UNIVERSIDAD CAECE LICENCIATURA EN ENSEANZA DEL IDIOMA INGLES MATERIALS DESIGN II MELINA BARBERO MATERIALS RATIONALE

The following set of materials I have developed is a ten-module-syllabus for upper secondary students attending Social Studies modalities. It tries to foster reading comprehension strategies at a pre intermediate level through the exploitation of written texts, the practice of the four skills and the achievement of tasks.

The developed materials include the students materials and also the teachers notes. The former include the pre, while and post reading activities of the main texts together with extra practice of the other skills speaking, listening and writing-, some grammar and vocabulary practice and a final task. All the modules deal with topics that are also worked on other specific subjects the students also attend such as Communication, Culture, History, etc. The teachers notes, on the other hand, provide general guidelines on how to deal with the tasks and how to group students. Key to exercises and extra ideas are also included.

As English is a compulsory subject within the curriculum design of Secondary Level of the Province of Buenos Aires, I saw the need to incorporate ESP texts which specialise in Social Studies since it is part of the Curriculum Design proposed by the government to deal with them. There is a need to practise the four skills but in an integrated way, through the development of real life tasks and specific projects. Further in 4 th, 5th and 6th years of the level, students are asked to work with specific topics which have to be related to the modality chosen by the school. Moreover, students need to improve their English in terms of practising the four skills but they also face the necessity to relate the foreign language with the rest of the specific subjects.

When working with these materials, the teacher should constantly engage students through the commitment of tasks. It would be ideal to deal with classes of no more than 20 25 students so personalised learning and teaching can take place. If this is not the case, the activities could be carried out all the same but the allotted time would change since the socialisation of tasks and corrections would take longer. What is more, as many web-based tools are included in the syllabus, not having a computer lab, a digital projector or an internet connection at school would definitely be a drawback. One possible solution for this would be to ask students to use their own computers at home, if that is the case; or go to a cyber place to carry out the tasks. The use of the digital projectors could be replaced by the usage of paper posters, drawings, or writing on the board.

All in all, these materials were written with a twofold purpose. On the one hand, to solve a market lack of specific materials and on the other hand, to engage students into meaningful and interesting topics that would be useful for them in the future.