Practice Activities – FP015 CCD

PRACTICE ACTIVITIES:
CURRICULUM AND COURSE DESIGN

GENERAL INFORMATION:

The subject practice activities consist of doing four short exercises in pairs. The
submitted document must fulfil the following conditions:

- Length: 2-3 pages (without including cover, activities’ statements, index or

appendices –if there are any).
- Font type: Arial or Times New Roman.
- Font size: 11.
- Spacing: 1.5.
- Alignment: Justified.

Besides, the activities have to be presented in this Word document: keep the questions
and provide an answer below them. In order to make the correction process easier,
please, do not write the answers in bold, as it helps distinguishing between questions
and answers. Also, the document must still fulfil the rules of presentation and format,
and follow the rubric for citations and bibliographical references as detailed in the Study
Guide.

The final activitiy has to be submitted following the procedure specified in the “Subject
Evaluation” document. Sending it to the teacher’s e-mail is not permitted.

In addition to this, it is very important to read the assessment criteria, which can be
found in the “Subject Evaluation” document.

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 Practice Activities – FP015 CCD

Full name:Jhon Ortiz and Bárbara Pinzón

Group:2019_02
Date:May 3rd 2020

Practice Activities

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 Practice Activities – FP015 CCD

Table of contents

Differences between Curriculum and Syllabus………………………………………… 4

Differences between Approach and Method ……………………………………………4
Analysis of a curriculum from a book ……………………………………………………4
Are some verb tenses more teachable than other items? …………………………….5
Analysis of an advert for a two-week immersion course……………………………….6
References ……………………………………………………..…………………………..7
Annexes …………………………………………………………………………………….8

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 Practice Activities – FP015 CCD

Curriculum and syllabus

Curriculum and syllabus are those words that guide or determine the kind of a
course that is offered. But it is important to point two big differences between them.
Based on Dubin and Olshtain (1986 cited by Funiber: 4) the first difference is that the
Curriculum is focused on the philosophy and theoretical orientations, and the Syllabus
is the representation of that philosophy through the detailed statements of teaching and
learning. The second but not less important difference is that the curriculum reflects
the national politics. On the other hand, the syllabuses reflect planned steps according
to the objective of each one of the levels.

Approach and method

Some authors such as Edward Antony have tried to explain what is the focus on
each of one them. According to Antony (1963) explains that the Approach is supported
in theories and beliefs about language learning, different from the Method, it refers to
all procedures that are applied in the courses, this is also more specific than the
Approach.

Analysis of a curriculum from a book

Throughout the last semesters of my profession, I have used The Top Notch
Book by Pearson for different topics. Although some of the activities presented on the
book tend to show a knowledge centered paradigm, it also gives students the
opportunity to develop an active and autonomous learning. The units start with oral or
written discussions (see appendix 1) to promote participation among students by using
previous knowledge. Then, it portrays a dialogue with a series of activities to introduce
the topic and assure comprehension (appendix 2). It can also be noticed a grammar
section that explains the linguistic structures and a number of exercises to practice
those language items. Finally, it includes a conversation model (see appendix 3) as a
way to achieve accurate pronunciation habits, and there is also a spot for learners to
develop tasks that allow them to be more responsible for their learning.
Taking into consideration the previous description, it can be deduced that the
book is an example of both paradigms. On the one hand, the discussion activities and
the final tasks, let students express opinions, feelings and preferences about a
particular topic. This is related to the humanistic curriculum concept proposed by Dubin
and Olshtain (1986) which claims that learners are more autonomous and the teacher
acts as a facilitator (quoted in Funiber, 2016, p. 25). On the other hand, activities such

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as the conversation model demand students to listen and repeat a dialogue in order to
achieve a correct pronunciation, stress, rhythm and intonation, making reference to the
behaviorist theory.

Are some verb tenses more teachable than other items?

In the following chart there are five different verb tenses in English in order of
“teachability”. Where 1 is very easy to teach and 5 is very difficult to teach.

VERB TENSES SOCORE JUSTIFICATION

PRESENT SIMPLE 1 It is the easiest verb tense to teach since
it does not require complex operations to
realize. However, many students find
difficult to make the exceptions for the
third person singular.
PAST SIMPLE 2 Similar to the present simple, this tense
is not difficult to teach since the structure
is easy to comprehend by students.
Nevertheless, the distinction between
regular and irregular verbs is a
challenging factor for learners. Many of
them choose to add a d or ed to some
irregular verbs.
PRESENT PERFECT 4 It is one the most complex tenses to
teach. On the hand, it is not common for
us in Latin America to use the present
perfect tense frequently, people tend to
use the past simple to talk about past
events. On the other hand, it requires
previous operations such as adding the
auxiliary have/has and the participle of
verbs that tends to confuse students.
PAST PERFECT 5 This tense is often confused with the
present perfect form. It also requires the
use of other tenses like the past
continuous, so that students can make
sense of that linguistic structure.
FUTURE PERFECT 5 It is the most difficult tense to teach

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 Practice Activities – FP015 CCD

CONTINUOUS since it requires a number of

interdependent elements and simple
items to form this structure.

Analysis of an advert for a two-week immersion course that combines English

and sports:
According to the intensive immersion course which purpose is to learn the
language through a specific environment, the syllabus for this course would have the
following characteristics: First of all, the Syllabus has to be designed as Type B based
on White’s beliefs (1988) who explains that this kind of Syllabuses are focused on
language acquisition, through doing as propose the ad “English+Sports is a perfect
course for schools looking to combine English language training with energetic sports
activities and accommodation with a homestay host ” The students would have the
opportunity to practice the language not only in the classes but also with the homestay
family.
In terms of design objectives, the syllabus must be situational since they are
going to participate in different stages or situations, according to the sports, all the
process would be guided them to identify the needs in each environment. To
complement, it would also be functional, that is to say, how the language is able to
handle in the different sports, situations that make part of the daily circumstances. At
the same time, the goal statements must focus on skills/competencies because all the
abilities in a language are taken into account when the learner is at course or at home.
Based on the objectives and goals to create the syllabus that is situational,
functional and focused on skills nor in knowledge, the material that could be used might
be authentic material, for example, the newspaper of the city, videos about tv news and
material produced by the institution with the objective to deepen in the vocabulary
related to sports, city, or different places surround and possible daily conversations.
Finally, the methodology must be center in activities and tasks where the
student feels involved in a communicative situation, and the evaluation necessary must
be formative because the course would evaluate each one the process that learners
are going to have in the course.

References

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Dubin, F & Olshtain, E. (1986). Course Design. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press
Antony, E. (1963). Aproach, Method and Technique. English Language Teaching
Journal. 17(2). p63-67
Funiber. (2016). Curriculum and Course Design: Definitions.
Funiber. (2016). Curriculum and Course Design: Two Paradigms.

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 Practice Activities – FP015 CCD

LIST OF APPENDICES

Extracts from the course book: Top Notch, Saslow Joan & Ascher Allen (2011).
Second Edition Pearson Education.
Appendix 1.

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Appendix 2.

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Appendix 3.

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