FP015 – CURRICULUM AND COURSE DESIGN-PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE

ASSIGNMENT
General information

This assignment has to fulfil the following conditions:

 Length: 6 to 8 pages (without including cover, index or appendices –if there are any-).
 Font type: Arial or Times New Roman.
 Font size: 11.
 Spacing: 1.5.
 Alignment: Justified.

Use the following Word document as the template for the assignment. Follow the
guidelines of presentation and format, as for quotes and bibliographical references, which
are detailed in the Study Guide.

Submit the assignment following the procedure specified in the Evaluation document.
Assignments must not be sent to the tutor’s e-mail.

The assessment criteria can be found in the Evaluation document.

Important: you have to write your personal details and the subject name on the
cover (see the next page). The assignment that does not fulfil these conditions will
not be corrected. You have to include the assignment index below the cover.

Name and surname(s):

Login:

Group:

Date:

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ASSIGNMENT

Study the materials from Cambridge English Prepare, available in the Assignment
Materials section. Materials include the frontmatter, the contents pages, and unit 1 of the
Student’s Book.

(Retrieved from: [Link]

english-exams-ielts/first-schools/cambridge-english-prepare)

On the basis of this material, prepare a report evaluating the usefulness of this course for
the objectives the authors declare in the frontmatter.

Prepare! is a lively general English course with comprehensive Cambridge English

for Schools exam preparation integrated throughout. This flexible course brings
together all the tools and technology you expect to get the results you need.

Evaluate the materials according to your own criteria of what good classroom materials
should be like and according to the criteria the authors establish in their introduction.
Would any changes be recommended?

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 ASSIGNMENT – FP015 CCD

ASSIGNMENT:

FP015 CURRICULUM AND COURSE PRINCIPLES

AND PRACTICE

Full name:

Ruth Esther Figueroa Mejía

Group: 2023

Date: 28/04/2024

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Introduction:

According to Hutchinson & Torres, ¨…the textbook has a vital and positive part to play in
the everyday job of teaching and learning English¨ (1994 p315). Choosing a coursebook is
not an easy task. Despite it can be entertaining and enjoyable, with the plenty of options
existing in the market, it can be more than arduous even considering the specifications
needed or established beforehand. The preparation stage becomes a very crucial point.
Teachers and authorities, as pointed out by Sheldon, when mentioned that ¨… Selecting a
course book signals an executive educational decision… ¨ (1988 p 237) need to consider
not only the language skills to be focused on but also the content areas adapted to the
student's needs wants, and lacks. Besides them, the students' backgrounds, their
previous experiences, and their learning styles in the end are the lights along the path
when designing a course.

The present document will analyze a sample material for English teaching named
Prepare! by Cambridge, Level 4 specifically based on the theories and content studied in
the ¨Curriculum and Course Design-Principles and Practice¨ by Thornbury & Ball (2016).
Besides, it was of imperative importance and necessary to accomplish the established
purposes, to use and review the course unit provided, and its authors' objectives to
evaluate and analyze according to the parameters requested.

It is important also to consider, that other aspects comprehended in the Curriculum design
field such as noticing the type of syllabus and methodology are going to be addressed. As
a matter of fact, it will be toral, to define the paradigm addressed in the coursebook.
Deepen into an examination of the tools and classroom materials by analyzing the
importance and worth of choosing materials correctly. Even though the analysis will be
done from an online catalog, the choice of materials originates in the underlying
methodology. Besides it, some recommendations could be attempted considering the
established criteria when choosing good classroom materials matching the observations
done by the creators in the introduction.

Once being analyzed the information, contents, and tasks presented in the excerpt, the
ideas expressed in this document, succeed in underlining the appropriate feedback,
aiming to fulfill your expectations. However, it would represent a great opportunity to have
a more complete analysis if having access to the teacher´s notes.

Course Description:

The course book Prepare! level 4, has as an objective intents to be for general English as
well as Cambridge English for schools exam preparation. So that the curriculum goals for

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the course are educational when describing competencies, skills, and attributes that the
studenst will acquire throughout and at the end of the course. It is also important to
mention that it contemplates sociolinguistics since the students will be evaluating the
impact of some social factors on their personal beliefs, considering different cultural
perspectives. The activities presented in the course are communicative and goal-oriented
when the students are pushed to be responsible for their achievements. It means that they
are designed to improve the students' capacity in matters of cognitivism.

As the online description of the material states, the course covers motivating age-
appropriate themes concerning cross-curricular and cultural units with a wide range of
variability of topics building vocabulary according to their level. As well the table of
contents illustrates twenty units with different topics, five culture units, five CLIL units, and
five review units. It is also a suggestion that the material follows a topic-based syllabus
besides the new structures, vocabulary, and language functions selected in the frame of a
specific topic. In the same way, it also includes integrated skills in the listening and
speaking activities and the reading and writing tasks which are closely related to the topic
selected.

