21.

LA PROGRAMACIÓN DEL ÁREA DE LENGUAS

EXTRANJERAS: UNIDADES DE PROGRAMACIÓN.
CRITERIOS PARA LA SECUENCIA Y
TEMPORIZACIÓN DE CONTENIDOS Y OBJETIVOS.
SELECCIÓN DE LA METODOLOGÍA A EMPLEAR EN
LAS ACTIVIDADES DE APRENDIZAJE Y DE
EVALUACIÓN.

21.- THE DIDACTIC PROGRAMME OF THE

FOREIGN LANGUAGE AREA: PROGRAMME UNITS.
CRITERIA FOR THE SEQUENCE AND TIMING OF
CONTENTS AND OBJECTIVES. SECTION OF THE
METHODOLOGY TO APPLY IN THE EVALUATION
AND LEARNING ACTIVITIES.

1.- Introduction.

2.- The didactic programme of the foreign language area: programme units.

2.1.- The didactic programme.

2.2.- Didactic units.

2.3.- Cross-curricular elements.

2.3.- Attention to diversity.

3.- Criteria for the sequence and timing of contents and objectives.

4.- Selection of the methodology to apply in the evaluation and learning

activities.

4.1.- Methodological principles of Pre-Primary and Primary Education.

4.2.- Methodological principles of the foreign language area.

4.3.- The UDL

5.- Conclusion-Critical view.

6.- Bibliography.

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1.- INTRODUCTION.

“Language is wine upon the lips.”

- Virginia Woolf

I have chosen to develop this unit because I strongly believe that there is more
to communication than just one person speaking and another one listening.
Human communication processes are quite complex and they deserve deep study
if we want to teach a foreign language successfully. Similarly, we teachers
require expertise, or at least, knowledge about the main means of
communication; that is, language. As Virgina Woolf put down in words, language
broads our horizons and it is a vehicle to learning, enjoyment and expression,
so the more competent our students may become, the wider their horizons will
be and the better they will fit in the 21st century society.

In this unit I will render a rigorous study of the teaching programme in the
foreign language area in Primary Education, and so, in the first section I will
define the concept of programme, together with its characteristics and related
elements. In the second section I will deal with the sequence and timing of
contents and objectives; and in the final one I will address to the concept of
methodology in foreign language teaching.

2.- THE DIDACTIC PROGRAMME OF THE FOREIGN

LANGUAGE AREA: PROGRAMME UNITS.

2.1.- THE DIDACTIC PROGRAMME.

Programming is one of the most relevant aspects of the teaching profession.

According to Harmer (2006): the best teachers are those who think carefully
about what they are going to do in their classes, and who plan how they are
going to organize the process of teaching and learning. Furthermore, Organic
Law 3/2020 (December 29th) which modifies Organic Law 2/2006 (May 3rd) of
Education (LOMLOE) mentions as the first of the teachers’ duties (Art. 91):

a) The planning and teaching of the ambits, subjects, modules, or

curricular areas that are entrusted to them.

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Law 7/2010 (July 30th) of Education of Castilla- La Mancha states that (Art.
105) the pedagogical autonomy of schools is apparent through didactic
programming, and defines didactic programming as the instrument for planning,
development, and evaluation of the curriculum's ambits, subjects, areas, or
modules.

Order 121/2022, (June 14th), issued by the Counsel of Education, Culture, and
Sports, which regulates the organization and functioning of Pre-Primary and
Primary Education public schools, defines the didactic programmes as the
specific instruments for planning, development, and evaluation of each area
within the curriculum. The didactic programming for each subject (English
included) will be part of the Educational Project and will include, at least, the
following elements:

 Introduction about the characteristics of the subject.

 Sequence and timing of basic knowledges.
 Evaluation criteria related to specific competences.
 Procedures and tools for evaluating students' learning.
 Marking criteria.
 Methodological, didactic, and organizational guidelines.
 Materials and resources.
 Plan for supplementary activities.

