Comunicación Oral y Escrita en Lengua Inglesa para Un Entorno Educativo B1+

Manuales Docentes
Grado en Educación Primaria

7
Mª Soraya García Sánchez
Santiago J. Henríquez Jiménez
Alejandro Rodríguez Suárez
Comunicación oral y escrita en lengua

inglesa para un entorno educativo B1+
2011
Manuales Docentes Grado en Educación Primaria
7 • Comunicación oral y escrita en lengua inglesa para un entorno educativo B1+
© del texto:
Mª Soraya García Sánchez
Santiago J. Henríquez Jiménez
Alejandro Rodríguez Suárez
© de la edición:
Vicerrectorado de Ordenación Académica
y Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior
UNIVERSIDAD DE LAS PALMAS DE GRAN CANARIA
Primera edición, 2011
ISBN:
978-84-15424-04-8
Depósito Legal:
GC 559-2011
Diseño y maquetación:
Servicio de Publicaciones y Difusión Científica
Impresión:
Servicio de Reprografía, Encuadernación y Autoedición
Impreso en España. Printed in Spain
Queda rigurosamente prohibida, sin la autorización escrita de los titulares del «Copyright», bajo las sanciones
establecidas por las leyes, la reproducción parcial o total de esta obra por cualquier medio o procedimiento,
comprendidos la reprografía y el tratamiento informático.
Índice
PRESENTACIÓN ................................................................................................................................11
INTRODUCCIÓN A LA ASIGNATURA................................................................................................13
UNIDAD DE APRENDIZAJE 1. HISTORY AND EVOLUTION OF THE ENGLISH

LANGUAGE TEACHING. DESIGNING A COURSE PLAN ..............................................................17
PRESENTACIÓN ..................................................................................................................................19
OBJECTIVES ........................................................................................................................................19
CONTENTS ..........................................................................................................................................20
PART 1 THE DEVELOPMENT IN LANGUAGE TEACHING. TRENDS IN THE TEACHING
OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE ........................................................................................20
1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................................20
2. The Grammar-Translation Method. Characteristics ..............................................................21
3. The Direct Method ......................................................................................................................22
3.1. Oral Approach or Situational Language Teaching ..........................................................22
3.2. The Audiolingual Method....................................................................................................23
4. Communicative Language Teaching..........................................................................................23
4.1. Total Physical Response ......................................................................................................25
4.2. The Silent Way ......................................................................................................................25
4.3. The Natural Approach ........................................................................................................26
4.4. Suggestopedia ........................................................................................................................26
5. The Communicative Language Teaching..................................................................................27
SELF-EVALUATION EXERCISES ..........................................................................................................28
PART 2. STARTING TO DESIGN A COURSE PLAN AND UNITS OF WORK ....................................29
1. Theoretical Justification ..............................................................................................................29
2. Course Plans..................................................................................................................................30
2.1. Definition, elements and aims ............................................................................................30
3. Objectives ......................................................................................................................................31
Í I
6 Mª Soraya García Sánchez, Santiago J. Henríquez Jiménez y Alejandro Rodríguez Suárez

KEYS ....................................................................................................................................................32
REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................................33
UNIDAD DE APRENDIZAJE 2. THE PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY OF THE ENGLISH

LANGUAGE. TEACHING TIPS. CONTEXTUALIZATION FOR A COURSE PLAN ........................35
PRESENTACIÓN ..................................................................................................................................37
OBJECTIVES ........................................................................................................................................37
CONTENTS ..........................................................................................................................................38
PART 1. The Phonetics and Phonology of the English Language ............................................38
1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................................38
2. The English Vowerl System........................................................................................................38
3. The English Consonant System ................................................................................................43
4. Stress, Rhythm and Intonation ..................................................................................................49
5. Teaching suggestions to solve pronunciation problems ........................................................54
PART 2. COURSE PLANS. CONTEXTUALIZATION ............................................................................57
KEYS ....................................................................................................................................................58
REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................................59
UNIDAD DE APRENDIZAJE 3. ENGLISH-SPEAKING CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE

AND CHILDREN’S LITERATURE: TEACHING TECHNIQUES. MIXED-ABILITY,
BASIC COMPETENCES AND CLIL ..................................................................................................61
PRESENTACIÓN ..................................................................................................................................63
OBJECTIVES ........................................................................................................................................63
CONTENTS ..........................................................................................................................................64
PART 1. ENGLISH-SPEAKING CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE AND CHILDREN’S
LITERATURE: TEACHING TECHNIQUES ..........................................................................................64
I. ENGLISH-SPEAKING CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE ....................................................................65
1. The United Kingdom ..................................................................................................................66
1.1. The British Empire and the internationalism of British 20th-Century
literary gallery ......................................................................................................................66
1.2. Innovations and influences in late English fiction ..........................................................67
2. The United States of America....................................................................................................68
2.1. American Short Story of the late 20th century................................................................68
2.2. Contemporary novel in the USA........................................................................................71
3. English-Speaking contemporary poetry ..................................................................................72
3.1. American 20th century poetry ............................................................................................72
Índice 7 I Í
3.2. Late 20th-century English and Irish Poetry......................................................................74
4. English-speaking contemporary drama ....................................................................................75
4.1. American drama of the late 20th century ........................................................................75
II. ENGLISH CHILDREN’S LITERATURE AND TEACHING STRATEGIES............................................77
1. An introduction to teaching literature ......................................................................................77
1.1. Teaching techniques..............................................................................................................77
1.2. Aims in teaching literature ..................................................................................................78
2. Definitions ....................................................................................................................................78
3. Selecting and using children’s literature ....................................................................................79
4. Children’s literature: Illustrations and their function ..............................................................81
5. Children’s literature: Language features ....................................................................................81
6. A selection of important world-wide works ............................................................................82
PART 2. COURSE PLANS. MIXED-ABILITY, BASIC COMPETENCES AND CONTENT ......................83
KEYS ....................................................................................................................................................86
REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................................88
UNIDAD DE APRENDIZAJE 4. GEOGRAPHIC, HISTORIC AND CULTURAL FRAMEWORK

OF ENGLISH-SPEAKING COUNTRIES. UNIT OF WORK ............................................................91
PRESENTACIÓN ..................................................................................................................................93
OBJECTIVES ........................................................................................................................................93
CONTENTS ..........................................................................................................................................94
PART 1. GEOGRAPHIC, HISTORIC AND CULTURAL FRAMEWORK ................................................94
1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................................94
2. English round the world..............................................................................................................94
3. The United Kingdom ..................................................................................................................97
4. Ireland ..........................................................................................................................................105
5. United States of America..........................................................................................................110
PART 2. UNIT OF WORK ................................................................................................................117
SELF-EVALUATION EXERCISES ........................................................................................................118
KEYS..................................................................................................................................................118
REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................................119
UNIDAD DE APRENDIZAJE 5. SONGS, GAMES AND OTHER CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES.

THE ACTIVITIES IN A UNIT OF WORK ......................................................................................121
PRESENTACIÓN ................................................................................................................................123
OBJECTIVES ......................................................................................................................................123
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CONTENTS ........................................................................................................................................124
PART 1. GAMES AND OTHER CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES ..............................................................124
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................124
2. Use of the songs in the classroom ..........................................................................................124
2.1. Using songs with very young children ............................................................................125
2.2. Teaching through songs ....................................................................................................126
2.3. How to use the songs in the classroom ..........................................................................127
2.4. Song characteristics ............................................................................................................127
2.5. Types of songs ....................................................................................................................128
2.6. Activities to carry out ........................................................................................................129
3. Use of the game in the classroom ..........................................................................................131
3.1. Importance of classroom games......................................................................................131
3.2. Choosing games ..................................................................................................................132
3.3. When to use games ............................................................................................................132
3.4. Types of games ..................................................................................................................132
4. Classroom activities....................................................................................................................133
4.1. Types of classroom activities ............................................................................................135
PART 2. THE ACTIVITIES IN THE COURSE PLAN AND UNIT OF WORK ........................................139
KEYS..................................................................................................................................................141
REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................................142
UNIDAD DE APRENDIZAJE 6. THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF LINGUISTICS TO THE

ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING. METHODOLOGY AND EVALUATION IN THE
COURSE PLAN AND UNIT OF WORK ............................................................................................143
PRESENTACIÓN ................................................................................................................................145
OBJECTIVES ......................................................................................................................................145
CONTENTS ........................................................................................................................................146
PART 1. CONTRIBUTIONS OF LINGUISTICS TO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ................................146
1. Theoretical Linguistics ..............................................................................................................146
1.1. Grammar ..............................................................................................................................146
1.2. Phonetics and phonology..................................................................................................147
1.3. Morphology ........................................................................................................................147
1.4. Syntax....................................................................................................................................147
1.5. Semantics..............................................................................................................................148
1.6. Pragmatics ............................................................................................................................149
2. Applied Linguistics ....................................................................................................................150
Índice 9 I Í
2.1. Historical linguistics............................................................................................................150
2.2. Descriptive linguistics and anthropology ........................................................................150
2.3. Psycholinguistics ................................................................................................................151
2.4. Sociolinguistics ....................................................................................................................151
3. The Process of language learning: second language acquisition and learning ................152
3.1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................152
3.2. An approach to some theories on second language acquisition..................................153
4. Attitude and Motivation ............................................................................................................158
4.1. Kinds of motivation ..........................................................................................................159
PART 2. METHODOLOGY AND EVALUATION ................................................................................161
1. Methodology ..............................................................................................................................161
2. Evaluation....................................................................................................................................162
2.1. Evaluation criteria ..............................................................................................................163
2.2. Types of Evaluation ..........................................................................................................163
2.3. Evaluation instruments ......................................................................................................164
2.4. Evaluation of the course plan ..........................................................................................164
KEYS..................................................................................................................................................166
REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................................167
Presentación
Hace mil años se fundaron las primeras universidades en Europa y algunas de ellas aún
perduran, demostrando su capacidad de pervivencia y adaptación a lo largo del tiempo. La
Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, sin embargo, no es una institución de enseñanza
superior que hunda sus raíces en el Medievo. Desde su creación en 1989, la ULPGC se ha
convertido en una universidad pública consolidada, en cuyas aulas se pueden estudiar todas
las grandes áreas del saber, como muestra la amplia oferta académica de títulos de grado, pos-
grado y doctorado.
La relativa juventud de la Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria le ha permitido
avanzar con paso decidido en la implantación de las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comu-
nicación (TIC). Mientras otras universidades españolas con mayor tradición aún no han hecho
más que tímidos avances en la incoporación de las TIC como apoyo a la enseñanza presencial,
nuestra Universidad, desde hace ya varios años, no sólo ha apostado por su utilización, sino
que incluso, ha sabido aprovechar estos progresos tecnológicos para ofertar algunas enseñanzas
en modo no presencial.
El resultado es ya bien conocido por los cientos de estudiantes, tanto nacionales como
extranjeros, que están cursando algunas de las titulaciones oficiales que la Universidad de Las
Palmas de Gran Canaria oferta a través de su Estructura de Teleformación. En la actualidad,
la ULPGC oferta titulaciones oficiales en la modalidad no presencial, que han permitido acercar
nuestra Universidad a aquellos estudiantes que, por razones geográficas o por falta de dispo-
nibilidad horaria, no pueden acercarse de forma presencial a nuestras aulas. Paralelamente, se
ha ido incrementando la oferta de estudios de posgrado y los títulos propios, también en la
modalidad de enseñanza no presencial.
A pesar de los avances tecnológicos en el acceso a la información por parte de los estu-
diantes, somos conscientes de que los manuales y las guías docentes constituyen una pieza
clave en el sistema de enseñanza universitaria no presencial. Nuestra Universidad ha sabido
apostar por la edición de estos materiales didácticos, realizados por los expertos universitarios
que imparten estas materias en el Campus Virtual de la ULPGC. No quiero dejar pasar la
oportunidad para agradecer a sus autores la profesionalidad y el empeño que han puesto en
la realización de estas obras.
Nadie puede asegurar cuántas de las universidades actuales pervivirán, no ya dentro de mil
años, sino siquiera dentro de unas decenas de años. Pero no me cabe la menor duda de que,
en el inmediato futuro que nos aguarda, aquellas instituciones universitarias que no sepan
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12 Presentación
rentabilizar la utilización de las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación, pueden

comprometer seriamente su desarrollo inmediato. En este sentido, desde la Universidad de
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, podemos sentirnos satisfechos por el trabajo realizado hasta la
fecha, aunque somos conscientes de que el camino por recorrer en los próximos años es pro-
metedor.
José Regidor García

RECTOR
Introducción de la asignatura
PRESENTACIÓN
El manual, primordialmente de comprensión escrita, que el estudiante tiene ahora en sus

manos es de lectura fácil, aplicación sencilla y adecuado al programa de ejecución. Responde,
sobre todo, a un nivel perfectamente asequible para un alumnado que ha trabajado, de manera
abundante, con la lengua inglesa en cursos anteriores. Hace hincapié, por tanto, en las fases
lectoras por medio de textos de contenido científico amplio, y poslectora a través de distintos
ejercicios (de respuesta abierta, de relleno de espacios, de elección múltiple o emparejamiento)
en donde se hace trabajar al alumnado la destreza de expresión escrita, ante todo, si bien en
otros se ejercita la pronunciación, y la gramática y el léxico de manera más bien autónoma,
dejando para las actividades on-line la práctica de otras destrezas comunicativas como la ex-
presión y comprensión oral. Asimismo, se ajusta perfectamente al Plan de Estudios de Ma-
gisterio de teleformación, teniendo en cuenta, en este sentido, una gama de contenidos y
actividades en los que la didáctica y los conocimientos del idioma se amoldan con concreción
y absoluto acierto al devenir de la sociedad actual, en el terreno de la educación, de los sistemas
educativos, de los logros, exigencias y prioridades que demanda la sociedad del conocimiento.
El estudiante comprobará que algunos temas como los recogidos en el módulo I sobre la
historia y evolución de la lengua inglesa le proveerán no solo de un acopio importante de
ideas y conceptos al respecto, sino que le servirán como referencia para adquirir y poner en
práctica competencias estratégicas en su bregar cotidiano y didáctico con las actividades por
destrezas en el aula. Lo que es más, se introducen tanto algunas nociones como aspectos esen-
ciales que incluir en el diseño de una programación didáctica en estas etapas para contribuir
de este modo a la toma de conciencia de lo que significa programar en el entorno educativo.
Por otro lado, en estas etapas de primaria, adquiere especial relevancia la correcta y amena
docencia de la pronunciación. Así, el módulo II del manual se centra en un análisis si bien
breve pero lo suficientemente científico y didáctico de aspectos fonéticos, fonológicos y pro-
sódicos del inglés, además de suministrar ciertas técnicas docentes de dicha pronunciación.
También se siguen analizando factores, el de contextualización en este caso, y su relevancia
en la programación anual. Si los conocimientos de la pronunciación más sus correctas estra-
tegias pedagógicas resultan necesarias en Primaria, tanto o más lo es los correspondientes a
los libros y cuentos infantiles. Así, se ha optado por insertar en el módulo III unos textos que
posibiliten al futuro maestro unos conocimientos sobre literatura contemporánea básica, por
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una parte, y sobre literatura infantil, por otra, en un intento de conocer tanto las corrientes
más importantes de literatura general como de niños, y de leer un número de aplicaciones di-
dácticas indispensables. A su vez, la lectura de algunas ideas sobre atención a la diversidad,
las competencias básicas y los proyectos CLIL contribuirán a que los estudiantes comiencen
a familiarizarse en estos conceptos cada vez más importante en la legislación vigente en ma-
teria educativa y, por ende, didáctica en los centros escolares. El módulo IV se ha dedicado
íntegramente a la cultura, a la trascendencia que reviste la lengua inglesa en el mundo actual
y ha puesto especial énfasis en características geográficas, históricas, políticas y religiosas del
Reino Unido y de los Estados Unidos de Norteamérica. Nociones, clasificaciones y aplica-
ciones prácticas de algo tan primordial como los juegos, la música y las actividades lúdicas
constituyen el centro neurálgico del módulo V, en donde se detallan igualmente un buen nú-
mero de sugerencias y técnicas metodológicas que impulsen el dinamismo, la atención y la
motivación en el aula de lengua extranjera en estas etapas, a la vez, que se especifican otros
rasgos de estas actividades en la última parte del tema. Por último, el sexto módulo hace un
breve recorrido por la lingüística teórica y aplicada destacando la especial trascendencia que
ha revestido para la enseñanza y aprendizaje de la lengua inglesa y, en especial, para el proceso
de adquisición de la lengua extranjera, sin olvidar de resaltar la importancia conferida a la ac-
titud y motivación en este proceso. Se concluye el capítulo desglosando otros puntos (con-
ceptos y taxonomía) de gran peso específico en la educación actual como son la metodología
que emplear y la evaluación que utilizar en el centro y en el aula.
Constatará, adicionalmente, el alumnado que un gran número –si no todos– de los temas
contenidos en los módulos forman parte del temario general requerido para las pruebas teó-
ricas del Concurso-Oposición para el Cuerpo de Maestros de todo el territorio nacional y, en
especial, el regional, tanto en su lado teórico como práctico.
Cada módulo incorpora unos sencillos ejercicios de auto-evaluación con sus respectivas
soluciones, y la bibliografía consultada y/o citada que, igualmente, puede servir de referencia
al estudiante para continuar formándose en el saber científico y didáctico.
OBJETIVOS
• Comprender los detalles más relevantes sobre la evolución de la didáctica de la lengua

inglesa.
• Producir textos escritos sobre enfoques didácticos, además de una justificación teórica
y objetivos generales de una programación.
• Entender nociones básicas pero científicamente importantes sobre el sistema vocálico,
consonántico y prosódico y desarrollar estrategias didácticas para enseñar la pronunciación.
• Familiarizarse con los detalles relevantes de conceptos y corrientes de literatura
contemporánea inglesa, la literatura infantil y desarrollar técnicas para su enseñanza.
• Identificar los conceptos de atención a la diversidad, CLIL y competencias básicas.
• Conocer factores lingüísticos, históricos, geográficos y artísticos sobre algunos países
donde se habla la lengua inglesa (Estados Unidos y el Reino Unido).
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Introducción de la asignatura 15 A
• Descubrir y poner en práctica los usos didácticos de la música (canciones) y el juego en
el aula de lengua extranjera.
• Concienciarse de las diferentes etapas del proceso educativo y distinguir diferentes
tipos de materiales.
• Descubrir las aportaciones más relevantes de la lingüística a la enseñanza de la lengua
inglesa.
• Conocer conceptos de metodología y evaluación y desarrollar habilidades escritas
(resúmenes, ensayos) al respecto.
• Promover el desarrollo de la autonomía y responsabilidad en el estudiante en el
transcurso de cada módulo de los que conforman el programa académico.
• Suscitar el interés del alumnado tanto por la enseñanza de la lengua inglesa como su
didáctica.
CONTENIDO
UNIDAD DE APRENDIZAJE 1. HISTORIA Y EVOLUCIÓN DE LA ENSEÑANZA DE LA LENGUA

INGLESA. DISEÑO DE UNA PROGRAMACIÓN DIDÁCTICA
1. El método de la Gramática-Traducción.
2. El método directo.
3. La enseñanza comunicativa de la lengua.
4. El currículo comunicativo.
5. Programaciones didácticas: La justificación teórica y los objetivos.
UNIDAD DE APRENDIZAJE 2. LA FONÉTICA Y LA FONOLOGÍA DE LA LENGUA INGLESA. CON-

SEJOS DIDÁCTICOS. LA CONTEXTUALIZACIÓN EN LA PROGRAMACIÓN DIDÁCTICA
1. El sistema vocálico inglés.
2. El sistema consonántico inglés.
3. El acento, el ritmo y la entonación.
4. Sugerencias didácticas para resolver problemas de pronunciación.
5. Programaciones didácticas: la contextualización.
UNIDAD DE APRENDIZAJE 3. LA LITERATURA CONTEMPORÁNEA EN HABLA INGLESA Y LA

LITERATURA INFANTIL: TÉCNICAS PEDAGÓGICAS. ATENCIÓN A LA DIVERSIDAD, COMPETENCIAS
BÁSICAS Y EL PROYECTO CLIL
1. Literatura contemporánea en lengua inglesa.
2. Literatura infantil y estrategias de enseñanza.
3. Programaciones didácticas: atención a la diversidad, competencias básicas y proyecto
CLIL.
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UNIDAD DE APRENDIZAJE 4. MARCO GEOGRÁFICO, HISTÓRICO Y CULTURAL DE LOS PAÍSES

DE HABLA INGLESA
1. El inglés en el mundo.
2. El Reino Unido.
3. Irlanda.
4. Estados Unidos.
5. Unidad didáctica: descripción y partes.
UNIDAD DE APRENDIZAJE 5. CANCIONES, JUEGOS Y OTRAS ACTIVIDADES DE CLASE. LAS

ACTIVIDADES DE LA UNIDAD DIDÁCTICA
1. Uso de las canciones en clase.
2. Uso del juego en clase.
3. Actividades de clase.
4. Las actividades en la programación didáctica.
UNIDAD DE APRENDIZAJE 6. APORTACIONES DE LA LINGÜÍSTICA A LA ENSEÑANZA DE LA

LENGUA INGLESA. METODOLOGÍA Y EVALUACIÓN EN LA PROGRAMACIÓN Y EN LA UNIDAD
DIDÁCTICA
1. Aportaciones de la lingüística a la enseñanza de la lengua inglesa.
a) Lingüística teórica.
b) Lingüística aplicada.
c) El proceso de aprendizaje de la lengua: adquisición y aprendizaje de la segunda lengua.
d) Actitud y motivación.
2. Metodología y evaluación.
History and Evolution of The English Language
Teaching. Designing a Course Plan
1 Unidad de
Aprendizaje
PRESENTACIÓN
Es evidente que la enseñanza de idiomas es, en términos generales, abiertamente comuni-

cativa en todos los niveles de la enseñanza reglada y no reglada. No obstante, se hace necesario
que el docente de lengua extranjera obtenga unos conocimientos básicos pero imprescindibles
sobre la evolución de la enseñanza de la lengua inglesa en lo que a diferentes modelos y teorías
se refiere.
El conocimiento de la historia de la enseñanza resulta necesaria para observar que los mo-
delos actuales se han impregnado de los anteriores. Ciertos ejercicios y actividades no tan di-
námicos no solo han bebido de enfoques metodológicos pretéritos sino que, incluso, que
integran nuestra práctica docente habitual.
Por tanto, se ha dividido el módulo en dos grandes partes, centrándose la primera en el
breve desarrollo de teorías y modelos de enseñanza que datan de mediados del siglo XX para
acabar con las vertientes más recientes y comunicativas. La segunda parte presenta los puntos
principales de una programación en lengua inglesa con análisis de su justificación teórica y
objetivos.
OBJECTIVES
At the end of this module, you will be able to:

• Understand the main points and relevant details of accounts of the evolution of
language from its origins.
• Develop reading skills by scanning texts (on the evolution of the teaching) for specific
information then reading the texts in more detail.
• Develop writing skills by writing short summaries and short texts about didactic
approaches, theoretical justification of course plans and general objectives.
• Understand what a course plan is and know its main components.
• Start to write an introduction to a course plan with its theoretical justification.
• Promote and develop autonomy by consulting extra reading material related to the
unit.
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CONTENTS
PART 1. THE DEVELOPMENT IN LANGUAGE TEACHING. TRENDS IN THE

TEACHING OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE
CHARTS OF CONTENTS
2. The
Grammar
Translation
5. Method
3. The Direct
Communicative
Method
Syllabus
3.1 Oral
Approach or
4.4 Suggesto Situational
pedia Language
Teaching
HISTORY OF
THE
ENGLISH
LANGUAGE
TEACHING
3.2 The
4.3 The Natural Audilingual
Approach Method
4
4.2 The Silent Communicative
Way Language
4.1 Total Teaching
Physical
Response
1. INTRODUCTION
Changes in language teaching methods throughout history have reflected the different
theories that have been proposed to account for how second languages are acquired. For
instance, we have noticed a movement towards oral proficiency rather than reading
comprehension.
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History and Evolution of The English Language Teaching. Designing a Course Plan 21 1
To begin with, it is true that most of them have survived and are still being used by a
number of teachers. Moreover, the methods themselves have been modified by teachers and
textbook writers. What is more, there have been considerable borrowings from one method
by another. So, as we can see, the very idea of method is becoming a source of reference
rather than something fixed. However, most methods are considered some sort of archetypes
and offer a clear picture of the way language teaching has developed in the present century.
As modern languages began to enter the syllabus of European schools in the eighteenth
century, they were taught using the same basic procedures that were used for teaching Latin.
Obviously speaking the foreign language was not the main goal and in this sense oral practice
was limited to students reading aloud the sentences they had translated.
By the end of the 19th century, this approach based on the study of Latin had become the
standard way of studying foreign languages in schools and became known as.
2. THE GRAMMAR-TRANSLATION METHOD. CHARACTERISTICS
THE GRAMMAR
TRANSLATION
METHOD
Grammar is taught
The goal is to learn a Reading and writing, deductively, that is, by
language in order t o then, are the major focus presentation and study of
read its literature grammar rules which are
then practised through
translation exercises
The Grammar-Translation method dominated foreign language teaching until 1940’s and
in a modified form it continued to be widely used today.
Teaching applications
Despite the fact that Grammar Translation has received a century’s worth of bad press it
is notable how many of its techniques are still applicable to our classrooms today. The
English language’s irregular past tenses spring to mind. Dictation is another example of an
activity which has been handed down, although hopefully our dictations bear little
resemblance to those of the Grammar Translation Method. However, it is interesting to note
that the purpose and aims of a dictation have not changed significantly. Board dictations,
picture dictations and article grouping are just three communicative forms of this activity
which come to hand quickly.
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In the mid and late 19th century, opposition to the Grammar-Translation Method gradually
developed in several European countries. Since the Grammar-Translation Method was not
very effective in preparing students to use the target language communicatively, another
method became popular, this was.
3. THE DIRECT METHOD
The Direct
Method
Oral Approach Situational Language The Audiolingual

Teaching Method
The believers of the Direct Method, also known as the oral or natural method, argued
that a foreign language could be taught without translation and the use of a learner’s native
tongue. They thought that a language could best be taught by using it actively in the
classroom and so learners would be able to induce rules of grammar and acquire vocabulary
more naturally than memorizing word lists.
The emphasis is placed on good pronunciation often introducing phonetic transcription
before the students see the standard orthography. Formal grammatical rules and terminology
are avoided. The purpose of language learning is communication.
The direct method continues to attract interest and enthusiasm but it was not an easy
approach to use in school. As a result, several variants of the method have evolved. Among
them, we find the oral approach or situational language teaching in Britain and the
audio lingual method in the USA.
3.1. Oral Approach or Situational Language Teaching
The Oral Approach was the accepted British approach to English language teaching by
the 1950’s. Its impact has been long lasting and it has shaped the design of many widely used
textbooks and courses. The main characteristics of the approach were the following:
• The target language is the target of the classroom.
• Items of grammar are graded following the principle that simple forms should be
taught before complex ones.
I
• Reading and writing are introduced once lexical and grammatical basis are established.
• New language points are introduced and practised substantionally.
This last principle became a key feature of the approach in the sixties and it was then that
the term situational was used increasingly in TEFL.
3.2. The Audiolingual Method
The emergence of the Audiolingual Method resulted from the increased attention given
to foreign language teaching in the US towards the end of the 1950’s. This method, like the
Direct Method, is also an oral-based approach. However, it is very different: rather than
emphasizing vocabulary acquisition though exposure to its use in situations, the Audio-lingual
Method drills students in the use of grammatical sentence patterns. So, language is seen as
a process of habit formation and so structural patterns in dialogues about everyday
situations are imitated and repeated until the learner’s responses become automatic.
Some principles from behavioural psychology (Skinner) were incorporated in this method.
It was thought that the way to acquire the sentence patterns of the target language was through
conditioning, helping learners to respond correctly through shaping and reinforcement. It was
important to prevent errors because they led to the formation of bad habits.
As we can see, there is little discussion of grammatical rules. Language is first heard, and
then practised orally, before being seen and used in written form. Students follow the ‘natural
order’, the same way they did when they learnt their native language. The teacher provides
students with a good model and they mimic this model.
Examples:
It is extraordinary that we still use so many activities from these two methods considering
their totally uncommunicative nature. The PPP method is still taught in most courses as the
ideal to aim for. Substitution tables and drilling are both common in classes world-wide and
have been well-adapted to communicative methodology. We have our use of realia and a lot
of good pronunciation work for language labs from these methods.
The Audiolingual Method’s reliance on drills and habit formation made it less popular
since in the 1960’s several fresh approaches arose aiming to provide a radical alternative to
traditional methods. That’s the case of the method known as.
4. COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING
During the 1970’s there was a widespread reaction against the method we have just
outlined. This reaction was mainly based on the fact that Chomsky had demonstrated the
need to focus on communicative proficiency rather than on mere mastery of structures.
He proposed that speakers have knowledge of underlying abstract rules which allow them to
understand and create new utterances.
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So, as we can notice, the communicative approach in language teaching starts from a
theory of language as communication. The goal of language teaching is to develop
communicative competence, that is, “the ability to use the linguistic system effectively and
appropriately.
MAIN FEATURES
TO COMMUNICATE
FUNCTIONAL AND STRUCTURAL ASPECTS
AUTHENTIC USE OF LANGUAGE
LIMITED RANGE OF ACTIVITIES
Communicative methods have attracted universal interest and influenced the practice of
modern foreign language teaching. But there has also been a critical reaction. Of particular
importance is the need to provide learners with principles to make a bridge between functional
aspects of language and the correct use of formal structures. There has been considerable
discussion of the way Communicative Language Teaching might develop in the future.
Communicative Language Teaching: Approaches
Content-Based Instruction: Task-Based Approachǣ

Total Physical Response: Participatory Approaachǣ

The Silent Way: The Natural Approach:

ǡ
Ǧ
Suggestopedia: The Learning Strategy Training

The Cooperative Learning The Multiple Intelligence Approach

I
There are more approaches that make communication central, approaches where rather
than learning to use English, students use English to learn it. The Content-Based
Instruction, for example, integrates the learning of language with the learning of some
other content, often academic subject matter (language across the curriculum). As with
Content-Based Instruction, a Task-Based Approach aims to provide learners with a natural
context for language use. As learners work to complete a task, they have abundant
opportunity to interact.
The Participatory Approach was originated in the work of Paulo Freire. Its goal is to
help students to understand the social, historical or cultural forces that affect their lives and to
empower students to take action and make decisions in order to gain control over their lives.
4.1. Total Physical Response
This is a language teaching method built round the coordination of speech and action.
It attempts to teach language through physical activity. Total Physical Response was
developed by James Asher who states that most of the grammatical structures of the target
language and hundreds of vocabulary items can be learned from the use of the imperative
by an instructor, so, there is no basic textbook.
The problem with this method is that it deals with only the very beginning stages of
learning. Asher himself has stressed that the Total Physical Response should be used in
association with other methods and techniques.
4.2. The Silent Way
We should also take into account the Silent Way Method. This method is based on the
“discovery learning”. According to this method the teacher should be silent as much as possible
in the classroom and the learner should be encouraged to produce as much as possible in the
classroom. Silence is a tool to foster autonomy and initiative.
Language acquisition is seen as a procedure whereby people use their own thinking
process, or cognition, to discover the rules of the language they are acquiring. In the course
of our learning, we integrate into ourselves whatever ‘new’ that we create, and we use it as a
stepping stone for further learning. The Silent Way is then related to a set of premises that
we have called “problem-solving” approaches to learning. These premises are represented in
these words of Benjamin Franklin:
Tell me and I forget
teach me and I remember
involve me and I learn.
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4.3. The Natural Approach
Another method which aims to provide a radical alternative to traditional methods is the
Natural Approach. This method emphasizes “natural” language acquisition.
It was developed by Tracy D. Terrell following the hypotheses of Stephen Krashen. It
stresses the importance of emotional rather than cognitive factors. In this sense, creating a
‘low affective filter’ is a condition for learning that is met when there is a good classroom
atmosphere. If anxiety is reduced, the students’ self-confidence is boosted.
The mastering of vocabulary is considered more important than the learning of grammatical
rules. Students acquire vocabulary through their receiving meaningful exposure to the target
language.
There is no formal correction because the aim is to establish an ability to understand the
basic content of a communication in informal settings. The input is considered very important,
the more input the better.
4.4. Suggestopedia
Another approach deals with the method regarded as suggestopedia. Suggestopedia is an

affective-humanistic approach. It was developed by Lozanov and is based on the view that
the brain has great unused potential which can be exploited through the power of
suggestion. We set up psychological barriers to learning. When we overcome those barriers
to learning, we can make better use of our reserved capacity. So, learning occurs through
suggestion, when learners are in a deeply relaxed state and classical music is used to induce
this state.
The emphasis is on informal communication and no attention is drawn to grammatical
error. On the whole, it claims that learners assimilate far more such an “immersion” than
would traditionally be expected.
To finish off, we can mention other means of teaching languages as the Learning
Strategy Training, the Cooperative Learning or the Multiple Intelligences Approach.
The Learning Strategy Training consists of studying certain learning strategies in order to
improve students’ learning effectiveness, which contributes to their academic success. The
Cooperative or Collaborative Learning essentially involves students learning from each other
in groups. According to the Multiple Intelligences Approach, teachers deliberately plan
lessons so that the different students’ learning styles or multiple intelligences are represented.
As we can see, in the long search for the best way of teaching a foreign language different
approaches or methods have been developed. Each method is based on a particular view of
language learning and usually recommends the use of a specific set of techniques and
materials.
I
Examples
These approaches provide us with a wealth of activities. We have the cuisinaire rods from
Silent Way, the use of background music from Suggestopedia and the recording of students
and negotiated syllabus from CLL. These methods may have died out but their values and
attitudes continue. The humanistic element has entered the classroom.
We have come a long way from the early stages where the foreign language was normally
introduced in a deductive way to much more situational or communicative approaches where
teachers are expected to resort to lots of different devices in order to increase the input. So
What is the situation nowadays?
Probably, most teachers of EFL nowadays, if asked what method they use, would reply
that their approach is eclectic. By this, they mean that they do not follow any single method
but rather than they use a selection of techniques. On the other hand, it is much more
flexible and can easily be adapted to suit a wide variety of teaching situations. Perhaps its
biggest advantage is that a teacher who approaches TEFL eclectically is more likely to keep
an eye open for new techniques and approaches.
• Deductive approach: Learners are given the rule and asked to apply it.
• Inductive approach: Learners discover the rules from the examples and then practice it.
5. THE COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING
With the communicative activities we change perspective and adopt an entirely different
view of the target language. The communicative syllabus represents thus a relatively new concept.
Teachers have been familiar with communicative activities for many years; but the idea of
making use of them systematically and of developing a distinct syllabus of such activities is
certainly not widely known and probably even less widely applied. This type of syllabus is
one of the most important recent developments in second language curriculum.
In a communicative syllabus the main focus is on the activities themselves, topic or
experience, and not on the language as such or any single aspect of it. What is a ‘communicative
activity’ then? We use this term to designate motivated activities, topics, and themes which
involve the learner in authentic communication. Communicative activities may be major
enterprises including activities beyond the classroom (e.g. the arrangements for a class trip or
exchange visit to the target community may involve a quite substantial number of
communicative activities). Students will find themselves in various real-life situations where
the target language must be used. These are communicative activities par excellence. The focus
is not on learning specific language features but on putting the language to use as the
circumstances require.
The natural setting provides the best possible conditions for learning the target language
‘communicatively’. In order to have a prototype for communication in a second language
classroom, we will begin by pointing out four key features of communication in a natural
setting:
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KEY FEATURES IN
Contact with foreign
A NATURAL
speakers
SETTING
Personal involvement:
Various target language
Authentic language use Motivation,
settings
background
SELF-EVALUATION EXERCISES
1. Mention the main characteristics of the variant of Direct Method Approach the
Oral Approach.
2. Complete with the following terms below

a) In a _____________________________ the main focus is on the activities themselves,
topic or experience, and not on the language as such or any single aspect of it.
b) The method of __________________ was developed by _______________ and is
based on the view that the brain has great unused potential which can be exploited
through the power of suggestion.
c) The ____________________ stresses the importance of emotional elements and a
good classroom atmosphere and the vocabulary is more important than grammar rules.
d) The Silent Way method is based on the “_________________”.
Lozanov; Skinner; Chomsky; Suggestopedia; Natural Approach; Grammar-Translation

