How to plan a didactic unit (19/01)

Steps to plan a didactic unit: 

1. Legislative framework.
2. LOMCE (We have to use inclusive and heterogeneus groups in class)
3. Primary education curriculum.
4. Relation among competences contents.
5. Primary education curriculum in Ceuta. 

LOMCE-LOE

Key competences

The nomenclature and definition of key competences in the lomce is based on a European commission document on 21st century competences.

• Linguistic competence.
• Mathematical competence and basic competences in science and technology.
• Digital competence.
• Learning to learn.
• Social and civic competences
• Initiative and entrepreneurship.
• Cultural awareness and expression.

Curriculum

• The LOMCE defines the curriculum as: the regulation of the elements that manage the teaching And learning

Curriculum of primary education

The new curriculum will be integrated by:

• The objectives; they are the reference models related to the outcomes the students must achieve at the end of the educational process.
• The competences or capacities to activate and apply the contents in an integrated way, with the aim of achieving the appropriate fulfilment of activities and the effective solving of complex problems.

Contents:

The contents, or sets of knowledge, abilities, skills and attitudes that contribute to

• The achievement of the objectives
• The acquisition of the competences

Evaluation criteria: 

They are the specific referent models to evaluate students’ learning. They describe what must be assessed and students must achieve.

The didactic methodology that includes both:

• A description of teaching practices, as well as
• The organization of teachers’ work.

That is to say, it is a set of strategies, procedures and organized actions.

Evaluative learning standards:

They are the specification of the evaluation criteria that allow to define the learning results and that specify what the students must know, understand, know how to do in English. 

• They must be observable, measurable, graduable.
• Schools will have autonomy to elaborate, approve and carry out:

                          - An educational project.

                          - A management project

PLANNING

• For each of the communicative tasks listed and described in the standards.
• We will have to incorporate the set of contents included in its corresponding block of activity.
• To evaluate the degree of acquisition of each of the earning standards of a particular language activity, we will apply each and every criterion of evaluation included and described for the corresponding activities.

The curricular proposal

The curricular proposal will be elaborated by the stage teaching team, and will comprise the following elements: 

             a) Contextualisation of the stage objectives and the integration of the key competences in the curricular elements.

             b) The methodological and didactic principles

             c) Strategies and instruments for the evaluation of students’ learning.

             d) Curricular and organisational measures of individualised attention.

Criteria for grade advancement.

             e) Reading plan

             f) Information and communication technologies plan

             g) Integration of cross-curricular elements.

             h) Agreement for improving learning outcomes.

Didactic plannings

1. Didactic plannings for each areas will be elaborated by the team that teaches in the same school year.
2. Didactic plannings must include, at least, the following elements:

             a) Sequence and timing of contents.

             b) Profile for each key competence or relation between the evaluative  learning standars and each competence. The elaboration of these profiles of the key competences will make its evaluation easier.

             c) Evaluation criteria.

             d) Strategies and instruments for the students’ learning.

             e) Methodological and didactic decisions.

             f) Procedures of evaluation and evaluation of the curricular adaptations.

             g) Didactic resources.

             h) Students’ materials, including textbooks.

             i) Program of extra-curricular and complementary activities.

             j) Evaluation procedure of the didactic planning and its indicators. 

Writing in a foreign language (18/01)

The process of learning to write in a foreign language should be started in Primary Education and it really never ends.

3. What do we mean when we refer to writing?

• Academic: writing is the production of a sequence of sentences arranged in a particular order and linked together to form a coherent whole called text. 
• From a communicative perspective, we could understand writing as “the ability to communicate with each other and express our own ideas in written form”
• Writing is clearly a complex process requiring the ability to manipulate many sub-skills simultaneously.
• “Involves being creative, spelling, grammar, punctuation, choice of appropriate words, sentences linking and text construction.”. 

3.1. Graphic or visual skills.

• Spelling: difference between pronunciation and spelling in the English language.
• How can our students improve their spelling?
• We advise them to:

                    a) Select priority words to learn.

                    b) Get plentiful, regular practice.

                    c) Know about the language. 

                    d) Learn techniques. 

                    e) Develop an interest in words.

                    f) Check their work.

                    g) Have confidence in themselves.

