This is Module 1, Course Overview.

Would you like to increase your effectiveness as an English language teacher?

Would you like to go beyond the well-known methods that often leave teachers frustrated with their one-size-fits-all approach?

This course will take you on to a fascinating exploration of what it means to be a teacher, how to understand who your students are and the needs they have, and how to choose the most appropriate teaching materials and activities for your classroom.

You will learn how you can choose and fine-tune the principles that exactly fit your teaching situation and enable the realization of the General Education Curriculum 2018 for English subjects.

Let's get started by getting to know each other.

Pause the video now.

Think about your ideal English classroom.

This may be a class of English that you experienced as a language learner, or a class that you expect to teach, or a class that you have touched and are really satisfied with it.

Draw a picture of the class.

You can put some notes next to the picture too.

Resume the video when you are ready.

Alright, now let's compare your picture with some of the pictures I have here.

Do you expect a class where students can freely do whatever they want?

Many students say that they would like a stress-free environment in their classroom.

They explain that stress is said to raise the blood pressure and increase the probability of having a heart attack.

Memory loss is another side effect of stress.

Students may not be performing at their best if they are too stressed out.

Having a stress-free environment at school will eliminate any of these, and the best way to create such environment is to let students do whatever they want.

Some other people state that they would like a stress-free environment too, but the teachers must be able to manage their classes.

These people suggest that an ideal class should provide students with as many opportunities to interact with each other as possible.

This can be achieved by putting students in pair work and group work in order to take advantage of these pairs and groups in the English class.

And therefore, the teacher should equip themselves with techniques to set up pairs and groups.

For some other people, learning English is like a discovery journey.

Learners are the explorers.

The teacher is the guide and an explorer themselves too.

During the journey, learners acquire and master not only linguistic elements and the four language skills, but also other essential skills for life such as communication, collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, and cultural awareness.

The English journey takes advantage of technology advances like the internet and multimedia equipment.

Meanwhile, some people prefer individual work.

Individual work isn't just for those introverts out there.

It can help our students to gain independence to think things through on their own, to improve confidence in working through a problem even when they don't feel certain about every step.

Students can work at their own level rather than having to adapt to suit their group members.

They can practice self-control both in staying focused on the task at hand and in having the willpower to avoid turning to a neighbour or asking the teacher for the answers.

Students can get more comfortable taking action on their own or gain creativity and effective thinking processes that can apply to problem-solving across a range of subjects and types of issues.

Plus, it can be easier for the teacher to assess an individual work, at least easier in a traditional sense, if you have an idea of the norm for the type of work you are looking for.

Thinking about the classroom setting, one may prefer having desks arranged in fixed rows like this.

The advantage is that this way of setting allows you to fit many desks into a small space and your students talk less during teacher-directed and independent activities when they are further apart from their friends and this one makes partner work simple.

However, it also spreads children or students out considerably so that it can be hard to address them all, making group work harder because the desks can't easily be moved around.

Alternatively, you may picture your ideal classroom setting as having movable desks and chairs.

With this type of furniture, it is easy for the teacher and students to arrange seatings in different ways.

For example, you can have clusters of tables which make it easier for group work and for you to navigate around in the classroom.

However, one problem which is sure to arise is the fact that not all students will be able to face you, leading to side talking.

To combat this distraction, it is important to establish a set of ground rules at the outset, such as no side conversations, that all students must face you when you are speaking, and that each group is responsible for keeping their cluster clean and organized.

So as you can see, within just only classroom management issues, we may have a lot to discuss.

And this course will go beyond just only classroom or lesson management issues.

We're looking at the way that we can teach other skills and language elements as well.

So what can you expect about the course?

Now let's discover it.

Alright, now here comes more specific information about the course.

Firstly, in terms of course participants, as the name suggests, the course name is Teaching English to Students at Upper Secondary School Level.

So the course is designed to fit both novice teachers and the teachers in practice.

As it is an online course, it suits any pace of learning as well as satisfies a wide variety of learning needs.

Participants are expected to be at C1 CFR level or level 5 or above of English language proficiency.

However, those who are not yet acquiring C1 could still consider this course since there is a lot of support on offer.

Now regarding the course objectives, well, through some example analysis, you may well recognize that teaching is not an easy job at all, right?