Method; Discovery learning; Deductive learning; Communicative Syllabus
I
PART 2. STARTING TO DESIGN A COURSE PLAN AND UNITS OF WORK
Before we start to develop some ideas, we could provide you with the elements of a good
Course Plan.
Course Plan
1 INTRODUCTION AND THEORETICAL

JUSTIFICATION
2 CONTEXTUALIZATION
3 DEALING WITH MIX-ABILITY TEACHING

(DIVERSITY) AND SPECIAL NEEDS
4 OBJECTIVES
BASIC COMPETENCES
CONTENTS
METHODOLOGY
EVALUATION CRITERIA AND INSTRUMENTS
Some ideas and elements are proposed below for you to consider.
1. THEORETICAL JUSTIFICATION
Here you are basically outlining the philosophy of your course plan. You explain the principles
behind the design of the plan and analyze the various factors which have influenced the
design. To include (a few suggestions- see Primary LLEE curriculum for ideas):
1. General comment on long term educational aims and goals which are being worked
towards, and how to achieve them (in general sense).
2. Importance of taking into account the needs of the world of work and the changing
nature of society. Mobility in multicultural and multiethnic Europe. Importance of
languages and English. Importance of lifelong learning and need for qualified people
1 I
in Europe, need to improve level of all. Developing key skills in Europe to ensure
lifelong learning.
3. Development and speed of new technologies.
4. Geographical location of Canaries, migration to Canaries, importance of tourism to
economy.
5. Common European Framework (CEF) of Languages.
6. What is course planning: a definition. Aim of course planning. Need for course planning.
7. Aim and Principles of YOUR course plan: (see Primary curriculum for more ideas, or
LOE, and you could also link to general educational theory, to curriculum objectives:
development of communicative competence, motivation, child development, the need
to develop values, student involvement, research skills, autonomy, team work, effort,
responsibility, basic competences, etc). A brief comment on methodology/approach
to be employed and why (expand in later section).
8. Relationship of this course plan with the Canary Islands curriculum for Primary.
Relationship of the course plan to previous or subsequent courses. You need to show
an awareness of what students have learnt in previous courses, and what they will learn
in subsequent ones.
2. COURSE PLANS
2.1. Definition, elements and aims
The best teachers are those who think carefully about what they are going to do in their
classes and who can plan how they are going to organise the teaching and learning (Harmer,
1991).
In accordance with the current Education Act in Spain (Ley Orgánica 2/2006, de 3 de mayo,
de Educación), course plans are defined as specific instruments for curricular planning for
each one of the areas, subjects or modules and must include the following elements:
objectives, contents, methodology, assessment criteria and attention to diversity and special
needs. If we extend this definition a little, we can say that a course plan can perhaps best be
defined as a set of ordered and sequenced units of work that have been designed in each
educational cycle referring to the curriculum, and which include the above-mentioned
elements.
As regards the aim of course planning, we can say that it attempts to organize and
systematize our classroom practice and procedures in order to ensure that teaching is carried
out in a planned and well thought out way and not in an arbitrary fashion. In this way the
course plan helps to eliminate improvisation, overdependence on course books, ensuring a
close link with the curriculum. It also orders and specifies the process and product stated in
the educational project, without, however, presenting an immutable sequence, and leaving
room for flexibility and creativity. It also enables us to adapt our teaching to the cultural and
environmental features of our teaching context.
I
The course plan obviously depends to some extent on our beliefs and philosophy of
education, on the psychological processes of learning in general and language learning in
particular, our views on language and linguistic models and the pedagogic and social
processes within the classroom. Furthermore, the plan must also be closely related to the
curriculum statement provided by the educational authorities.
3. OBJECTIVES
– The general, stage and centre objectives are established in the curriculum for Primary.
– The teaching and learning objectives are set out by teachers on the basis of the
curriculum. For example By the end of this course/unit of work, students will be able to... It is
important to specify in as much detail as possible the skills and language pupils will
have learnt in this course/unit, eg.
Skim brief texts and extract general meaning.
Scan brief texts and find specific information.
Guess the meaning of unknown words in a reading text.
It is necessary not to be vague and be as concrete and full as possible. Examples of

vocabulary and sentence structures (markers) should be given, together with functions and
concepts of grammar to be presented (not just the form) and remember to indicate if you
are presenting, revising, consolidating, introducing...
3. Look at these examples of aims expressed by six teachers and answer the following
questions:
a) to practise reading.
b) to present and practise the present continuous for future arrangements.
c) to help students to refuse invitations appropriately and confidently by referring to their
arrangements using the present continuous, e.g. I’m sorry, I’m seeing the doctor then.
d) to enable students to make excuses.
e) to help students to become more confident about their listening skills by demonstrating
to them that they can infer and pick out key information from a text, much of which
they cannot understand.
f) main aims: to enable students to describe their daily routines using some of the
commonest verbs in the simple present tense (first person).
Subsidiary aims: to develop a better class atmosphere by encouraging students’ interest

in each other’s lives.
1 I
To develop students’ listening skills (listening to the teacher talking naturally while
using pictures to convey meaning).
To sensitize students to rhythm and weakening of syllable values, and to encourage
them to attend to this in oral production.
Questions:
1. Which of these aims do you consider to be most appropriately expressed?
2. Which teachers do you think define aims in an appropriate amount of detail?
3. Which teachers seem to see the lesson from the students’ point of view?
4. Which teachers are most likely to have modified the aims of their lessons in the
process of planning?
KEYS
1. Mention the main characteristics of the variant of Direct Method Approach the
Oral Approach.
Keys to 1
– The target language is the target of the classroom.
– Items of grammar are graded following the principle that simple forms should be
taught before complex ones.
– Reading and writing are introduced once lexical and grammatical basis are established.
New language points are introduced and practised.
2. Complete with the following terms below

a) In a _____________________________ the main focus is on the activities themselves,
topic or experience, and not on the language as such or any single aspect of it.
b) The method of __________________ was developed by _______________ and is
based on the view that the brain has great unused potential which can be exploited
through the power of suggestion.
c) The ____________________ stresses the importance of emotional elements and a
good classroom atmosphere and the vocabulary is more important than grammar rules.
d) The Silent Way method is based on the “_________________”.
Keys: a) Communicative syllabus b) Suggestopedia; Lozanov c) Natural Approach

d) Discovery learning.
I
3. Look at these examples of aims expressed by six teachers and answer the
following questions:
a) to practise reading.
b) to present and practise the present continuous for future arrangements.
c) to help students to refuse invitations appropriately and confidently by referring to their
arrangements using the present continuous, e.g. I’m sorry, I’m seeing the doctor then.
d) to enable students to make excuses.
e) to help students to become more confident about their listening skills by demonstrating
to them that they can infer and pick out key information from a text, much of which
they cannot understand.
f) main aims: to enable students to describe their daily routines using some of the
commonest verbs in the simple present tense (first person).
Subsidiary aims: to develop a better class atmosphere by encouraging students’ interest

in each other’s lives.
To develop students’ listening skills (listening to the teacher talking naturally while
using pictures to convey meaning).
To sensitize students to rhythm and weakening of syllable values, and to encourage
them to attend to this in oral production.
Questions:
1. Which of these aims do you consider to be most appropriately expressed?
2. Which teachers do you think define aims in an appropriate amount of detail?
3. Which teachers seem to see the lesson from the students’ point of view?
4. Which teachers are most likely to have modified the aims of their lessons in the
process of planning?
Keys: 1 (f); 2 (e,d); 3 (d, e, f); 4 (f,e).
REFERENCES
Richards, J & Rogers, T. 1992. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Howat, A. 1984. A History of English Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rivers, W. 1981. Teaching Foreign Language Skills. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Krashen, S. D. and Terrel, T. D. 1983. The Natural Approach: Language Acquisition in the classroom.
Oxford: Pegamon.
Nunan, D. 2004. Task-based language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Canale, M. & Swain, M. 1980. Communicative Approaches to Second Language.
1 I
Harmer, J. 2001. The Practice of English Language Teaching, Longman.

Nunan, D. 1988. Syllabus Design. OUP.
White, R. 1988. The ELT Curriculum. Blackwell.
www.blogspot.com; www.teachingenglish.org.uk; www.onestopenglish.com
Marco Común Europeo de las Lenguas. www.coe.int http://www.coe.int/T/DG4/Portfolio/?M=/
main_pages/levels.html
http://www.gobiernodecanarias.org/boc/2007/112/boc-2007-112-anexo-12669-12830.pdf page 12773.,
(BOC 112, 6 de junio de 2007).
LEY ORGÁNICA 2/2006, de 3 de mayo, de Educación (BOE no. 106 de 4 de mayo).
The Phonetics and Phonology of the English
Language. Teaching Tips. Contextualization for
a Course Plan
2 Unidad de
Aprendizaje
PRESENTACIÓN
Resulta indudable que un profesor de idiomas debe contar con buen dominio de la
pronunciación en sus diferentes planos o sistemas de manera que le hagan muy consciente
de las dificultades fonético-fonológicas y prosódicas que pueda encontrarse el niño. Este
conocimiento científico junto con el metodológico de técnicas y estrategias, permite que el
docente pueda conducir más y mejor al niño contribuyendo a establecer las diferencias entre
la lengua materna y extranjera.
El módulo queda dividido en una primera parte donde se profundiza en el análisis
científico y didáctico de los sistemas vocálico, consonántico y prosódico y, una segunda parte,
en la que se describen los puntos que abordar en la contextualización de una programación
didáctica.
OBJECTIVES

• Promote and develop autonomy by consulting extra reading material related to the unit
and write an account.
• Understand basic but scientifically important notions about the English vowel and
consonant systems and the stress, rhythm and intonation.
• Show a high communicative competence through a good command of the English
pronunciation.
• Develop didactic skills to teach the pronunciation and the spelling plus the distinctions
through listening and speaking activities.
• Develop ideas of the contextualization of a course plan and write an example of a
context for a course plan.
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CONTENTS
PART 1. THE PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
1. INTRODUCTION
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech.
It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds: their physiological production,
acoustic properties, auditory perception, and neurophysiological status. Phonology, on the other
hand, is concerned with abstract, grammatical characterization of systems of sounds.
THE ENGLISH THE ENGLISH

VOWEL SYSTEM CONSONANT SYSTEM
STRESS, RHYTHM
AND INTONATION
2. THE ENGLISH VOWEL SYSTEM
When dealing with phonetics, the primary task we, as teachers, should try to cope with is,
perhaps, to make our students aware of the fact that sounds and letters are different things.
It is interesting to notice that all vowel sounds are voiced since when we produce a vowel
sound the vocal cords vibrate. In this respect, they are similar to voiced consonants.
Vowel sounds are normally described in terms of three different criteria:
I
The Phonetics and Phonology of the English Language. Teaching Tips. Contextualization for a Course Plan 39 2
1. Firstly, the part of the tongue which is raised when the vowel is being articulated. If
the front of the tongue is raised towards the roof of the mouth, then the vowel is
regarded as front. That’s the case of the following vowel sounds (ɪ, e, æ, i:); if the back
of the tongue is raised it is a back vowel. That the case of u:, ɑ:, ʊ, ɔ and ɒ. There are
also central vowels, that is, vowels pronounced raising the centre of the tongue. These
are the central vowels in English ɜ:, ə and ʌ (the ones we find in the word further and
the so-called wedge).
2. The second criterion we have take to into account in order to classify vowel sounds is
the degree to which the tongue rises towards the roof of the mouth. We normally
distinguish four different degrees: close, half-close, half-open and open. As we can
see in the diagram, among close vowels we find /i:/ and /ʊ/, between half-open and
half-close we find /e/ etc.
3. Finally, we also look at the opening made at the lips, from rounded to unrounded. For
instance, back vowels are normally rounded in any language.
There are twelve different vowel sounds in English. By contrast, in Spanish there are only
five vowel sounds. That’s the reason why Spanish EFL students have so many problems
when dealing with the English vowel system since five graphic representations –a, e, i, o, u–
stand for twelve different vowel sounds.
Short
VOWELS Long
Diphtongs
Semivowels
a) ShortA)Short
Vowels Vowels
There are six short vowels in English, the sounds we find in:
/æ/ /e/ /I/ // /ʊ/ //

Cat egg fish Clock bull up
One of the most important tasks the teacher has to face is to try to make the
students aware of the fact that letters and sounds must never be mixed up. The
students should know that it is useful to have written letters to remind us of the
corresponding sound but this is all they do. We can’t just rely on spelling. For example,
in the words not, want, because and cough the letters o, a, au and ou all stand for the same
vowel sound, the one which occurs in clock.
The sound we find in fish is also regarded as short –i, is very interesting in this
respect. It’s a difficult sound for the Spanish students to produce but is has got a high
frequency of occurrence in both stressed and unstressed syllables and this can be
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problematic. Let’s see: in stressed syllables the /I/ sound is normally represented by a
single –i– as in our example or city or an –e– as in English. But in unstressed syllables a
short I can be written with any vowel letter as in language, money, minute just to mention
a few.
It is relevant to mention that this vowel sound is essential since it is involved in the
information of the plural, the third person singular of the present tense and the Saxon
Genitive when following a sibilant sound. For instance, if we say:
the boss’ houses
/Iz/ /Iz/
Watches
/Iz/
The students should also take into account, for instance, that the vowel sound in
bull is the involved in the pronunciation of the modals could, should and would.
We also have cap and up are normally problematic for our students because both
sounds are perceived in the same way. As a guideline, we can say that the sound we find
in up, bus or London is the most similar to the Spanish /a/ but our students should
know that it is never represented by the letter –a–. This is the letter which normally
stands for the sound we find in cat or hat. As we can see, this fact also proves that
vowel letters and vowel sounds are different things.
The sound schwa, that is, the sound we find in the word computer /ə/ is very
frequent (e.g. possible, woman, suppose or doctor).
As we can notice, the stress factor is essential when determining which vowel sound
to use in a particular word. For all these reasons, we can agree that this vowel sound plays
a relevant role in English not only within the word but also in connected speech.
b) Long vowels
There are five long vowels in English. The ones we find in:
/a:/ /i:/ / :/ /u:/ / :/
Car tree horse boot bird
The distinction between long and short vowels is really important because it is the
only way to distinguish between for instance ship and sheep; spot and sport just to mention
a few. This contrast, however, is especially problematic for many students because
vowel sounds in Spanish all fall in middle position, that is, there is no distinction
between short and long vowels. That’s why we tend to perceive in the same way words
such as ship/sheep or spot/sport. Another relevant consideration is the fact that this
distinction isn’t just based on lengthening, we also find a change in terms of quality.
For instance, the short /I/ in ship is half-close, front and unrounded but the long /:i/
in sheep is close, front and unrounded.
I
• Teaching suggestions
We can give them some practical tips on articulation. For instance, we can tell them
that the sound we find in car is similar to the sound we make when the doctor wants to
see our throat. We can also help them to pronounce the sound we find in bird by saying
that it can be related to the sound we make when we see something disgusting. Another
interesting thing we can say about this sound (/ɜ:/ ) is that it is sometimes referred to
as the hesitation vowel because it is the sound that English speakers use when they are
not sure about what to say. On the contrary, Spanish speakers use a m-sound.
Perception precedes production. So
teachers should use activities to allow
pupils to hear sounds, then discriminate
minimal pairs, then produce orally. To
develop pronunciation awareness, you
can use classification activities to have
pupils discover irregularities. It is
important not only to have pupils engage
in drill-like activity, but also to present
them with exercises in which they work
out the rule. Attention should also be paid to sound-spelling correspondence, eg. The
letter “a”, how many different sounds can we identify? It is also important to integrate
pronunciation work into normal lesson, ie., not dedicate a special lesson to sounds, but
treat them within the lesson itself. Sounds work should be planned, not just done when
the teacher notices a problem with for example the confusion of two sounds.
c) Diphthongs
There are 8 diphthongs in English, the sounds we find in:
As we know, a diphthong is a combination of two vowel sounds. We can classify

diphthongs according to two different criteria. The first criterion gives us Front and
Back diphthongs. Those whose first element is a front vowel are called front
diphthongs and the rest are back diphthongs because their first element is a back
vowel. The second criterion focuses on the second element. Those diphthongs whose
second element is /I/ or /ʊ/ are regarded as closing because both sounds are close
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vowels. The other three are referred to as centring since their second element is the
central vowel /ʊə/.
What can we say as regards spelling? Diphthongs are represented by multiple
spellings. For instance, different spellings stand for the diphthong /aɪ/ as we can see
if we say time, try, height, right or die. And the same happens with the rest of them.
As a guideline, we can point out an interesting fact. Take this example: pop. The
sound we find in pop is the short –o /ɔ/. However, if we add another vowel letter to
the Word, in this case an –e, the pronunciation changes. Now the word is pronounced
pope using the diphthong /aɔ/. Well, this also happens with many other words such as:
Tim – time
Pin – pine
Ton – tone just to mention a few
This can be helpful for our students when they are dealing with an unknown word.
d) Semivowels
Look at these special sounds:
/W/ /j/
Witch yatch
Queen you
Language yet
From a phonological point of view, they are marginal in the syllable, so they must
be considered consonants. From a phonetic point of view, they are articulated without
any kind of obstruction, so they must be considered vowels. That’s why they are called
both semiconsonants and semivowels.
Before finishing off, we can summarise the most important differences we find
between the English and the Spanish vowel systems.
1. The first striking difference is the number of English pure vowel oppositions (12)
compared with Spanish (only five).
2. The second is the existence of central vowels in English.
Both differences mean that, apart from the spelling factor, there are seven vowel
sounds we do not find in Spanish. However, as there are also differences in terms
of quality, we can say that no Spanish vowel coincides exactly with any English one,
although some are fairly similar. This leads us to an important implication for us as
teachers. Let’s see:
Since the sounds of a new language are generally reproduced in terms of those of
the speaker’s mother tongue, the Spanish learner tend to equate the eight English
diphthongs with his eight Spanish near equivalents and identify the 12 English pure
vowels with his 5 Spanish ones. And so, we notice that:
I
So, again, we can notice how complex the teaching of pronunciation is.
3. THE ENGLISH CONSONANT SYSTEM
In the classroom, we should try to make our students aware of the fact that consonant
sounds and consonant letters are different things, they shouldn’t rely on just what they hear
when writing.
CLASSIFICATION OF
CONSONANT SOUNDS
POINT OF MANNER OF VOCAL CORDS

ARTICULATION ARTICULATION VIBRATION OR NOT͘
Ͳ>ĂďŝĂů ͲWůŽƐŝǀĞ ͲsŽŝĐĞĚ
ͲĞŶƚĂů Ͳ&ƌŝĐĂƚŝǀĞ ͲsŽŝĐĞůĞƐƐ
ͲsĞůĂƌŽƌĂůǀĞŽůĂƌ
Thus, different consonant sounds are produced when the air is blocked at different points
of articulation:
1. For instance, the air might be blocked by the lips, in which case is labial or bilabial.
2. If it is blocked by the teeth, the consonant sould is regarded as dental.
3. If it is blocked by the velum, we will call it a velar sound, etc.
Another important factor we take into account when classifying consonants is the manner
of articulation, that is, the way in which the air stream is blocked when passing through the
mouth:
1. If it is a stop, we are dealing with a plosive sound. For example, in the case of the
sound we have in pen, the air stream is first blocked by the lips, retained in the mouth
and, then, is suddenly released making a slight explosion.
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2. In other cases, we might have fricatives where the air is released making a slight
hissing sound as in the case of fish.
Finally, when classifying consonant sounds we will have to take into account whether the
vocal cords vibrate or not. When they vibrate, we are dealing with a voiced sound, when
they don’t the consonant sound is voiceless. And this consideration is essential since most
consonant sounds are grouped in minimal pairs in which one is voiced and the other one is
voiceless. Bearing in mind all these factors we have just outlined, we can say that we find 22
consonant sounds in English. From now onwards, we will be dealing with them in detail, and
we will do it in minimal pairs for practical reasons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IPA_consonants_2005.png
a) Plosives, occlusives or stops

Our first pair of consonant plosive sounds is formed by /p/ and /b/, for instance in
Pet bet.
I
As regards the place and manner of articulation both sounds are bilabial plosives
because the obstruction occurs at the lips. The sound in pet is voiceless and the one in
bed is voiced. In general, these sounds are not difficult for the foreign language student
to pronounce. However, the English voiceless plosive /p/ is more aspirated. This
could be demonstrated by putting a piece of paper in front of the lips. If we speak in
English this is a piece of paper, but if we do it in Spanish saying esto es un pedazo de papel it
doesn’t move. So, as we can see, there is a clear difference which, however, doesn’t lead
to confusion.
As regards spelling, these consonant sounds are normally represented by their
corresponding graphic forms –p– and –b– and in our examples pet and bet. We can also
find the double form in middle position as in slipper and rubber.
The second pair of plosive sounds we can deal with are those we find in Town /t/
and down /d/.
The first one is voiceless and the second one is voiced. According to the place of
articulation, both sounds are alveolar whereas in Spanish they are dental. However, this
distinction doesn’t lead to misunderstanding. It doesn’t hinder understanding unless we
find it in final position as we will see in a minute.
As regards spelling, the sound we find in town is normally represented by a single –t–,
a double –tt as in cattle, and, more exceptionally by the combination-th- as in Thames or
Anthony.
The /d/ sound is normally represented by a single –d– and a double –dd– as in
middle. But when dealing with this pair, it is essential to take into account the correct
pronunciation of the ending –ed, since in some cases in pronounced with the voiceless
sound and in some other cases with the voiced.
We find that a voiceless sound attracts a voiceless form like a magnet. So, for
instance, from help we form helped /t/. By contrast, a voiced sound attracts a voiced
one. So from call we form called /d/. And both of them are voiced. However, it is
interesting to notice that if the root ends in either of these two sounds we need to add
an extra syllable which is pronounced /Id/. We can see this in the following examples:
wanted, added /Id/.
EFL students have often problems with these features since in Spanish we tend to
weaken final consonants. However a correct pronunciation of this ending is essential
if we want to be understood. So, we should try to get our students to cope with this
task.
The next pair of sounds we can consider are those we find in Coat /k/ and
goat/g/, being the first one voiceless and the second one voiced. Both of them are
velar plosives because the point of articulation is the velum. In general the sounds we
find in coat and goat don’t cause problems top Spanish EFL students, at least in initial
position, especially with the g sound, since, for instance, some students tend to
pronounce /pij/ instead of /pIg/. But, again, it isn’t the kind of problem which leads
to confusion.
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As regards spelling, the sound we find in coat isn’t always related to the letter –k– as
in kettle. It is also represented by the letter –c– followed by a+o+u as in our previous
example (coat). It can also be represented by the combinations –ch– and –ck– as in
Christmas, scheme, lock or crack. Concerning the voiced version of the pair, it is normally
represented by the letter –g– as in goat or double as in egg.
We should pay special attention to the pronunciation of the combination –EX–.
Take these examples: Excite which is pronounced /’Ik’sait/ using the voiceless sound
whereas exam is ronounced /’Ig’zæm/ using the voiced one. Having dealt with the
plosives, we will now move onto the fricative consonant sounds or.
b) Fricatives
A fricative is when the air stream is partially blocked at some point of articulation and,
then, the air is released slowly making a slight hissing sound.
The first pair of fricative sounds we are going to examine are those we find in:
Few /f/andview /v/.
Again, the first one is voiceless and the second one is voiced. Both of them are
labiodental fricatives because when we produce them our teeth are in contact with the
lower lip.
Unlike the sounds we have seen so far, the voiced version of this pair is particularly
difficult because this sound desn’t exist in Spanish.
What is more, we find that in Spanish the sound /b/ is represented by the letters –b–
and –v. That’s the reason why they are not used to articulating this sound /v/, so they
pronounce in the same way words like van and ban.
As we can notice, this is something which would be necessary to practise since a
wrong pronunciation may lead to understanding. With regards to spelling, /f/ can be
represented by a single –f– or a double –ff– as in few and office. Stranger spellings are –gh–
or –ph– in words like enough, cough, phone and Philip.
The sound /v/ is normally represented by a single –v– as in our example view and
exceptionally we also found it represented by a single –f– in the preposition of.
The next pair of fricative sounds we are going to deal with are those we find in:
Think /θ/and they /ð/, the first one being voiceless and the second one voiced. As
regards articulation they are dental fricatives because the air stream is slightly blocked
by the teeth and then is released gradually through the stricture formed by the teeth.
The voiceless sound isn’t particularly difficult since it exists in Spanish, for instance, if
we say zapato. However, the voiced version of the pair requires special attention
because many students confuse it with the alveolar plosive /d/. So they have to be
careful when pronouncing for instance they and day since a wrong pronunciation can
lead to misunderstanding.
Concerning spelling, it is interesting to notice how the same graphic representation
–th– stands for both the voiceless and the voiced sounds as we can see in our
examples. This is also true in final position for instance in the couple breath /θ/ and
breathe /ð/. It would be also relevant to point out that the sound we find in they is
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normally related to words from early origin as in mother or whether whereas the voiceless
version is generally associated with newer words such as bath.
We come now to the alveolar fricatives /s/ and /z/ which appear in words like:
Sue /s/and Zoo /z/.
Again the first one is voiceless and the second is voiced. The voiced version of the
pair can cause problems to EFL students since it is hardly ever used in Spanish. We can
find it in words like musgo or desde.
As regards spelling, the sound we find in Sue can be represented by a single –s– as
in Sue a double –ss– as in kiss; by the combination –sc– as in science and even by the
letter –c– as in nice.
The voiced alveolar fricative /z/ is also represented by an –s– or a double –ss– as
in scissors and cousin in addition to a single –z– or a double –zz– as in zoo or jazz.
A correct pronunciation of both sounds in essential since they are the markers of
the Saxon Genitive, the plural and the third person singular present tense. As happened
with the past ending –ed–, a voiceless sounds attracts a voiceless form so after
voiceless sounds we must use the alveolar voiceless fricative /s/, for instance in:
Pat’s /s/ books /s/.
However, after voiced sounds, we will have to use the alveolar voiced fricative as we
can see if we say:
It rains /z/.
Moreover, after sibilants we will need to add an extra syllable which of course is
voiced, for instance, if we say:
The Houses /Iz/ of Parliament.
So, as we can see, we should try to encourage our students to pronounce them
correctly if they want to be understood.
The next pair of fricative sounds are those we find in:
Sure /ʃ/and measure /ʒ/.
Both of them are palato–alveolar the first one being voiceless and the second one
voiced. The most common spellings which represent the sound we find in sure, are the
combinations –sh, –ti as in ship or nation or even by a single –s– an in our previous
example (sure). By contrast, the voiced palato alveolar is normally related to words from
French origin as measure or pleasure.
Our last fricative sound is glottal. So the air stream is blocked at the glottis. It always
occurs before vowels, for instance in:
House /h/ or horse /h/.
What is interesting about this consonant sound is the fact that it doesn’t exist in
spanish. Its chief and main spelling is a single –h– as in our previous examples (horse,
house). But it is also represented by the combination –wh– as in who, whom, whose.
Let’s now move onto the...
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c) Affricates
We are dealing with an affricative when friction is produced at the point of articulation.
That’s the case of the pair:
Such /tʃ/and just /dʒ/
Again the first case is voiceless and the second one is voiced. Both of them are
alveolar.
As regards spelling, the sound we find in such is normally represented by the
combinations –ch– as in our example, or –tch– as in watch. The ending –ture also
stands for this sound in words like nature or feature. The other one is normally
represented by the graphic forms –j–, –dge– and –g– as in just, judge or engine.
d) Nasals
We can group the three nasal sounds we find in English together since all of them are
voiced. We are referring to the sounds we find in:
Mail /m/ nail /n/ and singer /ŋ/
We call them nasal sounds because the air stream is partially released to the nasal
cavity. They are bilabial, alveolar and velar respectively. So, we can establish a
correspondence between them and the voiced plosives /b/, /d/ and /g/.
We can see this if we imagine someone having a cold. He wants to say Good Morning
but as his nose is blocked it could sound like Gud Bordig. So /m/ becomes /b/, /n/
becomes /d/ and /ŋ/ becomes /g/: instead of saying /’m ɔ:nI ŋ/ we say /’b ɔ:dIg/.
The most frequent spellings are single –m– or double –mm– as in mail and sommer;
single –n– or double –nn– as in nail or sunny. The velar nasal corresponds to the
combination –ng as in our previous example, and also –nk as in sink.
e) Lateral
We should also take into account the lateral alveolar /l/ which is voiced and appears in
words like lamp or call. It isn’t particularly problematic and the most common spellings
are single –l– and double –ll– as we can see in our examples.
f) Approximant
Another consonant sound is the post-alveolar approximant /r/ which is voiced and
appears in words like room, carrot, write. These are the most common spellings. When
dealing with this sound, it’s interesting to notice that it isn’t normally pronounced in
final position but if the following word begins with a vowel sound it appears again as
some sort of link. For instance, if we say:
The car is here /ka:r Iz/.
This phenomenon is known as linking R.
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4. STRESS, RHYTHM AND INTONATION
We will be dealing with another set of phonetic features, features which do not affect one
segment but longer stretches of utterances, such as the syllable, the word and the sentence.
These prosodic features are stress, rhythm and intonation.
PROSODY
STRESS RHYTHM INTONATION

