Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia

Academic and Research Vice-Rector

Activity guide and evaluation rubric
Task 3 – Variables for designing an ESP course

1. General description of the course

Faculty or Escuela de Ciencias de la Educación

Academic Unit
Academic Level Profesional
Academic Field Formación disciplinar
Course Name Teaching English for specific purposes
Course Code 551038
Course Type Metodológico Retake yes ☐ No ☒
exam
Number of Credits 3

2. Description of the activity

Type of Number of
Individual ☒ Collaborative ☒ 4
activity: weeks
Evaluation
Initial ☐ Intermediate ☒ Final ☐
moment:

Environment for the submission

Total score of the activity:
of the activity: Monitoring and
120 points
Evaluation Environment
Starting date of the activity: Deadline of the activity:
March 13th, 2020 April 8th, 2020
Competence to develop:
Students recognize and analyze the various theoretical and
methodological principles related to academic discourse in specific
subject areas of language teaching relevant to teachers of ESP, in order
to understand learner’s needs in an ESP course.
Topics to develop:
English for specific purposes. 4 – Language Descriptions

English for specific purposes. 5 – Theories of learning

English for specific purposes. 6 – Needs analysis

English for specific purposes. 7 – Approaches to course design

Step, phase or stage of the learning strategy to develop

The approach proposed for this course is the Task-Based Approach
(TBA) since it permits goal-oriented and meaning centered activities.
Writing tasks are designed to facilitate students’ participation in
meaningful activities. This unit relies on the theoretical generalities of
Teaching English for Specific Purposes.

Activities to develop

Individual

Task 1. Write a paper (essays) on needs analysis and the components

of an ESP course
1. Check and read the bibliographic material in the Knowledge
Environment for Unit 2.

2. Read and select one of the following scenarios:

A. You have been hired by a young tourist guide who already has an
English level of B2, and who is highly motivated to get a better job
opportunity at a banana plantation. In three months, this banana
plantation is expected to hire new staff with a general knowledge of
English, who is also familiar with a specific vocabulary related with
banana plantations, production, machinery and distribution processes to
be able to explain to foreign business investors and/or visitors all the
steps required for the development and completion of the product,
meanwhile they are showed them the different areas of that banana
plantation.
B. A university student from an English Bachelor program in Colombia
wishes to hire an English teacher to prepare her for a language test.
This student already has an English level of B1 and is highly motivated
to graduate as soon as possible, but she lacks the ability in the
receptive skills of listening and reading comprehension. Therefore, she
wants the tutor to help her prepare on these two areas for the exam to
achieve at least a B2 level.

C. Two parents are planning to live abroad with their two children in
one years, and they are looking for an English Tutor who can help their
son and daughter of 12 years old to have a smoother transition to a
science class. These two children have gone to a bilingual school for 2
years, but for some reason the science teacher talked more in Spanish
than in English during his class, and for this reason the children were
not familiarized with enough English vocabulary on science topics. Their
parents want their children to learn and master the science vocabulary
used for 6th and 7th grade. The children are pretty good at learning
English, but do not understand the specific vocabulary quite well.

D. A doctor is hiring you to prepare him for a job interview that he will
have in 3 months, for a new position. He has a B2 English level and a
good range of vocabulary related with his profession, but he lacks
fluency and confidence to speak because he has not found anyone to
practice with, therefore he decides to hire you to prepare him for this
specific purpose. He would like to reinforce his speaking and listening
skills.

E. A flight attendant is hiring you because she has a month to take an

English exam by means of which she may be promoted to a better
position at the airline she works for. She has a B1 level of English and
manages a good range of vocabulary. She speaks with some fluency but
needs to prepare for the writing, language use and reading parts of the
exam.

4. Based on the suggested readings of UNIT 2 and the scenario you

have selected, write an argumentative essay analyzing the
COMPONENTS (steps, variables, methods and resources) that you need
to keep in mind, to design and implement your ESP course. The essay
must contain 4 to 6 paragraphs.

Note: Include an introduction and a conclusion. Each paragraph must be

about a different topic and all paragraphs together must present a
global, organized and complete picture of your mental planning toward
this course.

5. Post the scenario you picked in the forum.

6. Post your essay at least 5 days before the due date.

Collaborative

Task 2. Consolidate a document including all participant’s essays and a

chart

Interact in the forum asking and answering at least three meaningful

questions about your classmates’ essays.

As the final product, the group will post a document including all
participants’ essays as well as a comparative chart presenting the most
common and uncommon components given in the essays.

Environments Knowledge Environment

for the
development Collaborative Learning Environment
of the
activity Monitoring and Evaluation Environment
Individual:

The student must post their work in the forum that

includes the information developed in task 1.

Collaborative:
Products to
be delivered
A word document including all participants’ essays as
by the
well as a comparative chart presenting all the
student
components mentioned in the essays and developed in
task 2.

