English II

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)

• 4. Quality education
• 16. Peace, justice and strong institutions

Objectives

The first goal of this course is to help students improve their spoken English skills to enable them to communicate more effectively in English. Secondly, the course also aims at helping students develop their pronunciation skills and overcome pronunciation problems when speaking English. The third objective of the course is to promote the phonological awareness of future teachers. In order to improve the pronunciation, students are introduced to basic concepts and main features of English phonetics and pronunciation. The approach of the subject promotes reflection on the development of oral English of children at infant and primary school.

Objectives

• To improve the oral communicative competence in English of future teachers.
• To understand the phonetic difficulties of EFL learners.
• To learn strategies to develop oral language skills of students in infant and primary education.
• To provide students with a sample of appropriate teaching resources and strategies for the teaching of oral English to young learners.

Learning outcomes

• Plan oral didactic activitat for infant and primary education. (LO1)
• Create and/or adapt didactic activities related to the oral language. (LO3)
• Adapt the oral Language and make it comprehensible for the students in each educational stage. (LO4)
• Reflect upon the resources and strategies that must be used in the process of teaching oral language. (LO5)
• Analyse the differences between the oral language and compare them to the L1 of the students. (LO2)
• Reflect upon academic articles related to aspects of the process of teaching/learning oral language. (LO6)

Competencies

Specific skills

• Acquire basic notions of the construction of knowledge in order to integrate them into educational activities that promote meaningful learning processes.
• Analyse, reflect on and promote the importance of teaching within the educational community, cultural life and society in general.
• Design, plan and assess teaching proposals for different areas of the curriculum, consistent with theories of learning and encouraging cooperative work.
• Develop and adapt educational resources for different curricular purposes, using information and communication technology as basic tools for learning.
• Manage and promote teaching and learning processes through tutoring in the early childhood classroom in a climate of tolerance and affective communication.
• Manage learning spaces in contexts of diversity and inclusion, taking into account the needs arising from disorders and learning difficulties, in order to establish appropriate guidelines for intervention in collaboration with other services, professionals and families.
• Promote the development of global communicative competence in multilingual contexts by using different strategies and linguistic and literary resources.
• Use information and communication technology and audiovisual media, making full use of their communicative and creative potential.

Basic skills

• Students can communicate information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialists and non-specialists.
• Students have demonstrated knowledge and understanding in a field of study that builds on general secondary education with the support of advanced textbooks and knowledge of the latest advances in this field of study.
• Students have developed the learning skills necessary to undertake further studies with a high degree of independent learning.
• Students have the ability to gather and interpret relevant data (usually within their field of study) in order to make judgements that include reflection on relevant social, scientific and ethical issues.

Core skills

• Use oral, written and audiovisual forms of communication, in one's own language and in foreign languages, with a high standard of use, form and content.

Content

Block 1. The acquisition of oral language and the development of phonological awareness

1. Perception, discrimination and production of sounds in English
   1. Vowel sounds, consonants and diphthongs
   2. The use of intonation and emphasis on oral discourse in English
   3. Difficulties in acquiring the English sounds

Block 2. Oral interaction in the classroom

2. Oral interaction in the classroom
   1. The development of oral language at infant and primary stages in an EFL context
   2. Understanding the development of the oral language: From imitation to autonomous production
3. Strategies and techniques for teaching and learning spoken language in an EFL context
   1. The sound system and listening
   2. The sound system and grammar
   3. The sound system and spelling

Evaluation

The final grade for the course will be the result of the marks in different tasks in the percentages indicated below:

1. Oral test: 35%
2. Written test: 25%
3. Sequence of oral activities (maximum 2/3 students): 20%
4. Reading aloud (telling a story): 20%

In order to pass the course, students are required to pass all the individual tasks. Minimum pass mark: 5

Students who do not pass the tasks and exams during the course will be allowed sit the exams and rewrite all the tasks again at the end of the semester.

Methodology

This course is designed as an introduction to the theoretical and practical aspects of learning spoken English in a school context. The methodology is active and participatory. To achieve the course objectives and competencies, it is essential to attend all class sessions regularly. The course is divided into three different components:

• Sessions with the whole group: Content will be addressed from a theoretical as well as a practical perspective.
• Sessions with half the group: Practical sessions to solve specific cases.
• Tutorials: An important and valuable component of English II is the individual meeting time students have scheduled with their course tutor and classroom instructor.

Bibliography

Key references

• Baker, Ann. (2006). Ship or Sheep?: An intermediate pronunciation course. Cambridge University Press.
• Celce-Murcia,M., D.Brinton & J.Goodwin (1997). Teaching pronunciation. Cambridge University Press.
• Grant, Linda (Ed) (2014). Pronunciation Myths: Applying Second Language Research to Classroom Teaching. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan.
• Hancock, Mark. (2003). English Pronunciation in Use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Hewings, Martin. (2007). English Pronunciation in Use: Advanced. Cambridge University Press.

Further reading

Teachers will provide complementary bibliography and compulsory reading throughout the course via the Virtual Campus.