Lakhasly

5- Implementation & Evaluation

?Was the evaluation reliable, valid and practical ?(p.124) To sum up, evaluation is conducted by a team or related experts including related subject matter teachers.Suffice it to say that the teacher has at his/her disposal a great variety of strategies for implementing". (p.404)

During implementation stage, monitoring and assessment should take place. Nation and Macalister (2010) believe that monitoring and assessment can have both informational and affective goals. That is. monitoring and assessment can provide a teacher and learners with information about the learners' present knowledge and progress, and it can also be a means of encouraging involvement and participation. The purpose of the monitoring and assessment part of syllabus design is to make sure that the learners will get the most benefit from the course. This involves carefully observing the learners and the course, and suggesting changes to the course and the way it is run. Assessment may also simply be expected to be a normal part of syllabus design. The person designing the course may also be expected to design the assessment for the course. Let us look at the major types of monitoring and assessment that can occur as part of a course. (p.107)

o Placement assessment The learners are assessed at the beginning of a course to see what level of the course they should be in. The aim of this testing is to ensure that the course is not going to be too easy or too difficult for the learner. o Observation of learning While the course is running, the activities that the learners do, are carefully monitored to see if each particular activity is likely to achieve its learning goal. This involves technique analysis and classroom observation. o Short-term achievement assessment At regular intervals during the course, the learners may be monitored to see what they are learning from the course. These pieces of monitoring may take the form of weekly tests, the keeping of achievement records such as graphs of reading speed, charts of writing improvement and self- assessment records. This short-term assessment can occur on a daily or weekly basis. It is called "achievement" assessment because it examines items and skills drawn from the course.A formative evaluation has the purpose of forming or shaping the course to improve it. A summative evaluation has the purpose of making a summary or judgement on the quality or adequacy of the course so that it can be compared with other courses, compared with previous summative evaluations, or judged as being up to a certain criterion or not.It can be done through interpreting the results of placement tests, achievement testing and proficiency testing, through observing the learners in learning tasks and language use tasks, interviewing learners and learner self- assessment, and through the use of diagnostic tests.Conclusion

The format for a syllabus can be a highly detailed manual or a basic outline of key elements, including the outcomes for the course, topics for each session/lesson and the assignments to be completed by the end of the course.(p.108)

o Diagnostic assessment In order to plan a programme, it is useful to know where learners strengths and weaknesses lie and where there are gaps in their knowledge.During implementation stage, monitoring and assessment should take place to assist in evaluating and reconstructing the syllabus.The aim of diagnostic assessment is to find the gaps and weaknesses and provide a remedy for them.The evaluation at the end of one syllabus cycle gives feedback to the needs analysis and the objectives of the next syllabus.? 123)

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5- Implementation & Evaluation

 Implementation Stage
According to Oliva (1988) many kinds of instruction can be used in the implementation stage:

The lecture, small group discussion, independent study. library research, mediated instruction, repetitive drill. To this list, we can add coaching, tutoring, re-testing, and field trips. We could include the inquiry or discovery, inductive. and deductive methods. We could add programmed instruction, problem solving, and questioning. Suffice it to say that the teacher has at his/her disposal a great variety of strategies for implementing". (p.404)

During implementation stage, monitoring and assessment should take place. Nation and Macalister (2010) believe that monitoring and assessment can have both informational and affective goals. That is. monitoring and assessment can provide a teacher and learners with information about the learners' present knowledge and progress, and it can also be a means of encouraging involvement and participation. The purpose of the monitoring and assessment part of syllabus design is to make sure that the learners will get the most benefit from the course. This involves carefully observing the learners and the course, and suggesting changes to the course and the way it is run. Assessment may also simply be expected to be a normal part of syllabus design. The person designing the course may also be expected to design the assessment for the course. Let us look at the major types of monitoring and assessment that can occur as part of a course. (p.107)

