1336488051_WISEUP DISTANCE TRAINING PROGRAM Day 2 - WIse Up Course Design - Videos 2-1 to 2-8

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WISE UP DISTANCE TRAINING PROGRAM DAY TWO: WISE UP COURSE DESIGN

Course Duration & Structure The Wise Up English course is, primarily, an eighteen-month course that could last longer given the students’ performance and their own intention to keep studying after that. To begin with, the course is divided into nine two-month modules, and this is how they’re organized:  Three Basic Modules: Basic 1, Basic 2, and Basic 3

 Three Intermediate Modules: Intermediate 1, Intermediate 2, and Intermediate 3  Two Advanced Modules: Advanced 1 and Advanced 2

 One CAL (Classes for Advanced Learners) Module As stated, each module lasts two months. However, given the number of holidays in any given period, those two months worth of classes may not translate into two months in the calendar. We go into recess, for instance, between Christmas and New Year’s. Thus, there could be modules that take up as long as two and a half months until conclusion. That goes to say that, if students conclude all of the nine modules successfully (i.e., if they do not fail once), they will have concluded the program at the end of approximately eighteen months. Should they fail one or more modules, then it will take them longer to conclude the course. That is not to say, however, should they decide to stay on and keep studying, that our school does not have any more material to offer him. We do. The CAL book, the fourth and last book in the series, contains not one but ten individual, non-sequential modules, with only the first one being part of the initial program. The remaining nine modules will be dealt with at the students’ discretion, as they decide to stay on for another two months, then four months, then six months, and so on. Why would they make such a decision? Let us simply imagine that they are happy with the way their English acquisition has progressed over the course of those eighteen months and they know, given their routine or workplace or experience, that they will lose the newly acquired command of the language should the course be interrupted now. Let us also imagine that they enjoys having classes at our school— 1

WISE UP DISTANCE TRAINING PROGRAM DAY TWO: WISE UP COURSE DESIGN

they like the material and teachers, they appreciate the camaraderie that is experienced in class, and they simply do not want to let go of that just yet. There is something else you all need to know. When new students come in in the middle of the term— when one month has gone by—they start their studies on Review Class day. If they are real beginners, however, starting their course in the middle of Basic 1 is not the smartest way to go. In order for them to be able to start studying right now—and not have to wait for a month until the new term begins—Wise Up offers a preparatory course prior to Basic 1 which is called Basic INTRO.

Class Frequency & Durantion A module in the Wise Up program lasts two months, depending on the number of holidays in any given period of the year. The number of lessons, however, will not change. Students will have two ninety-minute classes a week. Those two classes will be made available in these formats:  Mondays and Wednesdays

 Tuesdays and Thursdays

 Saturdays

On Saturdays there will be two seventy-five-minute classes with a fifteen-minute break in between them. Should students fail to come to school on any given Saturday, then they will have missed not one but two classes.

Module Description You already know that a module in the Wise Up program lasts two months, depending on the number of holidays in any given period of the year. The number of lessons, however, will not change. Consequently, the number of classes, as a rule, will also not change. Each module is organized as follows:

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WISE UP DISTANCE TRAINING PROGRAM DAY TWO: WISE UP COURSE DESIGN

 Six lessons  Each lesson is divided into two parts: Unit Class and Complementary Class  Each lesson, thus, takes two classes/two days For the sake of simplification and coding, we will refer to all Unit classes as U plus their number, and to all Complementary classes as C plus their number. Here’s how these classes are organized:

Mon: U1

Wed: C1

Mon: U2

Wed: C2

Mon: U3

Wed: C3

The sequence you have seen will be the same whether the group has classes on Mondays and Wednesdays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, or Saturdays. At the end of the first month, it is safe to assume that roughly eight classes will have been taught, that is, four complete lessons. After Complementary 4, we will follow the sequence not with Unit 5, but with two Review Classes. Here’s how the sequence is organized:

Mon: U4

Wed: C4

Mon: R1/R2

Wed: R3/R4

Mon: U3

Wed: C3

As you can see, there will be one Review class to study the material that was dealt with in the first two lessons, and another Review class to study the material that was dealt with in the two lessons that followed. At the end of the first review of the module, students are invited to do the Goal Setting Analysis, which is a moment for student to reflect upon their development and commitment to the learning process.

