AET/515 Instructional Plan Template

Robert Mandel
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Needs Assessment
1. What is the learning problem or opportunity? Baderman Island Resort is known as an international vacation destination and accommodates guest who speak several languages other than English. The main problem is staff members throughout the island resort are having a difficult time with understanding and communicating in the native languages of their foreign guest, mainly French and Spanish. Complaints regarding the need for French and Spanish speaking staff members are evident when reading both employee and international guest blogs on the company website.

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Needs Assessment
2. What is currently available? Boardman Corporate University was created to support company goals and objectives and provide for the professional development needs of their employees. The University offers a variety of courses for preparing employees to meet the performance goals in their respective service areas. Though the University does a good job in providing staff training, currently no courses are available to Baderman Island Resort employees to develop their foreign language skills in French and Spanish so they can properly accommodate their international guest.

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Needs Assessment
3. What should be available? The University should offer a series of Guest Services Language Skills courses designed to teach employees basic greetings, numbering, and commonly used phrases in French and Spanish so staff members are better prepared to handle language barrier problems throughout the Island Resort.

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Needs Assessment
4. Explain the gap analysis between what is available and what should be available. The needs assessment shows the Baderman Island Resort is unable to properly service their international guest due to language barriers from not having French and Spanish speaking employees on staff to answer questions and provide assistance when asked. What is needed are French and Spanish speaking staff members who are available to greet, answer questions, and properly assist their international guests.

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Needs Assessment
5. What is your recommended solution for filling the gap? The resort needs to fill this gap by training guest services employees with the language skills necessary to assist their French and Spanish speaking guests. This can be achieve with the development of Guest Services Language Skills courses offered through Boardman Corporate University. This training should include instruction in proper greetings, numbering, and answers to commonly asked questions from island guest.

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Instructional Goal

After completing the Guest Services Language Skill course, the employee should have the language skills necessary to interpret and properly answer commonly asked questions from international guest in either French or Spanish as required. The employee should also be able offer greetings and know numbering when working with international guest at the front desk.

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Performance-Based Objectives
When asked a question by an international guest, the guest services employee will be able to identify if the guest is speaking French or Spanish, interpret what information they are requesting, and formulate the answer in the language identified within 5 minutes of being asked the question.

When assisting French and Spanish speaking guests with room check-in or check-out questions, the front desk employee will be able to greet the guest appropriately, explain hotel room policies, and clarify all room charges that appear on their bill while staying at the Island Resort, both clearly and accurately.

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Summative Assessment and Learning Outcomes

The summative assessment is a cumulative evaluation used to measure whether student learning goals have been met. And often are created in the following formats: selected response items, short answer, extended written response, and performance assessments (Coffey, n.d.).

The assessment formats chosen to determine the students proficiency levels in French and Spanish are selected response items. The assessments will take the form of multiple choice, and short answer tests, administered both written and orally, and will including roleplaying scenarios.

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Summative Assessment and Learning Outcomes

Using multiple choice answers where the student is asked questions in both French and Spanish and given 5 minutes time to select the correct response from a series of answers in both languages. This evaluates the students ability to identify the language being used, their interpretation of the question asked, and selecting the correct answer within a 5 minute time frame. A short answer test to evaluate the students knowledge of communicating their knowledge of numbers. And role playing scenarios where students are asked to give the appropriate greeting in French and Spanish dependent on the time of day and gender of the guest. All these forms of assessment are used to determine the students level of proficiency.

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Learner Characteristics
The Guest Services Language Skills class will only accommodate a maximum of 4 students paired into two groups. The small number of students allowed to attend is due to the need for working closely with the students in developing French and Spanish language skills during an accelerated class. Having too many students will take away from individual assistance and instructional time. The class will consist of both male and female guest services managers, front desk employees, and concierge staff members who have been with Baderman Island Resort for a minimum of six months and have a strong working knowledge for the operations within their respective departments.

