UNDERSTANDING AND INTERPRETING THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE CURRICULUM
FOR NEW ENGLISH TEACHERS
English Language Education Section Curriculum Development Institute Education Bureau
WARM-UP ACTIVITY
In groups, discuss the following:
How far do you agree with the following statements?
1. Students should do more past exam papers in class in order to get good results in the HKDSE examinations.
2. Teachers are required to teach 3 elective modules in the Elective Part.
3. Since the elective modules are not properly assessed in the HKDSE examination, they need not be taught.
4. There is a huge gap between the JS and the SS
curricula.
BY THE END OF THE WORKSHOP, YOU WILL HAVE
a better understanding of the design and the features of the English Language curriculum with an emphasis on the senior secondary level;
a brief idea about the major updates of the ELE KLACG (P1-S6);
explored strategies for curriculum planning and implementation; and
designed task-based activities for senior secondary
students.
Major Updates of the ELE KLACG (P1-S6)
Catering for the Needs of SEN and Gifted Students in the Mainstream English Classroom
Learning and Teaching of Text Grammar Extending from Assessment for Learning to Assessment as Learning
Integrative Use of Generic Skills Literacy Development
Values Education
Reading across the Curriculum & STEM Education (including entrepreneurial spirit) e-Learning & Information Literacy
INSIGHTS FROM PISA
The definition of reading literacy (for 2009, 2012, 2015):
Reading literacy is understanding, using and reflecting on written texts, in order to achieve one’s goals, to develop one’s knowledge and potential, and to participate in society.
The 2018 definition of reading literacy:
Reading literacy is understanding, using and reflecting on texts, in order to achieve one’s goals, to develop one’s knowledge and potential, and to participate in society.
Can you spot the difference between the two definitions?
Multi- modal
texts
Sound effects
Images
Written texts Spoken
language Music
LITERACY DEVELOPMENT
“Literacy” has taken on a new meaning as texts are no longer a
linear form of presentation limited to words, but are composed of
various modes of communication.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR ACCESSING
INFORMATION FROM A VARIETY OF SOURCES
• Examples include:
English Language Education KLA Curriculum Guides
(CDC, 2017)
(P1 – S6)
ELE KLACG
12 years
(CDC, 2004) (CDC, 2018) (CDC & HKEAA, 2007) with updates in 2015 9 (CDC, 2017)
THE SENIOR SECONDARY
ENGLISH LANGUAGE CURRICULUM
S6
S5
S4
Elective Part (25%) Compulsory
Part
(75%)
THE COMPULSORY PART
The learning and teaching of:
The four language skills
Language items and communicative functions
Vocabulary Text types
ModuleUnit 1
Task 1.1 Task 1.2
Unit 2
Task 2.1
Organising structure of M-U-T
THE ELECTIVE PART
While Modules, Units and Tasks are to be adopted for organising learning and teaching in the Compulsory Part, the modules in the Elective Part may not necessarily follow the M-U-T structure. However, the general approach to teaching the modules in the Elective Part remains task-based – that is, teachers are encouraged to continue with the principles and practices associated with task-based learning, namely using learner-centred instruction, providing opportunities for meaningful and purposeful communication and promoting integrative and creative uses of language.
