PED160: INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGE AND LITERACY

Course Aim

The aim of the Language and Literacy course is to equip student teachers with skills for building a strong foundation for teaching learners in primary schools to read in familiar Zambian languages before transitioning to learning to read the official language, English.

In addition to strengthening the teaching of Early Grade Reading, the course is designed to equip student teachers with teaching skills that will enable them to effectively inculcate the knowledge, skills and values into the learners.

This course will therefore equip student teachers with skills for teaching literacy and language that will help learners in schools to read fluently and write clearly in order to communicate, gain knowledge, interpret the world and make sense of their experiences through their own social and cultural traditions.

Course Objectives:

At the end of the course, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate the ability to effectively respond to the course readings and content in multimodal ways
• establish the understanding and synthesis of the aforementioned learning opportunities, with emphasis on the ability to analyse and critically evaluate ideas and generate potential applications for professional practice.
• Identify different purposes of writing
• Identify skills for teaching writing at different grades required by learners when they leave school after their primary education such as filling in forms, writing notices, writing letters and writing reports
• Manipulate accurately and appropriately the key skills for teaching reading that will enable them to teach learners continuous free prose writing and written work required in their daily life to express themselves clearly with correct punctuation
• Acquire skills that will enable learners in schools to write personal experiences, ideas, opinions and knowledge
• Appreciate methodologies for teaching reading that will enable learners to read at appropriate speed with accuracy
• Appreciate different materials used for teaching reading that are likely to meet the learners aspirations and make judgments on the materials to be used for teaching reading
• Assess and track learners’ performance in reading

COURSE CONTENT

STUDY AND COMMUNICATION SKILLS

Orientation to College studies: time and resource management

Use of the Library.

Improvising Reading and Listening Efficiency (Summary Skills)

Oral communication.

Improving academic writing skills.

PHONOLOGY

Language and Communication

The Organs of Speech

Consonants

Consonant Clusters

Vowels

The Syllable

Some types of Articulation

GRAMMAR (SYNTAX)

The concept of language 

The units of language

Inflections, affixes and derivations

Forms of the English verb

Word classes (Parts of Speech)

Punctuation in direct and reported speech

The basic simple sentence elements

The simple sentence: The five basic sentence (verb) patterns, transitivity and intransitivity.

The Passive

Primary and modal auxiliary verbs.

Question tags and short form answers. 

Nouns, pronouns and pro-forms.

Adjectives and determiners.

Adverbs and Intensifiers. 

LISTENING AND SPEAKING

Public Speaking Skills.

Listening Skills.

What is speaking?

What is listening?

Purposes of Communicative Activities.

Oral Fluency.

READING SKILLS

Extensive Reading: The class library and reader.

Intensive Reading.

Extensive Reading: Literal comprehension; (Re-organisation; Inferential comprehension; Text Analysis; Evaluation and Appreciation.

Efficient Reading and Rapid Reading Techniques.

The Reading Syllabus: objectives and lesson planning.

Reading problems and Remedial strategies.

Designing Reading Materials, exercises and Tests.

WRITING SKILLS

Controlled Writing.

Guided Writing.

Free Writing.

Creative Writing.

Situational Composition.

LITERATURE

The concept of literature: what Literature is, and-what it aims to achieve; kinds of Literature and culture.

Literary forms (Novel, Poem and Drama/Play) and concepts; e.g. theme, plot, audience, symbolism, assonance stature etc.

Introduction to Oral Literature: e. g. myths and legends riddles and fable, story and song, proverbs and parable etc.

Short stories and the Novel, author, structure; setting, plot, characters, theme, chapter summaries.

Literature at the Junior Secondary School level: the class reader and the class Library.

The Senior Secondary School Literature Syllabus: aims and objective: set books.

Start anyone novel prescribed in the syllabus for Senior Secondary School.

Introduction to Sociolinguistics

Functions of Language- M.A.K Halliday’s Micro functions.

Varieties of Language accent, Dialect and Idiolect

Speech networks, Style and social relationships

Language dichotomic linguistic rules and social conventions, restricted codes and elaborated codes, Competence “and’ Performance, use and usage.

Language-situation policies and planning.

Language use and needs in Zambia   

Ll, L2 and foreign language situations.

Monolingualism, Bilingualism, Multilingualism and Parity of Status.

Lingua franca, Official and national language.

Language engineering and diglossia.

The English Medium and the role of indigenous languages

• Introduction to Psycholinguistics
• The relevance of psychology to language teaching and learning.  Language through culture.
• Language acquisition and learning.
• Memory and motivation in language learning.
• Individual differences in language learning.
• Learner’s strategies. The good language learner.
• THE ROLE OF A LANGUAGE TEACHER IN A LANGUAGE LESSON.
• Qualities of a good language teacher.
• The Classroom as a resource for language learning.
• Definition of terms:
• Teacher
• Pupil/learner
• The class
• L1 and L2 etc.
• Language learning and language acquisition in relation to language teaching.
• Approach, Technique and Method.
• Encouraging communication (body language, Teacher talk/pupil talk,).
• Using the local environment (human and material resources).
• Questioning for teaching and learning (techniques).
• Exploiting Textbooks.
• Reflecting (good teaching and bad teaching).
  • Choice, development and use of Teaching/Learning Aids.

Continuous Assessment                                50%

Two assignments per year                  30%

One test per year                                 20%

Examination                                                  50%

Total                                                               100%

Prescribed readings

Bainbridge, J. A. & Heydon, R.. (2017). Constructing meaning. Teaching language and literacy K-8 (6^th ed.). Toronto: Nelson Education.

Leech, G.  (1994),  A Communicative Grammar of English: London:  Longman.

Roach, P.(1991),English Phonetics and Phonology: Cambridge: Cambridge

Richards, J.C. and Rodgers, T.S. (1986), Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching: A Description and Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Tomlinson B. and Ellis R.,(1991), Teaching Secondary English: London: Longman

Yule,G.(1977), The Study of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

RECOMMENDED READINGS

Christophersen, P.(1979),  An English Phonetic Course: London: Longman.

Croft Steve and Cross Helen, (2000), Literature, Criticism and Style. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Johnson K. and Brumfit C. (1979) The Communicative Approach to Language Teaching.Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Krashen S.(1982), Second Language Acquisition and Learning. New York: Pergamon.

Quirk R., (1980), A Grammar of Contemporary English.  London: Longman.

Quirk R. and Green Baum (1978), A University Grammar of English. London: Longman.