Topic 21 La programación del área de lenguas extranjeras: unidades de programación. Criterios para la secuencia y temporalizarían de contenidos y objetivos.

TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction 2. Planning of the teaching process. Main elements of didactic units. 3. Criteria for sequencing objectives, basic competences and contents. 4. Learning and teaching activities and instruments for evaluation. 5. Conlcusions

Planning of the teaching process. Didactic units. Our curriculum is open and flexible. It has to be adapted by schools to their own context and students. The last is the adaptation done by the teacher himself by means of the didactic units. Didactic units are units of planning and teaching action designed around a set of activities that are developed around a period of time, for the achievement of a set of specific objectives and basic competences. Didactic units provide an answer to all curricular questions. What, when and how to teach and what, when and how to evaluate, all for a specific period of time.

Planning of the teaching process. Didactic units. Before planning: Two main principles should be taken into account: Variety> using a number of different activities Flexibility> use any number of different techniques, change the plan if necessary We need to know about three main areas: Our profession The curriculum (RD 1513/2006 and B-CURRI) and the way it has been adapted to the school context. The environment of teaching The socio-cultural and familiar environment of our students Our pupils Their motivation, their needs and the essential elements of their evolutive outline as a group.

Planning of the teaching process. Didactic units. The elements of the didactic unit: Objectives Specific abilities and mastery of knowledge related to a certain area to be attained by every student. Basic competences Basic skills and abilities related to learning and personal performance and citizenship, to be developed by any learner, they are mandatory and to be implemented in all areas at any educational level. Contents Are the knowledge and skills related to a certain area, to be presented by the teacher, so that students’ work and study on content-based activities help them achieve their meaningful learning. Contents are arranged into blocks of contents. Methodology It refers to the teaching principles that we have to take into account when planning our units. It includes: general principles, specific strategies, classroom management techniques. Activities Evaluation

Planning of the teaching process. Didactic units. Activities: The methodological strategies by which students are challenged to practice on contents and which serve as a tool towards learning. In EFL they are divided into: presentation, practice and production stages. At initial levels oral skills should be emphasized.

Planning of the teaching process. Didactic units. The Presentation stages: Aims: to give the opportunity to realise the usefulness of the new language, to concentrate on the meaning, pronunciation, spelling and grammmar of the new language. Contexts: situational and linguistic. Procedure: present a few linguistic terms in a meaningful context, some imitation is done, ample opportunity to practise. Teacher’s role: is that of informant. The practice stage: Aims: build up our students’ confidence in using new language, help students to use new language in realistic situations. Procedure: different activities that provide guidance for utterances, reducing the scope of error (drills- choral or individual- short dialogues, information and opinion gap activities. Teacher’s role: conductor and corrector.

Planning of the teaching process. Didactic units. The production stage: Aims: the opportunity to experiment on their own and allow them to see how much they have understood and learnt provide teachers and pupils with feedback about the learning/teaching process provide motivation Integrate the new language into previously learnt. Procedure: experimentation, creative language use, spontaneity, motivation. Pair work, group work and mixed activities.

Planning of the teaching process. Didactic units. Evaluation: is the process of assessing the achievement of initial learning objectives and of basic competences. it should include the answer to 3 questions: what , when and how to evaluate.

Criteria for sequencing objectives, basic competences and contents. To plan a didactic unit we must have a sequence of contents and objectives to structure the progression of the units. When sequencing contents, some of the criteria that can be taken into account: Type of text: length, vocabulary, etc. Communication channel: face-to face, written, recorded… Type of understanding required: general, specific. Interlocutor: known, unknown. Degree of correction, coherence and adequacy in understanding and expression. The use of verbal and non/verbal strategies The need of help.

Criteria for sequencing objectives, basic competences and contents. The teacher have to take into account evolutive development of the students: Previous knowledge The degree of dependence from the context for understanding or for expression. Expressive needs. Maturity of students as regards the acquisition of certain attitudes. The gradual introduction of concepts, procedures an attitudes.

Criteria for sequencing objectives, basic competences and contents. When sequencing objectives, especially at initial levels: To give primacy to oral skills over written ones Understanding precedes production. The 1st and 2nd cycle: emphasis on the development of the capacity to understand simple oral messages. In the 3rd cycle: more importance to the development of expressive capacities.

Criteria for sequencing objectives, basic competences and contents. In continuation, some points are going to be explained in depth: The characteristics of our students The theory of language and learning

Criteria for sequencing objectives, basic competences and contents. The characteristics of our students: Early childhood typical thinking: blend of impressions, intuitions, and partial logic. Middle childhood: their thought becomes more integrated and bound by rules of logic> Concrete Operational Thought. (Piaget) Concrete> children can reason only about concrete objects Operational> pupils can perform mental manipulations on objects in a systematic way.

Criteria for sequencing objectives, basic competences and contents.

