Syllabus: Teaching of English

YEAR/SEMESTER: Year 2/Semester 4

CREDITS: 3 credits

COURSE CODE: EDU-208

PRE-REQUISITES: successful completion of courses in semesters 1-3

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This three-credit course has been designed to enable prospective teachers to teach English using an interactive communicative approach to students aged 6 to 13. It will be taught over 16 weeks with three face-to-face sessions per week, making a total of 48 sessions. The course aims to be comprehensive in its coverage and depth so that, on its completion, participants will have gained both a theoretical understanding of the basic principles of Second Language Acquisition and the practical knowledge of how to apply these principles effectively in the language classroom. The course focuses on ways of teaching young learners the four skills of listening, reading, speaking and writing to enable them to reach a basic level of communicative competence in both spoken and written English. In addition to learning how to teach and integrate the four skills in an interactive, learner-centered manner, participants will gain an understanding of how grammar awareness raising and vocabulary acquisition can be incorporated into a communicative teaching approach.  Finally, student teachers will learn how to design and develop their own teaching materials and activities, and how to assess and test their students’ language proficiency and progress.

Learning Outcomes

On completing the course, student teachers are expected to:

a.   have gained a basic understanding of how second/foreign languages are acquired and possess a working knowledge of the following methods/approaches to Second Language Acquisition: grammar-translation, audio-lingualism, the natural approach, communicative language teaching.

b.   be able to teach the four skills of listening, reading, speaking and writing to young learners using an interactive communicative approach.

c.   be able to design suitable teaching materials which focus on helping learners acquire a basic level of communicative competence.

d.   be able to assess their students’ language performance and progress using their own self- designed assessment procedures.

e.   know how to help learners develop basic grammatical competence and vocabulary knowledge in English using a learner-centered communicative teaching approach.

f.     be aware of the differences between teaching and testing when they are designing their own classroom materials and activities.

Assessment Criteria

Sessional: 20 (Presentation: 06, Participation: 05, Attendance: 05, Overall Conduct: 04)

Mid-term: 30

Final exam: 50

 Recommended Books 

Cameron, L. (2001) Teaching Languages to Young Learners. Cambridge: CUP. Fanselow, J. (1987)  Breaking Rules. New York: Longman.

Fanselow, J. (1987)  Breaking Rules. New York: Longman.

Harmer, J. (2001) The Practice of English Language Teaching. Harlow: Pearson Educational. Hughes, A. (2003) Testing for Language Teachers. Cambridge: CUP.

Hughes, A. (2003) Testing for Language Teachers. Cambridge: CUP.