Designing a syllabus

Last month, I recieved an email from my old student. She used to be my student in a secretarial academy. Now she is working in a company which supplies toiletries to several hotels and aviation industries. She was asking me to teach a group of employees in her office. She said that her boss asked her to find a teacher who has been experienced in teaching business English. And the choice went to me. I was elated. It's been several years since I taught a business English class. This will be a great opportunity to me to develop a syllabus.

My first encounter with business English class was in 1999 after I attended a workshop on designing a business English class held by The British Council. Since then, I feel more confident when I have to teach and design a syllabus for a business English class.

These are several steps I usually do :

1. Need analysis is done by giving a questionnaire and interviewing the students to find out their need and competence.
2. Determining the goals and objectives can be negotiated with the students. They should be told what the will have to do to achieve their goals and objectives.
3. Conceptualising content is done by selecting the backbone of the content.
4. Selecting and developing material and activities will be easier when I know the students' background of their proficiency, learning preference and objectives. I can select material and activities which will make them interested in learning.
5. Organisation and content of activities should be designed systematically so the students can follow the lesson easier.
6. Evaluation is done in accordance with the materials presented and activities done in the class. This will eventually assess what the students have learned.
7. Constraints which may occur in the class should also be anticipated by writing a journal teaching. With this, I can predict what obstacles I may find in the future and try to find a solution for them.

Teaching a group of adult with different education background and occupations is not only exciting but also challenging. They are usually more anxious to improve their English as they need it for their career advancement. However, they have limited time to do self improvement. Therefore, the activities in the class should be dynamic and related to their real world.