Curriculum Review

Curriculum Review

Curriculum Review

Walsall College is committed to empowering all its members to achieve their very best. Walsall work to raise ambition, remove barriers to success and maximise achievement. We strive to build around each individual the support that they need to succeed. Walsall seek to build a college community that through its leadership, teaching and learning is free from discrimination and secure and confident in its diversity.

Walsall ESOL Curriculum designs be reviewed in the object of identifying areas that need modification or complete overhaul. This has to be done in the holistic efforts aimed at enhancing the language education designs in the direction of enhancing effectiveness and ensuring the fulfillment of learner's needs and educators' expectations. Badger, R, et al. (2000) quote Rod Ellis who articulates that, “…the learning process is path of discovery which obtains spontaneously and routinely only if particular conditions have been met.”

The foregoing can be aptly applied to the learning of the English language. The effective and successful delivery of knowledge in English language learning environs demands that particular conditions be established and fulfilled from all dimensions in ways of putting the teachers' and learner's needs and capabilities into perspective.

In the market economy, it is fairly common for college graduates to choose jobs outside their field of study. survey conducted by Walsall college(2000), more than half of its 1997 graduates were employed in the business and commercial fields, 3% were employed oversees and 28% chose to further their study. To many graduates, their field of study is increasingly unimportant to the success of their employment. What matters to employers is personal qualities such as organizational skills, communicational skills and expressiveness. It is the same with foreign language majors.

After graduation, students majoring in foreign languages seldom engage in their subject-related research work even though they have spent a great deal of their college time studying courses like literature, linguistics, culture and history. For instance, most French graduates from Bristol University(1999) find employment in the press, the financial sector and the management area. At the University of Warwick(1999), French graduates are employed in areas such as media, company management, accounting, insurance, teaching and translation. The British foreign language departments have not cut down on the content courses despite the fact that their graduates find work unrelated to their field of study.

Under such considerations, Shenzhen University revised its ESOL Curriculum for English majors in 1999. In comparison with the previous version, the Walsall college ESOL Curriculum has three noticeable changes. Firstly, language skill courses have been reduced to make room for the content courses of the English major. We have removed Extensive Reading and Video English altogether. Listening Skills have been cut down from two weekly hours to one and Comprehensive English from six weekly hours to four for the sophomores. Meanwhile at the first and second year level, we have added Introduction to Western Culture, Contemporary British Society, Contemporary American Society, English in Journalism, Public Speaking, Lexicology ...