The Literacy Approach to Teaching Foreign Languages

✍ Scribed by Ana Halbach

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2022
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 120
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book describes a new approach to teaching foreign languages for primary and secondary school that shifts the attention from learning the language to communicate skillfully in the foreign language. The approach focuses on developing students’ literacy skills as a way to discover language and make it meaningful. In the first four chapters the rationale for the approach is explained and illustrated with examples from different units of work in different languages (French, English and Spanish). Chapter 5 talks the reader through a complete unit of work based on a YouTube video, while chapter 6 looks at how this approach can be integrated into an existing curriculum. The book ends by looking at teachers and their difficulties in implementing this approach, and finally sets the Literacy Approach against recent developments in education. This volume will be of interest to academics, students and teachers in fields including foreign language education, literacy development, and CLIL.

✦ Table of Contents

Foreword
References
Acknowledgement
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Chapter 1: Communicating to Learn: Giving Language Teaching a Content of Its Own
Why Literacy Development?
What Does Literacy Development Offer to Foreign Language Teaching?
Outlook
References
Chapter 2: The Literacy Approach
Planning
Backward Design
Students’ Final Production: Text Types and Modes
The Teaching Points
The Learning Path
The Planning Grid
Outlook
References
Chapter 3: Designing the Learning Path: The Reception Phase
Starting with the Text
Leading Students into the Text
Understanding and Enjoying the Text
Looking at How the Text Means
Putting on the Writers’ Glasses: Observing the Text
Working on the Language: Analysing the Text
Organizing the Learning Path with the Help of the Planning Grid
Outlook
References
Chapter 4: Designing the Learning Path: The Production Phase
Ready for Production
Giving Students the Opportunity to Focus
What Guided Production Looks Like
Time for Free Production
Guiding Students Through the Free Production Stage
Assessing Students’ Production
Outlook
References
Chapter 5: A Literacy Unit in Primary Education
Becoming Clear About What We Want to Teach
From What I Know to What I Could Not Do Alone—The Learning Path
Outlook
References
Chapter 6: Integrating a Literacy Approach Into an Existing Curriculum
But I Have a Curriculum to Follow …
A Whole School Approach to Literacy Development
Developing an English Curriculum That Feeds into the Content Subjects
Language Teaching as Part of Students’ Academic Development
Outlook
References
Chapter 7: Teachers and the Literacy Approach
Just Take Any Step, Whether Small or Large …
Training the Teachers
Why Literacy, Why Now?
References
Appendix A: Tasks for the Reception Phase of a Unit Based on We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
Pre-reading
Reading
The Sinclairs: A ____ Family
The Sinclairs, a Beautiful Family
Appendix B: Checklist of Contents for Year 10 in the Curriculum of Advanced English (Comunidad de Madrid, Spain)
Index