Use Of Real Language And Materials

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Pedagogic principles corresponding to this Primary Education Stage are set in article 19 of Organic Act of Education 2/2006.

Special emphasis will be put on the different paces of learning, individual attention, the prevention of learning difficulties, and on the implementation of remedial measures as soon as difficulties are detected. Attention will also be paid to tutorship and to the relationship with families to support the educational process of their children.

The aspects of reading comprehension, oral and written expression, audiovisual communication, ICT and education in values will be covered in all subject areas.

Reading will be practice on a daily basis in order to encourage reading habits.

According to Royal Decree 1513/2006, English Language Teaching should focus mainly on communication. The area of foreign languages aims at developing students’ abilities to understand, speak, interact, read, and write in the L2. Methodologists believe that the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach should dominate the teaching of foreign languages worldwide. Although it was firstly developed in the 1960s, currently it is still in use though it has evolved into a plurality of communicative approaches. Consequently this course program will follow an eclectic approach taking the most relevant and interesting aspects from each of these approaches. Taking into account these general conceptions detailed in the new curriculum it seems that communicative approaches are the most effective tool for the whole fulfilment of the teachers’ task.

This way, the premises that underpin this syllabus design are:

Communication as primary aim

According to this principle, our primary aim should be teaching the practical use of English for communication with native speakers and other users of English.

There is an increasing need to focus in language teaching on communicative proficiency rather than on mere mastery of structures or grammatical system. Mastery of grammar is still important but only as a means to successful communication Language learning is learning to communicate. What really matters is if the student can understand and be understood.

Previous knowledge as a starting point

At Primary Education stage, students' competence in foreign language is still very elementary. Notwithstanding, the skills and experiences that children may already have in other foreign languages could be very important to understand and build meanings, structures and strategies for their involvement in communication.

According to Ausubel, the most important factor in deciding what is learned is based on what is already known. This learning structure is based upon receptive learning. It will be students who will modify their knowledge schema in order to build up their own learning process. Therefore, the teacher must guide and foster the building of a meaningful learning. Moreover, the teacher not only acts as a helper but he/she is a main agent to boast external motivation. This motivation will be increased if the teacher provides the opportunities to put into practice what the learners have acquired during the lesson plan in such way that they can check by themselves the usefulness of the new acquired knowledge. It is equally important to encourage students to reflect on the activities carried out to extract conclusions from what has just been learnt. In order to develop the capacity for independent learning, many tasks should train students to use their current stock of language to deal with unfamiliar input and to learn how to find out what they do not know.

So we should start from student's previously acquired knowledge related to this and other areas through an initial evaluation and using warming-up activities as a bridge between their previously acquired knowledge and the new input.

Need to insure meaningful learning

Meaningful learning takes place when students assimilate new knowledge relating it to the knowledge they already have, changing their old cognitive structures or knowledge. If, on the other hand, this connection is not reached, production will be mechanic or repetitive learning, with no anchoring in the cognitive structure of the subject and condemned, in general, to quick oblivion.

To insure meaningful learning, the following conditions must be fulfilled:

The contents should be potentially significant, both from the point of view of the area or subject being worked upon as well as from the point of view of the psychological structures of the students.

It is necessary for the student to have a favourable attitude to learn in a significant way. In other words, be motivated to connect new content being learnt with what they already know, with the aim of modifying their knowledge structures.

Education should promote students to carry out meaningful learning on their own, i.e., to develop their capacity of learning to learn.

Use of Real language and materials

The scarce use of foreign languages in the environment is a determining factor. This implies that most learning opportunities to communicate using the foreign language take place only at the school environment. This circumstance makes necessary to include contents related to communicative situations involving various fields apart from academic ones.

Communicative approach seeks to use authentic resources: newspaper and magazine articles, poems, manuals, recipes, telephone directories, videos, news bulletins, discussion programmes - all can be exploited in variety of ways.

The use of the foreign language will be gradual but students should be familiar with the target language from the very beginning. This progression in the complexity of the tasks needs meaningful and realistic situations.

Oral and written productive and receptive skills will be integrated to simulate the process of real life. We will also stimulate the development of strategies to compensate for the lack of competence in the foreign language fostering the transfer of them from the mother language to the foreign one. Realia will be useful to show real production in the foreign language, stimulating learner's interest.