Ǧ ǦǦ Ǧ ȋȌ
ȗȀ ȗǦǤ
ȗ ǦȋȀǡ
Ǧȋ Ȍ
Ȍ ǣǡ
ȗȀ ƬȌ
1. As regards stress it is true that sometimes a change in the stress pattern involves a
change in terms of meaning or the word class. It is not the same, for instance to say
/´trænspo:t/ as saying /træns´po:t/. If we say /´trænspo:t/, placing the stress on the
first syllable with are dealing with a noun, whereas if we place the stress on the second
syllable, we are referring to the verb.
2. But if we want to attain a good knowledge of both written and spoken language we have
also to take into account rhythm and intonation. For instance, it isn’t the same to say:
It’s mine as a natural statement, as saying.
It’s mine? Showing surprise or doubt, or even.
It’s mine! In an assertive way.
a) Stress
By stress we mean the highlighting of a certain element or elements in a single
word or in an utterance.
1. Word stress
It’s interesting to say that In English we find three different degrees: the ones we
find in the word ´decla´ration.
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1. We find a primary stress, which is marked with a high vertical stroke before the
most prominent syllable.
2. We also find a secondary stress marked with a low vertical stroke before the
syllable concerned.
3. And, finally, we also find unstressed syllables without graphic marks.
These are three different degrees we find when dealing with word stress. But, as
we know, we can only use graphic marks for stress in written English for practical
purposes as in dictionaries. This is an important distinction between English and
Spanish.
So, bearing in mind this distinction, how can we help our students to cope with
English stress patterns? Actually, in English it’s very difficult to give rules since we
find words from different origin. But, despite this, we can point out some useful
guidelines:
1. On the one hand, words from Old English tend to be stressed on the root:
Give forgive set upset.
2. On the other hand, most long English words (of more than three syllables) tend
to have the stress nearer the beginning than the Spanish equivalent. For instance,
we can compare: géography geografía university universidad.
Another relevant consideration when dealing with word stress, perhaps the most
important one, is the fact that English stress alters the quality of vowel sounds.
This is something that never happens in Spanish. The thing is that syllables which
are not stressed often contain the vowel schwa /ð/, instead of any clearer vowel
sound, and this vowel only occurs in unstressed syllables, never in prominent ones.
For instance, in the word:
Contain /kðn´təin/, the second syllable is stressed and the first has a schwa but
in the noun.
Contents /´kontents/, the first syllable is stressed and there is a change in the
quality of the vowel.
At this point, it is interesting to notice that the schwa isn’t the only vowel which
occurs in unstressed syllables, other vowels can occur as well so, we frequently find
the short i /I/ in this position, as in the following word:
Decide /dI´saId/ or plenty /´plentI/
The effect of stress in pronunciation can be seen more clearly in derivation.
Take these examples:
Photograph /’fəutəgrf/
Photographic /’fəutə’græfik/
Photography /fə’togrəfI/
I
In Spanish we notice that, although we give prominence to a particular syllable
the other vowels remain pure. We don’t find the distinction between weak and
strong syllables.
Well, before dealing with stress within the utterance, I would like to pay
particular attention to the distinctive function of stress. Just as stress in Spanish
may function distinctively (término and terminó) so in English it may distinguish
between pairs of words of identical spelling or similar phonetic pattern. In this
sense, in the case of simple words, nouns and adjectives tend to be stressed on the
first syllable and verbs on the last, as we can see in the following examples:
Suspect to suspect
Object to object
Rebel to rebel
Moreover, stress can also help to distinguish between verbs plus adverbs, which
are stressed, and verbs plus prepositions which are unstressed. We can compare, for
instance, sentences such as:
At seven o’clock, the doctor came ‘ by (phrasal verb = called).
Nowadays jobs are difficult to ćome by. (prepositional verb= find).
So, as we can see, through stress we distinguish between phrasal verbs and
prepositional verbs.
Finally, stress helps us to distinguish between compound words and noun
phrases. For instance, to distinguish between:
A ´blackbird, which is a type of verb.
A ´black ´bird, that is, any bird which is black.
2. Utterance stress
Stress doesn’t only affect single words, it also affects connected speech. Why?
Because in the same way that when saying a word, we make some sounds stand out
with respect to the rest of the words in connected speech. But this effect of stress
is peculiar of the English language and we don’t find it in Spanish. So, it is
something we should bear in mind as teachers. In connected speech, we highlight
some words and we do it in terms of the amount and type of information they
carry.
In general content words such as nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc.carry the main
stress. For instance, in a sentence like:
John was writing a letter to Peter.
John, writing, letter and Peter are the words which are stressed.
By contrast, functional or empty words are normally unstressed. Here, we
include auxiliaries, prepositions, pronouns, articles, etc In our previous example we
find was, a and to. These words are unstressed because they don’t convey relevant
information. However, it is important to say that sometimes functional words can
be stressed for reasons of emphasis. That’s why functional words have two different
pronunciations:
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1. A weak pronunciation which is used in connected speech and where we find

weak vowel sounds like the schwa.
2. A strong pronunciation only used in exceptional circumstances, for instance,
when we pronounce the words in isolation, or in a prominent position , as in
Who was he writing to?
or when we want to be emphatic as in these two examples:
What’s in your sandwich?
Princess must marry princesses. (show examples).
b) Rhythm
English is spoken. So, rhythm is the kind of beat behind what we say. This rhythm
beat can be clearly noticed in poetry, rhymes, songs and especially in rap music. Well,
according to the experts, languages of the world can be grouped into two categories in
terms of the rhythmic pattern they seem to follow. So, we find:
1. Languages with a stress-timed rhythm, where we find English.
2. Languages with a syllable-timed rhythm where we find Spanish.
This is important since in Spanish rhythm is marked by syllabic patterns and in

English rhythm is marked by stress. And, that’s why to a native speaker Spanish rhythm
sounds like, you know, a machine-gun since all vowels remain pure and, by contrast, for
Spanish people English rhythm produces a broken effect, something similar to the
morse-code rhythm. Why? We can mention two different reasons:
1. The first one, because in English we find long and short vowels, so some syllables
are longer than others.
2. The second reason is that vowels in unstressed syllables are weakened, so they
normally change to the short i /I/, the schwa /ð/ or the short “u”.
English rhythm can be described in terms of rhythmic feet. What is a rhythmic

foot? A rhythmic foot is the unity formed by a stressed syllable which can be followed
by one or more unstressed syllables. So a rhythmic foot ends when another stressed
form appears. Take this example:
´Tom ´spoke to ´John in the ´morning.
We find four rhythmic feet in this example.
At this point, it’s interesting to notice how in English we find the same quantity of
time between two stressed syllables no matter how many unstressed forms we find
between them. Let’s see how this works:
´John ´said his ´foot’s ‘bad.
‘footman’s
‘footballer´s
I
As we can see, the third rhythmic foot remains the same although we can find a
different number of unstressed syllables. This proves that English rhythmical patterns
are regular. If our students are aware of this, they will be able not only to improve their
oral skills but also to understand what they hear better.
Well, having considered stress and rhythmic patterns, my last concern in this theme
will be English intonation patterns.
c) Intonation
By intonation we mean the variations which take place in the pitch of the voice in
connected speech. For instance, most English people can tell a Scots by his speech
and in Spain, Canarian speakers are also recognised by their peculiar intonation.
The commonest tone is the fall. So, we find a falling tone in statements.
John wants a book.
However, if there is a pause in the middle of the sentence, the last stressed
syllable before the pause has a rising tone and then it falls again.
If you don’t like it, don’t read it.
We also find a falling tone in wh- questions and commands:
What do you prefer? Shut the window. Get up, please.
However, we find a rising tone related to uncertainty or incompleteness. The
rising tone is a feature of yes/no questions.
Do you like meat?
A special case is that of question tags. Take these examples: She is nice, isn’t she?
When the speaker uses a rising tone, he seeks information as when saying: She is
nice, isn’t she?
But when the speaker uses falling tone he seeks confirmation of his opinion as in:
She is nice, isn’t she?
So, question tags also prove that the rising tone is related to uncertainty whereas the
falling tone is associated with certainty.
By means of intonation we also perform different functions. Among these
functions we can point out:
1. The attitudinal function.
2. The grammatical function.
3. The emphatic function.
The attitudinal function reflects the speaker’s emotional state, that is, whether he is
being friendly, interested... Let’s imagine that someone tells us: I got married last week.
Our attitude towards this statement would be reflected by intonation. If we say
something like:
Did you?
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We could express surprise and interest and we would be encouraging the speaker to
continue. But if we say something like:
Did you?
We would show lack of interest and probably put an end to the conversation.
The grammatical function divides up an utterance into its major parts. So,
intonation is the equivalent in spoken language of punctuation. For instance, when
saying: Since you are so critical, you can do it yourself.
Finally, the emphatic function is when we highlight the words which are important
to the meaning of an utterance, for instance, if we say something like:
He comes from Paris not from Madrid.
5. TEACHING SUGGESTIONS TO SOLVE PRONUNCIATION PROBLEMS
Adapted mainly from Daniel Jones and A. C. Gimson.

1. Phoneme exchange: to do this exercise we need cards with different sound on them.
Then we choose one card and practise the sound we have got. When we think we
pronounce it correctly, we pass our card to other student while
saying it.
2. Sound race: this is a group activity. We have to write in two
minutes as many words as possible with the sound /3:/ for
example:
Bird verb purse first church purple skirt
burn pearl shirt girl term learn turn...
Mistakes are also part of the learning, and can make the activity even funnier.
3. Sound search: we can hear a conversation at normal speech (live or recorded) and then
try to find, for instance, all the / / and /ai/ sounds.
4. Odd man out: we have to circle the word that does not belong to each line of five
words. Four are similarly pronounced, the other one is the òdd man out´.
a) washed watched wished walked waved
b) wanted painted founded missed hunted
c) pushed pulled filled begged lived
d) misses watches pulls washes judges
5. Grouping sounds: in this exercise we have to classify words according to their vocalic
sound, for example, the following words are given.
Work woke walk look luck shirt stone hope hop stuck
port cough tough ought book bird stop rock put word
call phone sun pull
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3: ou o: Λ u o
work woke walk luck look hop
shirt stone port stuck book stop
bird hope ought tough put rock
word phone call sun pull cough
6. Sounds hangman: this is a very well-known activity to learn vocabulary. It can also be
used to work with sounds. Write a word with at least 5 sounds. Try to guess it in pairs.
For example: o:lt ge.
7. Discrimination exercises: decide between 1 and 2 as you hear.
1 2
slip sleep
hit heat
work walk
8. Exercises with sentences containing alliteration are also a good practice, especially with
those sounds that are difficult for us, let’s say /w/:
– Which warm white Welsh woollie will we wear on Wednesday?
– Welsh whiskey was once widely wanted.
– Where and when will Wendy wear the white woolen waist-coat we want her to
9. Write two lists, one with English and other with Spanish sounds:
No no * Say one from any column. The rest of the group decide if
K que it is Spanish or English.
Seesí
Train tren * Learners can decide by raising hands too.
10. Dictation: to see the way words go together:

Elision 1 n fish and chip fish`n`chips
Elision 2 kn Can you help me? (vowel restriction)
Assimilation 3 gu Goodbye! /gubbai/
11. The opposite of elision is addition, and a common error for Spanish learners is to add
and extra /e/ before `st´ or `spín initial position: stop, Spain become èstop´ and
èspain´. One solution is to try to link the last sound of the previous word to the initial
/s/ of the consonant cluster. So, in the sentence Ì live in Spain´, we can say ìns´
followed by `pain´. At the beginning it will sound a bit strange, but when we are able
to pronounce it quicker it will sound more natural.
2 I
Another possible solution is to pronounce /s/ in isolation (hissing like a snake) and
then to add, for example, `pain´, `tudent´, etc.
12. In Spanish the phonemes /t/ and /d/ are dental and not alveolar, as they are in RP
English. So we pronounce them very softly. One solution is simply to pay attention
and focus on the place of articulation in English on a mouth diagram and realize that
the tongue touches the alveolar ridge, and they should not touch the teeth. Try this
with words like tent, try, red, etc.
13. What about rhythm? English speech is similar to music because both have a beat.
There are groups of syllables and in each group there are strong and weaker ones. The
words that have the strong beat are: nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Prepositions,
articles and pronouns have weak beat. A very useful practice to improve our English
rhythm is to listen to and sing English songs. In fact there are some books that are
written specially for this. We are talking about Jazz Chants, Rhythms of American
English for Students of English as a Second Language,
written by Carolyn Graham.
As she explains: `The selection of a particular beat in
jazz may convey powerful and varied emotions, the rhythm,
stresses and intonation patterns of the spoken language are
essential elements for the expression of feelings and
the intent of the speaker´. The method consists of
repeating each line of the chant, establishing a clear, strong
beat (by counting, clapping, etc) So we can conclude that
songs are a very effective way to improve the rhythm of a
foreign language.
14. A good exercise to practice stress is to try to make the following sentences meaningful
by means of placing stress in the right place and also by using the appropriate rhythm:
If you write `write´, `w-r-i-t-e,
You write `write´ right,
But if you write `write´ `r-i-g-h-t´,
You write `write´ wrong.
15. Video/DVD viewing is also a very useful way to practise stress and rhythm. We must
find a video extract in which someone is seen emphasizing the rhythm of their speech
with gestures, etc. (E.g. Basil, the main character of `Fawlty Towers´ or Jim Carrey).
Then we can play the extract without sound twice and try to imitate the body language
of the speaker. We can play the extract as many times as necessary. Next, if it seems
possible from the context, we can try to guess what the speaker is saying. Finally we
may play the extract with sound, and try to imitate the body language again, but this
time adding the speech. We can practise this all the times we think are necessary.
16. To get the right stress we may learn some stress rules:
1. – ‘ese: Chinese, Japanese.
2. – ‘ometer: thermometer, kilometer/tree.
I
3. – ‘ee: referee, employee.
4. – able: it is always unstressed: changeable, eatable.
5. – tion & - sion: the stress always comes before these syllables.
17. Another good exercise is to contrast very similar sentences, the element that changes
their meanings is stress, for example:
a) What is this thing called love?
b) What is this thing called, love?
PART 2. COURSE PLANS: CONTEXT
Below you will find a few possible ideas for the context of your course plan.
The contextualization is how the course plan relates to the learning environment (school
and area). The following elements can be described briefly.
a) Geographical factors.
b) Setting: location, sociological analysis: relevant background to pupils.
c) School: description of school, buildings, resources. PEC (School´s Educational Project-
the school´s philosophy) and PCC. Highlight any important issues such as the presence
of conflicts and their management (cohabitation within the School), Bilingual Project,
etc. AMPA. Extra curricular activities of relevance.
d) Pupils: initial analysis of pupils, linguistic profile. Description of interests, motivations,
learning styles, etc. Comment on students in Compulsory Primary Education: a
description of the age group –cognitive and affective development. Presence of SEN
or foreign pupils. Comment on diversity and mixed ability (to be expanded in later
section).
We will describe an example that might well be of great help to you:

The school where we will be teaching is a Primary School in the South East of Tenerife,
which is located in a working class suburb on the rural fringes of the town. Students mostly
come from working class backgrounds, parents being unemployed or working in local
agriculture. There is also a majority of students whose parents work in the tertiary sector.
The majority of mothers work in the service sector and at home and fathers work in semi-
skilled professions and do not help with the housework. The area where the school is located
is of an average low socio-economic level, made up of young, nuclear families. However
some pupils come from “broken” homes, and this must be borne in mind when preparing
some activities.
Regarding school facilities, there is a library, two labs, a computer room, an Art room
and sport facilities. The English Department also has a special room with a computer and
two laptops and an OHP. We also have graded readers for all the different levels of Primary
levels, although they are not enough.
2 I
Our course plan is written for students of 3rd of Primary. There are four groups of this
level in this school. Our group has 23 students aged 7-8. As far as the ratio is concerned,
there are 12 boys and 13 girls. If we consider skills development, we can see three clear levels
in the class. Thus, there is a low level group, who are very demotivated. They have problems
with language and require graded language tasks and simpler or adapted tasks for reading and
listening. In this group, there are two students resitting the yea and one with Special Needs
(SN). There are two newly arrived students from two African countries. There are also two
Colombian students. The last group is made up of students whose level of English can be
considered to be at the right level. In addition, some of them are high achievers who need
extension and consolidation activities. This range of ability is borne in mind when designing
our units.
Our school also offers activities organized by the AMPA. One of the most interesting
ones is “Español para Extranjeros” for foreign students and parents. This activity is not done
in the school as such but in an Official Language School near the shool.
1. Describe the affricates and give examples.
2. What is intonation and how many basic tones can you

identify?
3. Describe the long vowels in English.
KEYS
1. Describe the affricates and give examples

We are dealing with an affricative when friction is produced at the point of articulation.
That’s the case of the pair:
Such /tʃ/and just /dʒ/
Again the first case is voiceless and the second one is voiced. Both of them are alveolar.
As regards spelling, the sound we find in such is normally represented by the
combinations –ch– as in our example, or –tch– as in watch. The ending –ture also stands
for this sound in words like nature or feature. The other one is normally represented by the
graphic forms –j–, –dge– and –g– as in just, judge or engine.
2. What is intonation and how many basic tones can you identify?
By intonation we mean the variations which take place in the pitch of the voice in
connected speech. For instance, most English people can tell a Scots by his speech and
in Spain, Canarian speakers are also recognised by their peculiar intonation.
I
1. The commonest tone is the fall. So, we find a falling tone in statements.
2. John wants a book.
3. However, if there is a pause in the middle of the sentence, the last stressed syllable
before the pause has a rising tone and then it falls again.
4. If you don’t like it, don’t read it.
5. We also find a falling tone in wh- questions and commands.
3. Describe the long vowels in English

There are five long vowels in English. The ones we find in:
/a:/ /i:/ / :/ /u:/ / :/
Car tree horse boot bird
The distinction between long and short vowels is really important because it is the only
way to distinguish between for instance ship and sheep; spot and sport just to mention a few.
This contrast however is especially problematic for many students because vowel
sounds in Spanish all fall in middle position, that is, there is no distinction between short
and long vowels. That’s why we tend to perceive in the same way words such as ship/sheep
or spot/sport.
Another relevant consideration is the fact that this distinction isn’t just based on
lengthening, we also find a change in terms of quality. For instance, the short I in ship is
half-close, front and unrounded but the long /:i/ in sheep is close, front and unrounded.
REFERENCES
Bowen, T. and Marks, J. (1992). The Pronunciation Book. Student-centred actitivies for pronunciation
work. Longman.
Branford, W. (1967). The Elements of English. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Brown, G. (1977). Listening to Spoken English. London: Longman.
Cárdenas, D. (1960). Introducción a una comparación fonológica del Español y del Inglés. Washington:
Center for Applied Linguistics.
Carr, Philip. (1993). Phonology. London. MacMillan.
Estebas Vilaplana, Eva. (2009). Teach Yourself English Pronunciation: an Interactive Course for
Spanish Speakers. Editorial Netbiblo.
Gimson, A.C. (1970). An Introduction to the Pronunciation of English. London: Edward Arnold.
Graham, C. (1978). Jazz Chants. Rhythms of American English for Students of English as a Second
Language. O.U.P.
Gussenhoven, Carlos y Jacobs, Naike. (2005. Understanding Phonology. London: Hodder Arnold.
2 I
Jenkins, Jennifer. (2000). The Phonology of English as an International Language. Oxford: Oxford

University Press.
Jones, D. (1972). An outline of English Phonetics. Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons.
Kenworthy, J. (1987). Teaching English Pronunciation. Longman.
Odden, David. (2005). Introducing Phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Roach, P. (1991). English Phonetics and Phonology. A Practical Course.
Roca, Iggy y Johnson Wyn. (1999). A Workbook in Phonology. Oxford: Blackwell.
Roca, Iggy y Johnson, Wyn. (1999). A Course in Phonology. Oxford: Blackwell.
Wells, J. C. (1998). Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Longman.
http://www.btinternet.com
http://www.sabes.org
http://www.soundofenglish.org/pronunciation/e.htm
English-speaking Contemporary Literature and
Children’s Literature: Teaching Techniques.
Mixed-Ability, Basic Competences and CLIL
3 Unidad de
Aprendizaje
PRESENTACIÓN
Al igual que se justificaba la presencia de los módulos anteriores en la formación de un

docente de lengua extranjera, este tema de literatura contemporánea y, sobre todo, literatura
infantil, no lo es menos por algunas de las razones que se exponen a continuación.
La vida educativa en los primeros estadios psico-educativas de los niños se desenvuelve
sobremanera en torno a un mundo de imaginación y juego. Por tanto, por una parte, la breve
exposición de géneros y corrientes literarias contemporáneas en lengua inglesa serán de gran
ayuda al docente tanto como acopio de cultura general como para saber el marco en que se
mueve gran parte de la literatura infantil. A partir de aquí, igualmente, la explicación de otras
nociones (como rasgos lingüístico-literarios y características de las imágenes en los cuentos)
sobre literatura infantil y su didáctica coadyuvarán al éxito en la labor pedagógica del profesor.
La primera parte se dedica al análisis, fundamentalmente, de la literatura contemporánea
en lengua inglesa y ciertas aplicaciones didácticas, para centrarse, a posteriori, en el estudio de
la literatura infantil, eje fundamental en el nivel de enseñanza primaria. Otras puntos básicos
de la programación didáctica (CLIL, competencias básicas, etc) se trabajan en la segunda
parte de este módulo.
OBJECTIVES

• Understand the main points and relevant details of English-speaking contemporary
literary movements and writers.
• Develop reading skills by scanning and skimming texts on children’s literature and its
didactics.
• Develop reading skills by increasing literary vocabulary.
approaches, theoretical justification of course plans and general objectives.
• Understand what Mixed-ability teaching, CLIL and SEN are.
• Develop writing skills like summaries or brief essays.
• Promote and develop autonomy by consulting extra reading material related to the unit.
3 I
CONTENTS
PART 1. ENGLISH-SPEAKING CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE AND

CHILDREN’S LITERATURE: TEACHING TECHNIQUES
Time Span, Terms, Movements, Examples

600-1200 Old English (Anglo-Saxon) Beowulf
1200-1500 Middle English Geoffrey Chaucer
1500-1660 The English Renaissance
1500-1558 Tudor Period Humanist Era Thomas More, John Skelton
1558-1603 Elizabethan Period High Renaissance Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney,
William Shakespeare
1603-1625 Jacobean Period Mannerist Style (1590- Shakespeare, John Donne, George
1640) other styles: Herbert, Emilia Lanyer
Metaphysical Poets;
Devotional Poets
1625-1649 Caroline Period John Ford, John Milton
1649-1660 The Baroque Style, and later, Milton, Andrew Marvell, Thomas
Commonwealth & Rococo Style Hobbes
The Protectorate
1660-1700 The Restoration John Dryden
1700-1800 The Eighteenth The Enlightenment; Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift,
Century Neoclassical Period; The Samuel Johnson
Augustan Age
1785-1830 Romanticism The Age of Revolution William Wordsworth,
S.T. Coleridge, Jane Austen,
the Brontës
1830-1901 Victorian Period Early, Middle and Late Charles Dickens, George Eliot,
Victorian Robert Browning, Alfred, Lord
Tennyson
1901-1960 Modern Period The Edwardian Era G.M. Hopkins, H.G. Wells, James
(1901-1910); Joyce, D.H. Lawrence. T.S. Eliot
The Georgian Era
(1910-1914)
1960- Postmodern and Ted Hughes, Doris Lessing, John
Contemporary Fowles, John DeLillo, A.S. Byatt
Period
http://home.comcast.net/~stephen.gottlieb/romantic/periods.html
We could get students to read medieval and modern literature extracts as long as editions
are abridged in the so-called Graded Readers. For example, in the origins of English literature
we could only find one work that deserves to be mentioned, Beowulf ’s fight against the
monster Grendel. In the 14th and 15th centuries, “The Canterbury Tales” by Chaucer or the
I
English-speaking Contemporary Literature and Children’s Literature: Teaching Techniques. Mixed-Ability... 65 3
poem “Sir Gawain and the Green Night” can likewise be mentioned. Modern 15th, 16th and
17th century writers such as Spenser (“The Faerie Queen”) or Shakespeare (“A Midsummer
Night’s Dream), Milton or Massinger are also important to be analyzed. Even most of the
18th and 19th century writers’ abridgements are suitable to be read. So authors like Swift,
Defoe, Richardson, Sterne, Fielding or Sheridan and Radcliffe in the 18th century or
Wordsworth’s “Lyrical Ballads” or Shelley’s “Frankenstein”, Dickens’s “David Copperfield”,
among others, are writers and works to be looked at and prepared in anticipation by teachers.
However, we will be focusing on a selection of contemporary writers and trends as it will
be virtually impossible to cover all the history of literature chapter and verse1 in only one unit.
LITERATURE
C.LITERATURE CHILDREN’S
LITERATURE
THE UK THE USA DIDACTICS
THE BRITISH SHORT STORY DEFINITIONS

EMPIRE
INNOVATIONS NOVEL SELECTION OF

MATERIAL
POETRY POETRY ILUSTRATIONS
DRAMA LANGUAGE
FEATURES
IMPORTANT
WORKS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
I. ENGLISH-SPEAKING CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE
Students will be provided with a laconic overview of both British and American
contemporary literature.
1 In detail.
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1. THE UNITED KINGDOM
Two seminal aspects must be dealt with when covering contemporary literature in the UK,
namely the British Empire and the innovations and influences in 20th-century late English fiction.
1.1. The British Empire and the internationalism of British 20th-Century literary gallery
A study of 20th century fiction naturally enough begins by returning to the issue of the
British Empire and its influence on literature. Britain’s major historical experience in the 20th
century, along with the two World Wars, has been the final flourishing, later. Perhaps the most
obvious effect this fact has had on the 20th-century British prose has been the impoverishment
of British fiction, robbing it of subjects and settings useful to many novelists earlier in the
century –Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad, E. M. Forster, Graham Greene and several others
found in the Empire a variety of useful contexts and opportunities for their fiction.
Characters in the colonies could be confronted by encounters with unfamiliar places and
values, the dilemmas of government, or simply an exiled loneliness sharpening an anxious
questioning of their own outlook and identity.
The disappearance of the Empire also added to a wider sense of loss which appears here
and there in recent fiction in a number of ways. The 20th century has seen Britain decline
from virtual world dominion to an eventual role as a minor ally of the United States and an
ordinary member of the European Union. This change of Britain’s world role may account
for a diminished scale and confidence sometimes apparent in recent novels. Britain’s loss of
the Empire and of a dominant world role can be seen to account for the enormous popular
appeal of Ian Fleming’s James Bond stories, starting with Casino Royale in 1953.
Numerous film treatments have helped to make these among the most popular of narratives
in Britain since the war. Ian Fleming has continued to exercise some influence over other
writers in the spy and thriller genres, such is the case of John Le Carré’s dark fascinatingly
complex accounts of the covert2 brutalities of the Cold War, such as The Spy Who Came in
from the Cold (1963) or Smiley’s People (1980).
Other recent media successes and, to some extent, the novels on which they are based,
can also be seen to owe their popularity to nostalgia for vanished Empire and uneasiness with
Britain’s diminished world role. Popular 80s films such as Gandhi (1982), Ruth Prawer
Jhabvala’s Heat and Dust (1982) and E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India (1985) sometimes
drew on3 a qualified regret for Britain’s supposedly more splendid days as the ruler of India.
This also figured in the television series The Jewel in the Crown, based on Paul Scott’s The Raj
Quartet (1966-1975).
The kind of complex, critical story of the Empire offered by Farrell also appears in
Timothy Mo’s An Insular Possession (1986). Inclusion of newspaper reports and contemporary
2 Secret or hidden.
3 Make use of.
I
journals alongside its fictional narrative contributes to the historical detail and comprehensiveness
of Mo’s account of the rise of Hong Kong, a colony even more conspicuously4 controlled by
the kind of corrupt materialism exposed by Farrell. Anthony Burgess puts it, “colonialism...
exported the English language, and a new kind of British novel has been the eventual flower
of this transplanting.” In recent decades there have been many signs of this increasingly
growing and fruitful ‘transplantation’. Evidence of this appears in the list of recent recipients
of the Booker Prize, a useful annual indication of the best non-USA fiction published in
English. The 1980s began with its award to Bombay-born Salman Rushdie for Midnight’s
Children (1981); the 1990s with the success of The Famished Road (1991) by the Nigerian
novelist Ben. Amongst other outside-Britain-originating-prize-winners figured the Japanese
Kazuo Ishiguro for The Remains of the Day (1989).
1.2. Innovations and influences in late English fiction
In the 60s and 70s, innovative fiction reflecting a dual and complex cultural awareness was
mostly the work of novelists such as Muriel Spark, John Fowles or John Berger who
happened for one reason or another to be aware of foreign literature and thought, often
French. The 80s and early 90s, however, saw a much more a internationalism of outlook
emerging in the work of authors, such as Salman Rushdie, Ishiguro, Ben Okri or Timothy
Mo, for whom post-colonial or other conditions of origin create a more complex cultural
identity and a deeper awareness of styles and possibilities from beyond as well as within their
country of residence. Such new fusions and relationships contribute to the British novel’s
renewed vitality and disposition for change, experiment and progress.
Within mainland Britain, while the affluent5, conservative-dominated South East grows
increasingly apart from the rest of the country, yet retaining control over the language and
ideas of most of its media, a sense of cultural separateness and the need for separate forms
are likely to emerge elsewhere. This is especially so in Scotland, where some desire for
cultural, linguistic and political autonomy has always existed. Some Scottish authors such as
Alasdair Gray-Lanark (1981), 1982, Janine (1984)-Muriel Spark James Kelman-The Sound
of my Voice (1987), Ian Bank-The Bridge (1986), Brian McCabe-The Other McCoy (1990); or
Emma Tennant give evidence of a readiness6 to evolve new forms which may result from
Scotland’s political situation and tensions between its literary traditions and English ones.
Another contributory factor for this renaissance boom of Scottish literature in the 70s and
80s may have been the failure of the referendum on devolution in 1979. What history
refuses, fiction and imagination reshape and express.
Women writers, such as Emma Tennant, Angela Carter and Jeanette Winterson, have
also felt themselves as alien and critical, and at least as alert as Rushdie to the potential of
magic realist styles to contribute to sharp, particular visions of contemporary society.
4 Visibly or noticibly.
5 The rich or wealthy people.
6 Willingness or wanting to do something.
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A FEW BRITISH WRITERS
AUTHOR WORKS
Ian Fleming James Bond
J. L. Carré The Spy Who Came from The Cold;

Smiley’s People
R.P. Jhavbalá Heat and Dust
Kazuo Ishiguro The Remains of the Day
Foster A Passage to India; The Jewel in The Crown.
P. Scott The Raj Quartet
Timothy Mo An Insular Possession
Salman Rushdie Midnight’s Children
Alasdair Gray Lanark; Janine
2. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
2.1. American Short Story of the late 20th century
The short story entered the 20th century as the most popular of fictional forms. This was
especially true in the United States, and the achievements of major American short story
writers during the succeeding half-century would lead the Irish short story writer, Frank
O’Connor, in his pioneering theoretical study on the short story, Lonely Voice (1963), to
declare that “the Americans have handled the short story so wonderfully that one can say
that it is a national art form”.
The short story is a vehicle for different kinds of knowledge, knowledge which may be in
some way at odds with7 the ‘story’ of dominant culture. We may say that the short story gives
us the other side of the ‘official story’ or narrative, or we might suggest that the short story
suggests what we cannot normally say, hence8 its close connection, in form and content with
fantasy, which is another mode of expression for repressed desire or knowledge. The short
story has been a particularly important form for black women writers in America –Zora
Neale Hurston; Paule Marshall (Merle and Other Stories), Alice Walker (In Love and Trouble, You
Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down), Gloria Naylor (The Women of Brewster Place).
The short story, as we know it, is a modern form. Elizabeth Bowen has called it ‘the
child of the 20th century’. It first flowered in the 1890s, and then developed, as Bowen points
out, hand-in-glove with cinema. The link between the two forms may be more than
7 Disagree.
8 So, therefore.
I
fortuitous. It is interesting to consider the reciprocal relation between the short story and
film, the two forms which have altered our conception of narrative. Both short story and
film reject or deny certain levels of narrative, a certain kind of discursive ‘explanation’,
preferring instead to work on a level on which unconscious desires and motives may be
explored via ‘associations not examined by reason’.
African American James Baldwin (1924-1987) has published collections of short stories
(Going to Meet the Man, which includes “Sonny’s Blues”, as well as essays (The Devil Finds Work:
An Essay, 1976; The Price of a Ticket: Collected Non-fiction, 1985).
John Barth (1930–) is the author of the meta-fictive collection of stories Lost in the
Funhouse (1968).
Donald Barthelme (1933-1989) is most noted for his short stories, among them Come
Back, Dr. Caligari; Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts; City Life; Sadness; Guilty Pleasures;
Amateurs; and Great Day.
Russian-American Jew Saul Bellow (1915-2005) is the author of several collections of
short fiction, among which, Something to Remember Me By (1991).
Raymond Carver (1938-1988) is noted for the bleak9 atmospheres in which his apparently
ordinary and sometimes flat characters exist. Carver skilfully crafted his quiet, spare10 style toward
sudden and startling11 insight12 into the quotidian13. A formidable influence on contemporary
fiction writers, Carver is the author of several short story collections, What We Talk About
When We Talk About Love (1981), Cathedral (1983), and Where I’m Calling From (1988).
John Cheever (1912-1982): prolific writer of short fiction, many of his stories appearing
in the New Yorker. While best known for his polished14 studies of suburban life, in later years
Cheever widened the range of his art to include more exotic settings. The short stories have
appeared in six volumes: The Way Some People Live (1943), The Enormous Radio and Other Stories
(1953), The Housebreaker of Shady Hill (1958), Some People, Places and Things That Will Not Appear
in My Next Novel (1961), The Brigadier and the Golf Widow (1964), and The World of Apples (1973).
Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960). Her pioneering anthropological work on Black
American folklore includes Mules and Men (1935) and Tell My Horse (1938).
Bernard Malamud (1914-1986) is best known for his sensitive portrayals of Jewish life,
in which realism is overlaid with15 an almost allegorical sense of fate suffering. The Magic
Barrel (1958) was his first collection, was followed by Idiots First (1963), Pictures of Fidelman
(1969), and Rembrandt’s Hat (1973).
Joyce Carol Oates (1938–): her numerous publications include over two dozen collections
of short stories, among them By the North Gate (1963), The Wheel of Love (1970), Marriages and
9 Bad, gloomy.
10 Extra.
11 Remarkable, surprising.
12 Deep understanding.
13 Every-day activities.
14 Improved.
15 Covered by.
3 I
Infidelities (1972), Daisy (1977), Night-Side (1977), A Sentimental Education (1980), and The
Assignation (1988). Her intense renderings16 of the horror and violence in everyday life have
often been labelled Gothic, and Oates herself has commented that “Gothicism, whatever it
is, is not a literary tradition so much as fairly realistic assessment of modern life”.
Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964): from Savannah, Georgia, the southern world inspired
all her fiction. Her first collection of stories, A Good Man Is Hard To Find (1950), was the only
collection published during her lifetime. She also wrote two novellas, Wise Blood (1952) and
The Violent Bear It Away (1960). Posthumously published volume of short stories, Everything
That Rises Must Converge (1965).
John Updike (1932-2009): a master of the well-made story based on ironic observation,
Updike has been praised more often for his technical virtuosity than for the power of his
subjects; yet his stories at their best are capable of lifting a trivial event to the level of
complex significance: The Same Door (1959), Pigeon Feathers (1962), The Music School (1966),
Museums and Women (1972), Too Far to Go (1979), Trust Me (1987).
Eudora Welty (1909-2001). Her chief accomplishment17 has been in the shorter form,
and with the publication of A Curtain of Green (1941) she was recognised as a brilliant
technician. Later volumes are The Bride of Innisfallen (1955) and Thirteen Stories (1965).
Although Eudora Welty’s fiction is essentially regional, it is redeemed18 from provinciality by
her talent for fantasy and the grotesque. Besides, no modern writer of short stories has been
more articulate about the craft19 of storytelling than her.
A FEW AMERICAN SHORT STORY WRITERS
AUTHOR WORKS
Paule Marshall Merle and Other Stories
In Love and Trouble; You Can’t Ke
Alice Walker
Good Woman Down
Gloria Naylor The Women of Brewster Place
James Baldwin Going to Meet the Man
Donald Barthelme Come Back; Dr. Caligari
Saul Bellow Something to Remember Me By
Raymond Carver Cathedral;Where I am Calling From
John Cheever The World of Apples
Zora N. Hurston Mules and Men; Tell My Horse
John Updike Trust Me; Too Far to Go
Eudora Welty Thirteen Stories
Flannery O’Connor Everything That Rises Must Converge
16 Performance.
17 Achievements.
18 Freed from.
19 art.
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2.2. Contemporary novel in the USA
The novel in the 20th century has been fundamental and nowhere more so than in the
United States. The world inhabited by present-day American writers is very different from
the world of the 1960s that produced the flamboyant formal innovations and central
thematic preoccupations associated with postmodernism. And while certain recent trends in
our fiction can be seen as extensions of the features of postmodernism or as reactions
against these features, the most significant new directions are emerging naturally as responses
to the new ‘style’ and ‘content’ of life today.
New directions include: the emergence of science fiction as a major literary genre; a more
general interaction among literary genres including critical theory and literature; the vitality
and diversity of forms, voices and myths developed by women writers and by authors from
other marginalized groups –blacks, Native Americans, gays, Chicanos, etc– the exploration
of various new powerfully resonant metaphors and systems of thought, drawn from science,
computers, linguistics, pop culture, economics, and many other contemporary sources; the
flowering of the American short story, in particular, the minimalist or new realist fiction.
After the war America entered an ‘Age of Anxiety’. The politics of America were
influenced by great fears. As a result, American authors in the fifties show that they are
uncomfortable in the post-war world. It is not a period of important experiments in style.
However, the most interesting authors are developing new and interesting themes. Many
writers in this period try to find new answers to the old question: who am I? Black
American and Jewish American writers find the answer by looking at their own cultural and
racial backgrounds. Others explore the ideas of modern philosophy and psychology. The young
Beat writers use Oriental religion for the same purpose. However, the new writers of the
South seem a little less ‘modern’. In their work, we still feel the sad, heavy weight of the past.
The central theme of their work is often loneliness and ‘the search of the self ’. This
makes their work deeply interesting to modern readers everywhere.
Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964) is one of these Southern writers. Her fiction suggests
the reality of another world. For her, the centre of existence is the Holy Ghost. Among her
most important works we can mention Wise Blood (1952), the Violent Bear It Away (1960) and
the short story A Good Man is Hard to Find (1955).
The Northerner Mary McCarthy (1912-1989) was another woman writer active in this
period. Like Scott Fitzgerald, she used her novels to describe the life of her own generation.
Among her works we can point out, The Company She Keeps (1942), the Groves of the Academe
(1952), The Group (1963) and Vietnam (1967) which are widely read and praised.
In the 40s and 50s, the Jewish American novel grew in importance. They brought to
American literature a new interest in the old problems of morality. Saul Bellow is the most
important of the Jewish American novelists. His first novel Dangling Man (1944) is about a
man waiting to be called into the army during the World War II. He wants to ‘know our
purpose’. But he fails to any answers. In fact, he decides that the world is meaningless.
Bellow’s next novel The Victim (1947) also has an existentialist theme. The hero fells
‘alienated’, unconnected to the world around him. Other important novels are The Adventures
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of Angie March (1953), Herzog (1964) and Mr Sammler’s Planet (1970). Bellow’s novel became a
model for many new writers in the fifties.
J.D. Salinger is also a Jewish American writer but he has almost no strong ties to the
Jewish tradition. His only novel The Catcher in the Rye (1951) made him the most famous
American writer among serious young people in the fifties and early sixties. The rest of
Salinger’s work is a series of short stories about war. That’s the case of Seymour (1963) and A
Perfect Day for Banana Fish (1948).
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (1924) is perhaps the most famous of non-fiction
novels of the period. It is a terrifying story of how a whole family was murdered.
While in the 50s writers had explored the theme of man’s place in society, in the 60s, writers
became more interested in a new question: what is writing? They began to experiment with
completely new forms of literature: post-realism and the ‘anti-novel’.
That is the case of John Updike. His characters are not satisfied with their everyday lives
in modern society. They look for something below the surface of things. Among his novels
we can mention Rabbit, Run (1960), Rabbit Redux (1971) and Rabbit is Rich (1981).
A FEW AMERICAN NOVELISTS
AUTHOR WORKS
Flannery O’Connor A Good Man is Hard To Find
Mary McCarthy Vietnam; The Group
Saul Bellow The Adventures of Angie March;Herzog
John Updike Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux
J. D. Salinger Seymour; A Perfect Day for Banana Fish
Truman Capote In Cold Blood
3. ENGLISH-SPEAKING CONTEMPORARY POETRY
3.1. American 20th century poetry
During the ten years following WWII, T. S. Eliot rose to a position of utmost eminence
and power, through his innovative poetry and his polemical essays; his later years, however,
were devoted to softening the edges of his earlier positions20 and cautioning young writers
against the dangers of innovation, and against popular culture –in defence of High Culture.
In post-war America, the reception of modernism was particularly shaped by the New
Criticism –Allen Tate, among other thinkers. The New Criticism privileged the brief, intense,
20 Become more sympathetic or less critical.

