The Literacy Approach to Teaching Foreign Languages

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.

Argues that "communicating to learn" approaches often fail to transition into the language classroom Proposes a rationale for the literacy approach, looking at the way units of work are planned Presents examples of literacy units developed for primary and secondary school students

Autorentext

Ana Halbach is full Professor in the Department of Modern Languages at the Universidad de Alcalá, Spain. Her research interests include CLIL, literacy development in the foreign language and the role of language development for learning. Working closely with schools and teachers constitutes a central aspect of her work.

Inhalt

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.- 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.- 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.- 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.- 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 AloneThe Learning Path.- Outlook.- References.- 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.- 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.- Appendix B: Checklist of Contents for Year 10 in the Curriculum of Advanced English (Comunidad de Madrid, Spain).