A learner-centred approach and autonomous learning

All our methodology will follow a learner-centred approach, as the learning and teaching process is dictated by pupils' needs and interests. The topics will be related to areas of interest of our students and each of them will be introduced using motivating tools in other to catch their attention from the very beginning.

Through this approach I will try to adjust the tasks or activities to the different learning styles. But what do we understand as learning style? Ellis described a learning style as the more or less consistent way in which a person perceives, conceptualizes, organizes and recalls information. Following this definition, we can make a division into four modalities of activities: Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic and Tactile (see 8.2. Types of Activities).

Students' performance should be the goal. The teacher, hence, must step back and observe. Because of the increased responsibility to participate, students may find they gain confidence in using the target language in general. Thus they must go through the learning process on their own, so that the learning would be autonomous and the teacher must appear as a mere counsellor and guider in the learning process. Students are more responsible managers of their own learning.

Teacher as a guide

The student selects information, originates hypotheses, and makes decisions in the process of integrating experiences into their existing mental constructs. Teachers in communicative classrooms will find themselves talking less and listening more, becoming active facilitators of their students' learning. As far as instruction is concerned, the teacher should try and encourage students to discover principles by themselves. The instructor and the student should engage in an active dialogue, in a continuum cooperative process. In this sense, I reinforce the idea that the teacher has to be a guide for moving his/her students towards their own learning style. In order to develop this learning style, students should know a varied set of strategies and how to evaluate themselves.

Errors are necessary and natural

At this stage we have to take into account Krashen’s ideas about learning and acquiring a new language. According to him, students need to interact with other communicators to experience, confirm and edit their language proficiency. It is obvious that in that interaction pupils have to formulate hypotheses and reformulate their meaning, being error a necessary step in this stage. Language is created by the individual often through trial and error.

Errors mean that learning is taking place. However, it is not easy to know how much, when and how often the teacher should correct. Perhaps, best option is to consider this in relation to three factors: a) the sensitivity of the student, b) the nature of the task and c) the nature and seriousness of the error (global error versus local error). These principles serve the teacher to think about if the error has to be corrected immediately or later, in group or individually. Maybe, teachers should reserve error correction for manipulative grammar practice, and should tolerate more errors during communicative practice to avoid making students feel uncomfortable to speak aloud. Anyway, teachers have to provide pupils a guide for self-correction or peer-correction in order to anticipate and to check different kinds of errors. What is important is communication.

Enhancing motivation

Some students seem naturally enthusiastic about learning, but many need-or expect-their instructors to inspire, challenge, and stimulate them: "Effective learning in the classroom depends on the teacher's ability ... to maintain the interest that brought students to the course in the first place" (Ericksen, 1998). Whatever level of motivation your students bring to the classroom will be transformed, for better or worse, by what happens in that classroom.

Unfortunately, there is no single magical formula for motivating students. Many factors affect a given student's motivation to work and to learn: interest in the subject matter, perception of its usefulness, general desire to achieve, self-confidence and self-esteem, as well as patience and persistence. And, of course, not all students are motivated by the same values, needs, desires, or wants. Some of your students will be motivated by the approval of others, some by overcoming challenges. Researchers have begun to identify those aspects of the teaching situation that enhance students' self-motivation.

To encourage students to become self-motivated independent learners, I would like to do the following:

Give frequent, early, positive feedback that supports students' beliefs that they can do well.

Ensure opportunities for students' success by assigning tasks that are neither too easy nor too difficult.

Help students find personal meaning and value in the material.

Create an atmosphere that is open and positive.

Help students feel that they are valued members of a learning community.

Research has also shown that good everyday teaching practices can do more to counter student apathy than special efforts to attack motivation directly (Ericksen, 1998). Most students respond positively to a well-organized course taught by an enthusiastic instructor who has a genuine interest in students and what they learn. Thus activities I undertake to promote learning will also enhance my students' motivation.

Types of Activities

We can fin a great variety of activities within this method whose final and main objective is communication. Communicative tasks are motivating as students get involved and simulate everyday situations. Communicative tasks also favour motivation since the student has taken an active role through all the learning process, so he /she has the chance to make decisions as choosing the topics or activities he/she likes the most. They also promote the interaction between students as communication is based upon the interaction between two or more people. Therefore, there are many pair-work and group-work activities.

