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T T TR R RA A AB B BA A AJ J JO O O F F FI I IN N N D D DE E E M M MÁ Á ÁS S ST T TE E ER R R Máster en Profesorado de Educación Secundaria Obligatoria, Bachillerato, Formación Profesional y Enseñanzas de Idiomas, Artísticas y Deportivas Especialidad: Lengua extranjera—Inglés Curso 2012/2013 STUDENT: Ana Revilla Ruiz TUTOR: Mª José Luzón Marco INDEX INTRODUCTION ...................................................................... 2 JUSTIFICATION ........................................................................ 4 CRITICAL REFECTION OF THE ACTIVITIES ................................ 6 1. LEARNING OUTCOMES ...................................................................... 6 2. DIDACTIC YEAR PLAN ........................................................................ 6 Definition ................................................................................................... 6 Training period before developing the Didactic Year Plan .......................... 7 Critical analysis and reflection on the Didactic Year Plan ........................... 8 Contribution of the year plan to my learning ........................................... 13 3. LEARNING UNIT OF WORK .............................................................. 14 Definition ................................................................................................. 14 Training period before developing the Learning Unit ............................... 15 Critical analysis and reflection on the Learning Unit................................. 16 Contribution of the didactic unit to my learning ...................................... 22 CONCLUSIONS AND PROPOSALS FOR THE FUTURE ................. 25 WORKS CITED .................................................................................. 27 APPENDIXES .................................................................................... 30 Ana Revilla Ruiz Trabajo Fin de Máster Page 2 INTRODUCTION First, I decided to study this Master of Education because I have always loved languages, especially the English language. I began my ‘training’ when I was 8 years old in a very good private academy and, from that moment, I knew my vocation was to be an English teacher. While I was studying the fourth year of my Translation and Interpreting degree at University, there was a teacher who saw my qualities and hired me as auxiliary teacher in her private English academy. It was a very enriching experience, but now I have realized that I did not conduct my teaching as properly as I should. Therefore, to study this Master has been an essential and necessary component to complete my education, as the teaching profession is what I am really interested in. This “Master’s degree in Secondary School Education, Vocational Training and Languages” is divided into two terms. In the first term we worked mainly with subjects of general nature, common to all specialties. They were taught in Spanish and they were “Contexto de la Actividad Docente”, “Interacción y Convivencia en el Aula” and “Procesos de Enseñanza – Aprendizaje”. With the first subject mentioned we mainly learnt theoretical aspects such as the internal organization of schools, which are regulated by several official documents; the legal and institutional framework of Education; family and social contexts that influence the teaching practice, etc. With the subject “Interacción y Convivencia en el Aula” we learnt techniques and achieved the skills necessary to promote formative and stimulating coexistence in the classroom and, we learnt some guidelines on social psychology in order to guide students and to contribute to their development. Finally, with “Procesos de Enseñanza— Aprendizaje”, we learnt important teaching theories on the students’ learning process as well as how to enhance this process. We also learnt to promote, tutor and evaluate the students’ learning process in a reflective, critical and informed way. All this contents were necessary in our training as future teachers. Furthermore, there were two specialty subjects: “Diseño Curricular de Lenguas Extranjeras”, in which we learnt how to plan, design and develop a complete didactic Year Plan for the English subject; and “Fundamentos de Diseño Instruccional y Metodologías de Aprendizaje”, in which we learnt the different approaches to the teaching of languages. We also had the opportunity to explore a topic in detail. In my case, it was oriented to know the potential benefits of ICT’s in teaching English as a Foreign Language. As in the first term we only dealt with two specialty subjects, the second term was more motivating to me, since subjects such as “La Comunicación Oral en Lengua Inglesa”, “Evaluación e Innovación docente e investigación educativa en Inglés” or “Diseño, Organización y Desarrollo de Actividades para el Aprendizaje de Inglés”, provided us with the knowledge, training and competences required to an English teacher more specifically, in order to perform an appropriate educational practice in the future. For example, in the last subject mentioned, we learnt how to evaluate, adapt and develop materials Ana Revilla Ruiz Trabajo Fin de Máster Page 3 and tasks, how to critically analyze different roles of the teacher, how to plan and design learning units of work considering communicative principles, considering what objectives, contents, etc. must be included according to the students’ level, according to the requirements and specifications of official documents such as the Aragonese Curriculum, etc. One of the most relevant and interesting aspects of the Master were the Practicum periods. The Practicum I helped me to check that I was able to analyze the internal structure, regulation, operation, etc. of an educational institution as prestigious as the Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1. However, the practicum II has been the best experience of the Master for me, with which I felt really integrated into the teaching profession. Firstly, I had the opportunity to observe techniques, methods, lessons’ organization, etc. carried out by other English teachers. Secondly, I was able to put into practice all the knowledge acquired during the Master by implementing a complete learning unit of work designed by myself at one of the ‘Specialization courses’ offered by this Official Language School. Finally, the Practicum III was also very useful and interesting, as my investigation was oriented to the current use of ICT’s, focusing on the use of blogs and social networks in Official Language Schools. With this research project we investigated and evaluated the teaching process with regard to the integration of blogs or social networks in the English classroom, and we also innovated in this area by determining the elements these web pages should contain, establishing an informed basis for current language teachers. Thus, we realize the importance of incorporating ICT in the English classroom. Therefore, studying this Master's degree has been really a wise decision in my life as it has helped me to broaden my knowledge of the field of Education not only in a theoretical but also in a practical way. To conclude, this final project carries out a critical analysis of two projects which I have developed during the Master and which I consider to be the most important ones: a complete Year Plan for 4th grade of Secondary Education and a Learning Unit designed for one of the specialization courses offered by the Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº1. Therefore, I have added them as appendixes of this document. Ana Revilla Ruiz Trabajo Fin de Máster Page 4 JUSTIFICATION In this Chapter I present the reasons why I have chosen the aforementioned projects: the Didactic Year Plan from a subject of the first term, “Diseño Curricular de Lenguas Extranjeras”, and the Learning Unit from a subject of the second term, “Diseño, Organización y Desarrollo de Actividades para el Aprendizaje de Inglés”, which I implemented during the Practicum II at the Official Language School Nº1, located in Zaragoza. First, I have chosen these projects because I think they are the most important projects I have done in this Master as I consider they are the most useful to me before starting my English teaching practice. One of the main reasons why I chose these two activities is the close relationship that binds them. In each school, although there are several important documents such as the ‘Documento de Organización de Centro’, there is a more specific document focused directly to the content of each subject, known as Didactic Year Plan or syllabus. There is a different syllabus for each subject. Therein are organized the objectives, content, evaluation criteria, etc. of the course in general terms. However, these elements are also organized in a more specific and detailed way by the sequence of didactic units. As when designing the Year Plan in the first term the didactic units were drafted in a very general way without delving into the lesson plans, to have the opportunity to design and implement a learning unit of work, even in a prestigious center such as the Escuela Official de Idiomas Nº 1 of Zaragoza, was a very enriching experience for me. Even though the Year Plan has many things which could have been done better, the teaching unit is really well designed and thus, by the analysis and reflection on the competences and knowledge acquire through the elaboration of these two activities it can be reflected what I have really learnt during the Master. Now, regarding the Year Plan, I am going to explain the main reasons why I chose it: To design this project was challenging to me because, as we were at the beginning of the Master, I had little previous knowledge on the field of Education. Thus, I had no prior experience in setting the ‘objectives’, ‘contents’, ‘key competences’, ‘teaching methods’ and ‘assessment criteria’ for a specific classroom, not only for the whole syllabus but also for each learning unit, and they are basic aspects established by important official documents such as the Aragonese Curriculum or the Ley Orgánica 2/2006, de 3 de mayo, de Educación (Spanish Institutional Act 2/2006, May 3, of Education). In addition, considering the way in which the Didactic Year Plan is presented, it can be interpreted as if it was written with a bit outdated perspective in relation to the way of educating students; for example, by the use of unsuitable words such as ‘to indoctrinate’ instead of ‘to educate’. Ana Revilla Ruiz Trabajo Fin de Máster Page 5 For this reason, now that I have a more global and coherent perspective of those contents appearing on official documents such as the aforesaid, I can analyze my work critically identifying those errors that I would not make nowadays because we, as teachers, must reflect on our work in order to improve the teaching and learning process. Finally, there is something I would like to comment on regarding the Year Plan. Since it was a difficult task, taking into account that many of the students of the Master had little knowledge in the field of Education, we were required to design such an important project in groups. In our case, none of the members of the group had prior knowledge in the field of Education, that is, none of us had a Primary Education Degree. Nevertheless, group work requires certain skills that, at that moment, we had not yet achieved. Thus, during the preparation of the Didactic Year Plan each member of the group had different ideas, and although we empathize very well, the result was not as expected. As for the reasons why I chose the Learning Unit of work, they are the following: First, I consider it is one of the most important projects of the Master as it is essential for teachers to know what they will teach to their students and how to organize, relate, etc. that information to be consistent and effective in the teaching and learning process. Moreover, I had the great opportunity to implement the major part of my learning unit so I checked that all the activities worked perfectly. Although I realized that there are some aspects which I could improve such as classroom management when carrying out debates or role-plays, I am very happy with the final result: the lessons were fun, the students met all the objectives, the timing was well adjusted, the tasks were all connected, etc. Finally, it must be said that the Year Plan (designed in the first term) was aimed at students of fourth year of Compulsory Secondary Education, while the learning unit (designed in the second term) was aimed at advanced students of a specialization course called 'Curso Superior de Inglés' offered by the Official Language School. Therefore, as in the Master we barely worked with activities, materials, etc. aimed at students with such a high level, it was an even bigger challenge for me. Ana Revilla Ruiz Trabajo Fin de Máster Page 6 CRITICAL REFECTION OF THE ACTIVITIES 1. LEARNING OUTCOMES In this section I will analyze and reflect on the knowledge and competences I acquired by designing in group a complete Didactic Year Plan for students of 4th year of Compulsory Secondary Education and a complete Learning Unit of Work called “Crime: It’s a jungle out there”, individually, for the ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ offer by the ‘Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº1’, conceived as a Specialization Course for the acquisition and improvement of the students’ language skills at C1 level of the Council of Europe, defined as ‘Effective Operational Proficiency’ by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). 2. DIDACTIC YEAR PLAN Definition To design a didactic year plan for the subject “Diseño Curricular de Lenguas Extranjeras” during the first term was one of the most difficult activities I carried out in this Master. As I said before, I studied Translation and Interpreting at the University, so I arrived at this Master having little knowledge of the field of Education. However, as the teaching profession is what I have been always interested in, I was conscious that knowing how to design didactic year plans according to the context, students, etc. is one of the most important things teachers must be aware of. I would first like to explain what a ‘year plan’ or ‘syllabus’ is. Etymologically syllabus means a ‘label’ or ‘table of contents’. Wilkins (1981, p.83) pointed out that: "syllabuses are a specification of the contents of language teaching which have been submitted to some degree of structuring or ordering, with the aim of making teaching and learning a more effective process". Other definitions of syllabus could be listed and dealt with in similar ways. For example, Candlin (1984, p.30) said that: “syllabuses are concerned with the specification and planning of what is to be learned, frequently set down in some written form as prescriptions for action by teachers and learners. They have, traditionally, the mark of authority. They are concerned with the achievement of ends, often, though not always, associated with the pursuance of particular means.” Ana Revilla Ruiz Trabajo Fin de Máster Page 7 So far, there have been several approaches to syllabus design within literature. White (1988), established two different types of syllabuses: Type A syllabuses are concerned with what should be learned; without considering who the learners may be or how languages are acquired, they determine a series of objectives and they ‘pre-package’ the language by dividing it into small, discrete units. Type B syllabuses on the contrary, are concerned with how the language to be learned and how this language is integrated with learners’ experiences; the different elements of the syllabus emerge from a process of negotiation between learners and teachers; they are oriented toward the process. In this case, the Year Plan was designed according to Type B syllabuses although it shares some characteristics of Type A syllabuses, such as the definition of the objectives at the beginning. By defining it in a more concrete way, we designed a syllabus based on tasks. ‘Task-based language learning’ has appeared as a kind of sub-variant of the communicative curriculum with a special focus, however, on learners’ actions and processes in the classroom. Training period before developing the Didactic Year Plan The most useful and helpful subjects for me when getting prepared to develop a Didactic Year Plan were: “Diseño Curricular de Lenguas Extrajeras” and “Fundamentos de Diseño Instruccional”. They both gave me the tools and theoretical elements required to transform the official curriculum into a coherent program of working activities in the English classroom. However, I had to make a great effort when organizing in my head the knowledge received within the subjects mentioned, since none of them offered me a clear basis on the contents taught. Instead, certain knowledge on the field of Education was given for granted. The first step we followed as part of such ‘preparation’ was to perform several activities oriented to analyze the different methods, approaches, etc. used in language teaching and the relentless search for better ways to teach languages, since it has never been as intense as today. So, one of the first activities we performed and which I considered very important was to determine those ‘key principles’ we considered essential to guide our future teaching. I had this activity into account when carrying out the year plan. However, now that I have a more global view of the whole teaching and learning process and, that I have the ability to design a more coherent well-structured year plan for an English course I realized that I had some misconceptions and confusing beliefs on this topic. Some of the main principles I considered essential for my teaching practice at the beginning of the Master were ‘to keep the students involved’, ‘to teach all four language skills’ and ‘to teach simple structures before complex ones’. Although I was not misguided, the statement 'to teach simple structures before complex ones' is a reflection of old prejudices and beliefs that I had before studying this Master, as a result of the way in which I have been taught English during all my life, which was based on former teaching practices. Therefore, although I disagree with some of the ideas of Krashen, it is important to take into account his words when he comes to say that “the language features that Ana Revilla Ruiz Trabajo Fin de Máster Page 8 are easiest to state (and thus to learn) are not necessarily the first to be acquired” (Lightbown and Spada, 2006, p.36). Teachers must present students real communicative situations which prepare students for the real life or, in other words, “classroom tasks must equip students with the skills necessary for communication in real contexts” (Brown, 2007, p.46). This way, the goal is to use the language with specific purposes by introducing to students different relevant topics according to their needs and interests. Critical analysis and reflection on the Didactic Year Plan Although we were identifying, analyzing and reflecting on different language teaching approaches and methodologies, as well as learning a wide range of techniques and activities to use in the classroom, we did not receive a clear basis on how to develop a didactic year plan. The main objective of this was that students did not follow a model already established, but to encourage us to design the project from scratch. We, as teachers, “need to know, with a reasonable degree of certainty, which features of method A, which features of method B, etc. can be combined, how, for what reason and with what result […] taking into account the particularity of a given learning-teaching context” (Kumaravadivelu, 2012, p.3). That is, we need to be aware of the students’ knowledge degree, of their characteristics and needs, etc. in order to establish those competences we want them to achieve, in what way, by what means, with what purposes, etc. if we want our teaching practice to be successful. Then, what I learnt by designing a year plan for an English course was something that Kumaravadivelu (1994) calls ‘teacher autonomy’. This is one of the main characteristics of the post-method condition, which means “a search for an alternative to method” and not “an alternative method”, as Kumaravadivelu clearly explains. The post-method condition recognizes the teacher’s potential to know not only how to teach but also know how to act autonomously within the academic and administrative constraints imposed by institutions, curricula… (Kumaravadivelu, 1994). The first thing we made when designing the Year Plan was to contextualize it by presenting the official documents taken into account during its elaboration. Then, we established the school setting, that is, the socio-cultural context, characteristics of the schools and students’ characteristics and needs. Despite being the first time we realized this task, the result was quite good since the contextualization was clearly presented. It is very important to analyze the context before start developing a Year Pan. Instead of viewing language as something exclusively internal to the learner, Halliday views it as a means of functioning in society (Halliday, 1973, in Kumaravadivelu, 2006, p.8). This way, if we assume what the specific context is, we could perform a more effective teaching. The following step was to reflect the key competences, that is, the cognitive, procedural and attitudinal skills that the students of forth year of Compulsory Secondary Education should have achieved after dealing with the contents included in this Year Plan, which were also well presented. Ana Revilla Ruiz Trabajo Fin de Máster Page 15 “the interrelation of every element which intervene in the teaching-learning process with an internal coherence and cohesion and for a determined period of time” (Ibáñez, 1992, p.13) As this definition is a bit poor, one year later A. Escamilla, (Escamilla, 1993, p.39) Pedagogical Project Director and author of many books on didactics, curriculum, skills, etc. offered a more detailed description of this concept by defining it as: “a way of planning the teaching-learning process focusing on a content which becomes in the main axle of the process, adding consistence and meaning. This way of organizing knowledge and experiences must take into account the diversity of the elements which make possible the process (the level of development of the student, the socio-cultural and familiar context, the available resources) to regulate the practice of the contents, select the basic objectives, the methodological steps with which it will work and the necessary teaching-learning experiences to improve this process”. It is a good definition and it is important to take all this into account, but it is also essential for teachers to be aware of the way he/she is going to teach languages or, in other words, of the process to follow in the language teaching. In this case, I designed my learning unit according to the Communicative approach, which allows teachers to facilitate communication in the classroom” giving to students the opportunity to use the language a great deal through communicative activities such as games, role-plays or problem-solving tasks, being more responsible for their own learning (Larsen–Freeman, 1986). This