 |
In order to achieve this gradual progression, the curriculum is stratified into seven course levels: Preparatory, Foundation, Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, Level 4, and Level 5. A different course syllabus is developed for each level within the curriculum, each with its own specific objectives and detailed plans for execution. At the ELC, we adhere to principled eclecticism in our language teaching, with teaching communicative competence as the aim as well as the means. As such, the ELC curriculum promotes new concepts and ideas that are central to the overall educational process, including linguistic, cognitive, cultural, and affective development.
Additionally, the structure of the ELC curriculum allows our language instructors the freedom to respond to changing or newly-perceived needs in the learners. At the same time, it provides a framework for teachers, particularly those who teach at the lower levels, to scaffold their students before they are able to “go fully communicative.” We use the NorthStar (Pearson Education) textbook series, an innovative four-level integrated skills series for ESL/EFL learners, supplemented by our own NorthStar Student Companion Book Series (Tsinghua University Press), which was developed by the ELC faculty. Thus, this imported textbook is localized to suit our students’ needs and to correspond with our objective to train our students to be competent communicators, critical thinkers, and knowledgeable individuals.
