FP015 – CURRICULUM AND COURSE DESIGN-PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE

PRACTICE ACTIVITY

Full name: Jazmin Mishell Ube Gavilanes, Victor Xavier Vicente Guerrero

Group: 2022-10

Date: January 8, 2024

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PRACTICE ACTIVITIES

TASK 1

Define the following words so the differences between them are clear:

a) Curriculum and syllabus

When we mention a curriculum, we are talking about a general term that

incorporates all those decisions such as objectives, contents, methods and evaluation of a
teaching program, with an associated purely educational philosophy, which follows
national policies on education and learning. The study plan, as its name indicates, is a
detailed plan or guide which is structured with mandatory, fundamental and optional areas
to achieve the objectives and also be able to cover all those contents decided in the study
plan.

The curriculum is one that contains the entire philosophy or belief of the education
plan, unlike the study program that only a part of that study plan or the realization of said
beliefs step by step. Since they are fundamental tools, whose purpose and intentionality,
as well as the way of operating, are derived from both the foundations of the curricula and
the study plans.

t must always be taken into account that a study program is that hypothetical
formulation of the learning that is intended to be achieved in a didactic unit, achieving the
formulation of the programs of the units that compose them. “A study plan refers to
everything the period of study at a university or school”. For example, The curriculum of a
certain course, “say in biology, includes all those subjects, in addition to including the
related subjects that will be studied as part of the entire course of study.

b) Approach and method.

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 Focus is the word used to refer to the action and consequence of focusing. An
approach is that way of designing principles to solve a problem. Considered as a group of
assumptions or beliefs about the nature of language learning, taking into account that a
method is a plan for an organized presentation of linguistic materials. The term approach
is also known as the plan that will be deployed and how it will be carried out. carried out in
order to ensure that the issue that requires a solution reaches a good and happy ending.

A method is a way in which these principles are applied in the classroom, taking
into account the objectives as well as the roles of teachers and students and those
guidelines for classroom activities. In other words a method is an execution of an
approach in the classroom context. “When an instructional design is quite explicit at the
level of language and learning theory, but can be applied in many different ways at the
level of objectives, teacher and student, as well as roles and activities, this is generally
called an instructional approach. . When the instructional design includes a specific level
of application both in terms of objectives, teacher and student roles, and classroom
activities, this is called a method. With a method, there are prescribed objectives, roles for
student teachers as well as guidelines for activities and consequently there is little
flexibility for teachers in how the method is used. Richards, J.C.

In other words we can say that the method is that set of procedures which are
established from an approach, in order to determine the teaching program as well as its
objectives, contents and work techniques in addition to the respective functions of
teachers, students and didactic materials.

TASK 2

Unit 2 argues that most curriculums are either knowledge-centered or person-

centered. Find the book you learn English with, or a book you like using in your
class and argue whether it is a knowledge-centered curriculum or person-centered
curriculum. Illustrate your argument with captures from the book. Do not forget to
include the full reference, as well.

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 In my educational unit we do not have any specific books for our students, we work
with some of the books that the editors send us. Personally, I choose to use the book as a
complement since I find these books limiting, since most of them of students have a low
level of English.

For example, when the materials in the book exceed the level of half the class. I
practically have to go back and review the basic concepts and try to accelerate the level of
the others while keeping the level of the students stronger, I must emphasize that the
books seem to be created for classes that are seen more often in the week unlike mine
only has two hours a week. The Twinkle book is one of the only books on the market for
learners, it is oriented towards the completion of tasks and projects which are found at the
end of each chapter. In this book, compared to others, there is little grammatical
explanation.

The book is a blend of both knowledge and person-centered curriculum. The

activities require students to respond correctly, allowing a certain freedom of expression
as well as there being no repetitive exercises, which will indicate a behavioral tone. Taking
into account that the final exam required of students is a presentation of an authentic A2
level text orally, which has been previously prepared in classes during their two years of
training, this documentation is prepared by the teacher. , where the theme and main ideas
come from, is a tool that is widely used in a very traditional school system and at the same
time is focused on the knowledge of the individual.

TASK 3

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Are some verb tenses more teachable than other items? List five different verb
tenses in English in order of “teachability” according to your criteria. Give them a
score from 1 (very easy to teach) to 5 (very difficult to teach) and justify the score.
You might want to consider the students’ L1, previous experiences, or activities
you have tried (either as a teacher or as a student) that worked well.

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 The teachibility of verb thenses has different levels of difficulty according to some
aspects like structure, use and complexity:

To be Present Tense: 1

It is very easy to teach because it is the most basic tense related to the learner
personal world like his/her name, age, feelings, etc. The only difficulty appears when
learners realize that it is just one word in English for two different meanings in Spanish.

