AET/515 Instructional Plan for Language Fundamentals: Chinese, French, Spanish Beth Glessner-Calkins

1. AET/515Instructional Plan for Language Fundamentals: Chinese, French, Spanish Beth Glessner-Calkins Instructional Plan Template | Slide 1

2. Needs Assessment • What is the learning problem or opportunity? • Baderman Island Resort employees lack confidence and knowledge about ways to pronounce resort guest names, resulting in diminished customer service. Resort guests have called attention to the problem. • What is currently available? • A “Customer Service in Hospitality Services” course currently exists through Boardman Corporate University. • What should be available? • A training that guides employees through the pronunciation rules and basic greetings in Chinese, French, and Spanish, the languages of the majority of guests who stay at the Baderman Island Resort. Instructional Plan Template | Slide 2

3. Needs Assessment (gap analysis, solution) • Explain the gap analysis between what is available and what should be available. • The “Customer Service in Hospitality Services” course does not address the issue of name pronunciation as an important factor in guest relations. The resort management team has announced its intention to provide language instruction to its employees as a response to guest complaints, but the training has not yet been developed. The management mentioned French and Spanish specifically, but recent upward trends in Chinese-speakers traveling abroad necessitates inclusion of Mandarin Chinese pronunciation basics and common phrases in the training (Yu, 2012). • What is your recommended solution for filling the gap? • A Language Fundamentals: Chinese, French, and Spanishtraining course offered to all employees who interact with guests at the Baderman Island Resort. Instructional Plan Template | Slide 3

4. Course Title and Description • Language Fundamentals: Chinese, French, Spanish (F/O) • This course is designed to equip employees with the tools to improve the customer service provided to our Chinese, French, and Spanish-speaking guests. Employees will gain confidence in their ability to pronounce common names in Mandarin Chinese, French, and Spanish, and be familiar with some basic greetings and phrases in each language. This course will be taught in a face-to-face environment with opportunities to roll-play realistic scenarios, and improve. Supplemental electronic materials will be provided to employees for practice outside of the classroom. Pre-requisite: Customer Service in Hospitality Services. (4 hours) Instructional Plan Template | Slide 4

5. Instructional Goal • After completing the Language Fundamentals: Chinese, French, and Spanish training course, Baderman Island employees should gain confidence in their ability to pronounce common names in Mandarin Chinese, French, and Spanish, and be familiar with some basic greetings and phrases in each language. Instructional Plan Template | Slide 5

6. Performance-Based Objectives • Baderman Island employees will be able to properly pronounce common names in Mandarin Chinese, French, and Spanish while interacting with guests in the recreation, hotel, and restaurant areas at the resort. • Training participants will achieve a ‘novice-mid’ speaking proficiency level based on ACTFL guidelines by appropriately using basic greetings and useful phrases in Mandarin Chinese, French, and Spanish. Instructional Plan Template | Slide 6

7. Summative Assessment and Learning Outcomes (pre-test) • Pre-testing prior to instruction: • Prior to the start of instruction, participants will take a very brief pre-test of the material. They will be given a list of various names of Chinese, French, and Spanish origin to pronounce, and asked to record their responses. Participants will also be asked to list any words or expressions they know in Mandarin Chinese, French, and Spanish. The list will be open-ended, but limited to ten expressions for each language. They will also be asked about their level of knowledge of languages other than English and the three target languages. • The pre-test will be graded so it may be compared with post-instruction test results. Instructional Plan Template | Slide 7

8. Summative Assessment and Learning Outcomes (post-test) • Testing events after instruction: • After the instruction, participants will be tested on their knowledge of common greetings and phrases in the three target languages. Their pronunciation of names and confidence in speech will be tested and checked for improvement. They will be recorded using real-life customer-service scenarios. Instructional Plan Template | Slide 8

