I. Didactic Unit Design
1. Introduction-Justification
This Didactic Unit is based on the three main points of English language: phonetics, vocabulary and grammar.
I am going to begin this Didactic Unit with a short text: Talking about school.
This Didactic Unit is addressed to students of the Secondary Education, second cycle, 4th year grade (4º de la E.S.O.).
Talking about school
“Why do teachers give so much homework? People like myself have better things to do with our lives than lock ourselves away every evening with homework:
“Do questions 3 to 78 on page 51”, says the Maths teacher. “If your marks had been a little better you wouldn’t have to do this kind of questions”. Do teachers realise how much work is involved? Can’t they count?
“If you want to improve, translate pages 77 and 78”, barks the French teacher. Doesn’t he know that this will take a long time?
The Science teacher is more reasonable: “If you want to pass the examination, learn the qualities of chromomatosonucleicdioxide tonight”. Great! This is sure to come in useful someday. How could anybody lead a happy life without a detailed knowledge of obscure chemicals?
The English teacher came into the classroom and we were all crying and running everywhere: “For tomorrow, I want you to copy 100 times the following sentence: silence is golden”.
Apparently, our whole civilisation is founded on working around the clock. My pinion is clear: out of date, archaic, obsolete, naïve, as old as a dodo.
Do teachers spend hours every evening at homework? Ha Ha! Not a chance! They play golf, go to cinemas and pubs, watch television, hang-glide, the lotto, eat leisurely meals and complain that the young of today do nothing but playing football and watch TV. If I were a teacher for a day I would forbid homework”.
(Carousel: Padraic Nolan)
2. Description
– As I have just mentioned, this unit is going to be developed in the second cycle of Secondary Education with students of the 4th year grade (4º de la E.S.O.) and I am going to situate it in the first term, in December.
– This Didactic Unit can be brought into focus by paying special attention to the cross curricular aspects:
§ Education for peace.
§ Education for equality of opportunity between sexes.
§ Social integration, dialogue, tolerance…
§ Cooperation, cosmopolitan.
§ Education for respect towards other people ideas.
– This unit interacts with other areas such as:
§ Spanish language and literature.
§ Mathematics.
§ Science.
§ Foreign language.
– This Didactic Unit has been calculated for being developed in three sessions of 60 minutes each one.
– This Didactic Unit is thought to be applied in a Secondary Education School placed in a big Spanish town where people are aware of the importance of modern languages, especially the English language.
– This Secondary Education School is well equipped and students are motivated.
Students’ main features
4th year grade students are in an evolutionary period in which typical changes of adolescence occur and these changes may affect their global development as persons.
In the route towards adulthood, the adolescent needs autonomy to become an independent person but still maintains important ties of dependency from adults.
In general, these young people feel themselves to be members of a “teenage” culture, with its own fashion and customs and they usually manifest interests that are different from those of their families.
Students’ characteristics
Psychomotor development:
– Big importance to personal appearance.
– Sexual maturity is reached.
– Changes in the image, which can be a source of conflicts.
Cognitive development:
– Centered on reality.
– Students start searching for the different causes that can be the explanation of a phenomenon.
– The capacity for isolating variables is developed.
– Good capacity for analysis.
Affective development:
– Their great interest and preoccupation with their physical appearance tend to establish a direct relationship between physical appearance and social acceptance.
– Progressively, they go accepting the person as they abandon, in a gradual way, dependence on the opinions of others to give more weight to self-analysis.
– This is a period of progressive rooting of individual identity.
Social development:
– In their relationships with others, the personality of the others starts to be a reference point.
– In sectors such as economy, politics, religion…, they start elaborating an image of each system that will serve as a base for shaping a global explanation for society.
– The group of friends acquires great importance in their lives.
Moral development:
– Gradually, the adolescent starts taking decisions on his or her own on personal and moral matters.,
– Their moral development is very much attached to adopt values associated to personal identity.
– Young people tend to question many of the values they had maintained during childhood. They find numerous questions about their existence and have a strong sense of social justice.
