Syllabus Information

1. General information

Future Early Childhood Education teachers need to develop their oral communicative competence to acquire greater fluency and fluency in their communication in English with other speakers and especially in their interaction with the students in the bilingual classroom. This subject seeks to improve their pronunciation and develop strategies for communication in their future professional performance in the early childhood classroom.

These approaches and goals are aligned with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 4 (Quality Education ), and more specifically, with objectives 4.1.  (Ensure quality primary and secondary education) and 4C (Improve teacher qualifications) of the United Nations Agenda 2030 (https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/es/), in such a way that the acquisition of the subject learning results provides training and competence to contribute to some extent to their achievement.

It is recommended to attend classes and to always actively participate in the proposed activities, which will correspond at least to a B2 level of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. It is highly recommended that students have taken and passed English in Early Childhood Education I and English inEarly Childhood Education II.

2. Learning results

In order to pass this subject, the student must demonstrate that he/she...

1. knows how to communicate in English, understand and be understood, orally and using multimodal resources.

2. knows how to interpret and use the different functions of the language in the development of a class in English at the Early Childhood stage.

3. knows the characteristics of language and communication at early ages and its consequences for the development of the English classroom and in English. 

4. encourages interaction and the use of formulaic language.

5. makes use of ICT to enable communication in the classroom. 

3. Syllabus

1. Pronunciation I: consonants, vowel sounds and sound-spelling associations.

2. Pronunciation II: stress, rhythm and intonation.

3. Classroom discourse: teacher talk, teacher and learner roles, classroom interaction.

4. Multimodal communication strategies for Infant teachers.

4. Academic activities

Participatory master class

• Sessions of exposition, analysis and debate on the contents of the subject.
• Listening activities of oral texts to recognize segmental and suprasegmental features of pronunciation.

Problem solving and case studies - Practical classes

• Oral production activities focused on overcoming the pronunciation difficulties of a Spanish speaker.
• Reading aloud, rhyming dramatizations and children's literature in English language
• Analysis and practice of classroom language through simulations in which students must give instructions, providing meanings, etc. using appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication strategies
• Development of oral communication through presentations in the English language classroom and subsequent discussion.

Teaching and other activities:

Study and personal work

Evaluation tests

5. Assessment system

MODALITY A (prerequisite: attendance at least 85% of classes)

1. Continuous evaluation activities (30%)

a. Oral presentation - 20% (on a topic of interest to your professional development, in English) b. Moodle quizzes, read-alouds, transcripts, phoneme identification, etc. - 10%

2. Directed work (10%) - Peer teaching - Simulations of real situations in the English classroom in Early Childhood Education 3. Final oral test (40%)

a. Pronunciation test- 20%. The student will have to carry out a series of activities to demonstrate his/her phonetic correctness in English language such as reading aloud fragments in English language and/or in phonetictranscription , etc.

b. Teacher talk - 20% The student will be expected to act out the role of the teacher in the English language infant classroom and perform different functions: e.g., describe a scene, give instructions for carrying out specific activities, set the classroom rules, etc.

4. Final written test (20%) - Questions on the contents of the course: aspects of pronunciation, classroom speech, identification of phonemes, correspondences between graphemes and phonemes, use of communicative strategies, etc.

MODALITY B

Students who opt for Modality B (or who, having opted for Modality A, do not comply with the requirement of attending at least 85% of the teaching hours or who have not obtained the necessary grade to pass the subject) will be evaluated through an overall oral test and an overall written test: .

1. Final oral test (70%)

a. Oral presentation - 20%

b. Pronunciation test - 30%

c. Simulation of a real classroom situation - 20%

2. Final written test (30%) - Questions on the contents of the course: aspects of pronunciation, classroom speech, identification of phonemes, correspondences between graphemes and phonemes, use of communicative strategies, etc.

Criteria

Oral presentation: pronunciation, stress, rhythm and intonation; voice projection; body language; fluency; script independence; grammatical correctness and comprehensibility; organization; use of multimodal strategies.

Pronunciation test: adequate production of the phonemes that most often cause problems for Spanish speakers; correct accentuation; use of appropriate rhythm and intonation.

Simulations of real classroom situations: use of appropriate communicative resources; pronunciation, stress, rhythm and intonation; grammatical, lexical and discourse correctness; fluency, correct use of language functions/speech acts (definitions, descriptions, instructions, etc.) in the English classroom.

Content questions: degree of understanding of classroom discourse functions and strategies for promoting comprehension and interaction; correct identification of sounds, sound patterns and accentuation; correct application of writing rules (correspondences between graphemes and phonemes) in the English language; grammatical, lexical and discursive correctness of answers.

Requirements

The student must achieve a final score equal to or higher than 50% to pass the course and a minimum score of 50% in each of the evaluation activities.

Finally, it must be taken into account that the Coexistence Rules of the University of Zaragoza will be applied to the irregularities committed in the evaluation tests through academic fraud, as well as the application of the article 30 of the Learning Assessment Standards Regulations in relation to irregular practices other than academic fraud.

The tests of the second round coincide in content and percentages with the overall written and oral tests of the second round Mode B. In this round, only the grades obtained during this round will count, since the parts passed in the first round will not be kept.

The tests, percentages and minimum requirements for the fifth and sixth convocation are the same as in the ordinary call.

The tests will be evaluated by the corresponding Tribunal.