Pedagogy of English Language

Syllabus

Course 206- Pedagogy of English Language

Unit 1: Issues of Teaching of English at the Elementary Stage                          14 Hrs. 12 Marks

• Issues of learning English in a multi-lingual/multi-cultural society: the multilingual nature of India. English as the language of prestige and power 
• Teaching English as a first language, second language and foreign language 
• The politics of teaching of English in India 
• Perspectives on the appropriate age for beginning the teaching of English  
• Understanding the importance of a language rich classroom 

Unit 2: Approaches to the Teaching of English                                                   18 Hrs. 16 Marks

• Behaviouristic and Structural Approaches; Grammar-translation method, Audiolingual method 
• Cognitive and Constructivist Approach; nature and role of learners, different kinds of learners 
• Communicative language teaching; Direct method of teaching English, Bilingual method of teaching English

Unit 3: Teaching Strategies                                                                                    22 Hrs. 20 Marks   

• Role of text books  
• Beyond the textbooks: including children's literature in the classroom (Rhymes, poems, stories, songs etc) 
• Listening and Speaking Skills: seeing talk as valuable, reducing teacher-talk time in the classroom, using pair-work and group-work meaningfully to encourage speaking and  participation – children as researchers, some activities for the classroom: poems, songs, story-telling, role-play, situational conversations etc. 
• Vocabulary development: using pictures, flow- charts, word walls, homonyms, homophones, homographs 
• Reading: beginning reading - the alphabet method, phonetic method, reading with meaning, reading aloud by teacher, using the word-wall; stages of Reading - pre-reading, while-reading and post-reading activities, intensive and extensive reading, word-attack skills; types of reading - Independent reading, guided reading and shared reading – making reading buddies 
• Writing: writing as a process - brain storming, drafting, conferencing /sharing, revising, editing,   publishing ; controlled, guided, and free writing; writing – letters, daily diary/ journals, logs (responding to something read or observed), using pictures.
• Verbal and visual inputs  
• Teaching grammar to strengthen language acquisition: teaching grammar as knowledge about language, making grammar meaningful and fun.

Unit 4: Learner Assessment                                                                                   14 Hrs. 12 Marks 

• Assessing, speaking and listening - using interviews, story-telling, re-telling 
• Assessing reading comprehension-using miscue analysis, meta-linguistic awareness
• Teacher's diary – anecdotal records, assessing writing - informal feedback from teacher, measuring progress 
• Continuous and comprehensive assessment 
• Attitude towards errors and mistakes in second language learning 
• Review of current assessment procedures - cursive writing, dictation, cloze, questions and answers, utilisation of feedback. 
• Using assessment rubrics 

Unit 5: Planning and Material Development                                                        12 Hrs. 10 Marks    

• Unit planning for a learner-centered classroom 
• Preparation and presentation of lesson plan (Upper Primary Level), microteaching
• Preparation of low-cost teaching aids-flash cards, charts, cut-outs, placards 
• Using the classroom as a resource.  
• Creating differentiated resources and tasks for different learning levels