Simple Present Tense. 2

It is easy to teach with some caution because the meaning of the tense is a little bit
abstract and learners tend to confuse it with Present Continuous Tense. Moreover, the
addition of “s” in third person singular verbs in affirmative sentences provokes confusion in
learners because they compare it with our plural (s) in Spanish. Another difficulty is the
incorporation of auxiliary in questions (do – does) and negative sentences (do not – does
not) as they are not translated.

Present Continuous Tense: 3.

It is slightly difficult because the student needs to be aware of the to be verb

conjugation and at the same time the understanding of the rules for adding the “ing”
ending at the verbs.

Simple Past tense: 4

It is quite difficult to teach due to the existence of regular and irregular verbs to
express it. If learners know regular verbs first, they generalize and add “ed” to all the
verbs they are faced with. The auxiliary (did) becomes a big problem to learners because
in Spanish grammar the conjugation of verbs occurs in the three types of sentences, that
is affirmative, negative, and interrogative ones. Thus, learners tend to use the auxiliary in
the affirmative sentences too.

Present Perfect Tense: 5

It is very difficult to teach, mainly because it has a really abstract meaning.

Although it exists in Spanish grammar, it is not so used. Spanish speakers specially from
South America prefer to use the past tense equivalent for all the actions occurred in the
past, giving no importance to the events started in the past with a consequence or relation
to the present. Moreover, they learnt verb “have” with the meaning of possession and it is
difficult for learners to get rid of it and understand that it also means “haber” as an
auxiliary and that it has to be followed by a past participle form. In order to have good
results by teaching this tense it is useful to explain in a timeline where this tense is used.

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TASK 4

The following is an advert for a one-week immersion course that combines English
and History:
https://www.ipcexeter.co.uk/courses/school-language-projects/the-projects/
englishhistory/

Considering a course like this, explain what peculiarities the syllabus design would
need to consider in terms of setting goals, choosing/designing materials, teaching
methodology and evaluation.

According to the advert, the syllabus needs to consider the following aspects:

The goals settings will need to be developed based on (natural growth, TBL
approaches) proposing communicative tasks. Nunan (1988) claims that, natural growth let
learners to train their communicative and linguistic skills so they are ready to act in real-
world tasks. Similarly, TBL involves learners in solving communication problems in the
target language providing learners with opportunities for language use (Allwright,1989).

Attitudinal objectives concerning to motivation, communicative and socio-cultural are the

main goals that need to be addressed in the course. They must be performance
objectives and skill-based objectives. These kinds of objectives are statements of abilities
within a particular language but without reference to specific situations or tasks (Richards
1990).

Going to the materials, the course will need to consider variety and pace, reading
texts, listening passages, learner encouraging interests based on sports. It also requests
to consider learners age, social and cultural background, learning objectives and the
composition of the class. Besides, it encourages the personal involvement of the learners
in the learning process (e.g. by talking about themselves personal information,
preferences. There is a competitive or problem-solving element in the learning activities
as sustained by Rea-Dickins and Germaine (1998).

In order to apply certain methodology, it is necessary to change the kinds of

activities, tasks, and experiences compared with the ones applied in a language
classroom. The approach or philosophy underlying the program, the role of the teachers,
the role of the learners and the role and design of the instructional materials must be
changed. According to Richards (1990) the methodology application can be done through
teacher preparation activities that examine attitudes, beliefs, and practice.

The evaluation section may be applied in a product-based form, which aims to

decide whether the goals of the program have been attained. Also, the process-based

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evaluation is important because it helps monitoring the effectiveness of the program,
change, and improvement.

The curriculum design needs to consider standards for evaluation students’

progress considering the listening and speaking skills specifically, although, learners will
need to improve grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation aspects for improving those
skills.

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References

Allright, R. (1989). Language learning through communication practice. In Brumfit C. J. &

Johnson, K. (Eds.), The Communicative Approach to Language Teaching. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.

Banegas, L.D. & Velazquez, A. (2014) Implementing a human-centered curriculum in ELT

with adolescent students. . PROFILE. Issues in Teacher Professional
Development, 16(2), 199-205. http://d x.doi. org/10.15 446/profile.v1 6n2.40 902.

Difference between Syllabus and Curriculum. Retrieved from: Difference between syllabus
and syllabus | Compare the difference between similar terms

Nunan, D. (1988). Syllabus Design. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Retrieved from:
https://vulms.vu.edu.pk/Courses/ENG522/Downloads/David%20Nunan
%20%20Syllabu%20Design%20(1988,%20Oxford%20University%20Press).pdf-

Richards, J. C., Difference between an approach and a method. Retrieved from:

https://www.professorjackrichards.com/difference-between-an-approach-and-a-method/

Richards, J. C. (1990). The language teaching matrix. . Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.