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2013Business

Page history last edited by Carla Arena 11 years, 4 months ago

Designed for Business

Abstract

Course design is crucial to a course´s success. Within the business English world, which will be the main focus of our attention, meeting learners´needs through effective course design is always desirable and often essential. We will explore different approaches to course design, offering ideas, strategies and tips for professionals.

Target Audience

Business English professionals or those interested in teaching business English. Educational professionals with an interest in ESP/EOP course design.

Interest Section Sponsors

TESOL CALL IS, IATEFL BESIG

Syllabus

Objectives

By the end of this session, participants will have:

gained the confidence to design effective business English courses
taken part in an active dialogue about business English course design with leading practitioners in the field and other professionals
been given the tools to carry out effective needs analysis and pre-training course design, with the opportunity to try them out for themselves
been exposed to and practiced using the tools--both blended learning and methodological--needed for course design in the twenty-first century
looked at situations which can present challenges to teachers as they design their courses and strategies for overcoming them
reflected on how they can become more effective course designers whatever the context they are faced with

Weekly Outline

Week 1 (Jan 14 - 20, 2013) - NEEDS ANALYSIS

Getting to know each other on Edmodo (group code: 1fzeyr)
Getting acquainted with the platforms and learning what they will be used for
Examining the importance of conducting needs analyses in business English
Comparing and evaluating methods for carrying out needs analyses

Live session with: Charles Rei

Week 2 (Jan 21 - 27, 2013) - APPROACHES TO COURSE DESIGN

Exploring and evaluating two approaches to course design: English for... and English through...
Examining, comparing and evaluating approaches to course design found in business English course books
Finding out more about tailor-made courses and tailor-made course design: What are tailor-made courses? How can we create them? Why should we create them?
Turning learning objectives into course content

Live session with: Claire Hart

Week 3 (Feb 4 - Feb 10, 2013) - DESIGNING COURSES FOR MIXED-LEVEL CLASSES

Understanding the challenges and benefits of working with learners with diverse needs
Strategies for sourcing and gearing content and activities towards learners of differing levels
Exploring tools for providing stimulation and support in a mixed-level classroom
Considering what challenges could arise in the teaching context you are focussing on and how you could deal with them

Live session with: Kristen Acquaviva

Week 4 (Feb 4 -Feb 10, 2013) - REFLECTIVE PRACTICE

Familiarising yourself with the principles of refective practice
Considering how they could be applying to teaching practice, and specifically course design
How the dual concept of teacher and student talking time could be used to make students more aware of classroom dynamic and the specific roles teacher and students have

Live session with: Roy Bicknell

Week 5 (Feb 11 - 17, 2013) - COMPLEMENTING COURSE BOOKS WITH TECHNOLOGY

Getting an overview of the possibilities for integrating several web 2.0 tools to complement course books.
Exploring online tools to enhance learners' speaking, writing, listening and reading skills.
Sharing ideas on how they would use those tools with their learners.
Reflecting upon technology integration in the classroom.

Live session with: Jennifer Verschoor

Join this session

>>>Sign up for the session starts on Jan 7th, 2013.

The action starts on Jan 14, 2013.

To join this group:

From January 7 to 13:

Go to: http://www.edmodo.com/
If you don´t already have an Edmodo account, click on "sign up" as a "teacher" and then join Edmodo by entering a username, password, email address and name.
On the tool bar on the right-hand side of your profile you will see the option "Join group", click on it and then enter the group name: "Designed for Business".
You will be prompted to enter a code. Enter the code: 1fzeyr
You are now a member of the Designed for Business group

Moderators

Claire Hart

Claire Hart is a freelance business English and ESP trainer who delivers in-company courses in a range of companies in Ulm, Germany. She specialises in technical English and English for logistics. She also leads teacher training workshops and courses for other business English and ESP trainers both face-to-face and online. Exploiting authentic materials and technology, particularly mobile devices, in business English contexs, are two of her current interests and she is also currently refining her ability to design and create online course content. She is the IATEFL BESIG Web Coordinator.

Skype: claire.hart83

Twitter: claire_hart

Blog: http://www.businessenglishlessonplans.wordpress.com

About me: http://about.me/clairehart

Mercedes Viola

Mercedes Viola lives and works in Uruguay. She holds a degree from the Universidad de la Republica Oriental del Uruguay and an MA in TESOL.

She has been running a language school for more than 20 years. She is in charge of designing business English learning experiences for government-owned organizations, universities and many well known global companies such as Microsoft, HP, American Express, McDonalds, Deloitte, John Deere and MasterCard. She designs materials for business English clients and trains new teachers on business.

She is a writer for the Teaching English site of the British Council and a member of the BESIG Online Team.

Skype: mercedesviolad

Twitter: mercedesviola

Blog and site: www.4d.edu.uy & http://mercedesviola.wordpress.com

Kristen Acquaviva

Kristen Acquaviva is a freelance business and technical English trainer based in Germany. She offers a range of courses including in-company training, intensive seminars, and continuing education classes. She studied Linguistics at the University of Chicago and participated in the online New School MA TESOL program. She is an editor of IATEFL BESIG’s 2012 Stuttgart Conference Selectionsebook. Her professional interests include exploring learning technologies in a business English context, ESP/business English course design, and the use of concordance tools and corpora for language learning purposes.

Skype: pranksterkristen

Twitter: acquk

About.me: http://about.me/kristenacquaviva

Roy Bicknell

Roy Bicknell teaches Business English and Intercultural communication at Horizon Interlingua in Amsterdam. He writes the column The Practice for Business Issues and has recently written a series of articles on reflective teaching. Roy is especially interested in learner autonomy and critical thinking and he is currently working on reflective practice strategies and how they can be applied to business English courses.

Twitter: @royparmesan

About.me: http://about.me/royparmesan

Charles Rei

Charles Rei is a freelance Business English Trainer in Nuremberg, Germany. He is currently working on several embedded training projects which included classroom training, e-learning, and coaching. Additionally, he works on the materials development team at a large multi-national company using an extensive corpus of company-specific resources. He uses his training experience from a career in the military as well as the CELTA and Cert IBET qualifications to ensure high quality Business English training.

Twitter: @CharlesRei1

Blog: http://businessenglishideas.blogspot.de/

Justine Arena

Justine Arena has a vast international professional experience. She lived in Boston (EUA) for 13 years, where she worked in large companies such as Olympus NDT, Children’s Hospital Boston and Focus Infomatics / Nuance. Now, back in Brazil, she has dedicated herself to teaching English as a second language, and has taken part in different training courses (e-Tutor, Webtools for Educators, Teaching Development Course (TDC), Certificate in International Business English, and Teaching English for Legal Purposes). Therefore, there is a continuous drive to enhance her skills as a language trainer. Justine utilizes her international experience, as well as technological resources, in her teaching practices to give personalized classes that are in line with the specific demands of each student.

Email: justinearena@justinearena.br

Nicolas Celedon

Nicolas Celedon has been teaching English for over 15 years now, developing courses and also helping other teachers to grow professionally. He is based in Montevideo, Uruguay and works for 4D Content English.

Email: nicolasceledon@4d.edu.uy

Jennifer Verschoor

Jennifer Verschoor holds degrees as English University Professor, Bachelor in Educational Management, Public Translator and an MA in Virtual Environments. She is a teacher trainer, President of ARCALL and course facilitator at ESSARP, specialized in technology.

Email: jenverschoor@gmail.com

Twitter: @jenvershoor