approach is based on the belief that it is important to use the language with authentic activities and by using authentic materials and resources. Training period before developing the Learning Unit First, I received all the necessary information such as useful techniques for an effective teaching, the different roles a teacher can adopt, how to best integrate the different language skills by means of activities, how to elaborate useful resources depending on the students, how to evaluate all the components of the teaching and learning process, etc. within the subject “Diseño, Organización y Desarrollo de Actividades para el aprendizaje de Inglés”. Furthermore, before start developing a complete learning unit of work individually, and in order to go in depth into the process of language teaching, we were required to write down two essays discussing on a different topic each one. Therefore, I had to make some small researches which helped me to expand my knowledge on the topics of ‘Evaluation’ and ‘Teaching Listening by using ICT’s’ in relation to Official Language Schools. Ana Revilla Ruiz Trabajo Fin de Máster Page 16 Critical analysis and reflection on the Learning Unit First, it is important to mention that to design a learning unit of work as well as to implement it and also to reflect on the teaching process carried out, they are all related activities which I am going to comment and reflect on altogether. My Learning Unit of Work, as already said, was framed within one of the specialization courses offered by the Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº1, located in Zaragoza, which are courses that allow advanced level students to improve their English language skills at a C1 level of the Council of Europe. This way, my teaching placement was not a secondary school but an Official Language School. As in the Master we mainly focused on Secondary Education students, one of my biggest difficulties was to organize the learning unit according to the specifications of the advanced level curriculum, set for Official Language Schools in the Autonomous Community of Aragon (Orden de 7 de Julio de 2008)—always adapting these specifications to the specific context. However, as Aragón has not yet a curriculum established for the levels C1 and C2 of the Council of Europe at the moment (although the curriculum for the C1 level is expected to be in force for next year), all those syllabus and, of course, learning units of work oriented to these specialization courses, have to be designed by taking the curriculum for the advance level as reference, always adapting the contents for proficiency level students. Therefore, all the specifications I took into account when developing the learning unit had to be set with greater specificity and accuracy. That is why it was even a hard task to me. On the other hand I was fortunate with the students, since this course was aimed at people with advance knowledge of the English language, such as English teachers or other professional groups in Education. Therefore, I had the opportunity to choose a great variety of interesting communicative activities. Particularly, I had twenty-five students in the classroom and most of them were English teachers between 25 and 45 years old who wanted to improve their command of spoken and written English. I decided to design a didactic unit on crime because my tutor at the Official Language School wanted me to include some of those contents he had to cover in the course. He gave me the opportunity to choose between three topics, such as ‘accidents’ or ‘crime’, as he used a teaching methodology based on topics. Thus, I create a didactic unit on crime titled ‘Crime: It’s a jungle out there’, as I found it the most interesting one to work with, taking into account the type of students. One of the requirements of the learning units was that it should consist of activities designed by ourselves. Therefore, I would like to comment on these activities and on the materials used: First, as I had the opportunity to check in the Practicum I this Official Language School has a very innovative infrastructure. It has been demonstrated that he availability of a Multimedia Laboratory and a Language Laboratory (both Ana Revilla Ruiz Trabajo Fin de Máster Page 17 provided with helmets, microphones, etc.), as well as having projectors and Internet access in every classroom allows to carry out a process of teaching and learning more efficient and with less effort, provided that we use them appropriately. It has been shown that the use of ICT in education can help improve memory retention, increase motivation and generally deepen understanding (Dede, 1998). Regarding this, we can observe numerous experiences in which ICT’s have been introduced in recent decades in the classrooms of every educational center of our country in a way or another, especially since the appearance of the "School 2.0 Program" during the academic year 2009/2010, whose main objective was to digitize the classrooms of the Spanish educational system by means of whiteboards, laptops, wireless Internet access, teacher training, etc… As consequence, our students are greatly immersed in Web 2.0 technologies: social network sites, blogs, wikis, podcasts, virtual worlds, video and photo sharing, etc. The Internet is playing major role in both their social and academic lives. Educators turn its attention to Web 2.0 tools, trying to incorporate them in the academic world in order to offer the student a wide range of possibilities (creating, collaborating on and sharing content), while offering them the advanced technology that they need and at the same time they are mostly familiarize with it. Thus, I firmly thought, and I still do, that to introduce the use of ICT’s in my lessons would have benefits in the students learning process, so I designed an activity for the first lesson in which the use of the Internet was required. Therefore, students were advised in advance to bring their computers to class. As the ways to search in the Internet are increasing, few of them brought their computers, but the vast majority used I-phones and smart-phones to carry out that group activity. The students’ attitude towards this ‘web-search’ was excellent. Since all the students of this course were very competitive and each group had to search information on different things (trying to get the most reliable and convincing arguments), they were all involved while completing this activity. It is important to mention also that before starting developing the activities and, in order to explain them meticulously in an organized way, that is, to specify stage aims, procedure of each task, timing, interaction patterns, resources, materials, etc. appropriately, I drew up a personal template which include all these elements and which was very helpful to me during the implementation of the learning unit due to the length of the lessons (120 minutes). I prepared the different activities by using exclusively authentic materials in the lessons such as newspaper articles, fragments of radio news, informative texts, videos and photographs online, etc. One thing I had clear when selecting such ‘authentic materials’ was the concept in itself. As Widdowson (1990) stated, they imply exposure to real language and its use in its own community. In short, authentic materials are materials that we can use with the students in the classroom and that have not been changed in any way for ESL students. A classic example would be a newspaper article that’s written for a native-Englishspeaking audience (Sanderson, 1999). However, I also designed some written documents such as flashcards containing different identities and a couple of ‘crime situations’, which I prepared for using them in the role-plays. Moreover, I created some Power Point presentations (games, videos, etc.) related to the activities. From the first Ana Revilla Ruiz Trabajo Fin de Máster Page 18 moment, my idea was to carefully select good materials, appropriate to the topic and also to the students’ level1, and exploit them by different means so that the students were able to expand their knowledge on the topic as well as their lexical repertoire on it, practicing the language in both oral and written form. Therefore, there was enough variety of communicative activities in the lesson, but not an excessive amount of contents. Obviously, according not only to the students’ level but also to the main aims of the ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’, no grammar activities were included in this learning unit of work explicitly. However, I acted as a guide during the implementation of the unit by solving some students’ doubts on certain grammar structures appearing in the different texts. It is important to mention that I mainly drew up communicative activities, taking account of overall, long-term aims based on students’ specific needs and expectations. Therefore, as the main aim of the students was to improve their writing and speaking English skills, I conducted tasks in which they were able to improve their speaking skills by carrying out several debates and role-plays in which they expressed their points of view with supporting ideas and appropriate examples, using vocabulary and common language structures on the topic; in which the students were required to write clear well-structured notes and also formal style reports on different cases of crime, improving their writing production and allowing them to interpret knowledge about facts and processes, showing a critical attitude towards violence. All the tasks were related and linked so it was not difficult to sequence them in a coherent and flexible way. To conclude the analysis of the materials and activities included in the learning unit on crime, I would like to explain why I designed pair and group work activities. This is something which is directly related to the interaction patterns that occurs in the classroom. Vygotsky (1978) suggested that knowledge is constructed in the midst of our interactions with others and is shaped by the skills and abilities valued in a particular culture. He argued that language is the main tool that promotes thinking, develops reasoning, and supports cultural activities like reading and writing. I prepared activities with a variety of interaction patterns such as debates, in which the interaction was made between groups of students; reading activities, in which the interaction was made between the teacher and the students; or pair work activities, in which the interaction was made between both members of each pair. However, it is the quality and quantity of language input and interaction which are crucial. This means that a teacher who wants to promote successful learning should be primarily concerned with creating a language-rich environment in which students have the maximum opportunities for encountering and using the language in a meaningful way (opportunities which are best created through group work and, over all, based around authentic texts). As ‘crime’ the topic of the learning unit, a topic in which we can encounter such interesting elements 1 Tasks were designed at an appropriate level to stretch and challenge the students intellectually. It is what Vygotsky (1978, p.32) metaphorically calls Zone of proximal Development, (the difference between what a person can achieve by acting alone and what is able to do if it has the support of other more experienced individuals). Ana Revilla Ruiz Trabajo Fin de Máster Page 19 as ‘police investigations’, ‘witnesses’, murderers and accomplices, etc. I considered it was a good idea to take that opportunity by focusing on student to student interaction, developing pair and group work activities promoting cooperative learning as well as motivating the students. As we can find in Ellis’ book (2012, p.185), “Language Teaching and Language Pedagogy”, Long and Porter (1985) established five principal pedagogical arguments for recommending small-group work: “It increases language production opportunities, it improves the quality of students talk, it helps to individualized instruction, it promotes a positive affective climate, and it motivates learners”. It is also relevant to comment on the role of the teacher and the students during the implementation of the learning unit: In this regard, a good communicative language lesson will require learners and teachers to adopt a range of roles (Nunan, 1989). In case of learners, “it requires them to be adaptable, creative, inventive and most of all, independent” (Nunan, 1989, p.81). For example, in a small-group task (first lesson) the students were required to convince their partners that the city they read some information about was the most dangerous to live in, using funded supporting arguments. That allowed students to be creative when using language and, furthermore, other learners had the opportunity to discover different ways of using language by their partners, learning also some vocabulary. Also, at the beginning of the task, just when they finished reading their individual documents, they had to organize the information by taking notes, grouping items, highlighting relevant ideas, etc. This way, depending on the activities carried out, the students were required to adopt a different role. Above all, they were active participants in the teaching and learning process. On the other hand, the teacher’ role is also a very important element of the learning and teaching process. “Teachers should realise that their actions, reflecting their attitudes and abilities, are a most important part of the environment for language learning/acquisition. They present role-models which students may follow in their future use of the language, and their practice as future teachers.” (CEFR, 2001, p.144). When implementing the lessons, I took different roles according to the requirements of the activities as well as according to the learners’ needs. Thus, I acted as mediator in classroom debates, as a supervisor in group work activities, as a resource person when necessary, etc. I also assist students by sequencing long complex tasks into smaller modules giving them instructions repeatedly in different ways. Furthermore I promote learners’ participation, especially by encouraging those less collaborative students to take more complex responsibilities in some tasks like the role-plays, making them to get more involved in lessons than commonly. Here, I would like to comment on some aspects of the activities’ implementation: First, I would like to explain that in Official Language Schools, because of the short duration of the Specialization courses, learning units cannot last many Ana Revilla Ruiz Trabajo Fin de Máster Page 20 hours. Therefore, I designed not an extensive learning unit but one consisting of three lessons (300 minutes), adjusting it to that reality (less time-smaller learning units). During my teaching practice I was allowed to teach two entire lessons lasting 120 minutes each one, so there was a lesson which I was not able to implement. The reason was that the course was taught on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so the teacher told me the most appropriate, again due to the short duration of these courses, would be to implement my lessons just during one week. Due to the long duration of each lesson, 120 minutes each one, I had to prepare very dynamic activities trying not to get students bored at any time. First, all the lessons started with a clear beginning, allowing students to know what they are going to deal with. Then, clear instructions were given before starting to perform each task. Furthermore, I gave students complementary explanations during the lessons to make sure that everyone had understood the procedure. On the other hand, I interspersed speaking, writing, reading and listening activities within the lessons by means of using a wide range of materials such as flashcards, newspaper articles, images, videos, Power Point presentations, games and even a prize (chocolate box) for the winner group of the classroom debate carried out during the first lesson. In relation to the activities, those which were most successful were undoubtedly the role-plays, which took place during the second lesson. As in the first lesson the students were analyzing different crimes without going deeper into the topic of ‘crime’, the idea for the second lesson was to get students much more involved in police and criminal roles. Therefore, I presented them different crime situations in which they had to adopt different roles: police, judge, jury and accused. The result was really good and very fun, and they all participated by asking interesting questions, by making clear interventions showing understanding of all other comments made by their partners, etc. However, there is something that did not go as I expected. After each ‘trial’ (role-play), the jury and the judges were required to debate for three minutes with the aim of giving a final resolution to the students accused of murder, by declaring them guilty or not. This part, to stop the role-plays, was the most difficult for me. The students were so immerse in the role-plays that when it was time to state a final resolution, the arguments and opinions given were so intense, passionate and convincing that they spent long time to reach an agreement. That was a problem that has to do with classroom management. Since I was working with students in an Official Language School where their motivation is mainly intrinsic, as well as due to the type of students (most of them working on the Field of Education), I supposed that the existence of rules to monitor or control the behavior of the classroom was not necessary at all. Although I informed them of the time they had to decide a resolution, maybe ‘stronger’ or direct specifications or rules should have been presented. Furthermore, the teacher’ role needs also to be commented here. Although I gave them the necessary instructions, even sequenced into small units, when adopting the role as organizer I should have been more confident. Ana Revilla Ruiz Trabajo Fin de Máster Page 21 Finally, one of the most important things in the learning and teaching process is the assessment and evaluation of the students learning outcomes, the teaching process, the materials used, etc. In relation to the students learning outcomes, the main goal of the activities designed for this learning unit was to help students to attain a practical mastery of the English language in a level defined by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, as aforesaid, as Effective Operational Proficiency. “The CEFR defines each level in terms of skills (i.e. what people at various levels can do). There are no lists of lexical items, no lists of grammar and no lists of topics, just descriptions of skills and competences offered at different levels” (McBeath, 2001, p.194). The ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ was aimed to improve the students speaking and writing skills, but I also included some listening and reading objectives in the learning unit. In this regard, once implemented all the activities I felt very happy with the results obtained. Nearly every student reached the objectives without problems. That is, - they made well-structured interventions on the topic with relevant and very interesting ideas and examples, - they all participated in debates and conversations carried out in the classroom, - they worked cooperatively in groups in an excellent atmosphere, - their written presentations followed a logical structure and ended up with suitable resolutions, etc. To carry out this task, that is, to check the students acknowledges, I designed a personal rubric to assess the students’ speaking skills, distinguishing between oral expression and oral interaction; to assess their writing skills, differencing between the writing process and the written product; and, finally, to assess their reading and listening skills, but not so accurately. To elaborate the rubric I took account of three important documents: - The first one was a table provided by the CEFR to introduce the Common Reference Levels (CEFR, Table 2. Common Reference Levels: self-assessment grid); - The second was an online tutorial providing explanations and examples, called ‘Creating a Rubric’; and - The third one was an online program called ‘RubiStar.com’, which is an online tool for teachers to create excellent rubrics in a very easy way. I also use these tools to create a rubric for assessing the teaching process, by taking into account relevant aspects such as the effectiveness of the instructions or feedback provided during the implementation of the learning unit. Ana Revilla Ruiz Trabajo Fin de Máster Page 22 Contribution of the didactic unit to my learning Here I will draw on EPOSTL to explain all the knowledge and competences I acquire in the Master during the elaboration and implementation of my learning unit of work. Methodology: “Methodology is the implementation of learning objectives through teaching procedures” (EPOSTL), so within this paragraphs I will reflect on the knowledge acquired in terms of methodological principles used in the teaching process. The language learning context includes the overall aims and specific needs of learners, which, when identified, determine what the teacher does. Thus, I mainly drew up communicative activities taking account of overall, long-term aims based on students’ needs and expectations. Furthermore, I learnt to take account of overall, long-term aims and competences to achieve by adjusting to the level, topic and main aims of the learning unit to the general plan of the specialization course. I also learnt to present real-life situations to students by using authentic materials. Once designed and implemented the learning unit I am able to take into account differing motivations for learning another language, since among students there are unemployed who want to improve their English to gain access to better jobs or English teachers who wish to improve certain skills in order to improve their teaching education. I can also take into account the cognitive needs of learners (problem solving especially with vocabulary, drive for communication during tasks, acquiring knowledge by presenting them new information, etc). Resources: “This section is concerned with a variety of sources teachers can draw on in the process of locating, selecting and/or producing ideas, texts, activities, tasks and reference materials useful for their learners” (EPOSTL). In my learning unit of work, I provided the students different kinds of input (verbal, visual, body language, etc.) and by different means (Internet, video, printed documents, etc.). I spent a lot of time finding good resources and designing the materials and the result of such a hard task was that the students were really motivated by the lessons. So, after designing and implementing my learning unit I am able to identify and evaluate a range of materials appropriate for the age, interests and the language level of the learners. I can also locate and select listening and reading materials (authentic materials) appropriate for my learners from a variety of sources, such as the Internet. I learnt to design learning materials and activities appropriate for my learners. Regarding the ICT’s, I am able to guide learners to use