It is also observable, insights of a structural syllabus, evidenced by a list of grammatical

items. Nunan (1988 p 28), observed about structural syllabuses, ¨… input is selected and
graded according to grammatical notions of simplicity and complexity¨. Going deeper into
the syllabus’s domain, it is mentionable that the unit shows multiple and integrated
syllabuses. A syllabus is “a specification of the content of a course of instruction and lists
what will be taught and tested” (Richards, 2001:2). “Syllabuses may be either product or
process-oriented, the former focusing on what knowledge should be gained and the latter
on the experiences that facilitate learning” (Nunan, 1988).

Furthermore, to benefit the students, the course book includes a Cambridge Lerner
Corpus which can help the students to understand the language in a specific context
without being isolated. Besides the gradual exposure to the exam style tasks, very similar
to the ones they will be exposed to. They have been also designed by experts to make
sure that the students are fully prepared to do it. All the tasks that human beings are
exposed to are the response to a need. This is not an isolated situation in which as a
response to the rapidly-growing demand of gaining international qualifications to pursue
promising careers, through this material, Cambridge offers the opportunity to the students
to be prepared. By analyzing what is exposed in the online catalog, teachers can have a
clearer picture of what to expect from this course.

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One of the very promising aspects is the quantity and quality of additional material to
support the topic units and provide extra interactive practice activities that might help
students enhance their self-study skills.

Since the scope of paradigms about how the curriculum decisions are addressed in the
matter of an operation plan, we can conclude that two paradigms can be observed;
knowledge-centered, and person-centered. Both paradigms have a strong influence on
the approach or the philosophy and the methods, techniques, and procedures. White
(1988:45) cited by Thornbury & Ball (2016:29) mentioned:

These two types can be summarized in terms of the distinction between an

interventionist approach which gives priority to the pre-specification of linguistic or
other content or skill objectives on the one hand, and a non-interventionist,
experiential, “natural growth” approach on the other.

After analyzing the unit presented by Prepare!, it can be assured that the course book
reflects a Type B approach instead of a Type A. This is because of how the activities
foster a self-guided structure, promoting better opportunities for language acquisition and
practice. Thus, the teacher is seen as a facilitator and guide rather than a knowledge
transmitter.

Materials:

When choosing materials, it is important to consider the criteria established in the

preparation phase in which the objectives and background have been analyzed, so the
material becomes the answer to a need. Tomlinson (2013:539) comments that “for the
process (of developing materials) and the product to be effective there must be a dynamic
interaction between the materials and the syllabus” among others.

Following the settlement of objectives stated by Thornbury and Ball (2016 p 87) related to
material choice and design, ¨a criteria must be used to ensure that the course book
choosen agrees with the curriculum goals and objectives¨. To illustrate it, Sheldom (1988
pp 243-245) mentioned a list of characteristics to be considered with a number of ¨key¨
questions to ask when choosing avoiding negative consequences:

¨Among these, “rationale” stands out as it relates to the purpose, information about
Needs Analysis and objectives. Another is “linkage” for it refers to whether “the
units and exercises connect in terms of theme, situation, topic, pattern of skill
development, or grammatical/lexical “progression”.” And there is also

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 “Authenticity”, which concerns realistic content taken from L1 material, tasks which
communicatively exploit language. (Ibid: 243-244). ¨ Quoted by Mendoza (2020
p7).

Despite not all of the list features that have been listed, the aforementioned are relevant to
the current document. Besides, the course book contains a wide variety of tools and
technological devices which comprises a Plus for an interactive classroom presentation. It
derives in a more effective presentation considering the importance of these tools
nowadays. Dynamic and catching lessons in both, the students' book and the workbook,
which facilitates things for teachers and digital-born students as the ones we have in
classrooms these ages. The materials also offer a Learning Management System, which
marks and collates the answers automatically. By implementing these interactive
materials these platforms become a must-have tool in course book production and
acquisition.

So that way, Prepare! Level 4, is aiming to prepare students for Cambridge English for
schools. Its proposal and materials help students to develop language acquisition through
integrated skills with a wide range of resources available in both format, print, and online
besides its plus materials, placing its products at the top of the demands in the market.

Tasks evaluation:

As Cunningsworth (1995) said, ¨ Effective evaluation relies on asking appropriate

questions and interpreting the answers to them¨. Once analyzed the unit we can easily
observe the principle of teachability, when the language is presented and organized in
very teachable lessons, for example: in the unit presented as ¨Personal Profile¨,
vocabulary is stated as a warm-up activity involving the students in the topic in such a way
the content can be personalized and used for the students acquiring a real-life sense. It
also permits brainstorming, so that the teacher can easily identify, which students need
further practice and reinforcement. Then, the listening tasks allow students to draw
inferences and deductions building their lexicon. As well, exercises 3 and 7 push the
students to practice the language with communicative activities in which they have to build
sense and meaning.

