CHALLENGE 4 - 6

Project

OVERALL OBJECTIVES

The objective of these courses is to motivate students once again by setting and achieving challenging learning goals. The course aims at bringing students that thirst for discovery and learning they had when they were in the Basic courses. In order to motivate students, they are given the opportunity to explore new learning strategies with challenging activities.

Homework starts to play an important learning role again, demanding students to analyze English from real sources every day; class activities are based on the homework assignments and students get the chance to analyze the different sides of issues being encouraged to develop critical thinking skills.

SHORT-TIME GOALS BY DÖRNEY 1. Goals should be: - Clear and specific, describing concrete

outcomes in as much detail as possible. - Measurable, describing the outcome in terms

that can be clearly evaluated. - Challenging and difficult, but not outside the

range of students’ capabilities. -Realistic.2. Goals should have a stated completion date.3. Both short and long term goals should be set.4. Teachers should provide feedback that

increases the students capability of and confidence in obtaining the goal.

STEPS IN THE PROCESS1. Look at the goals students are supposed to

achieve in one of the course units.2. The second step to plan the road the student

will follow to build the necessary language and vocabulary and to find the information needed to complete the task.

3. The third step is to develop a checklist of unit goals and learning reflections. The checklist is a tool students can use to monitor their progress.

4. The fourth step is to get students to develop the activities, stating a clear connection between the class contents, the unit task and the online activities.

6: MY WORLD IN ENGLISH CHALLENGE BLOCK EXIT PROFILE 4 Speaking

Students use basic as well as complex structures to discuss, compare, give clear, detailed descriptions, opinions, and presentations on complex subjects integrating sub-themes, expanding and supporting, developing particular points, giving reasons and relevant examples, and rounding off with an appropriate conclusion. Students are active and take risks constantly. Students also monitor themselves and repair mistakes when they lead to misunderstandings.

WRITING

Students can write clear, detailed texts such as reports, articles, reviews, letters, imaginary and life experience stories using paragraphs that connect coherently to the main idea and that develop significant points. Ideas in the paragraphs are systematically connected and support points are expanded giving reasons and examples. Students also highlight points to make their texts more interesting depending on the type of text they write and the kind of audience that the text is written for.

Students follow a writing process: planning, writing drafts, revising, and editing in order to correct mistakes and improve their texts.

READING

Students are self-confident readers who use strategies in order to understand common texts such as internet and magazine articles, classic stories, and specialized texts within their field of interest and other fields provided that they use monolingual dictionaries to confirm or look up the meaning of some new words. Students know how to find specific information in a text, follow instructions, use texts as meaningful reference as means for creating a report, and use texts for information to argument.

Students have understood the importance of owning a monolingual dictionary.

LISTENING

Students use any available tools effectively such as context, pictures, and background noise to identify key words, main ideas and details of standard spoken language, speeches, reports, TV shows, and broadcasts of both familiar and unfamiliar topics normally encountered in personal, social, academic or vocational life. Only extreme background noise, inadequate discourse structure and/or idiomatic usage influence the ability to understand. Students take notes accurately although sometimes they tend to concentrate on specific words and therefore they miss some information. Students know what tools they can use in the CCA, on-line, and at home to improve their listening comprehension and they also use these tools to develop challenging goal-oriented independent work

PRONUNCIATION

Students have overcome their basic vowel and consonant pronunciation difficulties and have started to apply reductions to make their speech more fluent; students have also applied correct intonation patterns. Students also use different tools such as internet, CCA, songs, and self-study CD to learn pronunciation and intonation patterns and they apply these patterns they learn. Students know the IPA and they use it effectively in class and out of class to pronounce new words and to check the pronunciation of words they are not so sure about.