9. Learner Characteristics: Overview • The target audience for the language instruction will be male and female adult employees, ranging in age from 18 to 65. Most of the employees will have less than five years work experience in the hospitality industry. They will have an average of less than one year of college course work, and many will be currently enrolled in an Associates degree program for culinary arts, or hospitality, travel, and tourism. The employees who are committed to a career in the hospitality industry will demonstrate a higher level of motivation to increase their customer service skills. Some learners will have previous knowledge of another language, and come from diverse cultural backgrounds. None of the trainees will have sufficient knowledge of all three target languages: Chinese, French, and Spanish. The employees will not have one dominant type of learning style, but rather represent a mixture of visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic learners. Instructional Plan Template | Slide 9

10. Learner Characteristics: Implications • The training will focus on developing practical skills for the workplace that will have value for each employee who deals with resort guests. It will not be overly complicated, or present linguistic theories or research findings. The training will include a range of learning activities so as to appeal to all learning styles. Learning strategies that build upon prior language knowledge will be integrated into the instructional plan so as to engage employees from various linguistic backgrounds as revealed in pre-test results. Instructional Plan Template | Slide 10

11. Learning Context • Instructional setting: The initial face-to-face instruction will take place at an easily accessible meeting room at the Baderman Island resort grounds. The room will be equipped with moveable tables and chairs, audio/visual equipment including a projector and screen for PowerPoint presentations, and good quality speakers for clear delivery of the audio portions of the training. Recording devices will be needed for assessments before and after the instruction. Supplemental training materials will be available to participants in electronic format so that they may be able to review the basic phrases, sounds, and pronunciation rules of Chinese, French, and Spanish at their convenience outside of the classroom setting. • Application setting: Participants will practice scenarios in the classroom in preparation for applying the training in customer-service situations with Baderman Island resort guests. They may be greeting and pronouncing the names of guests on the phone or in face-to-face situations throughout the resort. The instructional plan must remain dynamic. It will reflect the need for role-playing various realistic encounters with guests in numerous contexts. Instructional Plan Template | Slide 11

12. Delivery Modality • The Language Fundamentals: Chinese, French, Spanish course will be taught by language specialists in a face-to-face classroom setting. Instructors will introduce the material, and allow for practice and collaboration. • The course will also include an asynchronous web-based tutorial component to provide review and reinforcement of the material outside of class. Instructional Plan Template | Slide 12

13. Instructional Strategies: Classroom Component • The classroom instruction component of the course will present useful expressions, and teach basic pronunciation rules in Mandarin Chinese, French, and Spanish. Instruction will be organized into three discrete lessons, one for each target language. The fourth lesson will review all material, and integrate realistic customer service scenarios that may involve Chinese, French, or Spanish-speaking guests in a variety of contexts. • Instructors will share relevant cultural knowledge throughout the course. Instruction will be varied so as to appeal to various learning styles through the use of visual aids to see how to place one’s mouth or tongue, auditory drills to hear the correct pronunciation of names and sounds, and group work for interactive practice with fellow students. Instructional Plan Template | Slide 13

14. Instructional Strategies: Classroom Component • Instructors will use PowerPoint to organize the presentation of material for each language. The instructors will first model the dialogue using basic expressions, then break down each line of dialogue, and have the students repeat. Students then practice in pairs with each other while the instructors monitor progress. Correction takes place as necessary, keeping in mind the objective is for students to achieve novice-mid level proficiency. • Instruction starts with basic greetings to motivate and interest the learners. The section of the dialogue that includes the forms of address (Madame, Monsieur, señor, señora, Xiansheng, Tai tai) will be revisited to introduce the basics of pronunciation of common last names in each language, and the cultural importance of titles. Instructional Plan Template | Slide 14

15. Instructional Strategies: Classroom Component • Sample Practice Dialogue: • French: • Bonjour, Madame. Bonjour, Monsieur. • Comment allez-vous? • Trèsbien, merci, et vous? • Trèsbien. • Au revoir. Au revoir. • Madame _____________ (Martin, Bernard, Dubois, Thomas, Robert) • Monsieur _____________ (Richard, Petit, Durand, Leroy, Moreau) • The selected names are from a list of most common French surnames, and they also provide a variety of pronunciation challenges. Instructional Plan Template | Slide 15