the Internet for information retrieval. Nevertheless, there is something to comment on in relation to the Internet access. As it usually happens, when too many people are connected at the Ana Revilla Ruiz Trabajo Fin de Máster Page 23 same time searching for information, the access is not very good. Thus, when in the first lesson plan the students were required to search for information on the Internet, I interrupted the different groups in order to show them some videos which offered interesting ideas. The problem was that everybody was using the Internet, so the access was not good at this moment and some of the videos I prepared got stuck. That caused a bad impression. So, one thing I have learnt from implementing the learning unit is to prepare more consciously online materials or to prepare alternatives, because the equipment may fail and teachers must be prepared. Lesson planning: “Planning activities depends on both learning objectives and content and requires teachers to consider how learners can reach the objectives through the material chosen” (EPOSTL). In this case, I learnt very interesting things such as to structure lesson plans and/or plan for periods of teaching in a coherent and varied sequence of content. Furthermore, I can identify time needed for specific topics and activities and plan accordingly, since the time I estimated for the tasks was adjusted quite well to reality. Although it was not followed meticulously, that is, in some of the activities I spent a few minutes more than I expected, in others I spent less, so they compensate each other. Finally, I have learnt to select from and plan a variety of organizational forms (frontal, individual, pair and group work) as appropriate. Conducting a lesson: As the authors of the EPOSTL wrote in the European Portfolio, ‘the implementation of a lesson plan takes into account the ability to sequence activities in a coherent yet flexible way, to take account of learners’ prior learning and to be responsive to individual performances in class’. Related to lesson plans, I am able to start a lesson in an engaging way by means of introductory activities, mainly by exposing students to new information so as to make them being curious about the topic, but also by using brainstorming techniques to assess the students’ previous knowledge of the topic of crime. Furthermore, I can be flexible when working from a lesson plan by adjusting the timing of the different tasks as well as adopting different roles in the classroom in order to respond to learners’ interests and needs as the lesson progresses (timing). I can also ensure smooth transitions between activities and tasks for individuals, groups and the whole class. In my learning unit, all the tasks were related and well linked between them and the whole lessons follow a logical procedure. Finally, I designed closing activities mainly with the purpose of reviewing all those contents learnt in each lesson. Thus, I am able to finish off lessons in a focused way. Regarding the content, I can present language content (new and previously encountered items of language on the topic of crime) in reading tasks, writing tasks, debates, role-plays and other ways which are appropriate for the Ana Revilla Ruiz Trabajo Fin de Máster Page 24 students of this specialization course. I can also relate what I teach to learners’ knowledge and previous language learning experiences. In the first task of lesson plan I, for example, to introduce the topic of crime I asked the students what were the different type of crimes they knew and whether they had ever suffered any robbery, pick-pocketing, etc. Now I am going to analyze the knowledge and competences acquired in relation to the classroom management. First, I learnt the importance of adopting different roles according to the needs of the learners and requirements of the activity (resource person, mediator, supervisor etc.). I conducted all the lessons exclusively in the target language, using various strategies when learners do not understand something (i.e. explain meaning of terms instead of translate them). Furthermore, I learnt how to encourage learners to use the target language in their activities. This is something I am very satisfied with, the way I guided the lessons. I feared not to live up the level, since I had to speak in English for two hours but, fortunately I did it well: I encouraged those less participative learners to speak more, solved general doubts with vocabulary and language structures, etc. EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo Year Plan 4th grade Secondary Education English as a Foreign Language [Academic year 2012/2013] Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo Diseño Curricular de Lenguas Extranjeras 1 INDEX Introduction p.2 I. Contextualization p.2 1. Official documents: National Curriculum and Aragonese Curriculum p.2 2. School setting p.3  Socio-cultural context  Characteristics of the school  The students: characteristics and needs II. Syllabus Design and Development p.5 1. Contribution of the subjects ‘Foreign Languages’ to the key competences. p.5 2. Objectives of the subject for the students of fourth grade of Secondary Education p.6 3. Contents p.7 4. Methodology guidelines p.9 5. Theoretical and legal considerations about evaluation p.13 6. Attention to diversity p.16 III. Structure of the Units of Work (12). In each Unit: p.16 1. Unit Title 2. Introduction and justification 3. Contribution to the key competences 4. Competences in the foreign languages 5. Learning objectives 6. Contents 7. Methodology 8. Evaluation criteria 9. Materials and resources 10. Approximate timing IV. Legal dispositions p.43 V. References p.43 VI. Conclusion p.43 Appendixes (6) p.44 2 Introduction Teaching is based on indoctrinating children and youth with effective educational principles that may be applied to everyday life. To perform this, the teacher has a key role not only as a mediator in theoretical learning, but also as a guide for their students’ education. In students’ learning process, schools should be coordinated with families, since educational practice is carried out from both places and should go in the same direction. English teaching and learning process contributes to the acquisition of key competences and, therefore, to competently interact through language— understanding language as the basis of thought and knowledge—, to learn to analyze and solve problems, to make plans and to take decisions. Language skills help to make progress in personal initiative and also in regulating the activity itself. The subject contributes to digital competence and also to learning to communicate with others. So, it is very important that students achieve real communicative and literary competence at the end of Secondary Education. The following year plan for the English subject is addressed to students of the fourth grade of Secondary School. It contains the fundamental aspects to be taken into account: contextualization, assuming that there are conditioning variables, a sociocultural context, characteristics of the school and, class and students’ needs; as well as the development of the year plan, which contains the overall course objectives, contents, evaluation criteria, methodological principles, evaluation and attention to students with special educational needs. It also contains the didactic units. I.Contextualization A) Official documents: National Curriculum and Aragonese Curriculum To elaborate this year plan we have considered the following legal provisions: Ley Orgánica 2/2006, de 3 de mayo, de Educación (Spanish Institutional Act 2/2006, of May 3, of Education) which regulates the current Spanish educational system. From this law we have taken the chapters concerning principles and purposes of education, compulsory Secondary education, students with special educational needs and also chapters concerning teachers, schools and participation, autonomy, authority and evaluation of the education system. The Real Decreto 1631/2006, de 29 de diciembre (Royal Decree 1631/2006, of December 29), which establishes the minimum educational standard in compulsory Secondary education statewide: purposes and aims of compulsory Secondary education, organization of the fourth year, key competences, promotion, evaluation, response to diversity, certificate of compulsory Secondary education, tutoring and academic guidance. And, with regard to the English language, this subject contributes to the acquisition of key competences and general objectives of stage. Orden de 9 de mayo de 2007 (Order May 9, 2007) approving the Secondary education curriculum for schools in the Autonomous Community of Aragon. From this Order we have taken the general provisions, organization of the curriculum, response to diversity, tutoring and academic guidance, evaluation, promotion and qualification of the teaching process, pedagogical autonomy of schools, EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 3 the appendix referred to key competences and all the paragraph referred to the English subject, ‘contribution of the subject to the acquisition of key competences and objectives of the stage’ and, finally, the paragraph referred to the fourth year of compulsory Secondary school. B) School setting The year plan is determined by three key variables: a) The sociocultural context Our school is located in Zaragoza, in one of its most well-known districts and with more education services demand. It is the most densely populated district and this is largely due to the immigrant population growth. At first it was a vocational training school, but later, due to high demand, it expanded its educational offerings with the addition of Secondary Education, Bachillerato in modalities of Science and Technology, Humanities and also new specialties of vocational training. Due to the great amount of vocational training resources offered by the school, it has excellent facilities. Thus, the school facilities include a music room, an art room, a technology workshop, a science lab, a language lab, audiovisual media, computer rooms, a gym, a library, an auditorium, local radio and a photo lab. With regard to the organization, and according to the Orden de 7 de julio de 2005 (Order of July 7, 2005) which regulates the organization and operation of the public schools of Secondary Education in the autonomous community of Aragon, schools are granted with new regulatory tools. In this way, the incorporation of audiovisual media to learning and teaching process is regulated, as well as the regime of the teachers’ working days. Our school management team consists of a principal, a head teacher, a school secretary, a head teacher for vocational training, a head teacher for higher Secondary education and a head teacher for compulsory Secondary education. Likewise, the school board is formed by the principal, the head teacher, the secretary, several teachers and students, several parents of students, non-teaching staff of the school and a town hall representative. b) Characteristics of the school The school is located, as already mentioned, in one of the most densely populated districts of the city and, many of the population is immigrant. Therefore, we are talking about an urban environment. The district has abundant services, a public library, a nearby shopping center and several shops, which is something that helps to foster the students’ commercial demands. There are also several parks near the school and it is close to a public sports center, increasing the areas for relax and leisure of students, etc. With regard to transport, it does not have a good bus connection with the rest of the city and only two bus lines have access to the vicinity of the city center. This means a more difficult access to EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 4 school for the rest of the city inhabitants, so most of our students live in the area and come to school on foot. The proximity to the city center is an advantage in terms of English learning since it increases the possibility to make cultural visits to theaters to see plays in the English language, as well as cinemas, exhibition halls, etc. The school is registered in several programs of interest to our subject. For several years, the school has taken part in several exchange programs with various English-speaking countries as USA or England. It has also developed a variety of programs in which the main objective is to promote the use of English in several practical aspects of life. c) The students: characteristics and needs Our syllabus is aimed at 4th grade students of Secondary school, that is, students between 15 and 16 years old. We have twenty-five students in the classroom, three of whom have a different mother tongue. There are two Asians and one Romanian student, so their culture is also different from the rest. On the other hand, in the classroom there is a student with severe eating disorders, she has anorexia; and another one is repeating the school year. One of the principal affective features that stand out at this age is the group of friends, having great importance for the social integration of the student. That is, the core group of friends together with social relations constitutes the most important thing in the process of adolescence. By contrast, family relationships tend to deteriorate given the exhaustive critique of behavior made by parents. Along this educational stage, teenagers create their own personality. Thus, their own ideas and value judgments begin to emerge. In this stage of education, language plays a key role as regulator of thought and behavior, and in turn, knowledge of other languages can lead them to learn about other cultures, and ultimately, to open their minds, which will be something very helpful in his adult life. That is why we attach great importance to the subject of English language for students’ intellectual and social development. On a psychological level, we wish to emphasize some characteristics that may have an effect on the class. Thereby, fourth-grade students of compulsory Secondary Education are clear and organized on the exhibition of their ideas and works. Furthermore, they are concerned with aesthetics considerations. All this, facilitates the realization of research works and clearer writing tasks. During this stage of adolescence students develop their own personality, which is something that we can see reflected in an ardent defense of ideals, an emotion sharing, a search for social meaning, etc. These features can be very useful in the English lessons, because students could experiment the texts worked with in everyday class, in a way nearer and closer to his emotional world. In the same way, they will participate and present their ideas during the different debates and critical situations arising in class. II. Syllabus Design and Development A) Contribution of the subjects ‘Foreign Languages’ to the key competences. EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 5 Key competences are a set of cognitive, procedural and attitudinal skills that can and should be reached during compulsory education by most students. In our methodological challenge, key competencies are determined by the organization and operation of the school, the characteristics of the fourth grade of Secondary School students, the resources used and the those programs in which the school is involved. At the end of the course, students should achieve the following key competences: - Linguistic communication competence (L1 and foreign languages), is the main competence on which the subject acts. It helps to understand and identify the different English grammatical structures. - Interpersonal and civic competence is one of the priorities of the school along with linguistic communication and digital competence. As students from different cultures and nationalities coexist in the city center, the school has been registered in a European program which is based on improving social harmony and educating students to be tolerant in a multicultural society. -Knowledge and interaction with the physical world competence (science and technology). This competence is associated with the contents that enable students to understand the society and the world in which it operates. This competence makes students to do more than simply accumulate information and allows them interpreting and taking over the knowledge about facts and processes. Knowledge and interaction with the physical world is an interdisciplinary competence, as it involves skills to achieve a proper development with autonomy and personal initiative in diverse spheres of life and knowledge (health, productive activity, consumption, science, technological processes, etc.). It also involves skills to interpret the world, something which requires the application of concepts and basic principles that, from the different fields of knowledge involved, allow the analysis of the different phenomena. From our field, we promote this competence by means of learning a different culture and language, which will facilitate students the access to the real world (in order to not being stuck in their own reality and keep an open mind to know different worlds). - Digital competence. It involves a guided use of Internet as a method for finding information with the aim of reinforcing the content covered in class. Students will be able to search information for oral presentations, for dramatic performances or dialogues, etc. This allows them to reinforce the different skills: writing, listening, etc. The school is equipped with several computer labs and many secondary classrooms also have digital whiteboards, so many classroom activities can be prepared there, catching the eye and holding the interest of the students. This makes them very actively involved in the class. - Autonomy and personal initiative. This competence will be demonstrated by students in their own daily tasks, while writing compositions, in their study of the subject and also in debates that will take place in class—where they will share their opinions. Pleasure of reading also favors this competence, if they take an interest in English literature (with books adapted/suited to their level) and even promotes the autonomous use of dictionaries. EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 6 - Cultural and artistic competence. The proximity to the city center contributes to this competence, allowing us to make more cultural visits without the difficulty of displacement. This also allows us an easy access to the public library in case they need to find literature for some of their researches. - Learning to learn competence. Group works contribute to this competence and to its development because they involve collecting, organizing and analyzing information from different sources. Students will do at least one assessment of those characteristics throughout the course. B) Objectives of the subject for the students of fourth grade of Secondary Education The general objectives for fourth grade of Secondary Education are based on the key competencies listed above, as well as on the specific competences of the subject. Therefore and when our students finish the course, they are able to: 1. Listen and understand general and specific information of oral texts in a variety of communicative situations, adopting an attitude of respect and cooperation. 2. Express their ideas and interact orally in common communicative situations and in a comprehensible and appropriate way with some level of autonomy. 3. To read and understand different texts in an appropriate level according to the students' abilities and interests, in order to extract general and specific information; and use reading as a source of leisure and personal enrichment. 4. To write simple texts for different purposes and on different topics by using adequate resources of cohesion and coherence. 5. Use property and correctly the phonological, lexical, grammatical, functional, discursive, sociolinguistic and strategic basic components in real communicative contexts. 6. To develop the learning autonomy through the active involvement on planning and control the process itself. 7. To develop attitudes, work habits and strategies for the acquisition of a foreign language by using all available means, such as collaboration with others while achieving their learning objectives; or to use different resources, especially those technologies information and communication resources, in order to obtain, select and present oral and written information. 8. To appreciate the foreign language as an access tool to information and as a tool for learning different contents. 9. To acquire, through contact with the foreign language, a broader view of the cultural and linguistic environment to which they belong. This helps them to appreciate the contribution of learning to their personal development and to their relationships with other languages speakers and to avoid any kind of discrimination or linguistic and cultural stereotypes. 