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ironically self-conscious lyric, excluding the discursive narrative, spontaneous, passionate, vast
stretches of human and literary experience.
A third generation of 20th-century American poets comprised people such as James
Merrill, W. S. Merwin, Adrienne Rich, Peter Viereck, Richard Wilburn –born between 1920
and 1940– the so-called ‘New Formalists’. They stayed within New Critical decorum21,
building a poetic programme upon a gradual return of accentual meters and predetermined
forms that had been going on since the early 1930s. In the late 50s and early 60s, American
poetry experienced a new eruption of innovative energy in which both the younger writers
and some of the middle generation, notably John Berryman, Robert Lowell and Charles
Olson, participated. Poetic measure became the most charged issue.
Around 1960 theoretical shift was led to a revision of the canon. Romantic visionaries like
William Blake and Walt Whitman were rescued from minor to major status. Marginal modern
poets such as Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams, became liberating
models and central figures, while then-marginal literary movements, such as French
surrealism and its Latin American variants, were freshly explored.
The Beat Poets: the most outrageously provocative of the new vanguard from the 50s.
Among them: Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, William
Everson. The text agglutinating the group’s distinct anarchic characteristics is Ginsberg’s
Howl, a long poem, of packed, fast-moving lines in which Ginsberg linked the transcendent
with the material, mystical ecstasy with urban torment, in long surging Whitmanesque lines.
Like the beat poets, the ‘confessional poets’ repudiated the orthodoxies of the 1950s.
Less socially and ideologically close than the beats, the confessional poets were unified in
defining the creative act as a painful self-exposure, a direct expression of urgent emotion
aroused22 by personal, often extreme, experiences. Robert Lowell is often credited with23
founding the movement with his autobiographical Life Studies (1959); but Allen Ginsberg’s
‘naked poetics’ and confessional tone in Howl anticipated it. John Berryman’s Dream Songs
(1964-69); W. D. Snodgrass’ Heart’s Needle (1959), Anne Sexton’s To Bedlam and Part Way Back
(1960), Sylvia Plath’s posthumous Ariel (1965).
The Black Mountain Poets envisioned24 nothing less than a re-founding of Western
thought and writing. They were ambitious, combative, often prophetic, and socially and
theoretically closely knit, with Charles Olson as its dynamic centre and inventor. The Black
Mountain poets criticize not just modern industrialism, capitalism, and imperialism but the
abstract will itself, Western man’s quest for domination.
‘Deep Image’ or Surrealist Poets repudiated what they perceived as the sterile
excitement of the beats, the psychological sensationalism of the confessionals, and the Black
Mountain fetishising of technique. Less socially and even less intellectually close than rival
contemporary groups, they did share their generation’s separation from Eliot’s modernism.
21 Politeness.
22 Caused.
23 Considered to have a quality.
24 Envisage, imagine.
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The Poets of the New York School are the most self-conscious and least programmatic
of their generation. The group, including John Ashbery, Barbara Guest, Kenneth Koch,
Frank O’Hara, and James Schuyler, shared their contemporaries’ refusal of New Critical
social and linguistic decorum.
AMERICAN POETRY
MOVEMENT AUTHOR
The New Criticism Tate
The New Formalism Merrill; Merwin
The Beat Poets Ginsberg (Howl); Kerouac
Confessional Poets Berryman (Dream Songs); Plath (Ariel)
Black Mountain P. Charles Olson

The New York School John Ashberry
3.2. Late 20th-century English and Irish Poetry
In England, Ted Hughes suddenly made understatement25 and genteel26 versification

seem insipid. Hughes brought a new stridency27, a rasping28 sinewy29 quality, to replace the
formal graces of ‘Movement’ poets, a new awareness of untamable energy and rawness30 in
the natural world to replace their suburban intimacy with bars and shops, trains and hospitals.
The physical violence erupting in his poems, the harsh landscapes, and the creations of his
numerous animal studies of what has been called a modern bestiary, have given individuality
to Ted Hughes’s work. Titles: The Hawk in the Rain (1957), Lupercal (1960), Animal Poems
(1967), Woodwo (1967), Crow (1970), Crow Wakes (1971), Eat Crow (1972), Season Songs (1976),
and Gaudete (1977).
Philip Hobsbaum has delighted his readers with his pervasive31 knocking of pretensions,
romantic and metaphysical, which tend to lure32 the poetic practitioner.
George McBeth, another member of the Group, has been prolific in output, versatile in
range, and is gifted technically.
25 The practice of suggesting that things have much less of a particular quality than they really have.
26 Traditional.
27 The quality of being unpleasantly loud.
28 Unpleasanly harsh.
29 Strong.
30 The quality of being natural.
31 Present.
32 Entice, trick.
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Seamus Heaney (Ulster, 1939. Nobel Prize 1997) is a poet of profound sensitivity to the
immediate and the local, which has sent him digging down to the past. It is ‘The best Irish poet
since Yeats’. Titles: Death of a Naturalist, Door into the Dark, Wintering Out, North, Seeing Things...
A FEW BRITISH POETS
AUTHOR WORKS
Ted Hughes The Hawk in the Rain;Gaudete

Philip Hobsbaum Women and Animals
George McBeth The Colour of Blood
Seamus Heaney Death of a Naturlist;Door into the Dark
4. ENGLISH-SPEAKING CONTEMPORARY DRAMA
Given the lure and power of cinema, the general public is largely less and less responsive
to theatre performance. Drama history is rather taught in classrooms and summarized in
surveys, reaching more readers than spectators.
4.1. American drama of the late 20th century
We must begin with EUGENE O’NEILL, generally acclaimed as America’s greatest

dramatist. He stumbled33, however, through several styles and subjects in his resolution to
create tragedy on the modern stage. He began writing melodramas. He then steered34 into
realistic sea plays, then toward expressionism, and finally to realistic plays with an epic
dimension. O’Neill shaped his thought and torment into forty-nine published plays. His most
important plays are Beyond the Horizon; Lazarus Laughed-O’Neill’s most ambitious play, which
draws upon35 the Bible, Greek choruses, expressionist masks, popular crowd scenes and
orchestrated laughter that is intended to damn materialism; Strange Interlude-O’Neill’s ‘woman
play’; Mourning Becomes Electra-transplants the Oresteia to the American Civil War; The Iceman
Comet (1939), Long Day’s Journey into Night (1940), Hughie (1941)-O’Neill’s greatest achievements.
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS produced some 35 plays of uneven quality, many of which
emerged out of earlier one-act or earlier short stories. Some plays are Orpheus Descending;
Eccentricities of a Nightingale; Kingdom of Earth; The Glass Menagerie; A Street Car Named Desire-in
this play Williams brought sex, the South, and violence to Broadway (1947), and that triad36
was thereafter37 assumed as his signature; Summer and Smoke (1948)-body-versus-mind allegory;
33 Make a mistake.
34 Take a particular line of action or direction.
35 Make use of.
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The Rose Tattoo (1950)-a venture into festive farce steeped in symbolism; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
(1954)-again offering sultry38 sex in the South, diluting violence with humour; Suddenly Last
Summer (1958)-violence returning with retribution; The Night of the Iguana (1961)-cruelty at large,
beyond the South, with touching moment of communion; Clothes for a Summer Hotel (1980)-
William’s last major play, a kind of ‘ghost play’. Williams resurrects Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald
and Ernest Hemingway.
ARTHUR MILLER. In 1949 Miller opened his American classic Death of a Salesman.
The drama was instantly hailed39 as an American myth and a contemporary tragedy. Rooted
in realistic family, this play stages the memories, aspirations and hallucinations of a middle-
aged failure. It encapsulated the drift40 of a nation at mid-century, and it has acquired a deep
patina41 with the decades. Other works include The Crucible (1953); A View from the Bridge (1955);
After the Fall (1964); Incident at Vichy (1965); The Price (1968)-a realistic drama setting forth his old
themes-individual responsibility, contrasting brothers, mutually uncomprehending generations;
The Archibishops’s Ceiling (1977)-a new departure for Miller, not only for its East European
setting, but because the possibility of hidden electronic devices transform our characters into
actors; The American Clock (1980); Two-Way Mirror; Danger: Memory (1985).
The traditional approaches to American drama often end with EDWARD ALBEE, who
is mainly known by his early plays. He was adopted by the movie magnate Reed Albee. He
was expelled from various schools, but began writing while still in his teens. His first play, The
Zoo Story, can now be seen to predict Albee’s subsequent work, the obliquity of its
expression, its theme of emotional commitment, its shifting linguistic rhythms, its dynamic
colloquial lexicon. Some of his most important plays are The Death of Bessie Smith (1960); The
American Dream (1960), like The Sandbox (1959) is a devastating satire on the degradation of
that dream; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf ? (1969)-his most successful and caustic Broadway
play; The Lady from Dubuque (1980)-dwells42 in Albee’s more habitual horror.
A FEW AMERICAN PLAYWRITERS
AUTHOR WORKS
Eugene O’Neill Hughie; Long Day’s Journey into Night
Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire; Suddenly Last Summer; Cat

on a Hot Tin Roof
Arthur Miller Death of a Salesman; Memory
Edward Albee The American Dream; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?;

The Sandbox
36 A group of three similar things.

37 Subsequently, from then onwards.
38 Attractive and passionate.
39 Praised or considered.
40 A movement away.
41 A soft shine.
42 Live.
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II. ENGLISH CHILDREN’S LITERATURE AND TEACHING STRATEGIES
As our main aim as FL teachers is to help students acquire communicative competence

in a FL, we may ask ourselves how literature contributes to the development of the students’
communicative competence. Literature promotes oral skills –listening and speaking– as well
as literacy skills –reading and writing; social and intercultural competence is also developed
and the use of imagination is encouraged. Literature may be studied in close relation to
language, that is, as a mere way of introducing language in class, but at the same time, it is a
vehicle to develop sensibility towards other aspects of life and culture.
1. AN INTRODUCTION TO TEACHING LITERATURE
1.1. Teaching techniques
The use of literature in class offers a wide range of possibilities for bringing in other
aspects of the foreign language programme. Almost all pieces of literary work contain some
cultural content or another –set in specific geographic places, mention of music, social
custom, dates or historical events, historical figures– all of which should be further exploited
and explored in the class.
Reading literature is also a good basis to practise written and spoken skills. Texts can be
used for oral practice in several ways. They also provide material basis to practise writing in
class, using new vocabulary and linguistic structures that may have been learnt in the texts.
Literature may be introduced in the FL class in the following ways:
• Through aural media –films, CDs/DVDs– many of which are adaptations of literary
works.
• Through texts, excerpts or abridgements from literary works –novels, poems, stories,
plays, film scripts.
• Through real literary works –books, articles– which may be studied from a literary or
from a content point of view.
Usually the students will need to be introduced to the literary work before they can
appreciate it. They may need to learn the historical background of a novel, for instance, the
social conditions which the author is trying to portray in a play, the geographical setting of a
story. Sometimes a short presentation of the author’s life helps the student better understand
a lyric poem or a semi-autobiographical piece.
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1.2. Aims in teaching literature
Before introducing a literary work to the class, the teacher must decide what the aims are:
• the primary aim in teaching literature is to show students different techniques for
reading and interpreting a literary work. If students develop various approaches to
literature, perhaps later, they will enjoy reading literary works on their own.
• the secondary aim is to reinforce certain points of grammar, culture, and items of
vocabulary, especially in a context of entertainment. In studying a work of literature
the student will simultaneously be developing his command of the second language.
To meet this secondary aim, the teacher can work upon all literary periods but on
condition that the works are abridged, so teachers would do better to choose
contemporary works, because their structures and vocabulary will more closely parallel
the type of language the student has been learning.
2. DEFINITIONS
Before the nineteenth century, very few books were especially written for children. Since
then, changing attitudes towards childhood and children’s development, along with the
increased sophistication of print technology, have led to the development of children’s
literature as a major industry. There is, however, no simple, straightforward definition of
children’s literature that can be applied with equal validity at different times and in different
contexts. Just as concepts of ‘child’, ‘childhood’ and ‘literature’ have changed over time, so
too have definitions of ‘children’s literature’.
Definitions of children’s literature can be assigned to three broad categories (intended
audience; purpose; style/quality), the second of which includes three sub-categories
(entertainment; entertainment and information; empathy). Although, in terms of overall
emphasis, the majority of definitions fall into one of these categories and sub-categories,
some include aspects of more than one of them.
However, the most commonly occurring contemporary definition of children’s literature
is one that focuses on intended audience. For McDowell (1973) and Hunt (1996), the
definition of children’s literature includes explicit reference to intended readership. For them,
the term ‘children’s literature’ is applicable to books written for, and read by, that group
referred to as ‘children’ by any particular society This approach to defining children’s
literature excludes books that are read by, but not primarily intended for, children. Even so,
to define children’s literature in terms of intended readership alone is potentially problematic
in that it allows for the inclusion of, for example, textbooks which would not normally be
considered to come within the domain of children’s literature.
For many writers, ‘children’s literature’ is not only a term that applies to writing that is
designed primarily to entertain, but also one that is restricted to narrative fiction. For
Hollindale (1997), for example, children’s literature is “a body of texts with certain common
features of imaginative interest, which is activated as children’s literature by a reading event:
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that of being read by a child”, “a child [being] someone who believes on good grounds that
his or her condition of childhood is not yet over” (emphasis added).
Galda and Cullinan (2002) claim that literature “entertains and ...informs”, that “[it]
enables young people to explore and understand their world” and “enriches their lives and
widens their horizons”. Thus, through literature, children “learn about people and places on
the other side of the world as well as ones down the street. They can travel back and forth in
time to visit familiar places and people, to meet new friends, and to see new worlds. They can
explore their own feelings, shape their own values, and imagine lives beyond the one they
live”. Such an approach, would allow for the inclusion in the category of children’s literature
of both fiction and non-fiction. It would also allow for the inclusion of works which are
designed to teach as well as to entertain.
3. SELECTING AND USING CHILDREN’S LITERATURE
Smallwood (1988) recommends that criteria for the selection of children’s literature for
language learners should include “age-appropriate theme; simple language; limited use of
metaphor and unfamiliar experiences; use of rhyme; unambiguous plot; realistic but simple
dialogue; potential for reading aloud; brevity; and good illustrations.” Interestingly, given the
significance of the fact that the stress-timed nature of English can present major difficulties
for speakers of syllabic languages, no reference is made to rhythm and metre. Furthermore,
what is meant by ‘simple language’ is an issue that requires detailed examination, as does that
of what is meant by ‘good illustrations’ and ‘potential for reading aloud’. Smallwood’s
expansion of these criteria, which is summarized below, makes little reference to text-types
other than the novel and short story and genres other than the narrative genre and remains
so general as to be of little value to teachers who are searching for criteria that will be of
genuine use in the context of language programme design and implementation.
Criteria:
• Books (including illustrations) should be age-appropriate in terms of theme, topic or
story line.
• Language and sentence patterns should be fairly simple and somewhat controlled, with
tenses, structures and vocabulary repeated often through a book.
• There should be limited use of metaphorical language and limited references to
unfamiliar experiences.
• As many books as possible should include rhyming. This is an excellent tool for
memorizing (always helpful in language learning) and for visual phonetic transfer. This
can be done in a mature way, with songs and poems in picture-book format.
• The plot should be very straightforward, chronological in order and unambiguous.
Action should predominate, with characters and descriptions clear but not complex.
• Dialogue should be used as much and as realistically as possible, but books with
dialects and excessive use of idiomatic expressions should be avoided.
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• Books should be successful read-alouds. Most literature for ESL students should be
first introduced orally, with the teacher reading so that students are exposed to the
stimulation of language beyond their reading level.
• Books should be fairly short (either as a whole or by chapters) so that they can be
completed in 5-10 minute sittings.
• Books should be single volumes, as opposed to part of a collection, wherever possible.
This applies most often to fairy tales, poetry and songs.
• Illustrations should be clear and dramatic, ideally able to almost tell the story on their
own. Both the teachers and students depend on these pictures to explain new
vocabulary or experiences. The amount of text per page should be limited, with
illustrations being predominant. With increased language proficiency, the balance
should shift to more text.
Smallwood (2002) restates these criteria, adding others:

• Does the book help meet curriculum objectives or enhance the thematic units being
studied?
• Is the book’s content appropriate to the children’s age and intellectual level?
• Does the book use language that is at or slightly above the level of the learners?
• Does the book contain repeated, predictable language patterns?
• Are there clear illustrations that help tell the story?
Smallwood notes that language and sentence patters should be ‘fairly simple,’ ‘slightly
above the level of the learners,’ and ‘somewhat controlled’, the modifiers suggesting a lack
of genuine in-depth understanding of the factors involved in language teaching and learning.
This is equally true of most of the other points made.
Brown (2004) claims that “appropriate selections [of children’s literature] give students
exposure to new, illustrated vocabulary in context, provide repetition of key words and phrases
that students can master and learn to manipulate, and provide a sense of accomplishment... that
finishing a single unit in a textbook cannot provide.” After all, there are some textbooks that
include story telling along with a range of related tasks, which provide exposure to new
language and revision of existing language, that include repetition of key words and phrases
and that are well, and appropriately illustrated. Brown argues that when evaluating children’s
literature with language teaching in mind, teachers should pay careful attention to each of the
following characteristics:
• Length and complexity. Simple, short stories with repetitive language work best for
young EFL learners.
• Type size and the number of words on each page. If the size of type is too small, or
there are too many words on a page, young students may be intimidated.
• The level of vocabulary. If students know less than 75% - 80% of the vocabulary, they
may lose confidence in their ability to understand the story.
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• The nature of illustrations. Illustrations should be interesting and should help students
understand both the vocabulary and the story.
• Personal enjoyment. It will be difficult to convince students to be enthusiastic about a
story you don’t like.
4. CHILDREN’S LITERATURE: ILLUSTRATIONS AND THEIR FUNCTION
Illustration plays an important role in children’s literacy development: “children like

pictures and children need pictures” (Nodelman & Reimer, 2003). For both children and
adults, illustrations can play in important role in textual interpretation. Doonan (1993) notes
that “the reader scans the picture first, then reads the text, then returns to the picture to
reinterpret in the light of the words” so that “[the] words help us to interpret the pictures
and vice versa.” However, Lewis (2001) observes that there are good reasons for believing
that children read picture-books in ways that adults do not.
There is generally considered to be a difference between an illustrated book and a picture
book although there is no clear-cut distinction, with what are sometimes referred to as
‘picture story books’ falling somewhere between the two categories.
Norton (1999), notes that “most children’s books are illustrated, but not all illustrated
children’s books are picture books.” According to Anderson (2006), a picture book “conveys
its message through a series of pictures with only a small amount of text (or none at all).”
5. CHILDREN’S LITERATURE: LANGUAGE FEATURES
The majority of those who have written about children’s literature have done so with
children for whom the language of the text is a first language in mind. Many of the books to
which they are exposed that come into the first three categories are story books (including
picture story books), but those that come into the fourth category involve a range of
different genres and text-types:
• Alphabet Books which present the letters of the alphabet one by one in order to help
children to acquire the sounds and symbols of the twenty-six letters. One example is
Eating the Alphabet: Fruits and Vegetables from A to Z by Lois Ehlert (1989).
• Counting Books which present numbers (generally from 1 to 10) along with the
names of the numbers (one, two, three...). One example is 1,2,3 by Tana Hoban (1985).
• Wordless Books which have no written text but present their messages through
pictures only. One example is The Snowman by Raymond Briggs (1978).
• Concept Books which don’t tell a story but introduce an idea or concept (e.g.,
opposites), an object (e.g., a car), or an activity (e.g., eating). One example is Shapes,
Shapes, Shapes by Tana Hoban (1986).
• Nursery Rhyme Books or other collections of verse (including traditional verse).
Examples are the retelling of nursery rhymes (accompanied by new illustrations) by
writers such as Tomie Depaola (1985) and Arnold Lobel (1990).
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• Picture Storybooks in which the interaction between written text and pictures is
fundamental to interpretation. Examples are Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McClosky
(1941) and Stephanie’s Ponytail by Robert Munsch (1996).
• Easy-to-Read Books which are created specifically to help the beginning reader to
read more successfully and independently. They contain larger than average print,
bigger space between lines and limited vocabulary. Many of them (in common with
many other types of book for children) include devices such as word patterns, repeated
text, rhyming text and illustration clues (Tomlinson & Lynch-Brown, 1996/2002). Frog
and Toad are Friends by Arnold Lobel (1970) is an example of an easy-to read chapter
book.
6. A SELECTION OF IMPORTANT WORLD-WIDE WORKS
Because of the difficulty in defining children’s literature, it is also difficult to trace its
history to a precise starting point.
15th Century
Some stories popular among children were written in the 15th like the tales of Robin
Hood (c. 1450) which were not written with children in mind, but children have been
fascinated by these stories for centuries.
17th Century
During this time, Charles Perrault (1628-1703) laid the foundations of the fairy tale in
France: Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Puss in Boots and Cinderella.
18th Century
In 1744, John Newbery published in England A Little Pretty Pocket Book.
19th Century
In the early 19th century, the Brothers Grimm: Rapunzel and Hansel and Gretel (1812).
Between 1835 and 1848, Hans Christian Andersen published his beloved fairy tales: The Little
Mermaid (1836), The Ugly Duckling (1844), and others. In 1865, Lewis Carrol published Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland in England. It is considered to be one of the most characteristic
examples of the genre of literary nonsense. In 1880, Johanna Spyri published Heidi (1880) in
Switzerland. In 1883, Carlo Collodi wrote his puppet story, The Adventures of Pinocchio as a first
Italian fantasy novel for the children of Italy. In 1883, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote the
classic pirate adventure novel The Treasure Island. In 1894, Rudyard Kipling published The
Jungle Book. In 1900, L. Frank Baum published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in the United
States.
20th Century
In 1911, J.M Barrie published Peter and Wendy where Peter Pan, one of the most famous
characters in children’s literature, magically refuses to grow up and spends his never-ending
childhood in the small island called Neverland. A. A. Milne wrote children’s poems and a
series of stories about the bear Winnie the Pooh and his friends in the woods.
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In 1950, C. S. Lewis published the first of installment of his Chronicles of Narnia series in
the UK. Dr. Seuss (1904-1991) captivated generations of children with his many books of
colorful illustrated characters concocting imaginative fantasies in rhymes. Roald Dahl (1916-
1990) rose to prominence in the 1940s. Many of his works, such as Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory were inspired from experiences from his boyhood. In 1997, J.K. Rowling (born 1965)
published the first installment of her Harry Potter series in the UK. She has become one of
the wealthiest women in the world with so many sales.
21st Century
In 2001, Eoin Colfer published the first installment of his Artemis Fowl.
PART 2. COURSE PLANS. MIXED-ABILITY, BASIC COMPETENCES AND

CONTENT LANGUAGE INTEGRATED LEARNING (CLIL)
a) Dealing with Diversity and Special Needs

Class profile and measures taken to deal with Special needs pupils can be mentioned as
well as foreign pupils, gifted pupils and some other strategies for handling mixed ability,
generally: different learning rates, interests, diversity, motivations, multiple intelligences,
etc. So, there is an model sample below.
All classes can be made up of mixed levels and are the result of, amongst other
things, the different learning styles of the students, their pace of learning, their age,
levels of attention, interest, motivation, types of intelligences, maturity, world
knowledge, knowledge of English, and so on. Mixed ability teaching is one of the
challenges faced by teachers, but the way we deal with mixed ability will make a big
difference to the progress of our students. Mixed ability is defined by diversity and
making the most of diversity goes to the heart of teaching.
1. In order to deal with mixed ability, there are a number of strategies that can be
employed:
In our first lesson we can conduct a survey about how students like to learn, how
they learn outside the School in order to detect differences in learning styles,
preferences and “intelligences” –visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, logical– mathematical,
linguistic, musical, interpersonal, interpersonal, naturalistic, intuitive, etc, and to
adapt themes. If we only use a limited number of techniques we will be ignoring
opportunities to engage some of the class, who may feel unhappy. We should
therefore vary our methods used. Here we can consider different ways of
presenting grammar or vocabulary (listenings, readings, flash cards, posters, songs,
mime, diagrams, video, etc) and practicing language (fill in the gaps, mime, find
someone who, mingle activities, role plays, problem solving activities, computer
games, drills, etc).
2. In addition, we can employ graded tasks: using the same text, activity or exercise
but varying the tasks students perform, thus allowing weaker and stronger pupils to
work at their level and ensure success- putting fewer gaps in a gap fill text, supplying
multiple choice answers to select instead of blanks, etc. We can also use graded
3 I
tasks and exercises (readings and listening together with graded writings; games;
songs). To avoid the problem of deciding who is doing what, we can allow students
occasionally to choose which activity they would prefer to do. In addition, we can
also distribute different tasks entirely, depending on the type of exercise.
3. Another important technique is that of extension activities for fast finishers, who
otherwise may lose interest –we employ, for example, word searches, crosswords, gap
fills, etc. We can also prepare a set of extra reinforcement activities for each unit
for our weaker students. It is particularly important in mixed level classes to give
weaker students opportunities to review the same language.
4. Another key technique in the mixed ability class is to use pairs and groups of
mixed ability when having pupils practice and check work together, thus promoting
cooperation.
5. In addition, the use of project work, which we utilize frequently in our plan, is an
essential strategy for dealing with mixed ability, developing research skills, creativity
and autonomy, while encouraging students to self –correct and self– evaluate.
6. Finally, we must attempt to promote a good rapport between pupils and a positive
group dynamic, not forgetting the need to ensure the class is not divided by the
issue of mixed ability, but remains unified. The need to nominate pupils, rather than
allowing the strong students to dominate, is obvious, as is the need to consider
appropriate correction strategies for the weaker members, ensuring they see error
correction as a positive aspect of learning English, and especially avoiding constant
instant correction of weaker members, emphasizing delayed feedback and encouraging
self correction.
b) Key or Basic Competences

We can list all basic competences and write a short comment to show how the course
plan helps achieve each competence. As a proposal below, we can say:
Basic competences are knowledge, skills and attitudes which students must have learnt
at the end of Basic Education in order to achieve personal development and self
realization; exercise civic skills appropriately, become a fully functioning member of
society and be able to continue their life-long learning. They are essential for students’
integration in society. Each subject develops the basic competences and each
competence will be developed through the study of subjects, so, it is a two way
process. The basic competences that are worked on in English are:
• Linguistic communication: the teaching of English should be based primarily on
the development of this competence, as learning a language contributes mainly and
directly to the acquisition of linguistic communication competence.
• Data processing and digital competence: by using the Aula Medusa, digital
presentations, blogs, digital boards...
• Social and civic competence: by using turn taking strategies to develop interaction,
oral communication and social skills, working on improving attitude, respect,
tolerance, participation...
I
• Cultural and artistic competence: by drawing and finding the differences in pictures,
creating posters, etc... where they show the different skills (listening, reading, writing,
etc) and evaluating their projects.
• Learning –to– learn: As regards cognitive strategies, you can keep a language or
vocabulary notebook and use techniques to organise and use the vocabulary learnt;
you can work on the improvement of dictionary skills, and search for information
in reference books and ICT, etc. As regards metacognitive strategies, you can work
on encouraging pupils to take responsibility with their individual work in projects,
maxi-tasks (planning, organizing); by emphasizing effort, responsibility and
cooperation; by self assessing and accepting mistakes. Try to promote attention,
motivation and entertainment all the time.
• Autonomy and personal initiative: by promoting responsibility, completing their
portfolio, self-esteem, creativity, self criticism, the ability to learn from mistakes
(taking risks); and social skills such as cooperation, group work,etc.
• Mathematical competence: by problem solving activities or logic puzzles for
pupils to work on the solutions. We are interested in the process and not only in the
product. You can have students do numbers, the time, days, fractions, measurement
vocabulary (length, depth...) and linguistically, you can develop mathematical
competence making reference to expressions of hypothesis, using speculation
language and modal verbs.
• Physical world: with the use of vocabulary connected with the body, animals,
food, weather, environment... etc.
c) CLIL
CLIL, according to the European Commision, involves teaching a curricular subject
through the medium of a language other than that normally used. The subject can be
entirely unrelated to language learning, such as history lessons being taught in English
in a school in Spain. CLIL is taking place and has been found to be effective in all
sectors of education from primary through to adult and higher education. Its success
has been growing over the past 10 years and continues to do so.
Teachers working with CLIL are specialists in their own discipline rather than
traditional language teachers. They are usually fluent speakers of the target language,
bilingual or native speakers. In many institutions language teachers work in partnership
with other departments to offer CLIL in various subjects. The key issue is that the
learner is gaining new knowledge about the ‘non-language’ subject while encountering,
using and learning the foreign language. The methodologies and approaches used are
often linked to the subject area with the content leading the activities.
CLIL’s multi-faceted approach can offer a variety of benefits. It:
– builds intercultural knowledge and understanding.
– develops intercultural communication skills.
– improves language competence and oral communication skills.
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– develops multilingual interests and attitudes.

