Social Service_ Planning My Project

A needs  analysis in the Semi -presential  English Course at my receiving Institution

An overview on the characteristic of  the course chosen for the  development of my social service project.

The Semi-presential  English courses was  created to provide a modality that would  somehow suit  the needs of Saturday´s students at my receiving institution. Most students work during the week  and attend school on Saturdays from 8:am to 8:pm. This  4 levels  courses  on-line modality has been running  for more than a year and  it has been pretending to use  the same syllabus the presential courses use. Students of the semi presetial modality have to take 5 hours of learning activities a week, 2 hours  of presential class on Saturdays and 3 hours of on-line work during the weekdays.  The outstanding difference in this course is the use of  the Moodle  learning platform  which is used as a mean to cover a minimum of  3 hours that can evidence the semi-presential  students participation.   Skype is also used for speaking practice.

Start point

 Issues have arose with regards  the  management  and  the content of the platform, along with teachers´ and students’  poor  training on Moodle and  difficulties accessing  communication technologies like Skype. While some students have success acquiring language skills thought the use of communication technologies on line, others haven´t. In any of the cases, students have troubles efficiently attending  their online  activities.  

Carrying out the needs of analysis

After some reading on  autonomous learning, integrating technology into the classroom and  needs analysis, the carrying out of analysis  was done.  Interviews and observations were  made  on teachers and students mainly about their views and attitudes  about the content and use of the Moodle platform. Observations   made during last semester semi-presential courses were also taken into account  as part of the collected  data. Population was also interviewed about their opinion about using Skype session for their oral practice.

Data was put together, analyzed and discussed among three of the semi-presentia  courses  teachers and the Coordinator. It was decided that the improvement of the platform content was a priority, and  a specific action plan is being developed.

Findings  

Strengths

The content on videos appears to be  enjoyable and  useful  to learn vocabulary and to practice pronunciation.

Students  are gaining  communication skills.

Students  like  the freedom they have  to manage the day an time to access and work in the platform.

Teachers take advantage of the platform to review content, apply quizzes.

The platform facilitates students and teachers the access and modification , in the case of teachers,  of   content.

Platform facilitates feedback not only from the teacher but also from peers.

Skype  has constant participation from students.

The online activities, in general  are building some efficient communicative skills in shy student  through the entire course.

The on-line work appears to be a good way of developing  communicative skills in shy students.

Issues

Training in teachers is not enough.

The Interface seems to be not friendly enough for students to work in it.

Instructions are unclear in many cases.

Content seems disorganized.

The data transferring is slow.

Some students have problems accessing  the platform.

Some students cannot find the assigned task after entering to the platform.

Many students have constant technical problems when using Skype.

Needs

Redesign content in the platform; improve organization of content, clarity in instructions, and make sure that,  after redesigning, content meets programme.

Supervise and reorganize schedules for the Skype oral sessions to accommodate students’ needs as much as possible.

Constant development or improvement of  students’  autonomous and independent learning skills.

It is necessary to work along with the department in charge of  Moodle administration in the institutions to help making the interface design friendlier.