o Placement assessment
The learners are assessed at the beginning of a course to see what level of the course they should be in. The aim of this testing is to ensure that the course is not going to be too easy or too difficult for the learner.
o Observation of learning
While the course is running, the activities that the learners do, are carefully monitored to see if each particular activity is likely to achieve its learning goal. This involves technique analysis and classroom observation.
o Short-term achievement assessment
At regular intervals during the course, the learners may be monitored to see what they are learning from the course. These pieces of monitoring may take the form of weekly tests, the keeping of achievement records such as graphs of reading speed, charts of writing improvement and self- assessment records. This short-term assessment can occur on a daily or weekly basis. It is called "achievement" assessment because it examines items and skills drawn from the course. (p.108)

o Diagnostic assessment
In order to plan a programme, it is useful to know where learners strengths and weaknesses lie and where there are gaps in their knowledge. Diagnostic assessment tries to diagnose or locate areas of need. It can be done through interpreting the results of placement tests, achievement testing and proficiency testing, through observing the learners in learning tasks and language use tasks, interviewing learners and learner self- assessment, and through the use of diagnostic tests. The aim of diagnostic assessment is to find the gaps and weaknesses and provide a remedy for them. (p.109)
o Achievement assessment
Usually at the end of a course, and perhaps at one or two other points during the course, the learners are assessed on what they have learned from the course. This may have the purpose of examining the effectiveness of the course as much as testing the learners. (p.109)
o Evaluation Stage
Naji (2005) states that evaluation is the most important component. since it provides direct feedback to each of the other syllabus components separately. (p.52)
Nation and Macalister (2010) state that:

A distinction is made between formative evaluation and summative evaluation. The basis of the distinction lies in the purpose of evaluation. A formative evaluation has the purpose of forming or shaping the course to improve it. A summative evaluation has the purpose of making a summary or judgement on the quality or adequacy of the course so that it can be compared with other courses, compared with previous summative evaluations, or judged as being up to a certain criterion or not. These different purposes may affect the type of data gathered, the way the results are presented, and when the data are gathered, but essentially most data can be used for either of the two purposes. ? (p.125 & 126)
Nation and Macalister (2010) believe that evaluation requires
looking both at the results of the course, and the planning and running of the course. In reality, most evaluations are more narrowly focused and may be answering questions like the following:
• Is the teaching on the course of a suitably high standard?
• Is the course preparing the learners properly for their use of English at the end of the course (e.g. to pass the TOEFL test, to study in an English-medium University, to work as a tour guide?(
• Are the learners satisfied with the course?
• Is the course cost effective?(p. 123)

 Steps in an Evaluation.
According to Nation and Macalister (2010) all of the early steps in
evaluation aim at deciding why the evaluation is being done and if it is
possible to do it.
 Find whom the evaluation is for and what kind of information they need.
 Find what the results of the evaluation will be used for to improve the course, to decide whether to keep or get rid of the course.
 Decide if the evaluation is necessary or if the needed information is already available.
 Find how much time and money are available to do the evaluation.
 Decide what kinds of information will be gathered.
 Try to gain the support of the people involved in the evaluation.
 Decide how to gather the information and who will be involved in the gathering of information.
 Decide how to present the findings.
 Decide if a follow-up evaluation is planned to check the implementation of the findings.
 A further step would be to evaluate the evaluation. Was the evaluation reliable, valid and practical ?(p.124)
To sum up, evaluation is conducted by a team or related experts including related subject matter teachers. The result of evaluation is used to reconstruct the syllabus. The evaluation at the end of one syllabus cycle gives feedback to the needs analysis and the objectives of the next syllabus.
English for Yemen is a Yemeni syllabus that was presented in the classroom as an example for what I have presented during my presentation.

Conclusion

The format for a syllabus can be a highly detailed manual or a basic outline of key elements, including the outcomes for the course, topics for each session/lesson and the assignments to be completed by the end of the course. The purpose of a syllabus design is to provide students with a clear understanding of the goals of the course, determine what the students should know and be able to do by the end of the course, and to explain the processes and criteria used to grade their performance. Therefore, a good syllabus designer should not ignore the students' needs at first. Then she/ he should state the objectives clearly: select and organize the content carefully. Within the content, learning experiences should be selected and organized wisely. During implementation stage, monitoring and assessment should take place to assist in evaluating and reconstructing the syllabus.