10. To show a receptive and self-confidence attitude in the ability to learn and use a foreign language. EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 7 C) Contents (see appendix I) For the organization of the contents we have followed a classification in content blocks just as in the curriculum because it is the criteria that best responds to the development of communication skills. Content block Nº1: Listening, speaking and conversation - Understanding of lectures about issues related to the experience of the students. - Understanding and spontaneous production of messages in face-to-face communications about issues related to the students experience and interests. - General understanding of the most relevant data of oral texts issued by multiple sources and appropriate to their ability and experience. - Use of comprehension strategies of oral messages, such as the use of verbal and nonverbal context, prior knowledge about the situation and the identification of key words, among others. - Production of oral descriptions, narratives and explanations about experiences and events as well as different contents. - Involvement in spontaneous communicative situations in the classroom and in conversations on everyday issues and topics of personal interest, with different communication purposes, by using the conventions of conversation. - Use of communication strategies to overcome difficulties during communicative interaction and to initiate, sustain and conclude communicative exchanges. Content block Nº2: Reading and writing - General comprehension and identification of specific information in real texts of different types, on both paper and digital support, about topics of their interest, of general interest or related to content of other subjects of the curriculum, appropriate to their age and competence. - Autonomous reading of more extensive texts related to their interests. - Use of different sources, on paper, digital or multimedia support, in order to solve information problems related to their personal interests, to their language learning or to other subjects. - Consolidation and expansion of a variety of reading strategies. - Identification of the message sender intention through verbal and nonverbal elements. - Use of the appropriate register to the target reader (formal and informal register). - Composition of different texts responding to specific communicative situations; use of appropriate vocabulary according to the subject and context; cohesion, which is necessary to mark clearly the relationship between ideas and; use of basic strategies in the writing process (planning, drafting and revision). - Personal communication with target language speakers via postal correspondence or by e-mail. - Correct use of spelling and different punctuation marks. - Interest in the careful presentations of written texts, on both paper and digital support. EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 8 Content block Nº3: Language awareness and reflections on learning Reflection on language in communication - Understanding and use of common expressions, idioms and vocabulary on topics of personal and general interest, everyday topics and topics related to content of other subjects of the curriculum. - Use of their knowledge concerning antonyms, "false friends" and word formation (compounds, prefixes, suffixes) in the messages interpretation and production. - Understanding and use of structures and functions, appropriate to different situations. - Recognition and production of basic patterns of words and phrases rhythm, intonation and stress in the communication. - Recognition and application of basic sociolinguistic keys of communication concerning aspects as the formality or courtesy degree, among others. - Recognition and use in communicating the basic elements of discourse structuring and control depending on the type of text. - Recognition and use of the basics of structure and control of the speech, depending on the type of text. Reflection on learning - Application of strategies for the organization, acquisition, recollection and use of vocabulary. - Organization and use of learning resources, such as dictionaries, reference books, libraries or information and communication technologies. - Analysis and reflection on the use and meaning of different parts of speech through different means, including comparison and contrast with the languages the student already knows. - Involvement in the evaluation process, shared assessment, evaluation of their own learning and use of self-correction strategies. - Acceptance of the error as part of the learning process and positive attitude to overcome it. - Organization of personal work as strategy for the learning progress. - Interest in taking advantage of the opportunities created within the classroom and beyond. - Development of attitudes, procedures and strategies that enable teamwork. - Confidence and initiative for public speaking and writing. - Reflect on the way they learn and on the job options more suited with it. - Reflect on their learning needs in connection with the targets set by the curriculum. Content block Nº4: Sociocultural aspects and intercultural awareness - Assessment of the importance of language in international relations. - Identification of the most significant features of the society customs, norms, attitudes and values whose language is studied, and also respect for different cultural patterns. - Appropriate use of linguistic formulas associated with/related to specific communicative situations: courtesy, agreement, disagreement... EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 9 - Knowledge of relevant cultural elements of the foreign language countries, obtaining information through different means, including the Internet and other information and communication technologies. - Interest and initiative in carrying out communicative exchanges with speakers or learners of a foreign language, on both paper and digital support. - Assessment of personal enrichment as consequence of the relationship with people from other cultures. D) Methodology guidelines Methodological principles, which govern the year plan, have been established by the LOE (Spanish Organic Law of Education). In Article 26, it promotes teamwork, learn by themselves and it fosters the ability to learn. In the same way, the Orden del 9 de mayo del currículo de Aragón (Order of May 9, of the Aragonese curriculum), Article 12, is based on these principles and it widens them highlighting the active role of students, learning functionality, significant groups of contents, ICT, to promote a positive atmosphere in the classroom, etc.. For our methodological commitment, information and communication technologies are of great interest, as our school is involved in several English training programs via ICT. In the same way, it will be relevant to achieve an atmosphere which fosters peaceful relations between the communities, because as we already know, the school is located in a neighborhood with a large influx of immigrants and the school itself is part of a program to promote coexistence and tolerance among students. Finally, the classroom has cultural diversity students, two Eastern students and a Romanian student, so the teaching and learning processes will be progressively adjusted to the students characteristics. There are several strategies involved in methodological guidance. Sometimes, they vary depending on the school or students characteristics. The master class is a good way to explain theories, facts, etc. but it is always part of other strategies, so it should not be used alone, as a single method. The teacher takes into account the age of the students, their interests, the school characteristics, etc. METHODOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES TO WORK ON COMPETENCES There are some principles that can be used as reference to work by competences in the teaching and learning process. - Meaningful learning In the field of English, meaningful learning starts from the students’ previous knowledge; that is, new contents to be learned are related meaningfully to the student's prior knowledge. A good example of this is the initial assessment, which precedes the start of the teaching units and where students demonstrate the knowledge they held the previous academic year. We also engage the use of conceptual maps to facilitate meaningful learning when learning lexical fields or English rote EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 16 want to evaluate. In our plan, the teacher will evaluate: the use of ICT and its application in the contents worked in class and the atmosphere in class: the students should think about the keys to reach an optimal atmosphere and try to explain why it is necessary. (Appendix VI) These tools will provide us with the required tools for the teacher to improve his teaching, as necessary. F) Attention to diversity We take as reference the Ley Orgánica 2/2006, de 3 de mayo, de Educación (Art. 22.4) (Spanish Institutional Act 2/2006, of May 3, of Education, Section 22.4) and the Orden de 9 de mayo de 2007, del Departamento de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, por la que se aprueba el currículo en la Educación Secundaria (Art. 14) (Aragonese Order of May 9, 2007, of the Regional Department of Education, Culture and Sports, which approves the curriculum for Secondary Education, Section 14 ), which specifically refers to our Autonomous Community, in order to deal with attention to diversity. In our classroom we have students with the specific need of educational support, more specifically two Asians students and one Romanian student with special education needs, as their level of knowledge of the language is very low and they have accessed the Spanish educative system late. Besides, there is a student who is repeating the fourth grade of Secondary Education and who shows no interest in learning the subject, he is not motivated and has a low performance level. The measures we will take will be non-significant adaptations of the curriculum, as we will not deviate significantly from it, but we will personalize the teaching-learning process with these students. The measures we will take will have an impact on the methodology, content and evaluation of the didactic units. The education process will be reinforced by the teacher and little changes will be executed, such as flexible grouping of students, different levels of difficulty and depth of the activities and their variety; revision of previous contents before presenting the new ones (significant learning), a balance between the explanations and students work, relating the activities with the everyday life of students (functional learning) and using different materials to work: student’s book, workbook, the internet, etc. III. Didactic units Unit 0 - (Welcome Unit)- Let’s Get it Started 1. Introduction and Justification This title makes reference to a famous song of the group “Black Eyed Peas”. It is chosen to call students’ attention and to introduce our subject this year. 2. Contribution to the key competences EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 17 In this didactic unit, we are working mainly with four key competences: linguistic communication, learning to learn, cultural and artistic and interpersonal and civic competence. We will try to apply them in the warm-up activities we have prepared for the first three lessons. 3. Competences in the foreign languages Linguistic communication competence is very important in this first didactic unit, because students are asked to express themselves in a natural way, giving their opinions about the song, participating in the warm-up activities. Students are also learning to learn, because they are working in group in this didactic unit, and they will be conscious of the importance of English as a foreign language, even to be able to understand the music they like. In this unit, maybe the most important competence is the cultural and artistic one. Students are asked to be creative and to explore the song and the meaning of it. Finally, we are also working with the interpersonal and civic competence, because they will be able to reach different cultures and they will learn to respect all of them. Group work involvement and cooperative learning are very important in this unit. 4. Learning objectives -To understand and produce oral messages contained in the song of this didactic unit. - To increase the active vocabulary in this didactic unit (vocabulary related to parties and music, colloquial expressions) - To practise the phonetic contents: intonation, rhythm in a modern song. - To participate in all kind of activities in the English class, especially in the warm-up activities where they are asked to work in groups. - To understand and respect the socio-cultural aspects, in this case, American culture and the intercultural society they have. - To deduce the meaning of the words by the context in the song. – To promote memorizing some parts of the song, so they can sing together, and at the same time understand what it means. – To educate towards tolerance and respect, being able to understand other cultures and working in a collaborative way. – To make students be conscious of their progress, using other songs with similar characteristics to “Let’s Get it Started” and they will realize that now they are able to understand more vocabulary than before. – To respect traditions and habits in the English speaking countries, since they will understand them in the song. – To be aware of the importance of speaking a foreign language correctly, because through this song, they will realize that English can be also useful to understand things they are interested in (music, TV series, etc.) 5. Contents EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 18 - Understanding and identification of the vocabulary of the song and the most common features of colloquial or informal language used in songs. - Ability to express orally their opinions about topics in which they are interested in: music, American culture. - Acquisition of fluency in speaking and listening. - Involvement in group activities, collaboration with all the members in a group to complete an activity. - Awareness of previous knowledge in English. 6. Methodology - Meaningful learning: students will learn vocabulary and expressions from a song, and they will be interested in this topic (parties, music, dancing), so it will be easier to them to understand the concepts. - Encouragement of an atmosphere of acceptance and respect through group work. - Flexible groupings and collaborative work. - Use of different information resources to prepare their activities. - Initial evaluation as an important element in the learning process, since students will be aware of the previous knowledge they have, and the aspects they need to revise. 7. Evaluation criteria - Initial evaluation - test with basic contents in 3rd of Secondary, to identify different levels in the class, to create adapted materials for specific students. - Appropriate understanding of the chosen song, identifying the main vocabulary and expressions. - Introduction to group work, showing a collaborative attitude with their classmates. - Participation in class discussion about music, giving their opinions and trying to use the previous knowledge they have about grammatical aspects and vocabulary. - Appropriate use of different resources to complete their task. 8. Materials and resources - CD with the song. - Several American magazines of music - Worksheets with instructions of group-warm up activities. - Lyrics of the song - Computers (one hour in the computer room) 9. Approximate timing: it is the initial didactic unit, so it is shorter than the next ones. Its duration will be three sessions, about three hours of class (the first week of the year course). Unit 1Who knows you better? EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 19 1. Introduction and Justification In this unit, we are dealing with family and friends issues, with relationships. Students will give their opinion about people that surround them. They are invited to think about themselves, their personality, their interests, and then try to decide who knows them better (their family or their friends) and explain why they think that. 2. Contribution to the key competences In this didactic unit, we are working mainly with five key competences: linguistic communication, learning to learn, personal initiative and autonomy, knowledge and interaction with the physical world competence and interpersonal and civic competence. We will try to apply them through this first didactic unit, encouraging students to give their opinion and reflect on their lives. 3. Competences in the foreign languages Linguistic communication competence is very important in this first didactic unit, because students are asked to express themselves in a natural way, giving their opinions about the topic (their family and friends, the relationships with them), participating in all the activities proposed by the teacher (especially in speaking, where they should give their opinion). Students are also learning to learn, because they are thinking about themselves; it is important to know who you are and how the world that surrounds you is, so we are also dealing with knowledge and interaction with the physical world competence. They are not only reflecting on who they are, but also they are analysing their relationships that exist with their families and friends, so we are working on interpersonal and civic competence. Finally, we are also dealing with personal initiative and autonomy competence, since students will learn how to express themselves, give their own opinions and they will acquire some strategies to develop their own personality. 4. Learning objectives -To understand and produce oral messages about students’ personality, family and friends; to give their opinion and reflect on their lives. - To increase the active vocabulary in this didactic unit (vocabulary related to family, friends, personal relationships, personality) - To participate in all kind of activities in the English class, especially in the discussions about relationships. - To understand and respect other students’ opinions, realizing there are different lifestyles and ways to relate to other people. - To deduce the meaning of the words by the context in the proposed text. EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 20 – To educate towards tolerance and respect, being able to understand other lifestyles, understanding that relationships are complex and they are very different depending on the person, but it does not mean they are “good” or “bad”. – To make students be conscious of their progress, their ability to express their ideas, opinions, etc. To emphasize the importance of being independent, of developing an autonomy and a personal opinion about the world. 5. Contents: - Ability to describe, both orally and writing, someone they know well (a member of their family or a friend). - Expression of habitual situations and actions in progress. - Ability to express students’ opinion, agreement or disagreement with other students’ opinions. - Acquisition of some strategies to defend their points of view, and at the same time showing respect to their classmates’ judgments. - Understanding and identification of the vocabulary of the text. - Acquisition of fluency in speaking and listening. - Involvement in group activities, in debates or discussions. - Awareness of previous knowledge in English. 6. Methodology - Autonomous learning - Encouragement of an atmosphere of acceptance and respect through groupwork and debates. - Flexible groupings and collaborative work. - Use of different information resources to prepare their activities. - References to real life, things they know and they have experienced. - Participative and active methodology: - Use of authentic materials. 7. Evaluation criteria - Elaboration of a composition, describing someone they know well, emphasizing his/her main features. - Appropriate understanding of the article, identifying the main vocabulary and expressions related to personal relationships. - Introduction to formal debate, participating in an active way and trying to give reasons for their opinions. - Participation in class discussion about relationships, giving their opinions and trying to use the previous knowledge they have about grammatical aspects and vocabulary. 8. Materials and resources: EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 21 - Students’ book, workbook. - Article in a magazine about problems with your family and friends. - Index to carry out a debate in class about the title question: Who knows you better, your family or friends? 9. Approximate timing: About 10 sessions of 50 minutes each one. About 2 weeks and a half. Unit 2 - Night Monsters 1. Introduction and Justification In this unit, we are introducing Halloween festivity, since it is an American tradition and students are interested in celebrating it. 2. Contribution to the key competences In this didactic unit, we are working mainly with four key competences: linguistic communication, learning to learn, cultural and artistic competence and interpersonal and civic competence. We will try to apply them through this second didactic unit, encouraging students to participate in class and in group work. 3. Competences in the foreign languages Linguistic communication competence is very important in this didactic unit, because students are asked to give their opinion about Halloween tradition, participating in all the activities proposed by the teacher (especially in a theatre play they have to represent). Students are also learning to learn, because they will develop some activities in their own. They need to work in a collaborative way with their classmates to get successful goals (for example, a good theatre play), so we are working on interpersonal and civic competence. We are also dealing with cultural and artistic competence, since students need their artistic abilities and their imagination to create original stories and plays to amuse their classmates. 4. Learning objectives -To understand and produce oral messages about Halloween festivity and the issues related to it. - To increase the active vocabulary in this didactic unit (vocabulary related to Halloween: monsters, witches, “creepy” issues) - To participate in all kind of activities in the English class, especially in the theatre play they are going to represent. - To understand and respect other students’ tasks. - To deduce the meaning of the words by the context in the proposed text and to interpret the meaning of words in a correct way. - To understand and respect different cultures and traditions. EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 22 5. Contents - Ability to express themselves orally in a theatre play where they will represent a “terrorific” story. - Expression (oral and written) of habitual situations in the past (using Past simple, Past Continuous, “used to”) - Acquisition of some strategies to interpret an English play. - Understanding and identification of the vocabulary of the text. - Acquisition of fluency in speaking and reading and comprehension. - Involvement in group activities to create a theatre play. - Awareness of previous knowledge in English. 6. Methodology - Autonomous learning - Encouragement of an atmosphere of acceptance and respect through groupwork. - Flexible groupings and collaborative work. - Use of different information resources to prepare their activities. - Participative and active methodology: - Use of authentic materials. 7. Evaluation criteria - Elaboration of a brief script to interpret a play following the “Halloween” topic, using the vocabulary and grammar points of past actions. - Appropriate understanding of the brief stories they are asked to read in the website chose by the teacher, and show this understanding when representing the play. - Improvement and development of fluency in speaking (through the play) and reading and comprehension (through the stories and its representation). 8. Materials and resources - http://www.halloweenishere.com/ghost_stories.html > Ghost Stories - Students’ book, workbook. - Computers (one hour in computer’s room) to read the short stories. 9. Approximate timing: About 10 sessions of 50 minutes each one. About 2 weeks and a half. Unit 3 - The Olympic Games 1. Introduction and Justification We have chosen this title because in this unit students will work with new vocabulary concerning to sports. From that point on, they are going to learn how to use adjectives, so that they will be able to describe sports as well as to compare different sports. They will also take the role of a coach to practice how to give instructions. EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 23 2. Contribution to the key competences In this didactic unit, we are working with all the key competences: linguistic communication, personal initiative and autonomy, knowledge and interaction with the physical world competence, data processing and digital competence, interpersonal and civic competence and cultural and artistic competence. 3. Competences in the foreign languages Linguistic communication is the main competence to achieve in this didactic unit, because students are asked to express both writing and orally, participating in all the activities proposed by the teacher. In order to achieve this goal, we propose previous exercises to work with some grammar aspects (adjectival endings, suffixes, prefixes, participial adjectives and comparison of adjectives) and pre teach some vocabulary.. Students are going to work with data processing and digital competence and personal initiative and autonomy competence at the same time, because they are asked to look for information about the topic in an autonomous way. The learning to learn and interpersonal competences are also enhanced through group works. Finally, the cultural competence is worked too since the Olympic Games and sports in general are cultural events and learning about them, students acquire a broader view of the cultural to which they belong. 