16. Instructional Strategies: Tutorial Component • The web-based tutorial will provide participants with useful expressions and a review of basic pronunciation rules in Mandarin Chinese, French, and Spanish. It will be divided into three modules, one for each target language. • The tutorial is designed for learner-controlled non-linear learning which is most helpful for reinforcement and practice of material outside of class (Martin, 2008). Learners will be able to select the language they want to review at the beginning. Once inside a module, learners may navigate to any screen of their choice based on what material they feel they need to review. Instructional Plan Template | Slide 16

17. Instructional Strategies: Tutorial Component • Each language module will include: • Audio recordings (.wav files) of the sounds of letters and combination of letters as they would be pronounced in French, Spanish, or Mandarin Chinese. The Mandarin Chinese module will use pinyin, not Chinese characters. • Videos and images showing correct positioning of the mouth and tongue to produce the sounds. • Visuals to remind learners of the expressions (Hello, How are you? Good-bye, Sir, Ma’am) and their meanings. • Audio recordings (.wav files) of the pronunciation of basic expressions in each language. • Short (two minute) videos of customer service scenarios introduced in class. Instructional Plan Template | Slide 17

18. Plan for Implementation • The four-hour classroom component of the training will be taught over four days, with one hour of instruction each day. The course will be offered quarterly during the week following the Customer Service in Hospitality Services course. The web-based tutorial will be available to any current and past participant at any time. • Two instructors will conduct the course. They will also be responsible for the instructional design. One instructor is a subject matter expert in French and Spanish; the other is a subject matter expert in Chinese. Because the instructors will model dialogues together, they will have at least a novice-high speaking proficiency in the non-SME language. The instructors will agree upon a common format for the classroom PowerPoint, and will develop the cultural and linguistic content including the pre- and post-instruction assessments. Much of the classroom content can be adapted for use in the web tutorial. The instructors will collaborate on the tutorial, and create it using a web authoring tool such as Adobe Captivate or Articulate Storyline. Instructional Plan Template | Slide 18

19. Plan for Implementation • Class size will be limited to 16 students so that instructors can monitor pair work, and provide individual attention as needed. The course is designed for new employees. Priority will be given to new employees in reception and reservations because they have the most frequent interactions with guests whose names they need to pronounce. The first day of class will focus on French, the second day on Spanish, the third day on Chinese, and the last day will be a review that will allow for interaction and practice using all three languages. • Boardman Corporate University advertises the courses it offers to employees, and everyone attending the Customer Service in Hospitality Services course will be encouraged to sign up for the Language Fundamentals training the following week. Employees who have previously taken the course will be welcome to attend if the class is not at full capacity. They will receive an email notice that the course is being offered again. They may be called upon to act as role models, and to share experiences they have had with international guests at Baderman Island resort. Instructional Plan Template | Slide 19

20. Instructional Resources • A meeting room with moveable chairs, a projector, and a minimum capacity of 16 must be reserved for the classroom component of the training at Baderman Island resort. Speakers will be needed for playback of audio files. Recording devices will be needed for the learner assessments. • The instructors will need computers with Microsoft Office Suite installed to develop the PowerPoint presentation for classroom use. A license agreement with Adobe Captivate or Articulate Storyline will be needed to author the web-based tutorial. For domain name approval and university server access, instructorswill need to contact the Boardman Corporate University Information Technology department prior to publishing the tutorial. • Students will need access to a computer and the Internet to do the web-based tutorial outside of class. Instructional Plan Template | Slide 20

21. Formative Assessment(prior to instruction) • The instructional plan will be subject to five strategies of formative assessment prior to the formal offering of the course: • Expert Review: Additional subject matter experts who are native speakers of Mandarin Chinese, French, and Spanish will be asked to review audio-visual course materials to check for accuracy. • Design Review: Instructors will test the usability of the web-based tutorial on multiple machines (Mac and PC), laptops, tablets, and smartphones. They will make adjustments when possible, and alert students to any known technical limitations. • Group processing: The two instructors will maintain excellent communication with each other throughout the design process to ensure that each language module in the PowerPoint and web tutorial follows the same format. They will hold brief progress report meetings daily. Instructional Plan Template | Slide 21

