ABSTRACT
I am working as a private consultant for an English language-teaching center in Brazil. I have been hired to provide an evaluation of the center’s curriculum and make recommendations for changes or improvements. I am working closely with the center’s administrators, but I report to the Board of Trustees. I have been told that the purpose of the evaluation is part of the board’s desire to be proactive in implementing quality control measures at the center. Prior to my arrival, I studied and familiarized myself with a number of written documents, including most of the center’s textbooks, a number of sample lesson plans, and the curriculum guides. I believe that I have a good idea about the center’s intended curriculum based on what they have sent me. As part of the process, I have been visiting classes and will do so again tomorrow. So far today, I have observed six courses, and I have three more to observe before the day ends. After that, I will spend several days interviewing stakeholders-administrators, staff, instructors, students, and even some parents-before I write my report. On paper the center presents itself as having a very traditional curriculum that is based primarily on the four skills. The center offers eight levels with four courses at each levellistening, speaking, reading, and writing. There are other optional courses available for different levels. For example, at Levels 1 and 2, there is a pronunciation course; for Levels 4-8, there is a conversation club; at Levels 6 and 8, the course is US culture. Today, I have observed two listening classes, two speaking classes, one reading class, and one writing class. The classes were at Levels 3-6. In the Level 4 listening class this morning, the students fi rst read a text, talked about it, and then participated in a cloze listening activity that targeted specifi c words and phrases from the reading. After that, they participated in a pair dictation with some words from a previous lesson. In this activity one partner listens while the other partner dictates, and then they switch roles. In the Level 6 listening class, the students principally listened to, took notes on, and then discussed a portion of a documentary fi lm about rain forests. Then, they worked in small groups to answer questions with one paper being submitted from each group. In the Level 5 reading class the students talked about the content of a reading they had been assigned from their textbook on the topic of US culture. They had a very interesting and lively discussion about dating and US movies-a discussion that was based
more on the students’ personal ideas about US culture than on information given in the reading itself. In the Level 2 writing class, students copied lists of words into their notebooks. Then, they wrote in their journals for ten minutes and exchanged letters they had previously written to one another. [Christison, research notes]
Task: Refl ect
1. Which of the language skills-listening, speaking, reading, and writing-do L2 learners use in each of the four classes described above?