• Punctuation: learning how to use punctuation correctly is a slow and laborious process. It should be started from the very beginning.
• Layout: there are certain conventions on how to write a letter, construct a paragraph, organise a written text and so on that are culturally determined. 

3.2. Grammatical skills

• This refers to the students’ skill in making efficient use of grammatical structures and constructions. 

3.3. Expressive or stylistic skills

• This includes the learner’s capacity to select the most appropriate meaning in a range of styles and registers.
• Sociolinguistic competence. 

3.4.Rhetorical skills

• It refers to the ability to use linguistic cohesive devices – what we call “connectors” and “modifiers” – in order to link parts of a text into logically related sequences. 

3.5.Organisational skills

• The organisation of pieces of information into paragraphs and texts. 

4. Relationship between the four skills

• It is an obvious fact the languages are spoken before they are written.
• There are people who communicate perfectly in the spoken language without being able to express themselves in writing. 

When introducing the skills we should know:

• What stage the learners are at in the acquisition of their first language skills.
• To ensure that we do not interfere with the learning process of their own language.
• Only when children are confident with reading and writing in L1 can we begin the task with L2. 

At beginner levels in particular, writing practice should be aimed at:

• Reinforcing the learning of linguistic elements which have been practised orally.
• Without forgetting to introduce our pupils to vocabulary practice and the structures of written language itself. 

Reading tasks (11/01)

Pre-reading tasks	Age range suggested
Identifying the topic of the text	From 7 years onward.
Anticipating and predicting possible information to be included	From 11 years onward.
Remembering what kind of information he/she is asked to extract.	From 9 years onward.
Checking his/her assumptions and background knowledge: the text should be related to the learner’s own knowledge.	From 9 years onward.
Exploring key vocabulary	From 7 years onward.
Using any available visual support (accompanying diagram, picture, photo, table…)	From 6 years onward.
Reflecting on or reviewing information from previously read texts in light of the topic of the text.	From 11 years onward.

While reading tasks	Age range suggested
Following the spelling	From 6 years onward
Understanding the punctuation	From 6 years onward
Reading in word-groups	From 6 years onward
Deducing the meaning and use of unfamiliar lexical items, through understanding word formation and contextual clues.	From 8 years onward
Understanding information stated explicitly.	From 8 years onward
Making inferences.	From 9 years onward
Understanding figurative language.	From 10 years onward
Understanding the communicative function of sentences.	From 10 years onward
Understanding relations within the sentence.	From 10 years onward
Moving from phrase to phrase and sentence to sentence (understanding the techniques of sentence linking, etc.).	From 10 years onward
Understanding relations between parts of a text through lexical and grammatical cohesion devices.	From 11 years onward
Distinguishing the main idea from supporting details.	From 9 years onward
Extracting salient points to summarise.	From 9 years onward
Understanding headings, numbers, different font/print types (e.g. bold print)	From 8 years onward
Skimming to obtain the gist or a general impression of the text.	From 11 years onward
Scanning to obtain specific information.	From 11 years onward
Using reference works (dictionaries, glossaries) appropriately.	From 9 years onward

Tasks after reading

•  Post-reading instruction extends ideas and information contained in the txt. It also focuses on ensuring that the main ideas have been perfectly grasped and understood.

Post-reading tasks	Age range
Eliciting reader’s own interpretations.	From 9 years onward
Elicing reasons to justify their point of views.	From 9 years onward
Relating the content to other reading (intertextuality)	From 11 years onward
Summarising the content.	From 8 years onward
Proposing information transfer tasks.	From 9 years onward
Answering comprehension questions.	From 8 years onward
Completing a graphic organiser.	From 8 years onward

Reading (part 2) (10/01)

5. Common European framework of reference for languages: the reading skill

	C2	-  The reader can read without difficulty almost all forms of texts, including abstract, structurally or linguistically complex texts such as manuals, specialised articles and literary works.
Proficient user	C1	-  The reader can understand long and complex factual and literary texts, appreciating distinctions or style. -  The reader can understand specialised articles and long technical instructions, even when they are not related to his field.
Independent user	B2	-  The reader can read articles and reports connected with contemporary problems in which the writers adopt particular attitudes or viewpoints. -  The reader can understand contemporary literary prose (short stories and popular novels).
	B1	-  The reader can understand text that consist mainly of high frequency every day or job-related language. -  The reader can understand the description of events, feelings and wishes in personal letters.
Basic user	A2	-  The reader can read very short, simple texts. -  The reader can find specific, predictable information in simple everyday material such as advertisements, prospectuses, menus and timetables. -  The readers can understand short simple personal letters.
	A1	-  The reader can understand familiar names, words and very simple sentences, for example on notices and posters or in catalogues.