22. Formative Assessment(prior to instruction) • Learner validation (field trial):Instructors will present the PowerPoint and teach a practice lesson to their acquaintances who do not speak any foreign language to check for approachability of the material, and effectiveness of the instruction. Instructors will rate if the participants achieved the novice-mid proficiency goal. If they did not, then modifications are necessary. Instructors will informally interview the trial participants about how they felt as students in the classroom, and what aspects of the instruction they liked or disliked. Their feedback and suggestions will be taken into consideration. • Ongoing validation: As the course is offered more frequently and employees start to use the skills they have learned, former participants will be asked to suggest new scenarios or improvements based on real-life experiences at the resort. Instructional Plan Template | Slide 22

23. Formative Assessment(during instruction) • Learner achievement will be assessed during instruction using the following five strategies: • Practice drills: Students will be asked to repeat after the instructors to model the correct pronunciation of greetings, sounds, and names. The whole class will repeat together to become accustomed to making the sounds in a comfortable group environment. Instructors will listen for errors, and model corrections. Instructors will then ask individual students to pronounce the target greeting, sound, or name. • Meaning checks: Students will practice greetings with instructors to check for accuracy and understanding of meaning. The instructors will model the situation, and the student must respond in the target language with the accurate equivalent greeting for the given context. Instructional Plan Template | Slide 23

24. Formative Assessment(during instruction) • Phone scenario: The students will be asked to imagine that they need to speak with a resort guest on the phone. They must demonstrate that they can correctly pronounce the name. • Face-to-Face dialogue: Pairs of students will be asked to present a realistic customer service scenario using greetings and pronouncing guest names properly. These dialogues are practiced in class to prepare students for the recorded summative assessment at the end of instruction. • Informal survey: At the end of each class hour, students will be asked to answer questions to determine if they feel the class is meeting their needs. The survey helps instructors know if the goal of increasing employee confidence in customer service situations with Chinese, French, and Spanish-speakers is being met. Instructional Plan Template | Slide 24

25. Evaluation Strategies • Several evaluation strategies will be put in place to determine training success. • ACTFL Proficiency Testing: Each student’s recorded assessment of customer-service scenarios with Chinese, French, and Spanish-speaking guests will be evaluated for novice-mid speaking proficiency. Evaluators will keep track of the percentage of students who do not achieve the proficiency goal. A pass rate of >95% will be considered successful. • Statistical monitoring: The management team at Baderman Island monitors the guest relations blog, and maintains a database of known customer service issues and responses. Because the training was implemented in response to French and Spanish-speaking guest complaints, management will be asked to report on improvements in guest comments and customer service surveys that indicate quantifiable increased rates of customer satisfaction. • On-going evaluation: The daily informal surveys that the students provide to the classroom instructors will be compiled and analyzed for patterns that indicate the necessity for course modification. Instructional Plan Template | Slide 25

26. Evaluation Strategies • Student surveys: Students will be asked to complete an online post-instruction survey. The survey will be sent out about one week after the instruction so as to give students time to implement the training in the workplace. Boardman Corporate University uses Surveymonkey.com for their evaluation needs. The survey will use Likert scales for responses, and give employees the opportunity to provide unstructured feedback. • Some sample questions include: • How useful do you feel this training will be in your current job? Extremely useful…very useful…moderately useful…slightly useful…not at all useful • How often have you used the material covered in the training at your workplace? Extremely often…very often…moderately often…slightly often…not at all often • How effective did you find the in-class instruction? Extremely effective…very effective…moderately effective…slightly effective…not at all effective • How effective did you find the online tutorial? Extremely effective…very effective…moderately effective…slightly effective…not at all effective Instructional Plan Template | Slide 26