4. Learning objectives – To understand and produce oral and written messages about sports (descriptions, comparisons and giving instructions.as coaches) – To increase the active vocabulary in this didactic unit (vocabulary related to sports and descriptive adjectives). – To participate in all kind of activities in the English class: discussions, presentations, grammar exercises… – To respect other students’ speaking time. – To be able to access to reliable information on the Internet. – To deduce the meaning of the words by the context in the proposed text. – To make students be conscious of their progress, their ability to express their ideas, opinions, etc. To emphasize the importance of understanding and appreciating differences through the comparison. 5. Contents - Ability to describe, both orally and writing, a sport. - Acquisition of some grammar strategies to make comparisons. -Ability to give simple instructions on how to play a sport. - Understanding and identification of the vocabulary of the text. - Acquisition of fluency in speaking and listening. - Involvement in group activities, in debates or discussions. EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 24 - Awareness of previous knowledge in English. 6. Methodology - Autonomous learning - Encouragement of an atmosphere of acceptance and respect through groupwork and debates. - Flexible groupings and collaborative work. - Use of different information resources to prepare their activities. - References to real life, things they know and they have experienced. - Participative and active methodology: - Use of authentic materials. 7. Evaluation criteria - Elaboration of a composition, comparing two different sports. - Appropriate understanding of the newspaper article, identifying the main vocabulary and expressions related to sports. - In groups, representation of a simple role play where a coach explains a new players how to play the sport. - Participation in class discussion about The Olympic Games, trying to use the previous knowledge they have about grammatical aspects and vocabulary. 8. Materials and resources - Students’ book, workbook. - Article about the Olympic Games, its history and relevance (London 2012: Olympic Games flame lit in Greece by Claire Heald. Available online from the following link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18002760) - Computers will be needed for a session with internet access to search for information about some sports (reserve a computer room) 9. Approximate timing: About 7 sessions of 50 minutes each one (2 weeks more or less). Unit 4 - Dear Friend 1. Introduction and justification We have chosen this title because it is a famous writing tradition when it comes to write a letter to a friend. This is useful because in this unit students are asked to write a letter to a friend. 2. Contribution to the key competences In this didactic unit we are working the competence in linguistic communication, interpersonal and civic competence, Data processing and digital competence. 3. Competences in the foreign languages EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 25 In this didactic unit we will mainly work the competence in linguistic communication because students will be asked to carry out some ”fill the gap” exercises, which imply the understanding of the grammatical rules and the different in use of these two verb tenses. Students will also be asked to read a text and to identify and underline sentences using the present perfect simple and sentences using the present perfect continuous. In addition, students will we asked be grouped in pairs and individually write an informal letter to one another, expressing their opinion about a topic of their choice. Then, they have to change exchange the letters and correct their classmate's mistakes, using the textbook, dictionaries or any other source of information. Llearning to learn competence is dealt with since students mutually correct their mistakes. Finally, each member has to express her /his opinion about a topic chosen by both of them. So, Interpersonal and civic competence will also be dealt with in this task since this task involves work in pairs, which improve coexistence and fellowship. 4. Learning objectives -To be able to distinguish the difference in use of the present perfect simple and the present perfect continuous. -To read and understand a real text written in English . -To identify the present perfect simple and the present perfect continuous structure. -To know in which situation it should be used the present perfect simple or the present perfect continuous. -To write in an understanding way an informal letter. -To develop the proper use of English writings traditions. -To express their opinion and interact orally in common communicative situations and in a comprehensible and appropriate way with some level of autonomy -To develop the learning autonomy through the active involvement on the correction of a letter. -To give the student the possibility of co-evaluation. -To develop attitudes, work habits and strategies for the acquisition of a foreign language by using all available means, such as collaboration with others. -To understand and respect different opinions. -To practice good manners in oral communications, respecting speech turns. 5. Contents -Written exercises about when to use the present perfect simple and the present perfect continuous. -The application of English grammars rules. -Reading and general understanding of a text about life experiences in which the present perfect simple and the present perfect continuous are used. -Consolidation and expansion of diverse reading strategies EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 32 – To participate in all kind of activities in the English class, especially in the classroom discussion about ‘what the future holds’ expressing their opinions and giving answers to some questions introduced by the teacher as ‘Will a new age of peace break upon us?’ ‘Will the global economic climate improve?’ The teacher can also approach to this topic through some humor. – To understand and respect the opinions of all classmates. – To deduce the meaning of the words by the context in the different texts, questionnaires, etc. - To make the students be conscious of their progress, as they can carry out a discussion in the classroom and speak fluently when expressing their ideas making a correct use of grammar. 5. Contents - Understanding and spontaneous production of opinions in face-to-face communications about future events related to the students ideas, thoughts and interests. - General comprehension and understanding of the most relevant data of the different texts and activities issued by the teacher and appropriate to their ability and experience. - Production of oral predictions, possible situations, suggestions and opinions by the use of ‘will’, ‘going to’ and other time clauses with future meaning. - Involvement in the classroom discussion about topics related to weather as well as other topics of their interest, with the purpose of using the grammar points of this unit: Future tenses, making predictions and the weather. - Use of appropriate vocabulary, expressions and sentences; cohesion, which is necessary to mark clearly the relationship between ideas and; use of basic strategies in the oral process. - Correct use of spelling and different punctuation marks. - Use of their knowledge concerning verb tenses and word formation (compounds, prefixes, suffixes) in the messages interpretation and production. - Confidence and initiative for public speaking. 6. Methodology - Meaningful learning starts from the students’ previous knowledge (present and past tenses); so choosing when to introduce the future with 'will' and 'going to' carefully can make all the difference in comprehension. We have chosen to introduce these forms when students were comfortable with the present simple and present continuous, as well as the past simple and continuous. This ensures that students are comfortable with the idea of a variety of auxiliary verbs and will be able to switch between these two future tenses with more ease. - Encouragement of an atmosphere of acceptance and respect by means of a classroom discussion. - Use of different information sources of information to prepare their activities. The teacher will access to some websites to obtain some help to reinforce and complement the grammar activities carried out in class. EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 33 - Promote students’ awareness of their own learning process, by giving them examples of good websites where they can reinforce their language skills. - Promote reading comprehension. Students can check if they have understood the text by answering a few questions about it. 7. Evaluation criteria - Appropriate understanding of the texts, identifying the main vocabulary and expressions. - Participation in class discussion about different future plans and weather predictions, giving their ideas and trying to use the previous knowledge they have about grammatical aspects and vocabulary. - Appropriate use of different resources to complete their tasks. - Development of coherent texts. - Correct use of spelling and different punctuation marks. - Contribution of new ideas and originality when expressing them. 8. Materials and resources - Brief assessment criteria with the objectives the students must achieve in this unit. - Three stories of people talking about what they want to do in life, and some questions of those texts. We can find them in Headway student’s book, Pre-intermediate; John & Liz Soars (Oxford University Press). - Lesson Plan of What the future holds, which could be a support for the teacher in the classroom discussion (optional) [http://esl.about.com/od/popularculturelessons/a/2012-Lesson-Plan.htm] - Reading comprehension of the weather http://esl.about.com/od/beginningreadingskills/a/d_weatherf.htm], some questions to check if they have understood the vocabulary. - Exercises to practice and reinforce the future tenses, found in Headway student’s book, Preintermediate; John & Liz Soars (Oxford University Press). - Quizzes asking to choose between future with 'will' or 'going to' found in Headway student’s book, Pre-intermediate; John & Liz Soars (Oxford University Press). 9. Approximate timing: The length of this didactic unit is: ten lessons of fifty minutes each one (approximately two weeks and a half). Unit 8 – ‘World hunger’ 1. Introduction and Justification We have chosen this title, ‘Ending world hunger is possible – so why hasn’t it been done?’ for being the title of the introductory text that will be offered to students at the beginning of this didactic EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 34 unit. Students should read the text so they will take ideas from it to undertake a small classroom debate. 2. Contribution to the key competences In this didactic unit, we work with the following competences: linguistic communication, interpersonal and civic, knowledge and interaction with the physical world, learning to learn and autonomy and personal initiative competence. 3. Competences in the foreign languages The activities included in this didactic unit, as the realization of a classroom debate, promote the development of linguistic communication competence, since communicate and converse are actions that require abilities to establish links and build constructive relationships with others. The classroom will be divided into two groups and the objective is to persuade the other group. Thus, this activity contributes to the development of interpersonal and civic competence. Moreover, it contributes to the development of knowledge and interaction with the physical world competence, since the use of conditionals in this activity helps students to represent information and raise hypothesis in order to answer the different questions; and also to learning to learn competence, because students have to prepare the debate in work groups. To meet their objectives, they should develop strategies to help them, something which is also a motivation for students. So, it increases the autonomy and personal initiative. 4. Learning objectives -To understand and produce oral and written messages contained in the text of this didactic unit: ‘Ending world hunger is possible – so why hasn’t it been done?’ - To increase the active vocabulary in this didactic unit (vocabulary related to conditional sentences: supposing, as long as, provided, if, would, etc. as well as vocabulary of the text) - To understand and practice the grammar points of this didactic unit: zero, first, second and third conditional, wish clauses. – To participate in all kind of activities in the English class, especially when performing the classroom debate. – To understand and respect the socio-cultural aspects, in this case, different ways of life. – To deduce the meaning of the words by the context in the text and the subsequent questionnaire. – To read in a comprehensive way. – To improve students’ speech, by carrying out a classroom debate. – To educate towards tolerance and respect, being able to work in a collaborative way. – To make the students be conscious of their progress, as they can carry out a debate and speak fluently when expressing their ideas; and also using a correct grammar. – To be aware of the importance of speaking a foreign language correctly. EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 35 5. Contents - General comprehension and understanding of the most relevant data of the text issued by the teacher and appropriate to their ability and experience. - Production of oral hypothesis, possible situations, suggestions and opinions by the use of if clauses, wish clauses, conditional questions, etc. - Involvement in the classroom debate about hunger and other topics of their interest, with the purpose of using the grammar points of this unit: 1st, 2nd and 3rd, conditional—talking about hypothetical situations. - Elaboration of several questions, statements and arguments that will help them during the debate; use of appropriate vocabulary, expressions and sentences; cohesion, which is necessary to mark clearly the relationship between ideas and; use of basic strategies in the oral process (previous notes, development of the activity and conclusion). - Recognition and use of the basics of structure and control of the speech, according to the text. - Use of their knowledge concerning antonyms, "false friends" and word formation (compounds, prefixes, suffixes) in the messages interpretation and production. - Confidence and initiative for public speaking. 6. Methodology - Meaningful learning: for being an original and new activity (they also have to reorganize the classroom space) and, for being concepts they have to put into practice in a real situation, it will be easier to them to understand and remember the new contents, also reinforced with a famous song. - Encouragement of an atmosphere of acceptance and respect through group work. - Use of different information resources to prepare their activities. - Students should be able to understand the ideas of the text ‘Ending world hunger is possible – so why hasn’t it been done?’, as well as the grammar points studied. They should also be able to prepare and carry out a classroom debate in groups, so they become aware of what they have learned, having the possibility to demonstrate their capacity to speak in English in an appropriate way. 7. Evaluation criteria - Appropriate understanding of the text and the song, identifying the main vocabulary and expressions. - Group work in order to carry out a debate, showing a collaborative attitude with their classmates. - Participation in class discussion about the hunger in the world, giving their opinions and trying to persuade their partners with their ideas by the use of correct conditional sentences. - Appropriate use of different resources to complete their task. - Correct use of spelling and different punctuation marks. - Contribution of new ideas and originality when expressing them. EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 36 8. Materials and resources - A written text given by the teacher and called ‘Ending world hunger is possible – so why hasn't it been done?’ taken from the webpage http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/15/ending-world-hunger. - Exercises of 1st, 2nd and 3rd conditional and vocabulary related, found in Hotline Secundaria student’s book, Pre-intermediate; Tom Hutchinson (Oxford University Press). - Computers (one hour in the computer room) to listen ‘If I were a rich man’, a famous song of Charles Chaplin and answer the subsequent questions: ttp://www.eslvideo.com/esl_video_quiz_high_intermediate.php?id=7429 9. Approximate timing: The length of this didactic unit is: ten lessons of fifty minutes each one (approximately two weeks and a half). Unit 9 – All you need is love 1. Introduction and Justification This title makes reference to a famous Beatles song, written by John Lennon. The purpose is to call attention of students, since the short stories included in this didactic unit share a common topic, which is love. 2. Contribution to the key competences In this didactic unit we are working with almost all the competences: linguistic communication, personal initiative and autonomy, learning to learn, digital, knowledge and interaction with the physical world and cultural and artistic competence. We will apply them in the several activities, short love stories, questionnaires, interviews and dialogues we have prepared for this didactic unit. 3. Competences in the foreign languages The knowledge, skills and attitudes proper to this unit contributes to the development of the linguistic communication competence, because allow students to express thoughts, experiences, opinions, as well as to make dialogues, etc…, which also contributes to the development of personal initiative and autonomy. It also comes into play learning to learn competence, because students are asked to look for information autonomously according to the objectives: to write the biography of a famous person they admire; establishing strategies they deem necessary to carry out this task. In the same way, digital competence is also important here, as they must have skills to search, collect and process information to transform it into knowledge. Students are asked to interpret a dialogue produced by them, in groups or in pairs, in which they must use the verb tenses studied in this unit. This allows the development of knowledge and interaction with the physical world, as it helps them to participate adequately and also demonstrate a critical sense of EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 37 the reality. Furthermore, creativity and expression of feelings through dialogues contribute to the development of cultural and artistic competence. 4. Learning objectives – To read several stories and biographies in a comprehensive and autonomous way so as to get to varied information sources and as a possibility to know different cultures and different ways of life. – To understand and produce written messages contained in different stories and interviews included in this didactic unit. – To increase the active vocabulary in this didactic unit (vocabulary related to books: author, biography, novel, romance, story, writer, etc.) – To understand and practice the grammar points of this didactic unit: past perfect simple and past perfect continuous. – To participate and express their opinion in all kind of activities in the English class. – To deduce the meaning of the words by the context in the different love stories, interviews with writers, etc. – To read in a comprehensive way. – To encourage the student towards graded reading books. – To educate towards tolerance and respect, being able to understand other cultures and working in a collaborative way. – To make the students be conscious of their progress, bringing to the classroom an English book, be it well known, so that they can read a fragment together. 5. Contents - Understanding and spontaneous production of opinions in face-to-face communications about past events related to the students experience and interests. - Production of oral descriptions, narratives and explanations about experiences and events as well as different contents. - General comprehension and understanding of the most relevant data of the different short love stories issued by multiple sources and appropriate to their ability and experience. - Involvement in spontaneous communicative situations in the classroom sharing their opinions and in conversations on past events of their interest, with the purpose of using the past perfect simple and the past perfect continuous tenses. - Use of communication strategies to overcome difficulties during communicative interaction and to initiate, keep and conclude communicative exchanges in the classroom. - Autonomous reading of more extensive texts related to their favorite famous persons. - Composition of a famous person biography; use of appropriate vocabulary; cohesion, which is necessary to mark clearly the relationship between ideas and; use of basic strategies in the writing process (planning, drafting and revision). EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 38 - Organization and use of learning resources, such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, reference books, libraries, etc. 6. Methodology - Meaningful learning starts from the students’ previous knowledge; that is, new verb tenses to be learned are related meaningfully to the student's prior knowledge of verb tenses. - When using the short love stories to improve the reading skills, teacher will always choose those ones closer to the students’ level and to their interests, so they can enjoy reading them being able to contribute their ideas and opinions. - Students should be able to understand short love stories as well as interviews with writers and, at the same time, they should be able to write a biography about a famous person, so they become aware of what they have learned, having the possibility to demonstrate their synthesis capacity. - With those activities we promote the use of the Internet, as they are asked to look for new information. - Use of different information resources to prepare their activities. - Flexible groupings and collaborative work. 7. Evaluation criteria - Appropriate understanding of the texts, identifying the main vocabulary and expressions. - Group work in order to interpret a dialogue, showing a collaborative attitude with their classmates. - Participation in class discussion about different writers’ stories, giving their opinions and trying to use the previous knowledge they have about grammatical aspects and vocabulary. - Appropriate use of different resources to complete their task - Development of coherent texts. 