In addition to this, the schools will develop a curricular proposal, which will
include those elements and decisions which are common, and thus, applicable to
all the learning areas. The curricular proposal will be a part of the Educational
project.

We are aware of the fact that curriculum is oriented towards the development of
key competences. These competences must be integrated into our lesson plans,
enhancing them, giving them more meaning and significance, and enriching
them. The main characteristics of a competence-based programme are
(Perrenoud, 2017):

1. Interrelation and interdependence among its elements.

The curriculum is composed of a series of interrelated and
interdependent elements. Basic competences act as an integrating
element. To achieve this integration, we must:

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 a. State objectives in terms of problem-solving, integrating various
subjects.
b. Select conceptual, procedural, and attitudinal knowledge.
c. Link methodological, personal, and material resources.
2. Go beyond a purely instrumental approach.
3. Our intention should be to prepare students to get on with the
environment through valuable and forward-looking skills.
4. Consideration of the principles of inclusion, quality, and equity.
The characteristics of educability, context adaptation, complexity, and
integration guarantee the presence of these principles.
5. Focus on promoting and materializing teamwork.
Competences involve cross-cutting work for teachers, to outline projects
and design joint tasks.
6. Recognition of competences as skills to tackle new tasks.
Competences, when materialized in skills and abilities, prepare for the
resolution of specific tasks. These tasks are identified in the didactic
units (learning situations). It is there that the effectiveness of students'
performance will be verified.

As we can see, the didactic units are the essential programming units. I proceed
to define them under the new approach of the learning situations.

2.2.- DIDACTIC UNITS.

Following Susan Lake (2018), a didactic unit, or teaching, unit is a well-defined

thematic body of instruction. It has the following characteristics:

 It has single instructional goal with several supporting objectives.

 It is taught in a time frame of from three to nine weeks.
 It has a beginning, designed to focus interest, and an ending, designed to
test for accomplishment.
 Each activity should insure success of the single instructional goal.
 The topic of a unit may be literary, skill based, or product oriented.
 Occasionally, activities may be planned which do not specifically address
the unit goal; however, most should.

The LOMLOE framework has brought about a new approach to didactic units: the
framework of the learning situations.

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Learning situations are an effective tool for integrating all curricular elements
(competences, criteria, and basic knowledges) from different subjects through
meaningful and relevant tasks and activities to creatively and cooperatively
solve problems, reinforcing self-esteem, autonomy, reflection, and
responsibility.

For the acquisition of competences to be effective, learning situations must

fulfil the following requirements:

 They must be contextualized and respectful of students' experiences and

their various ways of understanding reality.
 They should be composed of tasks of increasing complexity, based on
their psycho-evolutionary level, and their resolution should involve the
construction of new learning.
 They must be in line with the principles of the Universal Design for
Learning.
 They should start with the establishment of clear and precise objectives
that integrate various basic knowledges.
 They should propose situations that favour different types of groupings,
from individual work to group work.
 They must involve oral production and interaction and include the use of
authentic resources in different formats, both analogue and digital.
 They should promote aspects related to common interests, sustainability,
or democratic coexistence, which are essential for students to prepare to
effectively address the challenges of the 21st century.

Elements to consider when designing a learning situation:

1. Justification and Contextualization.

2. Curricular Foundation: Using the reference of evaluation criteria, specific
competences to be pursued are specified, and the basic knowledges that
will be included in the design is made explicit.
3. Methodology that will be used throughout the proposed activities,
preferably active methodologies to facilitate experiential learning.
4. Scenarios that encourage different types of grouping, from individual
work to group work.
5. Resources: Use a variety of resources, media, and formats, both analogue
and digital.
6. Tasks and Activities:

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 a. Start with students' existing knowledge (activation).
b. Graduated from simpler to more complex.
c. Provide concept and process models through suitable resources
and clear instructions (demonstration).
d. Program sufficient activities to practice and subsequently master
the competence (application).
e. Plan activities for reflecting on what has been done or learned
(integration).
f. They must be useful and functional for students, posing challenges
that stimulate curiosity to learn (awake the desire to learn).
g. Stem from their interests, which will bring enthusiasm for learning
(motivation).
h. They must be contextualized and relevant to students, respectful
of their experiences and different ways of perceiving reality,
aligned with their psychosocial development (individualization).
i. They must enhance the development of cognitive, emotional, and
psychomotor processes in students (holistic development).
j. They must be mainly related to common interests, sustainability,
and coexistence (Sustainable Development Goals - SDGs).
7. Assessment Instruments: They will be diverse, heterogeneous, and
adapted to the tasks and activities designed for the learning situation
(direct observation, rubrics, assessment grids, portfolios, co-assessment,
etc.).

Despite these can be considered the essential elements of every teaching

programme, LOMLOE and its curricular framework recognise a set of elements
that must be included in every teaching programme, the so-called cross-
curricular elements.

2.3.- CROSS-CURRICULAR ELEMENTS.

The following elements must be included in teaching programmes, having both

the school Educational Project and the stage curriculum as references.

1. ICT.-The EFL area must include the use of ICT, as learning contents as
well as teaching resources, to contribute to the development of the
school Digital Project.

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 2. Reading.- Besides the use of written texts in our lessons, we must
enhance our students’ pleasure for reading by approaching them to
literary texts, thus contributing, in turn, to the school Reading Plan.
3. Entrepreneurship.- By giving our students opportunities to identify
opportunities, assemble a team, gather resources, be positive or take
risks.
4. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).- The key competences have been
linked to the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda adopted
by the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015. This
provides the necessary foundation to foster meaningful and relevant
learning situations for both students and teachers.

2.3.- ATTENTION TO DIVERSITY.

LOMLOE establishes, in its Preamble, that attention to diversity is a necessity

that encompasses all educational stages and all students. The appropriate
educational response to all students is conceived based on the principle of
inclusion.

It goes further when stating that when such diversity requires it, relevant
organizational, methodological, and curricular measures will be adopted, as
stipulated in this law, in accordance with the principles of Universal Design for
Learning.

For the sake of a better comprehension, I will return to the description of the
UDL when dealing with methodology.

Up to this point, I have fully described all the elements compounding a teaching
programme. Next, I provide an explanation on how to proper arrange two of its
components: contents and objectives.

3.- CRITERIA FOR THE SEQUENCE AND TIMING OF

CONTENTS AND OBJECTIVES.

As we have seen when talking about the teaching programmes, one of the
decisions made in such document is the sequence of objectives, contents
(expressed in basic knowledges), competences, and evaluation criteria. Then,
once the Pedagogical Coordination Committee has decided the distribution of

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curricular elements, the teachers have to decide about the sequence and timing
of these elements.

The term sequence refers to the order in which we are going to present the
contents while the term timing refers to the amount of time we will need to
achieve the objectives and teach the contents.

The most widespread and acknowledged criteria to establish such sequence are:

1. The objectives and contents should be related to the global aim of

foreign language learning, which is the acquisition of communicative
competence and the key competences.
2. The objectives and contents should be arranged in a meaningful way.
3. The arrangement of objectives and contents should ensure the coherence
of the learning process

By applying these criteria, we determine that:

1. We must go from the general and simple to the particular and complex.
2. Contents shall refer to abilities and competences.
3. The four skills should be developed in an interrelated way as they are in
real communication.
4. However, oral skills are stressed over written skills, and receptive skills
are given the priority over productive skills.
5. Contents must be adapted to the students' level of development.
6. The contents should be presented in context.

When planning the sequence of objectives and contents we must take the
following steps:

1. We must decide the degree in which the abilities expressed in the specific
competences are going to be developed in each grade, and choose the
contents we need to reach them.
2. As we must teach the contents in an interrelated way, by organising them
around competences. If we decide to do it in this way, we should
consider the factors which determine the communicative functions. These
factors are:
a. The type of oral or written texts
b. The channel
c. The type of comprehension

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 d. The interlocutor
e. The level of correction
3. Then, we should not forget that competences and contents must be
considered in an interrelated way. Then we should relate them as in the
following example:
"To be able to recognise the characteristic sounds, rhythm and intonation
patterns of the foreign language, realising the importance of being able
to communicate in a foreign language and showing an attitude of respect
towards the users of that language"

Once we have set the sequence of objectives and contents, next step to take
would be taking decisions about methodology.