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Learner Characteristics
It is important to work with employees who already have the knowledge and capability to answer the questions commonly asked at the resort. This allows for all our class time to be spent on learning language skills. In addition, any staff member who has preexisting French and Spanish language speaking skills are ideal candidates for enrollment into this program. The students should prefer to learn from both visual and auditory methods of instruction.

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Learning Context
The instructional setting for the Guest Services Language Skills course will provide adequate room for traditional classroom instruction, and include computer workstations for use during the labs. It should have desks with comfortable chairs, include adequate lighting, and creates a relaxing environment for learning. The course will include both instructor lead lectures and exercises that make use of a whiteboard and PowerPoint presentations during class. Computer labs are required so students can practice at building their French and Spanish language skills at their own pace. Students will have access to computer labs during free time, before and after work.

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Learning Context
The instructional plan will incorporate the use of all available resources as described. The students will benefit from the whiteboard and PowerPoint presentations used as visual aids during the course instruction. Computer workstations and headsets will offer students the ability to learn from auditory repetitiveness of French and Spanish and include other interactive lessons.

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Delivery Modality

The Guest Services Language Skills course is a complex learning environment that needs to incorporate a variety of delivery methods so students do not feel overwhelmed by the daunting task of learning new language skills. The main method of delivery will focus on instructor-led tutorials that present the lessons for the day followed by class discussions. It is easier to learn language skills while interacting with others so it is important to create a synchronous learning environment where students and instructor may ask questions and respond to others in the classroom.

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Delivery Modality

Students will work together in groups of two where they can help each other learn basic vocabulary and practice speaking the language being learned.

The class will also incorporate the use of computer-based learning exercises where the student can put on headphones and interact with French or Spanish learning tutorial software to practice at their own pace.

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Instructional Strategies

The instructional strategies for the Guest Services Language Skills course is to teach guest services employees the language skills they need to assist international French and Spanish speaking visitors during their daily routine. The language skills they need to learn are basic vocabulary, grammar and an understanding of the culture behind the language being taught. Each student will learn basic salutations, numbering, and answers to commonly asked questions that pertain to their department, (e.g. Front Desk, Concierge, etc.).

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Instructional Strategies
The Guest Services Language Skills course is designed to be an instructor-led course that combines lectures and classroom interaction with group and individual learning activities. The instructor will present lessons that are designed to teach the students proper methods used for learning and speaking a foreign language. Course instruction will include exercises and activities that focus on learning French and Spanish as a second language through repetition. In particular, listening and repeating many times is very good - this will help you improve your listening comprehension, speaking skills, and accent all at once (Lawless, 2014).

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Instructional Strategies

The instructor will begin each class handing out support material to the students and presenting lessons on the language skills to be learned. The students are then provided the time to ask questions and discuss the lessons being presented for that day. With the aid of lecture notes, and handouts, the students will create flashcards that follow the days lessons to use when in their learning groups and on their own time away from class. These flashcards are used to learn vocabulary, grammar, numbering, salutations, and short answers to commonly asked questions. During learning team exercises the students will use these flashcards to reinforce their language speaking skills through repetitive oral exercises.

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Instructional Strategies

Roleplaying scenarios designed to emulate guest interaction are used so students can practice their listening, interpreting, and speaking skills and provide answers to questions commonly asked. The use of computer-based learning (CBL) language tutorial software will help students refine their language skills through audio and visual interaction based on repetitive learning exercises. These CBL activities will focus on vocabulary, grammar, and salutations in French and Spanish.

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Plan for Implementation

The Guest Services Language Skills training is presented in two courses, French and Spanish, designed for a duration of 8 weeks of instruction for each language being taught. The program will start the second week in March 2014 with a new class starting every eight weeks. The classes are 3 hours long and scheduled to meet 3 times per week. This provides the students with 84 hours of class learning time per course. Classes are scheduled to meet every Monday, Wednesday and Friday during regularly scheduled work hours at the Meredith Visitor Center. Each employee will receive their normal wages for the time spent attending class.