English Language Curriculum and Assessment Guide (Secondary 4-6), p.54
FEATURES OF A TASK
Involves learners in thinking and doing
Requires learners to draw upon a
framework of
knowledge and skills
Product Purpose
Context
Adapted from Enhancing English Vocabulary Learning and Teaching at Secondary Level (2012)
ADOPTING A TASK-BASED APPROACH IN LESSON DESIGN
Module
Cultures of the World
Task 1
Reading an email from the teacher-
in-charge of the
“Hong Kong’s Heritage Excursion”
Task 2 Listening to an interview with the
Executive Secretary of the
Antiquities and Monuments Office
Task 4 Making
recommendations for the heritage
tour
Final Task
Writing a proposal and designing a poster Heritage ConservationUnit
Task 3
Reading leaflets about some heritage sites in
Hong Kong
Provides contexts for:
• integrated use of language skills
• meaningful and purposeful use of English for communication
Facilitates effective grammar and vocabulary learning and teaching
Uses learning and teaching resources of a variety of text types
Promotes a learner-centred approach
Primary curriculum
• laying the foundation of English Language development
INTERFACE BETWEEN KEY STAGES
Primary curriculum
• laying the foundation of English Language development Junior Secondary curriculum
• providing chances for the application of English for various everyday learning and developmental purposes
Senior Secondary curriculum
• providing chances for the application of English for various everyday learning and developmental purposes
• consolidating what students have learnt through P1-S3 and broadening and deepening their learning experiences
Junior Secondary curriculum
• providing chances for the application of English for various everyday learning and developmental purposes
Junior Secondary
•Exposure to a wide range of print and non-print texts
•Extensive reading and RaC
•Further development of reading skills and strategies
Senior Secondary
•Exposure to a widened range of more complex text types
•School-based
Assessment: critical and imaginative responses to texts
•Comprehension of more complex messages in more formal/academic texts
Primary
•Exposure to a range of text types
•Incorporation of Reading Workshops into the School-based English Language
Curriculum
•Development of basic reading skills and
strategies
LEARNING EXPERIENCE ACROSS KEY STAGES
Junior Secondary
•Exposure to a wide range of print and non-print texts
•Extensive reading and RaC
•Further development of reading skills and strategies
Senior Secondary
•Exposure to a widened range of more complex text types
•School-based
Assessment: critical and imaginative responses to texts
•Comprehension of more complex messages in more formal/academic texts
Primary
•Exposure to a range of text types
•Incorporation of Reading Workshops into the School-based English Language
Curriculum
•Development of basic reading skills and
strategies
LEARNING EXPERIENCE ACROSS KEY STAGES
T
EXPOSURE TO A WIDE RANGE OF TEXT TYPES
Text Types for Key Stage 1
Additional Text Types for Key Stage 2
Additional Text Types for Key Stage 3
Additional Text Types for Key Stage 4
• Advertisements
• Captions
• Cards
• Cartoons/comics
• Charts
• Diaries
• Fables/fairy tales
• Forms
• Illustrations
• Leaflets
• Lists
• Menus
• Notes and messages
• Notices
• Personal letters
• Poems
• …
• Announcements
• Autobiographies
• Biographies
• Blogs
• Brochures
• Children’s
encyclopaedias
• Discussions
• Emails
• Formal letters
• Informational reports
• Jokes
• Maps and legends
• News reports
• Plays
• Questionnaires
• …
• Book
reviews/reports
• Encyclopaedias
• Film reviews
• Interviews
• Itineraries
• Letters to the editor
• Manuals
• Memoranda
• Newspaper/
Magazine articles
• Presentations
• Short films
• Short novels
• Social media texts
• Talks
• …
• Abstracts/synopses
• Agendas
• Debates
• Documentaries
• Editorials
• Essays
• Feature articles
• Films
• Minutes
• Novels
• Proposals
• Speeches
• Resumes
• Thesauri
Junior Secondary
•Exposure to a wide range of print and non-print texts
•Extensive reading and RaC
•Further development of reading skills and strategies
Senior Secondary
•Exposure to a widened range of more complex text types
•School-based
Assessment: critical and imaginative responses to texts Comprehension of more complex messages in more formal/academic texts
Primary
•Exposure to a range of text types
•Incorporation of Reading Workshops into the School-based English Language
Curriculum
•Development of basic reading skills and
strategies
LEARNING EXPERIENCE ACROSS KEY STAGES
Junior Secondary