3. General Objectives of this Didactic Unit
– The main objective of the English language is to aid people as a communicative system. I will use the English language as the main vehicle of communication in the English class.
– To put into practice these four language competences:
§ To understand oral English.
§ To understand written English.
§ To express oneself in oral English.
§ To express oneself in written English.
– To recognize and appreciate the commjnicative value of English as a foreign language and the ability to use it.
– To increase grammar, lexical and phonetics knowledge day after day.
– Reading texts to obtain information in a comprehensive way.
– Understanding and putting into practice oral and written messages in English.
– To think about the English language system sot aht students can better appreciate their mother tongue.
– To develop in my students the idea of cosmopolitanism, tolerance and respect for other opinions.
– To accede to the knowledge of the culture the foreign language transmits, developing respect to it and its speakers, to get a better international understanding.
– To value the beliefs and cultural heritage connected with the English language.
– I will stimulate students to visit the United Kingdom and Commonwealth countries.
– To understand the cultural differences between English speaking countries and Spain.
– To acquire a sense of cooperation, moral responsibility, solidarity, respect and tolerance so as to eradicate discrimination.
– To understand the specific information in texts: Talking about school.
– To use the vocabulary and new structures correctly.
– To understand and extract specific information from a written or oral text.
4. Didactic objectives of this Didactic Unit
– Motivating students and maintaining this motivation throughout their English learning.
– To recognize and reproduce the English phonemes and the basic element s of rhythm and intonation.
– Establishing some relations among meaning, pronunciations and graphic representation of words and sentences.
– Recognizing some phonetics as well as rhythmical aspects of the English language.
– Using non-linguistic expressive devices (gestures, body, sounds, drawings…) with the aim of trying to understand and be understood to avoid the mother language.
– To identify specific vocabulary and grammar to acquire enough fluency to use them deliberately in speech.
– To produce English messages using lexical and grammatical principles explained in this unit.
– Reading in a comprehensive way the text: Talking about school.
– Using the previous knowledge and experience that they have with other languages to develop the strategies of autonomous learning process.
– Recognizing and comparing some socio-cultural elements contained in the text for mutual enrichment.
– To take part in a communicative dialogue with the teacher and the other students about socio-cultural questions.
– To understand and produce oral and written messages contained in the text: Talking about school.
– To increase the active vocabulary in this Didactic Unit.
– To understand and practise the grammar points of this Didactic Unit: Conditional sentences, asking for something.
– To practise the phonetic contents: intonation, rhythm, correct pronunciation in the texts: Talking about school.
– To make the students be conscious of their progress.
– To respect traditions and habits in the English speaking countries.
– To be aware of the importance of speaking a foreign language correctly.
5. Contents
Communicative abilities
– Carry out hypotheses on global contents of oral and written texts basing the arguments on both textual and contextual elements and carry out successive interventions as of what has been heard or read.
– Use of different reading strategies depending on the type of text and the purpose used for reading it.
– Consideration on ways of improving one’s own production both orally and in writing.
– Transference of information from one code to another.
– To get information from a text.
– Reading in a comprehensive way.
– Writing English messages properly.
– Speaking English fluently.
– To practice good manners (politeness) in oral and written communication.
Grammatical contents:
– Conditional sentences (type I, II and III).
Lexical contents:
– The specific vocabulary contained in the text: Talking about school and vocabulary associated with study, employment world, academic environment, asking for something…
Phonetic contents:
– Diphthongs:
§ [ei] day, Spain, they.
§ [ou] go, road, home.
§ [ai] time, my, like.
§ [au] now, down, house.
– Rhythm.
– Intonation.
Procedures:
– To understand and produce oral and written messages contained in the text: Talking about school.
– To increase the active vocabulary.
– To develop day by day the capacity to memorize.
– To overcome oral English difficulties using paralinguistic expressios such as gestures and sounds to avoid using the mother tongue.
– To deduce the meaning of the words by the context.