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Plan for Implementation

The courses are facilitated by Certified French and Spanish Instructors and intended for Guest Services managers, Front Desk staff, and Concierge employees. The materials that are needed for this course include the course syllabus, textbooks, practice exercises, flashcards, computer-based language tutorial software, class lecture outlines, and supplemental handouts. Researchers from The University of Nottingham have shown that playing simple games using words and pictures can help people to learn a new language with greater ease (University of Nottingham, 2013). Based on this research activities such as roleplaying, games and puzzles will be used as learning aids throughout the course.
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Plan for Implementation

An announcement flier introducing the new Guest Services Language Skills courses for employees to learn French and Spanish will be posted on the bulletin board in every employee break room. In addition, employees will receive a copy of the flier with their paychecks as a reminder. The flier will include a brief introduction about the new courses and provide contact information for anyone who is interested in signing up for a class. Class sizes are limited to only 4 students per course allowing for 8 employees to attend each starting date. New classes are scheduled to start the second week every other month. Because of the limited class size priority for attendance is given to front desk and concierge staff members.

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Instructional Resources

The resources necessary to implement the instructional plan fall into several categories. The instructor will need the use of a whiteboard as an instructional tool when presenting lecture based lessons to the class. The whiteboard allows the instructor to write out lesson instructions and reinforce important learning methods for students to practice. The classroom will have available five computers installed with French and Spanish language tutorials that include headphones for individual learning lab exercises. Visual games and puzzles that make use of vocabulary, grammar, and phrases are needed for individual and group related assignments.

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Formative Assessment
When teaching a second-language there are a variety of formative evaluation instruments available. Data can be collected using measurement or observation instruments. Measurement instruments are used to evaluate learning such as reading comprehension that cannot be observed. Observation instruments evaluate learning demonstrated through performance (Formative Assessments, n.d., p. 9). For the purpose of the Guest Services Language Skills course the following five formative assessment instruments will be used to evaluate students performance.
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Formative Assessment
1. The use of observation charts by the instructor to observe students as they work together during individual and learning group assignments. The instructor will use an observation chart to observe students participation and effort and record behaviors that show the student is mastering the strategies necessary to learning a second language. 2. Fill in the blank assessments where the student will insert the correct word in a sentence. The words left out of the sentence will emphasize trigger words the student will need to recognize when conversing with French or Spanish speaking guest. This exercise will assess specific linguistic knowledge.
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Formative Assessment
3. Short answer assessments that involve the student writing a single sentence following a question. This will assess how well the student is at interpreting a question and formulating the correct response. 4. Manipulative assessments where the instructor asks the students to place sentences in a coherent order that is grammatical and comprehensible. This will assess how the students are at mastering vocabulary and grammar. 5. The use of a self-assessment form that enables the students to be involved in the evaluation process. This method of assessment allows the students to examine and reflect upon their learning.
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Formative Assessment
The selected formative assessment instruments will provide the instructor, and students, with feedback that measures the students progress in mastering the language skills being taught. This information tells the instructor if any adjustments to instruction, or additional information, is needed in class. The students will learn what their learning strengths and weaknesses are and where they need to focus while the learning process is still taking place.

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Evaluation Strategies
Once the students have completed the Guest Services Language Skills course, evaluations are needed to measure the overall value and effectiveness of the program. Two main requirements that must be performed during the evaluation phase are, 1) ensuring the learners can actually meet the new performance standards once they have completed their training and returned to their jobs; 2) ensuring that the business need or goal is actually being met (Clark, 2013).

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Evaluation Strategies
The students will be given a program exit-survey with specific questions asking them to describe how they feel about the Guest Services Language Skills program overall. Results collected from this survey will determine what the students liked and disliked about the course; how the instructor was at teaching language skills; the learning materials used; the classroom setup; and what they would change about the learning program if given the opportunity.

