Course & syllabus Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Course & syllabus - Essay Example The importance of considering both are stressed and explained, as well as the difficulties involved. A greater emphasis on needs, aims, objectives and learning outcomes began when the Council of Europe’s Modern Languages Project attempted to remedy the over-emphasis on teaching methods in the 1970s (Stern, 1989: 212). This was a positive step but it became apparent later on, that treatment and evaluation related factors also needed to be considered for a more balanced approach. However, the focus of attention in this paper is on the needs, aims, objectives and learning outcomes. Needs analysis A needs analysis is a â€Å"systematic collection and analysis of all subjective and objective information necessary to define and validate defensible curriculum purposes †¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Brown, 1995: 36). Often, a needs assessment is not undertaken for devising language courses. It is generally thought that it is not possible to be specific in identifying needs. However, it has been sho wn to be not only possible, but also useful in English language classrooms to support problem solving and â€Å"as a basis for aims, courses, and materials; and to provide a concrete illustration of how analysis of data can be performed, and how a tight and direct link can be maintained between needs, aims, and materials, and what actually occurs in the classroom† (Seedhouse, 1993). ... According to Brown (1995, ch. 2), they generally involve two things, firstly making basic decisions such as identifying the types of people involved, the information needed and points of view, and secondly gathering information such as types of questions, instruments, choosing procedures and other factors. For providing such information, Richards (2001: 63-64) recommends a number of strategies such as conducting a literature survey and conducting interviews. This would help to find out information such as the situations in which English is used most frequently, in which difficulties are encountered, perceived difficulties, frequencies of errors, suggestions, opinions, and so on. The Council of Europe model suggests the approach should be systematic and centred on the learner (Richterich & Chancerel, 1977). The Munby (1978) model also advocates the same but also suggests considering features pertaining to the target situation in which the language will be used. The information gleaned from this analysis is then fed as input for processing both language skills and meaning, i.e. for identifying the micro-skills and functions that would be required. Muby also mentions a number of other variables that should be considered, but these are recommended for after, not before, the syllabus is specified. However, all the pertinent information should ideally be gathered beforehand as part of the needs analysis not when the syllabus is finalised. Hutchinson & Waters (1987) formed a number of specific questions in their framework for target situation analysis, and based on these, further questions for analysing learning needs. These are listed in the table below. These questions are useful to ensure that all the important aspects

How television violence affect children Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

How television violence affect children - Essay Example This paper then will aim to investigate the issue of television violence with respect to promotional campaigns, seeking for a clearer understanding of the ways by which advertisements for violent amusement products function to attract the young viewer’s attention (ibid). Disputes about the media’s influence on children are frequently grounded on assumptions of developmental psychology, which claims that children lack the cognitive capability to discriminate commercial meanings from other media content, and hence are views as particularly vulnerable. Numerous researches have surveyed the effects of mediated violence, frequently assuming that a relationship, either correlative or contributory, is present between a child’s exposure to provoked violence and his or her eventual expressions of real physical violence. Such investigations usually argue that children exposed to television violence will sooner or later come to accept manifestations of violence in actual world backgrounds, be they real physical attacks or violent ideas and sentiments (Evra 1990). This has guided a number of researchers to conclude that the relationship between mediated and real violence in children is in reality causal. As such as theories of developmental psychology argue that children acquire awareness of societal expectations through observing and imitating the actions and behaviors of others, it has been claimed that even short term exposure to provoked violence augments to the threat that young viewers’ future behaviors will be typified by intensified physical or emotional hostility or aggression. Yet, to date, majority of the studies have put emphasis on violence enclosed in the entertainment channels themselves, discarding promotional campaigns for, and deep-seated within such programs. Only currently have the advertising messages for and within amusement products been provided any thorough analysis