– Following the teacher’s oral insturctiosn.
– Listening to the text: Talking about school.
– Participation in all kind of activities in the English class.
– Doing and correcting the workbook exercises.
Attitudes:
– Active participation in the English class.
– Intellectual curiosity about new concepts, new ideas…
– Respect and curiosity about other people’s ideas ad work.
– To accept and respect linguistic differences between the English and Spanish languages.
– To accept and respect the socio-cultural differences between English and Spanish speaking countries.
– To encourage teamwork.
– To be always ready to speak in English.
Socio-cultural aspects
– Use of the foreign language with the aim of enhancing intercultural encounters: correspondence, exchanges via new technologies…
– Education in Britain.
§ State schools (run by the government).
§ Public schools (private centres where parents have to pay).
§ Eton, Harrow, Stowe…
§ Kindergarten from the age of two or three until the age of five.
§ Primary school from six to twelve.
§ Secondary schools from twelve to sixteen.
§ Well-mannered expressions, politeness.
Procedures:
– To analyse a video about Education in Great Britain.
– Participation in an English dialogue about education in Great Britain.
– To put into practise well-mannered expressions.
Attitudes:
– Curiosity and interest about socio-cultural aspects in the Anglo-Saxon world.
– To be always active in the English class.
6. Methodology
Pedagogic methods will be adapted to the characteristics of the students to favour the capacity to learn on their own work as a team promoting creativity and dynamism ad will integrate resources of information technologies and communications in learning. Students will be initiated in knowledge and application of scientific methodology.
Methodological principles
– Teaching methodology in Secondary Education should aim for pupils’ development, integrating their experiences and learning.
– Teaching must be personalised and adapted to the various learning rhythms of each child.
– The teacher is responsible for the methods to be used.
– Contents should be organised with a global focus.
– The teaching process is to be based on pupils’ constructive activity, ensuring that what is learnt will be of actual use and encouraging pupils to learn on their own.
Language is above all a communication system. It is therefore necessary to learn how to communicate properly (first orally, then by writing).
From this general principle, here are the main characteristics of this method:
– It is necessary to follow a direct, functional, flexible, communicative method by using the most usual audiovisual resources: video, tape recorder…
– We must never forget that “the teacher is life, soul and the driving force of the English class”.
– Learning should be personalised and adapted to the different rhythms of each child.
– Methodological guidance is inclined to a general principle: first oral communication, then the written one.
– Oral and written languages have good specified “rules”.
– English learning should be functional, practical and useful. English knowledge makes easier the access to culture, knowledge, work, tourism, science, culture, European institutions…
– Morph-syntactic, phonetic, lexical and textual subjects must be analysed in situation and with the oral and written peculiarities.
– It is necessary to look for learning an active, autonomous, useful and practical English.
– It is necessary to give more importance to communications than to forms, to oral language than to the written one.
– Making errors is part of every learning process. It is better to avoid them.
– Learning should be considered as content to teach in an explicit way to make easier the abilities of comprehension and expression.
– Teacher must be the “driving force” and the guide to this learning. He is himself the head of the planning, of the methodology, of the efficient running of the class.
– It is necessary students feel to be motivated. Authentic motivation must come from the real necessity of the English language in everyday life: science, culture, tourism, work, society, institutions…
– Cultural contents are full part of the matter to teach because they make up a part of the components of the communicative competence. “Civilisation” knowledge is melted with linguistic knowledge.
7. The diversity process
– A personal education means the permanent adaptation of educational intervention to each pupil’s ways of learning.
– A personal education implies adapting the curriculum to the needs of the pupils of each establishment, of each classroom, to each individual.
– Socialising, autonomy, efficient and functional learning will be some of the aspects to be developed in this learning process unit.
– When teaching this unit, I will take into account that there are in my classroom several boys and girls coming from other countries.
– There are several pupils having problems of social and school integration.
– To solve this problem the secondary school has proposed: to reduce the number of pupils in the classroom, some reinforcement activities, some learning techniques and the possibility of taking part in sport activities such as football, basketball, tennis.