GRAMMAR

Students’ grammar is very accurate. They are able to use basic structures as well as more advanced and new structures and a number of cohesive devices to link sentences smoothly into clear connected discourse. They know what grammar structure they need to use in order to communicate the meaning their idea implies. They use structures spontaneously and they monitor themselves and correct themselves immediately when they make mistakes. Sometimes they hesitate when creating an idea that requires the use of a complex structure, but this hesitation is proof of a self monitoring learning

LEARNING

Students have a clear goal and know how to achieve it. Students are active speakers and active learners who easily engage in conversations and use their best skills to convey messages. They also use learning tools effectively such as a monolingual dictionary, a notebook, and the course book. Students are aware of their weaknesses and strengthening these areas is part of their short time goals; therefore, they also devote time out of class for exercises that help them do so. Students are familiar with strategies for planning how to approach an idea to be said, a text to be written, listened to, or read. They also use strategies to analyze their mistakes and to learn from their mistakes. Their learning process is now a solid unit that helps them use their English correctly and also helps them improve the way they use it.

COMMUNICATION

Students can engage in extended conversation on most general topics giving others time to state point of view and responding to these points with clear, concrete, well- structured, and convincing arguments. Even those times when students are not familiar with the topic they are able to express how they feel about it. Students are also emotionally prepared for giving a speech on familiar topics and they can interact with their audience in a friendly environment. Students can use their English to repair misunderstandings smoothly without losing the flow of language

UNIT 1 DREAMS COME TRUE

Unit Objectives In this unit students will develop a critical view

on what they have done so far in their lives in regards to Learning English, what their learning objectives are and what they are specifically doing to achieve them. This will give students a sense to perspective and coherence on how they are working to achieve their dreams and life time goals and how English is connected to them. As students develop the task they will critically analyze the things they have done and also how much the choices they have taken have affected their lives and even what things need to be done to achieve those dreams. 2852720 3102191655

UNIT TASK: SHADOWS AND SUNSHINES OF MY LIFE. Write a composition in which you

explain how Learning English is connected to your life goals and dreams. You should also state what areas you need to work on, why, and what work you have done so far to improve. the life choices you have made and also how your present actions connect to your dreams and goals.

PORTFOLIO ENTRIES

Lists of the most important life choices students have made (Lesson 1).

Clovis High school answers. First draft of the autobiography with

peer corrections. Second draft of the autobiography.

UNIT 2 CHARACTER COUNTS

Unit Objectives Students will analyze how they have

helped their friends and also they will reflect on how far

they would go, how much they would bend their rules to help a friend in need. This unit will

bring a reflection of those things done for their friends, those lies told, and also what could

possibly be done for a friend and what would never be done.

UNIT TASK: A FRIEND IN NEED IS A FRIEND IN DEED.

Students will participate in a chinswing.com discussion in which they propose a solution for a difficult situation a classmate is going through. Later, they will listen to their classmates’ recordings and they will record a suggestion, opinion, or possible solution for them depending on how the teacher had proposed the conversation. After participating in the conversation students should write a little reflection about how they felt during the activity.

PORTFOLIO ENTRIES

Answers from the video Headache 1. Answers from the video Headache 2. Reflection on a situation when they

would and wouldn’t help a friend (lesson 3).

Reflection on impressions after developing the voxopop.com activities.

UNIT 3 DEALING WITH ADVERSITY

Unit Objectives Students will analyze their own character. Students

will look at what they are now and will reflect on what things have shaped them into who they are. How the hard situations they have lived have made them stronger and have helped them become heroes in some way. Every hero goes through rough situations that change them inside. In this unit students will look at what they are and will share what have been those remarkable experiences that have given them the character they have. This unit marks the end of the first part of the reflective learning process. In this unit students evaluate the work done in their goals so far and they state specific actions to be taken in regards to these goals during the following course.

UNIT TASK: KITES RISE AGAINST, NOT WITH THE WIND!

A narrative composition (story) about an obstacle or difficult situation the student or someone the student knows had to overcome.

PORTFOLIO ENTRIES

Answers from the video “Dangerous Rescues”.

Answers from the article “13 ways to deal with adversity”.

Answers from the video “Medal of Honnor”.

First draft Final version of the narrative

composition.