Tesis alumna FUNIBER. Maria Fernanda Osorio - Teaching English as Foreign Language

COURSE DESIGN PROJECT

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COURSE DESIGN PROJECT – FINAL PROJECT

“Teaching English as a Foreign Language”

UNIVERSIDAD IBEROAMERICANA

In collaboration with Fundación Universitaria Iberoamericana (Funiber)

Designing Two Units for an Online Course in English for Academic

Purposes

Author: María Fernanda Jaime Osorio

Tutor: Elena Caixal Manzano Code: COFPMTFL927670

Group: 30 Date: August 4, 2013


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Table of Contents

1. Introduction………….……….……………………….………………………....... 4

2. Theoretical background….………………………………...………………...… 6

2.1 Course design for EFL/ESL…………...…..………………….……….…….. 6

2.1.1 Online courses…………………………………….………………….…. 8

2.1.2 Didactic units………………………………………………………..…… 10

2.1.3 Content and activities……………………………………………..……. 12

2.1.4 Learning to learn………………………………………………………… 13

2.1.5 Final task…………………………………………………………………. 14

2.1.6 Evaluation and assessment……………………………………………. 15

2.1.7 The teacher’s book……………………………………………………… 17

2.2 Teaching EFL/ ESL for Academic Purposes………….……..….…………. 17

2.3 Teaching EFL/ ESL with Educational Software………….……...………… 18

2.4 The writing process for descriptive, explanatory,

and argumentative texts…………………………………………………...… 20

2.5 Academic grammar and Academic vocabulary……………………………. 21

2.6 Knowledge about education…………………………………………………. 22

2.6.1 Learning Strategies……………………………………………………… 22

2.6.2 CALL……………………………………………………………………… 22

3. Aims…………………..……………………………………………….…………... 23

3.1 Project aims…………………………………………………………………... 23

3.2 EAP course aims………………………………………..……………………. 24

3.3 Units aims……………………………………………………………………… 24

4. Methodology……………………………………………………………………… 25

4.1 Investigation……………………………….……………….……..…………… 25

4.2 Process for data gathering, analysis and interpretation………………….. 26

4.3 Approach for unit design…….……………………………..…….………..… 26

4.4 Population and students’ needs..………………………..….……....……… 28

4.5 Course structure………………………………………………..……………... 31

4.5.1 Content…………………………………………………………………….. 32

4.5.2 Unit aims…………………………………………………………………... 32

4.5.3 Unit features………………………………………………………………. 34


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4.6 Unit creation process……..…….…………………..………………………… 35

4.6.1 Unit organization and features……………………………………........ 36

4.6.2 Final task…………………... ……….………………………….............. 38

4.6.3 Evaluation……….……………………………….………………………. 39

4.6.4 Learn to learn...……….…………………………..………….…………. 39

4.6.5 Teacher’s book……………………………………...…………..…….… 40

4.6.6 Work plan...…………………………………………………..…………. 41

5. Conclusion……………………………………………...………………....…………… 42

References…………………………………………………………………...……………. 43

Appendices…………………………………………………………………..……………. 47

Appendix I: EAP Course syllabus………………………………………..……… 47

Appendix II: Course syllabus for units 9 and 10…………………..…………… 71

Appendix III: Problem analysis on CM and SLA assignments…..…………… 74

Appendix IV: Problem analysis from Spanish and Portuguese-

Speaking students………..……………………………....…….… 87

Appendix V: Contents unit 9 ………………………………………..…………… 99

Appendix VI: Contents unit 10…………………………………………………… 113

Appendix VII: Student’s book unit 9……………………………………..………. 127

Appendix VIII: Student’s book unit 10….………………………..……………… 144

Appendix IX: Teacher’s book unit 9..………………………….……………….... 164

Appendix X: Teacher’s book unit 10…………………………………………...... 182


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1. Introduction

“The one who studies, but never practices, is like

the one who ploughs but never sows” Plato

Over the last few years, there has been great increase among educational

institutions offering online courses to satisfy their clients’ needs. However few of those

courses take into account those who do not reach the minimum requirements to pass

an entrance test, and end up destroying not only the future opportunities but the

dreams of people who need further help. This Research Project is just one link in the

chain of a series of previous and future works that have been and will be carried out by

a team of people pursuing the constant improvement of an academic offer for students

around the world. It has been created under the philosophy that education should be

available for all and that time or place should be no limit for those who are in search of

knowledge and improvement.

The aim of this project is to design two units for an online English for Academic

Purposes (EAP) course that will help the Funiber’s Teaching English as a Foreign

Language students-to-be reach that minimum academic language and educational

content level required by Funiber institution. Three important aspects will be covered in

this paper. First, the main contributions and up-to-date theories on course design,

teaching EFL/ESL for academic purposes, Moodle, the academic writing process, and

knowledge about education on learning strategies and CALL will be reviewed to

support the theoretical framework on which this research project is based. Second, the

aims of the project, the course in which the units are based, and the units will be

established. Finally, the unit design and the methodology used will be outlined, all the

same as the students’ profile, and the detailed work plan to carry on the project.

Moreover, my personal interest to develop this project relies on the conviction that

developing an English for Academic Purposes course means to center in what students

learn and how we meet their needs. I have been a teacher for about 5 years and along

my career, I have also taught English for Specific Purposes to different professional

people including physicians, psychologists, engineers, teachers, secretaries and police

officers. Few years ago the available material to teach those students was minimal and

sometimes almost inexistent. I had to design material to fulfill their needs and more


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than once I found myself studying the vocabulary, reading news and articles on the

matter in order to bring meaningful material to the class.

All the same, I am currently teaching English as a Foreign Language at the Institute

of Languages at Surcolombiana University in Huila - Colombia. There, I teach English

to students who are doing their major in different fields and that see Academic English

use as a key aspect to succeed in their near future career, so I considered this

Research Project a great opportunity to benefit my students, to enrich my experience

as a teacher and material designer, and to share my abilities to work in group, personal

motivation, problem solving skills, and a high sense of responsibility with the group

participating in the development of such important two fields of major interest

nowadays: English for Academic Purposes through Distance Education and

Technology.

Lastly, I would like to express my deepest thanks to God and my beloved husband

and daughter who have been the driving force in my life and all the projects I have

successfully culminated. Likewise, I would like to thank my tutor, Elena Caixal, for her

valuable and constant feedback and guidance, and the designer team group of the

Funiber EAP Course Funiber who like me, devoted their time and effort to complete the

design of the course. I would also like to thank the TELF Master programme Funiber

tutors for giving me the theory and the opportunity put it into practice into a real world

project like the one I have participated on. Finally, I could not but acknowledge my

family (Parents in law, mother, brother and sister) unconditional support during these

two years from the beginning until the end of my master.


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2. Theoretical Background

This project is based in several important aspects: course design, teaching EFL/ESL

for academic purposes, teaching EFL/ESL under the e- learning software platform

Moodle, the academic writing process for descriptive, explanatory and argumentative

texts, academic grammar and academic vocabulary, and knowledge about education

on learning strategies and CALL. In the following paragraphs the main topics and

contributions on these fields will be reviewed in order to carry out the plan, and

implementation of this project.

2.1 Course Design

Designing a course implies making choices and taking different steps to

subsequently develop a language curriculum. Richards (1997, p.1) states that the

language curriculum development is “concerned with principles and procedures for the

planning, delivery, management, and assessment of teaching and learning”. This is

certainly a not simplistic view of the process required to successfully accomplish an

effective language teaching and / or learning. To make our teaching task easier, it is

thus necessary to divide the process of curriculum development into five steps: “needs

analysis, goal setting, syllabus design, methodology, and testing and evaluation” (ibid,

p.1).

When planning a unit, there is not much difference in relation to the steps we take.

We start designing a course or a course unit by considering our students’ needs and

context, and end up by assessing and evaluating it. According to Lowe (2001), there

are seven steps to plan a course unit: Identify needs, create a students’ profile,

determine unit topic, establish the goals, select the skills to be developed, brainstorm

the learning activities, and plan and carry out the evaluation of the unit and the

students.

Moreover, teachers have reasons to plan a course and its lessons. Among others,

Woodward (2001) suggests the following:

• Thinking things through before you teach helps to reduce feelings of uncertainty or

panic, and inspires you instead with a sense of confidence and clarity.


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• It can inspire confidence in students who pick up a feeling of purpose, progression

and coherence.

• It helps you to understand what research you need to do.

• It reminds you to marshal materials beforehand, and makes it easier for you to

organize the time and activity flow in classes.

• Working on planning after lessons, as well as before, ensures that the class you are

teaching gets a balanced mixture of different kinds of materials, content, and

interaction types throughout the course.

• Course and lesson planning help you to develop a personal style since they involve

sifting through all your information, resources, and beliefs, and boiling them all down to

a distillation for one particular group, time and place. This distillation, together with

what happens in the classroom, represents a cross-section of the present state of your

art.”

(Ibid, p.181)

Although sometimes we have the chance to design a course and its units, there are

other times in which we can only adopt or adapt them taking into account the particular

needs of the institution to which we serve. The units’ (to be designed in this project)

main objective is to have students develop different tasks in order to achieve language

learning and the development of the Communicative Competence. The most important

skill to be developed is writing, specifically, academic writing (descriptive, explanatory,

and argumentative texts), through the use of correct grammar and accurate academic

vocabulary.

In recent decades, there have been several approaches which made their

contribution in learning how to interact with people from other cultures, based on the

principles of communication. This concept not only implies the statement of our own

ideas, taking into account others’ opinions and being respectful to them, but also

means taking turns to communicate feelings, thoughts and body language. According

to Rico (2004) in Evaluación por Competencias – Lenguaje – Idiomas – Lenguas

Extranjeras (María Jaime, Trans.), one of the most relevant approaches that

emphasises language as a means of communication is the Communicative Approach.


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“From this perspective the learning process become meaningful in an appropriate and

effective way”, he states.

One of the most effective strategies to develop the communicative competence is

according to Nunan (1989), the use of tasks. A pedagogical perspective defines tasks

as ‘the activity or action that is carried out as the result of processing or understanding

language’. Richards et al. (1986) claim that the use of tasks in language teaching

provides the activities a purpose that goes beyond the mere practice of the language

and achieves a more real communication. Furthermore, Nunan (1989) considers a

communicative task as “a piece of classroom work which involves learners in

comprehending, manipulating, producing or interacting in the target language while

their attention is principally focused on meaning rather than form”.

The use of communicative tasks is an excellent tool to develop the communicative

competence since it makes our students reflect on, appreciate, and implement

communicative behaviors not only within the context of a foreign language classroom,

but also in the real world where sometimes they find it useless.

To sum up, the units proposed in this project work are based on the five steps

suggested by Richards (1997), and on the use of communicative tasks to develop the

communicative competence, specifically related to academic writing of descriptions,

explanations, and argumentations with proper grammar and academic vocabulary.

2.1.1 Online courses

Few decades ago, the governments of the world decided to invest profuse amounts

of money and resources to improve technology and its use among educational

institutions, especially, in higher education institutions. Thirty years ago, it would have

been impossible to write about online education not only because there were no

personal computers available, but because technological abilities were not considered

as fundamental skills at that time.

With the emergence and subsequent shift towards Communicative Language

Teaching (CLT) as the predominant paradigm in English Language Teaching (ESL),

Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) was recently introduced as the use of

computers in teaching and learning English aspects. Hines (2012, para. 4), states that

“these aspects include how instructional materials are presented to students, how


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students engage the instructional content, and how their understanding of the lesson

concepts are assessed”. Since power point presentations, video clips, interactive

language tests, interactive games, e-mails are used to teach students, CALL has

become increasingly popular within the ELT classroom.

These technologies have become of such importance over the last decades, that

during the World Conference about Higher Education in 1998, the Organización de las

Naciones Unidas para la Educación, la Ciencia y la Cultura (UNESCO) claimed that

the use of the ICTs (Information and Comunication Technologies) is crucial to support

the educational and investigation processes in higher education.

One of the main outcomes of such claims and investments could be no other than

the initiation of online education. MacAnally-Salas (2004) affirms that “online education

is a modality in process of evolution and definition, so we can consider it immature”.

Nevertheless, it is necessary to recognize that it has brought paradigm changes such

centering education in learning instead of teaching, and subsequently, the arrival of

terms such online learning, cooperative and collaborative learning, and academic

community.

To define online education, it is necessary to define e-learning, a term first

coined by Rosenberg (2001) in which he refers to the use of internet technologies as a

provider of an ample range of solutions that improve knowledge and that works under

three fundamental criteria:

1. Networking: To make it instantaneously recent, saved, recovered, and

distributed, and to permit share instructions or information.

2. Internet standard technology use: To be given to the final user through the use

of computers.

3. Ample vision of learning: It goes beyond traditional paradigms of capacitation.

MacAnally-Salas (2004) also insists that “an online course, in the best of the cases,

combines the pedagogical and technological abilities of an educator in an integral

design that obtains the best pedagogical result from those available tools in the

learning environment used”. Nowadays scholars mention the knowledge society and

expect that teachers and students succeed in it through the use of technology to teach

and learn. Online education becomes then, of vital importance as a paradigm to follow

in the design of this research Project.


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2.1.2 Didactic units

Unit planning is crucial when developing an online or any course. It focuses on

learning and the language standards are integrated, preventing tutors from focusing on

class activities that do not accomplish the proposed aims. By planning the units, tutors

as well as learners can be aware of the objectives to be achieved and assess their

progress. It also gives them both the opportunity to manage the time and articulate

their previous knowledge to what they are going to learn during the specific amount of

time given.

A didactic unit is the “intervention of all the elements that intervene in the teaching-

learning process with an internal methodological coherence and over a determined

period” (Altúnez et al. 1992, p. 104). It can also give the “answer to all the curriculum

issues: What to teach (objectives and contents), when to teach (organized sequence of

activities and contents), how to teach (activities, organization of the space and time,

materials, and didactic resources), and the evaluation (evaluation criteria and

instruments); all of that in a clearly delimited time” (MEC, 1992, 87 o 91, in Cajas Rojas

de Infantil o Primaria).

In other words, it can be said that a didactic unit is a basic unit of programming that

follows a sequence of organized elements. As explained before, Lowe (2001) claims

that there are seven steps to plan a course unit: Identify needs, create a students’

profile, determine unit topic, establish the goals, select the skills to be developed,

brainstorm the learning activities, and plan and carry out the evaluation of the unit and

the students.

In identifying the needs of the students, it is necessary to conduct a survey which

will determine why the learner needs to learn English, and its language needs. By

creating the student’s profile, a comparison between the assessment and the needs

can be made, and as a result, the unit topic can be determined. Once the topic is

determined, the goal of the unit is selected and written as a rational in which what the

unit is about, and what the learners will know and be able to do, is explained.

Lowe (2001) states that when planning the goal these points must be considered:

• Decide what the students should learn and be able to do both in class as practice

and how they will use the skills when leaving the classroom.

• Summarize what you intend the learners to know about the topic and be able to do

in a few sentences or a short paragraph.


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• Check that your goals are consistent with those of the course and are level

appropriate.

(Ibid, p.57)

To write the appropriate objectives, behavioral terms to describe what learner will do

need to be used. Objectives must be consistent with the unit goal. Then the activities to

be developed can be chosen. Activities should be appropriate to learner’s level and

must reflect goals and objectives, all the same must be the materials.

Once all the above have been planned and selected, it is necessary to think about

how to evaluate student’s learning and progress during the process in order to meet

the designated goals and objectives. The evaluation can be on going (or formative) or

final (or summative), and they may include activities such the realization of

communicative tasks, tests, or a final product. In the next paragraph Lowe (2001)

describes the purpose of the unit planning and points to advantages when doing the

process of planning:

“The purpose of unit planning is to connect the competencies, language

standards, and skills together so that it creates a unified picture for the students.

Instructors are able to group language standards across skills to integrate with

the competencies at the students’ level. The competencies are the subject

matter/topic or theme for the unit and are the same competencies used in the

CASAS assessments. In the end, unit planning saves the instructor time and

energy when planning lessons.”

(Ibid, p.58)

All in all, to develop the aims of this project work, planning units 9 and 10 for the

English for Academic Purposes online course is one of the key points. Therefore,

literature on this issue was reviewed and taken into account. For successful planning

and performance, the unit content and activities must be carefully selected. In the

following section we will see the criteria underlying their correct selection.


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2.1.3 Content and activities

General contents and activities are based on the English for Academic Purposes

(EAP) Research Project by Caixal (2011), in which she proposes contents that have a

connection with education and that are organized in a way that resembles the Teaching

English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) Master Program. EAP course students-to-be

will develop real-life small tasks through their participation on the forum and other tools

selected to make a participative course and a collaborative learning environment.

Additional readings and exercises will be provided to those low-track students or those

who want to go further in their knowledge acquisition and practice.

The contents will be written by the tutor and they will have clear instructions so

students find it easy to complete the tasks for each unit. Time schedule will be also

provided to students for them to plan the time they will spend on each activity.

Caixal (2011) proposes that the contents of the EAP course will have the following

characteristics:

Abundant collaborative learning.

All the tasks will have a connection with Education.

Assessment and tasks: different types of texts and activities, as well as exams

and questionnaires, self-assessment and collaborative assessment.

Assessments will be adequate and easy to understand, thanks to the comments,

explanations, pieces of advice and colour-codes used.

Awareness:

- It will enhance language awareness in the student.

- It will enhance proper-writing awareness in the student.

- Students will become aware of their mistakes.

It will promote autonomy, through strategic contents activites.

Revision weeks will be deleted, and substituted by a “final task” week, where

students will review everything done throughout the subject (strategic contents

and topics about Education will also be included here).

The course will be able to be tailored to the students’ needs.

The course will be clearly organised and structured.

There will be many practical activities.

Units:

- Academic and Education related vocabulary will be studied.


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- Academic speaking will be studied.

- Advanced grammar will be studied by every student, not only by those who

English is not their L1.

- All the previous subjects of EFA will be also studied, although the contents of

some will be reduced.

- They will be comprehensive to the student’s needs, not comprehensive to the

field.

- Different academic genres will be studied: introduction, description,

argumentation, explanation, etc.

- Formal academic requirements (bibliography, footnotes, font, cover page,

etc.) will be studied.

- How to learn to learn will be studied.

- The aim of the text will be studied.

(Ibid, p.41-42)

2.1.4 Learning to learn

Learning to learn is to acquire meaningful knowledge to use it when necessary. The

Campaign for Learning website authors define 'learning to learn' as “a process of

discovery about learning. It involves a set of principles and skills which, if understood

and used, help learners learn more effectively and so become learners for life. At its

heart is the belief that learning is learnable”.

The Campaign for Learning website authors also explain that by learning to learn

students get awareness of:

o “How they prefer to learn and their learning strengths

o How they can motivate themselves and have the self-confidence to succeed

o Things they should consider such as the importance of water, nutrition, sleep

and a positive environment for learning

o Some of the specific strategies they can use, for example to improve their

memory or make sense of complex information

o Some of the habits they should develop, such as reflecting on their learning so

as to improve next time.”


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The Europe Education Council (In Hoskins & Ulf, 2008) asserts the following

definition of the concept learning to learn:

‘Learning to learn’ is the ability to pursue and persist in learning, to organise one’s

own learning, including through effective management of time and information, both

individually and in groups. This competence includes awareness of one’s learning

process and needs, identifying available opportunities, and the ability to overcome

obstacles in order to learn successfully. This competence means gaining,

processing and assimilating new knowledge and skill as well as seeking and making

use of guidance. Learning to learn engages learners to build on prior learning and

life experiences in order to use and apply knowledge and skills in a variety of

contexts: at home, at work, in education and training. Motivation and confidence are

crucial to an individual’s competence.’ (Education Council, 2006 annex, paragraph

5).

The European Council recently defined ‘learning to learn’ as a key competence that

all individuals should develop in a globalized society. Hoskins & Ulf (2008) explain that

learning to learn can be measured by learning outcomes which have been called

competences and that are usually a combination of knowledge, skills, attitudes and

values. They also refer to key competences as “those competences which are

quintessential necessary throughout the life for continuing to gain employment and be

included within the everyday life activities including those of civil society and decision

making.” (Ibid, p.12)

Learning to learn also means to develop autonomous learning on students; in other

words, learners must combine values, attitudes and knowledge to build the capacity to

solve problems and to learn new things. The units 9 and 10 will be framed under the

paradigm of making students aware of their own strategies to learn and create activities

to expand and improve them in order to foster learning.

2.1.5 Final task

Since units 9 and 10 are enlighten by the task-based learning approach, activities

and tasks will parallel as closely as possible the real world because the language is

conceived as a vehicle to develop the task; furthermore, we concentrate on language


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form and on its meaning. The main activities lead students to use language in normal

communication circumstances.

As established by Caixal (2011) ‘we learn through exploration and active

engagement.’ These units have the purpose to develop communicative competence

through communicative tasks. Furthermore, Skehan (1988, in Leaver and Willis, 2004)

explains that communicative tasks show simple but fundamental characteristics:

Meaning is primary.

There is an established, communicative goal.

The activity is outcome-based.

The task has a real-world relationship

The final task in both units will be communicative tasks they are given as the result

of previous tasks that will enable the student to become competent at communicating

in a written way. In fact, is Wilkins (1976) who proposes tasks to be presented on an

approximation approach, meaning that smaller preparatory tasks should be the

preparation for a more comprising task or product.

Furthermore, the final task is framed under the idea that students will use the same

process in future communicative situations. Task Based Learning (TBL) relies on the

learners experimenting with their knowledge and using skills of deduction and language

analysis to exploit the situation. Thus, students will be prepared to achieve the final

tasks not only by presenting previous tasks, but by making them aware of the language

they need in order to successfully carry it out as well. That is the reason why language

focus on academic grammar and academic vocabulary will be introduced in each one

of the two units. The materials to be used will be selected and adapted from authentic

resources so the learners will be exposed to authentic language use.

2.1.6 Evaluation and assessment

Martín Peris (2001) emphasises that to promote autonomy and learning, students

need to be provided with tools. Thus, for the purpose of evaluating students, they will

be given different types of micro tasks that will prepare them to complete the final tasks

on each unit. Different types of assessment will be also practiced during the course so

students not only will learn from their tutor, but from other students’ experiences and


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will have the opportunity to help others as well by contributing to their learning

processes.

Among the tasks students will need to complete in units 9 and 10, there are those of

writing descriptive and explanatory paragraphs, writing about specific education topics

(CALL and Learning Strategies), participating in forums and discussions about their

own learning strategies, analyse articles, and do reflective thinking activities such

creating a chart in which they measure the time they take to learn or forget a lesson’s

contents. Tasks will be mainly communicative (Ball, 2010a), which means they will

focus on meaning rather than on form. Academic grammar and vocabulary tasks will be

embedded into the communicative ones in order so students can communicate better;

these kinds of learning tasks will be proposed because they get very close to the

communicative aims of the units.

Consciousness - raising tasks, focused-communication tasks, and interpretation

tasks will be also part of the units. These three approaches permit learners focus on

both, communication and form (Ellis, 1993), and thus, communicate their ideas in a

precise and concise manner. Consciousness-raising tasks will help learners to figure

out how the language works and the reasons why they have made mistakes. Students

will then participate in forums in which they will have to analyse other students’ writings

and find their mistakes, understanding why they made them and suggesting ways to

prevent them to happen again. Through focused-communication tasks, students will

perform tasks with ‘more accurate output’ (Nuboyoshi & Ellis, 1993). Tutors who ask

students for clarifications, provide opportunities for them to build inner knowledge about

the language and how to become a better user of it. All the same, interpretation tasks

will provide students with manipulated input containing examples of the structures we

want to teach (Ellis, 1993), thus, readings and activities will try to make students aware

of academic grammar and vocabulary issues while learning about educational topics as

CALL and Learning strategies.

On the other hand, in the case of assessment, students will be assessed through

different kind of activities to reach their learning styles and needs, permitting them to

develop an autonomous learning. For example, summative assessment checks if the

student has learnt the contents of a unit, subject or course (Martín Perís, 1997-2008.),

in this way, the units will be organized in a way students will need to use the knowledge


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they have acquired through the unit contents and over previous units, so they can

perform a more difficult final task.

Another form of assessment to be used on the units is co-assessment. This kind of

assessment permits students to help each other and learn in a collaborative way.

