ENGLISH LANGUAGE CURRICULUM
Gymnasium: Languages – 4 hours per week, total 148;
General Gymnasium, Social Sciences,
Mathematics and Information Technology - 3 hours per week, total 111;
Natural Sciences – 2 hours per week, total 74
INTRODUCTION
Learning is a complex process of discovery, collaboration, and inquiry facilitated by language. Composed of interrelated and rule governed symbol systems, language is a social and uniquely human way of representing, exploring, and communicating meaning. Language is an essential tool for forming interpersonal relationship, understanding social situations, extending experiences, and reflecting on thought and action. Language is the principal instrument of thought and the primary basis of all communication.
PHILOSOPY
The program for English language will emphasize the importance of experiencing language in context. Learners’ background knowledge, skills and attitudes will be used as means of developing communicative abilities: interpreting, expressing and negotiating meaning through oral and written texts. As the learners develop communicative skills, they also increase their linguistic awareness and develop language learning skills and strategies.
In the English language program students will acquire various kinds of knowledge, skills and attitudes about:
● Interpreting, expressing and negotiating meaning (communication).
● Patterns of ideas, behaviours, manifestations, cultural artefacts and symbols (culture).
● Sounds, written symbols, vocabulary, grammar and discourse (language).
● Cognitive, socio-affective and meta-cognitive processes (general language education).
Learners will learn to communicate in English through the processes of ‘reception’, ‘comprehension’, ‘production’ and ‘negotiation’. Reception is receiving the information and decoding the message. Comprehension involves deriving meaning or significance from an oral or written text. Production is expressing meaning by creating oral and written texts to suit different participants, topics, purposes and reasons for communication. Negotiation is the interaction process: participants in the communication process must adjust to the needs and intentions of others. Integral to all three processes are the communicative intents or communicative functions, inquiring reporting, or describing and so on, which are developed in the experience / communication component. Students will also learn about the language and how to use it: the sound – symbol system, vocabulary, structures and discourse elements that are needed to convey ideas and enhance communication in an oral or written context.
AIMS
Following the long-term aims of the English Language Curriculum, in order to communicate effectively and increase their cultural understanding, in grade twelve learners should:
- Further develop, deepen and apply the four language skills;
- Deepen and broaden their linguistic and meta-linguistic knowledge;
- Use the target language for real-life purposes in order to integrate English with other learning areas;
- Develop respect and tolerance for cultures worldwide by increasing their awareness with regards to cultural similarities and differences;
- Become active participants in the learning process taking greater responsibility for their own learning and deepening their critical thinking skills;
- Increase their capability to learn independently and monitor their own progress as part of the process of becoming life-long learners.
The Scope ofGrade Twelve English Language Curriculum
I COMMUNICATION
Enable learners to deepen their language skills and gain ability and confidence for effective communication both with native and non-native speakers of English.1.Listening
General objective: Enable learners to listen to a wide variety of spoken discourse, including teachers, peers, and electronic media, and gain an increasing level of comprehension of newly acquired language.Specific objectives / Suggested language activities / Attainment targets
Learners should be able to:
- Listen for general meaning and respond orally or in writing;
- Listen for specific information and respond;
- Listen to more extended speech or lectures;
- Follow more complex lines of arguments;
- Listen to most TV news;
- Listen to a live or taped lecture, take notes or write summary;
- Listen for information or pleasure;
- Listen and gather data, take notes, and outline;
- Listen and raise awareness of how voice quality and intonation can convey meaning.
- Following instructions;
- Filling in charts;
- Completing incomplete texts;
- Summarising in their own words the passage they listened about;
- Listening to radio/TV commercials;
- Viewing a film;
- Listening to telephone conversation, recorded lectures, current events discussion;
- Listening to oral presentation of a poem, short story or reports on cultural events;
- Listening to monologues, radio programmes, interviews and presentations;
- Identifying moods;
- Answering true/false questions.
- Cope with language spoken at more extensive speed with little interference and hesitancy;
- Identify and note the main points ;
- Understand specific details including viewpoints;
- Understand the main points of radio, or TV programmes on topics of personal and professional interest when the delivery is at near normal speed;
- Understand (comprehend) the majority of films, most TV news and current affairs in Standard English;
- Understand extended speech and follow more complex lines of argument provided when the topic is reasonably familiar;
- Understand a range of materials that contains some more complex sentences and unfamiliar language.
- Reading
Specific objectives / Suggested language activities / Attainment targets
Learners should be able to:
- Make use of different reading strategies;
- Read both intensively and extensively;
- Read extracts from magazines and simplified novels for pleasure;
- Read articles and reports concerned with everyday life with an increased level of confidence;
- Identify and note main points with the help of bilingual and monolingual dictionaries;
- Read and analyse author’s intent.