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Evaluation Strategies
Once the students have returned to work an evaluation of their job performance is needed to determined if they have transferred the language skills learned into their everyday lives. These evaluations will be conducted by French and Spanish interpreters through job shadowing observations. This observed evaluation of the employee during his/her daily routine will last for two days and record their usage of the language skills learned. This will help identify the students strengths and weaknesses. The feedback gained will suggest where additional emphasis, or adjustments, may be needed for the next class. Feedback will also be presented to the employee with suggestions for improvement.

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Evaluation Strategies
International French and Spanish speaking guest will be asked to fill out a questionnaire that rates the level of service received from guest services staff members. The main focus for conducting guest satisfaction surveys is to determine if the training program succeeded in achieving the Baderman Island Resort goal of providing better customer assistance to their French and Spanish speaking international guest. To entice the guest to take the time and complete the questionnaire they will receive a coupon booklet containing special discounts to use during their current stay, as well as, a free room upgrade towards a future visit to the Baderman Island Resort.

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Outcome Review
Through the use of an Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) the students applied knowledge and speaking skills in French and Spanish will be tested. The results from this assessment will demonstrate if the program was successful towards achieving the design goals, performance-based objectives and the overall learning outcomes as stated for the program. The OPI is designed to resemble a conversation between two people but follows a standardized interview structure that is interactive and adaptive to meet organizational requirements. This type of foreign language exam lasts 30-40 minutes and assesses a full range of language proficiency levels. The content is adapted to the students academic, professional and personal experiences, as well as any special skills or interests as required, and includes at least one roleplay (Center for Applied Linguistics, 2007).
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Outcome Review
While conducting the OPI, the interviewer will use questions most commonly asked by international guest and rate the employees response based on a proficiency scale of Novice, Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced. This scale will be used throughout the entire interview process and provides an easy method for recording final results. A language proficiency rating of Beginner is the minimum level acceptable for determining the program a success in teaching the require language skills. Reviewing the information collected from the OPI, course formative assessments, and exit interviews will provide the feedback necessary for determining the overall effectiveness of the Guest Services Language Skill course.

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Recommendations
Recommendations for the future use of the Guest Services Language Skills course are centered on the data collected from the final analysis of the evaluations used and the outcome review for the program. The information gathered from the students might suggest that increasing individual computer lab time is necessary; additional supplemental learning materials and handouts are required; and the offering of more one-on-one instructor tutoring may be beneficial. The results may also suggest that the course is fine as is and no adjustments are necessary.

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Recommendations
The feedback received from the customer satisfaction surveys might reveal that nothing has changed and international guest who speak French and Spanish are still dissatisfied with the level of customer service they receive. If that is the result, then the Guest Services Language Skills course failed to provide the training required to correct the issue that the course was created to solve in the first place. However, if the results show a greater level of satisfaction, the Baderman Island Resort management team may decide to extend the program at the Boardman Corporate University for all resort employees.

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References
Center for Applied Linguistics. (2007). Foreign Language Assessment Directory. Retrieved February 22, 2014, from http://www.cal.org/CALWebDB/FLAD

Clark, D.R. (2013). Evaluation in Instructional Design. Retrieved February 21, 2014 from http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/sat6.html

Coffey, H., Learn NC, Summative assessment: LEARN NC, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Retrieved February 3, 2014, from http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/5233?ref=search

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References
Formative Assessments, English as a Second Language. (n.d.). THE CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF SECOND LANGUAGE TEACHERS. Retrieved February 17, 2014, from: https://www.caslt.org/pdf/Background_Formative_Assessment.pdf

Lawless, L.K., Learning French: Tips for Adults Learning French, About.com French Language. About.com French Language. Retrieved February 16, 2014, from: http://french.about.com/od/lessons/a/learn_adults.htm

University of Nottingham. (2013, April 16). Language instruction improved with fun and games. ScienceDaily. Retrieved February 16, 2014 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130416085302.htm

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