– The students having a good English language level will have the possibility of taking out from school reading books, videos and some other material about English civilisation.
8. Material and aids
– A television set.
– Specific unit videotape.
– A video about education in Great Britain.
– A little library with books of different levels.
– Blackboard.
– Student’s book.
– Workbook exercises.
– Photocopies.
– Notebook.
– A tape recorded with the unit we are explaining.
– Dictionaries.
– The map of English speaking countries.
– A poster about education in Great Britain.
9. Interaction with other areas
– Spanish language: grammar, vocabulary.
– Spanish literature: the initial text.
– Foreign languages (French, co-official language…): grammar, vocabulary.
– Religion, ethics: occidental culture.
– Mathematics: initial text.
– Social science, history: Commonwealth countries.
10. Cross curricular themes
– Education for peace.
– Education for equal opportunities between sexes.
– Social integration, dialogue, tolerance…
– Cooperation, cosmopolitanism.
– Education for respect towards other people’s ideas.
II. Didactic Unit Development
11. Activities
First session activities:
- Having a pencil in their hands and reading silently the new text: Talking about school, I will ask my students to underline the new words and expression.
10 minutes
- I will explain the new words and expressions: (Vocabulary)
To be proud heritage a shoret
Homework to lock better things to do
The marks to realise to involve
To improve to count to bark
To take a long time great! To be reasonable
Knowledge chemicals to cry
Everywhere golden whole
To be founded out of date archaic
Obsolete naïve as old as a dodo
Not a chance hand-glide leisurely
To complain to forbid the lotto
20 minutes
- We will listen to the text Talking about school. This first time my students will have the possibility of reading the text while they are hearing them.
10 minutes
- We will listen to the text Talking about school again but this time having the book closed (without looking at the texts).
10 minutes
- Corrective reading (Phonetics). I will have to take marks for reading (Oral language assessment).
10 minutes
- Homework: to study the new vocabulary, and to make sentences with two words from the vocabulary each one.
Second session activities:
- The class begins listening to the initial text Talking about school to remember what had been worked the last day. (Phonetics).
10 minutes
- I will ask some students to read the initial text. (Corrective reading).
10 minutes
- Correction of the homework.
5 minutes
- It is the right moment to answer the questions from the text. If the method has been well followed, the students won’t have any kind of problems to answer the questions.
§ Why do teachers give so much homework?
§ Do teachers realise how much work is involved in homework?
§ Do you agree with the maths teacher?
§ Explain the following statement: “as old as a dodo”.
§ Rewrite the expression “not a chance” in a suitable sentence.
§ In your own words briefly explain: “silence is golden”.
§ What are your views on homework?
§ Would you forbid homework? Why? Why not?
12 minutes
- Oral and writing correction of the questions. I will go on taking marks because I must think about the assessment.
5 minutes
- Dictation of the initial text Talking about school that has been worked along the first and second sessions.
Talking about school
Why do teachers give so much homework? People like myself have better things to do with our lives than lock ourselves away every evening with homework:
“Do questions 3 to 78 on page 51”, says the Maths teacher. “If your marks had been a little better you wouldn’t have to do this kind of questions”. Do teachers realise how much work is involved? Can’t they count?
“If you want to improve, translate pages 77 and 78”, barks the French teacher. Doesn’t he know that this will take a long time?
The Science teacher is more reasonable: “If you want to pass the examination, learn the qualities of chromomatosonucleicdioxide tonight”. Great! This is sure to come in useful someday. How could anybody lead a happy life without a detailed knowledge of obscure chemicals?
8 minutes
- The students will correct the dictation and I will take new marks (Writing language assessment).
5 minutes
- Homework: to write a short composition about what they think of school.
Third session activities:
- I will begin this third session by listening to the initial text once again: Talking about school. (Phonetics correction).
5 minutes
- Students must hand-in the composition done for homework; it will count in the evaluation as written expression.