8. Materials and resources - Several short love stories, reports… about past events, found in Headway student’s book, Preintermediate; John & Liz Soars (Oxford University Press). - CD with a listening of an interview with Celia Young, the writer of Hot Lips, found in Headway student’s book, Pre-intermediate; John & Liz Soars (Oxford University Press). - Past perfect simple and past perfect continuous exercises, found in Hotline Secundaria student’s book, Pre-intermediate; Tom Hutchinson (Oxford University Press). - Different websites useful to the students for their redactions, i.e. Stories About People (Biographies) [http://www.manythings.org/voa/people/], which also have the audio file of the texts; or Famous People Lessons [http://famouspeoplelessons.com/], which also have exercises for students after each biography. - Brief instructions and assessment criteria of the dialogues they have to interpret. - Computers. EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 39 9. Approximate timing: The length of this didactic unit is: ten lessons of fifty minutes each one (approximately two weeks and a half). Unit 10The news 1. Introduction and Justification We are going to review the passive voice in this unit through the organization of a news broadcast in the classroom. The students should learn to write informative paragraphs to elaborate the script. In the same way, they should learn to express their opinions and preferences, processes and changes as well as disappointment, to make an editorial. The class is organized in teams of five members each one and each group should choose a current topic to try and comment on. 2. Contribution to the key competences In this unit, we are working with almost all the competences. Of course, as in every unit, we focus on the competence of linguistic communication. Knowledge and interaction with the physical world, social competence, data processing and personal initiative and autonomy are key competences largely covered in this unit. 3. Competences in the foreign languages The knowledge, skills and attitudes proper to this unit contributes to the development of the linguistic communication competence because, among other things, it allows students to express opinions and preferences and to write informative paragraphs. It also contributes to the development of personal initiative and autonomy because the student has to make some individual exercises at the beginning of the unit, to review the use of the passive voice. Learning to learn competence is worked because students are asked to establish strategies needed to carry out the task (as, for example, to determine how the group is going to organize: this is also related to social competence). Data processing and interaction with the physical world appear since they must have skills to search, collect and process information of the physical world and express an opinion about it. Furthermore, they are asked to apply the grammar they learn in the unit to the task (writing the script and presenting the news orally). 4. Learning objectives – To read several informative paragraphs and simple editorials in a comprehensive and autonomous way so as to get to varied information sources and to learn the structure of this kind of texts. – To produce written informative paragraphs. – To understand and practice the grammar point of this didactic unit: review and expansion of the passive voice. – To participate in the elaboration of a news broadcast in the class. EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 40 – To understand and respect the different points of view of the other members of the team and the rest of the students in the class. – To promote teamwork. – To encourage the student towards topical subjects. – To educate towards tolerance and respect, being able to work in a collaborative way. 5. Contents - General comprehension and understanding of the world trending topics. - Involvement in the teamwork, sharing their opinions with the members of the team and trying to reach consensus. - Use of the passive voice to produce informative paragraphs. - Autonomous reading of texts related to the topic the team is going to comment on. - Use of basic strategies in the writing process (planning, drafting and revision) to elaborate the script. - Expression of opinion in the editorial. - Expression of disappointment in the editorial. - Organization and use of different sources to search information. - Organization of teamwork as strategy for the learning progress. 6. Methodology - Meaningful learning starts from the students’ previous knowledge about the different topics they are going to talk about and about the use of the passive voice. - The teacher can help the teams choosing the topics but he or she does make the election so that, the students can enjoy reading about a topic of their interest and sharing their ideas and opinions. - Students should be able to understand informative paragraphs and, at the same time, they should be able to write their own, to demonstrate their synthesis capacity. - With those activities we promote the use of the Internet, as they are asked to look for new information. - Use of different information resources to prepare their activities. - Flexible groupings and collaborative work. 7. Evaluation criteria - Appropriate use of the passive voice in different grammar exercises. - Group work in order to write the news broadcast script: some short informative paragraphs and an editorial. - Participation in class discussion about the world trending topics, giving their opinions and trying to use the previous knowledge they have about grammatical aspects and vocabulary. - Appropriate use of different resources to complete their task. - Development of a coherent script. EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 41 - Presentation of the news broadcast recorded. 8. Materials and resources - Textbook and workbook. - Computer room use as requested by the students. - Video cameras 9. Approximate timing: The length of this didactic unit is: ten lessons of fifty minutes each one (approximately two weeks and a half). Unit 11Hungry globetrotters 1. Introduction and Justification In this unit, we are going to investigate about gastronomic customs around the world. Furthermore, we will learn how to order in a restaurant and to write a recipe using the modals and semi modals in its passive voice. 2. Contribution to the key competences In this didactic unit, we are working mainly with four key competences: linguistic communication, learning to learn and cultural competence. 3. Competences in the foreign languages Linguistic communication competence is very important in this didactic unit, because students are asked to learn to express orally to compare customs (for example; “Asians use chopsticks while Europeans use cutlery”).and to order food in a restaurant Moreover, they will apply the grammar learnt (modals and semi modals in its passive voice) to write a good recipe. Students are also learning to learn, because they will work in an autonomous way. We are also dealing with cultural and artistic competence, since students will learn about different cultures. The rest of the competences will also appear across the unit. 4. Learning objectives -To understand and produce oral messages about gastronomic customs around the world. -To understand and produce written messages about gastronomic customs around the world. - To increase the active vocabulary in this didactic unit: (basic vocabulary related to gastronomy and cooking— for example, the verbs add, pour, stir, mix, chop, etc…) - To participate in all kind of activities in the English class, especially in the role playing of a world restaurant they are going to perform. - To understand and respect other students’ tasks. - To understand and respect different cultures and traditions. EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 48 Appendix III. Evaluation of the key competences Student’s name KEY COMPETENCES Learning to learn competence Learning to learn competence Interpersonal and civic competence Autonomy and personal initiative Learning to learn competence Digital competence KEY COMPETENCES INDICATORS Student’s attitude Completion of the tasks Difficulties of learning or coexistence in the classroom Involveme nt in the classroom Motivation to learn Use of New Information and Communicatio n Technologies (ICT) The items will be evaluated according to the following table: High degree of achievement A Medium degree of achievement B Low degree of achievement C 49 Appendix IV: Teacher’s Diary The teacher should comment freely the last three items. Day of the week Guidelines: Promotion and Enrichment of different learning styles Use of different methodology Promotion of a critical and reflexive attitude Good command of the contents Good classroom atmosphere More developed characteristics Less developed characteristics Identified problems We value the first five items: High degree of achievement A Medium degree of achievement B Low degree of achievement C 50 Appendix V: Teaching practice observation sheets Use of the ICTs and its implementation as a tool for the promotion of reading. 1. Have the students understood the work method as well as its utility and purpose? 2. Students’ general evaluation of the used sources (dictionaries, press, activities…) 3. Have all the students used the ICTs correctly? Why? 4. Suitability of the activities and schedule. 5. Has the purpose of the activity been achieved? 6. Problems of the activity EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 51 Appendix VI: Resources EFL Secondary Education Syllabus Ana Revilla, Salomé Sagaste, Patricia Sánchez y Beatriz Rodrigo 52 0 LEARNING UNIT OF WORK “Crime: It’s a jungle out there” ENGLISH “Curso Superior de Inglés—II” Escuela Oficial De Idiomas Nº 1 (Zaragoza) Máster Universitario en Profesorado de Educación Secundaria Obligatoria, Bachillerato, Formación Profesional y Enseñanzas de Idiomas, Artísticas y Deportivas Student: Ana Revilla Ruiz Teacher assigned in the practicum center: Hernando Liaño Teacher assigned in the Master: Mª José Luzón ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 1 INDEX INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................ 3 JUSTIFICATION .............................................................................................................. 3 CONTEXTUALIZATION ................................................................................................... 4 ORGANIZATION OF LEARNING UNIT ............................................................................. 5 Organization of the Lesson Plans ............................................................................... 5 LEARNING UNIT OF WORK ............................................................................................... 7 CONTRIBUTION TO KEY COMPETENCES ....................................................................... 7 OBJECTIVES ................................................................................................................... 8 CONTENTS ................................................................................................................... 10 General competences ................................................................................................ 10 Communicative competences .................................................................................. 11 Contents by language ................................................................................................ 12 METHODOLOGY .......................................................................................................... 12 EVALUATION ............................................................................................................... 14 Evaluation Criteria ...................................................................................................... 14 Continuous Evaluation .............................................................................................. 15 Final Outcome ............................................................................................................ 16 LESSON PLANS ................................................................................................................ 17 LESSON PLAN 1 ........................................................................................................... 17 LESSON PLAN 2 ........................................................................................................... 22 LESSON PLAN 3 ........................................................................................................... 28 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................. 33 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................... 34 APPENDIXES ................................................................................................................... 35 ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 2 Appendix 1—The World’s Most Dangerous Cities ..................................................... 35 Appendix 2 —Students and Teacher Assessment ...................................................... 42 Appendix 3 —Vocabulary review-Crime ..................................................................... 45 Appendix 4 – Police procedural TV serials Presentation ............................................ 47 Appendix 5 – Information about the TV serials .......................................................... 48 Appendix 6 — Reading and speaking task → “A carjacking ending in fatal crash”. ... 49 Appendix 7 — A crime has been committed .............................................................. 53 Appendix 8 – A new crime has been committed ........................................................ 54 Appendix 9 – Sherlock’ case of murder ...................................................................... 55 Appendix 10 — Graphic representation of consonant sounds .................................. 56 Appendix 11 — Noughts and crosses’ cards ............................................................... 56 ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 3 INTRODUCTION Apart from the general courses leading to basic, intermediate and advanced certification in the different languages, the Official Language School Nº 1, in Zaragoza, offers refresher and specialization courses which are known as ‘Specific courses’. The specialization courses allow students to acquire and improve skills, not only in the different languages and levels taught in the school but also in C1 and C2 levels of the Council of Europe, as they are defined in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. This learning unit of work entitled ‘Crime: It’s a jungle out there’, is framed within one of the specialization courses offered by the Official Language School, called “Curso Superior de Inglés-II”. The curricular contents corresponding to this level are based on the competences established by the C1 level of the Council of Europe. However, there is no curriculum for C1 level at the moment in the Autonomous Community of Aragon, although the same is under development and is expected to be in force for next year. The document taken as reference for the development of the objectives, contents, methodology and evaluation criteria of this didactic unit, has been the curriculum for the Advanced level of special language education, which is regulated by the Organic Law 2/2006, of 3 May on Education. (Orden de 7 de Julio de 2008, de la Consejería de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, por la que se establece el currículo del nivel avanzado de las enseñanzas de idiomas de régimen especial reguladas por la Ley Orgánica 2/2006, de 3 de mayo, de Educación, que se imparten en la Comunidad Autónoma de Aragón). JUSTIFICATION I have developed the practical contents that will be addressed in this didactic unit according to the syllabus designed by the teacher of the Curso Superior de Inglés—II. After teaching the prior learning unit of work, entitled “Cities; Quality of Living” in which students have seen the different best qualities cities can offer, such as law enforcement, health-care facilities, transport facilities, environment, etc., the teacher wants to focus now on some of the negative aspects a city has got, such as accidents, crime, etc. As the teacher of the course gave me the opportunity to choose among one of those factors, I decided to design a didactic unit related to crime, because it is a very interesting topic which offers many possibilities when choosing authentic materials for designing tasks, games, for giving innovative current information, etc. ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 4 CONTEXTUALIZATION Specialization English courses at levels C1 and C2 of the Council of Europe, as they are defined in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, are oriented to teacher and other professional groups’ in Education and, in general, to adults with specific language learning needs: improvement of competences in different skills, development of sub-skills in one or several languages, languages for specific purposes, mediation or others. These courses are aimed likewise to those who wish to obtain an official certificate of specific skills in language use at levels C1 and C2 of the Council of Europe. Particularly, the ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ is conceived as a specialized course for the acquisition and improvement of the students’ writing and speaking English skills at C1 level of the Council of Europe. It is aimed at people with advanced knowledge of English wishing to improve their command of spoken and written English. The course takes place during the second semester of the academic year 2012/2013 (from February to May) in the Official Language School No.1 Zaragoza, lasting 50 hours. In the course, there are a total of 50 people registered, including teachers of the English subject, students and unemployed, as it is shown in figure 1. Students’ profile Age 18-29 14 people 30-39 18 people 40-49 11 people 50-59 6 people More than 60 1 person Studies Graduates and college students 46 people Graduates of Advanced Vocational Education or equivalent 4 people Professions Teachers 30 people Students 6 people Public employees (not teachers) 5 people Employee for hire or reward 2 people Unemployed 7 people (Figure 1) ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 11 Communicative competences Socio-linguistic contents At C1 level, the student is expected to develop this competence so as to communicate flexibly and effectively, including emotional and allusive uses of language, which implies the appreciation of different variations of language and registry changes, especially in debates and role plays carried out in the classroom. Pragmatic contents At C1 level, the student is expected to reach a competence that allows him/her to perform the following communicative functions or speech acts, using the most appropriate exponents of those functions for the corresponding communicative context, ‘Crime’, either through direct and indirect speech as well as through different registers (formal, neutral, informal):  Assertive functions to express knowledge, opinion, belief and conjecture: o To suppose, guess, predict and formulate hypotheses about different police cases before knowing its resolution. o To affirm, refute, express agreement or disagreement, etc. in the several debates performed in class. o To describe and report an alibi for a crime committed in order to perform a role-play, as well as refute or express agreement or disagreement regarding the questions and accusations posed by other peers.  Compromising functions to express offer, intention, will and decision: o To express intention or willingness to perform listening, reading, writing or speaking tasks like debates, role-plays, etc. as well as to consent and access to their realization.  Directive functions, like ‘asking for opinions’, ‘asking for advice’, etc.  Expressive functions or speech acts, with which attitudes and feelings in certain situations are expressed: showing interest, esteem, appreciation for the teaching and learning process, etc. Discursive Contents: ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 12 The student is expected to be able to produce, understand and process long and complex texts of journalistic and advertising nature, using a rich variety of linguistic resources and adjusting them effectively to the context of Crime. The following aspects will be taken into account: 1. Textual coherence: adequacy of oral or written text to the communicative context. 2. Textual cohesion: internal organization of oral or written text (Initiation, development and conclusion of textual unit). Contents by language Grammatical contents The student will manifest a high degree of grammatical accuracy on a consistent way and his/her mistakes will be scarce and barely noticeable. The grammatical competences to be developed for this level in this didactic unit are: - Compound sentence: Expression of logical relationships: conjunction, disjunction, opposition, concession, comparison, condition, cause, purpose, result and temporal relations (priority, posterity and simultaneity); and complex questions. Lexical contents The student, at C1, will have a good command of a broad lexical repertoire on the topic, including idioms and colloquialisms, enabling him/her to overcome his/her shortcomings fluently by with circumlocutions, although still can make small and sporadic blunders, without significant errors of vocabulary. Phonetic and Phonological contents - Students’ ability of articulation, proximate to one of the standard variations of the target language, as well as perception abilities, without much effort, of such variations. Intonation should be fitted to the communicative situation and differ in order to express subtle nuances of meaning. The phonetic-phonological contents to be developed in this unit are: - Consonant phonemes and their respective combinations; variation of sounds. METHODOLOGY  Topic-based teaching: ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 13 Task-based communicative approach: I have mainly designed tasks with a clear purpose: to improve learner habits and to increase learner awareness. This approach is based on the belief that language use is not simply knowledge of a language, but employing that language to perform actions in both everyday life and in the classroom, where authentic language activities should be the primary aim.  Learning and teaching process: o Individual work: mainly reading and listening comprehension tasks. o Pair work: students are divided into pairs in lesson plan 2, where they are asked to prepare a written alibi for a given period of time after being told that a ‘murder’ has been committed (writing and speaking task). o Group work: in this learning unit, students develop their learning autonomy since they have to work cooperatively in groups, developing ‘persuading strategies’ and making decisions when working in order to conduct a successful debate. Students are divided into groups in all lesson plans (but only in some of the tasks). With group work , the teacher wants to encourage an atmosphere of acceptance and respect through classmates;  Materials (use of different information resources): o exclusively authentic materials:  Written documents: newspaper articles, informative texts.  