This course, Teaching English at the Primary School Online Course,’ is designed to prepare student teachers to understand the systematic approaches to learning a foreign language and further be able to apply this mechanism in their teaching practice. This course will also focus on improving student teachers’ English proficiency levels, as part of the professional development and as a preparation for their future careers. This online course includes subject-specific content knowledge, language competencies, teaching and learning strategies, and assessment approaches. This course covers the following modules:

Module 1: Introduction to English

1.1 English in the Basic Education Curriculum

1.2 Nature and Objectives of the Subject

Module 2: Knowledge about Language and Language Teaching

2.1 English language learning at primary level

2.2 Learning English as a Second Language

2.3 Dealing with common everyday situations

Module 3: Listening and Speaking

3.1 Learning and Teaching Listening and Speaking

Module 4: Reading and Writing 

4.1 Learning and Teaching Reading and Writing

Module 5: Culture

5.1 Understanding Culture

5.2 Activating the teaching of culture 

5.3 Preparing a lesson plan for English with culture

Module 6: Literature

6.1 Understanding Literature

6.2 Using literature in the primary English classroom

6.3 Advantages and disadvantages of teaching literature

6.4 Learning and teaching Literature 

Key terms

curriculum, objectives, textbooks, LAR, grade level, Beginner, Advanced Beginner, Basic User, assessment, Assessment for Learning (AfL), Assessment of Learning (AoL), second language, foreign language, native language, second language acquisition, English language instructions, sound system, writing system, reading conventions, textual conventions, linguistic cultural conventions, prior linguistic knowledge, cognitive maturity, functional language, syntax, communicative approach, conversational partner, listening, rhythms, sounds, songs, features, chanting, pronunciation, word stress, sentence stress, intonation, bottom-up listening, top-down listening, scaffolding, pre-listening, while-listening, post-listening, nursery rhyme, minimal pairs, feedback, recast, rephrase, utterance, props, controlled practice activity, adjacency pair, alphabet, letter, phoneme, code, decoding, sight words, tricky words, high-frequency words, flashcards, phonics, labelling classroom objects, Bingo game, odd word out, reordering text activity, talk about the pictures, short stories and dialogues, script, letter formation, labelling pictures, writing stories or poems, writing messages and reports, popsicle letters, missing letters, gap-fill exercise, a letter to a hero, SMART, culture, visible, invisible, intercultural communication, literature, poetry, drama, prose, non-fiction, media, storytelling, demonstration, physical storyteller, facial expressions, body language, reading a story, chunking, literary texts

This e-learning course will assist you in understanding a range of teaching strategies in vocabulary, listening, speaking, reading and writing skills so that you can effectively teach English as a language at the primary level of basic education. Additionally, it also supports teaching a functional language that people use in their daily alongside listening-and-speaking teaching improvement.

At the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Explain the importance of English for self, Myanmar and globally
• Explain the Grade 1-5 curriculum structure
• Compare the content of the English subject you studied when you were in school and the new 2016 primary school curriculum 
• Identify different types of lessons and how each lesson is organised in the primary textbook
• Explain what language is and discuss a second language
• Discuss English as a second language teaching at the primary school level
• Equip students to deal with common, everyday situations in an English-speaking environment
• Give examples of learning activities for the lessons in primary textbooks based on the learning objectives of listening and speaking by grade level
• Explain the teaching and learning process of listening and speaking in line with learning objectives
• Develop English listening skills through rhymes
• Scaffold the speaking skill in various ways
• Analyse the teaching and learning process of reading and speaking in line with learning objectives
• Apply the phonic approach to developing reading skills in young students
• Scaffold reading and writing skills in various activities according to grades at the primary level to achieve SMART learning objectives
• Analyse learning objectives and activities for students’ motivation and lesson-relatedness intending to communicative purposes
• Describe components of culture outlined in primary curriculum as important foundation for intercultural communication
• Explain visible and invisible culture between Myanmar and English
• Describe how to integrate culture into English language teaching practices at the primary level
• Explain what literature is and its components
• Explain the reasons of using literature in primary English classroom
• Explore a storytelling method in teaching literature of primary level classroom
• Analyse ways of scaffolding in English language teaching to young students through activities