Infusing Life Planning Education into the unit planning to diversify students' learning experiences: Within and beyond the S4 English classroom

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Background

In response to the optimising measures for the four senior secondary core subjects, Confucian Tai Shing Ho Kwok Pui Chun College started implementing customised short-term enrichment programmes for S4 students in 2021/22 to cater for their diverse interests and abilities, one example of which was to teach creative use of English through language arts texts. As the school has been fully committed to offering diversified, meaningful and balanced learning experiences to students, the curriculum leader of the English Department took the initiative to enrich the existing textbook-based curriculum with elements of Life Planning Education (LPE) and the previous Workplace Communication elective module in 2022/23. A work-related thematic unit was piloted in an S4 regular English class to further motivate students. Kolb (2014, as cited in Organ, 2017), pointed out "the workplace [is] a learning environment that can enhance and supplement formal education and can foster personal development through meaningful work and career development opportunities" (p.37). An experiential career-related life-wide learning (LWL) activity opportunity was therefore also offered to enrich the language learning experiences and support the career development and whole-person development of the selected student.

Level

S4

Strategies used

Taking into consideration the policy/curriculum initiatives, school contexts, students' growth and learning needs, the school designed a school-based work-related thematic unit for trial in S4. This unit mainly comprised textbook materials and school-based materials integrating learning elements recommended in the previous Workplace Communication elective module and LPE.

A range of strategies was adopted to the unit design and the details are presented as follows:

What happened

1. Career-related learning and teaching in the English classroom
   A school-based work-related thematic unit about "Social Media Influencers" (SMIs) was implemented in a target S4 English class in the second school term. This classroom component not only embedded some learning elements recommended in the previous Workplace Communication elective module in the school senior secondary English Language curriculum, but also incorporated the three Life Planning Education (LPE) core elements – self-understanding and development, career exploration and/or career planning and management (Education Bureau, 2014, p.24). Below shows the outline of the thematic teaching delivered in the English classroom:

   Part I) Introduction: Social Media Marketing
   Key learning & teaching (L & T) objectives		Main L & T tasks/activities	Resources
   Language-related	Work-related
   Understand some business/job-related vocabulary△ Develop awareness of coined words Read business texts (e.g. charts in reports)△ Develop reading skills (e.g. identify the main ideas of paragraphs)	Build knowledge about the business world△ Recognise the rise of Social Media Influencer (SMI) as a new marketing strategy and work role	Read a dictionary entry to find out the definition of “Influencer”  Read other information technology words which are invented (e.g. “vlog”, “selfie”) to meet the needs of the society View a TED Talk to note down how SMIs have transformed modern marketing Read graphical data about the popularity of SMIs among teenagers  Read an article about how SMIs make money Complete a summary cloze about SMIs using their learning gained from the reading and viewing activities	Dictionary entry Video (Speech) Report excerpts (Graphs) Article from the textbook
   Part II) Perception about the career trend and the job (SMIs)
   Key L & T objectives		Main L & T tasks/activities	Resources
   Language-related	Work-related
   Develop target listening/viewing skills (e.g. making inference) Practise business/job-related vocabulary△ Read work-related texts (e.g. CVs)△	Explore the opportunities and constraints of being an SMI▼ Be aware of stereotyping in career and work▼ Nurture work-related generic skills and abilities (e.g. critical thinking)▼△	Express one’s preconceived ideas about SMIs in an anticipation guide (e.g. if the job is professional or sustainable) View the success story of a travel influencer quitting a full-time corporate job to identify how an SMI is perceived by various parties (e.g. another influencer, his parents) Revisit the anticipation guide after the viewing to reflect on if one’s attitudes or views towards the job have changed or are justified Fill in a curriculum vitae (CV) for the travel influencer using the business/job-related vocabulary learnt from the success story	Video (Vlog)
   Part III) What makes a good social media influencer (SMI)
   Key L & T objectives		Main L & T tasks/activities	Resources
   Language-related	Work-related
   Develop the skill of reading job ads△ Understand the use of persuasive language in online advertising△	Build knowledge about the job▼ Cultivate positive concepts, values and attitudes about career and work▼ (e.g. business ethics△) Develop awareness of generic/work-related skills and abilities▼	Read the advertisements (ads) of two jobs (an SMI alongside a more traditional nine-to-five job) to explore the desirable qualities of an effective SMI and the importance of “transferable skills” Watch a product review (of virtual reality glasses) filmed by an SMI to rate the skills and qualities displayed by the influencer in the video Scan the news headlines provided to identity a list of the desirable qualities of SMIs and what an ethical SMI should or should not do	Job ads Video (Product review) News headlines
   Build topic vocabulary (e.g. business/job-related vocabulary, personal qualities)△ Practise integrated skills Practise group discussion skills	Explore the opportunities and constraints of being an SMI▼	Extract and integrate relevant information from the reading and viewing (informational interview videos) materials provided to identify the joy and challenges of the job Discuss the career advice for schoolmates showing interest in being a YouTuber	Videos (Informat-ional interviews) Reading excerpts
   	Conduct a self-assessment of qualities and abilities▼ Develop awareness of factors that influence career decisions▼	Self-reflection Evaluate one’s suitability for being an SMI based on the responses in the self-reflection tool provided	Self-reflection tool

   △Learning elements of the previous Workplace Communication elective module in the school senior secondary English Language curriculum
   ▼The three core elements of LPE

2. Experiential career-related LWL activity outside school
   To enrich the teaching of language and career-related learning elements inside the English classroom, a joint-school life-wide learning activity (i.e. "Secondary School Student Attachment Programme") was offered to the selected student in an authentic working environment -- Language Learning Support Section (LLSS) of the Education Bureau in the summer of 2022/23. Here is a brief overview of the 4-day work-based experiential LWL programme:

   Work activities (Highlights)	Main objectives
   Before the attachment programme
   Formulate own learning goals and expectations at school	Cultivate personal planning and goal setting
   During the attachment programme
   Attend the programme orientation, which included a sharing session hosted by former interns Create online questionnaires and process relevant data collected Draw up and present an LWL proposal to Language Support Officers Organise and conduct an informational interview and produce video clips of the interview conducted The school's student intern interviewed the LLSS Section Head to learn about his job and seek career advice Write photo captions for the LLSS publications One of the creative photo captions designed by the school's student intern Conduct self-reflection and a presentation on the learning outcomes of the work attachment	Develop general concepts relating to the work environment and organisation (e.g. the organisational set-up, mission and vision of the LLSS as a government section in the education field) Co-operate with other interns on work tasks and communicate with others about work-related matters Develop integrated language skills (e.g. conduct presentations for workplace purposes using suitable visual aids, carry out and transcribe an interview)
   After the attachment programme
   Present the work experiences gained from the programme at school after the summer holiday	Nurture a reflective habit of mind Maximise the student learning outcomes of the programme

   
   

   Impact

   1. Student level

      1. S4 students
         Based on the observation data gathered from lessons and student work, students in general found the work-related thematic unit engaging and displaying the essence of the three core elements of LPE. Through viewing and reading the real-life stories of some social media influencers, they learnt more about the job and the target language points. In some cases, their perception of the job changed as they explored the job further (e.g. skills and qualities expected, opportunities and constraints of being an SMI), as evident in their response in the anticipation guide (Student work excerpt A). Their self-understanding also grew through reflective activities like considering own suitability for the job (Student work excerpt B). The increased understanding of own interests, abilities and work values, as well as knowledge about the job alongside the work-related generic skills has enabled students to make their career choice in a more informed manner. More significantly, through this thematic unit, students realised the importance of cultivating strong work ethics as an SMI (Student work excerpt C). Additionally, the heightened awareness of the concept of employability and positive work attitudes would foster students' personal planning for further career development, facilitating a smoother transition from study to employment.

         Student work excerpt A: The anticipation guide was used in the unit to spark curiosity about and reflection on changes in perception and/or knowledge about the job (SMI) at the pre- and post-viewing stages
         	Student work excerpt B: A self-reflection tool used to prompt students to consider own suitability for the job (SMI)
         Student work excerpt C: The class response generated on the proper values and attitudes of SMIs in a lesson introducing the basic concept of work ethics

      
      
      2. Student intern

         The attachment programme has enriched the student intern's English learning, particularly his speaking confidence and presentation skills, as wells as fostered his self-reflective attitude and self-discovery in various domains: academic, character, career and social development over the course of the programme. The qualitative data below clearly exhibited the intern's personal growth after the programme.

         Excerpts of the student intern's self-reflection over his learning about self, career planning and generic/work-related skills in the Work Portfolio entries and the end-of-programme sharing

   2. Curriculum level
      The unit of work "Social Media Influencers" illustrates how career-related learning opportunities can be created in the English Language Education KLA. More importantly, the incorporation of the school-based materials has made the school's textbook-based S4 English Language curriculum more diversified and coherent. The infusion of the learning elements of the previous Workplace Communication elective module and LPE has made English learning and teaching more relevant to students, who have subsequently become more self- and career-aware. Such an organic integration of curriculum initiatives has in fact enabled the school to achieve the overall aims of optimisation -- catering for learner diversity and facilitating whole-person development. In addition to that, the school practices of offering the selected student an opportunity to participate in a career-related LWL activity and share his work experiences gained at school have successfully connected learning inside and outside the classroom, thus enriching and extending students' learning experiences. The school found this approach effective, as evident in a comment made by the school management from the end-of-programme school survey:

      
   
   

   Conclusion

   Having gained knowledge about how to infuse Life Planning Education into the unit planning to diversify students' learning experiences, the S4 teachers in the subsequent school year (i.e. 2023/24) reviewed and refined the school-based materials developed for the classroom component of the thematic unit on SMIs at the pilot phase (2022/23) under the panel chairperson's strong curriculum leadership. Not only did the school team sustain the small-scale curriculum change initiated by the curriculum leader in the pilot phase (i.e. 2022/23), they also took forward the trial unit in full swing and implemented it in all S4 classes. They even extended the project by designing a creative writing task (i.e. preparing a promotional video script) for students to apply the persuasive language learnt in the unit to "experience" the job of being a social media influencer. To further enrich students' language learning experiences and support the career development and whole-person development, the team will keep exploring opportunities to offer their students experiential career-related LWL activities.

   
   

   Bibliography

   Curriculum Development Institute. (2017). Suggested Schemes of Work for the Elective Part of the Three-year Senior Secondary English Language Curriculum (Secondary 4-6). Hong Kong: Author.

   Education Bureau. (2014). Guide on Life Planning Education and Career Guidance for Secondary Schools. Hong Kong: Author.

   Education Bureau. (n.d.). Life-wide Learning. Retrieved from:
   https://www.edb.gov.hk/en/curriculum-development/curriculum-area/life-wide-learning/index.html

   Organ, A. (2017). Languages in the workplace: Embedding employability in the foreign language undergraduate curriculum. Retrieved from: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED574252.pdf

   Yip, Y. W. (2004). Thoughts on career-related experience in the curriculum reform. Retrieved from:
   https://cd1.edb.hkedcity.net/cd/lwl/cre_web/file/Career%20related.pdf

   
   
   

   Confucian Tai Shing Ho Kwok Pui Chun College
   Peggy TSANG (Language Support Officer)