- Matching activities;
- Inferring (guessing meaning of words from the context);
- Answering multiple choice questions;
- Summarising the main points of the text;
- Poems, short stories, simplified readers;
- Labelling paragraphs;
- Jigsaw reading;
- Completing texts with sentence gaps.
- Understand and respond to pieces of writing on subject matter containing more complex and unfamiliar language;
- Use vocabulary and structures found in reading to respond in speech and/or writing;
- Use reference material from magazines books and multi-media more confidently;
- Work out the meaning of language they do not know, using context and their knowledge of grammar quite confidently;
- Read with a gained confidence less complicated articles and reports.
- Speaking
Specific objectives / Suggested language activities / Attainment targets
Learners should be able to:
- Produce language with an increased degree of pronunciation and intonation;
- Interact with a greater degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible;
- Interrupt, ask about meaning and seek clarification or repetition;
- Engage in the exchange of views and experiences with other English speakers;
- Seek and give information;
- Express assumptions, beliefs and interferences orally;
- Express likes and dislikes and preferences;
- Agree, disagree and argue;
- Describe themselves and other people’s physical appearance and character;
- Obtain information using critical thinking skills;
- Summarise and discuss the content of an article.
- Dialogues/Role play;
- Conversation;
- Interviews;
- Retelling stories;
- Discussions;
- Giving opinions;
- Discussing photos;
- Problem solving activities.
- Make themselves quite clearly understood, when talking about their work in English, to peers and teachers, although there may be some hesitancy at times;
- Initiate, develop and end conversations;
- Discuss matters of personal and/or topical interest;
- Produce more accurate and fluent language expressing opinions, likes and dislikes, and preferences and demonstrate an increased competence in their delivery;
- Participate in a structured conversation of increasing length and complexity;
- Demonstrate understanding of the views and experiences of others and express their own viewpoints in English;
- Interpret the meaning of language with the help of visual and other non-verbal clues;
- Use English orally in a number of contexts, in order to relate, describe and explain as well as give reasons for their clues.
- Writing
Specific objectives / Suggested language activities / Attainment targets
Learners should be able to:
- Write clear and quite detailed texts on a wide range of subject-related and interest-related topics;
- Write common narrative essays or reports for a variety of audiences;
- Write an essay or article describing and analyzing common issues;
- Use basic capitalization and punctuation almost correctly (proper nouns, comma, full stop, question mark…);
- Develop a content of what they have read, seen or heard;
- Express and justify ideas;
- Make attempts at revising their own and peers’ writing.
- Filling in forms and applications;
- Writing notes, messages and e-mails;
- Advertisements;
- Invitations and thank you letters;
- Formal and informal letters;
- Writing an ending of a story;
- Keeping a personal diary;
- Vocabulary and word builders;
- Sentence and paragraph completion;
- Writing (taking) notes about someone;
- Transforming interviews into reports.
- Apply grammar in a new context. Although there may be somemistakes at times, the meaning they convey is usually clear;
- Fill in forms and applications, and write formal and informal letters;
- Understand and respond to short pieces of writing;
- Summariseideasin their own words;
- Produce pieces of writing of a variety of lengths related to past and present events and future plans, on real and imaginary subjects;
- Write with an increased confidence creative diaries, short essays, and simple stories.
II UNDERSTANDING AND USING ENGLISH
Increase learners’ awareness and deepen their cognitive and meta-cognitive skills.1.Sound and spelling system
General objective: Enable learners to notice the basic differences between the sound system and spelling alphabet of English and the mother tongue.Specific objectives / Suggested language activities / Attainment targets
Learners should be able to:
- Gain independence to learn more confidently particular aspects of sound system of English related to:
Individual sounds and sounds in group;
- Observe the rules of pronunciation of silent letters and correct stress;
- Notice how stress and intonation can change the meaning of a sentence;
- Notice and try to identify the accents;
- Read aloud with changing intonation to reflect affirmative, interrogative, and exclamatory sentences.
- Transcription and spelling exercises;
- Long and short vowels drills;
- Weak and strong forms drills;
- Word and sentence stress drills;
- Songs;
- Matching activities;
- Intonation drills.
- Spell common and familiar words;
- Match spelling and transcription of words and make attempts at transcribing words themselves;
- Identify and apply word stress;
- Pronounce word groups and utterances fairly accurately with appropriate stress, rhythm and intonation;
- Express increased confidence in their delivery and need little support from their teacher;
- Make an increased use of intonation to express emotions and feelings.
- Vocabulary
Specific objectives / Suggested language activities / Attainment targets
Learners should be able to:
- Use vocabulary found in reading to respond in speech and/or in writing;
- Understand and use new vocabulary found in context;
- Recognize and make use of synonyms, homonyms, and antonyms;
- Deal with, and make use of word families, multi-word verbs, and compound words;
- Choose and use aids when reading texts, writing and in other activities;
- Use a range of strategies to identify and understand unfamiliar words in texts.