Sound documents: fragments of radio news.  Visual documents: videos and photographs online. o materials elaborated by the teacher:  Written documents: flashcards, crime situations  Tasks: o Listening: listening to media (radio), listening to classmates. o Reading: reading for information and argument, reading for learning new vocabulary, reading instructions. ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 14 o Speaking: reading a text aloud, speaking from notes, speaking using the vocabulary learn, acting out an improvised role, taking active part in debates, informal discussions and conversations. o Writing: completing forms and questionnaires, making notes for subsequent reference, writing reports.  Grammar: I decided not to include grammar points to teach in this learning unit, designed for the ‘Curso Superior de Inglés—II’. The course is aimed at people wishing to improve their command of spoken and written English. However, as these are very general concepts, at the beginning of the course the teacher asked the students to make a ranking of the skills they want to improve, and this was the result: Aims Students Enlarge my vocabulary 20 Improve my pronunciation 13 Improve my understanding of spoken English 10 Improve my writing skills 3 Learn more about the countries where English is spoken 3 Learn more about English grammar 1 Only one student wanted to learn more about English grammar, so I do not consider relevant to teach them grammar explicitly. However, I will help them, acting as a guide, if they need any help. EVALUATION Evaluation Criteria It will be considered that the student has acquired the competences of the C1 level for each skill, required in this didactic unit, at the moment in which he/she is able of the following: Listening - To understand videos containing a considerable amount of slang or colloquial language and idioms, and even follow complex argumentative lines on the topic. - To understand specific information of oral texts even in poor acoustic conditions, at normal or fast speed. - To understand with relative ease most of the conversations and discussions on controversial issues related to the topic ‘Crime’ and carried out in class. ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 15 - To understand the details of conversations and debates of certain length, even on abstract, complex or unknown subtopics, and grasp the intention of what is said. - To understand and get involved in conversations although they are not clearly structured and the relation between ideas is only implicit. Speaking - To make public statements fluently, almost effortlessly and using certain intonation to convey subtle nuances of meaning precisely. To make clear and well structured interventions on the topic of this didactic unit, expanding at some length, integrating other subtopics, developing particular ideas and defending their points of view with complementary ideas, reasons and relevant examples, and ending up with an appropriate conclusion as well as to answer spontaneously and effortless to questions from other students when conducting police interviews. - To participate fully in a police interrogation, as ‘police’, ‘lawyer’ or ‘accused’, expanding and developing the ideas discussed fluently and with no support, making good use of interjections and other mechanisms to express reactions and keeping a good speech development. To participate fully in classroom’ debates. Reading - To understand in detail general and specific meaning of newspaper articles and to understand the message, ideas and also their implicit meaning. - To quickly identify the content and most important aspects of written texts dealt with in class, being able to revise, if necessary, the most difficult ideas. Writing - To write clear, well-structured texts on the topics covered in class highlighting the main ideas, expanding at some length, defending points of view with complementary ideas, reasons and relevant examples, and ending up with an appropriate conclusion. - To take notes in a structured way during a simulated police interview, by transcribing the information as accurately and close to the original, that the notes could also be useful for other students. Continuous Evaluation Continuous evaluation, conceived as formative evaluation throughout the whole learning unit, will be conducted through observation and correction of the work ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 16 developed by each student: Through the correction of written texts developed by each student or group of students; through observation of students’ oral discourse; through the degree of involvement in the tasks by each student, etc. Formative assessment is ongoing and provides information needed to adjust teaching and learning. It not only helps to monitor student progress throughout an activity, but can also gauge student understanding and readiness to proceed to further tasks. Final Outcome Speaking (Oral expression & Oral interaction) This is the part that students performed best. Most of them consistently communicated with their classmates on a variety of aspects, making clear and well-structured interventions on the topic of crime. Their ideas were relevant in all cases and were supported with appropriate examples. When conducting role-play tasks, students presented logical arguments making good use of vocabulary and language structures on the topic studied. Their responses in the police interrogations carried out in classroom, show understanding of the comments/questions made by classmates. They participated in all debates and conversations conducted, getting involved in them. There were three students who stood out above the rest, two girls and a boy, who actively participated in every single task, leading to a more dynamic and entertaining climate in the classroom. Writing (Writing process-Group work & Written product) Students worked cooperatively in groups in an excellent atmosphere, contributing to writing tasks with questions, ideas, suggestions, etc. All their written presentations followed a logical structure and ended up with a suitable conclusion (resolution). They used more vocabulary on the topic of crime than I have expected, so I am happy about this part. Reading Students quickly understood general and specific meaning of texts presented by the teacher, although some of them needed to revise the most difficult points. Listening They understood best part of the videos presented by the teacher, even in poor acoustic conditions. Finally, they also understood without difficulties details of conversations and debates carried out in classroom, although not all of them were clearly structured. ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 17 LESSON PLANS Lesson Plan 1 Lesson Plan 1: Overview Teacher: Ana Revilla Ruiz Type of lesson: Integrated Class: Curso Superior de Inglés—II Room: 211 Time: 120’ Nº of students: 25 Date: April 16, 2013 Context of the learning activity: Students are at the beginning of a new learning unit of work. In the previous unit they have been learning the best qualities cities can offer: they have practiced vocabulary and language structures, they have done reading comprehension and writing tasks, they have watched videos (so they have practiced their listening skills) and they have had conversations, debates, etc…everything related to the topic. Now, the teacher is going to introduce a new learning unit of work, which is related to the previous one. It is called “Crime: It’s a jungle out there”. In this lesson plan, which is the first one, students will learn and practice vocabulary related to crime in cities by doing reading comprehension exercises. They will practice their listening skills by watching some videos of the cities studied and then, they will search for some information about them; they are also going to practice their speech in order to improve fluency and accuracy, carrying out some group debates. Learning aims Main aims: To read a text for evidence that supports their arguments titled ‘The World’s Most Dangerous Cities’, being able to identify and interpret global and specific meaning, in order to have the strong points (data showing that the city they are reading about is a dangerous one) clear, to conduct a debate with arguments that support their ideas. To be able to present clear, detailed arguments in group debates, about the different type of crimes that happens in some specific cities and also about the best qualities these cities offer. Subsidiary aims: To get a lexical repertoire related to crime, broad enough to speak confidently in communicative situations. To be able to understand videos of high difficulty containing information about some specific cities, without too much effort. Expected learning outcomes: A the end of this lesson plan SS are expected to be able to: - communicate with other speakers fluently and spontaneously, using vocabulary and language structures on the topic of crime; ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 18 - understand enough to follow extended written and oral texts on the topic of crime; - recognize socio-cultural content of linguistic situations and understand a wide range of idiomatic expressions related to the topic. Resources Materials Equipment Room preparation (groupings) -Promotional video of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, México: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K79G5Ow 4nDc - Promotional videos of Mogadishu, Somalia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i146rbKEV cw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TKP2VMf i18 Promotional videos of Cape Town, South Africa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BekisAbAi wA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbVkH6ry X0U Promotional videos of Karachi, Pakistan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xDPglMD e7k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=- pOgDn1FuYc Promotional video of New Orleans, Louisiana, USA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB6b_P52 Phs Promotional video of Caracas, Venezuela: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUGYMlTZhs -A written document titled ‘The World’s Most Dangerous Cities’ (Appendix 1) - A Power Point Presentation (Appendix 3) - A prize for the winning group of the debate of task 3 (a chocolate box). - A projector - Access to the Internet - A pendrive - Students’ computers (at least 4) - SS are divided in groups of five in task 1. - SS are divided in groups of five in task 2 (different groups than in task 1). - SS are divided in groups of twelve (one of the groups will have one more student) in task 3. Lexis Work on skills Appendix 3 (Power Point Presentation) Reading Listening Speaking Writing X X X X Learning tasks; Activities TASK 1 Stage aims Procedure Timing Interaction ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 19 pattern To set the context Teacher introduces the new didactic unit to students. Then, brainstorming techniques are used to assess the students’ previous knowledge of the topic. SS are asked to name the different types of crimes they know and to tell their classmates whether they have ever seen or suffered any pickpocketing, robbery, etc. Then, all the students debate about which cities they think are the most dangerous in the world and why. 5’ 5’ T-S T-S To give instructions Teacher divides the classroom into five groups and distributes a different text to each group (Appendix 1). SS must read the texts and comment with the members of their groups what is the most relevant evidence and data which shows that the city is a dangerous one. They have to write notes about this information because they may need them for the following task. 3’ T-S Reading comprehension The different texts consist of an introduction to the topic (‘The World’s Most Dangerous Cities’) which is the same in all texts; and a description of different cities in relation to crime (there is one city per group). SS have to read the text highlighting relevant information (most common crimes in cities). 4’ S-S Writing (process) While reading the texts, SS have to write some notes of the most important points on a paper, as they may need them for the following task. 3’ S-S Speaking (process) SS talk with the members of their group about the information they have read about, highlighting what they thing is the most relevant data in order to have supporting arguments in a subsequent debate. 6’ S-S Feedback The teacher corrects SS in case they mispronounce or misspell any term and helps them if they don’t know how to say a specific term related to crime in English, by given explanations in the target language. 2’ T-S Assessment Observation techniques are used here by the teacher to assess the students’ knowledge of the topic and the involvement in the task — T ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 20 (Appendix 2). TASK 2 Stage aims Procedure Timing Interaction pattern To give instructions Teacher assigns each member of the first group a number (from 1 to 5), and does the same with the rest of the groups. Then, the groups are rearranged: all those students with number one go together; those ones with number two go together, etc. SS must try to persuade their new partners that his/her city is the most dangerous and thus the worst place to live in. They can use the notes they have taken in task 1. Those three cities chosen at the end of the debate as the most dangerous, after checking the results of the different groups, will be chosen to carry out next task. 5’ T-S Speaking process Students must convince the members of his/her new group, using persuasion strategies, that the city they have read some information about is the most dangerous and thus the worst place to live in. Teacher advises students to look at the text as little as possible, trying to remember the vocabulary used in task 1. 10’ S-S Feedback Teacher will correct or help students if they need some help on how to say any of the studied terms. 2’ T-S Assessment Observation techniques are used here by the teacher to assess the students’ oral interaction (Appendix 2). — T TASK 3 Stage aims Procedure Timing Interaction pattern To give instructions The teacher divides the classroom into three groups (there is no need to divide the classroom physically yet). Each group will choose one of the cities selected in the previous task as the most dangerous ones. Their job is to search information in their computers about the best qualities that the city they have chosen offers. In groups, SS write down this information in a paper, in a well structured way. They will use this information for a subsequent debate. 5’ T-S ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 27 Whole-class feedback The jury and the judge, helped by the rest of the class, decide whether the ‘accused’ pair is guilty. Should the couple prepare a good alibi, get in the roles and answer questions seamlessly, will be declared innocent. Otherwise, it will be declared guilty. 3’ S-S Assessment The teacher will assess SS’ written production by keeping their reports to correct them. Teacher also observes how involved are SS in the task and how they are doing at the time of asking and answering questions. The teacher will take originality into account. — T TASK 3 Stage aims Procedure Timing Interacti on pattern To give instructions Students are told that a new crime has been committed and that they are all under suspicion. Teacher explains the crime committed (Appendix 8) and provides SS with different cards (App. 8) without looking at them. Two SS will have an ‘accused’ card so they must prepare an alibi without taking notes. Two students will have a ‘judge’ card so they will state the final decision. The teacher divides the rest of the classroom into two groups (two police stations): they orally prepare questions for the interrogation. Each group interrogates a suspect; then, the suspects move from one police station to the other. The ‘Judges’ listen carefully to both conversations to bring the final decision. 6’ T-S Speaking (process) SS with a ‘police’ card prepare questions orally with the rest of the members of their groups, trying to find differences between the two suspects’ stories. SS with an ‘accused’ card prepare orally an alibi trying to keep their stories straight. The judges will help polices to prepare questions for the interrogation. 8’ S-S Speaking (product) SS with a ‘police’ card conduct the police interview by asking specific questions, 18’ S-S ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 28 while SS with an ‘accused’ card should answer slyly to every question that is posed. The students with the ‘judge’ cards can also pose questions to the ‘accused’ students. Listening (process) Those students with the ‘judge’ role listen carefully to all the questions and answers. (During the speaking activity) S-S Peers’ feedback The students who play the ‘judge’ roles decide whether the ‘accused’ pair is guilty. Should the couple prepare a good alibi, get in the roles and answer questions seamlessly, will be declared innocent. Otherwise, it will be declared guilty. 3’ S-S Assessment Teacher observes how involved are SS in the task and how they are doing at the time of asking and answering questions. — T Variations / Follow – up: It is possible to have more than two suspects, i.e., three suspects and three police stations (always making sure that there is the same number of stations as suspects, because they all need to speak to each police station). Students’ assessment: Appendix 2 Teacher’s assessment: Appendix 2 Lesson Plan 3 Lesson Plan 3: Overview Teacher: Ana Revilla Ruiz Type of lesson: Integrated Class: Curso Superior de Inglés—II Room: 211 Time: 60’ Nº of students: 25 Date: April 23, 2013 Context of the learning activity: It is the end of the learning unit of work, titled ‘Crime: It’s a jungle out there. Students have read, understood and used a number of vocabulary items and expressions related to the unit in oral and written form but they have not practised their pronunciation yet. In this lesson plan, after a speaking task about a Sherlock Holmes curious case of murder, SS are going to ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 29 practice some of the English consonant phonemes /s/, /z/, /∫/, /ᴣ/ in order to pronounce this sounds accurately. The lexical repertoire is going to be taken from the texts already seen in this didactic unit, ‘World’s Most Dangerous Cities’ and articles taken from the Chicago Tribune Website. Main aims: To use specific words they have already learnt on the topic of crime in classroom informal conversations, in a relaxed but accurate way. To be able to orally and aurally discriminate sounds by reading, listening and identifying different words within the texts they have already read in previous lesson plans, related to crime and included in this didactic unit. To be able to accurately produce /s/, /z/, /∫/, /ᴣ/ sounds both isolated and within different words and sentences. Teacher aim: To be able to produce the specific sounds accurately so as the students have no difficulties when differentiating them. Resources Materials Equipment Room preparation (groupings) - Link used to elaborate the Power Point Presentation: http://www.taringa.net/posts/par anormal/13197098/Podrasresolver-este-crimen.html - (Written texts used in previous lesson plans) - A Power Point presentation. - All the texts already seen in this didactic unit. - Different cards including words with /s/, /z/, /∫/, /ᴣ/ sounds. - A projector - A pen-drive - Students work individually in tasks 1 and 2. - Students are divided into pairs in task 3. Lexis Work on skills (Appendix 11) Reading Listening Speaking Writing X X Learning tasks; Activities TASK 1 Stage aims Procedure Timing Interacti on pattern To set the context The teacher reminds SS what they have been learning during this learning unit and tells them that this is the final lesson of it. 2’ T-S To give instructions The teacher shows students a picture of a 3’ T-S ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 30 silhouette of Sherlock Holmes, the famous detective/private inspector, composed by small images of all the actors who have played this character throughout cinema history (Appendix 9). Then, the teacher reads aloud a text: “what used to happen in a gym and the scene of a crime in that gym” (App. 9). SS talk with their partners trying to guess who the murderer is in that story. Speaking (process) SS talk about the image of the well know detective Sherlock Holmes to see what they know about him. Then, SS talk with the partners next to them, making comments, conjectures, considering possible situations of murder, etc... to find out who is the murderer in the story presented by the teacher. 6’ S-S Feedback Teacher shows to SS what really happened in the story and who the murderer is. Teacher corrects SS in case they mispronounce any term. 1’ T-S TASK 2 Stage aims Procedure Timing Interacti on pattern To set the context The teacher tells the students the kind of lesson with which students are going to work now, in which they are going to deal with some consonant phonemes. The teacher asks the students if they remember any of the graphic representations of consonant sounds. In case they remember someone, the teacher writes them on the blackboard. Then, teacher shows students a table with graphical representations of the consonant sounds (Appendix 10), and pronounces them. 6’ T-S To give instructions Students prepare the texts they have been working with in previous lesson plans of this unit. The teacher asks students to look for the sounds /s/, /z/, /∫/, /ᴣ/ on words found within any of the texts. Students should make a table and sort the words according to the different sounds. After ten minutes have elapsed, the teacher will 3’ T-S ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 31 make a chart on the board. The student with more words on his/her list reads the words chosen for the /z/ sound aloud and his/her classmates decide what sound is it. Then, reads the list of words of other sounds and so on. The teacher writes on the blackboard these words. Then ask the rest of students if they have more words to add to the list. Reading for oral discrimination Students read the texts and select the words that consider they contain any of the sounds whose graphic representation is written on the blackboard. They classify the words according to sounds. 8’ S-S Speaking for aural discrimination Students say the words listed for the different sounds, for his/her classmates to say which sound is it. Some SS say some of these words aloud once they are all written in the blackboard, trying to produce /s/, /z/, /∫/, /ᴣ/ sounds accurately. 5’ S-S Feedback The teacher checks and corrects, if necessary, SS’ pronunciation. 