•Exposure to a wide range of print and non-print texts
•Extensive reading and RaC
•Further development of reading skills and strategies
Senior Secondary
•Exposure to a widened range of more complex text types
•School-based
Assessment: critical and imaginative responses to texts
•Comprehension of more complex messages in more formal/academic texts
Primary
•Exposure to a range of text types
•Incorporation of Reading Workshops into the School-based English Language
Curriculum
•Development of basic reading skills and
strategies
LEARNING EXPERIENCE ACROSS KEY STAGES
Depth of Processing
Range and application of reading strategies
Text complexity
Abstractness
Organisation Density of information
Understanding
- Locating information
- Working out meaning of words and phrases
- Connecting ideas
- Identifying main ideas and supporting details
- Distinguishing facts from opinions - Organising information and ideas
Inferring
- Inferring feelings
- Deducing information and ideas
- Comparing information and ideas
- Working out main ideas and themes
Interpreting
- Analysing information and ideas
- Synthesising - Evaluating - Justifying
Reading Skills and Strategies
- Activating learners’ prior knowledge and experiences
- Selection of a wide range of texts of appropriate lengths and different topics - Interplay between texts and tasks
- The provision of teacher support and the need to promote learner independence
Underlying principles
COMPLEXITY OF TEXTS
Easier texts More difficult texts Abstractness
Ideas and information explicitlystated
Straightforward & factual information
Ideas and information implicitly stated
Meaning hidden between lines or beyond lines
Organisation
Well-defined text structure Organisation of paragraphs following sequence of events, logical progression (general to specific)
Use of short paragraphs,
subheadings & cohesive devices
Lack of well-defined text structure, mix of text-types
Organisation of paragraphs not following a common pattern (problem-solution)
Lack of signposts to facilitate understanding of texts
Density of information
Most sentences/paragraphs containing one piece of information
Sentence structures and
language largely simple, with occasional use of complex structures
High lexical density – with a large amount of information- carrying words
A wide range of complex sentence structures and language
Example:
2015 HKDSE Reading Paper Part B1 Easy Section (Text 3)
Example:
2017 HKDSE Reading Paper Part A Compulsory Section (Text 1)
I, Anna Rossi, of 3 Arthur Street, Yau Ma Tei, housewife, state:
On 1 December 2014 at about 3:30pm, I was about to get into my car in the car park next to the shops on Wood Road, Wan Chai.
I noticed that a silver car was driving down the aisle behind me.
I saw a green sport car reverse out of a car space and collide with the silver car.
The silver car was moving at the time of the collision.
My car was parked opposite where the accident happened.
[9] To many public officials, recycling is a
question of morality, not cost-benefit analysis.
The Mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, declared that by 2030 the city would no longer send any garbage to landfills. “This is the way of the future”
if we’re going to save our earth,” he explained while announcing that New York would join other cities in moving toward a “zero waste”
policy, which would require an unprecedented level of recycling.
ABSTRACTNESS
ORGANISATION
Example: 2016 HKDSE Exam
Paper Part A (Text 1) Example: 2016 HKDSE Exam Paper Part B1 (Text 7) Easy Section
[11] …Some Hong Kong people may be skeptical about this proposal, saying the food trucks will cause traffic congestion in crowded areas of the city.
However, I have not heard of such complaints regarding the Mister Softee fleet.
[12] People may also raise concerns about hygiene. This is an issue that is often raised when people are discussing the merits of street food.
However, you see stalls selling fish balls, chicken wings and other snacks.
They operate in similar conditions to food trucks.
ORGANISATION
Example:
2016 HKDSE Exam Reading Paper Part A Compulsory Section
Example:
2015 HKDSE Exam Reading Paper Part B2 Difficult Section
Reading text 2 Para 2
There is just one problem. Superstition doesn’t work. At least it doesn’t work in the way most people think it does.
Superstition is based on outdated and incorrect thinking. It comes from a time when people thought that luck was a strange force that could only be
controlled by magical rituals and bizarre behaviours. Several researchers have tested these age-old beliefs and found them wanting.