Through forums, google docs, and other tools, students will provide and be provided

with opinions to enhance the knowledge on the studied topics and the way they learn

them. Besides summative and co-assessment, formative and self-assessment will be

also promoted during the development of units 9 and 10. The former allows the tutor to

check students’ learning processes, monitor their interlingua, and detect possible

problems and their causes (Martín Perís, 1997-2008); and the later allows learners to

reflect on their own learning processes, and identify their weaknesses and strengths.

2.1.7 The teacher’s book

Caixal (2011) explained that “The tutor designing the unit will write a teacher’s book

for those units with guidelines on: the aim of the unit, how to introduce it to the student

(what will need to be written in the Forum about the unit), how to correct the final tasks,

and when and who to give the extra tasks and readings to…”

According to the Guía didáctica de Cardón, the teacher’s book is the total book that

is addressed to the teacher among the several possible components of a manual

(student’s book, workbook, teacher’s book, among others) in a foreign or second

language course. Moreover, the same author defines the didactic guide as the

explanations given to the teacher in order to orientate and give suggestions about how

to carry out the activities and contents of the student’s book and other components of a

manual for a foreign or second language course.

2.2 Teaching EFL/ ESL for Academic Purposes

English for Academic Purposes EAP is a term coined back in 1974, but it was not

until 1975 when it became of more general use. This term “is concerned to the

development of those communication skills in English which are required for study

purposes in formal education systems” (ETIC, 1975), in other words, students taking an

EAP course prepare themselves to respond to those challenges posed by the

academic community in its formal setting. These courses “may include formal teaching


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programmes, self-access situations, distance-learning materials or CALL (Computer

Assisted Language Learning” (Jordan, 1997, p. 2). Jordan also suggests that these

courses can be taught by native speakers of English or by non-native English speakers

in short on long programmed units which can vary from 6 to 12 hours to 6 to 12

months.

Based on the development of skills, an English for Academic Purposes course has

many components, among others there are, listening and note taking, academic

writing, reading comprehension and note taking, reference and research skills, and

academic speech. These courses can take place under different circumstances: in

English speaking countries, in countries where English is taught as a foreign language

(EFL), or in countries where English is taught as a second language (ESL). In the last

two settings classes are monolingual and English is usually taught by non-native

English teachers. This might be advantageous for students if we look at the knowledge

that teachers may have about the context and the particular students’ sociocultural

background, but it can also bring some disadvantages in relation to the knowledge that

these teachers have about the academic environments abroad. Whether being or not a

native speaker, an EAP teacher must be an EAP expert in order to succeed in his/her

task.

The units to be designed under the parameters given in the EAP course are

targeted to students in both, ESL and EFL contexts. We use ESL to describe the

setting in which “students are living in the target language community and who need

English to function in that community on a day-to-day basis”, while EFL refers to the

context in which “students are studying general English at schools and institutes in their

own country or as transitory visitors in a target-language country” (Harmer, 2007, p.

39).

2.3 Teaching EFL/ ESL under the e- learning software platform

Moodle

Moodle is understood as Modular Object Oriented Distance Learning Environment.

It can also be described as “a free, open source software package designed using

sound pedagogical principles, to help both educators and researchers create effective


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online learning communities. It is quite useful and convenient to set up with some basic

databases on a server, and it is possible to teach any class or provide interactive Web

pages using it on any Web server platform that supports PHP” Nozawa (2011).

Moodle is currently used by many universities and institutions to teach several and

different courses around the world. According to its own statistics, up to 2010 there

were over 48,000 active sites, 3.5 million courses, and 35 million people from 211

countries that use this system. This e-learning software platform was created by

Dougiamas in 1998 under the philosophy called SCP (Social Constructionist

Pedagogy). According to him, “social constructivism happens when the learner is

engaged in constructing something for others to see”, (in Nozawa, 2011).

Although Moodle was not designed to teach languages, it has been reported to be a

great teaching-learning tool to develop language skills, and there are profuse amounts

of educative institutions currently offering their online languages courses based on this

platform. It is exactly because it is so popular that Moodle technical features were

made easy to understand and its surface is user-friendly.

Suvorov (2010) states that this software “consists of a set of tools that allow for the

integration of a wide range of assignments, activities, multimedia resources, electric

delivery of teaching materials, synchronous and asynchronous teacher-student and

student-student communication, and testing and assessment of student’s work”,

characteristics that make it an advisable tool for writing classes. Among others, Moodle

has the next tools:

• Forums • Chat rooms • Assignment

• Glossary • Data base • Wiki

• Workshop

Most of the listed activities promote collaboration among teachers and students at

different levels. Being collaborative in nature, the Moodle platform permits active

participation and interaction allowing students to co-construct writing in a social way.

According to Brown (1994), “the heart of communication” consists of learner-

centeredness, collaboration, and interaction, so by accomplishing these characteristics,

Moodle is a great tool to develop the principles of Communicative Language Teaching

(CLT).


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As well as is communication features, Moodle also permits pre- writing, drafting,

revising, and editing during the writing process, allowing the learner to notice how

he/she has developed his/her own process, and being aware of their learning

strategies and those ones which best help them to obtain better results.

2.4 The academic writing process for descriptive, explanatory, and argumentative texts Human beings usually communicate their ideas by means of written texts. Writing is

assumed to be a skill which should be taught to every literate person during their formal

education at school. It is just then, when students start to write for different purposes

and for a specific audience. Their academic texts include descriptions, explanations,

and argumentations, among others.

Montolío (2009, p. 22) affirms that “academic texts pretend to inform and convince”,

but not all of them are written with the same purpose. According to the author,

academic texts’ style and structure depend on the effect the writer wants to reach on

the reader. For example, while some texts pretend the reader to understand and/or

learn a concept; some others seek to convince the reader about a theory or a

hypothesis, or simply to make him/her interested in an unknown topic. Thus, according

to their purpose and concerning to units 9 and 10 main topics, the academic texts to

treat in this Research Project are: Description, Explanation, and Argumentation.

When describing, an author creates images on the readers’ mind, permitting them

imagine or visualize in vivid detail and with a sense of order, whatever object, person,

place, or idea is being described. According to Axelrod and Cooper (2004, p. 647),

there are three basic techniques for writing a successful description: naming, detailing,

and comparing. While naming refers to “call the readers’ attention to observable

features of the subject”, detailing is about making those features “more specific or

particularized”. Additionally, there is comparing, which can be done through simile and

metaphor and is used to make a description “more vivid to readers”.

Besides description, there is also explanation as an academic text. An explanatory

text, also called expository text by some authors, is a text in which the writer conveys

and clarifies information that is difficult to understand. According to The Purdue Writing

Lab (2012), an expository essay “is a genre of essay that requires the student to


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investigate an idea, evaluate evidence, expound on the idea, and set forth an argument

concerning that idea in a clear and concise manner”. This type of text requires the

writer to have an impersonal voice. He/she does not give any criticism or argument, the

writer just elucidates the subject and with an objective tone, explains the reader what is

difficult for him/her to grasp.

Even though explanatory texts serve primarily to illustrate readers about a subject,

Axelrod and Cooper (2004) affirm that “college students are required to write

explanations not primarily to teach others but to demonstrate what they have learnt” (p.

201). For them, there are several strategies to write this type of text including definition,

classification, comparison and contrast, cause and effect, and process narration. These

are the main strategies to be developed during the course of academic writing.

Another academic written discourse is Argumentation. Arguing a position is

considered an academic text which objective is to convince the reader to accept or

reject a particular position on a controversial issue by giving plausible reasons

supported by reasoned arguments. According to Axelrod and Cooper (2004), in order

to be a convincing text, it also has to anticipate reader’s likely objections and opposing

arguments. Moreover, The Purdue Writing Lab (2012) affirms that these types of

papers “generally call for extensive research”. Thus, it “allows the student to learn

about a topic…., choose a position and support it with the evidence collected during

research”.

2.5 Academic Grammar and Academic Vocabulary

Although the three types of academic texts in units 9 and 10 are description,

explanation and argumentation, there are two significant funds to be taken into account

and taught during these two weeks as well: Academic grammar and Academic

vocabulary. None of the writings will be taken seriously if not written with appropriate

grammar and concise vocabulary. Students taking the EAP course will learn some

basic grammar and vocabulary during the first weeks; consequently, units 9 and 10 will

concentrate on developing the correct use of sentence structure, nominalization,

referencing, impersonal expressions, modal verbs, verb tenses, precise verbs, and

coherence and cohesion by using linking words and phrases.


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2.6 Knowledge about Education

Caixal (2011) proposes that students taking the course will get basic knowledge

about education issues. Units 9 and 10 will include contents about two specific topics:

Learning Strategies and CALL, respectively. If these topics are previously introduced

within the units, it would be easier for students to study them in depth during the TEFL

masters. The pedagogic texts on these two topics will introduce the main topics of the

units.

2.6.1 Learning Strategies

Learning strategies are used to help students learn both academic language and

content. They can be defined as “the special thoughts or behaviors that individual use

to learn” (O’Malley & Chamot,). The main objective is to help students to become

independent and to auto regulate their own learning process. There are different types

of strategies and educators must be aware of how to select them in order to produce

the correct effect on the learner:

• Metacognitive Strategies: Used in planning for learning, self-monitoring, and

evaluating achievements.

• Metacognitive Knowledge: Understanding one’s own learning processes, the

nature of the learning task, and the strategies that should be effective.

• Cognitive Strategies: Manipulating the material to be learned through rehearsal,

organization, or elaboration.

• Social/Affective Strategies: Interacting with others for learning or using affective

control for learning.

The essential topic to be treated in unit 9 is the use of the Learning Strategies when

given frequent cues and feedback to students. While reading a Learning Strategies

article, learners will be given examples of academic explanations and descriptions, and

academic grammar.

2.6.2 CALL


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As well as the Learning Strategies topic, learners will be enlighten about CALL by

reading texts on the importance of this matter and how to deal with it in the language

classroom. In recent years, the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

use has become a main topic in education since it has brought great changes to

society. The use of the internet as a tool for communication permits the intercultural

relationships among the countries in relation to politics, socio-economics and

education; as a consequence, tutors for online courses usually find intercultural

classrooms, as well.

Teachers from all over the world face situations in which computers are the tools and

the internet is the media to learn. The EAP course, to which units 9 and 10 are part of,

is actually an example of it. This is one of the key arguments to introduce this topic

related to real-life expectations of the target population to whom the units will be

designed for. Unit 10 will include texts related to CALL in the language classroom as

the pedagogic topic to introduce academic argumentations and academic vocabulary.

3. Aims

In this section, the aims of this project will be presented in three groups: Project

aims, which describe the general goals of this project work; the EAP Course aims,

which describe the broad aims of the course the two units to be designed are part of;

and finally, the Unit aims, which describe the competences students who successfully

complete the units will acquire.

3.1 Project Aims

• Design two units for the syllabus of an online course in English for Academic

Purposes (EAP.)

• Put into practice the knowledge acquired in the Master on Teaching English as a

Foreign Language (TEFL).

• Create and provide solutions to the individual academic writing problems and

needs to the participants of the EAP course.


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3.2 EAP Course Aims

According to Caixal (2011), the general aims of the EAP course lead the students to

be able to:

• Reach the necessary proficiency in English (or Spanish) for Academic Purposes as to

cope with the language contents (use of language, writing skills and the ability to

discuss pedagogical issues) required in the TEFL (and FOPELE) programme.

• Develop linguistic awareness; that is, explicit knowledge about the language, and

perception and sensitivity towards learning, teaching and using it.

• Reflect upon their mistakes as a means of detecting and solving problems.

• Become an autonomous learner, and keep on learning well after the course.

(Research Project (RP), 5.3.1, General aims)

3.3 Unit Aims

• To develop specific academic writing skills related to descriptive, explanatory and

argumentative texts on students who lack of linguistic and content knowledge

requirements of the Funiber TEFL program.

• To identify, analyze, and characterize the student profile and design two units that

can tackle their needs to successfully help them acquaint the linguistic and content

knowledge requirements of the Funiber TEFL program.

• To provide all the participants with tools and tasks to successfully learn the contents

of the two designed units and develop their academic writing skill.

• To promote reflective and autonomous learning on students through the use of

learning strategies, communicative tasks, and cooperative work.


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4. Methodology

In this section, the methodology of this project will be introduced by the investigation

paradigm, the process for data gathering, analysis and interpretation, the approach for

unit design, the analysis of the population and their needs, and finally, the course

structure and unit creation process will be presented.

4.1 Investigation

This research project will be framed under the paradigm of Curriculum Investigation-

Action. According to MacKernan (1999), the curriculum investigation action takes place

when a professional analyze documents in order to investigate any aspect of the

curriculum. He also explains that the analysis helps to improve the learners’ evaluation

and it can be made through the examination of the next documents:

Former tests,

Official update documents about evaluation,

Documents by the government that establish parallels to follow,

Alumni assignments,

Standardized tests,

Alumni evaluation tests records,

Official curriculum guides,

Others.

(ibid, p. 13)

By examining the information in the former documents, the teacher or researcher

creates a list or schema of the backgrounds and the context in which the investigation

will take place. This process can lead to the research questions of the research project

and its development. All the same, the final document will be read by other

professionals at the end of the investigation. Thus, it must be carefully written and

supported.


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4.2 Process for data gathering, analysis and interpretation

The information for this research project will be gathered from different sources. The

main source to be taken into account is the research project by Caixal (2011) to which

units 9 and 10 belong. The author mentions that in order to gather the information to

design the EAP course, she asked tutors and students their opinion about the course

and the aspects to be improved. The main purpose of her research was to create the

EAP course. Now, in order to create units 9 and 10 for the EAP course, there is a four-

step process to consult and recollect the information.

First of all, there is need to consult texts related to the creation and design of units,

tasks, online courses, final tasks, and learn to learn. Secondly, texts about the main

topics of the two units will be consulted: academic writing, explanations, descriptions,

argumentations, and academic grammar and vocabulary.

A second step to follow is to analyze TEFL assignments and theses to look for the

main problems students show in relation to academic writing including grammar and

vocabulary. The analysis purpose is to tackle the students’ problems through the

design of extra exercises and readings to different learning styles and mother tongues.

The teacher’s guide will also be created and along with the others, they will be adapted

to the virtual e-learning platform Moodle. The work plan will be further illustrated in

5.6.8.

4.3 Approach for unit design The approach to design units 9 and 10 is based on three main focuses: Task-

based, student centered learning and collaborative learning. Each one of these

paradigms is crucial to the successful understanding and meaningful learning of the

students taking the EAP course.

Tasks-based course

The task-based approach is based on the idea that people learn through exploration

and active engagement. According to Ellis (2003), a task has the following criteria

features:

A task is a workplan.

A task involves primary focus on meaning.


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A task involves real-world processes of language use.

A task can involve any of the four language skills.

A task engages cognitive processes.

A task has a clearly defined communicative outcome.

Ibid (p. 9-11)

Since Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) aim is to develop the ability of

students to use the language for real communicative purposes, task-based learning

serves to CLT strong version, where tasks are seen as a vehicle to enable students to

learn the language by experiencing it for real communication. In units 9 and 10 learners

will have the opportunity to learn through communicative tasks which lead them to

create a final product. The process to create the final product is more important than

the product itself; thus, students will elaborate outcomes for real-life purposes, getting

immersed in the use of the language for communicative purposes.

Student-centred learning

Collins & O'Brien (2003) explain that in student-centered instruction, students are

who influence the content, activities, materials, and pace of learning. They also explain

that while the center of the learning process is the student, the instructor supports and

provides students with opportunities to interact and develop their skills. When correctly

implemented, this approach is believed to improve learning through motivation,

understanding and positive attitudes. According to Di Napoli (2004), there are certain

characteristics that make Student-centred learning a useful method to follow:

• Students are not considered to be empty vessels. They come with their own

perceptual frameworks.

• Focus is not just on what is taught but on how effective learning should be promoted.

• Student learning becomes the main preoccupation of the teacher (not his/her

performance as a teacher or a raw number of facts to be transmitted to the students).

• It is recognized that students learn in different ways and have different learning styles.

Personalized / individualized responses are encouraged. This helps to foster creativity

in students.

• Learning is recognized as an active dynamic process in which connections (between

different facts, ideas and processes) are constantly changing and their structure is

continually reformatted.


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• Assessment is ‘formative’ in character.

• Syllabi and curricula are organized around the processes through which learning is to

be developed.

(Ibid, p. 3-4)

Therefore, both units (9 and 10) will make echo of the annotations of Collins &

O'Brien (2003), and Di Napoli (2004). Students’ needs will be taken into account in the

construction of the activities. Making a flexible unit structure will be favorable for

students who have different problems, levels and languages. In consequence,

selection of readings, tasks, and extra activities and exercises will also recognize

students’ profiles, as well as their learning styles.

Collaborative learning

As the student-centred learning model considers the student the most important

actor of the learning process, creating a collaborative learning environment facilitates

students’ interaction and consequently, non-traditional experiences to improve their

skills and create group knowledge construction. Smith & McGregor (1992) defined

collaborative learning as an “umbrella term” for a variety of educational approaches. It

involves work and efforts by teachers and students to develop understanding, and

students are the key actors who discuss and construct knowledge through interaction.

When designing the tasks, a more social framework will be taken into account and

many of the tools provided by the online software Moodle will help the tutor to organize

a collaborative environment for learning to take place.

4.4 Population and students’ needs

Although the participants may have similar needs and interests, their cultural and

learning backgrounds, and learning styles are likely to be different. So it is important to

bear in mind that students may come with their own experiences and attitudes, and will

follow their own method to succeed. Thus, two strong elements to be developed in the

course and consequently in the two units are, as explained before, a learning to learn

component which will help them to identify their own learning styles, and a collaborative

learning approach through which they will help each other to enhance their own

learning strategies.


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Students’ profile

According Caixal (2011), student’s profiles are stereotypical because most of them

could belong to “more than one profile at the same time and at different levels”. She

classifies students’ profile in the following way:

a) Students with language problems: These candidates are divided into two groups:

Those whose language level is lower than a B2, and those whose level is very close to

C1. Among their main errors we find: grammar, vocabulary, register, and spelling

problems.

b) Students with poor knowledge about education: These applicants do not have

previous experience as teachers, have not studied educational-related courses and/or

have been out of the field for many years and their knowledge is very out-of-date.

c) Students lacking writing and academic skills: These students are also divided into

two groups:

• Firstly, we find those candidates with writing problems: reading and understanding,

ideas for text writing, coherence, typography, punctuation, paragraphs and sentences

building, etc.

• Secondly, candidates with a lack of academic writing knowledge. For example, they

are not familiar with formal requirements (bibliography, length, font, etc.), writing

resources (rhetoric, syntactic games, etc.), and different academic texts (introduction,

conclusion, explanation, etc.)

(Caixal, 2011, p. 31-32)

Students’ needs

This material was specifically designed in order to fulfil student’s needs and the

academic writing skill for descriptive, explanatory, and argumentative text with proper

grammar and academic vocabulary in a total time of 10 hours per unit from Monday to

Saturday during two weeks.


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As stated before, this research project will be framed under the paradigm of

Curriculum Investigation-Action. This paradigm permits the evaluation of documents to

find the needs of students in order to improve their academic performance. According

to Thornbury (n.d.), it in EAP courses where the needs analysis can be particularly

acute. The same author proposes (based on Munby, 1978) to gather information under

the following categories:

1. Learner: The units are designed for professional students who are interested in

improving their academic writing skills. Caixal (2011, p. 33) states that “Most of the

participants come from non-English Speaking countries and from different

educational traditions. That means that their writing culture (the way they express

ideas, how they write, which topics are taboo, etc.) differs greatly from that of the

English Speaking World”.

2. Purpose and domain: Students taking units 9 and 10 of the EAP course aim to

improve their academic writing skills in order to be part of the Master in Teaching

English as a Foreign Language offered by FUNIBER.

3. Setting: According to its official website, the Ibero-American University

Foundation´s (FUNIBER) purpose is “to spread and share the European and Ibero-

American knowledge”. This institution was founded in 1997 in Barcelona, Spain,

and since then, it has become an academic and professional network providing

experience and knowledge to give equal opportunities for international first-level

education. One of the Masters offered by FUNIBER is Teaching English as a

Foreign Language, specially targeted to those teachers who devote their lives to

teach the language. This program relates theory to practice and stimulates

autonomous and collaborative learning with constant support by its tutors.

Based on the Research Project Designing an Online Course in English for

Academic Purposes by Elena Caixal (2011), these two units belong to a fifteen-unit-

course designed by the author to fulfil the requirements to obtain her title for the

TEFL program. The target population are the applicants that had not passed the

Entrance Exam to reach the required language level to enter the Funiber TEFL

programme. The two units will be developed by means of the virtual platform

Moodle under a task based approach.


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4. Interactans: Teachers and students will interact among them by completing tasks.

The tasks of these units promote whole group work, small group work

(discussions), pair work (peer revision and suggestions), and individual work

(developing the macro skills of reading and writing, and their micro skills) through

communicative tasks. It also promotes the use of technology and tools from the

web 2.0 (forums, e-mail accounts use).

5. Mode: Students will basically interact through receptive and productive writing.

6. Skills and Functions: Studying reference material and reading current literature

about the educational topics Learning Strategies and CALL in order to introduce

academic descriptions, explanations, argumentations, grammar, and vocabulary.

7. Proficiency: The units aim to achieve a B2+ level according to the Common

European Framework for Languages.

In order to attain students´ academic writing needs, about 50 students’

assignments will be evaluated as well.

4.5 Course structure

According to Caixal (2011) the EAP course to which units 9 and 10 belong, follows

the following structure:

Before the course: Students get a fail in the Entrance exam for the TEFL

Funiber Program. Students will be informed about the course and will decide

whether taking it or not in order to proceed with the register.

Introductory Tasks: Once the student has registered, he will be given the

student’s guide with all the information about the course as well as introductory

tasks to perform during the first week. These tasks are related to the correct

use and familiarization to the Moodle platform and its components to

successfully communicate and complete the tasks.

Course: Once completed the first week students will begin the first subject and

subsequently they will continue the course during 13 more weeks. During the

process they will be in constant communication with tutors and will collaborate

with other students to carry out the proposed tasks. After they have completed


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the total number of subjects, they will do a final task that summarizes what they

have learnt during the unit.

Final Project: During the last week of the course, students will do the Final

Project where they need to show their learning process.

After the course: Once students have proved they reached the desired

language level and have received their certificated, they will begin the TEFL

program.

A graphically explanation of the above the EAP course to which units 9 and 10 are

part of, is referred in Appendix I.

4.5.1 Content

The general content of the EAP course is divided into fifteen units which will last 10

hours each. As explained before, this is a collaborative project. A group of work will

receive the general course structure and will design the content, the student’s book

with extra activities and exercises, and the teacher’s book. To complete this purpose,

the designers will complete two analysis based on actual TEFL student’s assignments

provided by the coordinator of the project. Once more, to graphically explain the above

the EAP course, refer to Appendix I.

4.5.2 Units aims In relation to the specific units 9 and 10 aims, Caixal (2011) also proposes the

development of linguistics skills, general writing skills, and academic writing skills.

According to her, in relation to linguistic skills and academic skills, at the end of the

units 9 and 10 the student will be able to:

• From a grammar standpoint, the student will be able to use correctly:

- Become proficient at English or Spanish grammar rules.

- Be familiar with complicated grammar problems.

• From a vocabulary standpoint, the student will be able to master:

- Acknowledge the importance of vocabulary.

- Learn technique to increase the quality of the vocabulary used.


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• From a strategic contents standpoint, the student will be able to master:

- Talk about past English or Spanish learning and writing experiences (it must be

taken into account that English or Spanish may be their mother tongue, and, so the

student can talk about the L1 classes he/she has at school or how he/she learnt

his/her L1 through his/her family).

- Learn to learn.

- See his/her most used strategies.

- Develop autonomy.

• Write academic projects about:

- Current education issues debates and discussions.

- Case studies activities.

- Tasks-solving activities.

- Analyze and do reflective thinking activities.

- Materials design.

• From a “description” standpoint, the student will be able to:

- Describe a case/situation in an understandable and organized way.

• From an “explanation” standpoint, the student will be able to:

- Explain a case/situation in an understandable and organized way.

• From an “”argumentation” standpoint, the student will be able to:

- Argue consistently.

- Convince the reader.