After all six lessons have been dealt with, there will be another Review class, one that will give them a chance to study the material that was dealt with in the two final lessons of the module. An Oral Exam and a 3

WISE UP DISTANCE TRAINING PROGRAM DAY TWO: WISE UP COURSE DESIGN

Written Exam will follow, each taking place on a separate class day, and the module will be concluded with a Feedback Day class right after that. Here’s what that final sequence looks like:

Mon: R5/R6

Wed: Oral Exam

Mon: Written Exam

Wed: Feedback Day

The order of the exams is merely illustrative, and it may change from one term to the next. That sequence will be determined in the National Class Program, which we will study in a moment. It is important to mention that the lessons are numbered in a continuous fashion, that is, Lessons 1 through 6 are Basic 1 lessons. Lessons 7 through 12 are Basic 2 lessons, and so on, up to Lesson 48 at the end of Advanced 2. CAL classes are numbered and organized in a completely different fashion, so all we have discussed so far applies only to Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced modules.

National Class Program The Research and Development Department produces an annual calendar-based program that is to be followed by all the Wise Up schools everywhere. We call it the National Class Program. What it does is, it tells you exactly when to start and finish terms, when exams are supposed to take place, and when a particular class takes place, be it in a Mon/Wed group, a Tue/Thu group or a Saturday group. It also tells you the exact day for a new student to enter a group if the term is already halfway through. The reason for that is simple: as all Wise Up schools have the same program, that is, the same class or event taking place on the same day everywhere, it is practical for any student to schedule a make-up class to be held at a Wise Up school other than his own, should that be the case. 4

WISE UP DISTANCE TRAINING PROGRAM DAY TWO: WISE UP COURSE DESIGN

Failure to comply with the National Class Program will result in classes that cannot be attended by students from other groups, terms that cannot start or finish in accordance with every other school in the country, among other problems. All national holidays are included in the National Class Program, and classes are organized around them. That explains why certain terms will last a little over two months depending on the period of the year. Local holidays are not included in the National Class Program and classes that should—but cannot—take place on those days will have to be made up for on a Friday. That sort of planning is supposed to be done by both the school coordinator and the regional coordinator together.

Make-up Classes When Wise Up students miss a class, for whatever reason, they are entitled to schedule a make-up class in one of the other groups having the same class as the one he missed, be it on the same day or on any other day, free of charge, according to the National Class Program. They could even schedule a make-up class to be had at a different Wise Up school, in the event they are working in a different part of town that day or in a different town altogether. They can schedule up to two make-up classes per month. If they try to schedule a third make-up class, the school coordinator is not to stop them from doing that, but that should be interpreted as an indication that, perhaps, they are not coming to classes in their official group because that is just not the best option for them. Maybe moving these students to a different group altogether is in order. That issue should be brought up before scheduling that third make-up class. Students cannot simply show up. They must schedule that make-up class, which will have to be done in accordance with certain standards. They are to contact their Wise Up school to schedule that class—not any other Wise Up school. They are to be given clearance by the school coordinator before coming to class. A passport will be filled out in student’s name—that passport is the very ticket to attend a class when the name is not listed on the Front Page, also known as the Attendance Sheet. Students in a make-up class must sign in on the second page of the group’s attendance list so attendance will be accounted for. After class, the teacher must turn in the passport to the receptionist—or to the school coordinator, as per prior instructions. That passport is to be attached to the students’ Assessment Chart and the information will be fed into the ERP. All the information contained in the Passport must be

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WISE UP DISTANCE TRAINING PROGRAM DAY TWO: WISE UP COURSE DESIGN

transcribed to the student’s Assessment Chart. No student is to be admitted into the classroom without a Passport. Ever. In the event the student schedules a make-up class at another Wise Up school, it is that school’s responsibility to transmit the information to his branch via fax or email, within 48 hours. Should students schedule a make-up class and fail to show up, that passport is also to be attached to their Assessment Chart and filed along with exams at the end of the term, as a document of the scheduled make-up class and their failure to show up.

