Prepared by Ahmad Saleh Aljohani To Dr.Antar Abdellah

The aim of this part of the curriculum design process is to choose the teaching and learning techniques and design the lesson plans.

Meaning-focused input Meaning-focused input involves having the opportunity to learn from listening and speaking. krashen (1981) would call it learning from comprehensible input. The conditions which are needed for such learning are a low density of unknown items in the language input, a focus on the meaning of the message, and a large quantity of input.

Meaning-focused input the most important way of providing a large amount of comprehensible input is to have an extensive reading programme

Meaning-focused output Meaning-focused output involves learning through speaking and writing. Learning by input alone is not su ffi cient because the knowledge needed to comprehend input does not include all the knowledge which is needed to produce output. A well-balanced language course spends about one quarter of the course time on meaning-focused speaking and writing.

Language-focused learning involves a deliberate focus on language features such as pronunciation, spelling, word parts, vocabulary, collocations, grammatical constructions and discourse features. e. Deliberate learning of vocabulary items can result in both kinds of knowledge (Elgort, 2007).

Here are some of the activities which could occur in the language focused learning strand of course – intensive reading, pronunciation practice, guided writing, spelling practice, blank- filling activities, sentence completion or sentence combining activities, getting feedback on written work, correction during speaking activities, learning vocabulary from word cards, memorising collocations, dictation and the explicit study of discourse Features.

The fourth strand of a course is a fluency development strand. Fluency involves making the best use of what is already known. Thus, the fluency development strand of a course does not involve the learning of new language features, but involves becoming fluent with features that the learners have already met before

There needs to be fluency practice in each of the four skills of listening,speaking, reading and writing

Table 6.2 Activities and conditions for the four.strands

A very common activity in courses which focus on reading involves the learners answering comprehension questions of various kinds. These kinds can include pronominal questions, true/false questions, and multiple-choice questions.

If the target vocabulary occurs in the questions, or the answers to multiple choice questions, the learners need to retrieve the meaning of this vocabulary and this retrieval can help the learning of the words. If the question context for the target vocabulary di ff ers from the context of the word in the text, then the learner is meeting a generative use of this word and this will strengthen memory for the word.

If the target vocabulary occurs in the questions, or the answers to multiple-choice questions, this can contribute to receptive knowledge of the words. If the target vocabulary occurs in the answers that the learners have to write for pronominal questions, then this encourages productive learning of the words.

When designing the format of a lesson, the curriculum designer needs to consider environment factors such as the length of time available for each lesson, the teachers’ skill and role in the lesson, and the size of a typical class

Deciding on the format of a lesson involves combining practical and principled considerations. Too often principles are ignored because of practical pressures. What occurs in a lesson and the order in which it occurs should reflect principles of teaching and learning. The lesson format of this course divides into the following parts:

1-Listening input usually with a meaning focus 2-Language-focused learning taking up points from the listening 3-Meaning-focused output, mainly speaking, often involving pair and group work and a game-like activity

Typical block formats include the type of lesson looked at earlier in this chapter with listening and reading input, language-focused activity, and meaning- focused output. Another block format involves an experience-providing stage, a guided practice stage, and then a fluency-development stage.

The other way of planning a lesson is by making use of “threads”. Threads are activities that run through a series of lessons. Threads are activities that can be used again and again with minimal planning and only small changes. For example, a teacher or curriculum designer might set up an interview thread that appears in a large number of lessons. In each lesson, the class interviews a di ff erent learner from the class.

1-Experience activities try to keep as much as possible of the knowledge needed to perform the activity within the learners’ previous experience. This can be done in several ways.

2-Shared activities involve the learners achieving through group work Format and Presentation what they could not achieve by working alone. Nation (1989b) describes four major kinds of group work.

3-Guided activities involve the learners doing already partly completed tasks. For example, completion activities, substitution activities, matching activities, repetition activities, and ordering activities all involve the teacher or curriculum designer.

4-The fourth kind of activity, independent activities, is the ultimate goal of the other three. In independent activities the learners work with no assistance or preparation. They can draw on their skills and make use of other resources, but essentially they are in control of their own learning. Independent activities tend to occur late in a course and at advanced levels.

Thank You for listening