British-Spanish integrated curriculum

1. Guidelines for the development of
Spanish-British integrated curriculum in
Early Childhood Education
Silvia Bautista Martín
Literature and Literacy in Early Language Learning Education

2. Index
1) Introduction
2) Teaching throughTopics
3) Developing Social Skills
4) Literacy Skills

3. 1. Introduction
An unique experiment within
the Spanish state education
system initiated in 1996
Its mainaimis providing children from
the age of 3-16 with a bilingual, bi-cultural
education through an integrated
Spanish/English curriculum based on the
Spanish NationalCurriculum and the
nationalCurriculum for England andWales.
What is the
MEC/British
council bi-
lingual project?
The team of the project called
the working party consists of
6 teachers:
 3 Spanish
 3 British
 2 memembers of the
Comisión de
Seguimiento
The especific ones are…

4. 1) To promote de acquisition and learning of both
lanugages through an integrated content-basesd
curriculum.
2) To encourage awareness of the diversity of both
cultures.
3) To facilitate the exchange of teachers and
children.
4) To encourage the use of modern technologies in
learning other languages.
5) If appropiate, to promote the certification of
studies under both educational systems.

5. What else we
need to know
about this
project?
In the initial stages, the
children’s understanding
of English will largely be
demonstrated through
non-verbal response to
the language
The spanish class teacher and the
project teacher must plan closely
together to ensure that the
concepts are covered and
understood in both languages.
Besides, the assessment will be
informal.
There are good reasons for
introducing pre-reading,
reading and writing skills in
English while the children are
still in the infant class:
- The exposure to both languages
helps the children perceive the
differences between spoken and
writing language positively.
- Acquiring the language orally is
greater if this is accompanied by
written words and meaninful
contexts.
- Fluent readers and creative writers
are achieved.

6. 1- Planning and co-ordination between the Spanish teachers
and the English teachers within each class is essential.
2- Planning between years and between the transition stage of
infant and primary. SENSE OF CONTINUITY.
4- All children at the end of the
cycle should be assessed on the
attaintment targets.
In fact, teachers who are already
achieving these targets can
extend the core contents.
3- We must cover all the
topics as well as concepts
in numeracy, literacy and
knowledge and understanding
of the world by the end of the
cycle.
Recommendations

7. 2-Teaching through topics
It’s essential to…
 Value the importance of the development of the whole child: cognitive,
physical, emotional and social.
 Remember that we are teaching contents in English as opposed toTEFL.
 Develop meaningful and motivating topics for young children:
1- Myself 2- I go to school 3- Our homes and
families
4- People who
help us
5- Traditional
fairytales
6- Animals 7- Seasons 8- Festivals 9- Transport 10- We go
shopping

8. 3- Developing social skills
1. Class routines
• Enjoy participating in a story
• Enjoy listenig to each other in
the group situation
• Show a willingness to tidy up
and pleasure in helping
• Participate in class routines in
a quiet manner
2. Greetings and goodbyes
• Say good morning, good
afternoon, hello and goodbye
• How are you? Fine, thank you
3. Feelings
• Express feelings: happy, sad cross, angry, hungry, frightened, scared,
surprised, shy…
• Express love for family and affection
• Value the friendship and help of others
• Have positive self-steem, actively paricipate in class and enjoy seeing
displays of their own work and that of their peers
• Play different roles and express emotions using dramatisation
• Participate with pleasure at parties and celebrations

9. 4. Personal hygiene and health
• Understand and respect dining-room rules like: “Wash your hands
before you eat”, “Brush your teeth after eating”.
• Understand the sweets cause tooth decay.
• Have an awareness of the importance of a balanced diet.
• Enjoy eating fruit.
5. Behaviour patterns
• Take pleasure in listening.
• Learn to choose and make
thoughtful decisions.
• Say “please” and “thank you”
• Be able to dress and undress
themselves
...
6. Sharing and participating
• Realise that the classroom
equipment belongs to everyone
• Share classroom equipment, and
take turns to use things
• Enjoy tidying up, and know
where to put things
…
7. Showing respect
• Realise the importance of taking it in turns to speak
• Take care of classroom equipment
• Appreciate plants and animals
…

10. 4- Literacy skills
Literature involves
the four skills of
language
Understandin
g
Speakin
g
Reading
Writing
The teaching of literacy skills ensure children gradually be
able to read and write with fluency, accuracy and
understanding. But above all, with pleasure.
Why do teachers
need develop
them?

11. Choosing books and involving
children in reading and writing
1) Choose books which have an exciting, funny or unexpected ended.
2) Use fact as well as fiction right from the start to show children that
books can be about extracting information.
3) Use books on famiar topics.
4) Encourage children to observe features of text and talk about them:
ilustrations, fiction and non-fiction, familar authors…
5) Children should participate in reading the text or telling the story. In
the classroom there should be an attractive comfortable book
corner.
6) Select books with rhyme, rhythm and repetition.
7) Involve the children in the creation of class books and give them
opportunities to do it.
8) Ensure that children are surrounded by print to help them become.
aware of written text and meaning: label classroom areas, charts…
9) Demonstrate we read print from left to righ and where a word starts
and finishes. Involve them in activities wich develop this awareness.
10) Teach the children to treat the books with care, respect and love.

12. Development of decoding skills:
teaching phonics
At this stage should be a focus on the letter sound, not the alphabet name.
We must provide opportunities to develop an awareness of phonics, e.g.
introducing the initial consonant sounds then the end consonant sounds.
Phonis should be presented in a simulating attractive way. Appropiate
learning activities are:
 Have a sound box from which children can discover objects beggining with
the sound.
 Choose a story relating to an object from the sound box.
 Create a display of objects, name cards and words with the same initial
sounds.

13. Development of creative writing
 Encourage children to experiment with writing creatively
in English even if the initial attempts are difficult for you
to understand.
 Ask the children to read back their written text to you.
 Use the children’s writing as a means of diagnosing the
stage of the individual child’s their work.
 Use the “teacher as scribe” approach both as a model in
the whole class sessions and as a model for children to
copy in their drawings/labels, etc.