1. ¨Educating for a new Citizenship¨
Transforming the English Classroom through Action-Oriented Teaching and Learning
¨Educating for a new Citizenship¨

2. English Reform: Why a new syllabus?
The current syllabus is more than ten years old.
The students are not developing communicative competence in English as expected.
The demands of Costa Rican Society of fully bilingual or multilingual citizens.
The current curriculum has no correlation to the pedagogical guidelines or the Common European Framework, teaching scenarios and new pedagogical trends to support the teaching, learning and assessment of global learners which has emerged as one social space, beyond the national borders.

3. New Citizenship Essential Components and Relationships
Ways of Living in the World
Ways of Relating with Others
Tools for Integrating with the world
Ways of Thinking
Global Citizenship
Sustainable Development
Technology and Communication

4. Philosophical Foundation
Legal Framework
Ley Fundamental de Educación
Política hacia el Siglo XXI
Centro Educativo como Eje de la Calidad
Plan Nacional de Desarrollo Alberto Cañas
Declaración de la UNESCO: La educación en un Mundo Multilingüe
Prior knowledge and exchanges with others leads to constructing and reconstructing understanding

5. The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR)
CEFR describes proficiency levels based on accumulated evidence gathered over time from learner activities, tasks, or projects.
What it does:
Standard Terminology
Track student progress
Descriptors – teaching, learning and assessment
Students monitor and take responsibility
Transferability across settings
Parent communication

6. CEFR Band Alignment to the new curriculum
A2 exit band for primary
B1 exit band for high school
B2 exit band for LEBs.
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018

7. Action-Oriented Approach
Communicative activities are task-based and real-life.
Learners use authentic materials as comprehensible input, as much as possible.
The ICT become an important tool to create meaningful learning experiences.

8. Action-Oriented Approach
The students are social agents that use the target language to perform specific actions in real life contexts meaningfully.
Language performances, in oral or written form, respond to language functions and are carried out in specific domains and scenarios.

9. From Communicative Approach to Action-Oriented Approach
Table 8 Comparison of Actions
Communicative Approach (CA) vs. Action-Oriented Approach (AOA)
From Communicative Approach to Action-Oriented Approach CA
Actions…
AOA
focus on the objectives and as means. Actions are limited to receive and reproduce information (acts of speech).
are meant to be for further actions, broader social repetitive acts (scenarios) for treatment of information.
are part of simpler tasks.
are more complex treatment of tasks or part of integrated mini projects.
are delivered since the beginning of the units.
(the majority of them) are repetitive along a week, months, or years.
are finished completely at the end of the tasks.
are open-ended. They cover more ample periods of time to develop lifelong skills or can be retaken later on.
are exchanges between a minimum group (such as pair share/small groups).
are performed collectively
integrate both competences: co-linguistic and co-cultural dimensions in the common action.

10. Action-Oriented Approach
It is centered in:
Communicative tasks and non communicative tasks
Determined by:
circumstances
domains
Specific fields of action
In order to:
solve a problem
reach an objective
reach a concrete outcome

11. Common European Framework
Socio-cultural
General Competence
Psycho-social
Psycho-social
Selfhood factors connected with their individual personalities, characterized by the attitudes, motivations, values, beliefs, cognitive styles and personality types which contribute to their personal identity.
Socio-cultural
knowledge of the society and the community where the target language is spoken.

12. Specific Competence Knowing Doing Being Linguistic Pragmatic
Socio-linguistic
Speaking
Listening
Writing
Reading
Language Functions

13. Tasks
“A task is defined as any purposeful action considered by an individual as necessary in order to achieve a given result in the context of a problem to be solved, an obligation to fulfill, or an objective to be achieved” (CEFR, p.10).
Tasks are set in a context that learners face in everyday life within domains and scenarios, and themes as members of society, who have tasks to accomplish.

14. The Role of Tasks
Learners are able to demonstrate what they “can do” in English, as well as what they know about English language structures, vocabulary, functions, psychosocial and sociocultural aspects.

15. The Role of Tasks
The learner of a language is viewed as a “social agent”, i.e. member of society who has tasks to accomplish in a given set of circumstances, in a specific environment and within a particular field of action.

16. The Role of Tasks