PROGRAMACIÓ

TEACHER’S NOTES

1. INTRODUCTION

This credit has been designed for students of ESO (Spanish education compulsory stage). It is a credit for extension, which means that students must have pretty good knowledge of the English language so that they can follow the lessons. In fact, all the didactic materials and resources that are going to be used are in English.

The credit can be used and adapted for 2n, 3rd or 4th ESO. Its duration is of approximately 35 hours and the best way to teach it is a term (3 hours a week during 3 months).

The contents of the credit are based on Global Citizenship and the topics covered in each unit were selected from a whole variety of topics that I could observe being taught in Holyrood Secondary School in Glasgow from October 2005 to May 2006. Once I selected the topics I adapted the materials and resources and looked for more so that the materials that I have created are suitable for my students in Sant Joan Despí.

The topics covered are:

22 units in total.

Each unit contains a different number of sessions. Each session is thought to be taught in a different length of time, which means that some are longer than others. The division has been done not according to timing but to the topic covered in each of them.

This credit introduces pupils to key ideas that are central to developing an understanding of what active citizenship is all about. They consider their rights and responsibilities and think about issues of fairness. They consider the role of citizens in a democratic society.

The material provides students with a useful background for understanding international current affairs.

The material I have created is about world-mindedness, which is an attitude, an approach to life. Students should realise that the world is not so big as they think it is, in fact it is like a village or small town where we know who our neighbours are, where they live and how they live, and where we all want to live in peace together. They will learn about geography and where countries are located but will realise that all the people in the world are connected and that we are not so different.

The general aims of the credit are the following: (there are also specific aims for each single unit)

To make the English language the vehicle of the teaching-learning process of a subject which is not English, mainly Citizenship

To introduce them to the concept of Citizenship as another school subject in their curriculum

To learn about different communities and countries in the world

To get ideas to become active citizens and take part in society

To use internet and different sources of information

To work in pairs and groups in an effective way

To become aware of rights and responsibilities, especially human rights

To learn about worldwide organisations trying to help the poorer countries and understand that lots of people and associations in the world are working to make the world a better place to live

To become positive individuals and think of ways to improve the world

To become aware that the world is ours for us to change in some aspects

To value the good things around us and of the fact that we are really lucky in comparison to other people and places in the world

To be able to spread the message of change and hope in the future

3. CONTENTS

The contents of the credit are divided into Concepts, Procedimental knowledge and Attitudes, Values and Norms. There are specific contents for each single unit but some general aspects would be:

a) Concepts

There is a lot of work on vocabulary of a great variety of topics, some grammar revision, situational language, use of classroom language, geographic, social and economic factors of different countries in the world and lots of topics related to social science.

b) Procedimental knowledge

Reading: reading for general or selective comprehension, deduction of the meaning from the context, reading aloud, etc

Listening: listening for general or selective comprehension, deduction of the meaning from the context, use of strategies for the understanding of an oral exchange (repeating, spelling, giving examples, etc)

Speaking: repetition of given models, use of gestures and mime, questions-answers with the teacher and the students, short conversations, etc

Writing: writing texts in a structured way, punctuation, connecting paragraphs, reproduction of given texts, etc

Interdiciplinary aspects: Interpreting tables with facts and figures, drawing conclusions from statistics, drawing bar graphs, etc

Working techniques: use of printed sources (dictionaries, encyclopedias, books, press) and other sources (oral- songs, dialogues, etc-, audiovisual computers and internet)

Self-organisation of individual work: tidiness in jotters, lists of vocabulary, good presentation in projects, active participation in the classroom

Self-organisation in group work: task distribution, collecting and processing material, producing and organising materials, putting everything together and elaborating a final product  

c) Values, norms and attitudes

As teachers, we know well that attitudes and values, along with knowledge and skills, are an integral part of our curriculum. Attitudes consist of the feelings or dispositions towards things, ideas, or people which incline a person to certain types of actions. Through this Citizenship credit we are encouraging positive attitudes towards all areas of learning by providing challenging learning activities which are relevant to students’ experiences and their world and appropriate to their levels of achievement.

Values are defined as one’s principles or standards: one’s judgement of what is valuable in life. Values are the ideals that give significance to our lives. As educators we want these values to have a lasting effect on the students’ personal and faith development and self-esteem and general well-being. We would like to promote the following values among others:

• Being ready for learning something new every morning
• Patience
• Gratefulness
• Generosity
• Perseverance
• Team work
• Sense of belonging to their community and to the world at a greater extent
• Self-motivation and self-discipline
• Honesty
• Empathy
• Curiosity
• Helpfulness
• Enthusiasm for life
• Justice
• Courage to change things
• Reliability
• Respect for others
• Tolerance
• Non-sexism
• Non-racism

We will help students to develop and clarify their own values and beliefs, and to respect and be sensitive to the rights of individuals, families, and groups in order to hold values and attitudes which are different from their own.

