Last month, my attention was brought to an article recently published in TESOL's IEP Interest Section Newsletter, " Navigating Curricular Change in a Postmethod Program: Negotiating Roles and Expectations " by Erin O'Reilly, who works upstate from me at the University of Illinois. Their IEP has undergone a similar process of curricular change as we are experiencing at Southern Illinois University. The need for curricular change became clear for accreditation purposes. Both of our programs needed to align student learning outcomes (SLOs) across levels and skills. The biggest difference between our programs is that they had experienced teachers with administrative oversight of one skill area whereas we had experienced teachers with administrative oversight of two to four levels. In this sense, Illinois may have had an easier process to align skills across levels whereas we had a clearer understanding of SLOs representing the three major tiers of levels. For both o...
Attempting to bridge the research-practice gap in English language teaching with a focus on curriculum, instructional technology, and intercultural communication.