Designing an In-house Curriculum for workers in the IT industry in Taiwan: A Modular Approach

Introduction

I work at a tertiary institution where they provide ESP courses for fulltime graduate students and part time courses for working professionals mostly in the Information Technology (IT) industry. The part time students have a diverse background in their level of English. As a result it is quite a challenge to fulfill the specific needs of each learner. Among the four skills there is a wide range along the a spectrum from beginner to the most advanced. Not only that each student would like to concentrate on a specific functional competency be it telephoning skills or business correspondence. The question is how do we deliver curriculum for our intended students. The purpose of this report is an attempt to analyze what is involve in constructing a curriculum for professionals working in the IT industry

On of the first thing I did was to research on Curriculum Development. I used J. Richards as my starting point. Richards provided me with a general framework for curriculum development helping me set the parameters for this project.

The following are the dimension that will provide a discussion for the framework:

Philosophy

Needs Analysis

Planning

Instructional Blocks

In the planning stage I felt that it was necessary to develop a philosophy of the curriculum. I decided on a functional perspective. These goals were all related to the acquiring of functional skills that students can use for economic efficiency and not just academic or other challenges that may fit the needs of life. (See … for more on…) I think this is important because the philosophy will develop the course of the curriculum and steer it in a prescribed direction.

My second dimension is a needs analysis. What is a needs analysis? (See more about needs analysis). The needs analysis will identify the student’s needs and it will be reflected in the syllabus. This will fine tune the content of the course and make the skills more meaningful for the students.

See my notes on “Reconstructing a syllabus for BEP” 10/15/04. Needs analysis form

My third dimension is the instructional block. This is important because teaching working professionals can have an attendance problem. Sometimes a student will not be able to attend class due to work constraint or family matters. How can the student have some continuity in their learning if he/she miss class. To alleviate this I have develop a course in modular form so that each module is self contained. (See more about Modules)

Provide sample of modules for a BC course

Conclusion

Discussion: The modular approach allow learners to skip classes occasionally without trying to catch up on missed  lessons because the modules are self-contained. Also the modules can easily adjust the scope and sequence depending on the company's request based on budgetary concerns, time constraints and other factors.

Limitation

Implication: The implication is that any course can be adopted in modular form once we have done a needs analysis for a company.

Recommendation: This modular form of instructional block can be recommended for  other courses in house programs or students studying part time at an institution.

Annotated Bibliography

Richards, J. C. 2001. Curriculum Development in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

7 Curriculum Theories: Core Curriculum, Outcome-Based Education...

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