1. What is your project about?

Which course topics are most relevant to your

project? Which of the course readings can inform your project?

As all of the PEDAL members discussed, developing a curriculum would be our

main project. The work will be separated based on different levels (i.e. Level 1; Level 2;

etc.) and different teaching methods (i.e. In-person and online). In general, the most

relevant topics would be Module 2 where vocabulary, grammar, and pragmatics in the

curriculum were discussed. There were three articles in that module that provided more

insight into curriculum planning from three different aspects. Given the context that my

students are Level 1 students who are now living in Philadelphia, our Level 1 in-person

curriculum would be more closely related to their daily lives. Among all three articles,

Ellis informed the most with his idea that teaching grammar to beginner levels is only

sometimes feasible since teaching grammar requires a certain level of language

resources to help students understand the grammar point.

Especially in our case, Beryl and I are currently having a class with mostly A0-

level senior Chinese speakers. Given their language learning history and their age,

grammar point is the most confusing and tricky aspect for them to understand and

process. That is, Beryl and I decided to reduce the workload (less vocabulary and

information) but increase the practical simple sentence structure that would be easily

applied to their daily lives.

2. Do you have a plan and ideas for its completion? What jobs need to be done to

complete the project? Create a document where you list all jobs/components that

need to be completed for your project. You can use Exercise 4.4, p. 58 (Ch. 4) as a

guide.

By now, we had a basic draft of what kind of curriculum that we were looking for

based on the example given by Dr. Kozlova. In order to develop a well-rounded

curriculum, me and Beryl first identified some basic information:

1. The Proficiency Level of Students (CEFR): A0-A1

2. The Syllabus Type: A mixed syllabus with task-based and functional.

3. Teaching Method: Communicative language teaching (other methods may be

applied depending on individuals and the class topics)

4. Students Need: to be able to communicate effectively and confidently in real-life

situations.

Personally speaking, teaching beginners is challenging. As beginner-level

students have limited language resources and different learning paces, teachers need

to consider multiple aspects and variations. That is, the capability of level 1 students is

hard to predict even with the help of different language standards and frameworks.

Therefore, our main goal in creating this curriculum is to provide future PEDAL teachers

with ample resources and materials to refer to.

After fundamental information is determined, we list the potential jobs and

questions that need to be done and answered based on our ultimate goal, a curriculum
for PEDAL level 1 with 18 topics for 18 lessons, among which at least 10 lessons will be

filled in with detail and materials:

Job list Work Notes

How many lessons 18 Lessons 18 topics and Different topics may

are there in one themes share the same
semester? theme.

What curriculum Vocabulary; At least 10 lessons Vocabulary is

criteria are Grammar; will be filled with the required.
required? Pragmatics required criteria. Grammar could be
adjusted to simple
sentence structure
for communication
purposes.
Pragmatic could be
implemented when
the information in
class is not
overloaded.

What class material Materials from 1. Make a Materials before

can we provide? previous PEDAL glossary for 2022 would not be
level 1 class PEDAL level taken into
1 classes consideration.
from 2022 to
2023.
2. Use a link or
screenshot
to refer back
to the
original
material
when
designing
the
curriculum.

What kind of Materials from 1. Make a The activity could

general activities for previous PEDAL glossary for be adjusted based
vocabulary and level 1 PEDAL level on students’
grammar do we 1 classes proficiency levels
recommend? from 2022 to and teachers’
2023. preferences.
 2. Use a link or
screenshot
to refer back
to the
original
material
when
designing
the
curriculum.

Is there a textbook Looking for possible Not an entire

that may be textbooks that textbook, but rather
appropriate for us might be helpful for a chapter or a
to use? the curriculum simple activity that
design and could be adapted to
teaching. the class as the
teaching material.

… … … …

During the listing process, one thing that Beryl and I both agreed on was that

only the class materials from 2022 to 2023 would be taken into consideration when

designing the curriculum. As our supervisor mentioned in a previous PEDAL meeting,

there was a dramatic change and shift in the development of the PEDAL. That is, the

teaching content and the targeted student group are consistently changing and

evolving. For example, before the pandemic, online classes and digital literacy may not

have been prioritized or viewed as the aim of the PEDAL. However, with the

development of technology, it is absolutely important to include class topics related to

technology, as well as to equip our students with the ability to use online resources or

Zoom.

In order to create a relatively holistic curriculum, we have listed out all the jobs

and responsibilities:
 Task Subtasks Who Who How long
initially actually did did it take?
agreed to it?
do this?

Class topic N/A Mona and

choice Beryl

Glossary for N/A Beryl Beryl 1 hour

2022

Glossary for N/A Mona Mona 1 hour

2023

Class detailed Lesson 1- Mona

design Lesson 5
Phase 1:
Lesson 1-
Lesson 10

Class detailed Lesson 6- Beryl

design Lesson 10
Phase 1:
Lesson 1-
Lesson 10
Level 1 Class detailed Lesson 11- Mona
in- design Lesson 14
person Phase 2:
(Mona Lesson 11-
and Lesson 18
Beryl)
Class detailed Lesson 15- Beryl
design Lesson 18
Phase 2:
Lesson 11-
Lesson 18

Class topic Sequencing Mona and

revision checking Beryl

Class detailed Lesson 1- Beryl

content revision Lesson 5
Phase 1:
Lesson 1-
Lesson 10
 Class detailed Lesson 6- Mona
content revision Lesson 10
Phase 1:
Lesson 1-
Lesson 10

Confirmation N/A Mona and

and combining Beryl

PEDAL Level 1 online (Sitong and Katherine)

PEDAL Level 2 in-person (Qianyu and Lillian)

PEDAL Level 3 In-person (Hailey)

4. How is your teamwork going so far? Do all team members seem to be in agreement

about what you are going to accomplish this semester? If not, how did you find a

compromise?

It is glad that we finally all agreed on one project with a shared agreement and

ultimate goal. We decided to separate the work into different levels and different

teaching methods (in-person and online). Since all our team members share different

schedules and working styles, I would agree that it is quite challenging for us to

coordinate. However, we have decided to divide it into smaller segments and then come

back as a group regularly to gather feedback from others. I personally believe that

insights from other levels would also be favorable for our Level 1 in-person curriculum

design.