– provides opportunities to study content through different perspectives.
– allows learners more contact with the target language.
– does not require extra teaching hours.
– complements other subjects rather than competes with them.
– diversifies methods and forms of classroom practice.
– increases learners’ motivation and confidence in both the language and the subject
being taught.
You could say that in your course plan, you have chosen topics which are interesting
for students and related to the real world, such as design, future life and environment.
You can also say that in all your units (with examples), you deal with some CLIL
contents which allow students to establish relationships between the foreign language
and other subjects. The commitment of the Education Department to achieving
bilingualism is seen in the extension of the Bilingual Project to more schools next
academic year. Currently, there are thirty-odd schools in Gran Canaria in the Bilingual
Project.
1. Mention a few strategies to deal with mixed-ability in class.
2. Mention the key or basic competences and one exercise for each.
3. Can you summarise the criteria for choosing children’s literature in class?
KEYS
1. Mention a few strategies to deal with mixed-ability in class.

Conduct a survey; vary our methods; graded tasks; extension activities for fast
finishers; reinforcement activities for slow finishers; pairs and groups of mixed
ability; project work; good rapport between pupils and a positive group dynamic.
2. Mention the key or basic competences and one exercise for each.
Data processing and digital competence: by using the Aula Medusa, digital presentations,
blogs, digital boards...
• Social and civic competence: by using turn taking strategies to develop interaction,
oral communication and social skills, working on improving attitude, respect, tolerance,
participation...
I
• Cultural and artistic competence: by drawing and finding the differences in pictures,
creating posters, etc...where they show the different skills (listening, reading, writing,
etc) and evaluating their projects.
• Learning –to– learn. As regards cognitive strategies, you can keep a language or
vocabulary notebook and use techniques to organise and use the vocabulary learnt; you
can work on the improvement of dictionary skills, and search for information in
reference books and ICT, etc. As regards metacognitive strategies, you can work on
encouraging pupils to take responsibility with their individual work in projects, maxi-
tasks (planning, organizing); by emphasizing effort, responsibility and cooperation; by
self assessing and accepting mistakes. Try to promote attention, motivation and
entertainment all the time.
• Autonomy and personal initiative: by promoting responsibility, completing their
portfolio, self-esteem, creativity, self criticism, the ability to learn from mistakes (taking
risks); and social skills such as cooperation, group work, etc.
• Mathematical competence. By problem solving activities or logic puzzles for pupils
to work on the solutions. We are interested in the process and not only in the product.
You can have students do numbers, the time, days, fractions, measurement vocabulary
(length, depth...) and linguistically, you can develop mathematical competence making
reference to expressions of hypothesis, using speculation language and modal verbs.
• Physical world. With the use of vocabulary connected with the body, animals, food,
weather, environment... etc.
3. Can you summarise the criteria for choosing children’s literature in class?
• Books (including illustrations) should be age-appropriate.
• Language and sentence patterns should be fairly simple.
• There should be limited use of metaphorical language.
• As many books as possible should include rhyming. This is an excellent tool for
memorizing.
• The plot should be very straightforward, chronological in order and unambiguous.
• Dialogue should be used as much and as realistically as possible and no dialects or
diomatic expressions.
• Books should be successful read-alouds.
• Books should be fairly short.
• Books should be single volumes.
• Illustrations should be clear and dramatic.
3 I
REFERENCES
Allen, W. (1981). The Short Story in English. OUP.

Anderson, N. A. (2006). Elementary children’s literature: the basics for teachers and parents. Boston:
Pearson/A and B.
Blamires, H. (1982). Twentieth-Century English Literature. McMillan.
Bradbury, M. (1978). The Novel Today: Contemporary Writers on Modern Fiction. Manchester
University Press.
Brown, E. (2004) Using Children’s Literature with Young Learners. Retrieved June 13, 2005, from
http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Brown=ChildrensLit.html
Chew. S. C. & Altick, R. (1980). A Literary History of England. Routledge & Kegal Paul. London.
Conon, P. (1989). Literature in America. Cambridge University Press.
Doonan, J. (1993). Looking at pictures in picture books. Stroud: Thimble Press.
Galda, L., & Cullinan, B. E. (2002). Cullinan and Galda’s literature and the child. Belmont,
CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning. Children’s Literature in Education, 10, 50-53.
Gambrell, J. B., Morrow, L. M., & Pennington, C. (2000). Early Childhood and Elementary
Literature-Based Instruction: Current Perspectives and Special Issue. Reading Online, 5(6).
http://www.readingonline.org/articles/handbook/gambrell/index.html
Hanson, C. (1989). Re-Reading the Short Story. St. Martin’s Press. New York.
Hollindale, P. (1997). Signs of childness in children’s books. Stroud: Thimble.
Hunt, P. (1996). Defining children’s literature and children. En P. Hunt (Ed.), International
Companion Encyclopaedia of Children’s Literature. London: Routledge.
Lewis, D. (2001). Reading contemporary, picture books. New York: Routledge Falmer.
McDowell, M. (1973). Fiction for Children and Adults: Some essential differences.
Nation, I.S.P. (2009). Teaching ESL/EFL Reading and Writing. New York: Routledge.
Nightingale, B. (1982). An Introduction to Fifty Modern British Plays. Pan Books. London.
Nodelman, P., & Reimer, M. (2003. The pleasures of children’s literature. Boston: Allyn and Baco.
Norton, D. (1999). Through the eyes of a child (5th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Merrill.
Rosenthall, M. L. (1967). The New Poets: American and British Poetry Since the Second World War.
New York. OUP.
Smallwood, B. A. (1988). Children’s Literature for Limited English Proficient Students, Ages
9-14. WATESOL Working Papers, 4, 1-21. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No.
ED 356 647).
Smallwood, B. A. (2002). Thematic Literature and Curriculum fir English Language Learners
in Early Childhood Education. ERIC Digest. EDO-FL-02-08.
Stapleton, Michael. (1983). The Cambridge Guide to English Literature. OUP. Oxford.
Stevenson, R. (1993). The Twentieth Century Novel in Britain. Harvester Wheatseat.
Thwaite, A. (1973). Poetry Today: 1960-1973. London. Longman.
I
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children’s_literature
http://ec.europa.eu/education/languages/language-teaching/doc236_en.htm
Resolución 30 de enero de 2008 de la Dirección General de Ordenación e Innovación
Educativa por la que se dictan las Instrucciones para los Centros Escolares sobre la
Atención Educativa y la Evaluación de alumnos con NEAE en la Educación Infantil y en
la Enseñanza Básica.
Orden 7 de junio de 2007, por la que se regulan las Medidas de Atención a la Diversidad en
la Enseñanza Básica en la Comunidad Autónoma de Canarias.
Geographic, Historic And Cultural Framework
of English-Speaking Countries. Unit of Work
4 Unidad de
Aprendizaje
PRESENTACIÓN
Se ha hablado de la consideración del inglés como idioma internacional y aunque se puede

o no compartir dicha opinión, lo que sí se tiene que reconocer es que este idioma desempeña
un papel muy importante en la sociedad moderna debido a su utilización en diversos aspectos
como pueden ser la ciencia o la medicina.
El contenido de este módulo está enfocado hacia el conocimiento de los motivos por los
que este idioma es crucial y el espacio geográfico en que el inglés es utilizado como lengua
materna, oficial o segunda lengua. Debido al gran número de países donde se habla como
lengua materna, se ha decidido dar ciertos detalles de la cultura de sólo algunos de ellos. Su
elección está basada en varios factores. El Reino Unido es el país origen de toda la expansión
de la lengua y la cultura inglesa. Irlanda es un país atractivo a mucha de la población que
estudia inglés. Estados Unidos ejerce una gran influencia en muchas otras culturas del
planeta.
OBJECTIVES

• To raise the students’ awareness of the importance of the English language
• To learn about the reasons for the differences between different countries with a
common language.
• To raise the students’ awareness of the importance of learning about the countries
where English is spoken.
• To understand the basic aspects of the culture of the three countries seen in the
module.
• To encourage students to learn about the culture of other English-speaking countries.
• To promote and develop autonomy by consulting extra material to find out information
related to the unit.
• To design a few activities to carry out in order to make students work on other
countries’ culture.
4 I
CONTENTS
PART 1. GEOGRAPHIC, HISTORIC AND CULTURAL FRAMEWORK OF

ENGLISH-SPEAKING COUNTRIES
1. INTRODUCTION
English can be considered important nowadays. Its importance relies on the following
facts:
• It is spoken by many people.
• It is dispersed over a wide geographic area.
• It is extensively used in science, commerce and culture.
• Its native speakers wield1 economic and political influence.
It has become a world language because of its widespread use by people who fall into one
of three groups:
• Those who have learnt it as their mother tongue.
• Those who have learnt it as a second language in a society which is mainly bilingual.
• Those who are forced to use it for a practical purpose (administrative, professional or
educational.)
Since the language is important, the culture of the countries where it is spoken is so too.
In this module some of these countries are presented.
2. ENGLISH ROUND THE WORLD
The expansion of the British Empire in the eighteenth century and the later establishment
of the Commonwealth gave rise to cultural interactions which have provoked the use of the
English language in wide parts of the world and have made the English-speaking world one
of great cultural diversity. In the 1930s, about a quarter of the world’s population was ruled
by the British. “The sun never goes down our empire” they said, meaning that it was always daytime
somewhere in the Empire.
1 Have and be able to use.

I
Geographic, Historic And Cultural Framework of English-Speaking Countries. Unit of Work 95 4
4 I
• Expansion of the British Empire

Due to British colonialism, the English vocabulary has been enriched with borrowings
from native languages.
North America
Although there have been several important periods of immigration to America, it
may be thought that the most important one as concerns the language has been the
first one, when, in 1620 a group of English Puritans left England as it was impossible
for them to practice their religion freely and openly there. They sailed to America in a
boat called the Mayflower and built their homes on the east coast, in an area that they
called New England. In the next few years, many people followed them across the
Atlantic: Puritans and Catholics for religious reasons and businessmen who were
interested in trade2.
In 1776 the American War of Independence deprived England of one of her most
promising colonies.
India
In 1600 the East India Company was founded to promote trade with India. This
private English company controlled a few ports on the west coast of India and
employed an army of English officers and Indian men to protect their interests.
Britain started taking over India in 1756, when the Company, after some problems
with the ruler, began to rule Bengal, in north-east India, whose capital was Calcutta.
Slowly other Indian states came under British control and by the middle of the
nineteenth century all India was part of the British Empire.
Australia
In 1768 The Royal Society persuaded the King to sponsor3 an expedition into the
Pacific, in the area around Australia, in order to observe the transit of Venus across the
2 The activity of buying, selling, or exchanging goods or services between people, firms, or countries.
3 Pay some or all of the expenses connected with it, often in order to get publicity for themselves. = finance.
I
sun. Captain Cook, after completing the astronomical observations, sailed round the
islands of New Zealand and continued until he reached Australia. In both places he
planted the British flag.
In 1787 several shiploads of convicts were sent to Australia, which became the
most convenient place where to deport criminals. Soon the discovery that sheep raising
could be a profitable activity and the discovery of gold in the island in 1851 led to
massive immigration.
Africa
In the later part of the eighteenth century, early in the Napoleonic Wars, Holland
had come under the control of France. After a war with the Dutch in order to take
over South Africa and its gold, England took the Dutch settlement at Cape Town. At
the same time, the British needed to control the Suez Canal and the region of the Nile
in order to make possible the building of a railroad from Cape Town to Cairo.
• The Commonwealth
The modern successor of the Old British Empire is the Commonwealth of Nations, a
voluntary international organization consisting of 53 independent states, most of
which were previously part of the British Empire. The Commonwealth was born in
1889 as a free and voluntary cooperation between states with certain affinities and
common interests. It is not a political union and does not allow the United Kingdom
to exercise any power over other members.
3. THE UNITED KINGDOM
The United Kingdom is a country made up of England, whose capital is London, Wales,
whose capital is Cardiff, Scotland, whose capital is Edinburgh, and Northern Ireland, whose
capital is Belfast. It is a member of the Commonwealth and the European Community and
its capital is London.
The flag of the United Kingdom, the British Union Flag, is
commonly called the “Union Jack” and is made up of three flags: St.
George’s Cross, St. Andrew’s Cross and St. Patrick’s Cross. (The
Welsh Flag was not incorporated into the British Union Flag.)
St. George’s Cross. The Cross of St. George, the Patron Saint
of England, is the national English flag. This flag has been used to
form the basis of a number of flags representing Northern
Ireland.
St. Andrew’s Cross. The national flag of
4
Scotland was merged with the national flag of England in 1606 by
King James I. It has grown very popular in Scotland given the
increasing desire for independence.
4 Combine or come together to make one whole thing.

4 I
St. Patrick’s Cross. This flag is seen by most

Irish people as a British symbol, and is used by
regiments of the British Army.
The Red Dragon (Baner Cymru or Y Ddraig
Goch). The flag of Wales includes the dragon
of Cadwaladr, King of Gwynedd, along with the Tudor colours of
green and white. St David is the Patron Saint of Wales.
In the same way as each country has a flag, each of them has a floral
emblem. The national flower of England is the rose. This flower has
been adopted as England’s floral emblem since the time of the Wars of
the Roses –civil wars (1455-1485) between the royal house of Lancaster
(whose emblem was a red rose) and the royal house of York (whose emblem was a white
rose). The national flower of Scotland is the thistle, a prickly-leaved purple flower which was
first used in the 15th century as a symbol of defence. The Scottish Bluebell is also seen as the
flower of Scotland. The national flower of Wales is the daffodil, which is traditionally worn
on St. David’s Day. The vegetable called leek is also considered to be a traditional emblem of
Wales. The national flower of Northern Ireland is the shamrock. An Irish tale tells of how
St. Patrick used a three-leaved shamrock to explain the Trinity.
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island which occupies an area of 209,331 km2. It is surrounded by over
1,000 smaller islands and islets and is situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It
consists of the geographical areas of England, Scotland and Wales, and also includes a number
of outlying5 islands such as the Isle of Wight, Anglesey, the Isles of Scilly, the Hebrides, and
the island groups of Orkney and Shetland. It does not include the Isle of Man and the Channel
Islands which are not part of the United Kingdom, instead of that, they are self-governing
dependent territories of that state with their own legislative and taxation systems.
The largest cities in Great Britain by urban population (not including the capital cities) are
Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and
Sheffield.
• History
– The British Isles have been invaded by several groups of people along history.
The Romans arrived in Britain in 55 BC. England was part of the Roman Empire for
four hundred years, however, they never kept control of what we now call Wales
5 Far away from the main cities of a country.

I
and Scotland. In 409 the Roman army left Britain and about the year 449 the
invasion of Britain by certain Germanic tribes, the founders of the English nation,
began. Bede in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, tells us that these
Germanic tribes were the Jutes, the Saxons and the Angles.
At the end of the 8th century, Vikings from Scandinavia started attacking the
coasts of Britain in order to steal gold and silver from monasteries. Some of them
made their homes in Britain, and from the 860s they controlled a large area of
northern and eastern England.
In 1066, William of Normandy sailed to Britain, killed King Harold of England
at Hastings and became William the Conqueror, King of England. For several
generations the Normans lived in Britain and used their language, French. When they
left the Saxons’ language grew into modern English, but as a result of the Norman
invasion, half the words in today’s English language come from French.
– The Norman invasion was the last one. After it a lot of kings and queens ruled the
lands of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. One of them
was Henry VIII (1509-1547), known for his wives but also because he broke with
Rome, closed the Catholic Church and started the Church of England.
Another monarch was Elizabeth I (1558-1603), who ruled for forty-five years.
When she died most of her people were strongly protestant.
Oliver Cromwell ruled the country as “Lord Protector” (1653-1658), since he
was not a king. He was a puritan, did not like music or dance, so he closed most
theatres.
Queen Victoria became queen at the age of eighteen, in 1837. She died in 1901.
She liked the idea of a British empire. Most current kings and queens in Europe are
someway related to her.
• Geography
Great Britain is separated from the
continent by the North Sea and by the
English Channel. The North Channel,
the Irish Sea, St George’s Channel and
the Celtic Sea separate the island from
the island of Ireland to its west. The
island is physically connected with
continental Europe via the Channel
Tunnel, completed in 1993.
Geographically, Great Britain is
marked by low, rolling countryside in
the east and south, while hills and
mountains predominate in the western
and northern regions. Some of
England’s geographic features are:
4 I
In the Southwest, the Severn, Britain’s longest river, and the Avon, which flow
through Bristol. Salisbury Plain, where the prehistoric monument, Stonehenge, is
located.
In the Southeast, in Dover, the White cliffs.
From the Peak District in Derbyshire, England, to the England, to the Scottish
border, the Pennines, which are described as the “backbone of England.” The highest
Pennine peak in Yorkshire is Cross Fell (790 metres). Streams pass through the Dales
(long valleys that run from east to west) and join the river Humber. The area has
spectacular waterfalls. This region has more National Park land, historic houses and
castles than any other.
In the Northwest it is Cumbria, England’s second largest county, known as the Lake
District because it contains 15 large lakes, the biggest of which is Windermere. The
county has England’s biggest mountains - Scafell Pike is the highest Peak.
The “Highlands” are regarded as typically Scottish with their mountains, lochs
(lakes), moors, rugged6 coastline and many coastal islands, among them, the Hebrides,
the Orkneys and the Shetlands.
In Wales, the north is famous for its mountain landscapes, including the National Park
Snowdonia, in which Snowdon, the highest mountain in Wales (1085m - 3560 ft), is found.
• Biodiversity
– Fauna
The Robin is popularly known as “Britain’s favourite bird”.
Animal diversity is modest, as a result of the
island’s small land area, the relatively recent
age of the habitats developed since the last
Ice Age and the island’s physical separation
from continental Europe, and the effects of
seasonal variability. Great Britain has also
gone through industrialisation and increasing
urbanisation, which have contributed towards
the overall loss of species.
Mammal species include rodents, carnivorous mammals like the fox, badger,
otter, weasel, stoat and elusive wildcat, and various species of seal, whale and
dolphin. The largest land-based wild animals today are deer.
There is a wealth of birdlife in Britain, 583 species in total, of which 258 breed
on the island or remain during winter.
There are six species of reptile on the island; three snakes and three lizards
including the legless slow worm. One snake, the adder, is venomous but rarely
deadly. Amphibians present are frogs, toads and newts.
6 Uneven and covered with rocks, with few trees or plants.

I
– Flora
Great Britain’s flora comprises 3,354 vascular plant species, of which 2,297 are
native and 1,057 have been introduced into the island. The island has a wide variety
of trees, including native species of birch, beech, ash, hawthorn, elm, oak, yew,
pine, cherry and apple. Other trees, such as several varieties of pine, chestnut,
maple, spruce, sycamore and fir, as well as cherry plum and pear trees, have been
introduced especially from other parts of Europe (particularly Norway) and North
America.
There are at least 1,500 different species of wildflower in Britain. Some 107
species are particularly rare or vulnerable and are protected by the Wildlife and
Countryside Act 1981. There are also many species of algae, lichens, fungi and
mosses across the island.
• Government
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Northern Ireland is a constitutional hereditary
monarchy. The head of state is the reigning
monarch who performs a representative,
ceremonial and integrating role. The most
important political role in the Prime Minister,
whose power is based on the parliamentary
loyalty of his / her party.
There is not a formally written constitution,
however, there exists one and it is a mixture of
legal provisions, conventions and a recognized
acceptance of the constitutional principles.
These principles are “the rule of law” which
protects the government from the state and
forces parliament to put into law the powers it
transfers to the government, and the
sovereignty of parliament, which is responsible
for passing laws and controlling legislation.
The British Parliament works in the Palace of Westminster (known as “the Houses
of Parliament”). It is divided into the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
Only the members of the House of Commons are normally known as MPs (Members
of Parliament). The members of the House of Lords, known as “peers”, are not
elected; they are members as of right, which is the result of their being the holder of
an inherited aristocratic title and they do not depend on party politics for their
position.
4 I
In the United Kingdom there are two political parties: Labour7 and Conservative8.
Wales and England are administered together for most purposes. They share the same
legal and educational systems.
Politically Scotland has a left-wing tradition and the majority of Scottish seats in the
House of Commons are held by the Labour Party. There is also a strong nationalist
movement represented by the Scottish Nationalist Party. Scotland’s legal system is
based on Roman Law. Its main civil courts are the Court of Session, which sits only in
Edinburgh, and the sheriff court, the sheriff being the chief judge of a town or
district.
England is divided into governmental regions which are, in turn, divided into
counties. In England there are forty-five counties of which Yorkshire is the largest.
London is divided into “boroughs”, which were originally towns that had grown
large and important enough to be given their own government. These days, the name
is used for local government purposes. There are thirty-two London Boroughs.
Wales is divided into twenty-two counties and Scotland into thirty counties.
• Economy
– In England there are a variety of industries including engineering, ship building,
food processing, electronics, shoe factories, electrical machinery and pottery.
Some of theses industries are: the oil refinery at Fawley, near Southhampton, and
another one near Canvey Island, a nuclear power station at Dungeness, a large car
industry in Coventry, ceramics industry in Stoke-on-Trent, many power stations along
the banks of the river Trent in the east Midlands, modern industries which include
clothing, banking and manufacturing in Manchester, and the Sellafield nuclear plant in
Cumbria.
All around England there are farms where dairy or fruit products are made.
Kent, known as the ‘Garden of England’, is famous for its apples and for hops,
used in brewing beer. Lamberhurst is known for its vineyards and produces English
wines. In East Anglia farmers grow cereals, sugarbeet, fruit and vegetables, and they
raise turkeys, sheep and cattle. In the Dsales, dairy farmers make cheeses such as
Wensleydale and Swaledale. The East Midlands’s farmers supply fruit and vegetables
to local industries for freezing, canning or jam-making; they also provide milk to
make Stilton Cheese, Cheshire or Lancashire cheese.
– Scotland’s traditional industries such as coal, steel and shipbuilding have all declined
in importance since the Second World War. Their place in the economy has partly
been taken in recent years by the rapidly growing electronics industry as well as the
oil and gas industries.
Traditional exports like whisky and woolen goods, especially tweed cloth and
knitwear, remain important, however, tourism is also a major contributor to the
7 In Britain, the Labour Party is the main left-of-centre party. It believes that wealth and power should be
shared fairly and public services should be free for everyone.
8 The Conservative Party is the main right of centre party in Britain.
I
Scottish economy.
Glasgow remains Scotland’s leading commercial and industrial centre. It was
named European City of Culture in 1990.
– In recent years many coal-mines and steel mills9 have been closed in South Wales.
Its economy has been widened to include electronics and high technology
industries. In contrast, North Wales is predominantly rural and sheep farming.
Wales’s rich heritage, culture and language have encouraged the growth of
tourism. Many visitors to Wales are attracted by the sporting facilities and by a new
leisure park near Narberth, in south-west Wales.
• Health
The National Health Service (NHS), introduced in 1948, provides most health care in
Britain and is responsible for most of the country’s hospitals, doctors and medical
services. Most of the cost of the service is paid from the taxes the government
collects, but a small percentage comes from direct charges and the National Insurance
contributions paid by everybody in employment.
The Secretary of State for Health, a Cabinet minister, is responsible for the NHS
budget. The service is administered at the local level by District Health Authorities,
which are in turn responsible to the Regional Health Authorities.
Most doctors and dentists also have private patients, and there are private hospitals
owned by health insurance companies.
Medical research is financed both by the government and by the many charities that
raise funds for research into particular diseases.
• Social Security
In Britain, the Department of Social Security (DSS) is responsible for the whole
system of payments made by the government to the retired, sick, disabled and
unemployed, as well as to widows, parents and people on very low incomes10. Social
security benefits are contributory (paid from the National Insurance contributions
made by employees, employers and self-employed) and non-contributory (financed by
income from general taxation).
• Education
– England
In England full-time education is compulsory11 for all children aged between 5 and
16. This can be provided by state schools, independent schools or homeschooling.
Primary education is normally conducted through Infant and Junior schools or a
combined Primary school. Secondary education is normally conducted through
Secondary Schools, which cover the two secondary stages. Both state schools and
9 Factory used for making or processing material.

10 Money earned or received.
11 That must be done or accepted.
4 I
independent schools take the GCSE examinations which mark the end of
compulsory education.
Some secondary schools also provide post-compulsory study, which is voluntary,
through sixth form departments. Then they sit for the General Certificate of
Education Advanced Level (GCE A Levels) or the General Certificate of Education
Advanced Supplementary examinations (GCE AS examinations), or vocational
courses leading usually to General Vocational Qualifications (GNVQs). Further
education colleges also offer these courses.
An A-Level consists of 6 modules in each subject, three of which are typically
taken in the first year. After taking three modules, students can choose either to
continue studying for the subject to obtain an A-Level, or to “cash in” the first
three modules for an AS-Level. Students aiming for university entry typically study
three or four subjects to A-Level and an additional subject to AS-Level. A few
institutions offer the International Baccalaureate as an alternative to A-Levels.
– Scotland
In Scotland the state school, especially the secondary schools, are known as “public
schools”. Many Scottish schools are named “Academy”.
Under the Scottish school examination system, the main school-leaving exam,
taken at the age of 16, is the Standard grade of the Scottish Certificate of
Education (SCE). After a further year’s study, pupils can take the Higher grade.
After one more year, at the age of 18, there is a final examination, the Certificate of
Sixth Year Studies (CSYS), for which pupils either study three Higher grade subjects
in depth, or aim to improve on existing standard and Higher grades. A recently
introduced alternative to Highers and the VSYS is the National Certificate.
• Culture
– London is Britain’s cultural capital, with institutions such as the British Museum, the
National Gallery, the BBC and the Royal Albert Hall. Ballet and opera have become
increasingly popular and are performed by a number of companies, for example,
the Royal Opera, the Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Rambert Dance
Company and London Contemporary Dance Theatre.
London is also the centre of theatrical life in Britain. Almost all London’s
popular theatres are in the West End. One of Britain’s leading theatre companies is
the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Outside London, the large cities and many smaller towns have theatres where
visiting companies or their own companies perform.
– Scotland’s traditional cultural centre is Edinburgh, famous for its annual International
Festival. The Edinburgh “fringe” performances are an important part of the festival
and offer new and experimental work.
Two special Scottish celebrations are Hogmanay (New Year’s Eve) and Burns’ Night
(25 January).
I
Scotland has a number of popular national foods and dishes. Among the best
known are porridge, haggis and shortbread12.
– In Wales various annual eisteddfods13 are held. The most important of these is the
Royal National Eisteddfod of Wales, an annual festival of music, singing, prose and
poetry contests, all in Welsh. Another eisteddfod held annually at Llangollen in
north Wales, is an international festival of folk dancing and music.
Choral singing is an art closely associated with the Welsh, who also have a
reputation for being good public speakers.
The survival of the Welsh language is to some degree helped and encouraged by
local radio and television stations which broadcast in Welsh. It is also used for
official purposes, is valid in the law courts and is taught in most schools.
• Religion
Christianity is the largest religion on the island The largest form practised in present day
Britain is Anglicanism (also known as Episcopalism in Scotland), which has the status of
established church in England.
The second largest Christian practice is the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church.
The Church of Scotland is the third most numerous on the island. It is a form of
Protestantism with a Presbyterian system of ecclesiastical policy governed by elders.
Introduced in Scotland by clergyman John Knox, it has the status of national church in
Scotland since 1690.
Methodism is the fourth largest and grew out of Anglicanism through John Wesley.
The Presbyterian Church of Wales, which follows Calvinistic Methodism, is the largest
denomination in Wales.
There are other non-conformist minorities, such as Baptists, Quakers, the United
Reformed Church (a union of Congregationalists and English Presbyterians), Unitarians
and more.
Numerous non-Christian religions are practised in Great Britain. Judaism has a history
of a small minority on the island since 1070. Especially since the 1950s religions from the
former colonies have become more prevalent: Islam is the most common of these. A
total of more than 1 million people practise Hinduism, Sikhism or Buddhism.
4. IRELAND
• History
Different groups of people invaded Ireland along history. In the 16th century, problems
started when most people in Britain became Protestant while most Irish people
12 Kind of biscuit made from flour, sugar and butter.

13 Welsh festival at which competitions are held in music, poetry, drama, and art.
4 I
continued being Catholic. Later large numbers of Scottish Protestants settled in Ireland
and Irish Catholics lost their rights. The Irish continued fighting for their
independence unsuccessfully and in January 1st, 1801, the Act of Union joined the
Kingdom of Ireland and the Kingdom of Great Britain to create the state then called
“United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.” However, rebellions by the Irish
against British dominance continued.
Due to the potato famine (1845-1849), many Irish people died and many others
decided to leave the country and go to North America. Those who stayed, continued
struggling for independence, which was finally achieved in 1922. However, the
Protestants in the north refused to be part of a Catholic Irish state and preferred to
continue under British rule, so Ireland was cut in two: the largely Protestant six
countries of Ulster and the predominantly Catholic twenty-six counties of southern
Ireland, which was established as the Irish Free State (reconstructed as Eire in 1937,
and the Republic of Ireland in 1949).
The Catholics who lived in the north wanted to be part of the independent state of
Ireland, but they were a minority (35% of the population). A Catholic group, the IRA
(Irish Republican Army), started to fight for independence from Britain in the north.
• Geography
The island of Ireland is located in the north-west of Europe. It is separated from
Great Britain by the Irish Sea and the North Channel. To the west is the northern
Atlantic Ocean and to the south is the Celtic Sea.
Low plains are at the centre of the
island. The highest mountain is
Carrauntoohil (Irish: Corrán Tuathail) at
Macgillycuddy’s Reeks in County Kerry,
which rises to 1,039 m (3,407 ft) above sea
level. Western areas can be mountainous
and rocky with green panoramic vistas.
The River Shannon is the island’s longest
river.
Ireland is not only famous for its
mountains but also for its lakes.
Ireland is known as the Emerald Isle due
to its lush vegetation, a product of its
mild climate and frequent rainfall. The
west tends to be wetter on average and
prone to Atlantic storms, especially in the
late autumn and winter months. These
occasionally bring destructive winds and
higher total rainfall to these areas, as well
as sometimes snow and hail.
I
• Biodiversity
The long history of agricultural production, coupled with modern intensive agricultural
methods and the use of pesticide and fertiliser, have had an impact on natural
ecosystems and have placed pressure on biodiversity in Ireland.
– Fauna
The red deer (Cervus elaphus) is Ireland’s largest wild mammal. They can be seen in
Killarney National Park.
There are 55 mammal species in Ireland and of them only 26 land mammal
species are native to Ireland. Some species, such as the red fox, hedgehog and
badger, are very common, whereas others, like the Irish hare, red deer and pine
marten are less so. Aquatic wildlife, such as species of turtle, shark, whale, and
dolphin, are common off the coast. About 400 species of birds have been recorded
in Ireland. Many of these are migratory, including the Barn Swallow. Most of
Ireland’s bird species come from Iceland, Greenland and Africa.
There are no snakes in Ireland and only one reptile (the common lizard) is native
to the island. Extinct species include the great Irish elk, the Irish wolf and the great
auk. Some previously extinct birds, such as the Golden Eagle, have recently been
reintroduced after decades of extirpation.
– Flora
Several different habitat types are found in Ireland, including farmland, open
woodland, temperate broadleaf and mixed forests, conifer plantations, peat bogs
and a variety of coastal habitats.
Until medieval times, Ireland was heavily forested with oak, pine and birch.
Forests today cover only about 9% (4,450 km² or one million acres) of Ireland,
which makes it the most deforested area in Europe. Much of the land is now
covered with pasture, and there are many species of wild-flower.
The algal and seaweed flora is that of the cold-temperate variety.
4 I
• Government
Ireland is occupied by two political entities:
– The Republic of Ireland, ratified 21 January 1919 and officially formed on the 6
December 1922, (officially Ireland ), a sovereign state that covers five-sixths of the
island. Its capital is Dublin.
Irish National Flag (The Tricolour was designed to
signify the peace (white) between Nationalists (green)
and Unionists (orange). It was hoisted above the
General Post Office in Dublin during the 1916 Easter
Rising, and has since been used by Ireland’s Nationalist
and Republicans North and South of the border.
– Northern Ireland, established on the 3 May 1921, is a part of the United Kingdom.
Its capital is Belfast.
Traditionally, Ireland is subdivided into four provinces: Connacht (west), Leinster
(east), Munster (south), and Ulster (north). Each of them is divided into counties,
twenty-six counties in the Republic of Ireland and six counties in Northern Ireland.
The six counties that constitute Northern Ireland are all in the province of Ulster,
which has nine counties in total. In the Republic of Ireland, counties form the basis
of the system of local government, nevertheless in Northern Ireland they are only
used for informal purposes such as sports leagues and in cultural or tourism
contexts.
City status in Ireland is decided by legislative or royal charter14. Dublin is the
largest city on the island. Other cities are Belfast, Cork, Derry, Limerick, Galway,
Lisburn, Waterford, Newry and Armagh. Kilkenny, while strictly no longer a city, is
entitled by law to describe itself as such. Several towns have larger populations than
some of these cities, such as Drogheda and Dundalk but are not recognised as cities
because they lack historic charters or legal status.
14 A formal document describing the rights, aims, or principles of an organization or group of people.
I
• Economy
Ireland did not experience an industrial revolution because of the scarcity of coal and iron
resources that facilitate an industrial revolution. However, in the mid-1970s and in 1999
finds of natural gas were made. Another recent discovery is related to the Helvick oil.
Mass emigration followed in the wake of the Great Famine in the mid-19th century
and continued until the 1980s. However, the Irish economic experience reversed
dramatically during the course of the 1990s, which saw the beginning of economic
growth in the Republic of Ireland, in a phenomenon known as the “Celtic Tiger”, and
peace being restored in Northern Ireland. In 2005, the Republic of Ireland was ranked
the best place to live in the world, according to a “quality of life” assessment by The
Economist magazine. The Republic of Ireland joined the euro in 1999, while Northern
Ireland remained with the pound sterling.
• Culture
The Irish have a popular reputation for charm, the gift of persuasiveness or cajolery (a
person with this gift is said to have “kissed the Blarney Stone”) and a tendency to
ignore logic.
Irish culture has had a significant influence on other cultures, particularly in the
fields of literature and, to a lesser degree, science and education. But it also comprises
elements of the culture of ancient immigration and influences (such as Gaelic culture)
and more recent Anglicisation and Americanisation. Irish culture is expressed for
example through Gaelic games, Irish music and the Irish language. The Irish traditional
music and dance, through theatrical performances like Riverdance, has seen a recent
surge in popularity.
In recent years, the Irish pubs have become outposts15 of Irish culture worldwide.
“New Irish Cuisine” based on traditional ingredients incorporating international
influences has emerged. This cuisine is based on fresh vegetables, fish (especially
salmon, trout, oysters, mussels and other shellfish), as well as traditional soda breads and
the wide range of hand-made cheeses that are now being produced across the country.
The potato remains a fundamental feature of this cuisine, though. Traditional regional
foods can be found throughout the country, for example coddle in Dublin or drisheen
in Cork, both a type of sausage, or blaa, a doughy white bread particular to Waterford.
Whiskey forms the basis of traditional cream liqueurs, such as Baileys, and cocktails
like the “Irish coffee”. Stout, a kind of porter beer, particularly Guinness, is typically
associated with Ireland. Cider, particularly Magners (marketed in the Republic of Ireland
as Bulmers), is also a popular drink. Red lemonade, a soft-drink, is consumed on its own
and as a mixer, particularly with whiskey.
There are three World Heritage Sites on the island: the Brú na Boinne, Skellig
Michael and the Giant’s Causeway16. Historically important monastic sites include
15 A small group of buildings used for trading or military purposes, either in a distant part of your own
country or in a foreign country.
16 Raised path or road that crosses water or wet land.
4 I
Glendalough and Clonmacnoise, which are maintained as national monuments in the

Republic of Ireland.
• Religion
Religion has played a significant role in the cultural life of the island since ancient times
(and since the 17th century plantations, it has been the focus of political identity and
divisions on the island). Ireland’s pre-Christian heritage fused with the Celtic Church
following the missions of Saint Patrick in the 5th century.
5. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
The US national flag is the Stars and Stripes, also known as the Star-Spangled Banner
which is the title of the song used as anthem17. The 13 red and white stripes represent the 13
original states of the North American Union, while the 50
white stars represent the present 50 states of the USA.
The animal symbol of the USA, the bald-headed eagle,
appears on the USA’s Great Seal and on its currency.
• History
The United States was founded by thirteen British colonies located along the Atlantic
seaboard.
Some facts of the history of this country are well known:
– The Declaration of Independence, drafted largely by Thomas Jefferson, on July 4,
1776. Through it, the Americans proclaimed their right to self-determination and
their establishment of a cooperative union. This date is celebrated annually as
America’s Independence Day.
– The current United States Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787. Its
ratification the following year made the states part of a single republic with a strong
federal government. The Bill of Rights, comprising ten constitutional amendments18
guaranteeing many fundamental civil rights and freedoms, was ratified in 1791.
– In the 19th century, the United States acquired land from France, Spain, the United
Kingdom, Mexico, and Russia, and annexed the Republic of Texas and the Republic
of Hawaii.
– Disputes between the agrarian South and industrial North
over states’ rights and the expansion of the institution of
slavery provoked the American Civil War of the 1860s. The
17 Song which is used to represent a particular nation.