2’ T-S Assessment Teacher will assess whether students complete the task without making many mistakes both in pronunciation and when classifying words. — T TASK 3 Stage aims Procedure Timing Interacti on pattern To give instructions Students are going to play ‘Noughts and crosses’ with different words (cards) (Appendix 11). Each word contains one of the sounds studied in this lesson plan. The teacher divides the classroom into pairs and gives each pair a set of cards. SS have to pick up a card and read it aloud. If his/her partner knows what sound that word contains, he/she will be able to keep the card; if not, the card will be for the speaker. The purpose of the game is to link three words containing the same sound on a board. Students will play several times and 4’ T-S ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 32 the partner who has won the game more times will be the winner. Reading and listening for oral discrimination Students have to recognize sounds within words if they want to keep the card with them. However, SS have to accurately pronounce these sounds, for his/her partner to clearly recognize them. 12’ S-S Feedback The teacher will correct SS’ pronunciation, if necessary. 2’ T-S Assessment Teacher will assess whether students complete the task without making many mistakes both in pronunciation and when classifying words together in the board. — T END OF THE LESSON: “Crime: It’s a jungle out there” Returning homework The teacher returns SS’ written production they were required to do in lesson 1, telling them if it is okay or whether they could have done more. Teacher explains, if any, common errors made by most of them. 6’ T-S Student’s assessment: Appendix Teacher’s assessment: Appendix ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 33 CONCLUSION First and foremost, I would like to mention that the experience has been really positive for me. From the first moment everyone in the Official Language School, especially my tutor, allowed my stay as pleasant as possible, making available to me his full attention from the first day. On the other hand, having the opportunity to teach in a specialization course, at C1 level, has been a very rewarding experience for me I will never forget. One of the biggest difficulties that I found when elaborating the draft of my learning unit of work, was the lack of depth with respect to normative, regulations, appropriate types of activities, etc. for the level C1 at Official Schools of Languages, since information obtained in the Máster de Profesorado en Educación focused especially in Secondary Education. However, thanks to information and help received from my tutors, both in the School as in the Máster, I got to understand all the necessary regulations, and the type of activities that should been developed for this specific level and type of students. Finally, the result was very successful. Once I was in the classroom, I saw that the pace of it was very dynamic. They really enjoyed the activities I had prepared and, as they were all related, following a logical procedure, this made the lessons really interesting. I checked that, as the classroom is composed of students with a high level of English, this allowed a great collaboration and involvement on their part. ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 34 REFERENCES OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS Ley Orgánica 2/2006, de 3 de mayo, de Educación; BOE nº 106. (Spanish Institutional Act 2/2006, of May 3, of Education) Council of Europe (2001); Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment [C1]. Cambridge, England. Cambridge University Press. ISBN : HB 0521803136 - PB 0521005310. Available at http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/source/framework_en.pdf Orden de 7 de julio de 2008, which establishes the curriculum of the Advanced level of special language education taught in the Autonomous Community of Aragón (Orden de 7 de Julio de 2008, de la Consejería de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, por la que se establece el currículo del nivel avanzado de las enseñanzas de idiomas de régimen especial reguladas por la Ley Orgánica 2/2006, de 3 de mayo, de Educación, que se imparten en la Comunidad Autónoma de Aragón) [*Only as a guiding document]. ONLINE DOCUMENTS Butt, G. (2006): “Lesson Planning”. London. Available at https://moodle.unizar.es/file.php/3549/Dise_o_Curricular_Tema_1_200910_materiales.pdf [Last visited: 01/04/2013]. Ginnis, P. (2002): “The teacher’s Toolkit”. Raise Classroom Achievement with Strategies for Every Learner. Carmarthen: Crown House Pubblishing (adapted). Available at https://moodle.unizar.es/file.php/3549/SD_planning_2_summary_20089.pdf [Last visited: 01/04/2013]. McBeath, Neil (2011): The Common European Framework of Reference for Language; learning, teaching, assessment. Volume 2, Number 1, January, 2011 pp.186-213 Available at http://www.awej.org/images/AllIssues/Volume2/Volume2Number1Jan201 1/awej%20volume%202.%20no.1%20jan2011.pdf [Last visited: 10/04/2013]. University of Colorado Denver: “Creating a rubric”; Tutorial on-line. Available at http://www.ucdenver.edu/faculty_staff/faculty/center-for-facultydevelopment/Documents/Tutorials/Rubrics/index.htm [Last visited: 12/04/2013]. ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 35 Ciudad Juárez, Mexico Mogadishu, Somalia Caracas, Venezuela Cape Town, South Africa New Orleans, Louisiana, USA Karachi, Pakistan APPENDIX Appendix 1—The World’s Most Dangerous Cities Most cities that bring together vast and diverse populations, while being places of great inspiration, commerce and community, also contain danger. Although no city is free of violence, disease and crime, some are clearly more affected than others. Mercer Consulting recently released a global report on personal safety that aims to rank cities by their safety levels. It covers 221 cities and measures them by criteria such as internal stability, crime levels, law enforcement effectiveness and the host countries' international relations. Within the 39 criteria it examines what has the largest effect on the expat community. Since the survey was carried out in December 2011, some have seen their security situation deteriorate. Nonviolent and violent crimes are problems. Most nonviolent crime involves pickpocketings and purse snatchings, while armed robbery, muggings and assaults are the most common violent crimes. Despite the police’s good intentions, they have been unable to prevent the rapid escalation of crime in the following cities. Police and military officials have also been known to make direct and indirect requests for bribes. Criminals particularly target visitors at the airport, in the traditional markets and near hotels and restaurants frequented by foreigners. ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 36 Ciudad Juárez, Mexico 130 killings per 100 000 residents Mexico, one of the world's greatest travel destinations thanks to its fascinating history and stunning natural sites, is, unfortunately, facing a serious problem of robbery, kidnapping, sexual assault and drug-related crimes. Among worst affected areas in the country is the Chihuahua State and, above all, Ciudad Juárez. Chihuahua is an important transit point for cocaine smuggling into the United States. As cartels fight for control of all-important drug routes, the levels of violence in Chihuahua has shot up dramatically. It’s not uncommon for large groups of armed men to storm businesses and indiscriminately open fire. Ciudad Juárez, a city located across the U.S and Mexican border, home to 1.5 million people, has recently got a very bad reputation due to its shocking rates of violence. Bloody and violent fighting between the drug cartels have spread across the town, posing a serious threat to locals and travelers. Since January 2007 there have been 8330 drug-related murders reported in Mexico, of which 50% accounted for Ciudad Juárez. The city reports 130 murders per 100,000 inhabitants (as of August 2009), which is currently the world's highest murder rate (outside the official war zone). In February 2009 the U.S. State Department announced that since January 2008 there had been 1,800 people killed in the city. While the Mexican government proudly boasts about the reduction in crime, the true reason for the murder drop likely has nothing to do with the government’s efforts. Instead, citizens have the Sinaloa cartel to thank. By successfully ousting the rival Juarez Cartel from its turf, it has greatly reduced the number of conflict. The sharp drop in crime could also be related to the fact that over 200,000 terrified citizens have fled the troubled city in recent years. Still, the city is still far from safe, this border town is still controlled by gangsters. Kidnappings and extortion is still very common, and some human rights groups have found that incidents of torture are on the rise. Additionally, the murderous violence could easily escalate to previous levels if major gang leader were captured and splinter groups started fighting again for control of the city. ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 43 Student: Writing Writing process (Group work) 1 2 3 4 SS discuss the draft with a partner. SS discuss the draft with a partner and a small group. SS make a prewriting plan and discuss the draft with a partner and a small group. SS make an organized prewriting plan and discuss the draft with a partner and a small group. SS contribute imprecisely to some writing tasks with some suggestions. SS contribute to some writing tasks with some suggestions. SS contribute to every writing task with some questions and suggestions. SS contribute to every writing task with many questions and suggestions. SS do not revise the final version. SS revise the final version once finished the task. Students revise cooperatively the final version once finished the task. SS read cooperatively the draft once finished and they proofread the final version. Written product There is little or no formal structure, making the information/ideas difficult to follow. The presentation shows a good attempt at structure, though there are some lapses. The student uses few cohesive devices. The presentation follows a logical structure, ending up with a conclusion. The student uses a basic range of cohesive devices. The presentation follows a logical structure, ending up with a conclusion. The student uses cohesive devices that add clarity to the message. The student’s ideas are basic and/or repetitive; they are not always relevant and little or no detail is given. The student’s ideas are usually relevant, though they contain limited detail and/or support. The student’s ideas are relevant and contain some detail and/or support where appropriate. The student’s ideas are relevant and detailed and/or supported where appropriate. Little vocabulary related to the topic has been used. — — A wide range of vocabulary and language structures related to the topic has been used. Reading Student: 1 2 3 4 Contents and general meaning is not clearly understood. The contents are not clearly identified. Only general meaning is understood. The contents are clearly identified. General and specific meaning is understood, although the student may need to revise the most difficult points. The contents of the texts are quickly identified. General and specific meaning is understood. ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 44 Listening Student: 1 2 3 4 The student has understood general information of oral texts with difficulties. The student has understood general information of oral texts, at a normal speed. The student has understood general and specific information of oral texts, at a normal speed. The student has understood general and specific information of oral texts even in poor acoustic conditions, at a fast speed. The student has understood the general meaning of some of the conversations and debates carried out in class. The student has understood the general meaning of conversations and debates carried out in class. The student has understood the details of best part of conversations and debates carried out in class although they are not clearly structured. The student has understood details of conversations and debates carried out in class although they are not clearly structured. The student can`t aurally discriminate sounds easily and commits many errors. The student has some difficulties when recognizing sounds in the target language. The student can aurally discriminate sounds, committing some mistakes. The student can aurally discriminate sounds even in poor acoustic conditions. Teacher assessment TEACHER’S EVALUATION 1 2 3 4 The Teacher has given clear instructions to students about what they were expected to do in all the tasks. Yes No The Teacher has monitored students’ production (both orally and written), solving their questions and correcting them when accuracy was an objective. Yes No The Teacher has created a good atmosphere in the classroom, emphasizing the importance of respect to each other and group working (being a model for students). Yes No The Teacher has given feedback to every student after each lesson and has checked that students have understood tasks’ contents and the goals of these tasks. Yes No ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 45 Appendix 3 Vocabulary review – Crime •Lawlessness = lack of strict law enforcement. •Robbery = act of stealing •Homicide = murder = killing = criminal offence •Non negligent manslaughter = the unlawful killing of one human being by another without malice aforethought •Rape = sexual assault •Sexual offense = crime of sexual nature •Terrorism = political violence •Armed robbery = theft with a weapon •At gunpoint = at the point of a gun •Kidnapping = abduction of a person •Smuggling = illicitly carrying of goods •Extortion = blackmailing sb for money •Property crime = to illegally possess, use, and dispose of anything •Looter = sb who obtains goods or money illegally during pillaging, as in wartime, during riots, etc. •Pickpocketing = when a person steals from the pockets or handbags of others in public places •Purse snatching = when a person seizes or grasps suddenly or peremptorily the purse of other person •Mugging = when someone is attacked or robbed violently •Gang shootings = shootings between street crews; to hit, wound, damage, or kill with a missile discharged from a weapon; also injecting heroin. •Target killer = assassins with a clear objective: to kill potential or real state representatives as police, political opponents, etc., always for money. •Piracy = a felony, such as robbery or hijacking, committed aboard a ship •Bombing = bomb attack •Urban warfare = urban conflict, struggle, or strife •Gangster = mobster, someone from the Mafia ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 46 •Burglaries = the crime of either entering a building as a trespasser with the intention of committing theft, rape, grievous bodily harm, or damage •Petty crime = minor offence •Cartel = organized crime band •Drug cartel = drug trafficker organization •Drug trafficking = smuggling illegal drugs ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 47 APPENDIX 4 – Police procedural TV serials Presentation ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 48 Appendix 5 – Information about the TV serials ‘Inspector Rex’ Kommissar Rex (English title: Inspector Rex) is a popular Austrian-made police television drama which aired from 1994 to 2004. The original series is set in Vienna and focuses on the three-man staff of an office of the Austrian Criminal Police - specifically a Murder Commission. In addition to the three policemen, the office is staffed by a German Shepherd called Rex who functions variously as a cadaver dog, a sniffer dog (for both contraband and narcotics) and as another pair of eyes and ears for his team. ‘The Mentalist’ The Mentalist is an American police procedural television series that debuted on September 23, 2008, on CBS. The show follows former "psychic" Patrick Jane (Simon Baker), who is a consultant for the California Bureau of Investigation (CBI), using the highly developed observational skills he previously employed to "read" people's minds. Although not an officer of the law, he uses skills from his former career as a successful yet admittedly fraudulent psychic medium to "read" people's minds and help a team of CBI agents solve various crimes. The ultimate goal of Patrick Jane in his cooperation with the CBI is to track down the killer known as "Red John," who was responsible for the brutal murders of Jane's wife and daughter. ‘CSI: Crime Scene Investigation’ CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is an American crime drama television series in which a team of forensic investigators are trained to solve crimes by examining the evidence. The series follows Las Vegas criminalists (identified as "Crime Scene Investigators") working for the Las Vegas Police Department (LVPD). The series mixes deduction, gritty subject matter and character-driven drama. The network later added spin-offs CSI: Miami and CSI: NY. A criticism of the show is the depiction of police procedure, which some consider to be decidedly lacking in realism. For instance, the show's characters not only investigate ("process") crime scenes, but they also conduct raids, engage in suspect pursuit and arrest, interrogate suspects, and solve cases, which falls under the responsibility of uniformed officers and detectives, not CSI personnel. ‘Criminal Minds’ Criminal Minds is an American police procedural television program that premiered September 22, 2005, on CBS. The series follows a team of profilers from the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) based in Quantico, Virginia. The BAU is part of the FBI National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. This show differs from many procedural dramas by focusing on profiling the criminal, rather than the crime itself. While common detectives study the evidence of a crime, this unit examines criminal behavior until it reaches a list of suspects. They investigate the crime from the inside out, that is, they try to think like a criminal, studying the behavior of the robbers or where they live and work to find out what they think. ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 49 Appendix 6: Reading and speaking task → “A carjacking ending in fatal crash”. Man Dies After Overnight Police Chase A man and woman were ejected from the vehicle, police say By Ivanna Hampton Wednesday, Mar 30, 2011 | Updated 8:36 AM CDT One man died and a woman suffered critical injuries in a police chase overnight that ended in a crash in the northern suburbs. Skokie police chased a silver 2000 Pontiac reported stolen in Glenview through several suburbs. The chase ended when the Pontiac slammed into two parked cars in the 5900 block of North Lincoln Avenue around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday in Morton Grove. A man and woman were ejected from the car. It remains unclear who was behind the wheel, a Morton Grove police official told the Chicago Tribune. The accident shot debris into the China Chef restaurant, breaking a window, police said. The man was pronounced dead at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, and the woman was in critical condition, according to police. ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 50 UPDATE: Alleged carjacker who died in crash identified By Jeff Danna TribLocal reporter. March 30, 2011 at 11:43 a.m. Authorities have identified the driver of a vehicle allegedly carjacked early Wednesday as Christopher J. Walsh, 20, of Chicago. Walsh died after the vehicle he was driving crashed in Morton Grove while being pursued by Skokie police, according to a press release from the Glenview Police Department. Glenview police also identified a female passenger in the vehicle as a 19-year-old from Glenview. She was taken to Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge with non-life threatening injuries. Police are continuing to investigate the incident, including where the passenger fits into the picture. “That’s’ what they’re trying to determine: What role she played in the whole thing,” said Glenview Police Cmdr. Jeff Ader. Glenview police say that Walsh and the female passenger were acquaintances. The incident began when a 22-year-old Glenview man was allegedly carjacked and kidnapped at knifepoint near the intersection of Shermer and Glenview roads in Glenview, according to police. Evidence technicians recovered a knife from that scene, Ader said. He described the weapon as an ordinary kitchen knife and said that police believe it was used in the cajacking. He added that police did not have a permanent address for Walsh, but that he had “resided at several ‘half way houses.’” The Cook County Medical Examiner’s office listed his address in the 0-100 block of Park Drive in Glenview. Ader noted that Walsh and the 22-year-old apparently knew each other, but said police are unclear about the extent of their relationship. A brick wall around the China Chef restaurant in Morton Grove was destroyed when a car pursued by police crashed Wendesday morning. (Jeff Danna, Tribune reporter) ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 51 The 22-year-old reported the incident to police in Evanston around 1:30 a.m. after Walsh allegedly dropped him off in Evanston. Evanston police alerted other police in the area. A Skokie officer heard bulletin, saw the car heading west on Main Street at the intersection of Skokie Boulevard, and began pursuing it, according to Skokie Police Sgt. Michael Krupnik. The crash happened a short time later, he added. “The vehicle accelerated away from a Skokie officer and later crashed,” Krupnik said. Walsh crashed the vehicle at Lincoln and Marmora streets in Morton Grove. He and the female passenger were transported to Lutheran General Hospital, where Walsh was pronounced dead, according to Glenview police. The victim received a minor cut during the ordeal, but he did not require medical attention. Morton Grove officers were called to the accident scene, where they took a report on a single-car accident in which a vehicle had struck a sign, said Cmdr. Mike Fujara. Based on the severity of the accident, the department has a task force assigned to the investigation, Fujara said. ‘Curso Superior de Inglés-II’ Escuela Oficial de Idiomas Nº 1, Zaragoza 52 NEW DETAILS: Police Charge Surviving Offender in Fatal Carjacking, Bond Set at $300K Crystal Perez was charged April 13 with kidnapping and hijacking. By Joanna Schneider April 13, 2011 Updated at 3:00 p.m., April 14 The surviving offender of a March 30 carjacking and kidnapping that left one person dead and another injured was charged April 13, according to Glenview Police officials. Following a police investigation, Crystal Perez, of Park Drive in Glenview, was implicated in the carjacking of a man at knife point, police said yesterday afternoon. The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office has approved the charges—one count of aggravated kidnapping and one county of aggravated vehicular hijacking—according to a news release. Initially, police did not anticipate any charges would be made but after an investigation that revealed several holes in Perez's interview following the incident, things took a different direction, Comm. Jeff Ader told Patch. "These are Class X felonies which are just below murder," he said. "These are very serious charges and you can go to prison for a long time." Perez remained in the custody of the Glenview Police Department until her bond hearing April 14. Bond was set at $300,000 D -- of which Perez must pay 10 percent -- and she is next scheduled to appear in court April 29. This is what the China Chef sign looked like before the fatal accident.