There are hundreds of thousands of decisions that you as a teacher may have to make while planning the lesson, delivering the lesson as well as after finishing the lesson.

All these decisions must be well informed and lies on a solid theoretical background.

So for this course, teachers are expected to be able to identify the competencies to develop in each lesson of language elements and language skills, apply the procedures or stages of lessons and appropriate instructional techniques to teach the lesson, and to use their critical thinking and reflective practice in conducting reflection in action and reflection on action.

The course is benchmarked against the Foreign Language Teacher Competency Framework, FLTC, which is explained in Documentary No. 2069 by the Ministry of Education and Training.

While this course is developed with the aim to enhance teachers' competencies in general, the focus is on domain 2, the competence of applying teaching approaches and methods.

The second domain focuses on the teachers' competencies to apply teaching approaches and methods with specifications on Criteria 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.5, and 2.6 as you can see on the screen and exercising the knowledge about the general education curriculum for their teaching practice, which is realized in Criterion 6 in Domain 1.

Generally, the second domain addresses the teachers' knowledge about methodology in language teaching, preparing lesson plans, conducting the lessons, and assessing how much students have learned.

It also introduces teachers the resources and technologies available that can be adapted for language teaching in our teacher education program, and these competencies are developed through a number of courses or topics in English language teaching methodology.

Now, in terms of the course structure, well, in the course, principles of teaching language elements and language skills and the suggested classroom procedures and activities are closely linked with the instructions of the general education curriculum for English subjects.

You will be offered opportunities to review the techniques for English teaching and to reflect on the choice of materials and activities for your classroom.

There will be 12 modules in the course, which equals 120 hours of training.

All learning activities happen on the online learning platform provided by the National Language Project.

The platform caters to modes of learning, self-paced and blended, and instructions on how to use the platform and which mode of learning you will take will be specified to you by the National Language Project.

About the course content, in Module 1, Course Overview, we will take a look at the syllabus of this course and discuss some easy strategies for you to complete this course online successfully.

You will be provided with a clear overview of what to expect in the course, as well as how you are going to be assessed.

For the next 10 content modules, which are from Module 2 to Module 11, we will dive deeper into how to enhance different aspects of our teaching.

For example, how to give feedback, how to teach language elements, how to teach language skills in the context of the national curriculum for English subjects.

There are teaching principles to follow and collections of teaching activities which have been tailored for classroom use.

You will be able to review the content provided by completing a number of tasks, such as answering comprehension questions after each reading, doing a quiz after each module, and conducting guided observations with materials taken from the new English textbooks for secondary school graders.

Supplement reading and or videos will be provided so that you can further explore the world of language teaching.

In the final module, Course Summary, we will suggest some next steps that you can take in order to embark on your own adventure of being a teacher of English.

There will be important notices when planning a lesson too, and an essential component of Module 12 is the instruction through the summative assessment, which comprises the end-course quiz and the final course assignment.

Also, all content modules in the course are organized in PALMS order, which stands for Plan, Activate, Learn, Master and Supplement.

There are some rules for the course that we expect you to follow.

Firstly, you need to log on the platform regularly, maybe on a weekly basis.

You need to read and watch the materials.

You need to complete the module comprehension questions, the quizzes, and the guided observations as outlined in the syllabus.

You will need to participate in the threaded discussions and complete the tasks and the assignments as requested.

As for the course assessment, this course is assessed on the basis of pass or fail, all assessment activities of the online course are conducted on the learning platform.

The pass score is 70%.

In order to pass the course, you need to complete the following components.

Firstly, we have the module quizzes.

The portion of this one is 40%.

Each content module quiz from module 2 to module 11 contributes 4% to the total score.

You will need to complete at least 7 out of 10 module quizzes, and you can do each quiz multiple times.

Then comes the end-course quiz.

The portion for this is 20%.

You are expected to complete the end-course quiz with at least 10 out of 15 correct answers.

As for the guided observation form, which accounts for 20% of the total score, you will need to submit at least one observation form as instructed.

And finally, for the course assignment, which accounts for another 20%, you will need to submit the course assignment, which is a lesson plan following the instruction given in module 12.

So that's all the overview information about the course.

Thank you very much for your watching, and we welcome you to the next modules.