[DaveESL]

Well, it's not like I go in with absolutely no idea of where the class is headed. It is true, though, that I'm willing to abandon whatever I had in mind if 1) it isn't working or 2) the students (or I) come up with something better.

The college students haven't been very forthcoming in terms of shaping the class, so I find myself kind of dragging them into letting me know what topics / language points are relevant to them.

As far as the final projects, they're actually doing group projects. I simply have too many students (~350) to evaluate individual projects. In the past, though, I always did individual projects. In the next podcast (#5 - I posted #4 today) I think I'm going to talk in more detail about some of the various projects I've done with my students.

As far as freedom, I kind of went into my MA degree with the attitude that I wanted to teach at a "bad" college so that I would have complete freedom. And when I started teaching here in China last month, I was given absolutely no syllabus or curriculum of any kind. Granted, I'm the first foreigner teacher at my school, and nobody really has any idea what's going on, so it could be different elsewhere.

Thanks for listening!
Dave

Quote livinginkorea

Listened to number 3 yesterday. Very interesting. It's very rare to find a teacher who doesn't have a rough syllabus lined out before they head into class. It's kinda a needs based analysis approach where the students pick what they want to learn. I do the same myself with my Samsung students (company classes) on the first day but I have some ideas for them if they are slow to think of any themselves. Did you find the same with your college students?

Also I like the idea that you will give them a project rather than exams to work on. It's an individual project right? It's great that you have practically free control to teach what is needed rather than a set syllabus pre-arranged by the department. I imagined that this would be rare in a college/university setting.

Anyway very interesting and looking forward to the next one.

Regards,

Lik