- Word lists;
- Word families;
- Collocations;
- Multi-word verbs;
- Compounds words;
- Finding synonyms for words; or expressions;
- Word-building;
- Matching questions with replies;
- Colloquial expressions.
- Use mono and bilingual dictionaries and other reference materials with an increased confidence;
- Store and recall particular words;
- Explain words and expressions in their own words;
- Respond bilingually.
- Language Structures
Specific objectives / Suggested language activities / Attainment targets
Learners should be able to:
- Demonstrate knowledge of similarities and differences in word order of English and the mother tongue;
- Recognize and understand the function of parts of speech;
- Explore independently rules and regularities;
- Correct errors and mistakes as part of learning through error analysis;
- Show awareness of how words in the target language are constructed and spelled;
- Develop awareness of the relationship of structure to meaning.
- Get your tenses right;
- Fill the gaps;
- Correct errors and mistakes;
- Jigsaw sentences;
- Classify words into categories (e.g. people/objects, activities, qualities...);
- Completing texts;
- Texts with paragraph gaps.
- Recognize and apply basic sentence patterns;
- Distinguish between statements, questions, commands, and responses;
- Use the language with increased self-confidence and independence;
- Understand that spelling of words follows certain patterns.
- Discourse
Specific objectives / Suggested language activities /
Attainment targets
Learners should be able to:- Recognize discourse features in more extended spoken texts (e.g. words, expressions signalling introduction, exemplification and conclusion;
- Demonstrate knowledge of different types of social relations;
- Comprehend most visual and non-verbal clues;
- Use the information from the discourse to make well-informed predictions;
- Learn ready-made sets of interrelated interactions;
- Read newspapers and magazines to form opinions;
- Make attempts at discussing issues;
- Assimilate articles and short videos in the target language on topics being studied.
- Concept questions (WH- Questions);
- Dialogue practice;
- Listening to a conversation and modelling it into a role play;
- Reading a report of an event and modelling it into a role play;
- Discussing issues;
- Gaining time;
- Taking turns in group discussion;
- Reacting to suggestions;
- Initiate, maintain and end conversation;
- Take turns at talking and listening;
- Interrupt and change the topic;
- Vary the language to suit context, audience and purpose;
- Make use of visual and non-verbal clues;
- Generate and ask questions (of outside experts).
III MAKING CONNECTIONS
Enable learners to integrate learning areas and using English for real-life purposes and fulfilment of tasks.1.Subject matter connections
General objective: Enable learners to make and apply subject matter connections in order to transfer and reinforce content and skills of other areas such as science, fine arts, and sports.Specific objectives / Suggested language activities / Attainment targets
Learners should be able to:
- Reinforce their knowledge and skills developed in sciences (mathematics, physics, etc.);
- Demonstrate understanding of exchange rate and currency;
- Develop understanding of fine arts and music and beginning to describe them;
- Listen to, speak, read, and write about subject matter information;
- Listen to/watch sports programmes of various sports events in English and write simple reports;
- Cope positively with situations in sporting activities;
- Use a variety of topics for conversation;
- Select relevant from irrelevant information;
- Extend the sources of information available to them (“have a new window on the world”);
- View short videos in the target language on topics being studied.
- Measuring and comparing;
- Listening and guessing;
- Listening and acting;
- Listening and writing;
- Doing quizzes;
- Solving problems and puzzles.
- Use English to broaden knowledge of other subject areas;
- Present facts effectively orally and/or in writing;
- Produce extended texts on a wide range of subjects, explaining viewpoints on topical issues, arguing advantages and disadvantages of various options;
- Use sports terminology to discuss popular games and sports events of target language countries and make attempts at writing short reports;
- Make attempts at discussing a range of issues.
2.Transfer of skill and content
General objective: Transfer the skills and content of foreign language in order to better understand the skills and content of the mother tongue.Specific objectives / Suggested language activities /
Attainment targets
Learners should be able to:- Compare and contrast English and the mother tongue;
- Understand similarities and differences between English and the mother tongue by comparing texts in both languages;
- Explore materials of interest to them, analyse the content, compare it to information available in their own language, and assess the linguistic and cultural differences;
- Consider the mother tongue more analytically;
- Use new information and perspectives to compare their experiences with those of their peers in the target language;
- Compare a proverb, a quotation, an anecdote or a fun activityfrom the English speaking world that may be similar to their mother tongue.
- Read labels and ads in English and translate them into the mother tongue;
- Read a text in English/the mother tongue and summarize it in the mother tongue/English;
- Read two similar texts in both languages and locate similar and contrasting information;
- Telling anecdotes and jokes;
- Viewing a documentary film.