(RP, 5.3.2, Specific aims)

In order to achieve these general and specific aims, it is essential for the tutor to use

academic articles in which students can identify proper grammar rules and vocabulary

use, as well as to analyze writing strategies to develop a description, an explanation,

and finally an argument in an organized and structured way. The tutor will also explain

the basic features for each one of the academic texts by means of a writing guide.


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Students will be then guided through the process of writing individually and/or

collaboratively. A specific topic on Learning Strategies (for unit 9), and CALL (for unit

10), along with a logical plan to present the text will be assigned.

At the same time, by means of a forum, and before submitting the assignments,

students will discuss and reflect on plausible reasons for an argument, concepts found

on different sources, and how to use senses to describe. Not only critical thinking but

supporting reasons and research will be needed to give and get feedback to and from

classmates generating thus, collaborative and meaningful learning.

4.5.3 Unit structure

Each one of the fifteen units is organized to follow the same structure. Based on

Tano (2008), Caixal (2011) proposed that each unit needed to follow the next pattern,

for visual information on units 9 and 10 structures, please check Appendix II:

Cover: The student will be introduced to the main topics of the units and will

activate his/her previous knowledge on the matter. Basic information about the

final task and the contents, time and resources to complete the unit is also

given.

Language in context: Students will be provided with authentic texts to introduce

the main topics of the units. These texts will permit the student work on his/her

knowledge about Learning Strategies (unit 9) and CALL (unit 10), while at the

same time they are being introduced to the genres, description, explanation,

and argumentation.

Knowledge Bank: Here, students will find a systematization of functions of the

language the units deal with.

Check your knowledge: In this section, students will be provided with a series of

self-evaluated tasks in which they will practice what they have learnt.

Communication: The final task is expected to be completed in this section. The

final task will assess not only the educational topic of the unit and its main

contents, but it will also include knowledge they have acquired in previous units

of the course, for example, planning a task or advanced grammar.


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Additional readings: This section contains easier-than-the contents additional

readings to be used by the tutor according to students’ needs. These readings

aim to provide opportunities to broad understanding on the unit’s topic,

especially to those students who have been identified to have different mother

tongues. The additional readings are self-assessment tasks.

Additional exercises: These exercises provide three different levels of exercises

starting with an easy to a more difficult one. These exercises are also aimed at

students with different mother tongues. The additional exercises are self-

assessment tasks.

4.6 Unit creation process

The process for creating the two units has been well - planned and structured by our

project coordinator Elexa Caixal and it was established in her research project (2011).

There was a selection process and each one of the participants had to follow some

steps to successfully complete the unit creation process:

1. Designers were elected according to their performance on the entrance exam.

Thus, designers had to write a short essay in which they described their interest in

participating on the project, and their ability to write academically.

2. Designers were given the course program from which they had to choose two

subsequent units. They were also provided with a schedule with tasks and timing

to be developed during the creation process. The schedule and tasks correspond

to the work plan on 5.6.8.

3. Designers were given the EAP Research Project by Elena Caixal (2011) as the

main source to be followed.

4. The selected group worked on their designs through the collaborative platform

Google groups.

5. Designers read extensively on basic topics and also on the ones linked to the units

to be designed as well as those related to education knowledge to be developed

during on students taking the EAP course.


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6. Designers analyzed 50 of the TEFL first assignments looking for the problems

related to academic writing skills and the influence of their mother languages when

writing.

7. Designing of the units started. Designers had to design the unit structure, the

student’s book, the teacher’s book, extra readings and extra exercises structure

and material following the parameters given by the coordinator of the project.

8. Designers uploaded the created materials on the Moodle platform and tested their

efficacy and efficiency to the purpose they were created.

9. Designers finished their Research Project and submitted it.

4.6.1 Unit organization and features

Every activity and task planned for the two selected units follow a structured plan

and rules provided by the project coordinator to make the course coherent with the

sequences used in the TEFL Master. Ball (2011) suggests that when programming

tasks, the programmers should follow some basic rules. Thus, the units are organized

in a way that the students-to-be find it easy to understand and complete. One of the

rules is that the main tool for communication between students and tutors is the forum

and it is through that tool that clear instructions with all the information necessary to

complete the tasks will be posted every Friday by the tutor designing the unit.

Another rule designers will need to follow is the formal requirements to write their

materials which are: Font: Verdana, size: 10 (16 for main titles and 12 for secondary

titles), length: between 5 and 10 pages (not including extra readings and exercises into

account, this can account for 6 extra pages, but not more), line height: 1.5, and

alignment, Word Format and PFD format. Moreover, they will contain between 3 and 6

self-evaluated tasks that will be given feedback by Moodle when completed. This

feedback will be written in another Word document with the same formal requirements.

Besides the two first mentioned rules, the two units are divided into six

components which are: Cover, Language in context, Knowledge bank, Check your

knowledge, Communication, Additional readings and additional exercises. All the

same, the teacher’s book has also four components which are: Previous observations,

Before starting, Assessment, Additional tasks.


37

For a more visual perspective, units 9 and 10 and its components will be presented

in the appendixes. Each one of them compresses the following information:

Appendix I: Course syllabus. This table shows the course structure and the parts to

be designed. The course contains 15 units and it is the base document of this

research project.

Appendix II: Course syllabus for units 9 and 10. Even though they are contained in

Appendix I, it is necessary to separate the units to be designed. Units 9 and 10 deal

with academic writing skills development as well as the use of academic grammar

and vocabulary.

Appendix III: Problem analysis on CM and SLA assignments. The table contains the

problems related to academic writing and the use of academic vocabulary and

grammar in the CM and SLA assignments of current students of the TEFL master

program.

Appendix IV: Problem analysis from Spanish and Portuguese-speaking students.

This document presents the current mistakes that students make when writing due

to the influence of their mother tongues. This analysis helps the designer to

implement extra readings and extra exercises for those students whose mother

tongues interfere with their ability to write academically descriptions, explanations

and argumentations.

Appendix V: Contents Unit 9. The table contains the components and the specific

design of the unit. Each one of the components contains objectives, contents,

abilities and activities to be developed by students and tutors.

Appendix VI: Contents Unit 10. The table contains the components and the specific

design of the unit. Each one of the components contains objectives, contents,

abilities and activities to be developed by students and tutors.

Appendix VII: Student`s book Unit 9. This is the material which students of the EAP

course will be provided by in order for them to accomplish the goals proposed on the

appendices V and VI.

Appendix VIII: Student`s book Unit 10. This is the material which students of the

EAP course will be provided by in order for them to accomplish the goals proposed

on the appendices V and VI.


38

Appendix IX: Teacher`s book Unit 9. This document is the tutor’s tool to help

students to develop the course. Its components are included and its different

sections generate an organized way for the tutor to help his/her students develop

the units’ contents. Extra reaing and exercises are suggested for those students

who might have problems during the progress of the units. Answers to the exercises

and activities will also be found in this paper.

Appendix X: Teacher`s book Unit 10. This document is the tutor’s tool to help

students to develop the course. Its components are included and its different

sections generate an organized way for the tutor to help his/her students develop

the units’ contents. Extra reading and exercises are suggested for those students

who might have problems during the progress of the units. Answers to the exercises

and activities will also be found in this paper.

4.6.2 Final tasks

The final task for units 9 and 10 is writing a 250-word essay. Students will choose a

topic from a list given by the tutor. For unit 9 the text must include descriptive and

explanatory paragraphs in which students will make use of the academic grammar and

precise vocabulary learnt during the unit. For unit 10, the text must include arguments

with plausible reasons to convince the reader about a point of view. Both documents

must be sent to the tutor in order to assess the product and provide feedback.

It is necessary to make clear that for the final task the tutor will follow the task-based

approach, so this task will parallel an activity that they normally use in communicative

circumstances. To complete these tasks, students would previously have developed

smaller tasks such writing paragraphs or completing self-assessment readings and

exercises. Focus on language and meaning will be also key premises to be taken into

account when writing each essay. The formal requirements to be fulfilled when writing

the final task are: Length: 250 words, Type of font: Arial or Times New Roman, Size:

11, Line height: 1.5, Alignment: Justified. The final tasks for units 9 and 10 are

referred in Appendices VII and VIII.


39

4.6.3 Evaluation

The units’ evaluation will take place all over the time the units last (10 hours per

each) and will have different presentations. Active participation by students is expected

in every single activity since they are beneficial for academic language learning.

Previous micro tasks will prepare students to complete the final task, allowing them to

have a better chance to succeed in the course.

In unit 9 students are asked for participation in two forum activities, two self-

assessment activities and three individual activities to be sent to the tutor’s mail for

feedback. All the same, unit 10 proposes five self-assessment activities, one

collaborative writing wiki and an individual activity to be sent by mail. The self-

assessment activities are consciousness – raising tasks and the collaborative and

individual activities are focused – communication tasks. Consciousness – raising tasks

will also take place in those activities in which students will be asked to clarify what

they have interpreted about any of those activities, thus, students will build inner

knowledge about the language and how to become a better user of it.

The forum activities and the creation of a wiki will permit co-assessment, since

through these tools for nature students have to create collaborative content and post

their opinion to build knowledge. Formative assessment will be also carried out by

means of the feedback the tutor will provide students once they have submitted their

assignments. All the same, for the final task in both units, the tutor will carry out a

summative assessment where not only he/she will take into account the units’ acquired

practical knowledge, but the practical applicability of the contents from former units.

Finally, when self-assessing themselves, students will deal with the identification of

their strengths and weaknesses, especially with the topic of Learning Strategies.

4.6.4 Learn to learn

Each one of the units contains five sections related to the development of students’

ability to pursue and persist in learning, also called ‘learn to learn’. Their aim is to make

students aware of their own learning process so it becomes significative and leads

them to be independent learners. The activities will develop autonomous learning on

students; in other words, they will build the capacity to solve problems and to learn new

things.


40

At the very beginning of unit 9, students will have to plan their learning by identifying

what they already know about the unit and what they want to find out. Then at the end

of the unit, they will have to check if they accomplished their objectives by comparing

the first to columns of the chart with the last ones, which ask them to write what they

actually learnt and how they learnt it. In this unit they will also identify their reading and

writing strategies and will propose ways to improve their own and others’ learning

strategies.

In unit 10, students will have to activate their previous knowledge by anticipating the

content of the unit. They will also identify and evaluate the efficacy of their memory

when remembering what they have learnt, as well as the strategies they use to

remember their lessons. By completing these tasks, students will have the chance to

receive suggestions and suggest others ways to overcome the problem of forgetting

what one has learnt. At the end of the unit, students will complete a ‘now I know’

checklist to self – evaluate their progress on the unit.

For both, units 9 and 10, additional readings and exercises are also activities in

which a component of ‘learn to learn’ is included. Here, students will complete the tasks

to consolidate and enhance their knowledge on the strategic contents of the unit. For a

more graphically explanation, please consult Appendices V and VI.

4.6.5 Teacher’s book

The teacher’s book for units 9 and 10 will be designed as a general basic guideline

which can be enriched and adapted to the specific needs of future teaching-learning

contexts in which the units will be delivered. According to Caixal (2011) the guidelines

for the teacher’s book will follow the following pattern:

Prievious observations: the aim of the unit, all the contents and tasks.

Before starting: the instructions the tutor will post in the Forum. Please check the

first paragraph.

Assessment: the way the assessment will be carried out.

Additional tasks: when and who to give the extra tasks and readings to.

Ibid, (p. 57)


41

5.6.6. Work Plan

The work plan is the list of activities and schedule in which the design, elaboration

and implementation of the two units will be carried out. There is a list of actions,

activities and their distribution in time taking into account that the project will last for

one year.

ACTIONS

ACTIVITIES

A/2012 B/2012 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dic

Bibliography

Reading

Reading the TEFL Project

by Caixal (2001).

Reading about unit design,

tasks and final tasks, online

courses, and learning to

learn topics.

Reading about planning and

pre-writing, general writing

skills, academic writing,

description, explanation,

argumentation, CALL and

Learning Strategies.

Unit Design

TEFL assignments and

thesis analysis looking for

the main problems the

students show for

description, explanation,

argumentation, grammar

and academic vocabulary.

Unit design according to

chart given by Caixal (2001)

Extra exercises and extra

readings design according to

different student’s profiles.

Additional reading search or

design per unit.

Teacher’s book design.

Material

adaptation

to the

Moodle

Platform

Upload the design materials

to the Platform.

Research

Project Writing

Research project will be

written throughout the year

taking into account the

deadlines given by the

TEFL Master Program to

hand out the advances of

the project.

The final project will be

submitted on Sep/13.


42

5. Conclusion

As I mentioned in the introduction of this RP, the design of units 9 and 10 for the

EAP course is just a small but important link. They both make part of a fifteen unit

course which has a bigger objective. Through this time I have put into practice the

theoretical knowledge acquired during the Master on TEFL, so I have had the chance

to learn more and to improve my skills as a designer and a team worker.

Units 9 and 10 for the EAP course are well structured because they follow unit

design principles that not only take into account the specific population’s needs, but

the e-learning software in which they are going to be developed by those students. I

can state that this Research Project has met its aims (see 3.1 Project Aims):

• Design two units for the syllabus of an online course in English for Academic

Purposes (EAP.)

• Put into practice the knowledge acquired in the Master on Teaching English as a

Foreign Language (TEFL).

• Create and provide solutions to the individual academic writing problems and

needs to the participants of the EAP course.

One of the major difficulties I found when designing the unit was the amount of time

it takes to complete the package of student and teacher’s book, and extra readings and

exercises, especially in the creation of extra readings and exercises, since most of

them were completely designed by me. Likewise, despite my personal belief of this

being a fructiferous and complete project work, I think that every group of people has

different needs and in consequence, the tutor in charge of the development of these

two units must take into account that there might be activities which need further work

or that can be not appropriate for students taking the course. Also, I think that changes

and improvements can be made to the lay out to make it more attractive to those

students whose learning style is more visual.

Moreover, I would like to point out that this is only a design which needs to be

implemented and developed, so further action-research will be needed to evaluate the

efficacy of the design. I would personally like to be part of the team that will implement

and evaluate these two units so I can improve whatever needs to be improved in this

project work.


43

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47

Appendices

Appendix I: EAP Course contents

Week 1: 7 days, 10 hours

Subject & Unit: Introductory Tasks

Objectives Main contents Proposed Tasks Proposed assessment

Know how to use the Moodle Campus and make the most of it.

Become a part of a learning community and interact with the tutor and the classmates.

Become familiar with the Moodle Campus and the course schedule.

Focused communication task: Student Guide with tasks that help the student master the use of Moodle, understand the course schedule, aims and tasks, and create a good and collaborative atmosphere among students.

Summative assessment: tasks will be partly assessed automatically by Moodle and partly assessed by a tutor. For instance, those that just check if the student can sail in Moodle can be automatically assessed. But those which help the students interact with each other and the tutor, will have to be assessed by the tutor

Acknowledge the need for an EAP course.

Realise his/her writing problems.

Interpretation task: A commented version of his/her Entrance exam with notes and suggestions from the teacher.

Diagnostic assessment: A short chat or Skype with the tutor about why these are mistakes.

Posible strategic contents Portfolio


48


Subject: Planning and Pre-writing

Unit: Planning the task, and Generating and organising

Objectives Main contents

Pla

nn

ing t

he t

ask

Know his/her profile as a writer and a learner. Define his/her profile as a writer.

Increase writing awareness. Understand texts better.

Analyse the communicative situation. The addressee. Outline the aim of the text.

Develop cognitive processes and planning writing techniques. See himself/herself as an effective addresser. Follow the instructions. The formal requirements of the text.

Ge

ne

ratin

g

and

org

an

isin

g

How to generate and organise useful ideas for text writing. Methods to generate ideas. Methods to organise ideas.

Str

ate

gic

co

nte

nts

.

To choose depending on the objectives of the unit: http://cvc.cervantes.es/ensenanza/biblioteca_ele/plan_curricular/niveles/13_procedimientos_aprendizaje_introduccion.htm

Each unit needs to focus on a different strategic content. Proposed strategic contents for this unit, according the the website above:

o Planificación y control del propio proceso de aprendizaje o Planificación

http://cvc.cervantes.es/ensenanza/biblioteca_ele/plan_curricular/niveles/13_procedimientos_aprendizaje_introduccion.htm


49

Ed

uca

tio

n

kn

ow

led

ge

Basic knowledge about: Methodological Approaches.

Pro

po

sed

Tasks

Reflective learning task: Test about his/her profile as a writer that helps the student talk about his/her relation with English. Consciousness-raising tasks: Analyse texts specially written in order to distinguish between efficient and inefficient texts. Focused communication task: Guided writing exercises where the student has to plan texts where collide different disciplines,

addresses, addressers, time and cultures. Focused communication task: Choose a preferred method to generate and organise ideas about a topic linked with education.

Pro

po

sed

assig

nm

ent

Self-assessment: But the tutor may point out some interesting issues about the test. Summative assessment: Automatic assessment made by Moodle. Co-assessment: With another student, where they both share their analysis. And a final summative assessment by Moodle and

the tutor. Summative assessment: Where the tutor corrects.


Subject: Planning and Pre-writing

Unit: Final task


Fin

al ta

sk

Improve the student knowledge about the aforementioned education knowledge content.

¿

Review everything done in the subject

Writing awareness. Strategic contents. Planning the task Generating and organising.


50

Str

ate

gic

co

nte

nts

.


Each unit needs to focus on a different strategic content. Proposed strategic contents for this unit, according the the website above:

o Planificación y control del propio proceso de aprendizaje o Planificación o Evaluación y control

Ed

uca

tio

n

kn

ow

led

ge

Basic knowledge about: Classroom Management.

Pro

po

sed

Tasks Focused communication: Reading where the student finds a short summary of the subjects linked with education.

Focused communication and Reflective learning task: Plan, generate and organise the ideas to write a text on what the student wants to improve about his academic skills in this course. The student will be given a sketch where he/she will have to talk about writing awareness, strategic contents, and intertwine this ideas with the information learn through the topics about education.

P

ropose

d

assig

nm

ent

Summative assessment: The reading will contain self-evaluated tasks. Moodle will give feedback for these tasks but the tutor will be able to add feedback too.

Formative assessment: The tutor will correct the assignment pointing out if the student has followed what has been learned. Language problems will not be yet taken into account.



51


Subject: Writing: General writing skills

Unit: Spelling, Vocabulary and Grammar


Sp

elli

ng

Become proficient at English spelling rules. Be familiar with complicated spelling problems.

Adding -er/-est Adding -ing/-ed Adding -ly Adding -s -ible or -able -ie- or -ei- Varieties of English

Vo

ca

bu

lary

Raise awareness about the importance of vocabulary. Learn technique to increase the quality of the vocabulary

used.

Inappropriate words. Empty words. Crutches. Inkhorn terms. Synonyms and antonyms.

Gra

mm

ar

Become proficient at English grammar rules. Be familiar with complicated grammar problems.

Adverbs and adjectives. Articles. Count and noncount nouns. Prepositions. To + inf. vs. –ing forms. Active and passive voice. Concordation. Word order.

http://www.englishclub.com/writing/spelling_add-er.htm

http://www.englishclub.com/writing/spelling_add-ing.htm

http://www.englishclub.com/writing/spelling_add-ly.htm

http://www.englishclub.com/writing/spelling_add-s.htm

http://www.englishclub.com/writing/spelling_ible.htm

http://www.englishclub.com/writing/spelling_ie.htm

http://www.englishclub.com/writing/spelling_american-english.htm


52

Str

ate

gic

co

nte

nts

.


Each unit needs to focus on a different strategic content. Proposed strategic contents for this unit, according the website above:

o Procesamiento y asimilación del sistema de la lengua o Realización de la tarea

Ed

uca

ti

on

kn

ow

led

ge

Basic knowledge about: Second Language Acquisition.

Pro

po

sed

Tasks

Interpretation task: Text analysis where the student needs to explain the spelling mistakes found and why they are mistakes. Consciousness-raising and Focused communication task: collaborative writing in Google docs. Text analysis where the students

are confronted with some sentences showing typical problems. Focused communication task: Test with the grammar mistakes made by different students during the course. These mistakes

can be picked by the tutor, so that he/she can tailor the exam to the student profile.)

Pro

po

sed

assig

nm

ent

Summative assessment: Automatic correction made by Moodle. Co-assessment: Together with the rest of the students (on Google docs) improve or not these sentences. Moodle gives an

automatic corrected version. Summative assessment: Automatic correction made by Moodle.



53



Unit: Style Guides, and Punctuation


Sty

le

Gu

ides

Learn to use frequent typographic signs. Know when to use capital letters. Use other typographic signs.

Italics. Bolds. Capital letters. Space between characters.

Pu

nctu

a

tio

n

Raise awareness in the student about punctuation. Learn how to punctuate his/her sentences.

Frequent punctuation signs: coma, semicolon, and full stop. Other punctuation signs: colon, quotation marks, parenthesis,

etc.

Str

ate

gic

co

nte

nts

.



o Regulación y control de la capacidad de cooperación o Realización de la tarea

Ed

uca

ti

on

kn

ow

led

ge

Basic knowledge about: Materials and Resources in EFL.

Pro

po

se

d T

asks

Consciousness-raising and Focused communication task: Debate on the Forum containing a text where the student is confronted with some sentences showing typical style guides and punctuation problems.



54

Pro

po

sed

assig

nm

e

nt

Summative assessment and Co-assessment: The teacher gives an automatic, commented corrected version.



Unit: Building sentences, and Building paragraphs


Bu

ildin

g

se

nte

nce

s

. Link ideas. Structure thematic progression. Create complex and proper text structures.

Linking Words. Active style. Irrelevant information. Clarity. Interpolated clauses.

Bu

ildin

g

para

gra

ph

s

Write properly structured paragraphs. Structure all the text paragraphs as a whole.

Typology. How to write them. Common mistakes.

Str

ate

gic

co

nte

nts

.






55

Ed

uca

tion

kn

ow

ledg

e

Basic knowledge about: Developping Language Skills.

Pro

po

sed

Tasks

Consciousness-raising and Focused communication task: First the student confronts a text showing typical sentences and paragraph problems. This can be a modified text that another student has written for week 5, for instance.

Pro

po

sed

assig

nm

ent

Self-assessment and Summative assessment: The student first corrects the text, according to his/her previous knowledge. Then he/she reads the materials and corrects his/her correction, and gets feedback from Moodle and/or the tutor.


Subject: Writing: Academic Writing

Unit: Characteristics of academic texts, and Formal requirements



56

Ch

ara

c. o

f

acad

. te

xts

Recognise the main characteristics of academic texts. Be familiar with its peculiarities and use.

Characteristics of academic texts. Elements of academic texts (introduction,

explanation/exposition/argumentation, and conclusion)

Form

al

requ

ire

m

ents

Quote references and quotations correctly. Use literature effectively through quotations and references.

Use literature effectively through quotations and references, and quote them correctly.

Str

ate

gic

co

nte

nts

.




Ed

uca

tion

kn

ow

ledg

e

Basic knowledge about: Individual Factors.



57

Pro

po

sed

Tasks

Focused communication task: Test on the different parts of an academic text and what is contained in each. Focused communication task: Short exercises during the readings with automatic feedback.

Pro

po

sed

assig

nm

ent

Summative assessment: Automatic, commented feedback by Moodle.



Unit: Introduction, Conclusion, and Understandability


Un

de

rsta

nd

ab

il

ity

Raise awareness in the student about the importance of readability.

Master the formal requirements asked for when writing and academic text.

Plain language. Visual perception of the text. Funiber formal requirements: font, size, length, line height,

and alignment. Develop your ideas further and deeper of show critical

thinking.


58

Intr

odu

ctio

n

Introduce an academic task. Characteristics of Academic Introductions. Steps to write and Academic introduction.

Co

nclu

sio

n

Summarise his/her academic task. Characteristics of Academic conclusions. Steps to write and Academic conclusion.

Str

ate

gic

co

nte

nts

.




Ed

uca

tion

kn

ow

ledg

e

Basic knowledge about: Tasks and Projects.



59

Pro

po

sed

Tasks

Interpretation task: the student will be given access the aforementioned education knowledge content. Then, he/she will be given the “body” of a text with understandability problems and the student will have to improve it and write an introduction and conclusion.