6. Styles of reading applicable to the reading class

• Reading aloud or reading silently.
• Silent reading: scanning, skimming, intensive and extensive.

   1. Reading aloud

For:

• In the first years of Primary education, storytelling plays an important role in the process of learning.
• More effective if the story is told (or read) aloud due to the fact that learners become more involved and consequently more motivated.
• Students can show that they recognise written and spoken forms and the relationship between form and meaning.
• At early and intermediate levels, it can be used to check bottom-up processing skills or simply pronunciation.

Against:

• It is not a very authentic activity.
• It is a boring activity because while one student is reading, the others can easily lose attention.
• It is not an interactive activity because students only have to recite.

   2. Silent reading

• The most common and natural type of reading.
• Different goals can be pursued depending on the predetermined purposed of reading:

              -  Scanning: search of specific information within a text: relevant dates, numbers in a directory, times on a timetable or key concepts in an academic text.

              -  Skimming: very common in everyday life; used to get a global impression of the content of a text (the gist of the text). Requires a definite reading competence because it implies an overall view of the text. Develops students’ self-confidence since they obtain a lot of information without needing much reading.

              -  Intensive: focused on linguistic and content accuracy. It is very important in some educational contexts because it is used to exemplify different aspects of the lexical, syntactic and discourse systems. Full understanding of the literal meaning presented in the written passage. 

              -  Extensive: oriented towards grasping a general understanding or the text for the purpose of enjoyment or learning. Texts are usually long such as books or articles and reading them takes extended periods of time. Extensive reading is not usually performed during class time but it is known that this activity helps students to improve their reading abilities.

7. An extensive reading programme for children

1. Goals for an extensive reading programme

• Take into account institutional goals and expectations for learning (students’ goals, language abilities, L1 and L2 reading experiences, students’ motivations and attitudes toward reading in general and particular goals of the curriculum). 
• Plan reading curricula in relation to specific goals (hours of instruction per week, available resources, etc.), topics, texts and tasks. 
• Select appropriate text materials and supporting resources according to levels of difficulty. 
• Diversify students’ reading experiences (reading in different places: class, lab, library or home; reading for different purposes).
• Work with texts within a pre-, during- and post-reading framework.
• Recognise the complex nature of reading through meaningful instructions (vocabulary development, careful reading of the texts, awareness of text structure and discourse organisation, the use of graphic organisers to support comprehension, strategic reading, student motivation and integrated-skills tasks). 

2. Types of texts

• Authentic texts refer to readings which have not been adapted or modified in any way for teaching purposes. 
• Pedagogic texts are readings that have been especially written for the language classroom. 
• Adapted texts or Graded Readers aim to facilitate the language and content of the text in order to make it more accessible to the language learner.

3. Materials

• Chart for keeping track of student’s readings:

-          Studen’s name -          Date of reading: -          Title: -          Brief summary: -          What did you like the most? -          What did you like the least? -          Which character did you identify with?

8. Tasks to develop reading skills

1. Tasks before reading.

• To introduce the topic of reading and to activate schemata, that is, previous world knowledge.
• The teacher may also decide to introduce the structural items (vocabulary, discourse markers…).
• Five main goals of pre-reading instructions:

                1. It enables the reader to access background knowledge.

                2. It stimulates student’s interest.

                3. It provides specific information needed for successful comprehension.

                4. It sets up student’s expectations.

                5. It models strategies that students can use later on their own. 

Approaches to reading in a foreign/second language (21/12)

4. Approaches to reading in a foreign/second language

4.1. Bottom-up process: based upon the assumption that the reader starts from decoding the most specific levels of the language before grasping the most general ones.

• The reader first recognises individual letters, form words, these in turn make up phrases, then clauses, sentences, texts…
• Later on, he/she makes use of his/her linguistic mechanisms to make some sort of sense of the data.
• Numerous activities to develop the learner’s bottom-up strategies and subsequently allow him/her to process the text in this way.