Pupils’ level of moral development (Piaget): External morality (between 5 and 10 y.o): rules are seen as inviolable instructions from figures of authority. Internal morality: children understand that people may agree to reason out, discuss, change, and remake rules. Kohlberg developed a more complete theory of stages in moral development. Children first concerned with getting rewards and avoiding punishment. Next they concern with making fair deals and trades.

Criteria for sequencing objectives, basic competences and contents The theory of language and learning Communication and social exchange is the primary function of language. In order to learn a language, our pupils have to be engaged in communicative situations. A theory of language as communication involves the use of communicative methods. Johnson (1982) proposed 5 principles in Communicative Syllabus Design and Methodology: Information Transfer Information gap Jigsaw Task dependency Correction for content principle

Criteria for sequencing objectives, basic competences and contents The information transfer principle: Extracting relevant information from a reading or listening text and reproducing it in diagrammatic form . The information gap (communication gap) One pupil knows information not known by another or there is a difference of opinions between speaker. Jigsaw principle A class is divided into groups each group is given only part of a situation. The groups discuss the texts in order to build up the whole story. Task dependency principle Having clear and precise goals and objectives. Correction for content principle Stresses the importance of achieving a balance between accuracy and fluency. Grammar correction is not the only important thing.

The application of these principles will result in our use of s communicative methodology. The sequence of objectives, basic competences and contents, the subsequent activities, should be developed so as to reflect these communicative principles.

Learning and teaching activities and instruments for evaluation. The final part of the topic discusses the methodology underlying the learning and assessment activities we use in our planning.

Learning and teaching activities and instruments for evaluation. The concept of COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE: FIRSTLY INTRODUCED BY CHOMSKY (1957) Defined the language as a “set of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements”. An able speaker has a subconscious knowledge of the grammar rules of his language which allows him to make sentences in that language (COMPETENCE). HYMES Argued that Chomsky had missed the rules of use. Replaced Chomsky’s notion of COMPETENCE with the concept of COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE: Systematic potential (a native speaker possesses a system that has a potential for creating a language). Appropriacy (what language is appropriate in a given situation). Occurance (how often something is said in the language) Feasibility (whether something is possible in the language)/

Learning and teaching activities and instruments for evaluation. DEVELOPED BY CANALE AND SWAIN (1980) COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE = GRAMMATICAL COMPETENCE (grammar rules) + SOCIOLINGUISTIC COMPETENCE (the rules of language use). The four components of communicative competence (CANALE): Grammatical competence Producing a structured comprehensible utterances Sociolinguistic competence Involving knowledge of the sociocultural rules of language and discourse Discourse competence Communicating in different genres, using cohesion and coherence Strategic competence Enhancing the effectiveness of communication and compensating for breakdowns in communication

Learning and teaching activities and instruments for evaluation. SAVIGNON (1983) described how these four components interact . “Communicative competence is a dynamic rather than a static concept. It depends on the negotiation of meaning between two or more persons who share to some degree the same symbolic system. In this sense, communicative competence can be said to be an interpersonal rather than intrapersonal trait.” In the context of language teaching, the term COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE generally refers to the ABILITY TO PERFORM OR COMMUNICATE. The concept is also present in our educational system. The Organic Law of Education 2/2006 highlights the development both oral and written skills in the primary education. I

Learning and teaching activities and instruments for evaluation. The activities that help us reach the mentioned aim: Introduction and motivation activities Detection of previous ideas Activities for development To work new concepts, procedures, attitudes Remedial activities For those students who have not acquiered the desired knowledge Extension activities Evaluation activities

Learning and teaching activities and instruments for evaluation. From the methodological point of view the foreign language activities can be classified in the following types: Activities for personal relations: data, opinions, information… Activities on decisions and transactions: problem solving, taking decisions… Activities to obtain information Activities to provide information: prepare a text and expose it in front of the class Activities of personal reaction: reading or listening activities where students have to give a personal response. Activities for personal expression: creation process.

Learning and teaching activities and instruments for evaluation. Characteristics that communicative activities should have: Desire to communicate A communicative purpose Focus o content not form The use of variety of language No teacher intervention No control of materials

Learning and teaching activities and instruments for evaluation. Evaluation of learning process. Principles: Evaluation is a continuous and global process, not final. Has to take into account the development of different capacities: cognitive, socio-effective, expressive, aesthetic. Should make use of different situations to evaluate: hetero-evaluation, co-evaluation and self-evaluation. Should make use of different techniques and instruments. Should help us to draw conclusions about our own teaching practice.

Learning and teaching activities and instruments for evaluation. Errors: Essential element in the learning process: should not be systematically corrected. It is important to correct those errors that cause misunderstandings.

Learning and teaching activities and instruments for evaluation. Assessment tests: Assessments tests are just one element of evaluation, but not the most important one. Communicative situation cannot be measure by means of traditional tests. Communicative tests: Must be based on interaction Must have certain degree of unpredictability. Should have a clear context. Should be related to real life. When activities are used for assessment, they should be similar to others previously done in the class.