The reading task on the next page aims to develop reading skills by applying reading
strategies such as prediction, skimming, and scanning included in a linear progression.
They also have to choose correctly in the additional multiple-choice questions that each
section includes. Students must also take decision regarding agreement or disagreement
in the speaking activities in which they have to express their own ideas and opinions. It

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goes further, when the students are exposed to real life tasks, when communication is a
must, the students not only practice the structure and gain self confidence, but also are
exposed to the language in such a way that they internalize knowledge.

In relationship to the grammar unit to contrasts pair tenses ¨Present simple and
continuous¨, presented through sentences to match to the different uses or rules, is
important to mention, that this approach allows the students to analyze language from a
structural perspective. The students analyze by deducting, implicitly, adding elements,
and discovering by themselves. In spite it is not so communicative, it is important and
helpful for explicit grammar to understand the rules plainly, this way they understand that
grammar works for the language as the skeleton for human beings.

After that, students are required to discriminate exercises, when writing for accuracy
involving an open-ended activity, which can also be considered a free practice. The
activities as suggested seem to be balanced. This is to say that they contain free and
controlled practice, adapted to different learning styles. They can be also found, fill in fill-
in-the-blank activities in which the students are guided to a single correct answer.

In the writing section, it starts by activating prior knowledge and stimulus in a

communicative task, through the two online profiles. Here, the students are required to
read the Prepare! box by picking into useful language they will be using in their text;
besides, the students are asked to focus their attention in grammar and lexis. They have
been given hints about the structure of the text.

Finally, the activities have been organized from the simplest to the most complex,
linguistically and cognitively. It comprises challenges according to the level of
development of the different tasks. In addition, they require the students to make use of a
wide variety of cognitive skills to succeed.

Recommendations:

As we already know, there is no book that can be considered perfect. Taking into account
the heterogeneity of the groups besides their backgrounds. Contradictions will always be
found, regarding usefulness to achieve different learning and teaching objectives. From
one perspective “coursebooks constitute an effective resource for self-directed learning
and for the presentation of material, a source of ideas and activities, a reference source
for students, a syllabus where they reflect pre-determined learning objectives, and support
for less experienced teachers who may be lacking in confidence” (Cunningsworth, 1995),
But, from another perspective, the teacher role in something dynamic “the teacher’s role is
undermined. Teachers may find themselves as mediators; they only carry out teaching

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practices imposed on them (Ur, 1991). Both of the points of view are equally valid.
Undoubtedly, regarding books in course design teachers always select the materials that
fit better to the students' needs, wants, and lacks according to the objectives and policies
stated. In the majority of cases, the material is constantly used in such a way it serves as
a way of improvement and experimentation.

Conclusion

After analyzing the course book material, Prepare! Level 4 is perfectly designed according
to its purpose. It would be desirable to have access to all the material such as the
Workbook and Student Book to have a broader perspective. But as is widely known,
Cambridge Language Materials has a worldwide reputation, for its excellence in language
building, research, and goal achievement. Considering all this analysis previously done, it
is expected that the current report reaches the desired standards.

References

Cunningsworth, A. 1995. Choosing your Coursebook. Macmillan Heineman.

Hutchinson, T., & Torres, E. (1994). The Textbooks as Agent of Change. ELT

Journal 48(4) Oxford University Press. Retrieved from:

[Link]

Nunan, D. (1988). Syllabus Design. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Retrieved

from: [Link]
%20Syllabus%20Design%20(1988,%20Oxford%20University%20Press).pdf

Richards, J. C. (2001) Curriculum development in language teaching. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Sheldon, L. E. (1988). Evaluating ELT textbooks and materials. ELT Journal 42(4)

Oxford University Press. Retrieved from:

[Link] doi=[Link].7638&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Styring, J., & Tims, N. (2015). Cambridge English Prepare! Level 4. Front matter,

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 content pages and Unit 1 Retrieved from:

[Link]
ielts/first-schools/cambridge-english-prepare

Thornbury, S., & Ball, P. (2016) Curriculum and Course Design – Principles and

Practice. FUNIBER.

White, R. (1998). The ELT Curriculum. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, Chapter 2 in

Thornbury, S., & Ball, P. (2016) Curriculum and Course Design – Principles and

Practice. FUNIBER. Assignment – FP015 CCD

Tomlinson, B (2013). E-Book Developing Materials for Language Teaching. 2nd

Edition. Available on [Link]

ebookdeveloping-materials-for-language-teaching-brian-tomlinson-2013-pdf/

Ur, P. (1991). A course in language teaching: Practice and theory. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press

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