My Reflections about E-Teacher Course

It is hard to begin reflecting over the material and coursework over the last ten weeks. It is not
that I dont have any thoughts or starting points but it is more that I have too many ideas. The
course experience has been highly favorable one. I have been exposed to new concepts,
techniques, and technologies towards vocational and ESP trainings that are so overwhelming but
not challenging at all. The course opened my curiosity into learning to become a better ESP
practitioner and an innovative vocational trainer. The class promoted learning and collaboration
by creating online group discussions, tasks and projects. The following are the discussions that
reflect my opinions, experiences I had throughout the course and also have my future plans to
design vocational training courses for fresh intermediate, graduate students and professionals.

The team projects were another part of the class I really enjoyed. The interaction between
engaged users from different countries provided much of the learning. The discussions were
both practical and educational. The individual projects were also enjoyable. I found the final
project to be challenging but engaging. Every individual was asked to complete a project by
designing a course for their chosen areas. The area I chose for my final project was Sales and
Customer Service. However, I experienced various other fields by discussing with my course
mates. All the data collections methods of Need analysis, Target Situation Analysis, Present
Situation analysis were applied in the given project.

I had never wanted to take online courses because I felt I couldnt learn as much as if I were
present and participating in class but I have been proven wrong. The most important skills that
will always be the core tools to boost my future are as follows:

1) Conducting a target situation analysis (TSA), present situation analysis (PSA) , and
context analysis (CA)
2) determine initial performance goals
3) conducting a Communication Task / Language Analysis for each performance goal
4) Determine specific, measurable enabling objectives for each performance goal
5) Selecting and developing appropriate training materials and activities both authentic and
non-authentic.
6) discovering what language learners need to be able to do to achieve communicative
competence in English within a specific discourse community(Genre Analysis)
7) building technology into the curriculum as appropriate to increase authenticity of tasks
and build learner skills
8) providing on-going formative and Summative evaluation to monitor learning
9) Designing and administering appropriate evaluation tools

As a whole, this experience has been amazingly valuable one. I think that I was able to better
understand these ideas by being allowed to experience them first hand. The group work was
richer and more rewarding than what I had previously experienced while using Blackboard, and
in many ways I think it was truer to the idea of an online version of collaborative learning. I
believe that my future experiences interacting with adults will be to train them for vocational
programs either pre-service or post service. The strength I have got from this course will be
utilized to design course for fresh intermediate and graduate Pakistani students for their
university programs and future professional workplace. I am pretty determined to empower the
youth while fulfilling their needs for their academic and professional development.

Regards

Aalumgir Shah,
Pakistan, Karachi