Pro

po

sed

assig

nm

ent

Summative assessment: all the subjects dealt with until now will be assessed by the tutor, as well and the student’s acquired knowledge about access the aforementioned education knowledge content.



Unit: Description, Explanation, and Academic Grammar


Aca

d.

Gra

mm

ar

Master Academic Grammar. Get familiar with some special features of academic grammar.


60

De

scriptio

n

Describe a case/situation in an understandable and organised way.

Characteristics of Academic descriptions. Steps to write and Academic descriptions. Develop your ideas further and deeper of show critical

thinking.

Exp

lana

tio

n

Explain a case/situation in an understandable and organised way.

Characteristics of Academic explanations. Steps to write and Academic explanations. Develop your ideas further and deeper of show critical

thinking.

Str

ate

gic

co

nte

nts

.




Ed

uca

tion

kn

ow

ledg

e

Basic knowledge about: Learning strategies.



61

Pro

po

sed

Tasks

Interpretation task: the student will be given access to access the aforementioned education knowledge content. Then, he/she will be given a “case” that he/she will have to describe and explain. The case can be about typical grammar problems in learners of English.

Pro

po

sed

assig

nm

ent

Summative assessment: all the subjects dealt with until now will be assessed by the tutor. as well as the aforementioned education knowledge content.



Unit: Argumentation, and Academic Vocabulary


Arg

um

enta

tion

Argue consistently. Convince the reader.

Characteristics of Academic argumentations. Steps to write and Academic argumentation. Develop your ideas further and deeper of show critical

thinking.


62

Aca

d.

Vo

cab

.

Master Academic Vocabulary. Academic vocabulary, related to didactics and/or language

teaching.

Str

ate

gic

co

nte

nts

.




Ed

uca

tion

kn

ow

ledg

e

Basic knowledge about: CALL.

Pro

po

sed

Tasks

Interpretation task: the student will be given information about a topic linked with education. Then, he/she will be given a controversial topic about it and he/she will have to argue. Using academic vocabulary will be obligatory.



63

Pro

po

sed

assig

nm

ent



Subject: Writing

Unit: Final Task


Fin

al ta

sk

Improve the student knowledge about the aforementioned education knowledge content.

Basic knowledge about: Observation & Research.

Review everything done in the subject.

Planning and Pre-writing. General writing skills. Academic Writing The aforementioned education knowledge content


64

Str

ate

gic

co

nte

nts

.



o Procesamiento y asimilación del sistema de la lengua o Evaluación y control

Ed

uca

tion

kn

ow

ledg

e

Basic knowledge about: Observation & Research.

Pro

po

sed

Tasks

Focused communication: The student will be asked to reread the short summary of the aforementioned education knowledge content.

Focused communication and Reflective learning task: Write an assignment on whether the student is fulfilling the objective that he/she had in week 5, and how he/she could improve his/her performance. Plan, generate and organise the ideas to write the text. The, he/she will have to write an introduction, explanatory, descriptive and argumentative body, and a conclusion. Finally, he/she will have to use academic grammar and vocabulary, formal requirements and intertwine his/her ideas with the studied the aforementioned education knowledge content

Pro

po

sed

assig

nm

ent

Summative assessment: The readings will contain self-evaluated tasks that the student didn’t need to complete before. Moodle will give feedback for these tasks but the tutor will be able to add feedback too.

Formative assessment: The tutor will correct the assignment pointing out if the student has followed what has been learned.



65


Subject: Revising

Unit: Self-editing


Se

lf-e

ditin

g

Editing. Coherence. Cohesion.

Keep coherence and cohesion in all the parts of the text. Write understandable assignments. Create complex and proper text structure. Develop your ideas in a progressive way, where the link

between them is clearly understood.

Learn to proof-reading his/her text. Be familiar with his/her most common mistakes.

Assess his/her texts. Diagnose his/her mistakes. Act upon those mistakes. Realise the importance of detecting his/her mistakes.

Str

ate

gic

co

nte

nts

.



o Regulación y control de los factores afectivos o Reparación y ajustes



66

Ed

uca

tion

kn

ow

ledg

e

Basic knowledge about: Content Language Integrated Learning.

Pro

po

sed

Tasks

Consciousness-raising and Reflective learning task: The student will have to self-edit his/her Entrance Exam, but only from a language point of view. The version handed to the student will be the original, without corrections.

Pro

po

sed

assig

nm

ent

Formative and diagnostic assessment: The tutor will correct the assignment pointing out if the student has followed what has been learned, and will suggest help in the areas presenting more problems.


Subject: Revising

Unit: Final Task



67

Fin

al ta

sk

Improve the student knowledge about the aforementioned education knowledge content

Basic knowledge about: English in the Community.

Review everything done in the subject.

Planning and Pre-writing Academic Writing. Self-editing. The aforementioned education knowledge content.

Str

ate

gic

co

nte

nts

.



o Regulación y control de los factores afectivos o Reparación y ajustes o Evaluación y control

Ed

uca

tion

kn

ow

ledg

e

Basic knowledge about: English in the Community.



68

Pro

po

sed

Tasks

Focused communication: Reading where the student finds a short summary of the aforementioned education knowledge content. Consciousness-raising and Reflective learning task: From his/her corrected version of the Entrance Exam, the student will have

to improve its academic contents: planning, academic writing, self-edition and the aforementioned education knowledge content

Pro

po

sed

assig

nm

ent

Summative assessment: The readings will contain self-evaluated tasks. Moodle will give feedback for these tasks but the tutor will be able to add feedback too.

Formative assessment: The tutor will correct the assignment pointing out if the student has followed what has been learned


Subject & Unit: Academic speaking


Aca

de

mic

sp

ea

kin

g

Defend his/her Research Task.

Characteristics of Academic speaking. Steps to Academic Speaking. Characteristics of a Research Project or Thesis. Steps to defend a RP or thesis in front of a jury.

Str

ate

gic

co

nte

nts

.



o Regulación y control de los factores afectivos Reparación y ajustes



69

Ed

uca

tion

kn

ow

ledge

Basic knowledge about: Curriculum and Course Design.

Pro

po

sed

Tasks Focused communication tasks: The student will have to do a research task on whether he/she has fulfilled the aims of this EAP

course. He/she will have to explain her position and, then, argue the questions posed by the teacher. He/she can talk about what his/her opinion about the course: what he/she has learnt, what he/she would have liked to learn, what has been superficial, and what he/she thinks should be erased.

Pro

po

sed

assig

nm

ent

Summative assessment: The student will defend his/her research tasks through Skype, and the teacher will ask questions. Then, the teacher will give feedback on the student’s academic speaking skills and what can be improved.


Subject & Unit: Final Project


Fin

al p

roje

ct

Review everything done in the course. Prove his/her improvement. Realise what can be still improved. Become an autonomous learner.

Review everything done in the course. Prove his/her improvement. Realise what can be still improved. Become an autonomous learner.


70

Str

ate

gic

co

nte

nts

.



o Planificación y control del propio proceso de aprendizaje o Evaluación y control

Ed

uca

tion

kn

ow

ledg

e

Basic knowledge about: Assessment and Testing.

Pro

po

sed

Tasks Consciousness-raising tasks: Creation of a portfolio where the student shows what he/she has learnt and reflects upon his/her

own learning strategies and how he/she can keep on improving in the future. Reflective learning tasks: Diagram on his/her most important mistakes in an easy-to-read format that can be printed. This

diagram is to be used as a test to evaluate the student’s future TEFL assignments.

Pro

po

sed

assig

nm

ent

Diagnostic assessment: The tutor will check the two tasks and will give the student tips on how to keep improving.



71

Appendix II: Course Syllabus for Units 9 and 10





Aca

d.

Gra

mm

ar

Master Academic Grammar. Get familiar with some special features of academic grammar.

De

scriptio

n Describe a case/situation in an understandable and organised

way.

Characteristics of Academic descriptions. Steps to write and Academic descriptions. Develop your ideas further and deeper of show critical

thinking.

Exp

lana

tio

n

Explain a case/situation in an understandable and organised way.

Characteristics of Academic explanations. Steps to write and Academic explanations. Develop your ideas further and deeper of show critical

thinking.

Str

ate

gic

co

nte

nts

.






72

Ed

uca

tion

kn

ow

ledg

e

Basic knowledge about: Learning strategies.

Pro

po

sed

Tasks

Interpretation task: the student will be given access to access the aforementioned education knowledge content. Then, he/she will be given a “case” that he/she will have to describe and explain. The case can be about typical grammar problems in learners of English.

Pro

po

sed

assig

nm

ent

Summative assessment: all the subjects dealt with until now will be assessed by the tutor. as well as the aforementioned education knowledge content.





Arg

um

enta

tion


Characteristics of Academic argumentations. Steps to write and Academic argumentation. Develop your ideas further and deeper of show critical

thinking.


73

Aca

d.

Vo

cab

.

Master Academic Vocabulary. Academic vocabulary, related to didactics and/or language

teaching.

Str

ate

gic

co

nte

nts

.




Ed

uca

tion

kn

ow

ledg

e

Basic knowledge about: CALL.

Pro

po

sed

Tasks

Interpretation task: the student will be given information about a topic linked with education. Then, he/she will be given a controversial topic about it and he/she will have to argue. Using academic vocabulary will be obligatory.

Pro

po

sed

assig

nm

ent




74

Appendix III: Problem analysis on CM and SLA assignments




MASTER ACADEMIC GRAMMAR

Sentence

Structure

“Another problem with this view is that many of the errors made by L2 learners are not based on the L1. Instead, the

problems most often encountered by learners resemble errors made by children during the period of L1 acquisition.”

“She went to the library to buy a book. Grammar. Word order. The place should go in the end of the sentence.”

“When they do not consider English as another subject more.”

“Merrill swain worked in the most controversial area that is Applied Linguistics.”

…the context of learning is one of the most important reasons to help and make faster the process.”

Hedges and

Boosters

“Students listening are certainly a valid technique for presenting new material and it does get students used to hear how

the language sounds and to the correspondence orthography and pronunciation,”

“Obviously the teacher espoused theories should coincide with the class behaviourisms.”

“As a teacher we may have many reasons why we cannot have discipline in our classroom, but it might be our teaching

style.”


75

“Obviously, people know that a natural characteristic in researchers is to test their theories although those ones could be

criticized.”

Faulty

parallelism

“Most institutions spend a lot of money to reinforce formal education on virtual campus in order to guarantee the

improvement and avoiding fossilization of language by means of the feedback of results, pre and post tests, and

progress in learning.”

Impersonal

expressions (It’s

necessary, it’s

good, it’s bad )

in passive.

“It has been viewed that some errors learners make are based on rules of the L1; they are influenced by these rules as

opposed to coming to conclusions based on their cognitive abilities.”

“When the students understand the meaning it is emphasized and language becomes the vehicle for communicating

meaning and messages.”

Modal verbs “Many, if not all, schools will look to structure curricula according to the intelligences, and to design classrooms and even

whole schools to reflect the understandings that Howard Gardner develops.”

“It is a good activity, if the teacher leads and controls the debate but in our case we don´t use it in high school; do you

imagine forty five teenagers debating about something they are not interested in?”

“When we have this kind of students we can have many points to be considered.”

“I am not really sure of what would happen in the future with this approach but what I can say now is that teachers have to

learn how to recognize their students learning styles in order to help them to learn and achieve a good Class

Management.”


76

Wrong tense “It may be that the only use for learnt language is to help us monitor our spontaneous communication”

“In conclusion I believed that learning a second language is a complex process, especially if you are an adult.”

“Last year, I met Pablo, a 14 years old student who I considered was a tremendous disaster since the very beginning. He

is untidy, and his place in class is always surrounded by rubbish, books and files. You cannot avoid looking at him when

you enter in class. I made a big effort not to get mad at him in class…”

EXPLAIN A CASE/SITUATION IN AN UNDERSTANDABLE AND ORGANIZED WAY

Using definitions to explain concepts.

When explaining a concept, the writer seeks to

inform readers about a specific subject. Authors

need to present information efficiently and rely

almost exclusively on established information.

When defining concepts, writers also need to

support their definitions through making use of

expert sources of information. Moreover, the

information used to support explanations needs to

be properly cited and acknowledged.

“The monitor Hypothesis. Krashen refers to the ways used by learners to edit

linguistic forms produced by means of acquired knowledge. In this case the self

monitor could be nearly the same Swain’s metalinguistic function.”

“Second language acquisition is the process by which people learn languages in

addition to their native language(s). The term second language is used to describe

any language whose acquisition starts after early childhood.”

“The Natural Order Hypothesis, supports that language acquisition occurs in a

predictable, universal order, and it is the same for the learning both a L1 and a L2.

Studies have shown that different learners of English as a L2 make similar errors

regardless from which linguistic background they come. Some of these errors

resemble the errors most often made be children when learning their native

languages.”


77

When explaining the Natural Order Hypothesis this

writer mentions studies that have been made on the

matter, but supporting sources or authors to those

assumptions are not established. Not establishing

reliable sources lowers credibility to the writing.

“However, this belief has its criticisms. Very few of these studies have been done,

and only a few grammatical errors have actually been analyzed. Another problem is

that linguists in general have knowledge of very limited languages. With all the

different languages that exist in the world, only a small percentage has been, or

could be, thoroughly studied.”

Using comparison/contrast to explain concepts.

Even though the student who wrote the essay used

comparison and contrast to explain the theories,

there is lack of organization and understanding. The

conclusion is based in his/her own believes and it is

not coherent with the body of the essay, which

makes the paper difficult to understand and

consequently, difficult to believe.

“Just finishing my essay I am saying that both of them have played an important role

for the next researches including teachers. It is really fundamental to know how is a

second language learned or acquired. In my opinion children Acquire L1, L2, L3 in a

natural way as Krashen says because they start acquiring some words, phrases,

sentences even making a lot of form mistakes, they have high motivation, at the

same time they are correcting their mistakes just using the language and receiving a

lot of input, but in adults it is completely different. Our affective filter goes down and

we require doing mental processes becoming conscious our learning because we

analyze, contrast, L1 and L2. Swain’s theory is much more used with adults because

we need to be aware of the gap or lack of understanding and at the same time it

need to be tested by the interlocutor and after doing the reprocess and the self

reflextion the new linguistic knowledge is internalized as a linguistic data.”

Using examples to explain a concept

Examples make a concept easy to understand for

the reader. Examples can be also used to support

definitions or illustrate the subjects in which the

concept can be applied. Even though the writer

states “he is summarizing with clear examples”, we

“Krashen’s theory was one of the most comprehensive of second language

acquisition for the following reasons. He sustained 5 different hypothesis. I am

summarizing them with clear examples:

Second language acquisition is the process by which people learn languages in



78

can observe there is no use of examples or

scenarios in to make the concept clear.

Here, the writer does not explain the Monitor

Hypothesis in an understandable way. The concept

is not concrete. It is not easy for the reader to grasp.

any language whose acquisition starts after early childhood.”



monitor could be nearly the same Swain’s metalinguistic function.”

DESCRIBE A CASE/SITUATION IN AN UNDERSTANDABLE AND ORGANIZED WAY

Naming, detailing and using sensory description to

give readers an impression of a person or a place

are strategies to illustrate abstract ideas, to make

information memorable, or to support an argument.

In the example, the writer has the opportunity to

leave a dominant impression, a mood or an

atmosphere to reinforce his/her purpose by using

sensory description or setting a scenario in which

the reader can identify. The writer could also evoke

vivid memories of the process by which people in

his/her country acquire or learn the mother tongue.

On the contrary, his/her statements seem not to

have a purpose and are not organized, obtaining as

a result, confusion to the reader.

“From my point of view, when somebody picks language in the environment where

he/she is living, is a way of surviving, because they try to make themselves

understood and it becomes the first way of exposure of language without

considering grammar details. This is the way how infants learn too; That is the

reason why many people consider that the best age to learn English is when you

are a child, I think that it can be, but only if an infant is sorrunded by the English

environment, it means that the child has to listen to his/her parents speaking English

all the time too and his/her parents have to build this environment with English,

using TV series, reading, music, toys, etc. And this is the way how we learn our first

or native language though.”



79



ARGUE CONSISTENTLY

Coherence and Cohesion

When drafting, the writer needs to smoothly move

back and forth between arguments and

counterarguments. There are sentence strategies to

help him/her do so. In that way, writers show

cohesion among the paragraphs and arguments.

One of those sentence strategies in which you use

conjunctions to signal logical relationships is the

concession-refutation move (also called “yes-but”

strategy), but there is no evident use of it.

In addition, the beginning needs to be engaging and

the end must be decisive, memorable or at least,

suggest an alternative. Design features and visuals

(heading, tables, illustrations, etc.) also might help

the writer make a cohesive essay.

Note of the author: I believe most, if not all, of the essays given by Elena and Eugene

are evidence of lack of coherence and cohesion. In order to make an essay coherent,

writers have to draft and evaluate the reasons and supports given, as well as, review

whether the opposing positions and likely objections have been well handled.

Unfortunately, writers seem to ignore the steps to write an essay, obtaining therefore,

incoherent paragraphs and poor cohesion among them.

CONVINCE THE READER


80

Presentation of the issue

The titles proposed by these writers are not explicit

in relation to the content of the essay.

“Ability to Learn a Second Language”

“The miracle of language”

“The Two Main Models in Second Language Acquisition”

Stating a position

When writing an argumentative essay, the writer

needs to state a clear position and to do it so; he

must elaborate a main thesis. The main thesis is

usually presented in the first two paragraphs of the

essay.

The first main thesis was in a conclusion paragraph,

after two paragraphs telling an anecdote. In the

second example, the main thesis is given at the end

of the article by the same author. It is not clear and

as it was presented at the end, it has no proper

development. The third thesis is vague.

In the last example, the author assumes that the

reader knows what the main topic is and the main

thesis does not establish the issue.

“…teachers have to learn how to recognize their students learning styles in order to

help them to learn and achieve a good Class Management.”

“For several years foreign language teachers have been engaged in the

investigation of acquisition of language. Becoming bilingual is a way of life no one

can tell you how to learn a foreign language without really trying. The learning of a

second language is a complex process, involving an infinite numbers of variables

such as age, context, motivation, abilities etc.”

“Having done research on these two definitely different theoretical and applied

constructs of Second Language Acquisition, all I, a teacher with certain classroom

experience, can say is that there is some truth in both sides, Swain’s and Krashen’s

takes on SLA.”

“Considering the two versions, we can see that both of them focus on producing

language, and since the concept of Language acquisition has to do with the process

by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive, produce and use words to

understand and communicate, both of them have the same approach.”


81

Using plausible reasons

When arguing a position writers need to use

plausible reasons to support their ideas. The

reasons cannot be merely asserted and

consequently, writers must support them with

examples, statistics, research, authorities on the

issue, or anecdotes.

This essay is based on the writer’s believes and it is

not supported by any authority on the issue.

In this essay the author presents and supports the

topic (Multiple Intelligences) by writing an anecdote

in which he/she discovered the existence of them.

The anecdote is too extensive and does not lead to

a main support of the thesis idea. Some parts of the

anecdote are irrelevant.

Even though the writer mentions the author, he does

“As teacher there are lots of elements you need to take into account when we

become a teacher. To be a teacher you need to have discipline, this is essential in

classroom management. We cannot teach our students if we are not in control.

People all over the world needs to learn that it does not matters what can a job you

may have, it’s important to know you need to have discipline.”

“As a teacher we may have many reasons why we cannot have discipline in our

classroom, but it might be our teaching style. If we aren’t reaching out to our

students, it’s because they are bored, disinterested and with no kind of energy to

learn the language. Another thing that is very important is instruction, in the class

every students have a different ways of learning and understanding instruction,

some may need more than one time explanation, when others just with one is

sufficient. If we are reaching these students by using a variety of methods, they are

motivated and less likely to cause trouble.

Therefore we must set rules with students from the first day of class, so that as

teacher and students together look for the same aim, that is the teacher teach the

L2 and the students acquire the language taught.”

“Last year, I met Pablo, a 14 years old student who I considered was a tremendous

disaster since the very beginning. He is untidy, and his place in class is always

surrounded by rubbish, books and files. You cannot avoid looking at him when you

enter in class. I made a big effort not to get mad at him in class, as he never brought

the notebook, nor the book or a piece of paper where to take notes. However he

was always in class. The first exam came, and Pablo got the best score in the class.

I was astonished. After that I decided to investigate a little more about him and


82

not establish the source from which the statements

were taken. (Books, magazines, articles,

websites…)

Not concluding anecdote

Not concluding example

Not a credible source cited. Moreover, the author

actually mentions not to know or not being sure of

what he/she believes, which lowers the writer’s

credibility.

found out that Pablo is member of the National Gymnastics Team. There I

understood that Multiple Intelligences existed and that Pablo would not change

much.

Maybe I could help him in organizing his place in the class, but my strategies were

the ones that should fulfill the expectations of Pablo as he had a different learning

style. In that way a got aware of other students and the effort we all together should

make (students and teacher) to achieve the learning objectives set.”

“Krashen claimed that language which we acquire subconsciously especially when it

is anxiety free is language we can easily use in spontaneous conversation because

it is instantly available when we need it. On the other hand, language that is

“learned” is not available for spontaneous use. It may be that the only use for learnt

language is to help us monitor our spontaneous communication, but then the more

we monitor what we are saying, the less spontaneous we become.”

Moreover, Krashen believes that successful acquisition will take place if the

comprehensible input the learner is exposed to is a little beyond the current level of

his competence (i+1 level). It means that the most useful thing we could do with

students would be to expose them to large amounts of comprehensible input in a

relaxed setting.”

“According to my experience I can say that since the first day when I taught English

for the first time (14 years ago) when I was 18 at a grammar school. The most

important thing is to create the need in your students in order them to feel attracted


83

to the language.”

“When they do not consider English as another subject more. You can do what the

author says. Believe it or not, I have been able to use all of the author’s suggestions

in a minimum percentage, and this is because the students don’t feel comfortable to

show their language so sometimes, it is better not to mix them, even though they

belong to the same course because they need a same level to explore and develop

what they are learning.

“Nowadays no matter what the teacher plans to do if there’s not the cooperation of

the students, as students of this masters course we read a lot of theory but let tell

you that English styles of learning change constantly and

we should be up dated instead of applying “theory”, I don’t know but that’s what I

thing as a high school teacher I am , but at college everything changes, because

their need has to do mainly with the obligation of passing 8 levels or getting a

sufficiency diploma and also taking into consideration that they will need this

important language as a part of their life.”

Counterargument

To enhance credibility on the arguments and

supporting ideas, the writer must anticipate

objections. Then, the writer can counterargue by

acknowledging the opposing position and

“In fact, not all linguists believe in the innate capacities to learn a second language

as the most important characteristics. Some researchers place greater emphasis on

the influence of usage and experience in language acquisition. They argue that

context play an important role in language acquisition by speaking to children—often

in a slow, grammatical and repetitious way. In turn, children discern patterns in the

language and experiment with speech gradually—uttering single words at first and


84

accommodate or refute it.

The two examples take into account opposing

positions to their thesis, but do not refer to serious

sources to support their counterargument.

eventually stringing them together to construct abstract expressions. At first glance,

this may seem reminiscent of how language is traditionally taught in classrooms. But

most scientists think children and adults learn language differently.”

It has been argued that interaction does not contribute to language acquisition. In

addition, there is evidence that from reading and listening you can promote

language development; the results of Ellis confirm that acquisition is possible

without actually participating in the interaction.”

MASTER ACADEMIC VOCABULARY

In general, there is a lack of knowledge of academic

vocabulary including precise words (verbs,

adjectives, and adverbs) and phrases to be used

when writing an essay or any academic document.

The vocabulary used is not appropriate to the

requirements of an academic document.

Writers usually make use of words they normally

pronoun when speaking. The use of cultural

everyday expressions is also evident.

This topic is relatively new and it is pity that teachers do not take it into account, The

theory of multiple intelligences was proposed by Howard Gardner in 1983 to analyse

and better describe the concept of intelligence.

Many, if not all, schools will look to structure curricula according to the intelligences,

and to design classrooms and even whole schools to reflect the understandings that

Howard Gardner develops. The theory will also be found in use within pre-school,

higher, vocational and adult education initiatives.

When we have this kind of students we can have many points to be considered.

Let me tell you that we have a lot of colloquial phrases which are freely shown in

movies, and this can be very difficult for learners.


85

Then, how about output?

