OUTLINE COURSE DESIGN

1. Some Points Related To Course Design

Beside oral ability, there are some other important points that have been

considered, that is to say about resources, the budget and the time, as suggested by

Dubin and Olstin (1986)

In designing a certain course, we have to think and prepare seriously about

resources such as staff, money, time and materials. These following questions are

also important to be answered in course design;

Questions; Answers;

1. Why does the student need to learn? He needs to learn oral English because

he needs to communicate effectively to

satisfy the needs of interlocutors who

speak English. For a secretary in

LEMIGAS

2. Who is going to be involved in the The LEMIGAS management who are

process? going to provide the facilities, resources

and budget and the teachers who are

going to teach the course (native and

non-native speakers)

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3. Where does the course take place? The course takes place in LEMIGAS

What facilities and resources does English Language Center (LELC).

the company provide? What Obviously, LEMIGAS will provide any

limitations does it impose? facilities and resources related to

English course in oral English for

secretaries.

4. When does the course take place? It might take place as soon as the course

How much time is available? How design is ready. The duration might be

will it be distributed? 48hours, a period of 6 weeks (time

provided by LEMIGAS management) –

2 hours per day – Monday – Thursday.

5. What does the student need to learn? She needs to learn a specific skill/oral

What aspects of language and how skill for example, how to speak and

will they be described? What level respond face to face or on the

of proficiency must be achieved? telephone, professionally and socially.

What topic areas will need to be

recovered?

6. How will the learning be achieved? The learning will be achieved if the

What learning theory will underlie objectives of the course are clear, the

the course? What kind of materials are relevant and suitable, and

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 methodology will be employed? the methodology should go with the

goal of the course.

The above questions are essentials in running a course.

2. Course Objectives

The objectives for this group of learner as follows:

At the end of the course the learner is expected to be able to :

 Respond to the conversation in handling the secretaries’ job;

 Speak on the telephone;

 Extract the content words;

 Extract the essential information;

 Produce correct pronunciation, and

 Understand extended natural speech in business situation.

3. Course Outline and the Content of the Course

a) Time allotment

This course will be run for six weeks from Monday to Thursday, two hours per

day. That approximately corresponds to 48 hours in total. Each session lasts 60

minutes.

b) Target Level of Achievement

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 At the end of the course the students will be able to communicate face to face

or by telephone in English with an intermediate level of Command, related to their

job as secretaries in LEMIGAS. The purpose to this course is to prepare them for

those further foreign language contacts are they most likely to engage in.

c) Language Skills Selection

The following will be skills required by the students to fulfill the requirements

of the objectives. They are related to the secretaries’ needs analysis.

 Recognizing the use of stress in connected speech

- Content words and form words

 Understanding intonation patterns

 Producing intonation patterns

 Expressing conceptual meaning, especially,

- Quantity and amount

- Location; direction

- Means; instrument

- Cause; result; purpose; reason; condition

 Understanding the communication value (function) of sentences and

utterances.

d) Physical Setting

Physical setting has great effect to the learning. The room in LELC is not too

big or too small consisting of 15 students. The class is provided with magazine;

The Jakarta Post; The Guardians, etc. Finally it could be said that working

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conditions are generally good. Students do not suffer from the heat or the noise

outside.

e) Teachers

 Native Speakers

 Non Native speakers (graduated from “The Department of Educational

and Teacher Training” in Indonesia) or from English Language

Teaching Course in the United States or United Kingdom.

f) Participants

 Secretaries from general Affairs Division

 Secretaries from Research and Development Division For Exploration

and Exploitation technology

 Secretaries from Technical Services Division For Exploration and

Exploitation

 Secretaries from Research and Development Division for process and

Application Technology.

 Secretaries from Technical Services Division For Process and

Application

 Secretaries from Division of Data and Information

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 DETAILED COURSE DESIGN:

MATERIALS/METHODOLOGY/EVALUATION

1. Syllabus and the Materials

Syllabus is specified as a list, ordered or unordered – a list which specifies the

content of a course (Crombie, 1988). Nunan (1988) points out:

“…I syllabus is a statement of content which is used as the basic for planning courses
of various kinds, and that the task of the syllabus designer is to select and grade the
content”

The above explanations are clear and easy to be understood. Now, the teachers’

task to think what kind of syllabus is relevant and suitable in designing a certain

course and what material/content and methodology are the best in relation to the

syllabus.

2. Secretaries’ Oral English Course Syllabus Sample Content

Presented below are some examples of contents’ list of an EOP course in

oral English for secretaries:

Situational Syllabus (in Hutchinson and Waters, 1987)

 Taking a call

 Taking a message

 Telling the caller to call back

 Recorded Messages

 Booking Appointments

 Asking for clarification on the telephone or face to face contact

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  Giving suggestion on the telephone or face to face contact

 Handling Administration in seminar

 Sending a telegram

 Listening activities

 Pronunciation

 Vocabulary Exercises

3. Teaching Materials

Role of Materials

The appropriate material is aimed at providing meaningful and understandable

input to develop the skills needed to communicate in using English in an

occupational situation.

 Materials will be concerned with language as communication.

 Materials design will be more concerned with the teaching leaning

process, so learners can feel that they use language in real life

communication.

 Materials will encourage learners to communicate based on the learner’s

interaction in the classroom.

Format of Materials

Materials are taken from real life situations. They are authentic materials.

For this type of learners, recorded materials will be used to include features of

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spoken language. Lots of practice with recorded material with a wide variety of

foreign language speakers will be very important for them.

Materials Selected

The materials selected will be:

 Extracts of “Secretaries” (Worsdall, 1980)

 Extracts of “English Telephone Conversation” (Ferguson and O’Reilly,

1977)

 Extracts of “Telephoning” (Bruce, 1977)

 Extracts of “Modern Office Limited” (Stanwell and Nicholls, 1976)

 Etc.

Equipments

 Tape Recorder

 Overhead recorder

 Video

 Listening activities will be done both in a class and in a class and in the

Language Laboratory.

 Speaking activities will be done in the class.

Materials Resources

 Hand-outs

 Cassettes

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  Pictures

 Video-materials

4. Syllabus Methodology /Proposed Activities

a. Methodology

In this course communicative approach is the best approach to be implemented

because based on the analysis of the target situation of the learners, we have to

provide them with their communicate needs. Therefore, most of the activities

given in the course are task-oriented activities through “Role Play” and

information –Gap activities.

b. Proposal Classroom Activities

Classroom activities will focus on communicative competence as suggested by

Canale and Swain because learning activities for this type of learner are aimed at

developing accuracy and fluency. Accuracy is the ability to know linguistic rules

and fluency is the ability to express or to use these rules to communicate (Brumfit,

1984).

c. Oral English Course For Secretaries Syllabus Outline

Week Hours Topic

6 48 Taking a call

 Greeting

 I’m afraid…

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  Just a moment, please…

Text sample as a model for communicative activity in doing the tasks above:

Taking a call:

Who’s calling, please..?

Would you like to …?

Taking a message:

May I speak to …?

One moment, please.

Oh.. Hold a moment!

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