It

1
Its Up to You!

• Projects for Freshman English

2
Introduction

• Its Up To You (U2U) was written in Korea for
  Korean students.
• U2U is based on the authors experience of
  designing and managing freshman university
  programs in Korea.
• U2U recognizes that freshman students have a need
  for communicative competence in English, and
  that an inter-active task-based approach can
  satisfy that need.
• U2U takes account of recent findings made in the
  fields of cognitive, affective and social
  learning
• Cognitive over-emphasis on one aspect of
  language (e.g. grammar, communication, fluency,
  error-correction) adversely affects the way in
  which attention is shared between other learning
  processes.
• Affective factors such as attitude, perceptions,
  motiv-ation, confidence and anxiety are strong
  controllers of what actually gets learned in the
  classroom, and are more important than cognition
  (Stern, 1983).
• Social social skills such as collaboration,
  respons-ibility, honesty and trust can be
  developed and learned in the classroom. It is
  the responsibility of teachers to foster these
  important life skills.

3
Complexity in learning

• Language learning is a cyclic process, in which
  every factor influences and is influenced by all
  the other factors, with new structures emerging
  from the mix of interactions.
• The Dynamic Learning model (below) shows that
  every factor in the EFL program has an impact on
  the learning that takes place, and that the
  interaction of these factors determines what
  gets learned by whom.
• There is a great deal happening in the language
  classroom apart from the memorizing of linguistic
  code!

4
Student-centered learning

• U2U takes a student-centered perspective of
  language learning, focusing in the development
  of
• autonomy,
• problem-solving,
• critical thinking,
• self-esteem.
• This involves putting the student in the driving
  seat in terms of
• identifying learning needs (needs analysis),
• taking responsibility for achieving those needs
  (course design),
• reflecting on the effectiveness of the study
  process (assessment).
• The task of acquiring language is the students
  responsibility.
• The role of the teacher is to facilitate
  learning.

5
Core Concepts

• Learners learn what is meaningful to them.
• Learners learn in ways that are meaningful to
  them.
• Learners learn better if they feel in control of
  what they are learning.
• Learning is closely linked to how people feel
  about themselves.
• Learning takes place in a social context through
  interactions with other people.
• What teachers do in the classroom will reflect
  their own beliefs and attitudes.
• There is a significant role for the teacher as
  med-iator in the language classroom.
• Learning tasks represent an interface between
  teachers and learners.
• Learning is influenced by the situation in which
  it occurs.
• There is a difference between learning and
  education. (Williams Burden, 1997, p. 204)