The motivation is another main point due to students that never receive feedback,

prefer not to talk anymore and this could delay or in many other cases stop the

process of fluency development.

Kristen regards output as a result of acquisition and not its cause.

The Behaviorist Theory, believe that learning a foreign language consists of learners

imitating what they hear and develop habits in the foreign language by repeated

practice.

Student’s independence to use the language freely according to what he or she

thinks is ok.

Well, I really agree in most of what she says about Mixed-ability groups just

because it is a real thing.

I am not really sure of what would happen in the future with this approach but what I

can say now is that teachers have to learn how to recognize their students learning

styles in order to help them to learn and achieve a good Class Management.

It can result a good activity oriented by the teacher. 7. It could be a good exercise

to summarise the class.

I have my doubts about the input students receive (that is language they are

exposed to) will be the same as their intake (that is the language they actually


86

absorb). I believe students would take only some of what they are exposed to. That

is why they always need formal teaching to assimilate things at last more deeply.

“Motivation is the basis of everything”, and teachers must feed themselves from the

students mistakes and become stronger to encourage them everyday.

Let’s see this: a sentence is very complex.


87

Appendix IV: Problem analysis from Spanish and Portuguese-speaking students




MASTER ACADEMIC GRAMMAR

Sentence Structure:

This is one of the most common problems when

learning English in a foreign country. Spanish

speakers usually write the same way they do it in

their native language. In Spanish for example, the

order of the adverbs, is not so calculated or do not

depend on grammatical formulations.

“ the problems most often encountered “

“ another subject more”.

“ the most controversial area that is Applied Linguistics”.

“ make faster the process”.

“Another thing that is very important is instruction”

The use of the article the, auxiliary verbs and

prepositions is also a problem when learning any

L2.

“Teacher acts as monitor”.

“The motivation is another main point”

“Students can choose with which part they want to start working with”

“In your students in order them to feel attracted”


88

Verb-subject agreement “According to Swain, the learner notice what he knows, then tests a hypothesis and

receives feedback, this allow him to know what he learn and the output let him to control

linguistic knowledge. This theory is focus in what the learner needs, because it forces the

learner to find what he need in order to communicate with others and be understood”.

False friends use: In this specific case, the writer

does not recognize the mistake in the sentence.

This is an example of false friends use.

“She went to the library to buy a book. Grammar. Word order. The place should go in the

end of the sentence”.

Sentence Length: Latin Americans usually write a

lot of words to express one idea. Notice in the

example how one sentence is written in 47 words,

with no punctuation

“I am not really sure of what would happen in the future with this approach but what I can

say now is that teachers have to learn how to recognize their students learning styles in

order to help them to learn and achieve a good Class Management.”

EXPLAIN A CASE/SITUATION IN AN UNDERSTANDABLE AND ORGANIZED WAY


89

Using definitions to explain concepts.

In general, Spanish and Portuguese speakers use

more than the necessary words and expressions to

explain a concept. Most of the times, the

explanations are not supportive with convincing

reasons or reliable sources.

Authors need to present information efficiently and

rely almost exclusively on established information.

Moreover, the information used to support

explanations needs to be properly cited and

acknowledged.



monitor could be nearly the same Swain’s metalinguistic function”.

“The Natural Order Hypothesis, supports that language acquisition occurs in a

predictable, universal order, and it is the same for the learning both a L1 and a L2.

Studies have shown that different learners of English as a L2 make similar errors

regardless from which linguistic background they come. Some of these errors

resemble the errors most often made be children when learning their native

languages.”

Not establishing reliable sources gives low

credibility to what it is mentioned.

“However, this belief has its criticisms. Very few of these studies have been done, and

only a few grammatical errors have actually been analyzed. Another problem is that

linguists in general have knowledge of very limited languages. With all the different

languages that exist in the world, only a small percentage has been, or could be,

thoroughly studied”.


90

Using comparison/contrast to explain concepts.

Even though the student who wrote the essay used

comparison and contrast to explain the theories,

there is lack of organization and understanding.

The conclusion is based in his/her own believes

and it is not coherent with the body of the essay,

which makes the paper difficult to understand and

consequently, difficult to believe.

“Just finishing my essay I am saying that both of them have played an important role

for the next researches including teachers. It is really fundamental to know how is a

second language learned or acquired. In my opinion children Acquire L1, L2, L3 in a

natural way as Krashen says because they start acquiring some words, phrases,

sentences even making a lot of form mistakes, they have high motivation, at the same

time they are correcting their mistakes just using the language and receiving a lot of

input, but in adults it is completely different. Our affective filter goes down and we

require doing mental processes becoming conscious our learning because we

analyze, contrast, L1 and L2. Swain’s theory is much more used with adults because

we need to be aware of the gap or lack of understanding and at the same time it need

to be tested by the interlocutor and after doing the reprocess and the self reflextion

the new linguistic knowledge is internalized as a linguistic data”.

Using examples to explain a concept

Examples should be concrete. They support

definitions or illustrate a concept. If not clear or

concrete, examples may not be easy for the reader

to grasp.

“Krashen’s theory was one of the most comprehensive of second language acquisition for

the following reasons. He sustained 5 different hypothesis. I am summarizing them with

clear examples…

Second language acquisition is the process by which people learn languages in


any language whose acquisition starts after early childhood.

The monitor Hypothesis. Krashen refers to the ways used by learners to edit linguistic

forms produced by means of acquired knowledge. In this case the self monitor could

be nearly the same Swain’s metalinguistic function.”


91

DESCRIBE A CASE/SITUATION IN AN UNDERSTANDABLE AND ORGANIZED WAY

Once more, the statements on this writing does not

seem to have a purpose, obtaining as a result,

confusion to the reader.



understood and it becomes the first way of exposure of language without considering

grammar details. This is the way how infants learn too; That is the reason why many

people consider that the best age to learn English is when you are a child, I think that

it can be, but only if an infant is sorrunded by the English environment, it means that

the child has to listen to his/her parents speaking English all the time too and his/her

parents have to build this environment with English, using TV series, reading, music,

toys, etc. And this is the way how we learn our first or native language though.”




ARGUE CONSISTENTLY

Coherence and Cohesion

In general, most writings provided by Elena Caixal

and Eugenia Falabella present lack of connectives

and linking phrases.

“For Krashen the acquisition of the language is a subconscious process, the acquisition

occurs as a result of participating in natural and meaningful communication and following

the grammatical structure of the second language. Learners edit their language

performance by means of an internal monitor which uses learned knowledge to do so

(Krashen 1981, 1982, 1985) When a learner receives comprehensible input, which is a


92

little beyond of his competence level, acquisition will take place. Krashen, stated that:

Research done over the last three decades has shown that we acquire language by

understanding what we hear and read. The ability to produce language is the result of

language acquisition, not the cause.

Krashen does not agree with the output theory, for him it is not easy that a learner could

notice what he does not know and make hypothesis to modify his output. He says that

providing comprehensible spoken or writing input is necessary for learning a new

language.

The language acquisition is a subconscious process and requires meaningful interaction

in the new language; this process is similar to the process to acquire the first language.

When we acquire the first language means that we learn the structure of the language

and learning the structure of a second language depends of the differences between the

first and the new language. Some features of the mother tongue are more difficult to learn

(Lado provide a comprehensible theoretical treatment and to suggest a systematic set of

technical procedures for the contrastive study of language)”


93

CONVINCE THE READER

Ability to convince a reader is given when the

writer states a position in the thesis. There is low

credibility on the thesis when vague ideas are

used.

“…teachers have to learn how to recognize their students learning styles in order to

help them to learn and achieve a good Class Management.”

“The point is that the number of students with specific needs is increasing making

them part of the normality so there would not be segregation of low-track students

and there will appear other kind of segregation.”

“The learning of a second language is a complex process, involving an infinite

numbers of variables such as age, context, motivation, abilities etc.”

“Having done research on these two definitely different theoretical and applied

constructs of Second Language Acquisition, all I, a teacher with certain classroom

experience, can say is that there is some truth in both sides, Swain’s and Krashen’s

takes on SLA.”

“Considering the two versions, we can see that both of them focus on producing

language, and since the concept of Language acquisition has to do with the process

by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive, produce and use words to

understand and communicate, both of them have the same approach.”

Using plausible reasons

This essay is based on the writer’s believes and it

is not supported by any authority on the issue.

In this essay the author presents and supports the

topic (Multiple Intelligences) by writing an anecdote

in which he/she discovered the existence of them.

The anecdote is too extensive and does not lead to

As teacher there are lots of elements you need to take into account when we become

a teacher. To be a teacher you need to have discipline, this is essential in classroom

management. We cannot teach our students if we are not in control. People all over

the world needs to learn that it does not matters what can a job you may have, it’s

important to know you need to have discipline.

As a teacher we may have many reasons why we cannot have discipline in our

classroom, but it might be our teaching style. If we aren’t reaching out to our students,

it’s because they are bored, disinterested and with no kind of energy to learn the


94

a main support of the thesis idea. Some parts of

the anecdote are irrelevant.

Even though the writer mentions the author, he

does not establish the source from which the

statements were taken. (Books, magazines,

articles, websites…)

Not concluding anecdote

Not concluding example

language. Another thing that is very important is instruction, in the class every

students have a different ways of learning and understanding instruction, some may

need more than one time explanation, when others just with one is sufficient. If we are

reaching these students by using a variety of methods, they are motivated and less

likely to cause trouble.

Therefore we must set rules with students from the first day of class, so that as

teacher and students together look for the same aim, that is the teacher teach the L2

and the students acquire the language taught.

Last year, I met Pablo, a 14 years old student who I considered was a tremendous

disaster since the very beginning. He is untidy, and his place in class is always

surrounded by rubbish, books and files. You cannot avoid looking at him when you enter

in class. I made a big effort not to get mad at him in class, as he never brought the

notebook, nor the book or a piece of paper where to take notes. However he was always

in class. The first exam came, and Pablo got the best score in the class. I was

astonished. After that I decided to investigate a little more about him and found out that

Pablo is member of the National Gymnastics Team. There I understood that Multiple

Intelligences existed and that Pablo would not change much.

Maybe I could help him in organizing his place in the class, but my strategies were the

ones that should fulfill the expectations of Pablo as he had a different learning style. In

that way a got aware of other students and the effort we all together should make

(students and teacher) to achieve the learning objectives set.


95

Not a credible source cited. Moreover, the author

actually mentions not to know or not being sure of

what he/she believes, which lowers the writer’s

credibility.

Krashen claimed that language which we acquire subconsciously especially when it is

anxiety free is language we can easily use in spontaneous conversation because it is

instantly available when we need it. On the other hand, language that is “learned” is

not available for spontaneous use. It may be that the only use for learnt language is to

help us monitor our spontaneous communication, but then the more we monitor what

we are saying, the less spontaneous we become.

Moreover, Krashen believes that successful acquisition will take place if the

comprehensible input the learner is exposed to is a little beyond the current level of

his competence (i+1 level).

It means that the most useful thing we could do with students would be to expose

them to large amounts of comprehensible input in a relaxed setting.

According to my experience I can say that since the first day when I taught English for

the first time (14 years ago) when I was 18 at a grammar school. The most important

thing is to create the need in your students in order them to feel attracted to the

language.

When they do not consider English as another subject more. You can do what the

author says. Believe it or not, I have been able to use all of the author’s suggestions

in a minimum percentage, and this is because the students don’t feel comfortable to

show their language so sometimes, it is better not to mix them, even though they


96

belong to the same course because they need a same level to explore and develop

what they are learning.

Nowadays no matter what the teacher plans to do if there’s not the cooperation of the

students, as students of this masters course we read a lot of theory but let tell you

that English styles of learning change constantly and

we should be up dated instead of applying “theory”, I don’t know but that’s what I

thing as a high school teacher I am , but at college everything changes, because their

need has to do mainly with the obligation of passing 8 levels or getting a sufficiency

diploma and also taking into consideration that they will need this important language

as a part of their life.

Counterargument

The two examples take into account opposing

positions to their thesis, but do not refer to serious

sources to support their counterargument.

In fact, not all linguists believe in the innate capacities to learn a second language as

the most important characteristics. Some researchers place greater emphasis on the

influence of usage and experience in language acquisition. They argue that context

play an important role in language acquisition by speaking to children—often in a

slow, grammatical and repetitious way. In turn, children discern patterns in the

language and experiment with speech gradually—uttering single words at first and

eventually stringing them together to construct abstract expressions. At first glance,

this may seem reminiscent of how language is traditionally taught in classrooms. But

most scientists think children and adults learn language differently.

It has been argued that interaction does not contribute to language acquisition. In


97

addition, there is evidence that from reading and listening you can promote language

development; the results of Ellis confirm that acquisition is possible without actually

participating in the interaction.

MASTER ACADEMIC VOCABULARY

In general, there is a lack of knowledge of

academic vocabulary including precise words

(verbs, adjectives, and adverbs) and phrases to be

used when writing an essay or any academic

document.

The vocabulary used is not appropriate to the

requirements of an academic document.

Writers usually make use of words they normally

pronoun when speaking. The use of cultural

everyday expressions is also evident.

This topic is relatively new and it is pity that teachers do not take it into account, The

theory of multiple intelligences was proposed by Howard Gardner in 1983 to analyse

and better describe the concept of intelligence.

Many, if not all, schools will look to structure curricula according to the intelligences,

and to design classrooms and even whole schools to reflect the understandings that

Howard Gardner develops. The theory will also be found in use within pre-school,

higher, vocational and adult education initiatives.

When we have this kind of students we can have many points to be considered.

Let me tell you that we have a lot of colloquial phrases which are freely shown in

movies, and this can be very difficult for learners.

Then, how about output?

The motivation is another main point due to students that never receive feedback,

prefer not to talk anymore and this could delay or in many other cases stop the

process of fluency development.


98

Kristen regards output as a result of acquisition and not its cause.

The Behaviorist Theory, believe that learning a foreign language consists of learners

imitating what they hear and develop habits in the foreign language by repeated

practice.

Student’s independence to use the language freely according to what he or she thinks

is ok.

Well, I really agree in most of what she says about Mixed-ability groups just because

it is a real thing.


99

Appendix V: Contents Unit 9




Ob

jecti

ve

s

Master Academic Grammar

Describe a case/situation in an understandable and organized way.

Explain a case/situation in an understandable and organized way.


100

Co

nte

nts

Cover

Learn to learn (Strategic contents

Objectives:

• To understand descriptions and explanations as staples texts of the academic discourse,

• To activate student’s prior knowledge and experience on the matter and assist them to set their goals for this unit.

Content

• Text: Appreciating descriptive and explanatory academic texts. By María Fernanda Jaime. This text will introduce the main topics of the unit which are description and explanation. It will highlight the importance of these two types of texts in academic writing, its concepts and characteristics, which are going to be further developed in the section Communication, genres.

Skills

• Identify the purpose and scope of the unit. Activities

• Students will activate their previous knowledge on the topic, and will set goals by using the first two columns of a K-W-L-H Chart. (Student’s Prior Knowledge, What Students Want to Find Out, What Students Learned, and How Students Learned.)

K W L H

Students´ prior

knowledge

What students want to

find out

What

students

learned

How students

learned

• Students will be introduced to the main topics of the unit: describing and explaining. The cover text will make reference to the importance of these two types of writings. Objectives and strategic contents to be treated along the unit will be also introduced.


101

Language in context Learn to learn (Strategic contents)

Objective:

• To acquaint students with their own learning strategies when reading, and assist them to broaden and diversify their possible study methods.

Content

• Questionnaire: This is a group interview guide in which they identify their own and other’s reading and writing strategies by answering questions like: What do you do to get ready for reading/writing?, What do you do to make sure you are reading/writing correctly?, etc.

Skills

• Cooperate: Work with others to complete tasks, build confidence, and give and receive feedback.

Activities

• Students will identify and evaluate the efficacy of their reading and writing strategies by answering to the questionnaire at the forum.

• Students will read their partners answers, and suggest ways to improve and enhance their study methods possibilities.

• The teacher will give feedback to students at the forum.


102

Education Knowledge

Objective:

• To develop reading strategies (reviewing and skimming) to critical understanding a text.

Content:

• Descriptive Text: ‘Coach Students to use strategies when given frequent cues and feedback’.

Source: The Learning Strategies Handbook by Chamot et al. (1999, p.102) This is a four-paragraph descriptive text in which the author suggests teachers a variety of techniques to make students aware of their own learning strategies. They will review concepts like feedback, and learning strategy. Skills

• Reviewing and Skimming

• Reading comprehension Activities

• Students will read ‘Coach Students to use strategies when given frequent cues and feedback’.

• Students will use reviewing and skimming to answer some comprehension questions on the text.


103

Grammar

Objective:

• Examine texts globally and on sentence level using what students have learned throughout the course.

• Introduce the concepts of register, nominalization, referencing, and modality. Content • Descriptive and Explanatory Texts: Students will be introduced to the topics Register, nominalization, referencing, and modality to write academic texts appropriately. Skills • Academic language accuracy

Text analysis

Cooperative work Activities

• Students will read the content texts and develop series of exercises for each one of the concepts introduced. Exercises will include gap-filling, identifying the use of grammar in context, and correcting texts.

• Students will be given texts from their classmates and they will correct grammar mistakes, taking into account the content learned in units 4, and the concepts of register, nominalization, referencing, and modality.

• Students will write a feedback to their partners. They will describe and explain how these problems affect motivation and academic language learning, and what learning strategies can help students to overcome those issues.

• Texts must be sent to the tutor via e-mail for correction and feedback. Optionally, students can work through Google Docs tool.


104

Genres

Objective:

• Introduce the concepts of describing and explaining.

• Recognize and use descriptive and explanatory basic strategies to write short paragraphs.

Content Students will read about the basic strategies to write short paragraphs in academic texts like descriptions and explanations. The students will be introduced and explained the next basic strategies for descriptions and explanations:

Naming, Detailing, and Comparing.

Defining, Classifying, Contrasting, Reporting causes and effects, and Process narrating.

Skills

Reading comprehension

Text analysis

Academic Writing

Cooperative work

Activities

• Students will read the content texts. They will be introduced the main topics of the unit: Describing and Explaining.

• By reading different descriptive and explanatory texts on learning strategies, students will be lead through the analysis of the mentioned basic strategies to explanatory and descriptive writing in context.

• Students will use the basic strategies to write a description and explanation on given topics on learning strategies.

• Texts must be sent to the tutor via e-mail for correction and feedback.


105

Knowledge Bank Grammar

Objective

• Enhance knowledge on academic grammar Content

• Precise verbs to introduce sources and authors.

• Adjective clauses

• Discourse markers. Skills

• Academic language accuracy

• Web search Activities

• If required, students will search on the web for content related to precise verbs to introduce sources and authors, Adjective clauses, and Discourse markers. Bibliography and websites will be given by the tutor.


106

Genres

Objective • Enhance knowledge on descriptive and explanatory essays. Content • Academic essay writing Essay concept Types of academic essays Descriptive and argumentative essays Skills • Academic language accuracy • Web search Activities • If required, students will search on the web for content related academic essay writing on http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/685/01

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/685/01


107

Check your knowledge

Learn to learn (Strategic contents) / Aprender a aprender

Objetive

• Assess education knowledge, grammar, and genre conceptual knowledge. Content

• Given K-W-L-H Chart.

Skills

• Think critically about what they have learned. Activities

• Students will complete the 2 columns of the given K-W-L-H Chart given at the beginning of the unit. In the L chart students will write a short explanation of the main concepts they learned on learning strategies, register, nominalization, referencing, and modality, and descriptions and explanations as academic texts.

• In the H chart students will write a short description of how they learned the main contents of the unit, including the learning strategies they came across during the learning process.


108

Communication Genres

Objective Write an essay on a given topic related to ‘learning strategies’. Content:

For describing: Naming, Detailing, and Comparing.

For explaining: Defining, Classifying, Contrasting, Reporting causes and effects, and Process narrating.

Skills:

Describing and explaining

Organize, Structure ideas, and transfer knowledge

Language accuracy, appropriacy and cohesion

Cooperate with partners Activities

• Essay writing. Students will choose a topic from a list given by the tutor and write a two-page essay. The text must include descriptive and explanatory paragraphs in which students will make use of the academic grammar and precise vocabulary learnt during the unit. The document must be sent to the tutor in order to assess the product and provide feedback.


109

Additional readings Learn to learn (Strategic contents)

Objective

Enhance and consolidate knowledge on strategic contents. Content:

Readings: Brain-Based Learning Strategies: Get Students’ Attention With a Radish Second language acquisition - essential information Skills:

Autonomous learning.

Follow instructions.

Anticipating.

Mapping ideas. Activities

Students will be presented three additional readings. The first one will be simple instructions to be followed in which students will show understanding low-level complexity texts. The second one will be an extract of a reading in which students will anticipate the content based on the introductory paragraphs of the article. In this activity students will show average –level complexity text understanding. In the last reading, students will have to summarize the text by using mapping as a reading strategy for high – level complexity texts understanding.

Autonomous work will be expected once they have completed the unit activities. Additional readings will help students consolidate and enhance their knowledge on the strategic contents of the unit.

education knowledge: http://www.teachhub.com/brain-based-learning-strategies-get-students-attention-radish

academic grammar: http://esl.fis.edu/teachers/support/cummin.htm

http://www.teachhub.com/brain-based-learning-strategies-get-students-attention-radish

http://www.teachhub.com/brain-based-learning-strategies-get-students-attention-radish

http://esl.fis.edu/teachers/support/cummin.htm


110

Functions

Reading for activating TEFL knowledge and practicing key reading strategies on reading comprehension.

Additional excercices

Learn to learn

Objective

Enhance and consolidate knowledge on Academic Grammar Content: Exercises on: Quotations, Precise vocabulary, and Consistency

Skills:

Autonomous learning. Activities:

Students will develop four different self-assessment tasks with different complexity levels (low, average, high).

In the first two exercises students will punctuate quotations and choose the correct sentence from a three-choice pattern.

In the second exercise, students will organize the contrastive essay outline according to the linking devices found at the beginning of each sentence.

In the third exercise, students will decide whether the highlighted words in an argumentative essay are correct or not. They will also propose a correct answer if they find mistakes.


111

Se

qu

en

ce &

tim

ing

Day 1: (Friday) Cover Reading and activities. 1 hour. Day 2: Language in context activities (learning to learn). 1 hour. Day 3: Language in context activities (education knowledge). 1 hour. Day 4: Language in context activities (grammar). 1 hour. Day 5: Language in context activities (genre). 1 hour. Day 6: Knowledge Bank. (Grammar and Genre). 1 hour. Day 7: Communication: Genre. 2 hours.

Tea

ch

er’

s b

oo

k

Previous observations

Tutors ought to take into account that the aims of this unit are related to expose students to contents and tasks related to master academic grammar, describe a case/situation in an understandable and organized way, and explain a case/situation in an understandable and organized way. Therefore, the activities proposed for an online environment and the platform Moodle have a tendency to promote collaborative and autonomous learning. Among the proposed activities there are different pedagogical readings to introduce the learners in the topics of learning strategies, descriptions and explanations. Advanced academic grammar is also introduced through different individual and cooperative tasks which might help the students overcome those problems detected during the analysis of actual TEFL students’ written assignments. Tutors may also find some students who find it difficult to catch up with others due to the variety of learning styles and learning paces. This is the main reason for the creation and design of some extra activities and exercises. The tutor can use them wisely to help students to succeed in their academic assignments and stimulate autonomous learning.


112

Before starting

Unit 9 deals with providing students opportunities to develop their writing skills when writing descriptions and explanation using academic grammar. The time provided is 10 hours to be distributed in a week. Several tools are also provided for the students to complete the activities. The principal mean of communication will be the forum on which tutors will publish clear instructions to guide students in the process of achieving the goals of the unit. In this section of the teacher’s book, the tutor will find the instructions to be published on the forum from Friday to Thursday, as well as the instructions to complete the tasks and the self-evaluated tasks, and the guidelines for students to search information on the net. Students’ participation is expected. Tutor’s feedback is also crucial to maintain students’ motivation high.

Assessment

Assessment will be carried out in different ways. One of the objectives of this unit is to assess education, grammar and genre conceptual knowledge. Many of the activities in unit 9 encourage collaborative learning, thus individual and pair work is expected. Summative assessment will be also practiced since this unit embraces knowledge they have acquired through the unit contents and over previous units. Co-assessment will also permit students to help each other through tools such Google docs and the forum. Formative assessment and self-assessment will be also implemented to check students’ learning and detect possible problems and their causes.

