Isora J. Enríquez O´Farrill, PhD
University of Pedagogical Sciences “Enrique José Varona”
Eduardo Garbey Savigne, PhD
Medical University of Havana
isora.enriquez@gmail.com
egarbey @ infomed.sld.cu
Communicating Professionally in English by Television
Course
Aimed at developing basic communication skills, so as to:
1. help TV learners communicate in the foreign language, to share personal, professional and social information.
2. have access to worldwide information through the ICT.
The TV course complies with the key concepts of language teaching:
Use of authentic materials relevant to the learners.
The TV teacher leads the process. But most of exercises, activities and tasks were aimed at developing communicative skills
NEEDS ANALYSIS TO MEET LEARNERS´ INTERESTS
Needs: the language the learner requires to perform successfully in a particular communicative situation.
The needs analysis for the TV course was
aimed at identifying the language forms,
lexis and functions that learners needed to use in the target language.
NEEDS ANALYSIS
Target needs (also known as objective
needs) were broken down into:
Necessities (demands of the target situation, e.g healthcare personnel travelling for overseas missions)
Lacks (the gap between existing proficiency and target proficiency, e.g being good at communicating but not being able to perform well in different cultural contexts
Wants (the learners' view of their needs, e.g people wanting to be independent users of English and be ready for job interviews)
ELT research project 2004: Findings
Diverse variety of televiewer: different age groups and backgrounds (retired people, housewifes, students, workers, prisoners)
More emphasis on pronunciation and speaking was suggested.
Families got together to watch the course
Professionals requested a course to suit their needs.
Response to findingsCourses created:
Speaking more clearly: to help learners improve their four language skills, with an emphasis on listening and pronunciation to contribute to oral expression.
Communicating professionally in English TV course .
Communicating professionally in English
An ESP oriented course to
contribute to develop
professional skills that would
help people interact more
appropriately in professional
contexts.
Empowering learners to participate actively
Through permanent contacts (an email address was created for such purpose)
Meeting the TV teachers in EFL events
Providing opportunities for chatting (electronically)
Answering their letters.
By phone calls to TV studio.
Challenges
Cater for more professions and occupations.
Diversify access to course materials through different sources ( radio, internet, printed press)
Provide more opportunities for direct interaction and feedback.
Assessing tele-learners achievements.
Dr Isora Enríquez O´Farrill Course writer and curriculum designerConsultant to the Ministry of Education Cuba isora.enriquez@gmail.com