Reading text 5 Para 10
In my film and philosophy class, for example, I have to insist that students put their devices away while
watching movies that don’t immediately engage their senses with explosions, sex or gag lines. At first they see this as some old guy’s failure to grasp their skills at multitasking, but eventually most relearn how to give themselves to an emotional and intellectual
experience, one that is deeply engaging partly
because it does not pander to their most superficial habit of attention. I usually watch the movies with them (though I’ve seen them more than a dozen times), and together we share an experience that becomes the subject of reflection, interpretation and analysis. We even forget our phones and tablets when we encounter these unexpected sources of inspiration.
DENSITY OF INFORMATION
Example: 2016 HKDSE Exam Paper Part B1 Q24
Para 2
Food trucks could soon be on the streets of Hong Kong, with John Tsang revealing the government is investigating introducing the concept.
Question 24
When does John Tsang want to introduce food trucks?
Understanding – Locating information
Example: 2016 HKDSE Exam Paper Part B2 Q47
Para 1
The arrival of food trucks to New York several years ago was greeted by a city
hungry for refined street food, willing to pay higher prices to reward hard-working
culinary entrepreneurs. But, what was initially a story of success, as the Mexicue truck can attest, quickly became a
nightmare.
Question 47
Which word in paragraph 1 suggests that the food truck business can be extremely unpleasant?
Understanding – Working out meaning of words
Example: 2015 HKDSE Exam Paper Part B1 Q50
Para 10
And what about unforeseen consequences?
Researchers can’t predict how, exactly, self- driving cars may reshape society. Maybe the vehicles will induce even more travel and congestion will get worse. Or maybe they will lead to an increase in air pollution. It’s impossible to know at this point. Still the advantages are tantalizing…
Question 50
According to paragraph 10, what two problems may self-driving cars cause?
Understanding – Identifying main ideas and
supporting details
Understanding – Connecting ideas
Para 7
China’s higher-education system is churning out too many university graduates with high- paying expectations and too few practical skills.
Multinational managers privately complain that fresh Chinese grads are often clueless when it comes to working in an office environment.
Para 8
One western expat who helps Chinese
students enter Western colleges tells the story of a Chinese student who lived with an English host family in Britain; he was so flummoxed by the knobs and levers in the washing machine that he phoned his mum back in China for help.
Question 66
The anecdote of the Chinese student (Para 8) has been included to illustrate which point in Paragraph 7?
______________________________
______________________________
Example: 2012 HKDSE Exam Paper Part B2 Q66
Example: 2015 HKDSE Exam Paper Part B2 Q76
Lines 66-70
Are you serious, $60,000 taken out in student loans for tuition, room and board for no prospect for a job. Better to stick to any STEM program in college (science, technology, engineering, math).
You can get the type of education discussed in the article, or even more, from your local library, with maybe $1.50 in late fines when you are finished, if you really want to explore what it means to be human. PUH-LEEZE. Clearly this article was written for the American higher education “rip-off machine”.
Question 76
What is Tom’s stance towards Liberal Education? Summarise his opinion in your own words.
Inferring – Working out main ideas/inferring views
Example: 2016 HKDSE Exam Paper Part B2 Q55
Inferring – Inferring meanings / ideas
Para 8
Food trucks: There is nothing wrong with the individual food truck per se, but the overall trend is both ridiculous and in some cases, morally reprehensible. The food media continues to treat these as a new form of cuisine and some sort of breakthrough invention when they are nothing more than a way to deliver food to consumers, akin to the “invention” of home delivery, takeout containers or the drive through. When grouped together in parking lots, food trucks become an outdoor version of a longstanding American culinary tradition – the shopping mall food court, and nothing more. Foodwise, there is nothing new about trucks which serve foods you can already get in countless traditional eateries, albeit with much more limited menus. People act as …
Question 55
What does the writer imply when he writes, ‘People act as if tacos,
dumplings, or brick oven pizza have somehow been “discovered” by food truck cooks’ (lines 44-45)?