18 Section that is added to a law or rule in order to change it.
19 Cause something to begin to happen.
I
North’s victory prevented a permanent split of the country and led to the end of
legal slavery in the United States.
– The Wall Street Crash of 1929 that triggered19 the Great Depression.
– The use of the first nuclear weapons on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki on 6th August 1945 confirmed the country’s status as a military power.
– The American astronaut Neil Armstrong, as commander of the Apollo II space
mission in 1969 was the first person to step on the moon.
– The Watergate Scandal in 1972. It was a scandal resulting from an attempt to steal
information from the offices of the Democratic Party in the Watergate Building.
President Nixon was accused of being involved and eventually had to resign.
– The Gulf War.
– The terrorist attacks in New York.
The first President of the United States of America was George Washington (1789-
1797), after him many others, some of them are Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln,
Theodore Roosevelt, John F Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George Bush,
Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
• Geography
The country is situated mostly in central North America between the Pacific and the
Atlantic Ocean, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. It is made
up of:
– forty-eight contiguous20 states.
– the District of Columbia, where the capital, Washington, D.C., is found.
20 Next to each other.

4 I
– the state of Alaska, in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and
Russia to the west across the Bering Strait. It is the largest state.
– the state of Hawaii (an archipelago in the mid-Pacific) in the southwest of North
America.
– several other territories:
– Palmyra Atoll, which is an uninhabited but incorporated territory in the Pacific
Ocean;
– Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands, in the Caribbean;
– American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands, in the Pacific.
Those born in the major territories (except for American Samoa) possess U.S.
citizenship. American citizens residing in the territories have many of the same rights
and responsibilities as citizens residing in the states; however, they are generally exempt
from federal income tax, may not vote for president, and have only nonvoting
representation in the U.S. Congress.
Some of the geographical features of this country, from east to west, are the
following:
– The coastal plain of the Atlantic seaboard.
– The deciduous21 forests and the rolling hills of the Piedmont.
– The Appalachian Mountains, a range of mountains which extends south from
Quebec in Canada to Alabama in the USA. The highest peak is Mount Mitchell
(2038 m).
21 That loses its leaves in the autumn every year.

I
– The Great Lakes: Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, Lake Huron, Lake Erie and Lake
Ontario. They are connected to the Atlantic Ocean by the St Lawrence Seaway.
– The grasslands of the Midwest.
– The Mississippi-Missouri River, the world’s fourth longest river system, which runs
mainly north-south through the heart of the country.
– The flat, fertile prairie22 of the Great Plains.
– The Rocky Mountains, at the western edge of the Great Plains, extend north to south
across the country, reaching altitudes higher than 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in Colorado.
The Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and Montana, crossed by the
Yellowstone River is famous for its mountain scenery, wildlife and geysers. The largest.
– Farther west are the rocky Great Basin and deserts such as the Mojave.
– Sierra Nevada and the Cascade mountain ranges run close to the Pacific coast.
The tallest peak in the country and in North America is Mount McKinley in Alaska,
at 20,320 feet (6,194 m). Throughout Alaska, active volcanoes are common.
In the Aleutian Islands volcanoes are also common, and Hawaii consists of volcanic
islands.
Due to its large size and geographic variety, the United States includes most climate
types: tropical in Florida and Hawaii, semi-arid in the Great Plains, arid in the Great
Basin, desert in the Southwest, Mediterranean in coastal California, oceanic in coastal
Oregon and Washington and southern Alaska, and subarctic or polar in most of
Alaska. The states bordering the Gulf of Mexico are prone to hurricanes, and most of
the world’s tornadoes occur within the country, mainly in the Midwest’s Tornado Alley.
• Biodiversity
The U.S. ecology is considered “megadiverse”: about 17,000 species of vascular plants
occur in the contiguous United States and Alaska, and over 1,800 species of flowering
plants are found in Hawaii, few of which occur on the mainland.
The United States is home to more than 400 mammal, 750 bird, and 500 reptile and
amphibian species. About 91,000 insect species have been described. The Endangered
Species Act of 1973 protects threatened and endangered species and their habitats,
which are monitored by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.
There are fifty-eight national parks and hundreds of other federally managed parks,
forests, and wilderness areas. Altogether, the government owns 28.8% of the country’s
land area. Most of this is protected, though some is leased for oil and gas drilling,
mining, logging23, or cattle ranching; 2.4% is used for military purposes.
22 Large area of flat, grassy land in North America.

23 The activity of cutting down trees in order to sell the wood.
4 I
• Government
The United States is the world’s oldest surviving federation. Citizens are usually subject
to three levels of government: federal, state, and local.
The federal government is composed of three branches:
– Legislative: The Congress, which is made up of the Senate and the House of
Representatives, makes federal law, declares war, approves treaties, has the power of
the purse, and has the power of impeachment, by which it can remove sitting
members of the government.
The Senate has 100 members. Each state has two senators who are elected for
six years. Elections for one third of the Senate seats are held every two years. The
president serves a four-year term and may be elected to the office no more than
twice. The president is not elected by direct vote, but by an indirect electoral college
system in which the determining votes are apportioned by state. The Supreme
Court, led by the Chief Justice of the United States, has nine members, who serve
for life.
The House of Representatives has 435 voting members, each representing a
congressional district. They are chosen every two years.
– Executive: The president is the commander-in-chief of the military, can veto
legislative bills before they become law, and appoints the members of the Cabinet
(subject to Senate approval) and other officers, who administer and enforce federal
laws and policies.
– Judicial: The Supreme Court and lower federal courts, whose judges are appointed
by the president with Senate approval, interpret laws and overturn those they find
unconstitutional.
The state governments are structured in roughly similar fashion. The governor
(chief executive) of each state is directly elected. Some state judges and cabinet officers
are appointed by the governors of the respective states, while others are elected by
popular vote.
The local government’s duties are commonly split between county and municipal
governments. In almost all cases, executive and legislative officials are elected by a
plurality vote of citizens by district. There is no proportional representation at the
federal level, and it is very rare at lower levels.
The United States has operated under a two-party system for most of its history. In
the primary elections, administered by the state, they choose the major party
nominees24 for subsequent general elections. Since the general election of 1856, the
major parties have been the Democratic Party, founded in 1824 and considered center-
left or “liberal”, and the Republican Party, founded in 1854 and considered center-right
or “conservative”.
24 Someone who is nominated for a job, position, or award.

I
• Economy
The United States has a capitalist mixed economy, which is fueled by abundant natural
resources, a well-developed infrastructure, and high productivity.
The United States is the largest importer of goods and third largest exporter. In
2007, vehicles constituted both the leading import and leading export commodity.
Chemical products are the leading manufacturing field. The United States is the third
largest producer of oil in the world, as well as its largest importer. It is the world’s
number one producer of electrical and nuclear energy, as well as liquid natural gas,
sulfur, phosphates, and salt. While agriculture accounts for just under 1% of GDP25,
the United States is the world’s top producer of corn and soybeans. Coca-Cola and
McDonald’s are the two most recognized brands in the world.
Government is the leading field of employment and the largest private employment
sector is health care and social assistance. The World Bank ranks the United States first
in the ease of hiring and firing workers. About 12% of workers are unionized,
compared to 30% in Western Europe. Compared to Europe, U.S. property and
corporate income tax rates are generally higher, while labor and, particularly,
consumption tax rates are lower.
• Health
In the USA, where there is no public health service, most people have private health
insurance. There are two government schemes which provide some help with medical
costs: Medicare, an insurance scheme for people over 65 and the disabled, and
Medicaid, which funds medical care for the poor. In 2006, Massachusetts became the
first state to mandate universal health insurance.
The Texas Medical Center in Houston is the world’s largest medical center.
• Social Security
In the USA, social security is limited mainly to the provision of pension and Medicare
for the retired and elderly.
Some US states also have a “state disability insurance” scheme which provides benefit
for a person who cannot work for sever or more days.
Both, social security contributions and state disability insurance contributions are
compulsory where they apply.
• Education
American public education is operated by state and local governments, regulated by the
United States Department of Education through restrictions on federal grants.
Children are required in most states to attend school from the age of six or seven
(generally, kindergarten or first grade) until they are eighteen (generally bringing them
through twelfth grade, the end of high school); some states allow students to leave
school at sixteen or seventeen. About 12% of children are enrolled in parochial or
nonsectarian private schools. Just over 2% of children are homeschooled.
25 Gross domestic product. The total value of goods and serviced produced within a country in a year.
4 I
The United States has many competitive private and public institutions of higher
education, as well as local community colleges with open admission policies.
• Culture
– Language
Although there is no official language at the federal level, it is the country’s official
language in at least twenty-eight states. In 2007, about 80% of the population aged
five years and older, spoke only English at home. Spanish is the second most
common language and the most widely taught. Both Hawaiian and English are
official languages in Hawaii by state law.
New Mexico has laws providing for the use of both English and Spanish, and
Louisiana does so for English and French. Other states, such as California, mandate
the publication of Spanish versions of certain government documents including
court forms. Several insular territories grant official recognition to their native
languages.
– Performing arts
The theatrical centre of the USA is New York, and in particular Broadway. New
York also has the so-called “little theatres” for amateur productions and “off-
Broadway” for those professional theatres that lie outside the Central Broadway
area and that produce mainly experimental and avant-garde plays.
Most film companies have their headquarters and many film studios are situated
in Los Angeles, in Hollywood.
– Food
Wheat is the primary cereal grain in American cuisine. Traditional American cuisine
uses indigenous ingredients, such as turkey, venison, potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn,
squash, and maple syrup. Slow-cooked pork and beef barbecue, crab cakes, potato
chips, and chocolate chip cookies are distinctively American foods. Soul food,
developed by African slaves, is popular around the South and among many African
Americans elsewhere. Syncretic cuisines such as Louisiana creole, Cajun, and Tex-
Mex are regionally important.
Characteristic dishes such as apple pie, fried chicken, pizza, hamburgers, and hot
dogs derive from the recipes of various immigrants. French fries, Mexican dishes
such as burritos and tacos, and pasta dishes freely adapted from Italian sources are
widely consumed. Fast food is associated with overweight and obesity problems
As refers to drinks, Americans generally prefer coffee to tea, and highly
sweetened soft drinks are widely popular.
– Sports
Since the late 19th century, baseball has been regarded as the national sport. The
country’s three other leading professional team sports are American football,
basketball, and ice hockey.
Boxing and horse racing were once the most watched individual sports, but they
have been eclipsed by golf and auto racing, particularly NASCAR. Soccer is played
I
widely at the youth and amateur levels. Tennis and many outdoor sports are popular
as well.
While most major U.S. sports have evolved out of European practices,
basketball, volleyball, skateboarding, snowboarding, and cheerleading are American
inventions. Lacrosse26 and surfing arose from Native American and Native
Hawaiian activities that predate Western contact. Eight Olympic Games have taken
place in the United States.
• Religion
The motto27 of this country is “In God We Trust”. The United States is officially a
secular nation; the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the free
exercise of religion and forbids the establishment of any religious governance.
According to a 2007 survey, 78.4% of adults identified themselves as Christian,
(Protestant, Roman Catholic or Evangelical). The leading non-Christian faiths were
Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, and Unitarian Universalism. The survey also
reported that 16.1% of Americans described themselves as agnostic, atheist, or simply
having no religion.
PART 2. UNIT OF WORK
Considered the basic element of a course plan, a unit of work is the interrelation of all
the elements which take part in the teaching-learning process for a specific period of time
(Ibáñez, 1992, 13). A unit of work should include all the information related to:
1. Description of the unit:
– Title of the unit.
– Justification: the reasons why this unit has been selected to work on, when to do it,
relationship with other units, suitability in accordance with the curriculum. (Search
for the curriculum set for the level you are working on.)
– Contextualization: the school and students who the unit of work is designed for.
– Objectives: general teaching and learning objectives and specific objectives of the
unit in order to develop the four skills: “At the end of this unit students will be able to ...”
– Contents: contents to work on in order to achieve those objectives.
– Basic competences: relevance and suitability of the contents in order to develop the
basic competences, identification of the objectives which allow the development of
the basic competences, identification of the contents which allow the development
of the basic competences. (Search for the identification and description of the basic
competences.)
26 An outdoor game in which players use long sticks with nets at the end to catch and throw a small ball, in
order to try and score goals.
27 Short sentence or phrase that expresses a rule for sensible behaviour.
4 I
2. When to teach:
– Activities: sequencing and type of activities (individual, pair, small group or big
group activity), basic competences to develop and learning style.
– How to tackle the contents, and how long.
The activities should be interesting and motivating, promote personal development,
be graded (different levels of difficulty), encourage students to cooperate and
participate, and be related to the other activities in the unit of work.
3. How to teach:
– Methodology.
– Strategies.
– Resources: trying to include new technologies.
– Timing: Number of sessions along which the unit of work is going to be dealt with.
4. Evaluation: criteria and elements.
1. Answer the following questions

1. What is the Mayflower?
2. Is the Isle of Man part of the United Kingdom?
3. Who is the sheriff in Scotland?
4. What is an A-level?
5. How important is the Welsh language in Wales?
6. What’s the difference between Northern Ireland and Ulster?
7. How has agriculture affected the flora and fauna in Ireland?
8. How are Great Britain, Ireland and the United States divided?
9. What are the elements of the British Parliament and the elements of the US Congress?
10. What are Medicare and Medicaid?
KEYS
1. The boat used by the English Puritans who left Britain to sail to America.
2. No, it is not. It is a self-governing dependent territory of that state with its own
legislative and taxation systems.
3. The chief judge of a town or district.
4. An A-Level consists of 6 modules in each subject, three of which are typically taken in
the first year and the other three in the second one.
5. Welsh is used in the Eisteddfods, is used by local radio and television stations, for
official purposes, is valid in the law courts and is taught in most schools.
I
6. Ulster is one of the four provinces into which the island of Ireland is traditionally
divided. Northern Ireland is made up of six of the nine counties which form Ulster.
7. The use of intensive agricultural methods, of pesticide and fertiliser, has had an impact
on natural ecosystems and has placed pressure on biodiversity.
8. Great Britain is divided into three countries: England, Scotland and Wales. England is
divided into regions and these in turn into counties. Scotland and Wales are divided
into counties.
Ireland was traditionally divided into four provinces, and each of them into counties.
When the island was cut in two: Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, six of
those counties became Northern Ireland.
9. The British Parliament is formed by two “houses”: the House of Commons and the
House of Lords.
The US Congress is made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives.
10. They are the two government schemes which provide some help with medical costs:
Medicare, for people over 65 and the disabled, and Medicaid, for the poor.
REFERENCES
Oxfod Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, encyclopedic edition. 1992. Oxford University Press.
Collins Cobuild Dictionary on CD-ROM 2006.
Albert C. Baugh and Thomas Cable. 1986. A History of the English Language. Redwood Burn
Limited Trowbridgg, Wiltshire.
Wikipedia
www.britaingallery.com
www.historyworld.net
www.britannia.com
www3.unileon.es/dp/ado/ENRIQUE/Didactic
Songs, Games and Other Classroom Activities.
The Activities in a Unit of Work
5 Unidad de
Aprendizaje
PRESENTACIÓN
El profesor, como guía en el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje, debe facilitar a sus

alumnos los medios para adquirir dominio del idioma que se aprende adecuado al nivel en
que se encuentra. Para alcanzar este objetivo, debe proporcionar al alumnado variedad de
actividades que hagan la clase más dinámica, a través de las cuales pueda captar su atención
e interés, y en las cuales intente integrar las cuatro destrezas.
Este módulo se centra en estas actividades. En primer lugar, se trata de dar a conocer las
posibilidades educativas que ofrece la música, tipos de canciones, cómo y cuándo usarla. En
segundo lugar, se presenta el juego como actividad conducente a un objetivo y no como
simple actividad de entretenimiento. En tercer lugar, se incluye una clasificación de las
actividades a trabajar en la clase, las etapas en el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje y la
tipología de actividades en función de la destreza a desarrollar.
Finalmente, y puesto que el tema de este módulo es las actividades a desarrollar en la clase,
en la segunda parte del módulo, la unidad didáctica del módulo está basada en las actividades
a planificar.
OBJECTIVES
At the end of this module, you will be able:

• To raise your awareness of the possible uses of songs in the English class.
• To use music in the classroom in a variety of ways in order to achieve specific
objectives.
• To encourage students to listen to music as a way to learn.
• To become aware of the benefits using games has.
• To encourage students to take part in games.
• To be conscious of the different stages in the learning process.
• To distinguish between types of material to be used in the classroom.
• To know about the importance of presenting students a variety of types of activities.
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CONTENTS
PART 1. SONGS, GAMES AND OTHER CLASSROOMS ACTIVITIES
1. INTRODUCTION
Teachers are able to use a wide variety of tools in order to achieve the objectives set for
each unit. Songs and games are included within this group. There are a number of other
classroom activities which share their playful meaning with games.
2. USE OF THE SONGS IN THE CLASSROOM
Ludwig van Beethoven said: “Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks
and invents.” It is well known that music affects our feelings and energy levels, and also that
music has traditionally been used to express feelings and emotions, to get rid of emotional
strain1 and as a means of communication, as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow pointed out
when he said: “Music is the universal language of mankind.” Chris Brewer in his book
Music and Learning, (1995), confirmed these ideas when he said that “Music stabilizes mental,
physical and emotional rhythms to attain 2 a state of deep concentration and focus in which large amounts of
content information can be processed and learned.”
Educational theorists have long sought answers to the question of how we can best teach
students to learn well. Music is defended, among others, by suggestopedia theorists (see
module I). Some of today’s’ leading learning technologies embrace the use of music to assist
in learning. However, it is important to bear in mind that music must be an aid, not a
distraction. In this regard, music which employs regular musical patterns helps students
concentrate, on the contrary, choosing abrasive, disharmonic music will distract students
while their brains try to make sense of the disharmony.
The use of music is linked to the specific reaction it provokes in the listener. In the
classroom a song may be used:
• As a welcoming sign. Soft or upbeat music may be played as students enter the
classroom to encourage a positive atmosphere. After a few minutes, the volume can
firstly be turned down slowly, and then off, which means the class is about to begin.
• To break the ice in a class where students don’t know each other or are having
difficulty communicating.
• To encourage personal reflection and stimulate the students’ imagination and creativity
through background music such as classical music, Celtic music or natural sounds.
• To provide a positive environment that promotes student interaction and a sense of
community and cooperation, establishing a positive learning style.
1 A state of worry and tension caused by a difficult situation.

2 Gain or achieve.
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Songs, Games and Other Classroom Activities. The Activities in a Unit of Work 125 5
• To change the atmosphere in the room. Relaxing music can be used with students who
have a high level of energy in order to settle down, and release tension. On the
contrary, passive students will need to listen to their favourite tunes since this will make
them more active. At the same time it adds an element of fun.
• To set a time limit. The time a song lasts may be used as the time given to finish a task.
Below you have several examples:

– Dance of the Renaissance. Richard Searles. Delightful music of 15th-17th century England.
This upbeat music appeals to all ages.
– Emerald Castles. Richard Searles. Pleasing sounds of the Celtic countries played on
acoustic instruments.
– 1988 Summer Olympics. Various rock songs from the Olympics that inspire.
– Celtic Destiny. Bruce Mitchell. Dynamic instrumental Celtic music. Stimulating with a
variety of paces.
– Sun Spirit. Deuter. Delightful flute music that energizes melodiously.
– The Four Seasons. Vivaldi Beautiful melodies to set a warm mood no matter what the
season.
– Boundaries. Scott Wilkie. Relaxed jazz to set an easy-going learning pace.
– Echoes of Incas. Ventana al Sol. Joyful South American melodies and rhythms open the
door to learning.
2.1. Using songs with very young children
At present, nursery and primary school teachers use songs in their classrooms. They do it
for several reasons:
• Music, rhymes and actions help young children
pick up a language and retain it more easily,
consequently they are used as the means to
introduce language and revise vocabulary. Beth
Butler, the preschool teacher who started Boca
Beth, (www.bocabeth.com) a Spanish-English
language program that uses songs, movements,
and puppets to teach Spanish vocabulary and
phrases, says that “Using music is exactly the way
to teach a new language.” The familiar songs on
Butler’s DVDs and CDs –such as “Five Little
Monkeys Jumping on the Bed”– alternate between
English and Spanish stanzas. “Children are such
sponges,” says Butler. “They pick it up quickly,
and music makes it so much easier for them.”
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• Singing a song is an integrating activity, which helps children develop a feeling of

belonging to a group, especially those who are shy.
• Songs help very young children develop their speaking, since they offer the possibility
to practise sentence stress and pronunciation, becoming an alternative to other type of
exercises. Children with language difficulties in particular can benefit from music, says
Susan Stackhouse, a teacher at McDonald Elementary School in Warminster,
Pennsylvania. To accommodate some of her students’ disabilities, Stackhouse makes
up her own lyrics to popular tunes. For example, her version of “Hokey Pokey” starts
with a word like train. She sings: You take the “t” out and put a “g” in, you take the “r” out,
and look at what you have. You put the sounds together and you try to sound it out. (Kids clap.)
What is the new word? Kids: Gain!
• While music can help kids retain a new language, it also helps them with basic skills in
their native language. Christina Ledbetter, a teacher at Plumb Elementary in Clearwater,
Florida, explains that “in the beginning of first grade, it is important for children to
know that we read from left to right and then back down to the next row.” To get kids
to understand this, Ledbetter uses a tune by songwriter Jack Hartmann called “The
Way We Read” (www.jackhartmann.com), which kids act out with their hands and
bodies as they sing along.
2.2. Teaching through songs
Songs can be used as a tool to encourage a type of behaviour in the learners and to
transmit knowledge, a cultural, historical, political or social message. With respect to this,
songs are used:
• To introduce a new topic. Songs activate vocabulary and get students to focus their
concentration and increase their attention.
• To raise the students’ motivation. If students really like the song, they become
determined to understand and participate. When they begin to sing along to the chorus
or are just able to recognize some words out of the constant stream of words, they
start to feel they are making real progress.
• To make learning fun.
• To bring a sense of community to the group making students work together and feel
more involved.
• To teach and build vocabulary and idioms.
• To teach and practice pronunciation and intonation: most of them do not follow the
structural patterns of writing. Often, their structure is closer to speech.
• To review and consolidate grammar structures.
• To inspire a class discussion.
• To learn about historical, social or cultural facts.
• To make students learn about different accents and dialectal differences.
I
• To set the basic structures and vocabulary so that which students use them to express
their opinion.
2.3. How to use the songs in the classroom
Most songs played with very young learners are action songs since actions enhance3
language acquisition and memory. The teacher will teach the actions and will sing. If the
teacher is not confident about singing, a recorded version may be used. This will distance the
teacher from the song, however, it will offer a more lively background. With other songs,
cards may be used.
When a song is used with older children, introducing an instrumental version of the song
before the full version is a good idea. If students become familiar with the sound of the
song, they will be more likely to understand the lyrics. In case an instrumental version is not
available, the song can be played softly in the background while the students are working on
something else.
2.4. Song characteristics
The songs chosen to work in class should have some general characteristics:
• Good sound quality. If the quality is not good, students will find it much more difficult
to understand it.
• Songs should have a sweet catchy melody, devoid of strong background or
instrumental sound. At the same time the singers should preferably be soloists with a
good voice quality.
• The content of the song should be related to the content of the lesson.
• The activities designed should be based on the objectives set for the lesson.
Apart from this, the songs chosen to work with very young children should meet some
requirements in order to be suitable:
• Songs must be short and repetitive.
• Songs must include a maximum of three verses. The structure of these must be the
same or very similar and the vocabulary should be the same except for a few words. In
this way long explanations will be avoided.
• Songs should be simple and linear.
• They should refer to a simple story or tale, so that the different verses could be easily
ordered in case they are jumbled up.
• The song should develop slowly, giving children who are starting time and word clarity.
3 To improve its value, quality or attractiveness.

5 I
• Songs should be suited to actions. This is particularly important since learners are
asked to become physically involved with the music.
The songs chosen to work with older children should also have other characteristics:
• The lyrics should be easy to understand. A few slang or idiomatic expressions can
appear, but only if they are not too many or make the students’ understanding of the
overall meaning of the song too difficult.
2.5. Types of songs
Working with very young children demands keeping children busy and interested,
therefore, most songs chosen for them are action songs. Some of the songs that could be
used with kids are the following:
• Transition songs which indicate transition from one activity to another, such as “Clean
up” songs and “Hello/goodbye” songs.
• Energy boosters: simple action songs that require kids to stand up and move around
like with the “musical chairs” game.
• Animal songs like “Old MacDonald Had a Farm”.
• Songs to remember names like “Willoughby Wallaby Woo” .
• Alphabet songs like the traditional “ABC ” and others like “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom”
by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault which introduce children to spelling,
recognition of letters and the alphabet.
• Colour songs like “What a Wonderful World ” by Louis Armstrong, “It ain’t easy being
green” by Kermit the Frog, “The Red and Yellow Blues”, a catchy ditty4 on primary colours
by Grey Percy, a teacher of Art in Madison, Wisconsin, or “I can see a rainbow” which
includes colours, parts of the body and actions.
• “Head and shoulders” and “One finger, one thumb, one hand” are good songs to introduce
parts of the body.
• Action songs like “ This is the way” which takes children into everyday activities.
• “I am a music man” includes the vocabulary related to musical instruments.
• “There were ten in the bed” introduces the first numbers.
• There are time songs, for example Christmas songs, most of which are quite difficult
for very young children, however, there are a few which are short and repetitive, like
for example “We Wish you a Merry Christmas”.
• There are other all year songs which are used within the class to establish a good
atmosphere and to give each child a position among their peers: “Happy birthday”.
4 Short or light-hearted song or poem.

I
You can find a lot of songbooks for children on the market, like for example The
Library of Children’s Song Classics or The Disney Collection.
With older children, firstly, it may be worthwhile to carry out a
music survey 5 to find out what students enjoy listening to. The
students’ motivation levels are the determining factor in whether or
not a song will work with them. Here you have some example songs
which could be worked on:
– I Heard it through the Grapevine uses slang expressions.
– Tom’s Diner by Suzanne Vega is excellent practice for the present
continuous.
– Never Smile at a Crocodile includes conditional tenses.
– If I Were Rich by Zero Mostel, is a song where the second type of conditional
sentences is used.
– Reach by Gloria Estefan to practice the comparative form of adjectives.
2.6. Activities to carry out
Songs provide a valuable source of authentic language and there are hundreds of ways to
exploit them in the classroom. These depend on the children’s age and what the teacher
wants to achieve: some songs can be used to transmit ideas, others because of the use of
specific grammar structures or vocabulary in the lyrics. In order to make students improve
their language skills through songs, the activities will be classified into three different phases:
pre-listening activities, listening activities and post-listening activities.
Pre-listening activities:
• Oral presentation. Learners in pairs/small groups choose a singer or band and prepare
an oral presentation about them including extracts from several songs. After the
presentation, a worksheet may be handed out. This activity will allow the class to be
learner-centred.
• Ear training and pronunciation. Learners are provided with a photocopy of a song
whose rhyming words have been removed. These words are given mixed up on a piece
of paper or on the board. Students have to match the words which rhyme and then try
to insert them in the song. Through this exercise students practice vowel contrast, and
relate spelling and pronunciation.
• Blankety-blank. Learners work in small groups trying to predict the missing words and
missing lines.
• Key words. Learners have the key words of the song in a separate list. They have to
guess their context.
5 Try to find out detailed information about something, usually by asking people a series of questions.
5 I
• Running dictation. This consists of working in small groups made up by as many

learners as verses the song has. Learners dictate the lines of their verses to the other
learners. When they have all the lines, they have to predict what their order might be.
Listening activities:
• After playing the song once, students could be asked about the title of the song and
what they think it is about.
• Song building. Students are given the lyrics of a song but the words, lines or verses
have been jumbled up and they have to order them, or the lines have been cut in two
and they have to match the beginning and the end of each of them.
• Discrimination. The teacher asks learners to choose the right word of the two
alternatives for each gap.
• Gap filling. It consists of giving students the lyrics of a song with gaps for them to fill
in as they listen. The words which have been taken out may be the words of one
group, such as prepositions or verbs, or may be eight or ten rhyming words. According
to the students’ level, different clues may be given so that they fill in the missing words:
these may be provided in a box at the side, the first letter of the word to write in each
gap is given, or a synonym for the word to use in each gap is given.
• Spot the mistake. Some of the words in the lyrics have been changed. Students listen,
spot and correct between eight and ten mistakes.
Post-listening activities:
• Contrasting two styles or themes. Students pick two songs covering a similar theme
sung by the same or different singer or band or in different styles. They have to
compare and contrast them.
• Students could take part in a discussion about the emotions which the song expresses,
the mental images it creates or the “story” behind the song.
• Students try to paraphrase the song and tell the tale of the song.
• Translation. Some students really enjoy translating lyrics into their own language. In
that case, choose a song whose lyrics are worth translating.
• Vocabulary. Students try to match dictionary definitions to words in the song.
• Project work. Learners might prepare a poster about the band or the singer, a letter or
an interview with the band.
With very young children the activities to perform in the classroom are related to the
identification of the elements of the song through the use of cards, singing and actions.
I
3. USE OF THE GAME IN THE CLASSROOM
Games could be seen as a teaching device, through which students experiment, discover,
and interact with their environment. Games encourage, entertain, teach, and promote fluency,
making students learn a second language the way children learn their mother tongue, that is,
without being aware they are studying. Games are highly motivating since they are amusing
and at the same time challenging. They also provide the stimulus to language learning which
students require: to participate in the game.
ϵ
3.1. Importance of classroom games
Although at first sight it may appear that games are just time-filling activities, they have a
great educational value. There are many advantages of using games in the classroom:
• Games are a welcome break from the usual routine of the language class. The class
becomes student centred and the teacher acts only as facilitator.
• Games help build class cohesion. Games foster6 whole class participation giving shy
students more opportunity to express their opinions and feelings creatively and
spontaneously. They encourage students to interact increasing their cooperation.
• Games can lower anxiety, add diversion to the regular classroom activities, help and
encourage many learners to sustain their interest and work, which is hard after a long
period of time, making the acquisition of input more likely.
• Games help teachers create contexts in which the language is useful and meaningful,
making learners see its functional value and enabling them to acquire new experiences
within a foreign language which are not always possible during a typical lesson.
6 To help develop.
5 I
• Games provide language practice in the various skills, speaking, writing, listening and
reading, promoting communicative competence and fluency, and making learners
recall7 material faster and better, in a pleasant and entertaining way.
3.2. Choosing games
In order to achieve the most from games, it is essential that suitable games are chosen.
Whenever a game is to be conducted, some factors should be taken into account:
– number of students.
– proficiency level.
– cultural context.
– timing.
– learning topic.
– classroom settings.
At the same time games should:

– encourage students to focus on the use of language rather than on the language itself.
– be highly motivating and challenging at the same time as interesting, amusing and
entertaining, keeping students involved and interested.
– involve “friendly” competition.
– give students a chance to learn, practice, or review specific language material.
3.3. When to use games
Games are often used as short warm-up activities or when there is some time left at the
end of a lesson. Yet a game should not be regarded as a marginal activity, it ought to be at the
heart of teaching foreign languages. Rixon suggests that games should be used at all stages
of the lesson, provided that they are suitable and carefully chosen.
3.4. Types of games
There are as many games as can be thought of. Teachers may adapt the games to the level and
the group’s conditions. Taking into account the objective to achieve, some types can be found:
• Ice breakers, which tend to be shorter and useful to begin a class.
• Team-building activities are usually problem solving group games useful for building
trust and develop teamwork.
7 Remember.
I
• Vocabulary, grammar games.
• Language use.
Through these games students can practice several skills. According to the one which is
mostly worked on, they may be classified as:
• Listening and pronunciation activities.
• Reading activities.
• Speaking activities.
• Action games, which require some physical activity.
According to the material used, there are different types of games:

• Card games.
• Board games.
• Pictures.
And taking into account what students have to work on, they may be:
• Vocabulary games, which could take the form of crosswords, word search, picture
matching.
• Grammar games, like for example giving directions according to a map, giving
information or describing somebody or something.
The percentage of teacher’s intervention is higher of lower depending on the type of game.
The following games are just some examples:
– Crosswords.
– Word search.
– Password.
– Pasapalabra.
– Who wants to be a millionaire.
– Ladders and snakes.
4. CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
Many writers have called the methodological approach to the teaching of languages
communicative approach. The aims are clearly communicative and great emphasis is placed on
training students to use language for communication. This is the reason why it is better to see
methodology in terms of activities. Classroom activities can be classified into two main
categories, those which give the students language input and those which encourage them to
produce output. A further distinction needs to be made between two different types of input:
5 I
• Roughly-tuned input, in which students have to deal with language which is at a higher
level than they are capable of producing. It comes from several sources like the teacher
talking or reading a passage, listening to a recording or reading a text. This type of
input helps students improve their ability to read and listen, at the same time as they
are subconsciously acquiring new language.
• Finely-tuned input, which has been selected to be at exactly the students’ level. This
language is introduced at the presentation stage where the teacher acts as a controller and
insists on accurate reproduction of the new item. It is during this stage when students’
errors (the result of incorrect rule learning) and mistakes (incorrect use although the
knowledge is not faulty) are dealt with.
Language output can also be divided into two sub-categories:

• Practice, in which students are asked to use specific language which has recently been
learnt in contexts different from the one used for presentation but which will
approximate real life as much as the limitations of the activity permit.
• Communication output, in which students have to select appropriate language from the
total language store and use it as an instrument of communication. The focus will be
not on accuracy but on communicative efficiency. Teachers have to decide on the
grouping:
– Pair activity.
– Small group activity.
– Whole class activity.
The programme will be planned on the basis

of achieving a balance between input, practice
and communication output. Teachers should
ensure that students get a variety of activities
which foster acquisition and learning, and
through which their interest in the language
programme is ensured. Students have to
appreciate language as an instrument to be used
rather than as knowledge to be stored away.
Teachers must be adaptable (they have to choose and adapt their programme on the basis of
the different groups and their motivation), flexible (they have to be sensitive to the changing
needs of the group), tolerant and patient (they have to understand the learners’ difficulties.)
The materials used may be classified according to the person they are designed for. There
is a distinction between:
– Authentic material, either written or spoken, designed for native speakers. Newspapers,
radio or television programmes and advertisements are examples of this type of material.
– Non-authentic material, specially designed for language students. Some texts have been
chosen to illustrate a particular language point for presentation, while others have been
adapted in order to appear authentic although there has been some language control.
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The justification for this classification is that beginner students will not be able to handle
authentic texts, but should be given practice in reading and listening to texts which look
authentic in order to help them acquire the necessary receptive skills they will need when they
eventually come to tackle authentic material.
4.1. Types of classroom activities
Several types of activities are used in the classroom in order to achieve the objectives
included in the curriculum. These activities are classified according to the development of
specific skills, however, it should be born in mind that all the four skills are interrelated.
• Activities to develop the understanding of oral texts.
There are several stages in the development of listening comprehension:
– Identification: at the beginning students only understand a stream of undifferentiated
sounds, which they gradually learn to discriminate.
– Recognition of familiar elements.
– Recognition of the crucial element which determine the message.
– Retention of some information for a short time.
Listening to a foreign language may be analysed as involving two levels of activity:

– Recognition level, in which words, phrases, time sequencers... are recognized.
Teachers may introduce short dialogues.
– Selection level, in which the listener has to catch those elements which seem to express
the speaker’s purposes in order to hold them in the immediate memory to relate them
to others. Students are presented simple plays or sketches, and through them, material
about culture.
The principal objective of listening comprehension activities is to train students to

learn, to understand and to respond appropriately in specific situations. This material
must be carefully planned and graded, designed to make students overcome8 their
difficulties.
Listening comprehension activities can be extensive, in which students are asked to
get the gist9 of what they hear, or intensive, in which students are asked to understand
a high proportion of what is heard.
• Activities to encourage the production of oral texts.
Oral communication is a two-way process between speaker and listener, so participants
practice two skills: a productive one (speaking) and a receptive one (listening). The
8 Successfully deal with something and control it.