Additional tasks

Additional readings and exercises will be used wisely by the teacher to help those students who might have problems when understanding or performing any of the unit contents. Low-track students may find it necessary to go further and read more material or do more exercises on the topic they are learning. All the same, these activities will be helpful for those students who are used to go further and like to find more information on what they are learning. Tutors should encourage students to use this material (if necessary).


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Appendix VI: Contents Unit 10




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Cover / Portadilla

Learn to learn (Strategic contents)

Objective: • To understand argumentations as an essential text of the academic discourse. • To activate student’s prior knowledge and experience on the matter and assist them to set their goals for this unit. Content • Text: The argumentative text. Concepts and characteristics. By María Fernanda Jaime. This text will introduce the main topic of the unit which is the argumentation and how to argue a reasoned argument and its importance in the academic life. This topic will be further explained and practiced in the section Communication and Genres. Skills • Identify the purpose and scope of the unit. Activities • Students will activate their previous knowledge on the topic, and will anticipate the unit content by answering a list of 5 questions given by the tutor. • Students will be introduced to the main topic of the unit: Argumentation. The cover text will make reference to the importance of this type of academic text. Objectives and strategic contents to be treated along the unit will be also introduced.


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Language in context Learn to learn (Strategic contents)

Objective: • To acquaint students with their own learning strategies when they remember what they have learnt. Content • Reflective Graph. Students will calculate the amount of information they remember from a lesson by drawing a curved line in the graph “How much of a lesson do you remember?” Adapted from Tony Buzan (1995) Use your Head, 4th ed, BBCC Books, London, P. 65. The graph is made of 1 vertical and 1 horizontal line where they draw how much they remember of a lesson (From 0% to 100% in the vertical line) according to the time that has passed after the lesson (from 10 minutes to 1 month in the horizontal line). Skills • Cooperate: Work with others to complete tasks, build confidence, and give and receive feedback. Activities • Students will identify and evaluate the efficacy of their memory when remembering what they have learnt by drawing a curved line on a graph. Under the graph they will explain enumerate the top 5 strategies they use to remember their lessons. The graph and strategies will be uploaded to the forum. • Students will compare their graphs with the ones drawn by their partners, and suggest ways to improve and/ or overcome the problem of forgetting what was learnt. • The teacher will give feedback to students at the forum.


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Education Knowledge

Objective: • To evaluate reading comprehension skills and to make a diagram as a study strategy. Content: • Argumentative text ‘Does the Internet Encourage Youth to Steal? Are they Cheaters?’ by Taspcopt, J. (2009). This is a six-paragraph argumentative text in which the author suggests teaching youth about plagiarism and its consequences as a new method to prevent cheating. Skills • Reading comprehension • Making a diagram to organize information Activities • Students will read ‘Does the Internet Encourage Youth to Steal? Are they Cheaters?’ • Students will answer some comprehension questions on the text.

Students will draw a diagram with the thesis and supporting arguments of the text. They will upload their diagrams to a google.doc document to be reviewed by the tutor.

The tutor will provide feedback.


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Vocabulary

Objective: • To recognize and use academic vocabulary to write academic texts. Content: • Academic vocabulary Precise verbs Linking words and phrases Skills • Reading comprehension • Vocabulary expansion exercises Activities • Students will read the Academic Word List (AWL) compiled by Averil Coxhead in 1998, which will be provided by the tutor. • Students will do cloze exercises to put into practice the academic vocabulary given.

The teacher will correct the exercises on his/her mail.


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Genres

Objective: • To analyze and recognize the structure of an argumentative text. Content: • Academic argumentations: • State a thesis • Cohesive devices • Connectives • Headings and subheadings Skills • Reading comprehension • Vocabulary expansion exercises Activities • Students will read selected sections from the Chapter 6 “Arguing a position” on the book St. Martin’s guide to writing. (p. 265-293). • Students will do exercises to recognize theses, cohesive devises and connectives in the argumentative text given in chapter 6. • Students will answer to reflective questions which will lead them to reflect upon the main characteristics of an argumentative text. The answers will be sent to the teacher by e-mail.


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Knowledge Bank Vocabulary

Objective • Enhance knowledge on academic vocabulary Content • Precise verbs • Discourse markers. Skills • Academic language accuracy • Web search Activities • If required, students will search on the web for content related to academic precise verbsand discourse markers. Bibliography and websites will be given by the tutor.


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Genres

Objective • Enhance knowledge on argumentative essays. Content • Academic essay writing Essay concept Types of academic essays Argumentative essays Developing argumentative essays Developing strong thesis statements Skills • Academic language accuracy • Web search Activities • If required, students will search on the web for content related academic essay writing on http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/685/01, http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/685/05/ http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/588/1/





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Check your knowledge


Objective • Assess education knowledge, academic vocabulary, and genre conceptual knowledge. Content • Now I know checklist. Skills • Think critically about what they have learned. Activities • Students will complete a ‘Now I know’ checklist. They will mark a check if they know, X if they do not know, and will give a further explanation on how they learned the main contents of the unit, including the learning strategies they came across during the learning process. The checklist will be sent to the tutor by e-mail.


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Communication Genres

Objective Write an essay on a given topic related to ‘CALL’. Content: • For arguing a position: Stating a thesis, developing an argument, counterargument, concluding. Skills: • Arguing a position giving valid supporting reasons

Convincing the reader • Organize, Structure ideas, and transfer knowledge • Language accuracy, appropriacy and cohesion • Cooperate with partners Activities • Essay writing. Students will choose a topic from a list given by the tutor and write a two-page essay. The text must include argumentative paragraphs with valid supporting reasons to convince the reader. Students will make use of the academic grammar and precise vocabulary learnt in units 9 and 10. The document must be sent to the tutor in order to assess the product and provide feedback.

Students can choose to share their essay with a partner in order to make peer correction before sending the paper to the tutor (Optional).


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Additional readings


Objective

Enhance and consolidate knowledge on strategic contents. Content:

Readings: Online Courses CALL use in EFL/ESL Classroom The Effect of Using Computer-Assisted Language Learning Skills:

Autonomous learning. Activities Students will be presented three additional readings. The level of complexity increases per reading. Students will have to answer comprehension, anticipation, and inference questions for the first two texts. The third text is an argumentative essay from which they will have to identify the main thesis and its three supportive arguments. Autonomous work will be expected once they have completed the unit activities. Additional readings will help students consolidate and enhance their knowledge on the strategic contents of the unit.

Functions

Reading for activating TEFL knowledge


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Additional excercices

Learn to learn

Objective

Enhance and consolidate knowledge on Academic Vocabulary Content: Exercises on: Precise vocabulary

Skills:

Autonomous learning. Activities:

Students will develop four self-assessment exercises. The first one is a low-

level complexity academic vocabulary exercise in which they will have to match

a word with its definition.

The second is also a low-level complexity vocabulary exercise in which

students will have to check if some pairs of words have or not similar meaning.

The third exercise is an average-level complexity exercise in which students will

complete a sentence with one option from the multiple choice answer.

The fourth and last exercise is a high –level complexity one in which students

will have to complete an essay with academic words from a chart. The last text

was retrieved from: http://www.dcielts.com/AWL/essays/school-curriculum.htm

http://www.dcielts.com/AWL/essays/school-curriculum.htm


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Day 1: (Friday) Cover Reading and activities. 1 hour. Day 2: Language in context activities (learning to learn). 1 hour. Day 3: Language in context activities (education knowledge). 1 hour. Day 4: Language in context activities (vocabulary). 1 hour. Day 5: Language in context activities (genre). 1 hour. Day 6: Knowledge Bank. (Vocabulary and Genre). 1 hour. Day 7: Communication: Genre. 2 hours.

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Previous observations

Tutors ought to take into account that the aims of this unit are related to expose students to contents and tasks related to master academic vocabulary and argue a case/situation in an understandable and organized way. Therefore, the activities proposed for an online environment and the platform Moodle have a tendency to promote collaborative and autonomous learning. Among the proposed activities there are different pedagogical readings to introduce the learners in the topics of CALL, and arguments. Advanced academic vocabulary is also introduced through different individual and cooperative tasks which might help the students overcome those problems detected during the analysis of actual TEFL students’ written assignments. Tutors may also find some students who find it difficult to catch up with others due to the variety of learning styles and learning paces. This is the main reason for the creation and design of some extra activities and exercises. The tutor can use them wisely to help students to succeed in their academic assignments and stimulate autonomous learning.


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Before starting

Unit 10 deals with providing students opportunities to develop their writing skills when writing arguments using academic vocabulary. The time provided is 10 hours to be distributed in a week. Several tools are also provided for the students to complete the activities. The principal mean of communication will be the forum on which tutors will publish clear instructions to guide students in the process of achieving the goals of the unit. In this section of the teacher’s book, the tutor will find the instructions to be published on the forum from Friday to Thursday, as well as the instructions to complete the tasks and the self-evaluated tasks, and the guidelines for students to search information on the net. Students’ participation is expected. Tutor’s feedback is also crucial to maintain students’ motivation high.

Assessment

Assessment will be carried out in different ways. One of the objectives of this unit is to assess education, grammar and genre conceptual knowledge. Many of the activities in unit 9 encourage collaborative learning, thus individual and pair work is expected. Summative assessment will be also practiced since this unit embraces knowledge they have acquired through the unit contents and over previous units. Co-assessment will also permit students to help each other through tools such the forum. Formative assessment and self-assessment will be also implemented to check students’ learning and detect possible problems and their causes.

Additional tasks

Additional readings and exercises will be used wisely by the teacher to help those students who might have problems when understanding or performing any of the unit contents. Low-track students may find it necessary to go further and read more material or do more exercises on the topic they are learning. All the same, these activities will be helpful for those students who are used to go further and like to find more information on what they are learning. Tutors should encourage students to use this material (if necessary).


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Appendix VII: Student’s book unit 9


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Appendix VIII: Student’s book unit 10

Unit 10 Argumentation and Academic Vocabulary

“What is written without effort is read without pleasure.” Samuel Johnson

In this Unit you will learn how to:

• Master Academic Vocabulary

• Argument a case/situation in an understandable and organized way.

The main contents to be covered are:

• Characteristics of Academic Argumentations

• Steps to write Academic Argumentations

• Develop your ideas further and deeper to show critical thinking

• Basic knowledge about CALL

The main objectives for each section are:

• To understand argumentations as an essential text of the academic

discourse.

• To activate student’s prior knowledge and experience on the matter and

assist them to set their goals for this unit.

• To acquaint students with their own learning strategies when they

remember what they have learnt.

• To evaluate reading comprehension skills and to make a diagram as a study

strategy.

• To recognize and use academic vocabulary to write academic texts.

• To analyze and recognize the structure of an argumentative text.

• To enhance knowledge on academic vocabulary

• To enhance knowledge on argumentative essays.

• To assess education knowledge, academic vocabulary, and genre

conceptual knowledge.

• To write an essay on a given topic related to ‘CALL’.


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1. Cover

1.1 Activate your knowledge! (Self-Assessment Activity)

1. Read the title of the text. What do you think the text is about?

2. What kind of academic texts do you know?

3. Why do you think academic texts are important?

4. What is an argument?

5. Have you ever written an argument? If so, what were the main characteristics

of your argument?

1.2 The Argumentative Text

Arguing a position is considered an academic text which objective is to convince the

reader to accept or reject a particular position on a controversial issue by giving

plausible reasons supported by reasoned arguments. According to Axelrod and Cooper

(2004), in order to be a convincing text, it also has to anticipate reader’s likely

objections and opposing arguments. Moreover, The Purdue Writing Lab (2012) affirms

that these types of papers “generally call for extensive research”. Thus, it “allows the

student to learn about a topic…., choose a position and support it with the evidence

collected during research”. An argumentative essay can also include descriptions and

explanations, so you will need to take into account unit 9 contents in order to support

an argument.

An argumentative text is considered crucial to the academic life not only because it is

usually required, but because according to the Student Learning Centre from the

Flinders University of Australia (2006), an argument can be used to:

• Support something we think has merit – a position, a point of view, a program, an

object.

• Persuade someone that something would be beneficial to do (or not to do) – a

particular course of action.

• Convince someone that something is true, likely to be true or probable – a fact, an

outcome.


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• Show someone the problems or difficulties with something – a theory, an approach, a

course of action.

• Reason with someone to get them to change their mind or their practice.

On the other hand, as it has been exposed in previous units of this course, academic

grammar and academic vocabulary are key aspects to be covered in academic writing.

Academic vocabulary, for instance, is related to the appropriate connectives, indicator

words or discourse markers used in academic writing. By using the correct vocabulary

in your arguments, you will be able to achieve your purpose: convince the reader to

accept or reject a particular position.

2. Language in context

2.1 Learn to learn (Forum activity)

Reflective Graph: Adapted from Tony Buzan (1995) Use your Head, 4th ed, BBCC

Books, London, P. 65. The graph is made of 1 vertical and 1 horizontal line where you

draw how much you remember of a lesson (From 0% to 100% in the vertical line)

according to the time that has passed after the lesson (from 10 minutes to 1 month in

the horizontal line).

2.1.1 Identify and evaluate the efficacy of your memory when remembering what you

have learnt by drawing a curved line on the graph “How much of a lesson do you

remember?”

2.1.2 Under the graph explain enumerate the top 5 strategies you use to remember

your lessons.

2.1.3 Compare your graph with the ones drawn by your partners, and suggest ways to

improve and/or overcome the problem of forgetting what was learnt.


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2.2 Computer Language Learning: Internet influence on

learners.

2.2.1 The use of the internet for academic purposes has given students broad

opportunities to obtain information. The next article suggests teaching youth about

plagiarism and its consequences as a new method to prevent cheating. Read the

article.

Does the Internet encourage Youth to Steal?

Are they Cheaters?

Our research shows that the Net Generation are big believers in integrity –

honesty, consideration, accountability, and transparency. Yet, according to nGenera

research, 77 percent of Net Geners have downloaded music, software, games, or

movies without paying for it. It sounds like a contradiction until you start talking to

them. They don’t see it as stealing and their assessment of the situation is pretty

sophisticated. They think this is a case of a business model that needs to be changed.

Net Geners, they say, pay more for music than ever – but not the old-fashioned way.

They buy some music online and they spend a big chunk of their disposable income on

concerts, ringtones, and artists’ products.

This old model of owning and selling music makes no sense for this entire

generation, or for anyone else for that matter. I don´t think it is stealing. It is a classic

example of a disruptive technology. For a decade I have described a model that would

work. Music should be a service, not a product. Instead of purchasing tunes, you

should pay a small monthly fee for access to all the songs in the world. They could be

streamed to you when you want and where you want via the Internet. I call my vision

of music bliss Everywhere Internet Audio. I’d listen to my own Don Channel. I could

slice and dice the massive musical database anyway I liked –by artist, by genre, by

year, by songwriter, by popularity, and so on. The Don Channel would know what I


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like, based on what I’ve chosen in the past. I could even ask my Everywhere Audio

service to suggest new artists that resemble my known favorites.

If Everywhere Internet Audio existed, no one would ever “steal”. Why would they

take possession of a song? Once again young people are showing how we need to

change our business models – if we would only listen to them. Rather than build bold

new approaches for digital entertainment, the industry that brought us the Beatles is

now hated by its customers and collapsing. Sadly, obsession with control, piracy, and

proprietary standards on the part of large industry players has only served to further

alienate and anger music listeners.

What about intellectual property in the corporate world? Should employers be

worried that the Net Geners will blog it to the world? This is not a complicated

problem. Simply tell Net Geners what’s confidential, and set rules about cated

problem. As for revealing corporate secrets, experience shows that they have good

judgment. When Jonathan Schwartz became CEO of Sun Microsystems, he gave every

employee the right to blog publically. They have never had a problem releasing

inappropriate information.

It’s a big issue in the university too. The Internet makes it easy to plagiarize, and,

according to one 2003 survey, 38 percent of college and university students cut and

paste information they find on the Internet. Plagiarism appears to have gone up by

eight percentage points since the early 1960s. But Don McCabe, a Rutgers Business

School professor and expert on plagiarism, sees no widespread increase in plagiarism

on campus. Rather, the students who are plagiarizing are using the Internet to do it

more. It’s not clear whether cheating overall has increased, either. Sixty percent of

high school students admitted to cheating on an exam “at least once” on a 2006

survey conducted by the Josephson Institute –virtually the same number who admitted

to cheating in 1992.

Whether or not it is gone up, cheating is clearly a problem. The Internet cuts the

cost of stealing or buying someone else’s work and young people are under enormous

pressure to score good grades so that they’ll get into universities of their choice. So

what’s the answer? UCLA and other U.S. universities, as well as several others in

Canada and elsewhere, are using an online program called Turnitin.com to detect

plagiarism. The company claims it can cut “measurable rates” of plagiarism to “almost


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zero.” My own kids say that online programs like this are an effective deterrent –

because then most students wouldn’t even think about trying to plagiarize when the

penalty could be a failure or even a suspension. Yet the Center for Academic Integrity,

a coalition of hundreds of educational institutions, does not think that technology can

solve the problem completely. “Instead, we should be encouraging respect and fairness

among the students,” says the center’s director, Dr. Stephen Satris.

Source: Tapscott, J. (2009, p. 69).

2.2.2 Answer the following questions about the text.

1. What controversial issue is being argued in the text?

_______________________________________________________________

2. The title of the article posts two questions. The answer to these questions is the

main thesis of the text. Can you identify the answer?

_______________________________________________________________

3. Along the text there are three supportive reasons to the main thesis. Identify

them and list them.

a. _____________________________________________________________

b. _____________________________________________________________

c. _____________________________________________________________

4. After reading the text. Do you think the Internet encourage Youth to Steal? Do

you think they are Cheaters? Write your answer using your own words.

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

2.2.3 Draw a diagram with the thesis and supporting arguments of the text. Upload

your diagrams to a google.doc document and share it with your tutor. (Send it to your

tutor’s mail).


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2.3 Vocabulary

2.3.1 Think about it! (Self-Assessment Activity)

In what ways do you think academic vocabulary will contribute to your

successful studies at university?

What techniques do you already use to learn academic vocabulary?

Academic vocabulary refers to the words associated with the content knowledge.

Antonacci & O’Callaghan (2011, p.11) state that “Within every discipline there is a

specific set of words to represent its concepts and processes. These words are

conceptually more complex than everyday language; therefore, they are more difficult

to learn.” Students who intent academic success, require the ability to write and

expose their ideas precisely, avoiding repetition.

2.3.2 Study the next examples and the words given in the box. Which one best

express what the author means?

The author thinks that Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) is…

The article says that computer use in the English classroom is a positive…

Skinner (2008) shows that there are three steps to follow…

Argues

believes

claims

clarifies

declares

defends

emphasizes

insists

illustrates

implies

indicates

observes

Rejects

proposes

suggest

supports

2.3.3 Precise verbs


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Study the next table by Khoo (2005), and practice the use of precise verbs to

introduce authors and sources.


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2.3.3.1 Practice time! (Self-Assessment Activity)

Complete the next text by Zohrabi (2010), using precise verbs from the table above.

Nunan (1999, p. 98) ___________ that coursebook is the main element of any

curriculum and “it is difficult to imagine a class without books …” In this regard,

Robinson (1991, p. 57) ________ that coursebooks provide “a framework for a course,

forming in essence a syllabus.” Meanwhile, she __________ that using a coursebook

has positive psychological effects on the students because coursebooks provide the

whole semester’s course to them. At this juncture, Hedge (2002, p. 358) __________

that when we choose a coursebook, we, in fact, choose a “planned sequence of items

to be taught.” In this regards, Dudley-Evans and St John (2000, p. 170) _________

four main reasons for using materials in the classroom: “as a source of language, as a

learning support, for motivation and stimulation, and for reference.” Cunningsworth

(1995, p. 7) ___________ that coursebooks have multiple roles in English language

classes and can help to present the written and spoken material, provide activities,

promote interaction, serve as a reference on vocabulary and grammar, act as a source

for classroom activities, serve as a syllabus, and offer self-access work or self-directed

learning. Richards and Rodgers (2002, p. 30) ___________that the main aim of

materials is to present and practice content, ease interaction between students, and

promote learner autonomy. However, as Hutchinson and Waters (1989) _______, the

primary role of materials is to facilitate the learning process because useful materials

do not teach rather they encourage learning. Hedge (2002, p. 36) ___________ that

good materials allow the learners to prepare in advance by offering a grammatical and

functional framework that provide for their common needs and wants… Finally, Harmer

(2002, p. 304) __________ that coursebooks foster students’ perception of progress,

provide materials for revision, and engage them in multiple ways.

2.3.4 Discourse markers The use of connectives, indicator words or discourse markers is crucial to show

cohesive device in your writing. By using them, you will show the logical connection

between your ideas, paragraphs and in a general sense, your text. When using them,


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it will indicate the reason why you include a particular piece of information and its

relevance to your thesis.

Some useful discourse markers are the ones listed by the Student Learning Centre of

the Flinders University (2010, p. 4):

Citing evidence:

According to Smith, . . . Smith claims that . . . Smith states . . .

This is supported by . . . Research findings indicate/show that . . .

This indicates that . . . There is evidence to show that . . .

As Smith claims/shows/illustrates, . . .

Showing agreement Showing disagreement

Consequently, . . . In contrast, . . .

At the same time, . . . On the contrary, . . .

As indicated, . . . On the other hand, . . .

Further to . . . However, . . .

In support, . . . Contrary to . . .

As a consequence, . .., but . . .

Furthermore, . . .

Disjunction (qualifying)

Despite this, . . . Although . . .

In spite of this, . . . While . . .

Nevertheless, . . . Whereas . . .

Regardless of . . . Yet . . .

Even if, even though . . . By comparison, . . .

Other language for addressing the literature

It is clear that . . .

As shown, current research . . .

In relation to X, this is very important/ significant because . . .


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As can be seen, many theorists hold that . . .

There are serious implications that can be drawn from . . .

These findings indicate that . . .

This finding is supported by . . .

This seems to imply that . . .

It is still not completely clear that . . .

Interesting research has been conducted by. . .

They extend the idea of . . .

Evidence of this can be seen in the work by . . .

2.4 Genres

Academic argumentations

Although people may think that an argument is quarreling or debating with others

about something, as it its usually presented in TV shows or radio programs, in the

academic world an argument do not necessarily lead to discrepancy. Academically,

arguing a position means to critically look at other’s and my own point of view on a

controversial issue. Axelrod and Cooper (2004) state that “Although it is not possible

to prove that a position on a controversial issue is right or wrong, it is possible through

reasoned argument to convince others to accept or reject a particular position”.

Source: The student Learning Centre, Flinders University


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2.4.1 Understanding the argumentative writing sequence in a

collaborative way (Wiki Activity)

Step 1. Work with two or three other partners. Choose one of the issues in the list, you

do not need to be an expert on the topic, but you have to be familiar with the

arguments people usually make about it:

Should all teachers be required to use computers in the language classroom?

Should all students know about how to avoid plagiarism when they copy

information from the internet?

Should all institutions have an English laboratory for language practice?

Should computers replace teachers?

Step 2. Take two or three minutes to exchange your opinions and agree together to

argue for the same position. Who do you think is going to be the audience of your

paper? Record your results in this way:

Issue: Should computers replace teachers?

Position: Computers should not replace teachers.

Readers: Academic community (teachers, students, parents, institutions, etc.)

Step 3. In about 15 minutes, construct an argument for your position giving reasons

with supporting arguments. Anticipate likely objections from reader who might

disagree with your position. Then, write down your findings under the following

headings:

Reasons:

1. Teachers have different roles in the classroom, not only they are language

instructors, but they are also facilitators, planners, co-communicators,

counselors, and guides as well.

2. Computers could only show contents and permit practice, but do not

complement the language learning process the way teachers do.

Support needed:


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1. Teachers’ roles.

2. Students’ opinion and experience with the issue.

3. Teachers’ and experts experience and knowledge about the topic.

Likely objections:

1. Buying computer programmes would be cheaper than paying teachers.

2. Computers follow a course plan systematically, making students cope with the

course objectives.

