Women, Power, Voice and Choice: An Action-Oriented English Course

Abstract

This course is based on gender and women’s studies integrated with a community-based language learning mоdel to develop adult English learners’ communicative skills. The primary goal of the course is to raise learners’ awareness of issues related to women’s rights, gender equality and obstacles women face in Armenia, as well as to empower learners to take action. The course includes six units with two lessons in each unit. The topics of the units include: gender differences and similarities, women and obstacles, women and empowerment, and women and the world.. Lessons consist of various types of activities, games, debates, discussions, reading texts, listening and videos. All the materials have been chosen according to the intermediate level of proficiency. The target learners for this course design are adult women. Pre and post reflective questionnaires, course evaluation, class observations and reflections were used in order to assess the learners’ progress and learning during the pilot of the course. This course was delivered at the Society Without Violence centre to 10 women with the age range of 20-34. The course duration was 20 hours; each lesson has been designed for 120 minutes of class time. The final course evaluation, and in-class reflections and observations showed that the course has succeeded to achieve its goals and objectives and meet the learners’ expectations. Keywords: women’s empowerment, content-based instruction, communicative language teaching, raising awareness, action-oriented, women’s rights