4.- SELECTION OF THE METHODOLOGY TO APPLY IN

THE EVALUATION AND LEARNING ACTIVITIES.

4.1.- METHODOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES OF PRE-PRIMARY AND

PRIMARY EDUCATION.

The importance given to our area in the arrangement of our Education system is
manifest, as it is the only area which is taught in both the Second Cycle of Pre-
Primary Education and the whole stage of Primary Education.

Thus, there are several general methodological principles which we, as teachers
of both Pre- Primary Education and Primary Education stages, shall put into
practice. These have been chosen from such authors among which we could
highlight the following: Norman, Ausubel, Pestalozzi, Delcroly, Marchesi and
Dewey, among others.

 Consider a globalizing perspective of learning, integrating the whole set

of Basic Knowledges.
 Enhance the physical and mental activity of children.
 Depart form a clear setting of objectives.
 Include games as a teaching resource.
 Prioritize affective and relational aspects.
 Increase possibilities for peer interaction.
 Foster skills and strategies for learning to learn, to enhance students'
autonomy.

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  Implement formative assessment as a reference point.
 Address diversity by adapting educational activities to students'
characteristics, interests, cognitive styles, and maturation processes.
 Design stimulating, meaningful, and integrated learning situations that
are well contextualized and respectful of students' development.
 Use different types of grouping.
 Include cooperative learning experiences for problem-solving activities.
 Apply the guidelines and strategies of Universal Design for Learning
(UDL) to address different individual rhythms and progressions in
accessing knowledge.

4.2.- METHODOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES OF THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE

AREA.

Dildora (2021) synthesized the theories and contributions of the most relevant
theorists in FLT (Brewster, Halliday, Harmer, Widdowson, Littlewood, Krashen,
Underwood, Quirk, Nunan, or Dangerfield, among others), and proposed her
widely acknowledged 7 principles to FLT.

1. Principle of consciousness.
Consists in a conscious comparison of the native and foreign languages
for a deeper penetration into their structure. It is also about
understanding why you need to learn, the comprehension of theory and
the ability to apply it in practice.
2. Principle of activity.
Acquiring competence is possible if each student is an active participant
in the process. In modern neuroscience, activity is considered as the
main characteristic of the cognition process. Activity arises under certain
conditions, and according to the theory of attitude, the student must feel
the need (intellectual and emotional) to get involved. The child's
intellectual activity is achieved by posing problematic questions that put
students in front of the need to think, analyze, compare, generalize, and
connect their ideas.
3. Principle of systematicity.
To acquire competence in a language, systematic and rational practice in
its application is required. One of the ways to solve the problem of
increasing the student's active time in the lesson is to use various modes
of work (work in chorus, small groups, in pairs, individually, class work).
4. Principle of visibility.

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 Linguistic visualization should be implemented in the following ways:
 constant speech activity of students in a foreign language;
 the teacher's speech in the lesson not limited to the phrases:
"Stand up", "Read", "Sit down", etc.;
 newspapers and magazines;
 radio and television broadcasts, films and cartoons;
 audio recordings for independent work;
 library for additional reading according to interests;
 evenings and other events in foreign languages.
5. Principle of developmental learning.
The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) was a key construct in Lev
Vygotsky’s theory of learning and development. It is defined as the
space between what a learner can do without assistance and what a
learner can do with adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable
peers.
In the case of English language learners, the immense potential that they
bring to our classrooms is comprised of their intellectual, linguistic, and
creative strengths that are waiting to be built upon. We must provide
students appropriate scaffolding and peer-to-peer interaction.
6. Accessibility and Affordability Principles.
They require that learning is carried out at the level of the capabilities of
children, so that they do not experience insurmountable difficulties.
Accessibility is ensured by both the material itself; its organization; the
strict selection of linguistic and speech material and its presentation in
structures, correlated with communication situations that are close and
understandable to children; or the volume and the pace of advancement
of the study of the material.
7. Principle of strength.
The strength of assimilation is ensured by a bright presentation of the
material: when they have living images, associations, the inclusion of
various analyzers… which creates favorable conditions for the retention
of material in memory.