Step 4. For about 5 minutes discuss what you did to construct an argument:

Reasons: What did you learn about giving reasons? How did you choose the most

relevant ones? Was it difficult for you think about reasons, how did you solve the

problem?

Support: What did you learn about supporting an argument? What kind of support did

you take into account (quotations, examples, anecdotes, experience)? Which reasons

were easier or harder to support?

Objections: What did you learn about anticipation objections to your argument? How

did you come up with them? Was it difficult to consider your readers’ objections?

2.4.2 Basic features for arguing a position

Read the next selected paragraphs by Axelrod and Cooper (2004, p.294-295), which

best summarize the basic features for arguing a position:

A Focused Presentation of the Issue

Writers use a variety of strategies to present the issue and prepare readers for their

argument. For current, hotly debated issues, the title may be enough to identify the

issue (allusions to stories, chants, poems; brief histories; examples; detailing, among

others). Many writers provide concrete examples early on to make sure that readers

can understand the issue.


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How writers present the issue depends on what they assume readers already know and

what they want readers to think about the issue. Therefore, they try to define the issue

in a way that promotes their position.

A Clear Position

Very often writers declare their position in a thesis statement early in the essay (first

or second paragraph). This strategy has the advantage of letting readers know right

away where the writer stands. In composing a thesis statement, writers try to make

their position unambiguous, appropriately qualified, and clearly arguable (avoiding

common words like ‘wrong’).

Plausible Reasons and Convincing Report

To argue for a position, writers must give reasons. Even in relatively brief essays,

writers sometimes give more than one reason and state their reasons explicitly.

Writers know they cannot simply assert their reasons. They must support them with

examples, statistics, authorities, or anecdotes.

Anticipating Opposing Positions and Objections

Writers also try to anticipate other widely held positions on the issue as well as

objections and questions readers might raise to an argument. Writers counterargue by

both accommodating or refuting opposing positions and objections. Anticipating

readers’ positions and objections can enhance the writer’s credibility and strengthen

the argument. When readers holding an opposing position recognize that the writer

takes their position seriously, they are more likely to listen to what the writer has to

say. It can also reassure readers that they share certain important values and

attitudes with the writer, building a bridge of common concerns among people who

have been separated by difference and antagonism.

2.4.2.1 Let’s remember!

Taking into account what you have read about academic argumentations, use your

own words to list the main steps to create an argument. Explain them.


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3. Knowledge Bank

3.1 Vocabulary

Don’t forget!

Academic vocabulary refers to the words associated with the content knowledge. To

write appropriate academic argumentations it is necessary to use precise verbs to

introduce authors and authors, and discourse markers.

Precise verbs include:

Accounts for

Argues

Asserts

Analyze

Assumes

Assesses

Claims

Clarifies

Compares

Concludes

Contrasts

Criticizes

Conveys

Defends

Defines

Demonstrates

Describes

Depicts

Determines

Distinguishes

Evaluates

Emphasizes

Examines

Exemplifies

Exhibits

Explains

Frames

Identifies

Illustrates

Implies

Indicates

Investigates

Judges

Justifies

Maintain

Narrates

Proposes

Questions

Recognizes

Reflects

Refers to

Reports

Relies on

Reviews

Suggests

Stresses

Supports


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Discourse markers include:

Type of discourse marker Example

Addition Additionally, furthermore, in addition,

moreover

Cause / reason As a result of, because of

Comparison Compared with, in the same way, in

comparison with, likewise

Condition If, unless, whether… or not

Contrast Although, despite, however, by contrast,

nevertheless, yet, conversely, on the

contrary, on the other hand

Effect /result As a result, hence, therefore, thus

Exemplification For example, for instance, particularly,

such as, thus

Reformulation In other words, rather, to paraphrase

Summary Finally, hence, in all, in conclusion, in

short, in summary

Time sequence After, at first, at last, before, first,

second, subsequently, eventually

Transition As far as… is concerned, to turn to, as

for

To search for more information on cohesive devices for your academic texts search

on

http://yourieltstutor.com/cohesive-devices-transitional-wordsphrases-for-essay-

writing/

http://yourieltstutor.com/cohesive-devices-transitional-wordsphrases-for-essay-

writing/

3.2 Genres

The next chart summarizes the main characteristics of a good argument.

http://yourieltstutor.com/cohesive-devices-transitional-wordsphrases-for-essay-writing/





161

Source: The student Learning Centre, Flinders University

For more information on academic essay writing search on

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/685/01,



4. Check your knowledge 4.1 Learn to learn (Self-Assessment Activity) 4.1.1 Complete the next checklist to remember the contents in this unit and what

learning strategies you used to do it. How much do you remember?

Now I know Yes No How I

learned it

Need further

study

What an academic argumentation is

The characteristics of academic

argumentations

The steps to construct academic

argumentation

Why academic writing is important to

academic success

Precise verbs to introduce authors and





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sources

Discourse markers

To write an academic argument using

precise verbs to introduce authors and

sources, and discourse markers as

cohesive devices

5. Communication

5.1 Genres Final Task

5.1.1 Essay writing. Choose a topic from the list and write a 250-word essay. The

text must include the steps for arguing a position (Stating a thesis, developing an

argument, counterargument, concluding). The use of academic grammar and

academic vocabulary should be reflected as well. The document must be sent

through the icon “Final Assignment (Task)” in order to assess the product and

provide feedback. This assignment has to fulfil the following conditions:

Length: 250 words

Type of font: Arial or Times New Roman.

Size: 11.

Line height: 1.5.

Alignment: Justified.

6. References

Aexlrod R. B. & Cooper C. R. (2004). The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing. Short

Seventh Edition. Bedford/St Martin’s

Antonacci P. A. & O’Callaghan C.M. (2011). Developing Content Area Literacy. Sage

Publications. Retrieved from http://www.sagepub.com/upm-

data/34121_Section1.pdf

http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/34121_Section1.pdf

http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/34121_Section1.pdf


163

Khoo, E. (2005). Verbs in Academic Writing. The Writing Centre, University of

Toronto at Scarborough. Retrieved from

http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~tlsweb/TWC/webresources/terms.htm

Taspcot, J. (2009). Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation, McGraw-Hill

Writing an Argument. (2006). The Study Skills Brochure. The Flinders University of

South Australia. CRICOS Provider Number 00114A. Retrieved from

http://www.flinders.edu.au/slc_files/Documents/Brochures/writg_argument.

pdf

Zohrabi, M. (2010). Coursebook Development and Evaluation for English for

General Purposes Course. Published by Canadian Center of Science and

Education www.ccsenet.org/elt English Language Teaching Vol. 4, No. 2;

June 2011. The University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran

http://www.flinders.edu.au/slc_files/Documents/Brochures/writg_argument.pdf

http://www.flinders.edu.au/slc_files/Documents/Brochures/writg_argument.pdf


164

Appendix IX: Teacher’s book unit 9

TEACHER’S BOOK UNIT 9

Description, Explanation and Academic

Grammar

1. Previous observations

In this Unit Students will learn how to:

• Master Academic Grammar

• Describe a case/situation in an understandable and organized way.

• Explain a case/situation in an understandable and organized way.


• Characteristics of Academic descriptions and explanations

• Steps to write Academic descriptions and explanations

• Develop students’ ideas further and deeper to show critical thinking

• Basic knowledge about Learning strategies


• To understand descriptions and explanations as staples texts of the

academic discourse.

• To acquaint students with their own learning strategies when reading, and

assist them to broaden and diversify their possible study methods.

• To examine texts globally and on sentence level, using what students have

learned throughout the course.

• To introduce the concepts of register, nominalization, referencing, and

modality.

• To introduce the concepts of describing and explaining, and to recognize and

use descriptive and explanatory basic strategies.

• To enhance knowledge on descriptive and explanatory essays, and academic

grammar.


165

• To assess education knowledge, grammar, and genre conceptual knowledge.

• To write a short essay on a given topic related to ‘learning strategies’.

2. Before starting

Every activity proposed will be guided and supported by the tutor through

constant interaction with students. The main meaning of communication will be the

Forum. It is there where the tutor will post the instructions every Friday. Instructions

must be clear and concise, since they are the base for a good understanding and

development of the unit.

This is the welcome message for unit 9 (to be posted on Friday on the Forum):

Forum Instructions

Dear students,

Welcome to unit 9. In this paper you will find some important information to

guide you through the contents and academic activities to be covered and

completed during this week. As you all may know, this week will last from 00/00/00

to 00/00/00, and the activities have been scheduled in order for you to do the best

and following the due dates. I am sure you will all participate actively in each one

of them to share your knowledge and experiences in the field. The tutorial dates

indicated above are the days I will be available to answer all your questions via the

VC mail or my personal mail.

Chat sessions are highly recommendable. It is important to organize dates and

time slots and to use this tool as frequently as possible to discuss a variety of

issues such as the self-evaluated tasks, the debate, the assignments, differences of

opinion about academic issues, problems with the platform, the material and so on.

Here is some information you need for this week:


166

1. Contents

This week you will get and share knowledge about Academic Writing: Description,

Explanation, and Academic Grammar. The main contents to be covered are:

Characteristics of Academic descriptions and explanations

Steps to write Academic descriptions and explanations

Develop your ideas further and deeper to show critical thinking

Basic knowledge about Learning strategies

2. Additional Readings

Additional readings were carefully chosen to enhance ideas and concepts about

the strategic and educational topics discussed during the week. They are available

through the platform icon “additional readings”.

3. Activities

Activities have been scheduled in order to fulfill the 10 hours of the study week.

However, you can always modify the time to your own schedule without interfering

with the due dates. There are two extra hours to work on extra readings and

exercises:

Day 1: (Friday) Cover Reading and activities. 1 hour.

Day 2: Language in context activities (learning to learn). 1 hour.

Day 3: Language in context activities (education knowledge). 1 hour.

Day 4: Language in context activities (grammar). 1 hour.

Day 5: Language in context activities (genre). 1 hour.

Day 6: Knowledge Bank. (Grammar and Genre). 1 hour.

Day 7: Communication: Genre. 2 hours.

4. Assessment

4.1 Forum


167

• Students will identify and evaluate the efficacy of their reading and writing

strategies by answering to the questionnaire at the forum.

• Students will read their partners answers, and suggest ways to improve and

enhance their study methods possibilities.


4.2 Self-evaluated tasks

The self-evaluated tasks are very important as self-assessment tools; please

make sure you do them. However, there is no grade allotted to the self-evaluated

tasks. These include:

• Students will activate their previous knowledge on the topic, and will set

goals by using the first two columns of a K-W-L-H Chart. (Student’s Prior

Knowledge, What Students Want to Find Out)

• Students will read ‘Coach Students to use strategies when given frequent

cues and feedback’. They will use reviewing and skimming to answer some

comprehension questions on the text.

• Students will read the content texts and develop series of exercises for each

one of the concepts introduced. Exercises will include gap-filling, identifying the use

of grammar in context, and correcting texts.

• Students will be given texts from their classmates and they will correct

grammar mistakes, taking into account the content learned in units 4, and the

concepts of register, nominalization, referencing, and modality.

• Students will write a feedback to their partners. They will describe and

explain how these problems affect motivation and academic language learning, and

what learning strategies can help students to overcome those issues. Texts must be

sent to the tutor via e-mail for correction and feedback. Optionally, students can

work through Google Docs tool.

• Students will use the basic strategies to write a description and explanation

on given topics on learning strategies. Texts must be sent to the tutor via e-mail for

correction and feedback.

• Students will complete the 2 columns of the given K-W-L-H Chart given at

the beginning of the unit. In the L chart students will write a short explanation of

the main concepts they learned on learning strategies, register, nominalization,

referencing, and modality, and descriptions and explanations as academic texts. In


168

the H chart students will write a short description of how they learned the main

contents of the unit, including the learning strategies they came across during the

learning process.

4.3 Assignment

The assignment due dates are clearly stated. Submitting your assignment on

time will assure that this will not be marked late (due to time differences). The final

date for submission mentioned on the VC assignment file will go beyond the due

date by a few days, please do not get confused because the extra days are for late

submissions and if you choose to submit your assignments after the due date you

would lose a point.

If you do not submit an assignment or if you get a failing grade, you will need to

resubmit the assignment. Finally, it is very important that you submit your

assignments on the Moodle Platform only, paying very close attention to the given

instructions. And please pay attention to the quality, format and quantity factors of

your assignment. The assignment for this week is:

• Essay writing. Students will choose a topic from a list given by the tutor and

write a 250-word essay. The text must include descriptive and explanatory

paragraphs in which students will make use of the academic grammar and precise

vocabulary learnt during the unit. The document must be sent to the tutor in order

to assess the product and provide feedback.

I wish you all the best during this week.

Warm regards,

María Fernanda Jaime Osorio

Weeks 9 and 10 tutor

3. Assessment

The unit assessment will take place all over the time the unit last (10 hours)

and will have different presentations. Active participation by students is expected in

every single activity since they are beneficial for academic language learning.


169

Previous micro tasks will prepare students to complete the final task, allowing them

to have a better chance to succeed in the course.

Activities

In unit 9 students are asked for participation in two forum activities, two self-

assessment activities and three individual activities to be sent to the tutor’s mail for

feedback. The self-assessment activities are consciousness – raising tasks and the

collaborative and individual activities are focused – communication tasks.

Consciousness – raising tasks will also take place in those activities in which

students will be asked to clarify what they have interpreted about any of those

activities, thus, students will build inner knowledge about the language and how to

become a better user of it.


through these tools for nature students have to create collaborative content and

post their opinion to build knowledge. Formative assessment will be also carried out

by means of the feedback the tutor will provide students once they have submitted

their assignments. All the same, for the final task, the tutor will carry out a

summative assessment where not only he/she will take into account the units’

acquired practical knowledge, but the practical applicability of the contents from

former units. Finally, when self-assessing themselves, students will deal with the

identification of their strengths and weaknesses, especially with the topic of


The Unit 9 student’s book proposes the next tasks and contents:

1. Cover

1.1 Appreciating descriptive and explanatory academic texts

Have students read this introductory text. Students will reflect upon the times they

have used these genres in their academic life and why is it important to master

writing skills to communicate their ideas effectively.

1.2 Activate you knowledge

Students will activate their previous knowledge by completing the chart to establish

what you already know about Description, Explanation, and Academic Grammar,


170

and establish their study objectives for this unit. Tutor will provide feedback via

mail. This activity will help the tutor to focus students’ objectives, so they can

precise on what is expected from them for the development of the unit.

2. Language in Context

2.1 Forum Activity

In this activity students will identify and evaluate the efficacy of their reading

strategies. As this a forum activity, they will be provided with the environment to

share their experiences and at the same time, they will have the chance to

feedback other students about how to enhance their study methods. Thus,

collaborative learning will take place being the students the center of their learning

process. The tutor will also provide feedback, generating confidence to students.

This is the introductory message to be hung on the forum:

Dear students,

Welcome to the first forum activity in unit 9. You will notice that this is the first

task in which you and your partner will share your knowledge about the strategies

you daily use to read and learn. This forum activity will last from 00/00/00 to

00/00/00, during this week, this forum chain will be opened to assure your

participation. I am sure you will all participate actively to share your knowledge and

experiences in the field.

This activity will be organized in the following way:

1. I will open a new chain of messages in which you will answer some

questions to identify the reading strategies you have found more effective

when understanding written texts.

2. You will read two of your partners’ publications and will directly post an

answer with your opinion about what their reading strategies. Suggest other

reading strategies to enhance your partner’s learning method.

3. On 00/00/00, I will post my feedback and the forum will be closed.

Please be respectful when writing your opinion and take into account that despite

not being an assignment, academic language use will be expected. Use no more

than 350 words on each post; this will make the activity more enjoyable for all.

This is the new message with the questions:


171

Dear students,

Answer these questions using academic language and no more than 350 words.

1. What do you do to get ready for reading?

2. What do you do to make sure you are reading correctly?

3. How much time do you spend reading a newspaper?

4. What kind of assumptions do you make when you read the first few lines of

a text?

5. Do you read every word in a tv schedule?

6. How do you think you best understand a text?

The tutor can provide feedback to his / her students by using this resource:

http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/reading/stratread.htm

2.2. Learning Strategies

2.2.1. Have students read the text and reflect over the terms ‘feedback’ and

‘learning strategies’.

2.2.2 Having read the text, students will answer the following questions:

What learning strategies are mentioned in the reading?

Answer: inferences, imagery and summaries.

What are teachers, learners, and parents’ role when developing learning

strategies?

Answer: Teachers’ role: Teachers should give supportive feedback by

praising students, echoing their voice, and providing the environment for

them to share their learning strategies.

Parents’ role: Parents should be informed about student’s learning strategies

so they can help them learning at home. (Especially for young learners)

How do you develop you own learning strategies? How do you coach your

students’ learning strategies? Do you provide feedback? How often?

Answer: Answers may vary. Students may list among their reading

strategies: highlighting, making notes on the left side of the page,

summarizing, and mapping, among others. There might be students who are

not currently teaching a course, so they will not be able to answer all the

questions. Those who are currently teaching may explain the way and how

often they coach their students to enhance their reading strategies.

2.3 Grammar (Self - Assessment activities)

http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/reading/stratread.htm


172

2.3.1 Students will analyze the texts answer the next questions:

Item Text A Text B

What is the main

topic?

Transfer of strategy training Transfer of strategy training

Is it an academic text? Yes, it is. No, it is not.

Are there any quotes? Yes, there are two.

(Brown et al. 1983). (O’Malley & Chamot, 1990)

No, there are not.

Does it contain

nominalized forms?

Yes, it does.

“…new tasks can be

maximized…”

No, it does not.

If any, do you think

the sources are

reliable?

Yes, because they quote

experts and dates of

published articles or books.

There aren’t any.

Does it contain

referencing?

No, it does not. No, it does not.

2.3.2 Students will compare the two paragraphs and will list the points they think

have been corrected in the academic text.

Answers:

a. There are nominalized forms.

b. There are cited sources or quotations.

c. Academic vocabulary has been included.

2.3.3 Nominalization

a. Students will change the words into nouns. Answers:

b. solution

c. instructions

d. introduction

e. care

f. intention

g. application

2.3.4 Personal pronouns

a. Students will read the text.


173

b. Students will rewrite the text using higher lexis to make it more academic.

Answers may vary from student to student, but an example is provided.

In (the name of the school), there are the very polite and the very rude. No interest

on the matter can be noticed on the administrative area. Safe is one of students

concerns since they are told what to do by other intimidating students. Many

students think it is worthy to study in (the name of the school) and feel affection

towards the institution. They would like to find a solution to the problem.

c. Students will write the passive and nominalized forms of the sentences into the

boxes.

After that, teachers set

objectives for student

achievement in content,

academic language, and

learning strategies

The objectives for student

achievement in content,

academic language, and

learning strategies are set

by teachers

Objective Setting

Next, teachers assemble

the materials that will

assist them in making the

unit or lesson meaningful

to the students

Materials are assembled

by teachers

Material creation

Finally, the teacher

outlines the sequence of

instruction that will enable

students to understand,

remember and recall the

concepts and processes

taught.

Sequence of instruction…

is outlined by the teacher

Instruction sequence

d. Students will write the learning strategies instruction process as a text.

2.3.5 Referencing

Exercises

a. The cited quotations in the unit are:

Brown et al.1983 in 2.3.1 Text A


174

O’Malley & Chamot, 1990 in 2.3.1 Text A

Noonan (1985) in 2.3.3

Driscoll and Brizee (2011) in 2.3.5

Task (Forum Activity)


Dear students,

Welcome to the second forum activity in unit 9. You will notice that this is the

second task in which you will provide your feedback to a text. This is also called

peer correction. This forum activity will last from 00/00/00 to 00/00/00, during this

week, this forum chain will be opened to assure your participation. I am sure you

will all participate actively to share your knowledge and experiences in the field.


1. You will receive a text written by a previous student of the TEFL program. You

will read the text and suggest corrections to mistakes taking into account the

content learnt in unit 4, and the concepts of register, nominalization,

referencing and modality.

2. Post your feedback and include an explanation of how these problems affect

motivation and academic language learning, and the learning strategies,

which in your opinion, can help students to overcome those issues.





This is the new message with the text:

Dear students,

This is the text you will study to complete the second task on unit 9. Please read

the instructions given on my last post.


175



understood and it becomes the first way of exposure of language without

considering grammar details. This is the way how infants learn too; That is the

reason why many people consider that the best age to learn English is when you

are a child, I think that it can be, but only if an infant is sorrunded by the English

environment, it means that the child has to listen to his/her parents speaking

English all the time too and his/her parents have to build this environment with

English, using TV series, reading, music, toys, etc. And this is the way how we learn

our first or native language though.”

2.4 Genres

2.4.3 Task

Students will identify the writing strategies in the text and will send the tutor a mail

with the examples found for each one. The writing strategies in the text are the

following ones:

Examples to explain: “There are various of folklore sayings, such as, ‘you are as

many times a man, as many languages you speak’ (Slavic proverb), or that you live

as many lives as many languages you know (Czeck folk song).”

Process narration: “In the twenty-first century, the process of globalization has

expanded further than ever, and people all over the world are becoming more

and more interconnected. Whether one is working for a big international

corporation, or frequently travels abroad for leisure, enjoys watching foreign

movies with the original soundtrack, or simply wants to widen ones horizons,

learning a second, or third language, is always a wonderful decision.”

Contrast: “However, while most of the developed and developing world is very

keen on learning more than just the native language of their home country,

Americans tend to skip this part of education, or learn foreign languages rather

perfunctorily.”

Detailing: “To put this into perspective, 86.1% of Germans, 74% of Swedes and

59.6% of Russians are fluent in at least one foreign language. This number is

even higher amongst some of the Asian population.”


176

Comparison: “While Americans also have Spanish, German, French and

Japanese classes in their high school and college curricula, the quality of

knowledge that American children and teenagers get, is considerably lower.”

Classification: “Learning languages, at an early age, is good for several reasons.

First, it helps a child to effectively develop their organs of articulation and speak

more clearly, including, in their native tongue (Jesse et al., 2010). Secondly, learning

another language means widening one’s mental outlook, becoming more adept and

knowledgeable about the world’s various cultures and perspectives. Finally, learning

a language greatly contributes to the general brain development, especially at an

early age, but also at any age.”

Cause and effect: “Depriving American kids and teenagers from learning another

language, automatically means neglecting their future development.”

3. Knowledge Bank

Here, the tutor can encourage students to search on the web for more

information on the topics.

4. Check your knowledge

4.1 Learn to learn

Students will complete the chart below in order to establish what they learnt about

Description, Explanation, and Academic Grammar. In the first chart they will write a

short explanation of the main concepts you learned on learning strategies, register,

nominalization, referencing, and modality, and descriptions and explanations as

academic texts. In the second chart students will write a short description of how

they learned the main contents of the unit, including the learning strategies they

came across during the learning process.

Answers may vary from student to student. An example is given for the tutor:

What students learned How they learned

Nominalization is turning a part of

the speech in a noun. It permits a

Practicing turning verbs and

adjectives into nouns. (Exercises at


177

writer to make a text more

academic.

word level)

Practicing turning a sentence into

passive and then into

nominalization. (Exercises at

sentence level)

Practicing using nominalization into

paragraphs and texts that I have

published in the forum. (Exercise at

text level)

5. Communication

Final task

5.1.1 Essay writing:

The final task for units 9 is writing a 250-word essay. Students will choose a

topic from a list given by the tutor. For unit 9 the text must include descriptive and

explanatory paragraphs in which students will make use of the academic grammar

and precise vocabulary learnt during the unit. The document must be sent to the

tutor in order to assess the product and provide feedback.

It is necessary to make clear that for the final task the tutor will follow the task-

based approach, so this task will parallel an activity that they normally use in

communicative circumstances. To complete these tasks, students would previously

have developed smaller tasks such writing paragraphs or completing self-

assessment readings and exercises. Focus on language and meaning will be also

key premises to be taken into account when writing each essay. The formal

requirements to be fulfilled when writing the final task are: Length: 250 words,

Type of font: Arial or Times New Roman, Size: 11, Line height: 1.5, Alignment:

Justified.

These are the topics from which students can choose:

How to improve Reading strategies

How to improve Writing strategies

How to improve learning strategies

How to become independent learners


178

These are the aspects tutor will have into account to grade the essay:

The essay will be scored analytically using a 6-point scale rubric. Each score-

point is aligned to a level in the Common European Framework Reference. Test-

takers will need at least 40 points to pass the final task.

