PLACES TO VISIT BEFORE YOU DIE CURRICULAR UNIT

1. Curricular Platform a. Theory of education: The Social Learning Theory. Cognitive development is a process which requires the child to be involved in problem solving experiences shared with other individuals such as: teachers, parents, siblings and/ or peers. The person who interacts with children in problem-solving experiences, assumes initially the responsibility of guiding the problem solving. However child responsibility level will gradually increase along the process. In this model, language is the tool used by adults and children to exchange knowledge and meaning embedded in the surrounding context. Thus, language become the primary intellectual adaptation tool, which allows the child to use internal language to direct their own behaviour. Language allows child to internalize the elements, knowledge and tools seen outside them. Curricula is designed according to this model emphasizing interaction between learners and learning task. Teachers role in this curricular design is focused on instruction and support, because of the limited childs ability at completing a task for their own; therefore, the teacher will be compared to a scaffold which supports childs learning process.. Along the learning process, the teacher will adjust their responses to their pupils language performance to achieve optimal results; the teachers responsibilities will decrease once the child improves their language performance. Assessment process is based on social learning model targeted to two levels: actual development (understood as the task which can be completed by childs own ability) and potential development (understood as the task which need to be completed by child and a peer). b. Approach: Content-based instruction. Content-based instruction (Richards & Rodgers, 2001) deals with teaching language through a content or information, rather than teaching linguistic information on itself. Content is understood as a subject matter, which requires language to be known or presented. Content-based takes advantage of pictures, objects and audiovisual presentations to develop language learning. Among other purposes, content-based instructions deals with assigning meaning to situations through language.

Information taken from the article Theories of education. Available at crescentok.com/staff/jaskew/isr/education/theories.htm#social

PLACES TO VISIT BEFORE YOU DIE CURRICULAR UNIT

According to Richards (2006, p. 27) Content-based instruction is based on interaction between learners and users of the language, collaborative creation of the meaning, creating meaningful and purposeful interaction through language, negotiation of meaning as the learner and his or her interlocutor arrive at understanding, learning through attending on the feedback learners get when they use the language, paying attention to the language one hears (the input) and trying to incorporate new forms into ones developing communicative competence [and] trying out and experiment with different ways to saying things. Richards (2006, p.28) also highlights the relevance of Content-based instruction as the framework for a unit of work because a determined matter or issue might be taught, consideringthe key topics as main knowledge to be presented. Those topics might be presented and treated through reading, oral presentation skills, group discussion, grammar and report writing. Curricular unit design and implementation. This unit has been developed based on social learning theory because of the importance of interaction and knowledge exchange given in language learning. Content-based was chosen as the framework of this unit due to the appropriateness of learning language through interesting issues and topics. The purpose of establishing this curricular platform consist on catching students attention through an interesting topic to encourage and empower them with suitable and useful language to be managed in real life situations. The content presented and developed here will be: Places to visit before you die.