Through this approach I will try to adjust the tasks or activities to the different learning styles. I have made a division into four modalities of activities:

Visual: the use of visual aids in classroom serves for a better understanding of the theoretical input. Mimicry is an effective visual help at certain stage. Other examples are wall displays posters, realia, flash cards, graphic organizers, etc.

Auditory: use of audio tapes and videos, storytelling, songs, jazz chants, and drills and allow learners to work in pairs and small groups regularly. The aim is the development of listening comprehension, not memorisation.

Kinesthetic: use of physical activities, competitions, board games, role plays, etc. The theoretical framework is to combine activities which require students to sit quietly with activities that allow them to move around and be active. This interaction allows a quicker understanding of the material taught.

Tactile: Use board and card games, demonstrations, projects, role plays or use while-listening and reading activities. For example, ask students to fill in a table while listening to a talk, or to label a diagram while reading.

Furthermore, activities included in each lesson will fit into three different stages depending on the moment they are to be carried out:

Beginning: Warming up

Warm-up activities help students put aside their daily distractions and focus on English: "they activate students’ minds". Warm-up activities usually take few minutes. They also encourage whole-group participation which can build a sense of community within the group.

Middle: Development of the lesson

New material is presented and students have the opportunity to practice it thoroughly. They include individual, pair and group work.

End: Cool down

We end up reviewing the lesson with something familiar (short and easy activities) so learners will leave with the impression that English isn’t that difficult after all.

In addition, I have also included extension activities and reinforcement activities to cope with mixed ability classes (Extension or Extra Activities for fast learners and Reinforcement Activities for weak learners or learners who need further practice on a given topic).

Settings and Groupings

Several appropriate educational spaces will be used. The process of teaching/learning would take place mainly in the following spaces:

Classroom: It is the place where the students will spend more time so we will try to keep it clean and to create a comfortable environment in it. It would be a good idea to decorate it with projects realized by the own students.

Computer’s Room: The use of computers will be very important in our subject. We will look further into this issue when we talk about CALLS.

Library: We will use it to search for information, reading, checking dictionaries, etc.

Language Lab.: We will use it for watching DVDs, listening to CDs, etc.

Open Spaces: When an outing were planned and the School Council approves it, we will go out.

When it comes to the organization of students for the fulfilment of the different tasks, I envisage several types of groupings in order to cope with as many learning styles as possible. Thus, I have included individual-work activities; pair-work activities; group work activities; large group; and whole class.

New Technologies in the Language Classroom

Today’s technology offers us many new options and we, as teachers, should keep updated with all the possibilities. I have introduced computers because nowadays they represent the real world, and they help to develop my pupils’ autonomous learning, that is, they can easily learn to learn English using computers. But, computers do not only help to develop autonomous learning, they also contribute to develop attitudes of cooperation and respect as they have to work in pairs (there is not a computer for each student). The variety of activities proposed to practise with computers favours the teaching-learning process in a mixed-ability class since visual aids help pupils to understand better and it is a motivating factor for them.

Aids & Materials

A wide variety of materials would be used in our lesson plans: board, cassette, CD player, photocopies, dictionaries, computers, the Internet, pictures, transparencies, DVDs, realia, activity book, etc.

Portfolio

The Common European Framework of Reference establishes the basic guidelines for the teaching of foreign languages across Europe. It defines several areas related to the elaboration of a course program. However, what we consider of paramount interest for our class is the development of a language portfolio. The basic idea behind is that students collect samples of their work in their portfolio. Most of the time, these samples will be texts created by students, but might also include photos of classroom scenes, audio recordings, or even DVDs. All these documents provide evidence of a students’ performance.

Our English Language Portfolio (ELP) consists of three parts:

Language Passport: It gives information about a student’s proficiency in one (or more) languages at given points of time. In this part of the portfolio, students record formal qualifications and give information about their language competencies with regard to certain criteria.

The Language Biography: It aims to encourage students to get involved in the planning, reflecting upon and assessing of their own learning process and progress. It gives students an opportunity to state what they can do in their foreign language.

The Dossier: It is a collection of materials and data put together by students to document and illustrate their proficiency and the learning experiences which are listed and reflected upon in the Language Passport and the Biography.

