Module# 3: Teacher curriculum interview

Pls click here to listen to my interview -> link to

podcast


I had an interview with my daughter’s online private tutor, Ronn Lloyd B. Lagdameo. He is from Philippines and has been working as an online English teacher for more than three years. At the beginning, he was employed by YBM SI-SA, the largest language institute in Korea, in the late January of 2007. He was also responsible for accomplishing the student's daily evaluation form, monthly progress reports and responding to student's inquiries via the teacher's website. His students vary from juniors to seniors. He conducted Free-Talking, Junior and Senior classes like TOEIC Speaking Sr., TOEIC Speaking Jr., English Connections, National Geographic, Timeless Classics and more. Also, he conducts classes through Skype at home.

Here are my questions that I asked him.

1. What is your teaching experience?
2. Could you tell me about your beliefs of teaching?
3. What is your target teaching level?
4. Do you think curriculum design is important? If yes, why?
5. How do you control the curriculum?
6. Do you give assignment after class?
7. Do you think test is important?
8. Do you have idea to make students concentrate on lesson?
9. What is the most important thing as a teacher?
10. What do you think the most important way to improve English as a learner?

He looked like a born-teacher as he thinks teaching as a fun job. He said teaching is not just a job, it is something that he really likes. When he makes curriculum, he considers students’ age, level, as well as learning background. He also regards curriculum design as flash light in the dark place. It gives him right track and it is going to be his guide. He does not give assignment to the young kids but gives it to the seniors. He feels that test is important as he could make sure students learned something from him.

He always connects fun activities to the lesson for young kids as they have short concentration time. I asked him what is the most important thing as a teacher and he said “passion” and “how much you like what you are doing.” Also he mentioned “practice” is the most important thing to master language as a learner. He has found this job to be particularly challenging as he gets to encounter different types of people every day. Likewise, teaching proves to be a difficult job but a very rewarding one. One cannot explain the joy a teacher feels when his student finally responds to questions properly. Indeed, he would like to continue being a teacher and continue helping non-English speaking students learn English in a fun and effective way.

Some of the textbooks are designed for the native speakers so teacher need to change curriculum based on EFL students’ needs. As Scarino (1988) mentioned, curriculum is consisted of strategies for teaching/learning in the classroom, learning resources, assessment scheme, strategies for evaluating all aspects of the curriculum as it progresses and syllabus which is a plan of action that outlines goals, objectives and content of the learning. It includes a general statement on method, assessment, and evaluation.

As Ronn is teaching English in private institute, he could manage curriculum by himself. However, school teachers need to follow the fixed curriculum and it is going to be teacher’s ability to manage it. As Ronn mentioned curriculum design is like a flashlight in the dark place, teacher need to develop it so that students could learn something more from teacher.

These days, Skype is used for the online conversation class and the most fantastic merit of this is that we could record the whole online conversation. The recording program could be easily downloaded through http://www.powergramo.com/. After recording, we could save it as AVI, MPEG , MP3 or QUICKTIME. Wow!! Students could review the lesson many times and parents could monitor the progress.

Through the interview, I learned that teachers need to enjoy teaching with good curriculum so that students get positive energy during learning. Also it is interesting to know very powerful recording device “Skype Recording System.” I would like to use it for myself as well as for my students.