4.3.- THE UDL

Decree 81/2022, (July 12th), which establishes the arrangement and the
curriculum for Primary Education in Castilla-La Mancha states that (Art. 4-5):

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 In this stage, special emphasis will be placed on ensuring educational
inclusion, (...) The organizational, methodological, and curricular
measures adopted for this purpose will be guided by the principles of
Universal Design for Learning.

It is clear that the measures must be articulated around the foundations of

Universal Design for Learning (UDL). UDL is a model that, based on the
outcomes of educational practice and research, learning theories, technologies,
and advancements in neuroscience, combines an inclusive perspective and
approach to teaching with proposals for its practical implementation. The UDL
model is based on the specialization of neural networks and the activation of
specific areas of the brain through the performance of tasks that involve
cognitive demands. The aim of teaching is to activate affective, exploratory and
strategic brain networks in each student.

UDL-based strategies to be applied are:

 Using teaching methods and materials that draw on students’ preferred

or stronger modalities (e.g., listening vs. reading, oral vs. written);
 Reducing information students must generate independently (e.g.,
providing checklists, reading and/or study guides, peer assistance with
note-taking);
 Teaching study skills, self-monitoring skills, or other coping strategies to
support areas affected by the disability;
 Teacher-directed mini-lessons to review/reinforce word meaning;
 Modifying test formats to accommodate language and disability-related
needs (e.g., reading questions to the student, allowing extra time,
performance-based assessments);
 Teaching students discipline-specific language and symbols, as well as
strategies to comprehend technical language and increase engagement
with texts (e.g., paraphrasing, interpretation of noun phrases);
 Providing opportunities for oral and written language development (e.g.,
group activities, interactions with peers and native English speakers);
 Supplementary, intensive reading interventions provided by a reading
specialist or special education teacher who is familiar with ESL
adaptations.

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5.- CONCLUSION-CRITICAL VIEW.

“Learn a new language and get a new soul.”

- Czech proverb

I would like to reflect upon the fact that it is a common and enormously
frustrating experience for foreign language learners, presented the opportunity
to participate in authentic conversation with native speakers, to fail to join in
successfully, despite having a high level of proficiency in the classroom.
Conversation is fast, and to some extent this failure of the foreign language
learner can be attributed to the slow processing of language knowledge. By the
time the learner has formulated something to say, the conversation has moved
on. In my own view, it is essential to train our pupils in the acquisition of
communicative skills and competences, which combine the mastery of grammar
and vocab with abilities to interact in real-life situations. Thus, we will allow
our kids to enjoy the wondrous experience of learning and using a new language
to get in touch with new people and their culture.

Right along the development of the unit I set the features and elements of the
didactic programme, establishing key measures for the sequence and timing of
contents and objectives, and rendering a broad study on methodology applicable
to the foreign language area in the stage of Primary Education.

6.- BIBLIOGRAPHY.

In addition to the legal documents cited, we have used, among others, the
following texts:

·Brown, D. (2006). Principles of Language Teaching and Learning. Longman

·Council of Europe (2020). Common European Framework of Reference for

Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment – Companion volume, Council of
Europe Publishing

·Dildora, M (2021). Principles Of Teaching Foreign Languages. Journal of

Learning and Academic Teaching. Vol 2.

·Ergasheva, N. (2021). General Didactic and Methodological Principles of

Foreign Language Teaching. Texas Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies

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·Israilova, D. (2019). Aims and principles of foreign language teaching.
International Journal on Integrated Education. Vol 2.

·Richard, J. and Rodgers, T. (2014). Approaches and methods in language

teaching. Cambridge University Press

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