Raw Score Language Level

60 C2

50 C1

40 B2

30 B1

20 A2

10 A1

Total Raw Score = Up to 60 points. The score-points will be selecting using the

following criteria: The rater will select a level for each category in the scoring rubric

that best represents the student’s essay. That is, the rater will select a level

descriptor for Focus (F); Development Organization (DO); Linguistic and Lexical

Choices (LLC); and Conventions (C).

Writing Scoring Rubric

C2 C1 B2 B1 A2 A 1

F The essay is

focused and

purposeful

The essay is

focused on the

topic

The essay is

focused on the

topic and

includes few,

if any, loosely

related ideas

The essay is

focused but

may contain

ideas that are

loosely

connected to

the topic

The essay

addresses the

topic but may

lose focus by

including

extraneous or

loosely related

ideas

The essay

does not

addresses the

topic

D The

development

of the support

is substantial,

specific,

relevant, and

concrete

The support is

developed

through ample

use of specific

details and

examples

The support is

consistently

developed,

but it may

lack specificity

Development

of support

may be

uneven

The

development

of the support

may be erratic

and

nonspecific,

and ideas may

be repeated

There is little,

if any,

development

of supporting

ideas, and the

support may

consist of

generalizations

or

fragmentary


179

4. Additional tasks

Additional readings and exercises will be used wisely by the teacher to help those

students who might have problems when understanding or performing any of the

unit contents. Low-track students may find it necessary to go further and read

more material or do more exercises on the topic they are learning. All the same,

these activities will be helpful for those students who are used to go further and like

to find more information on what they are learning. Tutors should encourage

students to use this material (if necessary).

The additional readings section proposes the next activities:

Self – Evaluated task 1

lists

O The essay is

well organized

with effective

use of

transitions

The essay is

well organized

but may lack

some

transitions

The essay is

generally

organized, but

has few or no

transitions

among

sections

The essay is

organized in

parts of the

essay; other

parts are

disjointed

and/or lack

transitions

The essay is

disorganized

in much of the

essay; OR is

clear, but too

brief

The essay

exhibits little

or no apparent

organization

LL

C

Consistently

exhibits

variety in

sentence

structure and

word choice

Exhibits some

variety in

sentence

structure and

uses good

word choice;

occasionally,

words may be

used

inaccurately

Most

sentences are

well

constructed

but have

similar

structure;

word choice

lacks variety

or flair

Sentence

structure may

be simple and

unvaried;

word choice is

mostly

accurate

Sentences

lack formal

structure;

word choice

may often be

inaccurate

Sentences

run-on and

appear

incomplete or

rambling;

word choices

may be

inaccurate in

much or the

entire essay

C Few errors in

grammar,

punctuation,

capitalization,

and spelling,

but they do

not interfere

with

understanding

Some errors in

grammar,

punctuation,

capitalization,

and spelling,

but they do

not interfere

with

understanding

More frequent

errors in

grammar,

punctuation,

capitalization,

and spelling,

but they do

not interfere

with

understanding

Errors in

grammar,

punctuation,

capitalization,

and spelling

sometimes

interfere with

understanding

Errors in

grammar,

punctuation,

capitalization,

and spelling

interfere with

understanding

in much of the

essay

Errors in

grammar,

punctuation,

capitalization,

and spelling

prevent

readers from

fully

understanding

essay


180

Have the students read the low – level complexity text in which students will follow

instructions to complete a task. The instructions are precise and ask the student to

complete a chart, use the formal requirements given and publish the information on

the forum under a given title.


Have the students read the average – level complexity text “Brain-Based Learning

Strategies: Get Students’ Attention with a Radish” in which students will anticipate

what the text is about, it will also permit the student recover previous knowledge on

the matter. After reading the text students will answer the questions proposed. They

will have to publish the information on the forum when the task is completed. The

tutor will provide feedback.


Have the students read the article and summarize its main ideas through a map.

“Second Language Acquisition – Essential Information” is a high – level complexity

text that presents a model of sequences for describing and explaining. Students will

reinforce the contents in the students’ book unit 9 and will develop their reading

strategies. After mapping the summary of the text, students will publish the

information on the forum.

The additional exercises section proposes the next activities:


Have the students complete a low – level complexity academic grammar exercise.

There, they will rewrite two quotes with correct punctuation. Thus, students will

practice knowledge acquired on previous units of the EAP Course.


Have the students complete a low – level complexity academic grammar exercise.

There, they will check the correct sentence. Identification of mistakes in a sentence

level will help student consolidate the revising and editing steps when writing a text.

Mistakes have been carefully chosen because they are their recurrence on the

academic texts.


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Have the students complete an average – level complexity academic grammar

exercise. There, they will organize the sentences to create a coherent text with main

thesis and supportive ideas. To complete the task, students will take into account the

connective devices learnt in unit 9.


Have the students read the essay. Then students will decide whether the highlighted

words are correctly used or not. They will have to correct those words which are not

correct. Words have been carefully chosen because they are easy to confuse and

their common use on the academic texts. Student will enhance their academic

vocabulary and grammar.


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Appendix X: Teacher’s book unit 10

TEACHER’S BOOK UNIT 10

Argumentation and Academic Vocabulary

1. Previous observations

In this Unit Students will learn how to:

• Master Academic Vocabulary

• Argument a case/situation in an understandable and organized way.


• Characteristics of Academic Argumentations

• Steps to write Academic Argumentations

• Develop students’ ideas further and deeper to show critical thinking

• Basic knowledge about CALL


• To understand argumentations as essential texts of the academic discourse.

• To activate student’s prior knowledge and experience on the matter and

assist them to set their goals for this unit.

• To acquaint students with their own learning strategies when they remember

what they have learnt.

• To evaluate reading comprehension skills and to make a diagram as a study

strategy.

• To recognize and use academic vocabulary to write academic texts.

• To analyze and recognize the structure of an argumentative text.

• To enhance knowledge on academic vocabulary.

• To enhance knowledge on argumentative essays.

• To assess education knowledge, academic vocabulary, and genre conceptual

knowledge.

• To write a short essay on a given topic related to ‘CALL’.


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2. Before starting

Every activity proposed will be guided and supported by the tutor through

constant interaction with students. The main meaning of communication will be the

Forum. It is there where the tutor will post the instructions every Friday. Instructions

must be clear and concise, since they are the base for a good understanding and

development of the unit.

This is the welcome message for unit 10 (to be posted on Friday on the Forum):

Forum Instructions

Dear students,

Welcome to unit 10. In this paper you will find some important information to

guide you through the contents and academic activities to be covered and

completed during this week. As you all may know, this week will last from 00/00/00

to 00/00/00, and the activities have been scheduled in order for you to do the best

and following the due dates. I am sure you will all participate actively in each one

of them to share your knowledge and experiences in the field. The tutorial dates

indicated above are the days I will be available to answer all your questions via the

VC mail or my personal mail.

Chat sessions are highly recommendable. It is important to organize dates and

time slots and to use this tool as frequently as possible to discuss a variety of

issues such as the self-evaluated tasks, the debate, the assignments, differences of

opinion about academic issues, problems with the platform, the material and so on.

Here is some information you need for this week:

1. Contents

This week you will get and share knowledge about Academic Writing:

Argumentation, and Academic Vocabulary. The main contents to be covered are:

Characteristics of Academic argumentations

Steps to write Academic argumentations


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Develop your ideas further and deeper to show critical thinking

Basic knowledge about CALL

2. Additional Readings

Additional readings were carefully chosen to enhance ideas and concepts about

the strategic and educational topics discussed during the week. They are available

through the platform icon “additional readings”.

3. Activities

Activities have been scheduled in order to fulfill the 10 hours of the study week.

However, you can always modify the time to your own schedule without interfering

with the due dates. There are two extra hours to work on extra readings and

exercises:

Day 1: (Friday) Cover Reading and activities. 1 hour.

Day 2: Language in context activities (learning to learn). 1 hour.

Day 3: Language in context activities (education knowledge). 1 hour.

Day 4: Language in context activities (vocabulary). 1 hour.

Day 5: Language in context activities (genre). 1 hour.

Day 6: Knowledge Bank. (Vocabulary and Genre). 1 hour.

Day 7: Communication: Genre. 2 hours.

4. Assessment

4.1 Forum

Students will identify and evaluate the efficacy of their memory when remembering

what they have learnt by drawing a curved line on a graph. Under the graph they

will explain enumerate the top 5 strategies they use to remember their lessons. The

graph and strategies will be uploaded to the forum.

• Students will compare their graphs with the ones drawn by their partners,

and suggest ways to improve and/ or overcome the problem of forgetting what was

learnt.



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4.2 Self-evaluated tasks

The self-evaluated tasks are very important as self-assessment tools; please

make sure you do them. However, there is no grade allotted to the self-evaluated

tasks. These include:

• Students will activate their previous knowledge on the topic, and will

anticipate the unit content by answering a list of 5 questions given by the tutor.

• Students will read ‘Does the Internet Encourage Youth to Steal? Are they

Cheaters?’ and answer some comprehension questions on the text. Then, they will

draw a diagram with the thesis and supporting arguments of the text. They will

upload their diagrams to a google.doc document to be reviewed by the tutor in

order for her to provide feedback.

• Students will read the Academic Word List (AWL) compiled by Averil

Coxhead in 1998, which will be provided by the tutor, and do cloze exercises to put

into practice the academic vocabulary given. The tutor will correct the exercises on

his/her mail.

• Students will answer to reflective questions which will lead them to reflect

upon the main characteristics of an argumentative text. The answers will be sent to

the teacher by e-mail.

• Students will complete a ‘Now I know’ checklist. They will mark a check if

they know, X if they do not know, and will give a further explanation on how they

learned the main contents of the unit, including the learning strategies they came

across during the learning process. The checklist will be sent to the tutor by e-mail.

4.3 Assignment

The assignment due dates are clearly stated. Submitting your assignment on

time will assure that this will not be marked late (due to time differences). The final

date for submission mentioned on the VC assignment file will go beyond the due

date by a few days, please do not get confused because the extra days are for late

submissions and if you choose to submit your assignments after the due date you

would lose a point.

If you do not submit an assignment or if you get a failing grade, you will need to

resubmit the assignment. Finally, it is very important that you submit your

assignments on the Moodle Platform only, paying very close attention to the given

instructions. And please pay attention to the quality, format and quantity factors of

your assignment. The assignment for this week is:


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• Essay writing. Students will choose a topic from a list given by the tutor and

write a two-page essay. The text must include argumentative paragraphs with valid

supporting reasons to convince the reader. Students will make use of the academic

grammar and precise vocabulary learnt in units 9 and 10. The document must be

sent to the tutor in order to assess the product and provide feedback.

• Students can choose to share their essay with a partner in order to make

peer correction before sending the paper to the tutor (Optional).

I wish you all the best during this week.

Warm regards,

María Fernanda Jaime Osorio

Weeks 9 and 10 tutor

3. Assessment

The unit assessment will take place all over the time the unit last (10 hours) and

will have different presentations. Active participation by students is expected in

every single activity since they are beneficial for academic language learning.

Previous micro tasks will prepare students to complete the final task, allowing them

to have a better chance to succeed in the course.

Activities

Unit 10 proposes five self-assessment activities, one collaborative writing wiki,

and an individual activity to be sent by mail. The self-assessment activities are

consciousness – raising tasks and the collaborative and individual activities are

focused – communication tasks. Consciousness – raising tasks will also take place

in those activities in which students will be asked to clarify what they have

interpreted about any of those activities, thus, students will build inner knowledge

about the language and how to become a better user of it.


through these tools for nature students have to create collaborative content and

post their opinion to build knowledge. Formative assessment will be also carried out


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by means of the feedback the tutor will provide students once they have submitted

their assignments. All the same, for the final task, the tutor will carry out a

summative assessment where not only he/she will take into account the units’

acquired practical knowledge, but the practical applicability of the contents from

former units. Finally, when self-assessing themselves, students will deal with the

identification of their strengths and weaknesses, especially with the topic of


The student’s book activities and tasks will prepare the students to develop their

skills and become autonomous learners. They are also pre stages to complete the

final task. These are the proposed additional tasks and their possible answers.

1. Cover

1.1 Activate your knowledge (Self- Assessment activity)

Have students read this introductory text. Students will reflect upon the kind of

academic texts they know and their characteristics of those, by answering five

reflective questions:

What kind of academic texts do you know?

Answer: Answers may vary, but students could include in their list the ones

they learnt in unit 9: Descriptions and explanations.

Why do you think academic texts are important?

Answer: Answers may vary, but students could mention what they learnt in

unit 9: Because academic texts help you achieve goals and succeed in

academic and business life.

What is an argument?

Answer: Answers may vary, but the definition of an argument is according to

The Argument Center “expressing a point of view on a subject and

supporting it with evidence”.

Have you ever written an argument? If so, what were the main

characteristics of your argument?

Answer: Answers may vary, but those students who have written an

argument could list as characteristics the statement of a thesis and


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supportive arguments, the use of examples, statistics, and clear evidence to

persuade the reader to take their position.

2. Language in Context

2.1 Learn to learn (Forum Activity)

In this activity students will identify and evaluate the efficacy of their memory when

remembering what they have learnt by drawing a curved line on the graph “How

much of a lesson do you remember?”

As this a forum activity, they will be provided with the environment to share their

experiences and at the same time, they will have the chance to feedback other

students about how to enhance their study methods. Thus, collaborative learning

will take place being the students the center of their learning process. The tutor will

also provide feedback, generating confidence to students.


Dear students,

Welcome to the first forum activity in unit 10. You will notice that this is the first

task in which you and your partner will share your knowledge about the strategies

you daily use to remember what you have learnt from a lesson. This forum activity

will last from 00/00/00 to 00/00/00. During this week this forum chain will be

opened to assure your participation. I am sure you will all participate actively to

share your knowledge and experiences in the field.


4. I will open a new chain of messages in which you will be presented an

example of the graph as a model to follow in the creation of your own graph.

5. After understanding the example, you will create your own graph. Use a

word document and attach it to your message. In the graph, you will identify

how your memory works in relation to the time it takes to forget a lesson.

The message has to contain the top 5 strategies you use to remember your

lessons.


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6. Read a partners message and compare his/her graph to your own. Then,

suggest ways to improve and/or overcome the problem of forgetting what

was learnt.





2.2. Computer Language Learning: Internet influence on learners.

2.2.1. Have students read the article.

2.2.2 Having read the text, students will answer the following questions:

What controversial issue is being argued in the text?

Answer: Plagiarism and the way to avoid it.

The title of the article poses two questions. The answer to these questions is

the main thesis of the text. Can you identify the answer?

Answer:

The Net Generation don’t see downloading music, software, games, or

movies without paying for it as stealing. They think this is a case of a

business model that needs to be changed.

Along the text there are three supportive reasons to the main thesis.

Identify them and list them

Answer:

a. This old model of owning and selling music makes no sense for this

entire generation, or for anyone else for that matter. It is a classic

example of a disruptive technology.

b. Tell Net Geners what intellectual property in the corporate world is

confidential, and set rules about cated problem.

c. The internet makes it easy to plagiarize in the university, but studies

show that plagiarism appears to have gone up by eight percentage

points since the early 1960s.

After reading the text. Do you think the Internet encourage Youth to Steal?

Do you think they are Cheaters? Write your answer using your own words.

Answer: Answers may vary. In their answer students should use the

expressions “I think that…. Because”, “I consider that…. Because”, “I believe

that…. Because”.


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2.2.3 Having read the text, students will draw a diagram with the thesis and

supporting arguments of the text. They should upload the diagram to a google doc

and share it with the tutor through the forum.

Answer: Answers may vary. An example is provided for the tutor:

2.3 Vocabulary

2.3.1 Think about it! (Self-Assessment activity)

Students will answer the following reflective questions:

In what ways do you think academic vocabulary will contribute to your

successful studies at university?

Answer: Answers may vary. Students may list among their reasons:

Because academic vocabulary use allows a precise communication, it also

permits enrich a language use, and it lets people communicate better with

others and convey meanings among cultures.

What techniques do you already use to learn academic vocabulary?

Answer: Answers may vary. Students may list among their techniques:

Memorization of lists of new words, practice of new words use in written

sentences and spoken discourse, creation of diagrams, use of pictures, among

others.

2.3.2 Students will study the examples and select one word to best express what the

author means in the sentences given.

Answer: Answers may vary. The options are provided for the tutor:

a. Indicates, suggests, claims, believes.

b. Suggests, supports, illustrates.

c. Proposes, suggests.


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2.3.3.1 Students will complete the blanks with precise verbs from the table.

Answers: Answers may vary, but the original text contains the next verbs: Believes,

argues, maintains, states, offer, believes, suggest, argue, maintains, assumes.

2.4 Genres

2.4.1 In groups of two or three, students will create document on google docs or any

other online wiki tool. Step by step, students will follow the instructions given in the

students’ book to complete the task of creating an argument collaboratively.

Answers: Answers may vary, but the product text must contain the next steps:

Step 1. Choose the issue

Step 2. Take a position

Step 3. Construct an argument, support your arguments and anticipate likely

objections.

Step 4. Reflect on the process.

2.4.2 Basic features of arguing a position

Have students read the summary of the section.

2.4.2.1 Let’s remember.

Students will use their own voice to remember this section. Students will use their

own words to explain the main steps to create an argument. They will explain the

steps.

3. Knowledge Bank

By studying this section, students will remember what they learnt in unit 10. Web

sites are suggested for further revising.

4. Check your knowledge

4.1 Learn to learn (Self-Assessment activity)

4.1.1 Have students complete the checklist to remember the contents in the units,

expressing the learning strategies they came across.


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Now I know Yes No How I

learned it

Need

further

study

What an academic argumentation is

The characteristics of academic

argumentations

The steps to construct academic

argumentation

Why academic writing is important

to academic success

Precise verbs to introduce authors

and sources

Discourse markers

To write an academic argument

using precise verbs to introduce

authors and sources, and discourse

markers as cohesive devices

This activity will help the tutor identify low-track students and this way he/she can

help them by proposing the extra readings and exercises.

5. Communication

5.1 Genres

Final task

5.1.1 Essay writing. The final task for unit 10 is writing a 250-word essay.

Students will choose a topic from a list given by the tutor. For unit 10, the text

must include arguments with plausible reasons to convince the reader about a point

of view. The document must be sent to the tutor in order to assess the product and

provide feedback.

It is necessary to make clear that for the final task the tutor will follow the task-

based approach, so this task will parallel an activity that they normally use in

communicative circumstances. To complete these tasks, students would previously

have developed smaller tasks such writing paragraphs or completing self-

assessment readings and exercises. Focus on language and meaning will be also

key premises to be taken into account when writing each essay. The formal


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requirements to be fulfilled when writing the final task are: Length: 250 words,

Type of font: Arial or Times New Roman, Size: 11, Line height: 1.5, Alignment:

Justified.

These are the topics from which students can choose:

Will computers replace teachers?

Is CALL beneficial to language learners?

Do all the online language courses benefit language learners?

Reflections on the EAP course. Has it worked out for me?

These are the aspects tutor will have into account to grade the essay:

The essay will be scored analytically using a 6-point scale rubric. Each score-

point is aligned to a level in the Common European Framework Reference. Test-

takers will need at least 40 points to pass the final task.

Raw Score Language Level

60 C2

50 C1

40 B2

30 B1

20 A2

10 A1

Total Raw Score = Up to 60 points. The score-points will be selecting using the

following criteria: The rater will select a level for each category in the scoring rubric

that best represents the student’s essay. That is, the rater will select a level

descriptor for Focus (F); Development Organization (DO); Linguistic and Lexical

Choices (LLC); and Conventions (C).


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Writing Scoring Rubric

C2 C1 B2 B1 A2 A 1

F The essay is

focused and

purposeful

The essay is

focused on the

topic

The essay is

focused on the

topic and

includes few,

if any, loosely

related ideas

The essay is

focused but

may contain

ideas that are

loosely

connected to

the topic

The essay

addresses the

topic but may

lose focus by

including

extraneous or

loosely related

ideas

The essay

does not

addresses the

topic

D The

development

of the support

is substantial,

specific,

relevant, and

concrete

The support is

developed

through ample

use of specific

details and

examples

The support is

consistently

developed,

but it may

lack specificity

Development

of support

may be

uneven

The

development

of the support

may be erratic

and

nonspecific,

and ideas may

be repeated

There is little,

if any,

development

of supporting

ideas, and the

support may

consist of

generalizations

or

fragmentary

lists

O The essay is

well organized

with effective

use of

transitions

The essay is

well organized

but may lack

some

transitions

The essay is

generally

organized, but

has few or no

transitions

among

sections

The essay is

organized in

parts of the

essay; other

parts are

disjointed

and/or lack

transitions

The essay is

disorganized

in much of the

essay; OR is

clear, but too

brief

The essay

exhibits little

or no apparent

organization

LL

C

Consistently

exhibits

variety in

sentence

structure and

word choice

Exhibits some

variety in

sentence

structure and

uses good

word choice;

occasionally,

words may be

used

inaccurately

Most

sentences are

well

constructed

but have

similar

structure;

word choice

lacks variety

or flair

Sentence

structure may

be simple and

unvaried;

word choice is

mostly

accurate

Sentences

lack formal

structure;

word choice

may often be

inaccurate

Sentences

run-on and

appear

incomplete or

rambling;

word choices

may be

inaccurate in

much or the

entire essay

C Few errors in

grammar,

punctuation,

capitalization,

and spelling,

but they do

not interfere

with

understanding

Some errors in

grammar,

punctuation,

capitalization,

and spelling,

but they do

not interfere

with

understanding

More frequent

errors in

grammar,

punctuation,

capitalization,

and spelling,

but they do

not interfere

with

understanding

Errors in

grammar,

punctuation,

capitalization,

and spelling

sometimes

interfere with

understanding

Errors in

grammar,

punctuation,

capitalization,

and spelling

interfere with

understanding

in much of the

essay

Errors in

grammar,

punctuation,

capitalization,

and spelling

prevent

readers from

fully

understanding

essay


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4. Additional tasks

Additional readings and exercises will be used wisely by the teacher to help

those students who might have problems when understanding or performing any of

the unit contents. Low-track students may find it necessary to go further and read

more material or do more exercises on the topic they are learning. All the same,

these activities will be helpful for those students who are used to go further and like

to find more information on what they are learning. Tutors should encourage

students to use this material (if necessary). All the activities answers should be

sent to the tutor via mail, so students can get the feedback.

The additional readings section proposes the next activities:


Have the students read the low – level complexity text “Online Courses” and answer

the four multiple choice comprehension questions proposed.


Have the students read the average – level complexity text “CALL Use in the ESL/EFL

Language Classroom” and answer the four multiple choice comprehension questions

proposed.


Have the students read the essay to complete a chart in which they will identify the

main thesis and the three supportive arguments. “The Effect of Using Computer-

Assisted Language Learning” is a high – level complexity text that presents a model

of argumentative text. Students will reinforce the contents in the students’ book unit

10.

The additional exercises section proposes the next activities:


Have the students complete a low – level complexity exercise. There, they will match

the word with its definition. Words have been chosen because their common use on

the academic texts and they will enhance student’s academic vocabulary.


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Have the students complete a low – level complexity exercise. There, they will check

if the words in every item are similar or different. Discrimination of words synonyms

and antonyms will help student to choose the precise vocabulary he/she needs when

writing a text. Words have been carefully chosen because they are easy to confuse

and their common use on the academic texts. Student will enhance their academic

vocabulary.


Have the students complete an average – level complexity exercise. There, they will

choose the best word from the multiple choice list to complete the sentence.

Discrimination of words will help student to choose the precise vocabulary he/she

needs when writing a text. Words have been carefully chosen because they are easy

to confuse and their common use on the academic texts. Student will enhance their

academic vocabulary.


Have the students complete this essay by filling the blanks with the academic

vocabulary provided on the chart. This is a high – level complexity exercise that

presents academic vocabulary use at essay-level. Words have been carefully chosen

because they are easy to confuse and their common use on the academic texts.

Student will enhance their academic vocabulary.

Tesis alumna FUNIBER. Maria Fernanda Osorio - Teaching English as Foreign Language

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Transcript of Tesis alumna FUNIBER. Maria Fernanda Osorio - Teaching English as Foreign Language