As our students started learning English in their third year of Primary Education, I will include in their Language Passport a record of their attainment in that year (provided by their former teacher). The Language Biography will comprise students’ self-evaluation (one per didactic unit and an overall self-evaluation at the end of the year). Finally, in the dossier students will include all the productions they consider meaningful or affectively loaded. Teacher may also suggest some which should be common to all classroom portfolios.

Evaluation

Evaluation is a "way of systematically collecting and analysing information about the teaching/learning process useful to both the teacher and the students". Our Autonomous Community regulates the evaluation system in the Order passed August 10, 2007.

Evaluation will not be limited to students’ language competence but will also cover other aspects of the teaching/learning process such as:

the implementation of the course programme

the appropriateness and effectiveness of the materials

students’ degree of participation and general attitude in class

their ability and willingness to work autonomously

their willingness to overcome learning problems

the organization and utilization of school resources

coordination with organs of school administration

the relationship between the teacher and the students

the quality and regularity of parent-teacher contacts.

Evaluation, apart from evaluation on the part of the teacher, will include:

self-evaluation

peer-evaluation

group self-evaluation.

Evaluation will be formative and summative. From another perspective, evaluation will be initial, continuous and final.

Formative Evaluation focuses on program. It is defined as taking place during the development of a program and its curriculum. The purpose then is to gather information that will be used to improve it. The types of decisions that will result from such evaluation will be relatively small in scale and in numerous. It also focuses on students’ learning. Teachers gather different data coming from the students’ work, attitude and behaviour. It has a double purpose; first, it helps teachers control the process of learning; second, it should inform and motivate students.

Summative Evaluation focuses on program too. It occurs at the end when a program has been completed. Its purpose is to determine whether the program was successful and effective. The types of decisions that will result from such analyses will be fairly large scale and may result in important changes. It pays attention on students’ learning. This type of evaluation is usually called final evaluation if the whole course is being evaluated at the end of a period. It is considered the main type of evaluation in school settings.

Initial Evaluation has to do with the Meaningful learning that students will experience when anchoring new knowledge from the different communicative tasks to their prior or previously acquired knowledge. One of the evaluation tools is the Initial Assessment test that is done the first day. Through this test, the teacher can establish the starting point of each student. In it, it is included what we think is "already acquired knowledge".

Continuous Evaluation centres more on what it is going on in a program (process) that helps to arrive at those goals (product). It should focus its attention on the progressive development of skills, strategies, awareness of language learning and every aspect that may indicate that foreign language learning is taking place.

Final Evaluation will be carried out through the Final task of every didactic unit.

Aspects evaluated

Instrument

Frequency

General objectives

teacher observation sheet, portfolio, final tasks such as role-play, mini-project

regular observation in class and at the end of each didactic unit

Students’ participation and attitude

teacher observation sheet

regular observation in class

Unit contents

Final tasks, tests, role-play, miniproject, portfolio

once every term,

at the end of each unit

The teaching & learning process and materials

Teacher’s diary,

individual learner’s self-evaluation sheet / peer-evaluation sheet/group self-evaluation sheet, portfolio

regular observation in class,

at the end of each unit

Evaluation aspects.

Criteria for Evaluation

According to Royal Decree 1513/2006 and Decree 286/2007, the evaluation criteria for the 3rd year (2sd cycle) of Primary Education are:

Participate in directed oral interactions about known topics in predictable communication situations, respecting the basic exchange norms like listening and looking at who is speaking to you.

Get the global sense and identify specific information from oral texts about familiar and interesting topics.

Read and get the global sense and some specific information from simple texts about known topics and with and concrete finality.

Write, in paper and digital format, sentences and short significant texts about everyday and scholar situations using models with a determined purpose and an established format.

Use foreign language forms and structures including sound, rhythm, accent and intonation aspects in diverse significant communication contexts.

Use some strategies for learning to learn such as asking for clarifications, use gestures while speaking, use visual and bilingual dictionaries, search and keep information about known topics in different formats (paper and digital) and identify some personal aspects that can help to learn better.

Value the foreign language as a means to communicate with others and show interest and curiosity towards people who speak the foreign language.