Submission format:
The document will be delivered in Word
 Cover according to APA style
Font: Arial o Times New Roman 12
Line spacing: 1.5

3. General guidelines for the development of collaborative work

Collaborative learning is a strategy that allows

students to work together in order to achieve a
common goal. Accordingly, the collaborative work
proposed for the course is based on a structured
and planned process that includes individual and
group activities, as well as interaction and
socialization in the virtual classroom.
1. Explore the syllabus of the course.
2. Make several readings of the activity guide and
the evaluation rubric for each of the units of
individual and collaborative work.
3. All the activities that are carried out for the
Planning of
development of the activity should be reflected
activities for the within the course through the different media and
development of especially in the forum of each activity, since the
collaborative interaction; if they work by Skype or other means
work they should evidence it in the forum with
screenshots.
4. Be in constant communication with the
colleagues and tutor during the development of
activities.
5. In case of any concern, ask the tutor or the
colleagues with time, using the various
communication channels arranged in the course.
6. Enter the contributions with time for the Timely
feedback from peers and tutor.
7. Establish a schedule of activities within each
forum and a table of roles and functions for meet
during the development of each activity.
Roles to be Different roles are proposed within the
performed by collaborative environment, which allow an
the student in appropriate space for academic growth and
the collaborative effective interaction that promotes learning and
group interpersonal relationships. Every student will take
up one of these roles for the development of the
course assignments and can only be changed if
decided by the group members.
Facilitator: Makes sure that every voice is heard
and focuses work around the learning task.
Provides leadership and direction for the group and
suggests solutions to team problems.
Recorder: Keeps a public record of the team's
ideas and progress. Checks to be sure that ideas
are clear and accurate.
Time keeper: Encourages the group to stay on
task. Announces when time is halfway through and
when time is nearly up.
Planner: States an action for the completion of
the task at hand according to the instructions and
course agenda.
Task monitor: Looks for supplies or requests help
from the teacher when group members agree that
they do not have the resources to solve the
problem.
Compiler: Puts together the final product and
includes the work done only by those who
participated on time. Informs the student in charge
of alerts about people who did not participate and
Roles and duties will not be included in the final product.
for the
submission of Reviser/editor: Makes sure the written work
products by follows all the criteria established in the activity
students guide.
Evaluator: Evaluates the final document to ensure
it follows the evaluation criteria of the rubric and
informs the student in charge of alerts about any
changes that need to be made before delivering
 the product.
Deliveries: Student in charge of informing about
the dates set for presenting each task and
delivering the final product according to the course
agenda. Also informs other students that the final
product has been sent.
Alerts: Informs group participants about any news
in the work being done and reports the delivery of
the final product to the course tutor.

American Psychological Association APA rules:

It’s very important for students to take into
Use of account these rules in order to avoid difficulties
references with plagiarism and the consequences they may
face in the assessment processes. Check:
http://www.bibme.org/citation-guide/apa/

Students must be aware of the risks and penalties

in case of plagiarism.
Under the Academic Code of Conduct, the actions
that infringe the academic order, among others,
are the following: paragraph e) "Plagiarism is to
present as your own work all or part of a written
report, task or document of invention carried out
by another person. It also implies the use of
Plagiarism citations or lack of references, or it includes
policy citations where there is no match between these
and the reference" and paragraph f) " To
reproduce, or copy for profit, educational resources
or results of research products, which have rights
reserved for the University ". (Acuerdo 029 - 13 De
Diciembre de 2013, Artículo 99)
The academic penalties that the student will face
are:
a) In case of academic fraud demonstrated in the
 academic work or evaluation, the score obtained
will be zero (0.0) without any disciplinary measures
being derived.
b) In case of proven plagiarism in academic work
of any nature, the score obtained will be zero
(0.0), without any disciplinary measures being
derived.
To learn how to properly cite all your tasks, see the
following:
BibMe. (n.d.). APA Citation Guide. Retrieved from
http://www.bibme.org/citation-guide/apa/

4. Evaluation rubric

Evaluation rubric
Individual Collaborative
Activity type: ☒ ☒
Activity Activity
Evaluation
Initial ☐ Intermediate ☒ Final ☐
moment
Evaluated Performance levels of the individual activity
Score
items High score Average score Low score
Students do not No selection
post their selected posted OR the
Students post
scenario and selection was
their selected
essay, so no posted too late
Timely scenario and
interaction is OR the
posting of individual essay
achieved. The individual 10
individual on time to allow
scenario and essay presentation
essays interaction.
should be posted 5 was posted 2
days before the days before
deadline. deadline.
(up to 10 points) (up to 5 points) (up to 0 points)
 The individual
The essay partially
essay develops
develops the
the course topics
course topics OR it
Pragmatic and they fit
is not close related
competence information The essay is not
to the guideline
(Essay’s according to the posted. 50
OR references
content and activity guide.
were not made
Structure) References are
according to APA
made according
Rules.
to APA Rules.
(up to 50 points) (up to 25 points) (up to 0 points)
The essay has
The essay has The essay has
many grammar
few grammar some grammar
Grammar mistakes, which 10
mistakes. mistakes.
affect meaning.
(up to 10 points) (up to 5 points) (up to 0 points)
Evaluated Performance level of the collaborative activity
items High score Average score Low score
Student interacts
Social Student
in the forum by
competence participates by No questions or
asking and
(asking and asking and answers were
answering two or 20
answering on answering only posted.
more meaningful
classmates’ one question.
questions.
essays)
(up to 20 points) (up to 10 points) (up to 0 points)
The final Contributions
The final
document has have multiple
document has few
some spelling spelling
Spelling and spelling mistakes,
mistakes OR mistakes OR 10
Punctuation and punctuation
punctuation is punctuation is
is correct.
imprecise. very imprecise.
(up to 10 points) (up to 5 points) (up to 0 points)
Students The final paper The group
collaboratively doesn’t include all doesn’t make a
Final build a paper the information collaborative
Collaborative including all according to final paper 20
Document participants’ guideline OR APA according to
essays as well as Rules are not guideline OR
a CHART correctly applied nobody in the
 presenting the for citation and group posts the
common and references. final paper
uncommon
components
expressed on the
essays.
(up to 20 points) (up to 10 points) (up to 0 points)
Final score 120