There are also specific values, norms and attitudes for each single unit.

4. TEACHERS’ METHODOLOGY

 Some ideas to keep in mind in class:

• Working in the computer room in order to have access to internet at all times

• Having a good, up-to-date world map of the world prominently displayed on the wall of the classroom. A strong sense of world geography lays a foundation for discussions with or about people of other regions, countries and cultures. Refer to it to locate places in the news, countries where friends or relatives are travelling, and so on

• Having at least one atlas with a good index so that we can find places and explore the world more easily
  
  
• Creating and designing posters for the walls of the classroom and the corridors. These posters must contain meaningful messages for the rest of the community. Some examples of posters and ideas can be seen in  posters per la classe

• Play geography names whenever there is some spare 5 minutes. For example, try “What’s next?”, a game in which one person says the names of 2 contiguous countries and the other people have to figure out what the next contiguous country is. For example, if I said “Canada and United States”, you would say “Mexico” because if I went from Canada to the USA, the next country on my trip would be Mexico. If I said “India, Nepal”, you would say “China”.
  “Capital/country” is another game: one person names a country or a capital and the other players must name the missing country or capital. For example, if I said “Lithuania”, you would have to name the capital “Vilnius”.
  “Details” is another game: one person names one country and the other persons have to give details about it. For example, for Italy we could say capital is Rome, language is Italian, borders France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia, etc.

• If our community is sistered with a community elsewhere in the world, get some information from your local government about the paired community and write to it

• If there is really enough food in the world, why do some people still go hungry?
• What is a country?
• Why are there so many new ones trying for autonomy?
• Why do so many people want to live elsewhere in the world?
• Where are they migrating?
• What forms of government do different countries have?
• Why are there so many forms of government?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of each one?
• Foster world-minded thoughts. Look out for your neighbour. Being on a team is important.

• Encourage passion in knowing about the world and travelling. Help children become passionate about the world, about exploring different countries, about expanding their knowledge, travelling and discovering by themselves, about acquiring a passion for travel and culture and reading. Make sure children see your love of maps and travel, your interest in news from other parts of the world and your curiosity about other people, cultures and languages. If children express a strong interest in something, help them follow up and learn more. In this sense it is important for the students to know about other countries that the teacher herself/himself has visited. For example, during the schoolyear 2006/07 I am going to organise slide shows of my trips in Scotland, New Zealand, Australia and Singapore, which I have visited in the past few months.

• Have our students associated with a similar school in another country. For example, my students are going to have Scottish students from Holyrood Secondary School in Glasgow as penpals and take part in an exchange.

5. STUDENTS’ ACTIVITIES

All the activities designed for the students are found in the students’ worksheets. The different exercises are clearly presented. They can be carried out on photocopies of the material, as a word document in case of possible access to computers every period of class (so that we save paper and photocopies) or through the website where all the material of this credit is found (in which case the students must write all their answers to the exercises in their notebooks). In all cases, they must have a Citizenship notebook where they must keep all the worksheets, notes and vocabulary lists and glossaries.

6. DIDACTIC MATERIAL AND RESOURCES

The materials of the credit are:

• The students’ worksheets
  
• The teachers’ worksheets. In this section you will find all the materials included in the students’ worksheets + the answer keys to each exercise (in red colour and bold shape) + the teaching instructions to deal with each activity (in red colour)
  
• The website created for the credit

Other materials which are necessary:

Markers, scissors and glue, computers, newspapers, photographs, maps and atlas, encyclopedias, …

Apart from the resources that you can find on the website and the worksheets (video clips, slide shows, songs, etc), see the resources listed in the bibliography and other resources section of this piece of work.

7. ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION

The evaluation of the work of the students will be done every day, so it will be continuous. The teacher will take notes of their progress. Constant participation in the class, good presentation and neatness of their jotters is essential. Just like another school subject, procedimental knowledge will be given 40% of the final mark, concepts 40% and values, norms and attitudes 20%.

At the end of Unit 1 there is a skills assessment worksheet so that the first week of the credit the students are tested about their knowledge of the new subject. In other units they will have to produce a piece of work like poster projects, slide show presentations, designing a campaign, etc.