9 General meaning.
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main goal in teaching speaking will be oral fluency, the ability to express oneself
intelligibly, reasonably, accurately and without hesitation.
The development of oral ability is a good source of motivation for most learners.
Practice in controlled speaking should be matched with opportunities for free
expression, without discouraging learners by excessive correction. Teachers have to
develop communicative competence as opposed to mere grammatical competence.
As it has been introduced above, there are three stages in the learning process:
– Presentation: there is also some practice.
– Practice: there is a need for self-expression.
– Production: learners will still need help although they will increasingly work on their
own.
Oral practice should take several forms:

– Drills. They allow students to perform only in a fixed way. However, some of them
are not very useful since they do not allow students to create or understand.
– Questions about a text.
– True / False statements about a text.
– Explanations about a point in a text.
– Paired practice.
– Role-playing.
– Group work.
– Group discussion or exchange of ideas and opinions.
– Language games.
– Using pictures. Visual images can be used for speaking activities since:
– They motivate students to speak.
– They create a context for the speech.
– They provide students with information to use in speech.
– They help teachers to control the work.
– They motivate dialogue reproduction and dialogue invention.
Students may have to deal with several problems:

– Linguistic problems: students may not know enough to speak in a given situation
– Psychological problems: some students inhibit when they have to speak in front of
their classmates, perhaps because they are afraid of being corrected or perhaps
because they have never been encouraged to have a go. Another problem is related
to the topic, which may not be interesting enough for them.
– Cognitive problems: students must be provided with a picture or a theme which
may be used as a stimulus.
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• Activities to encourage the understanding of written texts.
Teachers should read aloud any material given to students so that they don’t reinforce
incorrect sounds. Since meaning is a composite of pronunciation, grammar, lexicon
and culture, students have to learn to read word groups which have a meaning over
and above the one of each word independently.
Teachers have to:
– Extend students’ experiences by means of visual material so that they understand
the situations and the cultural allusions. These material will also motivate students
to learn, make students feel that what they are reading is related to real life, give
students a clue to the gist of the text, provide extra information over and above the
one given in the text, and provide students with indication of what they have
understood.
– Teach the elements of the sound system of the language so that they associate
spelling to sound.
– Help students understand the meaning of new words and enrich their vocabulary
through synonyms, antonyms, paraphrases, prefixes, suffixes, and the use of
dictionary.
– Help them understand the structures used.
– Help them increase their speed in reading.
– Help them develop comprehension skills.
There are two aspects of reading:

– Lower order, which is a mechanical skill in which students recognize the letter
shapes, recognize linguistic elements (phonemes, graphemes, words, phrases,
clauses, sentences), recognize the association sound-letter and read slowly.
– High order, which is a comprehension skill in which students understand the plain
sense (lexical, grammatical, rhetorical), understand the significance (logical, purpose,
attitude, cultural relevance, setting), evaluate (content, form) and reach certain
reading speed.
Reading can be aloud or silent. While students are reading silently, they try to get a
general idea of its content (extensive reading) or to understand a high proportion of it
(intensive reading).
Teachers can help students understand the content of a text:
– Through questions: yes/no questions, open questions, opinion questions...
– Through sentences which they have to insert in the text.
– Asking for a summary of each paragraph.
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Teachers will help students develop comprehension skills by teaching reading

strategies so that students understand what they read before, during and after reading,
• Before reading, they:
– use prior knowledge to think about the topic.
– make predictions about the probable meaning of the text.
– preview the text by skimming and scanning to get a sense of the overall
meaning.
• During reading, they:
– monitor understanding by questioning, thinking about, and reflecting on the
ideas and information in the text.
• After reading, they:
– reflect upon the ideas and information in the text.
– relate what they have read to their own experiences and knowledge.
– clarify their understanding of the text.
– extend their understanding in critical and creative ways.
Teachers should also teach students about reading techniques which depend on the
situation and the purpose. For example, you might be reading for enjoyment,
information, or to complete a task. Skimming is used to quickly identify the main ideas
of a text. Scanning is used when you know what you’re looking for, so you’re
concentrating on finding a particular answer, so you move your eyes quickly down the
page seeking specific words and phrases. In-depth reading is used to gain deeper
meaning and comprehension of a text and to research detailed information for an
assignment.
• Activities to encourage the writing of texts.
Speaking and writing are two independent, though inter-related systems sharing a
common grammar. Taking this into account, the main goal of writing is to be able to
learn to link and organize patterns so as to produce acceptable written texts. This
process will take learners from controlled to free composition, through several stages:
– Copying what has already been learnt orally or read; it can help memorization and
association of sounds and letters. Taking this into consideration, they may be
considered a reinforcement exercise.
– Reproducing what has been copied.
– Recombining: learners are asked to substitute words and phrases, and to transform
sentences to include further information.
– Guided writing: learners are given some freedom in the selection of lexical items
and structural patterns but within a framework which restrains them from
attempting to compose at a level beyond their level of knowledge. They may be
asked to complete exercises, to answer questions or to write summaries.
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– Composition. It requires selection of vocabulary and structure for the expression
of personal meaning. The first writings must be descriptions, narrations or
summaries, closely related to already seen material.
There are some difficulties involved in the production of written texts:

– Linguistic difficulties.
Learners have to be taught how to use these devices which link sentences together.
– Psychological difficulties.
Expression written texts lack that characteristic of being in a stimulus-response
context, which interaction written texts, such as letters, possess.
– Cognitive difficulties.
In some circumstances, learners find themselves at a loss of ideas, needing some
kind of stimulus to their imagination.
PART 2. THE ACTIVITIES IN THE COURSE PLAN AND UNIT OF WORK
(Adapted from Dave Willis & Jane Willis and www.teachingenglish.org.uk)
A unit of work should contain several elements, one of which is “activities.” All the
activities of a unit of work have to be related and should have been thought of in accordance
with the objectives and the contents of it. These activities have the following characteristics:
– They offer relevant and interesting contents.
– They promote students’ mental work.
– They have varied level of difficulty.
– They demand the students’ participation.
– They encourage all students to learn.
The definition of the activities should contain apart from the explanation of what it
consists of and how to perform it, information about timing, grouping, basic competences,
methodology, evaluation tools and criteria and, among other things, objectives.
The activities should be interesting and motivating, promote personal development, be
graded (different levels of difficulty), make students cooperate and participate, and be related
to the other activities in the unit of work.
1. Guidelines for ordering activities in class

1. Put the harder tasks earlier.
2. Have quieter activities before lively ones.
3. Think about transitions.
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4. Pull the class together at the beginning and end.

5. End on a positive note.
2. Sequencing of activities
a) Introductory activities.
b) Development activities.
c) Consolidation activities.
d) Follow up and additional activities.
3. Further guidelines both for class and for “Oposiciones” exams

a) Don’t forget to organize each section clearly, naming the phase, e.g., warm up, oral
activity: accuracy focus, etc., then numbering it, always indicating the time to be taken
and the interaction pattern to be employed, so you show a variety of activity, pace and
tempo.
b) Don’t forget to describe each activity in detail, so your aim is clear, and to ensure the
focus of each activity is clear, e.g. if the activity is a presentation of new grammar, or
a reading task, or a review of previously presented work, or consolidation; if the oral
focus is accuracy or fluency-based, etc.
c) Remember you always need to prepare students carefully for skills work-don’t forget
warm-up activities and pre-listening/reading/writing activites. Don’t forget to divide
skills work, e.g., pre-listening, listening for gist, listening for detail, and explain the tasks
you will use-don’t just say that you will “check gist!” Skills work needs tasks to exploit
the listening text or reading text. Remember to choose, if possible at this level,
authentic texts and tasks.
d) Remember also to integrate skills and activities as much as possible, so that each lesson,
or sequence of lessons, has a good balance and variety of skills and activities (reading,
writing, speaking, and listening) work, and also language work (grammar, vocabulary
and pronunciation). Try to make sure your integration of skills is natural, e.g. a
discussion or letter/e-mail/poster writing activity leading on logically from reading an
article or doing a listening about sports.
e) In the Unit Evaluation you describe how you evaluate the unit of work: the planning
stage, the unit in class and whether your objectives were achieved: comment on
activities that went well, and those which were less successful, and evaluate the unit
generally. Suggest ways in chich the unit could be adapted for use in future classes in
order to be more successful. Be self-critical and prepared to justify your points in a
debate. Be specific.
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1. Complete the following statements.

1. The structure of the phrases in a song is closer to ...
2. Most songs for very young children are ...
3. The activity which consists or choosing the right word of the two given is called ...
4. In order to get familiar with the sound of a song, an ... may be heard first.
5. The first of the three phases into which activities are classified is called ...
6. The presence of too many ... in a song may make the students’ understanding of its
overall meaning quite difficult.
7. According to Beth Butler, “Using music is exactly the way to teach a ....”
8. The activities based on songs which students carry out in order to improve their
language skills are classified into ...
9. Celtic music or natural sounds stimulate students’ ...
2. Answer the following questions.

1. How do children learn a second language when games are used?
2. Why are games important?
3. What should students focus their attention while they are playing a game?
4. What should games give students?
5. At which stage of the lesson should games be used?
6. What’s the difference between error and mistake?
7. What’s the main objective of listening comprehension activities?
8. What should be developed in the production of oral texts?
9. What’s the difference between skimming and scanning?
KEYS
1. 1. Speech.
2. Action songs.
3. Discrimination.
4. Instrumental version.
5. Pre-listening phase.
6. Slang or idiomatic expressions.
7. New language.
8. Pre-listening, listening and post-listening activities.
9. Imagination and creativity.
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2. 1. Without being aware they are studying.

2. For their educational value.
3. On using the language.
4. A chance to learn, practice, or review specific language material.
5. At every stage.
6. An error is the result of having learnt a rule incorrectly. A mistake is the incorrect use
of a rule which has been learnt correctly.
7. To train students to learn, to understand and to respond appropriately in specific
situations.
8. Communicative competence.
9. Skimming is used to quickly identify the main ideas of a text. Scanning is used when
you know what you’re looking for.
REFERENCES
Appleby, A. The Library of Children’s Song Classics.

Brewer, C. (1995). Music and Learning. Cambridge University Press.
Cole, L. y J. Carolyn. (1989). Teaching the First Certificate in English. Cassell Publishers Limited.
D. Willis y J. Willis. (2006). Doing Task-based Teaching. Oxford University Press.
Gardner, Howard. (1983). Frames of Mind.
Harmer, J. The Practice of English Language Teaching. (1987). Longman Group Limited.
Wright, Andrew, Betteridge, David y M. Buckby. (1984). Games for Language Learning.
www.edu.gov.on
www.marthalakecov.org
www.learnenglish.britishcouncil.org
www.eslcafe.com/ideas/index.cgi
“Songs in the EFL Classroom”
“Using Music in the ESL Classroom”
teacher.scholastic.com
Scholastic Instructor Magazine
www.learningfromlyrics.org
www.pearsonlongman.com
www.englishclub.com
www.teachingenglish.org.uk
www.teem.org.uk
www.teflgames.com
The Contributions of Linguistics to the English
Language Teaching. Methodology and Evaluation
in the Course Plan And Unit of Work
6 Unidad de
Aprendizaje
PRESENTACIÓN
Dada la relevancia que reviste para un profesor el conocimiento de las diversas disciplinas
que integran la lingüística para, a su vez, su posterior enseñanza, el objetivo de este modulo
es proporcionar una aproximación a las principales aportaciones tanto de la lingüística teórica
y aplicada como de la enseñanza de la lengua al proceso de aprendizaje (como algunos
conceptos y clasificaciones).
El módulo se ha dividido en dos grandes secciones. En una primera parte se han presentado
algunas nociones elementales de las subdisciplinas de la lingüística teórica y de la lingüística
aplicada, además de exponer las principales aportaciones del proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje
de la lengua, fundamentales para conocer algunos aspectos clave en la adquisición de un
segundo idioma en educación primaria. La segunda parte se ha centrado en desarrollar otros
aspectos fundamentales de la programación como nociones, técnicas y estrategias metodológicas,
junto con el concepto, criterios y tipos de evaluación del alumnado.
OBJECTIVES

• Understand the main points and relevant details of the contributions of linguistics to
the English language teaching.
• Improve reading skills by scanning texts (on theoretical linguistics, applied linguistics
and the process of language learning) for specific information then reading the texts
in more detail.
approaches (methodology and evaluation).
• Understand what methodology (and some techniques) and evaluation and its main
components are.
• Continue to work on autonomy by reading extra reading material which bears
resemblance to this module.
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CONTENTS
CONTRIBUTIONS
OF LINGUISTICS
TO FOREIGN
LANGUAGE
TEACHING
THEORETICAL THE PROCESS OF

LINGUISTICS APPLIED LINGUISTICS LANGUAGE LEARNING
1.-Grammar 1.-Historical linguistics 1.-Introduction
2.-Phonetics and phonology 2.-Descriptive linguistics 2.-Theories on SLA
3.-Morphology 3.-Psycholinguistics 3.-Attitude and motivation
4.-Syntax 4.-Sociolinguistics
5.-Semantics
6.-Pragmatics
PART 1. CONTRIBUTIONS OF LINGUISTICS TO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

TEACHING
We will look at theoretical linguistics, applied linguistics and the process of language
learning in this module.
1. THEORETICAL LINGUISTICS
Theoretical linguistics is the branch of linguistics that is most concerned with

developing models of linguistic knowledge. The fields that are generally considered the core
of theoretical linguistics are syntax, phonology, morphology, and semantics. Although
phonetics often informs phonology, it is often excluded from the purview1 of theoretical
linguistics, along with psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics. Theoretical linguistics also
involves the search for an explanation of linguistic universals, that is, properties all languages
have in common.
1.1. Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the study of sentence structure, especially with reference to

syntax and morphology, often presented as a textbook or manual. It is also a systematic
account of the rules governing language in general, or specific languages, including semantics,
phonology, and often pragmatics.
1 The limit of someone’s responsibility, interest or activity.

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The Contributions of Linguistics to the English Language Teaching. Methodology and Evaluation in the Course Plan... 147 6
1.2. Phonetics and phonology
In linguistics, phonetics is the science of speech sounds, especially of their production,

transmission, and reception. Acoustic phonetics is the branch of phonetics that studies the
physical properties of speech sounds. Articulatory phonetics is the branch of phonetics that
studies the way speech souns are produced by the vocal organs. Auditory phonetics is the
branch of phonetics that studies the way people perceive sound.
1.3. Morphology
The morphology is the study of word structure, especially in terms of morphemes.

Morpheme is the smallest contrastive unit of grammar (man, de-, -tion, -s, etc.) Bound form or
morpheme is a minimal grammatical unit that cannot occur on its own as a word, as in de-
and –tion. Free form or free is a minimal grammatical unit that can be used as a word without
additional elements.
1.4. Syntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of word combinations or the study of sentence structure
(including word structure), principles and rules for constructing sentences in natural
languages.
Syntax is not prescriptivist –which is to say, it does not attempt to tell people what the
objectively correct way to form a sentence is. Rather, it is descriptivist, in that it looks at how
language is actually used and tries to come up with rules that successfully describe what
various language communities consider to be grammatical or non-grammatical. Syntax deals
with a number of things, all of which help to facilitate being understood and understanding
language. Without rules of syntax, there would be no foundation from which to try to
discern meaning from a bunch of words strung together, whereas with syntax, an infinite
number of sentences are possible using a fairly small finite number of rules.
Noam Chomsky (1928,-) is known as the father of modern linguistics

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Perhaps the most important aspect of syntax is how the various parts of speech connect
together. Every language has rules that dictate where a part of speech is allowed and where
it is not, and how to interpret the resulting sentence. For example, in English, our basic order
is Subject Verb Object; this means that in a simple sentence, the first noun phrase is the subject,
and the subsequent verb phrase may contain the object. This allows us to deduce that in the
sentence The boy kicked the ball, the boy is the subject, and therefore the one doing the kicking,
whereas the ball is the object, and therefore being kicked. If the sentence were The ball kicked
the boy, the meaning would be reversed somewhat confusingly, and if it were Kicked the ball the
boy, we would immediately recognize it as violating our basic syntactical order and therefore
as being ungrammatical.
1.5. Semantics
Semantics is the study of linguistic meaning. Semantic component or semantic feature is

an element of a world’s meaning (girl) ‘young’, ‘female’, ‘human.’ A semantic or lexical field
is an area of meaning (e.g. colour) identified by a set of mutually defining items (red, green,
blue...). Semantic or sense relations is the meaning relations between words, as identified by
the use of synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, etc.
a) Homonymy and polysemy
One of the semantic relations between words that are analysed by lexical semantics is
that of homonymy. A straightforward definition of a homonym could be ‘a single
word form that has different meanings not closely related’. Furthermore, ‘those words
that share the same phonological and/ or orthographic shape, but are morphologically
and semantically unrelated’ (Quirk et al.) This happens in:
– ‘file’: a box/ case for keeping papers in order; a tool for smoothing surfaces; a line
of persons or things one behind the other.
– ‘saw’ (noun): a tool for cutting wood; (verb): past tense of ‘to see’.
The term ‘homonymy’ has to be dealt with in contrast with polysemy, ‘a word with
several different but closely related meanings’, as in:
– ‘branch’ of a tree/ family/ railway line/ bank...
– ‘saw’ (n.): tool for cutting wood, etc.
(v.): past tense of ‘to see’.
– ‘no’ ↔ ‘know’.
– ‘row’ /rəu/: line, ‘to row a boat’.
– ‘row’ /rau/: uproar, argument.
Within homonyms, a distinction is drawn between:

• homophones: words that show identity of pronunciation (‘saw’–noun and verb–).
• homographs: words that have the same spelling (‘row’–/rəu/ and /rau/).
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Metaphor is a frequent source of meaning change; it can be seen in those cases
where a word appears to have both a ‘literal’ meaning and one or more ‘transferred’
meanings. The fuzzy division between these two concepts shows that multiplicity of
meaning is a very general characteristic of language, and at the same time stresses the
importance of recognising the boundaries between lexical items. Equivalence relations
between words, whether in form –homonymy– or in meaning –synonymy– will have
important implications for our teaching.
b) Synonymy
The term ‘synonymy’ is used to refer to the relationship held between words that share
a general sense and so may be interchangeable –in a limited number of contexts.
It has been argued that there are no real, absolute synonyms, two words with exactly
the same meaning and contextual relations. Synonymy relations may be described within
the frame of a ‘scale of synonymity’ where the end-point would be the ideal relation of
absolute synonymy; synonyms would fall into different regions of the scale, according to
the degree of mutual equivalence in different contexts, and the scale would have the so-
called plesionyms at the one end, as opposed to cognitive synonyms.
Cognitive synonyms need to be syntactically identical and they must be able to
replace one another without altering the sentence content (e.g. ‘fiddle’ and ‘violin’:
“Tom plays the fiddle/ violin very well”).
Plesionyms, on the other hand, yield2 sentences with different sentence content
when they replace one another: “it wasn’t foggy last Monday –just misty”.
English is a language particularly rich in synonyms for historical reasons, since its
vocabulary derives from two sources –Anglo-Saxon and French. We often find pairs
of words that have developed individual, distinguishing lexical features; each has found
some semantic nuance of its own that accounts for its survival.
Propositional meaning of a word –the ‘presented’ meaning which determines the
content– may be different from a words expressive meaning, its emotive or evaluative
contents which seek to influence the hearer’s attitude without adding any extra
information to the content (‘father’/ ‘daddy’; ‘cat’/ ‘pussy’, ‘continue’/ ‘go on’ –in all
cases the second member of each example will be capable of amplifying the
expressiveness implicit in the utterances).
1.6. Pragmatics
Pragmatics is the study of the factors influencing a person’s choice of language. It studies
how the transmission of meaning depends not only on the linguistic knowledge (e.g.
grammar, vocabulary, etc) of the speaker and listener, but also on the context of the
utterance, knowledge about the status of those involved, the inferred intent of the speaker
and so on.
2 To supply or produce something positive such as a profit, an amount of food or information.

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2. APPLIED LINGUISTICS
Applied linguistics is an interdisciplinary field of study that identifies, investigates, and

offers solutions to language-related real-life problems. Some of the academic fields related to
applied linguistics are, among others, education, linguistics, psychology, anthropology, history,
technology and sociology. Mayor branches of applied linguistics include sociolinguistics,
stylistics, language assessment, translation and second language acquisition.
2.1. Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics studies the history and evolution of languages through the comparative
method. Often the aim of historical linguistics is to classify languages in language families
descending from a common ancestor. This involves comparison of elements in different
languages to detect possible cognates3 in order to be able to reconstruct how different
languages have changed over time. This also involves the study of etymology, the study of
the history of single words. Historical linguistics is also called “diachronic linguistics” and is
opposed to “synchronic linguistics” that study languages in a given moment in time without
regarding its previous stages. In universities in the United States, the historic perspective is
often out of fashion. Historical linguistics was among the first linguistic disciplines to emerge
and was the most widely practiced form of linguistics in the late 19th century. The shift4 in
focus to a synchronic perspective started with Saussure and became predominant in western
linguistics with Noam Chomsky’s emphasis on the study of the synchronic and universal
aspects of language.
2.2. Descriptive linguistics and anthropology
Since the inception of the discipline of linguistics, linguists have been concerned with
describing and documenting languages previously unknown to science. Starting with the
anthropologist Franz Boas in the early 1900s descriptive linguistics became the main strand
within American linguistics until the rise of formal structural linguistics in the mid 20th
century. The rise of American descriptive linguistics was caused by the concern with describing
the languages of indigenous peoples that were (and are) rapidly moving towards extinction. The
ethnographic focus of the original Boasian type of descriptive linguistics occasioned the
development of disciplines such as sociolinguistics, anthropological linguistics, and linguistic
anthropology, disciplines that investigate the relations between language, culture and society.
3 Describes languages and words that have the same origin, or that are related and in some way similar.
4 A change in position or direction.
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2.3. Psycholinguistics
Psycholinguistics is the study of language in relation to mental processes that makes it

possible to generate a grammatical and meaning sentence out of grammar and vocabulary, as
well as the processes that make it possible to understand utterances, words, texts, etc. It
includes areas of study such as psychology, cognitive science, and linguistics, and linguistic-
related areas such as phonology, semantics, syntax, morphology and pragmatics.
There are essentially two schools of thought as to how we manage to create syntactic
sentences: (1) syntax is an evolutionary product of increased human intelligence over time
and social factors that encouraged the development of spoken language; (2) language exists
because humans possess an innate ability, an access to what has been called a “universal
grammar”. This view holds that the human ability for syntax is “hard-wired” in the brain.
The first view was prevalent until about 1960 and is well represented by the mentalistic
theories of Jean Piaget and the empiricist Rudolf Carnap. As well, the school of psychology
known as behaviourism (Skinner) puts forth5 the point of view that language is behaviour
shaped by conditioned response. The second point of view (the “innate” one) can fairly be
said to have begun with Noam Chomsky’s highly critical review of Skinner’s book in 1959 in
the pages of the journal Language. That review started what has been termed “the cognitive
revolution” in psychology.
2.4. Sociolinguistics
Formulating a theoretical basis on which the varieties of any language can be described,
interrelated, and studied is one of the prime concerns of the branch of language study called
sociolinguistics.
We shall first consider two major types as far as the language user is concerned:
a) region.
b) social group.
People use a regional variety because they live in a region or have once lived in that region.
Similarly, people use a social variety because of their affiliation with a social group. These
varieties are relatively permanent for the language user. At the same time, we should be aware
that many people can communicate in more than one regional or social variety and can
therefore –consciously or unconsciously– switch varieties according to the situation. And of
course people move to other regions or change their social affiliations, and may then adopt a
new regional or social variety. Varieties according to region have a well-established label both
in popular and technical use: dialects. Geographical dispersion is in fact the classic basis for
linguistic variation, and in the course of time, with poor communications and relative
remoteness, such dispersion results in dialects becoming so distinct that we regard them as
5 Put forward or to state an idea or opinion, or to suggest a plan or person, for other people to consider.
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different languages. Regional variation seems to be realized predominantly in phonology.

That is, we generally recognize a different dialect from a speaker’s pronunciation or accent
before we notice that the vocabulary is also distinctive. Grammatical variation tends to be less
extensive and certainly less obtrusive. A middy is an Australian measure for beer –but it refers
to a considerably bigger measure in Sydney than it does in Perth. Instead of I saw it, a New
Englander might say I see it, a Pennsylvanian I seen it, and a Virginian either I seen it or I seed it,
if they were speaking the rural non-standard dialect of their locality, and the same forms
characterize certain dialects within Britain too.
Within each of the dialects there is considerable variation in speech according to
education, socio-economic group, and ethnic group. Some differences correlate with age and
sex. Educated English naturally tends to be given the additional prestige of government
agencies, the professions, the political parties, the press, the law court, etc. It is codified in
dictionaries, grammars, and guides to usage, and it is taught in the school system at all levels.
It is almost exclusively the language of printed matter.
The degree of acceptance of a single standard of English throughout the world, across a
multiplicity of political and social systems, is a truly remarkable phenomenon: the more so
since the extent of the uniformity involved has, if anything, increased in the present century.
Uniformity is greatest in orthography, which is from most viewpoints the least important
type of linguistic organization. Although printing houses in all English-speaking countries
retain a tiny element of individual decision (eg: realize/realise; judgment/judgement), there is
basically a single spelling and punctuation system throughout: with two minor subsystems.
The one is the subsystem with British orientation (used in most English-speaking countries
other than the United States), with distinctive forms in only a small class of words, colour,
centre, levelled, etc. The other is the American subsystem, color, center, levelled, etc. Canadian
spelling draws on both systems and is open to considerable variation. Learned or formal
publication, such as academic journals and school textbooks, prefer British spellings, while
popular publications, such as newspapers, prefer American spelling.
3. THE PROCESS OF LANGUAGE LEARNING: SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND LEARNING
3.1. Introduction
A few theories and analysis supply teachers with some background knowledge that can be
used in the classroom, knowledge that is also behind textbooks. Second Language
Acquisition (SLA) refers to how learners learn a second language after they have mastered6
their mother tongue. In many ways, theories that have been used to account for SLA are
closely related to those for first language acquisition. However, it is clear that a child or an
adult acquiring a second language is different from a person acquiring the mother tongue in
terms of both personal characteristics and condition for learning. Second language learners,
6 To learn how to do something well.

I
for example, regardless of 7 age, have already acquired at least one language. And this
previous knowledge may be an advantage in the sense that the learner has an idea of how
language works. Nonetheless8, the knowledge of a first language can be a setback in the sense
that this previous knowledge can make learners incorrectly guess about how the second
language works and, so, they can make mistakes that a native speaker would not do. There are
other important variables that affect SLA such as age, intelligence, personality, motivation,
inhibition and the environment. Thus a good theory of SLA will need to account for
language acquisition by different learners in different contexts.
3.2. An approach to some theories on second language acquisition
Let us now look at the behaviourist theory, the cognitive theory and the creative
construction theory below.
a) The behaviourist theory
Proposed by Skinner during the 1940’s, he said that all learning takes place through the
same process, it is a habit formation. By this he means that learning a language is a
process of imitation and reinforcement, that is, learners copy what they hear and, by
regular practice, they acquire the new language. Many textbooks have followed this
approach, for example, in those exercises based on drilling. It is, therefore, taken for
granted that a person learning a second language starts off with the habits of the first
language the behaviourists claiming that where there are similarities between the two
languages, the learner will acquire target language structures easily but where there are
differences the learner will have problems. Nevertheless, other researchers have found
that this is not always the case since learners do make many errors which are not
predictable on the basis of this approach. What is more, we find that these mistakes
are very similar across learners from a number of backgrounds even if the structures
of their mother tongue are different from each other and different from English.
All this suggests that the influence of the learner’s first language isn’t simply a
matter of habits, but a much more complex process. Let’s now move onto the main
alternative to the behaviourist approach, that is:
b) The cognitive theory
If the behaviourists focus on environmental factors, the cognitive theorists affirm that
cognitive factors are essential in language learning. Language is not considered as a
process of imitation but a creative process by which learners work out hypothesis
about the structure of the foreign language. They make rules, try them out and alter
them if they prove to be inadequate, resulting in the concept of interlanguage.
1. Interlanguage
Learning proceeds in a series of transitional stages. At each of these stages learners
have a command of a language system which is equivalent neither to the L1 nor to
7 Despite; not being affected by something.

8 However.
6 I
L2. That is what we call interlanguage. And interlanguage is the language used to
work out hypothesis.
2. Error analysis
If we learn a language by means of hypothesis, errors arise, then learners make
wrong deductions about the nature of the L2. For instance, when a learner says
something like she drinked instead of she drank; it is because the learner assumes that
a pattern is general when in fact there are exceptions. These kinds of errors are
regarded as overgeneralization.
Therefore, since errors are due to wrong deductions, the cognitive theory claims
that errors provide positive evidence about the nature of the L2 in the sense that
errors show the extent to which the learner gradually works out what the second
language is like. Let’s now move onto the other theory which accounts for SLA.
c) The creative construction theory

Following Chomsky’s innatist theory of first language acquisition, researchers claim
that learners needn’t actually speak or write in order to acquire language because
acquisition takes place internally.
In this respect, it would be relevant to point out the work of Stephen Krashen. His
work is based on five central hypotheses:
1. the acquisition-learning hypothesis.
2. the monitor hypothesis.
3. the natural order.
4. the input hypothesis.
5. the affective filter.
Professor Emeritus S. Krashen (1941,-)
1. The acquisition-learning hypotheses

This hypothesis claims that adults have two distinct9 ways of developing their L2
competence, i.e. through acquisition and learning (Krashen, 1982; 1985; Krashen
9 Clearly noticeable; that certainly exists.