Identify some everyday aspects from the countries where the foreign language is spoken and compare them with our own ones.

Criteria for Grading

The teacher and coordinator should make a decision as to the percentage in the final mark awarded to each of the aspects evaluated. In Primary Education the most important thing is the development of the communicative competence, combining fluency and accuracy. The end-of-term grades will be based on a weighted average mark, taking into account all the criteria for evaluation.

Considering the cyclical nature of the curriculum and of classroom programming as well as the principle of continuous evaluation, those students who fail to obtain a positive assessment for the first or/and second term but obtain a positive assessment for the third term will obtain a pass grade for the whole course. The decision regarding the student’s end-of-year pass grade will be taken considering both pedagogical and numerical criteria.

Attention to Diversity

Taking differences into account is the premise we should bear in mind for a good teaching practice. Regarding that idea, teaching must be individualised and respond to all the needs, interests, capabilities and rhythms of learning of each pupil, so the teacher must design a flexible and adaptable syllabus to adapt it to all learning styles, to ALL STUDENTS. Attention to diversity is set up in Organic Act of Education (LOE) 2/2006, Royal Decree 1513/2006 and Decree 230/2007; but it is specifically dealt in Decree 167/2003, Solidarity

REVISAR LEGISLACIÓN DE MURCIA Y CITARLA AQUÍ "En relación a la atención a la diversidad se deben considerar (orden… decreto…, etc)" (y a continuación el texto que aquí aparece si es concordante con dicha legislación)

Moreover, the concept of ‘children with special educational needs’ extends beyond those who may be included in handicapped categories to cover those who are failing in school for a wide variety of other reasons that are known to be likely to impede a child’s optimal progress. Whether or not this more broadly defined group of children are in need of additional support depends on the extent to which schools need to adapt their curriculum, teaching and organization and/or to provide additional human or material resources so as to stimulate efficient and effective learning for these pupils.

There are certain risk groups of students that can present specific educative needs: immigrants, children of ethnic or religious minorities and children that live in socially depressed areas. There are also highly gifted children with other specific needs. When their learning difficulties are serious, the teacher can resort an ACI: significant (with a modification of objectives, contents and evaluation criteria) and non-significant (with methodological adaptations and a modification of contents related to grammar and vocabulary).

Mixed ability is the logical outcome of the interaction of several factors: students’ general intelligence, language aptitude, motivation, personality, attitude to compulsory schooling and learning styles. It is necessary to use flexible tasks and methods to accommodate the variety of language abilities, motivations, interests and learning styles.

Mixed Ability at the Level of Programming

All the components of the teaching/learning process (objectives, contents, activities, methodology and evaluation) fall into two blocks:

the main block which comprises all the core elements of the curriculum;

the reinforcement block which comprises activities which enable low-achieving students to learn the basic contents of the didactic units; reinforcement activities and possible curricular adaptations consist in:

adapting the time and pace of learning

focusing on procedures and attitudes

personalizing the methodology and activities

reinforcing learning strategies and study techniques.

the extended block which embraces higher levels of competence and interest aimed at students who do very well at the core level.

F.2 Mixed Ability at the Level of Methodology

The eclectic teaching method founded on the Communicative Approach allows for the adjustment of the method and techniques of teaching as well as types of activities to the level, interests and personalities of students.

Doing concrete tasks with language is emphasized rather than practising language for its own sake. The language content and the tasks are varied, interesting and challenging to both weaker and stronger students. Group work and peer tutoring enable less able students to benefit from the knowledge and help of the higher-level students.

F.3 Mixed Ability at the Level of Materials

The variety of materials in terms of topic, authenticity and non-authenticity, reception and production, logical complexity, means of expression allows all students to participate in the classroom activities and home assignments in keeping with their interests.

Reinforcement activities include: using additional written controlled and free practice activities based on the principle of mechanical drill and communicative drill, classroom experiments, drawing and craft activities, using print and computer-based dictionaries, compiling a personal dictionary.

Extension activities include higher-level written controlled practice activities, additional activities focused on specific language points and others requiring the use of general linguistic knowledge (crosswords, puzzles, understanding and producing texts), use of internet sites which offer on-line and off-line activities, extensive reading tasks, projects and oral presentations whose open-endedness allows for both minimum and high levels of competence.