Extra Classes Besides all the classes contained in the module—the Unit classes, the Complementary classes, the Review classes, and the Feedback Day—we also have Extra Classes, which may or may not be used in a particular term depending on the National Class Program. There are three different Extra Classes for each module, and there will never be a term in which more than three Extra Classes will be needed. Chances are, very seldom will we need all three in the same term. There are ten different Extra Classes for CAL. These Extra Classes were designed as a means to prevent certain groups from being ahead of schedule in the event of a national holiday. Here’s how it works: let’s say there is a holiday on a Tuesday. On that day, Tue/Thu groups will not come to class, naturally. That week, therefore, Tue/Thu groups will have only one class, whereas Mon/Wed and Saturday groups will still have two. To make sure those Tue/Thu groups are not left behind by one class, Mon/Wed and Saturday groups will then have an Extra Class that week. Needless to say, Tue/Thu will not have that Extra Class. This way, by the end of the week, all groups will be at the same point in the course progression, regardless of when they have classes or what groups have been affected by a holiday. Students who miss an Extra Class could very well schedule a make-up class if they desire to do so. However, missing that class will not impact on their progress in the course, as the contents of that class, albeit significant, do not feature in the syllabus.

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WISE UP DISTANCE TRAINING PROGRAM DAY TWO: WISE UP COURSE DESIGN

Evaluation System The Wise Up student is assessed through two distinct systems: process and product evaluation. In the process evaluation system, the teacher will mark several aspects of students’ performance after every class in a document called Assessment Chart. In it, students will have marks attributed to attendance records, participation, home assignments, and production. At the end of the term, by means of a table of conversion, a grade is given to that Assessment Chart. In the product evaluation system, students will take two exams, Oral and Written, and those two independent grades will be added to that of the Assessment Chart. The three are added and divided by three and the result will be the final grade. Students will be considered successful and pass on to the next module if the final grade is equal to or greater than 70. If it isn’t, the same module has to be taken again until the student qualifies for new exams. There is no such thing as a second-chance examination. The Oral Exam and the Written Exam could be graded as low as zero and as high as 100. The Assessment Chart, however, cannot be graded any lower than 50 if the student is considered good enough as far as communicative skills are concerned. That is to enable a student with poor Assessment Chart marks to still have a chance to pass once the Oral and the Written Exam grades justify that. If that is not the case, though, then the Assessment Chart could be graded as low as 40.

Course Completion & Final Exam Students’ contract may be interrupted, at their discretion, at any time. The contract is never automatically terminated, regardless of how many modules students concluded or how long they have been in the course. For instance, in the event a student has concluded nine modules and has been in the school for eighteen months, the contract will still not be terminated unless it’s decided so. If not, then the contract continues, as does the course.

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WISE UP DISTANCE TRAINING PROGRAM DAY TWO: WISE UP COURSE DESIGN

If students see fit to terminate the contract at the conclusion of the ninth module and would like to obtain a certificate, then it is necessary to take and to pass the Final Exam to be awarded a certificate. That exam is free of charge. Students will not be eligible to take the Final Exam unless they meet the following requirements: to have taken the course for at least eighteen months and to have concluded at least one CAL term successfully, that is, having gotten a grade of at least 70. If students fail to comply with these requirements or if they want to interrupt their course prior to its completion, they are still entitled to receive a statement describing how far they have gone in the course, signed by the school coordinator. In case students take the Final Exam and fail to get a grade of at least 70, they can give it another try. In order to do so, they must take another CAL module and pass that. If they still cannot get a grade of at least 70 in their second exam, the school is to give these students a printed document that states how many hours they have studied and what modules were concluded. A third attempt at the exam is not applicable.

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