the questions that arise when one attempts to create a similar program. A great body of work related to extensive reading (ER) has been amassed over the past three decades, which has helped advance this approach to second language acquisition and education (a comprehensive annotated bibliography of over 600 books and articles related to ER is available at http://erfoundation.org/bib/bibliotop.php). ER is now widely recognized amongst language educators throughout the world as an effective means of supplementing at least, and underpinning at best, second language education programs (Waring, 2006). Much of the research has moved beyond the basic and fo-cused on the many intricate facets of this relatively new field. Yet how does one go about starting an ER program? What are the various steps one must take to get a program up and running? This paper takes a giant step backward and brings the reader to the starting line of the development of a four-semester, 1st-and 2nd-year university ER program in order to answer many of the questions that arise when one attempts to create a similar program. In this paper, I will briefly describe the academic context, student profiles, and the existing resources available prior to establishing this new ER program. I will then describe the various steps taken and factors considered during the design and implementation phases including • the assessment of, and selection from the various book options available; • the structure and content of the syllabus—including reading (readability) levels and reading volume targets; • student orientation and introduction to ER; • selection of readers, then monitoring student progress by way of an ER-specific learning management system (LMS) platform; and • student performance assessment criteria. Finally, suggestions for improvements will be presented, in light of the results from the first full year of the program's administration, most notably student compliance issues. It should be noted from the outset that much of this program's design and implementation was based on the principles established by Day and Bamford (1998). This extensive publication, along with its companion summary (Day and Bamford, 2002), is widely viewed in the ER community as essential reading and serves as a perfect start for anyone new to ER. In addition, the program follows several of the pioneering ER principals established at a highly successful cram school in Tokyo, the Scientific Education Group (SEG), by its founder Akio Furukawa (Poulshock, 2015).

This article aims at probing the different types of syllabi used to teach English to English native and non-native speakers. The researcher used a chronological approach in describing each syllabus type in accordance to its emergence in epistemology of the syllabus design and pedagogical trends in teaching English in the world. Theories of language and learning, characteristics of each syllabus, and pros and cons of the discussed syllabi were highlighted throughout the article. Emphasis was also given to shed light on the interrelationship between syllabi types and pedagogical approaches and techniques. The process of syllabi design was also discussed with examples. The researcher endeavored to cite texts from proponents of authors and scholars who discussed each syllabus. The strategy used in presenting the information in this article was to list main titles and write explanatories to describe the syllabus. Primary and secondary resources were referred to for more ideas. Thus, some resources dated back to the 1985-2017. This was done on purpose to highlight authentic resources of the pioneer linguists and scholars of each type of syllabi.

The Modern Language Journal, 1989

The last decade has seen lots of changes in many fields of education. The field of syllabus design in foreign language instruction is no exception. The main purpose of this paper is thus to examine critically the recent approaches in syllabus design. First, three schools of syllabus design A) Lancaster School, B) London School, and C) Toronto School will be introduced. Then the following six types of syllabi which will be of particular relevance for foreign language education and syllabus design will be explained. a) structural syllabus b) notional/functional syllabus c) situational syllabus d) skill-based syllabus e) content-based syllabus f) task-based syllabus

Nowadays with widespread use of English language in different countries and its teaching, the main concern of teachers, syllabus designers, policy makers, institutions are to design course materials which can fulfil students language needs appropriately, however designing such a course material is a daunting task. In this paper the researcher tries to shed light on the major concerns of authority in the field regarding EFL/ESL course designing. The researcher tries to explore the ideas of major authority in the field of language teaching and learning and also applied linguists toward the issue of material development in English language teaching classes. Since every student is unique and his/her need is totally different with his classmate, so finding the trade-off between such varieties of needs is demanding and complicated task. Finally the researcher came with this idea that the teachers should think globally and act locally; in that majority of course books are written in other countries, there are certain conditions in which the teachers have to do amendments in order to meet the needs of their own learners.

Profile: Issues in Teachers' Professional Development, 2024

This article reports an English language needs analysis of Colombian Social Science master's students. Information from faculty interviews, course syllabi, and student surveys shows that students need English to access and update their disciplinary knowledge through research articles and book chapters to successfully participate in class activities in Spanish, for which low English proficiency and lack of graduate reading skills can be an obstacle. These findings inspired the creation of Reading Research Articles in the Social Sciences course and confirmed the importance of source variety, triangulation, and addressing needs when identified. Methodological and practical contributions are discussed, emphasizing syllabi as key information sources not considered in other needs analyses.

2017

Chronologically speaking, the view to syllabus design has been changed over the decades of development of the phenomenon of second language learning and teaching, as we go through from language centered methods to learner centered methods and to learning centered methods. An attempt was made in this paper to revisit the concept and the types of syllabus approaches in the realm of second language learning and teaching. Topics analyzed included, the definition of syllabus, the categorization of syllabi types, the introduction of an integrative approach to syllabus design and the presentation of the proposed model to syllabus design. In this paper, I focus on the traditional and critical approaches to syllabus design and introduce an integrative approach and finally I present the proposed model to teachers and syllabus designers to apply in practical contexts.

This research has discussed the origins of ESP, addressed key notions about ESP and examined issues in ESP syllabus design. The content of the paper was determined by a need identified based on my experience as an ESL instructor designing and delivering the content-based language program -Language Preparation for the Cadets and Employment in the Iraqi College of Police . These issues, where possible, have been supported by current and pertinent academic literature. It is my sincerest hope that these observations will lend insight into the challenges facing the ESL instructor acting as ESP syllabus developer.