I
and Terrell, 1988). This leads to say that acquisition is a subconscious process
similar to the process of acquiring L1 in natural setting. The initiation of utterances
in adult L2 performance occurs according to what the performer has picked up via
natural language use (Krashen, 1978).
Acquisition is characterized by the lack of conscious awareness of linguistic rules
which the native speaker has acquired. Native speakers are generally, when asked
unable to state the rules or to explain the use of certain rules, yet they have the
sense for correctness of grammatical utterances (Krashen, 1982; 1985; 1988). Thus,
acquisition is believed to be governed by universal language strategy available to all
language learners (Huda, 1988).
The adults’ second way to develop L2 competence is by language learning.
Learning is a process focused on the internalization of linguistic rules, not linguistic
content through teaching-learning and self-study activities. Learners have explicit
knowledge of the rules of the language being learned.
2. The monitor hypothesis
Monitor Hypothesis claims that acquisition and learning have important roles in the
production of sentences or utterances. Learners’ production of utterances in L2 is
initiated10 by his acquired knowledge of the target language. This learnt system or
formal knowledge functions as monitor concerning the output of the acquired
system. Learners can use the monitor to make changes in their utterances11 only
after the uttterances have been generated by the acquired system. The Monitor can
work either before or after the actual production of utterances (Krashen, 1982;
1985; Krashen and Terrell, 1988). This implies that implicit knowledge plays only a
limited role in L2 production.
There are three conditions that must be met in order to utilize Monitor
successfully, in the sense the learnt system can be reached (Krashen, 1982; Krashen
and Terrell, 1988). First, the learner must have sufficient time in order to think
about and use conscious rules effectively. Taking time to think about rules may
disrupt12 the communication. Second, the learner has to focus on forms-the
correctness of forms. He may be more concerned with what he is saying not how
he is saying it. The last the learner has to know the rules. Linguists readily confess
that the structure of language is extremely complex, and that they have only been
able to describe a subset, a fragment of the overall structures of a language, even
well-studied language like English. They presume that even the most intelligent
students fail to13 learn everything presented to them. It needs to note that learners
vary in their use of the Monitor, some being over-users, some being under-users
and some being optimal users. Monitor over-users are those who attempt to
10 To cause something to begin.

11 Something that someone says.
12 To prevent something, especially a system, process or event, from continuing as usual or as expected.
13 To not do something which you should do.
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monitor all the time; they constantly check their output on their learnt knowledge
in the target language. This may cause the learners to be hesitant14, often self-
correct in the middle of utterances, and are so concerned with grammaticality that
they cannot speak with any real fluency. Over-users may derive from learning
without acquisition.
Monitor under-users are second language learners who do not utilize their
monitor maximally. They appear to be not influenced by error correction; they
exhaustively rely on the acquired systems of the second language and do self-
correct by using a ‘feel’ for grammaticality.
The optimal monitor users are the adult second language learners who utilize
their monitor when it is appropriate. The pedagogical goal is to produce optimal
users. In ordinary conversation, an optimal user will not be excessively concerned
with applying conscious rules to performance. However, in writing and in planned
speech, he will make any correction which raises the accuracy of his output. This
suggests that adult language learners know how to utilize their knowledge
appropriately and accurately.
3. The natural order hypothesis
According to the Natural Order Hypothesis, L2 learners acquire the grammatical
structure of the language in a predictable way. Certain structures might be acquired
earlier while others are acquired later. In other words, it can be said that some
structures might be less difficult than the others, but the order of difficulty does not
necessarily correspond with what is deemed to be easy or difficult (Higashi, 1988).
However, it does not mean that every acquirer will acquire grammatical structure in
exactly the same order (Krashen and Terrell, 1988). The order of acquisition of
structural items might be influenced by the quality and the types of input entailed
by the learning environment to a certain extent.
4. The input hypothesis
Input Hypothesis claims that learners acquire second language in only one way, that
is by understanding message or receiving comprehensible input that is a bit ahead
of their current level of acquired competence. Learners progress along the natural
order by understanding input containing i+1, where i is their current level of
competence and i+1 is the level immediately following the i. With the aid15 of
context which includes extralinguistic information, knowledge of the world and
previously acquired linguistic competence, the learners can understand input
containing unacquired structures.
According to Krashen (1985, 1987, 1988) Input Hypothesis has two corollaries16.
First, speaking as a productive skill is the result of acquisition and not its cause.
Speaking emerges on its own after the acquirer has built up linguistic competence
14 If you are hesitant, you do not do something immediately or quickly because you are nervous or not certain.
15 Help or support.
16 Something that results from something else.
I
through comprehensible input. Second, if input is comprehensible and there is
plenty of it, the required grammar is automatically supplied. Therefore, language
teachers do not need to deliberately teach the text structure along the natural order
because it will be automatically reviewed in case the learners get an adequate
amount of comprehensible input.
Krashen and Terrell (1988) write that a corollary of the input hypothesis is that
input need not be finely tuned17. A finely tuned input is the input which is directed
merely at the learners’ present level of acquisition. For example in the language
classroom, teachers simplfy their speech which is natural, and in most cases they
solely use structures which are being analyzed at the present moment.
However, according to Higashi (1988) a roughly tuned input is also recommended.
Roughly tuned input cast18 a net of structures over the learners’ level of acquisition.
Some of the structures will be slightly beyond their current level. However, it does
not signify that they cannot comprehend them. For instance, in daily communication
learners normally make use of all kinds of grammatical structures in organizing and
delivering their speech incompatible with their communicative needs. They may
start with the simple present, then answer a question using a continuous tense, later
produce their conversation with a narrative in the simple past and the like. Higashi
(1988) emphasizes that roughly tuned input is more advantageous than finely tuned
input. The language used will sound more natural, learners are exposed to a better
kind of input, and the structures will be previewed, practised, and ultimately
reviewed. Therefore, the input need not be grammatically sequenced. Learners
should be exposed to situations involving natural communication in which the
grammatical structures will be constantly provided and automatically reviewed.
Input Hypothesis also accounts for the existence of silent period from input to
production in second language acquisition. Krashen (1987) and Krashen and Terrell
(1988) appraise19 that the silent period may be the time during which learners build
up competence by means of active listening through input. Children can talk and
show off their competence when they are ready, that is, after they have acquired a
rather inticrated map of how the language works. Krashen asserts that this idea
helps minimize the feeling of uneasiness many learners have when they are asked
to speak in the target language right away before they have built up adequate
competence through comprehensible input. When they are forced to talk early they
tend to fall back on their first language (Krashen, 1987). This leads to say that
speaking ability turns up after sufficient linguistic competence has been developed
through listening and understanding. The acquirers need silent period to internalize
the input properly. One of the problems is that the length of input varies from
17 To make very small changes to something in order to make it work as well as possible.
18 Provide.
19 Examine, judge.
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acquirer to acquirer (Higashi, 1988). Teachers are very often impatient to let their
students remain silent their early weeks of learning. Finally,
5. The affective filter hypothesis
Although comprehensible input is necessary for the language acquisition process, it
is not enough to ensure the success of language acquisition. Learners must be open
to the natural speech they encounter, otherwise the acquisition process will not
operate. It implies that not all input reaches language acquisition device (LAD), it is
filtered somewhere along the way, and only a part of it is acquired or changed into
intake. In this case affective filter is a mental block that precludes20 acquirer from
impartially using the comprehensible input they receive for the language acquisition
(Krashen, 1985). In short, comprehensible input plus a low affective filter are
necessary and sufficient conditions for SLA to take place. Acquirers who have low
affective filter are more open to the input, and that the input strikes deeper
(Krashen and Terrell, 1988), and vice versa.
4. ATTITUDE AND MOTIVATION
Motivation is the biggest single factor affecting students’ success. Motivated language
learners perceive goals of various kinds: short-term goals and long-term goals. Long-term
goals might have something to do with a wish to get a better position, or a desire to be able
to communicate with members of a target language community. Short-term goals might
include such things as wanting to pass a test or to finish a unit.
Motivation is one of the main determinants of second/foreign language (L2) learning
achievement. In the last thirty years, there had been considerable amount of research done
that explores on the nature and role of motivation in the L2 learning process. Canadian
psychologists Gardner and Lambert who with the help of their colleagues and students
grounded motivation research in a social psychological framework have initiated the bulk of
these researches. They also established scientific research procedures and introduced
standardized assessment techniques and instruments thus bringing L2 motivation research to
reach its zenith in the field of research (Dornyei, 1994).
In their early institution of L2 motivation, Gardner and Lambert (1959; 1972) suggested
that an individuals’ motivation to learn an L2 is nurtured by both attitudes toward the L2
community and the goals, or orientations, sought through the acquisition of the L2. These
researchers identified two classes of motivation. First, integrative motivation refers to a desire
to learn the L2 in order to have contact with, and perhaps to identify with, members from
the L2 community. This orientation can be contrasted with the instrumental orientation,
which refers to a desire to learn the L2 to achieve some practical goal, such as job
advancement or course credit (Noels, Pelletier, Clement & Vallerand, 2000).
20 Prevent, impede.
I
4.1. Kinds of motivation
There are two basic types: a) Extrinsic and b) Intrinsic motivation.

a) Extrinsic motivation: It is concerned with factors outside the classroom and there are
two main types: integrative motivation and instrumental motivation. In the integrative
motivation students need to be attracted by the target language. It is thought that
students who are most successful when learning a target language are those who like the
people that speak the language, admire the culture and have a desire to become familiar
with or even integrate into the society in which the language is used (Falk, 1978). When
someone becomes a resident in a new community that uses the target language in its
social interactions, integrative motivation is a key component in assisting the learner to
develop some level of proficiency in the language. It becomes a necessity, in order to
operate socially in the community and become one of its members. It is also theorised
that “integrative motivation typically underlies successful acquisition of a wide range
of registers and a nativelike pronunciation” (Finegan, 1999: 568).
In the instrumental motivation the language is seen as an instrument to attain goals
such as getting a better job, position or status. This is generally characterised by the
desire to obtain something practical or concrete from the study of a second language
(Hudson, 2000). With instrumental motivation the purpose of language acquisition is
more utilitarian, such as meeting the requirements for school or university graduation,
applying for a job, requesting higher pay based on language ability, reading technical
material, translation work or achieving higher social status. Instrumental motivation is
often characteristic of second language acquisition, where little or no social integration
of the learner into a community using the target language takes place, or in some
instances is even desired.
Brown (2000) makes the point that both integrative and instrumental motivation are
not necessarily mutually exclusive. Learners rarely select one form of motivation when
learning a second language, but rather a combination of both orientations. He cites the
example of international students residing in the United States, learning English for
academic purposes while at the same time wishing to become integrated with the people
and culture of the country.
Motivation is an important factor in L2 achievement. For this reason it is important
to identify both the type and combination of motivation that assists in the successful
acquisition of a second language. At the same time it is necessary to view motivation
as one of a number of variables in an intricate model of interrelated individual and
situational factors which are unique to each language learner.
There are other extrinsic factors, i.e., the attitude of those people who can exert
some influence on students like parents or students’ peers, among others. Another
element affecting the attitude is their previous experience. If pupils were successful,
then they may be pre-disposed to success, and vice-versa. As teachers we need to
create a positive attitude to the language and its speakers, being supportive and
encouraging rather than critical and destructive (Harmer, 1991: 4).
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b) Intrinsic motivation: It is concerned with what takes place inside the classroom. For
many students, especially children, what happens in the classroom is of vital
importance in determining their attitude to the language. Factors affecting intrinsic
motivation are physical conditions, method, the teacher and success.
1. Physical conditions: classrooms badly lit or overcrowded can be de-motivating. Is
the board clearly visible, its surface being in good condition? Therefore, the learning
atmosphere is of vital importance.
2. Method: What we do know, says Harmer, is that if a student loses confidence in the
method they will become de-motivated.
3. The teacher: The teacher’s personality matters a lot. Teachers need to create a good
rapport with their students, partly by providing interesting and motivating classes.
Teachers also need to show that they know their subject.
4. Success: Both complete failure or complet success may be de-motivating. Teachers
need to set reasonable attainable goals (tasks, activities and exercises).
Children are curious, and this is in itself motivating. At the same time, their span of
attention or concentration is less than that of an adult. Children will often seek teacher
approval. Children need frequent changes of activity: exciting and stimulating activites.
They need to be involved in something active and be appreciated by the teacher and so
almost everything fot them will depend on the attitude and behaviour of the teacher.
Ryan and Deci (2000) posit21 that no single phenomenon reflects the positive
potential of human nature as much as intrinsic motivation, which is defined as the
inherent tendency to seek out novelty and challenges, to extend and exercise one’s
capacities, to explore, and to learn. Developmentalists acknowledge that from time of
birth, children, in their earliest and healthiest states, are active, inquisitive, curious, and
playful, even in the absence of rewards. The whole construct of intrinsic motivation
describes this natural inclination toward assimilation, mastery, spontaneous interest,
and exploration that is so essential to cognitive and social development and that
represents a principal source of enjoyment throughout life (Csikszentmihalyi &
Rathunde, 1993; Ryan, 1995 in Ryan & Deci, 2000).
Ryan, Kuhl and Deci (1997) also argued that despite the fact that humans are liberally
endowed with22 intrinsic motivations, it is clear that the maintenance and enhancement23
of this inherent propensity requires supportive conditions, as it can be readily disrupted
by various nonsupportive conditions. Thus, their theory of intrinsic motivation does not
concern what causes intrinsic motivation, but rather, it examines the conditions that
elicit24 and sustain, versus subdue25 and diminish this innate propensity.
21 Suggest.
22 Supplied with.
23 Improvement in the quality, amount or strength of something.
24 To get or produce something, especially information or a reaction.
25 To reduce the force of something, or to prevent something from existing or developing.
I
PART 2. METHODOLOGY AND EVALUATION
1. METHODOLOGY
It is clear that language is not solely what is taught in the textbook, but it must also reflect
the sociocultural reality of the country where it is spoken and of its people. It is the
responsibility of the teacher to introduce the L2 language and also culture, to awaken26 the
students’ interests and to widen their knowledge of that culture. As teachers, we should show
the students how people live, the way they organize their society, the attitudes they express
towards friends and members of their society. The methodology of our class cannot forget
to introduce some important cultural goals: to stimulate students’ interest in foreign
language study –introducing classroom activities related to music, dancing, cooking and
festivals, foreign holidays, traditional festivals and gifts; to increase student’s awareness of the
target culture-introducing geographical information, sociological data, contributions in arts,
sciences, history, eating habits, the way people live both in big cities, and small villages,
reactions of elderly and young people, points of view of ethnic groups, etc.
The teacher’s role within the realm27 of the communicative approach is to teach the
students to communicate in the L2. We, as teachers, are the coordinators or mediators of the
learning process and of the dynamics of the group, being responsible for creating the
appropriate learning climate. The communicative approach to teaching shifts the control and
responsibility to the students. Learners do not come to the classroom with a blank mind. As
mentioned above, they bring their experiences, expectations, motivations, their previous
learning, and their personal and social reality which constitute the classroom culture.
To ensure the development of students’ communicative competence, there is a need to
employ a communicative approach and learner-centred methodology in class, in which
students are fully engaged in learning. Techniques used will be eclectic, taking into account
the diversity of learning styles and “intelligences” observed in the class, employing visual,
auditory, kinaesthetic, musical, logical-mathematical, etc. activities. Within this communicative
approach, an ideal option is a task-based method in which a series of accuracy focused
enabling tasks can be employed, introducing the vocabulary and grammar (contextualised in
the receptive and productive skills), which students will need for the final meaning focused
communication task (a poster presentation or any other written or speaking task such as
devising a comic, writing an e-mail, a letter, a description, or simply role-playing a dialogue,
etc.) in which students’ autonomy is at its height. Of course, there is also a focus on
developing oral skills and written expression, as well as encouraging the reading habit by
means of a variety of texts (graded Readers, comics, or any others included in the module of
children’s literature) these all strategies being necessary for the students to acquire the basic
skills to move up to a higher level of education. Units will thus take the form of a series of
26 To stop sleeping or to make someone stop sleeping.

27 An area of interest or activity.
6 I
enabling tasks and communication tasks leading up to the production of either a final
assignment or a longer project, depending upon the level of the students. Project work can
chosen for some of the following reasons: a) it is motivating –the students use the
communicative language skills acquired, and integrated, in a situation which is challenging
and real outside the classroom setting; b) students become responsible for their own learning
and the teacher acts as facilitator or resource; development of the individual is promoted, the
students feeling personally involved; c) it emphasizes the relationship between language and
culture; d) independent research is promoted using new technologies (Medusa, the internet,
Moodle platform); e) it is excellent for mixed-ability groups, and for sociocultural and
sociolinguistic themes; f) emphasis on cooperation and process writing.
The development of learner autonomy and responsibility is essential, encouraging
students to experiment using good learning strategies, for example, for the keeping of
vocabulary notebooks, and also raise their awareness of the metacognitive strategies of self
assessment, planning and organizing. It is important to encourage effort, as the year moves
forward, and we introduce simple problem solving and ranking tasks, in addition to language
awareness and discovery tasks to ensure students think about the language they are studying.
As the level of communication increases, there will be a focus on using more language
appropriate to a given social context and an increase in pair and group work activity to
maximise students’ interaction and mediation.
Involving students is fundamental, as is ensuring meaningful interaction in the classroom,
and this can be done through a careful selection of motivating oral and written tasks,
including mini projects as final communication tasks, which push students´ linguistic
knowledge to the maximum. ICT work also of course causes students to interact naturally
via the use of student blogs and portfolio, for example, in addition to developing research
skills and reading skills, both priority areas for development according to the LOE. Students
will also enjoy writing emails in English and trying out interactive games and searching for
information.
The classroom management is pair, individual, group and whole class, depending on the
activity. The materials will be board, books, handouts, computer room (Aula Medusa), videos
and DVDs.
2. EVALUATION
Evaluation should be seen as a continuous process which involves three stages: initial,
continuous and final assessment. It should also be overall evaluation, in that we assess
student achievement with reference to the objectives set, and also our own performance as a
teacher, how our materials and activities helped attain the objectives set, and we also ask
students to give us feedback on our plan and activities employed, as well as ensuring students
develop self- and peer- assessment strategies.
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2.1. Evaluation criteria
Evaluation criteria are established in the curriculum or syllabus for each level of education. See
Decree for Primary Education http://www.gobiernodecanarias.org/boc/2007/112/boc-2007-112-anexo-
12669-12830.pdf ).
2.2. Types of Evaluation
As we all know, evaluation is not something only the teacher should engage in, it is
essential to encourage students to self and peer evaluate both their receptive and productive
skills. Also, evaluation is continuous: we carry out an initial evaluation, on-going evaluation
and final evaluation. Students will be assessed initially to check and diagnose their previous
knowledge of vocabulary and grammar and on an ongoing basis to assess to what extent the
new language is being learnt and produced accurately and fluently, and their reading and
listening comprehension skills. We will check, for example, controlled practice exercises
(grammar, vocabulary) as students do them in class and check with their partners. We will
also monitor pair, group and whole class activity and games, and correct immediately during
the activity if the focus is on accuracy as whole class in first lessons, for example, and correct
in delayed mode after activities if the focus is on group or pair work fluency in subsequent
lessons. We also evaluate at the end of the lesson to review the global success or otherwise
of our teaching and students’ learning, when we assess the final written assignment or project
presentation.
In addition to this teacher directed correction, students will also be required to focus on
self-, peer and group correction during the project activities. When working on project work,
it is easy not to evaluate, and focus only on the process and not on the product, often
resulting in inaccurate work being displayed in the school noticeboards for all to see. First we
must monitor student language during the project writing process. Furthermore, students
should be clear on what they learning, if they are making headway or not.In their student
mini portfolio, students are required to comment on their progress. Next, we assess the
product: i.e., the poster presentation itself, using four levels of evaluation: 1. Student self-
evaluation of the project in diary format: whether they enjoyed the activity or not, problems,
learning, etc. 2. Peer evaluation of the first draft, using evaluation criteria sheets which focus
on discourse and paragraph level-coherence and cohesion. 3. Teacher correction of the
second draft using a marking code sheet, focusing on errors at word and sentence level. 4.
Snakes and Ladders game in a follow-up lesson to focus on errors made in the writing of the
project. We will be assessing not only on the basis of linguistic accuracy –credit must be
given for the overall impact of the project, level of creativity, neatness, clarity of
presentation, and the effort which has gone into its production.
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2.3. Evaluation instruments
In order to get feedback on the success or otherwise of the learning process, both from the
point of view of the teacher and students, there are some essential tools we employ such as:
• Monitoring of Classwork: one of the most useful instruments is monitoring class
activity, whether skills work, grammar, vocabulary or pronunciation activity. Attitude,
group work and cooperation are all assessed here.
• Mini Tests: we will set tests at certain points throughout the year to formally assess
pupils´ performance and attainment of our objectives.
• Student’s homework: pupils will be required to hand in homework on a regular basis
to ensure it is being done and is being corrected.
• Learning Diary: students are encouraged to keep a learning diary in which they write
their feelings about learning English, and self assess their progress at the end of each
unit and of every three or four chapters of the Readers. This is a mini Portfolio.
• Project work: displays of students´ work or presentations will be assessed by both
teacher and peers. We should not forget not only English is assessed but design,
creativity, etc.
• Self-, peer and group evaluation: through project work activity, in pairs and in
groups, pupils are encouraged to peer assess their writing. To help students do so, we
employ marking codes for self correction of writing and self evaluation sheets during
the written project, monitored and explained of course by the teacher to ensure pupils
understand how to use them.
2.4. Evaluation of the course plan
Both teacher and students will give feedback on the Plan itself, the teacher through a
compilation of comments and notes made in a running diary throughout the year, and pupils
by means of a questionnaire at the end of the year. Of course, in their learner diaries they
will also write their thoughts on each unit. Comments should cover material, tasks, activities,
topics, projects which worked well, and those which did not and should be removed or
adapted. A systematic review of our diary and feedback from students, in addition to close
coordination with teachers of the same level, will ensure an improved plan for the
forthcoming academic year.
1. Can you identify six main branches or disciplines of

theoretical linguistics and give a brief definition?
I
2. Complete the following statements
a) One of the main goals of _____________________is to compare items of several
languages in order to identify cognates and reconstruct how different languages have
changed over time.
b) One of the first researchers of descriptive linguistics was _______ in the 1900s.
c) The school of psychology known as behaviourism suggests that language is behaviour
shaped by ________________.
3. Say whether the following statements are true or false

a) Dialects are social variants that a certain group of people living in a society has.
b) Habit formation and imitation are key elements in the behaviourist theory proposed by
Noam Chomsky.
c) According to the research on the creative construction theory, learners do not have to
speak or write in order to acquire language because acquisition takes place internally.
4. Complete the following chart about attitude and motivation
DEFINITION OF MOTIVATION
KINDS OF MOTIVATION
5. Mention some evaluation tools that can be used to assess children’s progress.
6 I
KEYS
1. Can you identify six main branches or disciplines of theoretical linguistics and
give a brief definition?
Grammar, phonetics and phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics.
In linguistics, grammar a systematic account of the rules governing language in general,
or specific languages, including semantics, phonology, and often pragmatics. Phonetics
and phonology is the science of speech sounds, especially of their production,
transmission, and reception. Morphology is the study of word structure, especially in
terms of morphemes. Syntax is the study of word combinations or the study of sentence
structure (including word structure), principles and rules for constructing sentences in
natural languages. Semantics is the study of linguistic meaning. Pragmatics is the study
of the factors influencing a person’s choice of language. It studies how the transmission
of meaning depends not only on the linguistic knowledge (e.g. grammar, vocabulary, etc)
of the speaker and listener, but also on the context of the utterance, knowledge about the
status of those involved, the inferred intent of the speaker and so on.
2. Complete the following statements:

a) One of the main goals of historical linguistics is to compare items of several languages
in order to identify cognates and reconstruct how different languages have changed
over time.
b) One of the first researchers of descriptive linguistics was Franz Boas in the 1900s.
c) The school of psychology known as behaviourism (Skinner) suggests that language is
behaviour shaped by conditioned response.
3. Say whether the following statements are true or false:

a) Dialects are social variants that a certain group of people living in a society has. F.
b) Habit formation and imitation are key elements in the behaviourist theory proposed by
Noam Chomsky. F.
c) According to the research on the creative construction theory, learners do not have to
speak or write in order to acquire language because acquisition takes place internally. R.
4. Complete the following chart about attitude and motivation:
DEFINITION OF Motivation is the biggest single factor affecting students’ success and is one of the
MOTIVATION main determinants of second/foreign language (L2) learning achievement.
There are two basic types: a) Extrinsic and b) Intrinsic motivation.

a) Extrinsic motivation: It is concerned with factors outside the classroom and there
are two main types: integrative motivation and instrumental motivation.
KINDS OF MOTIVATION b) Intrinsic motivation: It is concerned with what takes place inside the classroom.
For many students, especially children, what happens in the classroom is of vital
importance in determining their attitude to the language. Factors affecting intrinsic
motivation are physical conditions, method, the teacher and success.
I
5. Mention some evaluation tools that can be used to assess children’s progress.
• Monitoring of Classwork: one of the most useful instruments is monitoring class
activity, whether skills work, grammar, vocabulary or pronunciation activity. Attitude,
group work and cooperation are all assessed here.
• Mini Tests: we will set tests at certain points throughout the year to formally assess
pupils´ performance and attainment of our objectives.
• Student’s homework: pupils will be required to hand in homework on a regular basis
to ensure it is being done and is being corrected.
• Learning Diary: students are encouraged to keep a learning diary in which they write
their feelings about learning English, and self assess their progress at the end of each
unit and of every three or four chapters of the Readers. This is a mini Portfolio.
• Project work: displays of students´ work or presentations will be assessed by both
teacher and peers. We should not forget not only English is assessed but design,
creativity, etc.
REFERENCES
Brown, H. D. (2000). Principles of language learning and teaching (4th ed.). Englewood Cliffs
NJ: Prentice-Hall.Canale, M. y Swain, M. (1980. Communicative Approaches to Second Language.
Crystal D. (2009). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of The English Language. Cambridge University
Press.
Csikszentmihalyi, M., y Rathunde, K. (1993). The measurement of flow in everyday life:
Toward a theory of emergent motivation. In Ryan, R. M., y Deci, E. (2000. Self-
determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and
well being. American Psychologist, 55, 68-78.
Dornyei, Z. (1994). Motivation and motivating in the foreign classroom. Modern Language
Journal, 78, 273-284.
Falk, J. (1978). Linguistics and language: A survey of basic concepts and implications (2nd ed.). John
Wiley and Sons.
Finegan, E. (1999). Language: Its structure and use. (3rd ed.). Harcourt Brace.
Gardner, R. C., y Lambert, W. E. (1959). Motivational variables in second language acquisition.
Canadian Journal of Psychology, 13, 266-272.
Gardner, R. C., y Lambert, W. E. (1972). Attitudes and Motivation in Second Language Learning.
Rowley: MA: Newbury House.
Harmer, (1991). The Practice of English Language Teaching. Longman.
Harmer, J. (2001). The Practice of English Language Teaching. Longman.
Higashi, Aldo M. (1988). “Adapting Krashen’s Second Language Acquisition Theory”. English
Teaching Forum. 4. (October): 41-44.
Huda, N. (1988). “The Merits of Group Work in Foreign Language Teaching”. Warta Scientia
45. (May): 18-28.
6 I
Hudson, G. (2000). Essential introductory linguistics. Blackwell Publishers.

Irene L., R. (2010). A Study on the Intrinsic Motivation Factors in Second Language
Learning Among Selected Freshman Students. Philippine ESL Journal, Vol. 4.
Krashen, S. D. (1981). Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning. Oxford: Pergamon.
Krashen, S. D. (2003). Explorations in Language Acquisition and Use, Portsmouth: NH: Heinemann.
Krashen, S. D. (1978). “Individual Variation in the Use of Monitor”. En Willian C. Ritchie
(ed). Second Language Acquisition Research: Issues And Implications. New York: Academic Press.
Krashen, S. D. (1982). Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. New York: Pergamon
Press.
Krashen, S. D. (1985). The Input Hypothesis Issues and Implications. New York: Longman Group
Ltd.
Krashen, S. D. (1987). Applications of Psycholinguistics Research in the Classroom”. En
Michael H. Long y Jack C. Richard (eds). Methodology in TESOL: A Book of Reading. New
York: Newbury House Publishers, Inc.
Krashen, S. D. (1988). Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning. New York:
Prentice-Hall International Inc.
Krashen, S. D. y Tracy D. Terrell. (1988). The Natural Approach. New York: Prentice-Hall
International Inc.
Noels, K. A., Pelletier, L. G., Clement, R., y Vallerand, R. J. (2000). Why are you learning a
second language? Motivational orientations and self-determination theory. Language
Learning, 50, 57-85.
Norris-Holt, J. Motivation as a Contributing Factor in Second Language Acquisition. The
Internet TESL Journal.
Nunan, D. (1988). Syllabus Design. OUP.
Ryan, R. M., y Deci, E. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic
motivation, social development, and well being. American Psychologist, 55, 68-78.
Ryan, R. M., Kuhl, J., y Deci, E. L. (1997). Nature and autonomy: Organizational view of
social and neurobiological aspects of self-regulation in behavior and development. En
Ryan, R. M., y Deci, E. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic
motivation, social development, and well being. American Psychologist, 55, 68-78
White, R. (1988). The ELT Curriculum. Blackwell.
LEY ORGÁNICA 2/2006, de 3 de mayo, de Educación (BOE no. 106 de 4 de mayo).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theoretical_linguistics
http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/emasters/course/theoretical_ling.html

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Manuales Docentes

Grado en Educación Primaria

Comunicación oral y escrita en lengua

Primera edición, 2011

Impreso en España. Printed in Spain

UNIDAD DE APRENDIZAJE 1. HISTORY AND EVOLUTION OF THE ENGLISH

SELF-EVALUATION EXERCISES ..........................................................................................................31

UNIDAD DE APRENDIZAJE 2. THE PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY OF THE ENGLISH

UNIDAD DE APRENDIZAJE 3. ENGLISH-SPEAKING CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE

UNIDAD DE APRENDIZAJE 4. GEOGRAPHIC, HISTORIC AND CULTURAL FRAMEWORK

UNIDAD DE APRENDIZAJE 5. SONGS, GAMES AND OTHER CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES.

UNIDAD DE APRENDIZAJE 6. THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF LINGUISTICS TO THE

rentabilizar la utilización de las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación, pueden

José Regidor García

El manual, primordialmente de comprensión escrita, que el estudiante tiene ahora en sus

• Comprender los detalles más relevantes sobre la evolución de la didáctica de la lengua

UNIDAD DE APRENDIZAJE 1. HISTORIA Y EVOLUCIÓN DE LA ENSEÑANZA DE LA LENGUA

UNIDAD DE APRENDIZAJE 2. LA FONÉTICA Y LA FONOLOGÍA DE LA LENGUA INGLESA. CON-

UNIDAD DE APRENDIZAJE 3. LA LITERATURA CONTEMPORÁNEA EN HABLA INGLESA Y LA

UNIDAD DE APRENDIZAJE 4. MARCO GEOGRÁFICO, HISTÓRICO Y CULTURAL DE LOS PAÍSES

UNIDAD DE APRENDIZAJE 5. CANCIONES, JUEGOS Y OTRAS ACTIVIDADES DE CLASE. LAS

UNIDAD DE APRENDIZAJE 6. APORTACIONES DE LA LINGÜÍSTICA A LA ENSEÑANZA DE LA

Es evidente que la enseñanza de idiomas es, en términos generales, abiertamente comuni-

At the end of this module, you will be able to:

PART 1. THE DEVELOPMENT IN LANGUAGE TEACHING. TRENDS IN THE

2. THE GRAMMAR-TRANSLATION METHOD. CHARACTERISTICS

3. THE DIRECT METHOD

Oral Approach Situational Language The Audiolingual

3.1. Oral Approach or Situational Language Teaching

3.2. The Audiolingual Method

4. COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING

FUNCTIONAL AND STRUCTURAL ASPECTS

AUTHENTIC USE OF LANGUAGE

LIMITED RANGE OF ACTIVITIES

Communicative Language Teaching: Approaches

Content-Based Instruction: Task-Based Approachǣ 

Total Physical Response:  Participatory Approaachǣ

The Silent Way:   The Natural Approach:

Suggestopedia: The Learning Strategy Training

The Cooperative Learning The Multiple Intelligence Approach

4.1. Total Physical Response

4.2. The Silent Way

4.3. The Natural Approach

Another approach deals with the method regarded as suggestopedia. Suggestopedia is an

5. THE COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING

2. Complete with the following terms below

Lozanov; Skinner; Chomsky; Suggestopedia; Natural Approach; Grammar-Translation

1 INTRODUCTION AND THEORETICAL

3 DEALING WITH MIX-ABILITY TEACHING

EVALUATION CRITERIA AND INSTRUMENTS

2.1. Definition, elements and aims

It is necessary not to be vague and be as concrete and full as possible. Examples of

Subsidiary aims: to develop a better class atmosphere by encouraging students’ interest

New language points are introduced and practised.

2. Complete with the following terms below

Keys: a) Communicative syllabus b) Suggestopedia; Lozanov c) Natural Approach

Subsidiary aims: to develop a better class atmosphere by encouraging students’ interest

Keys: 1 (f); 2 (e,d); 3 (d, e, f); 4 (f,e).

Harmer, J. 2001. The Practice of English Language Teaching, Longman.

At the end of this module, you will be able to:

PART 1. THE PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

THE ENGLISH THE ENGLISH

2. THE ENGLISH VOWEL SYSTEM

Content-Based Instruction: Task-Based Approachǣ

Total Physical Response: Participatory Approaachǣ

The Silent Way: The Natural Approach:

Suggestopedia: The Learning Strategy Training

/a:/ /i:/ / :/ /u:/ / :/