68008 - English Language Lab 3 (G.I)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the Laboratory the student will be able to understand texts (level B1+/B2) on a variety of topics mainly concerning the teaching of English to young learners. He/she will be able to interact in English (level B1/B2), especially using simple language suitable for interaction with pupils in the classroom. The student will also have learnt how to write clear and simple texts (level B1+/B2) in English, and will be able to understand the main standard accents of several varieties of English. As for the student’s teaching skills, he/she will have learnt how to design and propose classroom activities for the teaching of English to young learners, especially activities concerning the teaching of pronunciation.

Course contents

https://www.gazzaro.it/b/ProgrAzzaroCurrent.html#lab_primaria_III_anno

 

In the 3rd year, students will start dealing with methodological aspects of English language teaching. Attention will still be paid, partially, to the consolidation of their language skills (which is supposed to be at least B1+), but the focus will be on pronunciation.

The 3^rd-year English lab will specifically deal with the following aspects: 1) English phonetics and prosody; 2. Teaching English pronunciation to young learners. The activities proposed will be aimed at improving student teachers’ pronunciation, thus allowing them to learn how to teach English in English with an acceptable pronunciation. Students will also have the opportunity to analyse and comment on materials and resources designed for the teaching of pronunciation to Infant- and Primary school pupils.

There will be 4 groups in the first semester and 4 groups in the second. Students can enrol to the group they prefer, either in the first or in the second semester. The 8 groups will be equivalent in the first and second semester, i.e. A=E, B=F, C=G, and D=H, and the level will be the same for all groups. Those who cannot enrol to any groups in the first semester will have to attend in the second semester.

NB: every year, more than half of the students manage to enrol in the first semester groups, occupying all the available places; the others, due to slow internet connections, are consequently left out and must attend in the second semester. SUCH PROBLEMS ARE NOT CAUSED BY THE UNIBO SERVERS, which support very heavy data traffic, but by local decentralised network failures or bottlenecks; it is therefore useless to ask for alternatives or to ask to be enrolled by the teachers. They cannot change enrolment lists.

For all English labs, attendance is mandatorily and exclusively face-to-face. The maximum number of absences allowed is 25% of the total number of hours offered, i.e. 8 hours. The first and last lessons are not mandatory. However, attendance to the first and last class is highly recommended (except in case of a serious emergency or objective impossibility to attend). This is because during the first lesson the teacher will present the contents of the lab, including information concerning the final exam, and in the last class the quality evaluation questionnaire (which id obligatory) will be submitted.

In case of absences in excess of the allowed 8 hours, students will have to attend the summer make-up workshops for the TOTAL number of hours they missed. For example, if a student misses 8 + 2 hours, he/she will have to attend 10 hours of the summer make-up lab.

Readings/Bibliography

No text is needed, and materials will be available on Moodle (Virtuale) during and after the course.

Teaching methods

Students will learn, test and showcase to the whole class various techniques for teaching English, and in particular English pronunciation to Primary- and Infant school children. To this purpose, they will work on improving their own pronunciation in order to speak and work in English. Moreover, they will also conceive and produce simple teaching activities which they will test on their classmates in the protected environment of the lab.

All the groups will familiarise with the IPA symbol chart of Standard Southern British English, and will be partially exposed to other varieties of accents.

The present possibilities offered by the European eTwinning experience will also be explained.

Assessment methods

Continuous assessment during the workshop can be used to give personalised advice. In-class tests may be administered on active pronunciation, fluency, intonation, comprehension, also with non-standard English accents. They will not count as part of the final exam, but they will be formative, and they will give students an idea of what to do to perform better orally, especially with children.

The final exam will be oral, and will take place in the usual exam sessions.

The oral exam will be entirely in English. Students will bring to the exam one teaching activity of their own and will discuss it or perform it to the teachers. This activity must show how the student teacher would perform in English with a class of Infant school or Primary school. The candidate can freely choose to prepare the activity for one or the other type of school. The materials or ideas presented should ideally aim to teach English pronunciation, but if a candidate prefers it, they can concentrate on simple lexical or grammatical issues. For example, students can choose a sound, or a group of sounds, a feature of English phonetics and/or prosody, or a grammatical structure, or some lexical items they would like to teach children; then they will create an activity with the necessary materials (cards, pictures, drawings, puppets, charts, mimes, theatrical contraptions, monsters, real-life objects, songs, etc.) to teach the topic they have chosen. When designing the activity, students will have to follow the instructions provided by the lab teacher (e.g. target age, objective, methodology etc.) In other words, the oral exam must be a demonstration/description of the activity the student has designed.

Students must be creative, imaginative, and add their own ideas and feelings about teaching with the materials they are showing us. The activities cannot be group activities, but each student must bring her/his own production.

Each oral exam will last approximately 10 minutes. The evaluation of the performance will be based on the following criteria: 1) Linguistic competence; 2) Quality and effectiveness of the activity to achieve the intended aim. Criterion no. 1) will count for 70% in the overall evaluation.

Teaching tools

Slides, OHP, audio files, videos, flashcards, or any other tools/instruments the lab teacher may deem necessary.

Office hours

See the website of Richard Jonathan Wright