A. They have a good understanding of food.
B. They pretend to like the food served from food trucks.
C. They are over-estimating the originality of food trucks.
D. They have not eaten tacos, dumplings or brick oven pizza before.
Example: 2016 HKDSE Exam Paper Part B2 Q56
Para 9
One major magazine recently suggested that food trucks had brought affordable ethnic cuisine to the people of Los Angeles –
seriously? LA has always had hundreds of brick and mortar eateries serving exactly this kind of affordable ethnic cuisine. I think that one of the reasons for their hipster popularity is that food trucks bring such cuisine to
people who are afraid to go to actual ethnic restaurants in diverse neighborhoods to eat it…
Question 56
What does the word “seriously?”
(line 47) say about the writer’s attitude to the magazine’s claims?
He thinks the claim is…
A. ridiculous B. very serious C. rather vague D. unimportant
Inferring – Inferring the author’s attitude
Example: 2017 HKDSE Exam Paper Part A Q20 Para 17
However, according to the E.P.A.’s estimates, virtually all greenhouse benefits – more than 90 percent – come from just a few materials: paper, cardboard and
aluminum in soda cans. Once you exclude these
materials, the total annual savings in the United States from recycling everything else – plastics, glass, food, yard trimmings, textiles, rubber, leather – is only two-tenths of 1 percent of America’s carbon footprint.
Question 20
Do you think recycling is a waste of time? Provide evidence from the text to support your answer.
Interpreting - Justifying views
ACTIVITY:
IDENTIFYING QUESTION INTENTS FOR ASSESSMENT ITEMS
Planning
&
Reviewing
AfL
Reading skills Assessment items
LPF
Locating specific information Identifying main ideas
Connecting ideas
Understanding the relationship
between ideas in the text (e.g. relating cause to effect, evidence to conclusion) Understanding text type features
Inferring the tone of the writer Working out the meaning of words/expressions
Inferring ideas
Making use of general and world knowledge
Application of grammar knowledge in context
To access the Teacher’s Copy and
more assessment
resources
IMPLICATIONS FOR LEARNING AND TEACHING
• Expose students to a wide range of reading materials of
different subject areas and connect reading with their learning and daily lives
• Teach reading strategies explicitly
• Review the reading assessment items (e.g. levels of difficulty, range of reading skills)
• Set the right questions / tasks for different pedagogical purposes
• Provide feedback to students on their reading skills
development
PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTING THE SENIOR SECONDARY
ENGLISH LANGUAGE CURRICULUM
THE SENIOR SECONDARY
ENGLISH LANGUAGE CURRICULUM
S6
S5
S4
Elective Part (25%) Compulsory
Part
(75%)
THE ELECTIVE PART
• Adds variety to the English Language curriculum
• Caters for students’ diverse needs and interests
• Broadens students’ learning experiences
• Provides them with opportunities to apply
what they have learnt in the Compulsory
Part
THE ELECTIVE PART
Language Arts Non-Language Arts
EIGHT Electives
Modules
Compulsory Part
Reading/ Writing Listening/ Speaking
Vocabulary
Text Types
Grammar Forms &
Communicative Functions
Speaking Skills
• pronunciation
• stress
• rhythm &
intonation
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
THE COMPULSORY AND ELECTIVE PARTS
(AN ILLUSTRATION WITH THE DRAMA MODULE)
Elective Part (Drama module)
Dramatised Reading
Role play / Drama performance Text Types
• dialogues
• stories
Extension, application and consolidation of what has been learned
• stress &
intonation
• expression of emotions and feelings
• short scene writing
• production of an original script
INTEGRATING VARIOUS CURRICULUM COMPONENTS
Compulsory Part and Elective Part Elective Part and SBA
Elective Modules
COMPULSORY PART AND ELECTIVE PART
ELECTIVE PART AND SBA
SBA
Examining the content, language and stylistic features
of advertisements
-Examining an issue from different perspectives
-Using language functions that signal
cause and effect
Producing a leaflet giving advice on how
to be a wise and sensible consumer