COLLABORATIVE ACTIVITY

Arlette Patricia Romeroand
LauraJulianaMora
Colaboraty activity
Curriculum and Material design

What is meant by context
Context can be defined as the circumstances in
which the teaching and learning happens. To do
this, we must identify which contextual factors
may be significant. Such factors can stem from
demographic and cultural environment, the
students life situation and states of mind, as well
as the place where the teaching happens.
Contextual matters can be e.g. demographics,
adults or children, age, learning styles,
education level, level of proficiency, motivation,
aptitude, attitudes, reasons for learning,
physical setting of teaching, culture, and native
languages of students, experience in learning
foreign languages, stakeholders, and teaching
resources.

Why is it important to define one’s
context
Contextual matters are important to take into account when designing a
syllabus, as it is obvious that it is different to e.g. teach English effectively
to adult students in Finland with B2/C1 level that to children in
Colombia. Defining the context is as important as articulating one’s
beliefs when designing a syllabus and learning objectives. Understanding
the context the teaching helps to set better learning goals and to design a
syllabus for the teaching. As a conclusion it is important because teachers
can use that information to guide their decisions as they plan the course.
The more information we have about our context the more able we will be
to make decisions and to plan an effective course ( Graves, 2000, pág.
30). And also, I can conclude through the reading and the teachers
experiences cited that the context does not fit the curriculum, but the
curriculum is adapted to the context, for this is very important to have it
clear before designing one.

Comparing the
contexts of
Arlette’s and
Laura’s courses

Arlette Laura
Institutions Adults evening school: Helsingin
työväenopisto. Founded in 1914 and
heavily subsidized by the community.
Large scale with multiple location.
Annually some 70000-75000 students
and over 2500 course. Non-personal and
bureaucratic atmosphere.
Montessori school in Cucuta founded in
2006. Warm and familiar atmosphere in
small scale. Private school
Demographics Varies greatly. There is no clear social or
income class to characterize the group
but on average the low cost studying and
historical background of the institute
means that majority is working and
middle class.
Children from Cucuta area. Private
school means that adults must be
wealthy enough to afford it – supposedly
middle class.
Adults or children and how many 23 adults 10 children
Age 25-55 10-11
Level of proficiency B2/C1 typically A1 basic level of English
Motivation Motivation and participation varies.
Motivation is internal motivation as
there is no obligation to participate
Motivation is good and goal to make
learning fun maintains it good
Educational level Varies, majority has tertiary education
and all have secondary
5th graders
Aptitude Varies depending on background. Not
measured.
The most part of the students have a
good aptitude toward English, but there
are some who are not connected with
the class and the language.

Attitudes English is seen important English is seen important and
interesting by students and parents
Reasons for learning Either to improve overall English
skills or to take IELTS test. English for
specific purpose.
Part of compulsory schooling but
also found interesting. English as
part of the curriculum.
Physical setting Arranged as evening activity in a
primary school classroom.
A small school with around 12
classrooms, garage a medium
entrance and a big patio.
Culture Heterogenic. Majority is Finns but
several other cultural backgrounds
are present
Homogenic. Colombian with some
Venezuelans
Native language Heterogenic. For the majority Finnish
but also several other native
languages are represented
Homogenic. Spanish
Experiences in learning languages Typically fluent in at least two foreign
languages, some of the students
speak three or more foreign
languages
English is the first foreign language
studied
Stakeholders Not significant. For some the
employer pays for the course but is a
completely passive stakeholder.
Active parents, English teacher and
principal and administrators that all
emphasize the importance of English
Teaching resources Basic classroom resources Basic classroom resources but also
other spaces in the school and art
and craft activities.
Time availability Limited time as participants are
working adults and typically squeeze
participation between work, family
and other hobbies
Full time schoolchildren have the
needed time available.

After analyzing your
context does anything
stand out that will be a
major resource or
constraint in
developing your
course?

For the adults English course the main
issues that stand out is that the group is
heterogenic in the following
characteristics:
- The reasons for learning are different for different participants, which makes it
difficult to design a syllabus that caters to all needs. Some what to do the IELTS
exam, while others just want to improve their overall levels of English
- Motivation and time that is available are not the best, as the participants take
the course as a hobby and often miss classes because they also work and
sometimes cannot make it on time or are just tired after a working day. Also the
type of institution limits the possibilities to use time in teach, as all their courses
are intended for working adults. This means that intensive courses and daytime
courses are not possible, making it a compulsory structure to give one evening
session per week.
- Although all participants have a fairly good base level in English, there is still
significant variation.
- The native language and cultural backgrounds of the students, as well as their
base education differ. There are students from several countries, and they may
experience different difficulties in learning English.

For Nuevo Montessori students the main issues that stand out is that the
group is that the students are part of a structured and organized study
plan in the school, and they have to follow the order in each subject
including English.
-They are just 10 students and they are constant in the class, they always
attend because going to school is their daily day routine. So this facilitates
the developing of the curriculum.
-They are children and at that age they are motivated to learn English (not
the 100% but at least the 80%), so innovate things and new materials could
be enough for them to keep motivate and work.
- They need to pass the year, some of them are interested in a good average.
So their purpose for learning is more motivated for external reasons which
could be easy manipulative.
- five or six hours per week is not enough for fulfilling all the goals proposed
in the curriculum, because English is a foreign language and they don’t have
any other contact with the language outside the school.

Can you identify particular
challenges that you will need to
address in order to design a
successful course.

“Like I mention early that the students are from different backgrounds and
some of the student are taking the IELTS test, because they want to
improve their English skills and the rest of the students are planning to
take the IELTS test. In my opinion a particular challenge is that not all
students participate in this course intending to do the test and that make
it difficult for the teacher to develop a successful course.
Moreover it is difficult to design a successful curse in this IELTS course,
because not all the students participate they want to do test. On the other
hand in this course is possible that some of the activities are interesting
for all the students and can be very good for those students that want to
improve their English skills, but also some of the activities can be very
boring for them, because is not helping them to improve.
In addition the IELTS teacher does not have too much freedom to design
his course, because this kind of course the syllabus of the course is
standardized, as it prepares students to a standardized IELTS exam. As
such the teacher has less freedom than usually on what to teach. The
themes of the course are predefined and IELTS exam book is used for
setting the syllabus of the course. Overall, it appears that this course is
very standardized and that the teacher has fairly little flexibility.”
Arlette Patricia

“In the case of the students of Nuevo Montessori, the challenges are that
on the one hand they don’t have the enough time to acquire the English
language due to the conditions that people live in a city like Cucuta. They
don’t have any other contact with English in the streets or they don’t see
foreign people walking or speaking English outside. They don’t watch t.v
programs that are in English and neither they attend to English
extracurricular classes.
Even though the teacher is free to develop the topics through the year,
there is a prescriptive curriculum that the teacher has to follow, and there
are a lot of festivities and other activities like English festival, art and craft,
which are excellent but due to the fact that the time is limited, they waste
a lot of time in such activities and in the most part of the activity they don’t
use English language, but those activities have to be developed.
If the teacher is using a book, that is a guide, but sometimes it could
become an immovable e inflexible manual. The teacher Mildred mentioned
that it is under level that means that some students (the one who are
good, the most) are in a comfort zone, and they are used to do easy things.
I think the curriculum should put them in a line of challenge and push them
to take risk in the language all time.”
Laura Mora

COLLABORATIVE ACTIVITY

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