27. Outcome Review • Instructional designers will provide a final evaluation report on the Language Fundamentals: Chinese, French, Spanish course. The report will include an Executive Summary that shows whether Baderman Island Resort employees gained confidence in their ability to pronounce common names in Mandarin Chinese, French, and Spanish, and became familiar with basic greetings and phrases in each language. The report will show that the evaluation methodology was grounded in competency-based language instructional standards and ACTFL proficiency scales. The acceptable range of learners who do not meet the required proficiency must be less than five percent. The report will include qualitative and quantitative findings of the students’ proficiency tests, in-class and post-instruction student surveys, resort guest satisfaction commentaries, and on-going evaluations from former training participants. To explain that the course objectives were met, the report will include a comparison of pre- and post-instruction assessments to rate levels of improved confidence. The ACTFL proficiency tests will confirm whether participants achieved a novice-mid level in speaking Chinese, French, and Spanish. Instructional Plan Template | Slide 27

28. Recommendations • Based on a favorable outcome review of the Language Fundamentals: Chinese, French, Spanish course, the instructional designers make the following recommendations for future use: • Limit the course to just one language. The classroom instruction would be limited to one hour, and focus on either Mandarin Chinese, French, or Spanish. The web tutorial would only include the chosen language. The course can easily be limited to provide instruction in only one target language if that is what a needs analysis indicates. • Offer additional courses in Mandarin Chinese, French, and Spanish with a goal of building on employees’ prior knowledge and the achievement of higher proficiency levels. These courses must be taught separately to avoid linguistic confusion, and allow students to focus on the more advanced material. The courses would be taught in the classroom, and include more advanced online tutorials to support the instruction. Instructional Plan Template | Slide 28

29. Recommendations (continued) • Expand the current course to include other languages. The way the course is currently designed, it can easily be expanded to include other languages. The target languages will depend on an updated needs assessment that will be based on trends of the countries of origin and languages spoken by resort guests. The on-going assessment results that include feedback from current employees, and the management’s analysis of their guest relations database will provide data to justify the course expansion. • Offer the current course for use in other industries or organizations that express a need for their employees to have a basic knowledge of pronunciation rules and basic greetings in any of the target languages. The designers may want to explore the possibility of offering their training to corporations or institutions that operate in a call center environment where employees must pronounce diverse names on a daily basis. They may also market the course as a way for companies to provide training in response to the need to expand diversity and global outreach initiatives. Instructional Plan Template | Slide 29

30. References • American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. (2013). ACTFL proficiency guidelines: speaking. Retrieved from http://actflproficiencyguidelines2012.org/speaking • Apollo Group. (2012). Baderman Island International Guest Services. Retrieved from https://ecampus.phoenix.edu/secure/aapd/CIST/VOP/Business/BadermanIsland/internet/blog/international.asp • Brown, A., & Green, T. (2006). The Essentials of instructional design: connecting fundamental principles with process and practice . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall/Merrill. • Bunson, S. (2012, April). How to evaluate instruction, including elearning. Learning Solutions Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/881/ • Cultural China. (2010). The Book of 100 Family Names. Retrieved from http://www.cultural-china.com/chinaWH/html/en/Traditions1319bye1874.htmlCampbell, M. (2013). Most common surnames in France. Retrieved from http://surnames.behindthename.com/top/lists/1000frs2005.php • Fleming, N., & Mills, C. (1992). Not another inventory, rather a catalyst for reflection. To Improve the Academy, (11), 137-149. • Johnson, D., Johnson, R., & Holubec, E. (1998). Cooperation in the classroom . Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. • Martin, F. (2008). Effects of Practice in a Linear and Non-linear Web-based Learning Environment. Educational Technology & Society, 11 (4), 81–93. Instructional Plan Template | Slide 30

31. References (continued) • Pinyin Joe. (2013). About Pinyin. Retrieved from http://www.pinyinjoe.com/about-pinyin.htm • Smith, P., & Ragan, T. (1999). Instructional design . Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. • Snyder, J. (2012, Summer). Proficiency-based assessment and personalized learning. Seenmagazine.us, 14(2), 20-22. Retrieved from http://www.seenmagazine.us/articles/article-detail/articleid/2338/proficiency-based-assessment-and-personalized-learning.aspx • Yu, R. (2012, February 2). Chinese travelers are seeing the USA in record numbers. USA Today. Retrieved from http://travel.usatoday.com/flights/story/2012-01-31/Chinese-travelers-are-seeing-the-USA-in-record-numbers/52905866/1 Instructional Plan Template | Slide 31