                    - Identify words by letter combination.

                    - Difficult sound clusters.

                    - Re-ordering scrambled words and matching.

                    - Discriminating minimal pair sounds.

                    - Reading and stress.

4.2. Top-down process

• The process starts from the higher levels of processing and proceeds to use the lower levels selectively.
• Background knowledge plays a key role since the reader combines what he/she already knows with the new information from the text to achieve a personal interpretation.
• Activities:

                    - Deducting from context: can you deduce from context the meaning of resort, hike and sunbathers? Are these words essential for the comprehension of the passage? Why?

                    - Relating written text to general world knowledge. Relate his/her world knowledge r background to the written information from the text.

                    - Drawing inferences: the reader not only needs to understand explicitly stated information.

4.3. Interactive process:

• Eclectic approach: the reader depending on his/her purposes, the type of text, etc. activities different strategies which shift from bottom-up to top-down and viceversa. This has come to be known as interactive reading. 

Reading (14/12-20/12)

Introduction:

• Reading is one of the four basic skills needed to gain competence in mastering a language.
• It is a written receptive skill. 
• To achieve full comprehension, it is necessary interaction between the information given and the reader’s expectations. 

Reasons for reading and text selection

• The ability to read effectively is fundamental for survival in our western society. 
• Whenever we read, we have a specific purpose in mind
• Sometimes, we read simply to get the gist of the text or to locate a concrete piece of information.  

Reasons for reading	Text selection
To get information or search for information	Travel brochures Train timetable Bus schedules Public signs Weather forecasts Menus Internet: web sites
To satisfy to curiosity about a topic	Magazine articles Newspaper editorials Advertisements Internet
To follow instructions	To know how to use a game Recipes Maps
To keep in touch	Postcards Letters Notes Messages Invitations Emails
To find out when and where	Announcements Programmes

Tips to text selection:

• Texts should be adapted to the learner’s cognitive development.
• Texts should cover a wide variety of topics in order to reflect the diversity of interests present in the classroom.
• Texts should enhance motivation and promote self-esteem. 
• Texts should reflect situations where the learner can activate his/her schemata and enrich the interpretation.
• Text should introduce some of the most important cultural references of the target language.
• The selected texts should be the result of a needs analysis.
• By means of a needs analysis, the teacher can gather a great deal of valuable information which will result in a more accurate selection of the reading material.

Types of knowledge	Examples
Syntactic knowledge	Position of articles Position of auxiliary verbs Position of adjectives and adverbs
Morphological knowledge	Word formation (affixation, compounding…) Cohesive devices
General world knowledge	Background knowledge
Sociocultural knowledge	Cultural references
Topic knowledge	Previous ideas related to the content
Genre knowledge	Science fantasy novel Tale Poems

Characterisctics of written languae

Differences in comparison to spoken language.

Permanence	The reader can access the information in the written forms as many times as needed. Oal language, on the contrary, vanishes after being uttered.
Processing time	The processing time needed to decode the information is greater and readers can read at their own rate.
Distance	The context in which the text is written is different from that in which it is read. Consequently, readers interpret the written material using their background knowledge and trying to minimise the effect of the passing of time and sociocultural conventions. Besides, the reader cannot confront the author and question him/her about the text.
Orthography	Written language is materialised through graphemes. These are accompanied by punctuation marks, pictures, charts. Thus, it may be more difficult to interpret written language than oral language since this is enriched with suprasegmental features (stress, rhythm, juncture, intonation, pauses, volume, voice quality settings) and non-verbal language (gestures)
Complexity	Written language tends to have longer clauses and more complex sentences than spoken language.
vocabulary	Written language usually presents a more varied and a more formal lexical register. The writer makes use of more precise lexical items since he/she has more processing time and lower-frequency words often appear.
Formality	Written language makes use of conventionalised forms which enable the reader to recognise the type of text. In addition to this, a written text presents some rhetorical devices which the reader should know in advance in order to make sense of it. In Brown’s words (2001:306): “…conventions like paragraph topics,… a logical order for, say, comparing and contrasting something:… openings and closings; a preference for non-redundancy and subordination clauses, etc.”.