The Via Lingua Course Curriculum
Pedagogy-Language Awareness-Teaching Skills-Culture-Life Skills
The Via Lingua CTEFL course comprises five components:
- Pedagogy theory
- Language awareness
- Teaching skills
- Cultural awareness
- Life skills
Each component comprises a set of standardized statements of competence, accompanied by indicators of success. The indicators describe the skills, knowledge and qualities associated with effective teachers of English as a Foreign Language. The standardized statements of competence are as follows:
Pedagogy Theory
- Describe a range of teaching methodologies, approaches and strategies
- Describe the skills, knowledge and qualities which characterize an effective teacher
- Describe the factors which influence the establishment of an effective learning environment
- Describe a range of strategies for supporting, monitoring and assessing student progress
Language Awareness
- Describe the purposes and nature of Communication
- Describe key features in relation to the structure of the English language
- Describe and explain the English tense system and other, commonly taught, grammatical features
- Describe how sounds are made and modified and use phonetic symbols to describe the sounds of English
Teaching Skills
- Design and prepare effective lessons
- Prepare and manage the physical learning environment and use resources in an appropriate way
- Provide innovative and flexible learning experiences for individuals and groups of students
- Create learning environments that are student-centered, challenging and safe
Cultural Awareness
- Engage in the process of learning a foreign language
- Demonstrate an awareness of the issues in relation to culture and language teaching
- Demonstrate a willingness to foster positive relationships with members of the local community
- Demonstrate an awareness of cultural similarities and differences and our shared cultural heritage
Life Skills
- Demonstrate effective interpersonal skills
- Demonstrate effective communication skills
- Demonstrate effective decision-making skills
- Demonstrate effective organizational skills
- Demonstrate effective employment awareness skills
- Demonstrate effective personal welfare skills
Each component of the Via Lingua program is allocated a minimum number of study hours. These study hours mainly involve:
- direct contact with trainers or mentors in workshop sessions, planning meetings, lesson preparation or review meetings;
- direct contact with students during teaching practice sessions;
- private study and preparation;
- record keeping and personal reflection linked to the maintenance of a professional portfolio.
The content of each of the five components can be described as follows:
Pedagogy Theory
- Teaching and learning a foreign language
- Language teaching methodologies
- The syllabus
- The effective teacher
- Classroom management skills
- Language teaching materials
- Lesson planning
- Teaching receptive skills
- Teaching productive skills (speaking)
- Teaching vocabulary
- Teaching pronunciation
- Teaching grammar
- Responding to mistakes and errors
- Language games
- The assessment of language learners
Language Awareness
- The purpose and nature of communication
- Word classes
- Verb types and verb forms
- The tense system
- The present simple tense and the present continuous tense
- The past simple tense, the past continuous tense, the past perfect tense (simple and continuous)
- The present perfect tense (simple and continuous)
- Expressing the future
- Conditional sentences
- The passive voice
- Gerunds and infinitives
- Modal auxiliary verbs
- Multi-word verbs
- Phonology
Teaching Skills
- Six hours of observing experienced teachers
- Eight hours of assessed teaching practice (*groups and or individual students)
- Sixteen hours of supported lesson preparation time
- Eight hours of post-lesson discussions
Cultural Awareness
- The cross-cultural dimension of language teaching
- The Group Project
Life Skills
- Interpersonal skills
- Communication skills
- Decision-making skills
- Organizational skills
- Financial awareness skills
- Employment awareness skills
- Legal awareness skills
- Personal welfare skills
