Instructional Design for Teaching English as a Foreign Language

李春芳

【Abstract】An urgent task for the development of English in China is how to improve the effectiveness of English teaching. This paper mainly introduces the theoretical basis of instructional design for teaching English and analyzes the main contents of the English teaching design.

【Key words】instructional design; English; theoretical basis

Introduction

In the process of teaching activities， the teachers and students are the centers of those activities， so they are interactive subjects. Multiple subjects make teaching form resultant force so that instructional goals can be achieved. It must be defined whether the presupposition activities have achieved the instructional goals. Evaluation not only tests whether the presupposition activities have achieved the instructional goals but also referential accordance to decide the instructional goals.

1. The Meaning of Instructional Goals

Teaching is humans planned activities， which can be finished by conscious design. This kind of design is called instructional design. From the perspective of teaching design， the connotation of teaching design includes the following three points.

Instructional design is a technology which can greatly improve teaching effectiveness and has the very remarkable practice operability. Famous American teaching design scholar David Merrill pointed out that instruction is a science， and instructional design is a technology that are firmly based on instructional science. Therefore， instruction can also be thought as science-based technology. As a result， instructional design technology should mainly focus on how efficient instructional activities are designed based on study experience and learning atmosphere.

Also， instructional design is an activity， and teaching itself is a process. Teaching design is naturally composed of a series of decomposable activities. We should naturally grasp instructional design itself as a process. Its procedural character demonstrates that instructional design is not a closed system but a continuous open system in the process.

At the same time， instructional design is an idea. The famous instructional design scholar Gagnez has pointed out the reason why we use the word “instruction” instead of the word “teaching” is that we want to describe all the events that have a direct impact on students learning， not just those events that initiated by individual teachers （Gagnez，1999）. Teaching， as an idea， not only emphasizes the role of teaching in instruction， but also the critical functions of studying in instruction. No matter which mode of instructional design is adopted， learner analysis is the key component.

We can see from the above three aspects of the connotation， instructional design is a kind of modern educational technology based on the theory of the modern learning. Teachers design instructional objectives， procedures， strategies and techniques based on learning needs analysis， for which they can get feedback in order to make a full preparation.

2. The Theoretical Basis of Instructional Design

There are three aspects theoretical basis in instructional design： methodology that gives a philosophical height to instructional design so that it cannot be placed just in the level of instruction; teaching and learning theory which are the main content---it can make the discussion of instructional design start from the fundamental; technological basis---it includes communication theory and design theory.

2.1 Methodology： system theory

System theory puts everything in the world as a system. All observed objects are in the same system. And also， the correlation the regularity of change between system， components and environment should be analyzed. The result of the analysis is used to find how to improve the system. Therefore， instruction is also a system including teachers， students， instructional conditions and other components， which constitutes a complete system. There is a certain time sequence inside the system，so the logic order of knowledge needs to be pay more attention such as chronological order and the order of classroom activities of learning. Systematic theory should be equivalent to feedback system. Instructional evaluation is a crucial form of feedback system. In the process of the instructional activities， teachers， students， and educational administrators get feedback from that system so that instructional activities can be adjusted from time to time.

2.1 Instructional and Learning Theory

Behaviorist theory holds that learning is a process of connection and reinforcement which are built between stimulus and response. Teaching aims to give learners right stimulus to promote them to form， maintain and reinforce preset response.

Cognitive theory thinks that learning is a complicated information processing process that is made up by sensory， perception， memory， extraction， identification， comparison， analysis and synthesis. Instruction should promote students to carry out internal information processing so that the presupposed learning objectives can be achieved.

Constructivist theory， a further development of Cognitive theory， holds that human knowledge is acquired by self-construction when learners interact with external environment. Students is the leader in learning， however， teachers are only assistant， guide and material provider. Instruction activities are designed according to the difficulty of instructional content. Constructivist instruction thinks that every subject is made up by a series of basic structure such as basic concept and principle. The understanding of learning and teaching will naturally affect the design of instructional activities. So a teacher should have their own belief to teaching and learning.

2.3 Technology theory： propagation and design theory

Propagation mainly studies the common Law of all information dissemination activities in nature. According to the theory， instruction is a kind of communication activities between teachers and students. Therefore， the research of teaching also needs the guidance of propagation theory， and instructional design naturally needs to research the design of propagation in teaching. Instructional design， as a design activity， usually has the following features： presuppose and modifiability.

3. An Instructional Design

A case is about Junior high school students from a village. The main content is the usage of “be +doing”.

3.1 Learner analysis

Due to students are from a small village， it is certain that they did not touch “be +doing”， and this is the first time for them to learn. However， they have already learned the usage of some verbs so the key points of the lesson are form changing of those verbs. And this lesson needs to make the students learn how to have oral expression in the given situation.

3.2 Instructional design

In this lesson， task-based language teaching， students-centered， contextual practice teaching and game teaching are used. Students usually do not have opportunities to practice so that lesson should provide context： a TV program is accompanied by an explanation in English in order to let foreign friends know about our Spring Festival activities so that students can learn the usage in the real context. At the same time， students will know more usages about “be +doing” by practice and games; the content of the lesson is not so difficult to find out its basic law so the discovery grammar teaching is used. Only in this way， can students abstract thoughts be formed.

3.3 Management Strategy Design

Instructional management must be flexible. If the process of the lesson is affected by students degree of dynamism， teacher can adopt other attractive activities to control the process of the lesson such as a better TV show.

3.4 Media Design

This lesson need to present dynamic picture so the video must be used. Teachers need to shoot a short video so that students can comment in English. PPT also need to be used to present the form changing of  “動词+ing”. In order to help students study correct pronunciation recorder is necessary for the lesson.

3.5 Feedback

To see how the tasks are done.

Students are divided into several groups according to their seats. Students can choice different activities that they are interested in such as the process of ordering meals in a restaurant， the process of how to cook a deal and so on. Through joining in students group and observe the performance so that the teacher can make sure the mastery degree of students.

4. Summary

To sum up， a designer must fully consider learners so that they can analyze learners correctly. Certain instructional objectives （the usage of language） and instructional strategies that benefit students ability development are designed. It is great that there is feedback in the process of instruction， especially the design of formative evaluation. In English instructional practice， some new teachers need to learn to catch the feedback of instructional information so that they can adjust instructional strategies and promote instructional effectiveness. There are some difficulties in English instructional design such as insufficient knowledge and skills of students， inadequate teaching environment and condition especially the modification of instructional strategies according to its feedback. The general modes of English instructional design are analysis， design， evaluation and revision， among which the analysis of learning objectives， design of teaching process， determination of evaluation objectives and constant revision of teaching strategies based on feedback are the key elements. However， in our instructional design we should integrate four skills not just output skills as writing and spoken skills.

References：

[1]Gagnez. Supervision： Focus on instruction[J]. New York： Harper & Row，1991.

[2]魯子问，康淑敏.英语教学设计[M].上海：华东师范大学出版社， 2008.