- Grammar explanation. This time I will explain a grammar question: Conditional sentences: type I, II and III (Grammar).
Conditional sentences: type I, II and III
Type I: Open conditions:
– If you study, you will pass the exam (present-future).
– If you come, call me, please (present-imperative).
– If it rains, I can’t go (present-present).
Type II: Hypothetical improbable conditions:
– If I had the money, I would pay you.
– You could do it if you tried.
– If I were you I should go there.
Type III: Hypothetical impossible conditions:
– If you had studied, you would have passed your exams (past perfect-conditional perfect).
– If you had come, you would have seen her.
Asking for something:
Give it to me Give it to me, please
Give it to me, will you? Can you give it to me, please?
Would you mind giving it to me? Could you give it to me, please?
Would you give it to me, please? May I have it, please?
15 minutes
- Workbook exercises to put into practice grammar explanation (Individual work).
5 minutes
- Workbook exercises correction. I will have to take oral and writing marks.
– Culture: Education in Great Britain.
States schools (run by the government).
Public schools (private centres where parents have to pay).
Eton, Harrow, Stowe…
Kindergarten from the age of two or three until the age of five.
Primary school from six to twelve.
Secondary schools from twelve to sixteen.
– Well-mannered expressions, politeness.
15 minutes
- Exam evaluation.
10 minutes
12. Assessment (evaluation)
I have to carry out assessment in Secondary Education. I have to evaluate my pupils’ learning as well as my own teaching practices.
Assessment of pupil learning process should be continuous and global and will be performed taking into account the education objectives and the assessment criteria laid down in the curriculum.
The assessment criteria
– Assessment in Secondary Education must be continuous and global, therefore I will observe my students’ performance and achievement and I will write down whatever I consider important to evaluate my students:
§ Any kind of oral and written production.
§ The participation or not in the class.
§ The attitude towards learning.
§ Comprehension and use of any kind of grammatical, phonetics and lexical questions.
– Assessment must be pointed to general contents and objectives of the English language.
– When assessing, I will take into account the academic maturity of my pupils with respect to the contents, objectives and their possibilities for progress in future studies.
– This assessment is going to help me to know better my students, my work as a teacher, to measure the results obtained.
– Assessment must serve my students to evaluate themselves knowing their mistakes, their progress…
– I have observed my students and I have taken marks for the different activities.
– Now, it is just the moment to take out the exam, to distribute it immediately. I want to evaluate the result of these three sessions of hard work.
- Questions about the initial text (3 points):
– What are your views on homework? Do you agree with the text?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
– Explain: “as old as a dodo”.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
– What would you improve in the Spanish Secondary Education? Why?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
- Put each of the following words in a correct sentence (3 points):
– Great! ……………………………………………………………………………………………
– To lock ……………………………………………………………………
– Better things to do ………………………………………………………..
– To bark ……………………………………………………………………
– To involve ………………………………………………………………..
– Archaic ……………………………………………………………………
- Complete the following sentences (4 points):
– I will get you my newspaper if you ………………. (leave) me your novel.
– If I ………………. (know) his number, I would have phoned him.
– If he were to die, she ………………. (kill) herself.
– If she ………………. (tell) me, I would have gone with her.
The advanced learners will be asked to write a short composition about Education in Great Britain.
– After having corrected these exercises, after having taken into account all kind of oral and written marks throughout these three session, I will have to grade my students following the evaluation criteria.
– This grading must be wide to all kind of marks (grammar, vocabulary, phonetics), and not only the results obtained in a written exam.
13. Analysing the results
– First of all, it is the proper moment to analyse my results, my work, my system, my methodology…
– If the results are not good enough, I will have to look for reasons: the method, the work outside and inside the classroom, the material used, the teacher, my students…
– What do I have to do with students who have failed this exam, who have not got the minimum knowledge? I can’t whisk away these students. I will have to offer them the possibility of going on with the English language, to give them a second opportunity, to follow a special method, to program some special sessions and personalised work.