BABEd (LangEd) English

BBED 4321 Pedagogical Content Knowledge for Teaching English in Primary

School
Assignment 2: Design and implementation of language-focussed activities (individual) (60%)
This assignment aims to enable you to engage your pedagogical content knowledge in your own
classroom, to bring together theory and practice of teaching English to young learners. During TP
you will design, implement and reflect upon four language-focussed activities, putting into
practice the principles, theories and classroom strategies related to the teaching of pronunciation,
vocabulary, grammar and discourse/text type. You will give a rationale for the design of your
activity/ies and learning sequence, collect evidence of students responses and work, and reflect
upon the effectiveness of your teaching and activity design, and make recommendations for
improvement to the activity design and/or implementation.
PROCEDURE
During your 8-week teaching practicum, plan, teach and reflect upon the following four activity,
which put into practice the concepts and principles of PCK discussed during the course. You may
integrate work on pronunciation into one or more of these activities. You should integrate these into
the scheme of work you have been assigned by the school, and you should take into consideration
the needs of your learners and other contextual factors:
1.
2.
3.
4.

A grammar noticing or noticing/hypothesising activity

A vocabulary presentation, including checking understanding
A vocabulary decision making activity
A text reconstruction or grammaring activity

For each activity you should complete an activity plan using the attached template. The template
requires you to present the following for each activity:
a. Background: the class of learners, the date, the unit, and the lesson the activity was a part of.
b. The activity objectives, worded precisely so they are specific and reflect principles of
learning/teaching language.
c. Analysis of the language focus of the activity, ie the vocabulary, grammar, and/or discourse
the activity focusses on, displayed as categorized, tabulated, and labelled where relevant to
show the language or textual form. You may also include key aspects of pronunciation, if
relevant to your activity.
d. A 150-200 word pedagogic rationale for the activity design. Explain how the activity
facilitates the language learning processes with reference to theories of noticing,
restructuring etc. discussed in the course and taking into account learners needs.
e. The procedures for the activity, showing step headings, timings and interaction, what teacher
and students will do. Note: you do not need to provide other stages of the larger lesson, only
the activity.
f. Materials used in the activity
g. Evidence of learners response during the activity (photos of students work during the
activity, students written work collected, audio recordings, video recordings),
h. A 350-400-word reflection and analysis of the effectiveness of the activity and your teaching
including how you would improve the activity and your teaching if you had the chance to
teach it again, giving reasons and drawing on relevant theories and principles.
i. References used, not more than 3 for each activity. Please format your reference list
according to academic conventions, e.g. see this site for the APA format

M.M.Lo and B Moorhouse, Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong

BABEd (LangEd) English

In addition, the first page of your assignment should provide information about the school and the
students/class(es) with whom you have used these activities (approx. 150 words).
N.B. You may do two of the four activities within one coherent lesson. If you decide to do this, you
may use one activity plan, but include two sets of objectives, two pedagogic rationales, and two
reflections.
N.B. The activities must not be from any lesson observed by your tutor for the teaching practicum
component of the programme

Format requirements
Please submit your assignment in the following order:
A. Completed BABEd coversheet (available on BABEd general course moodle)
B. Introduction: information about the school and classes/students (approx. 150 words)
C. The four activities, using the template (see guidelines above and on the template)
Your assignment should be typewritten using 12-pt Times New Roman, single spacing, with 1-inch
margins on all sides and page numbers. Printing should be on single-sided A4 paper. Paragraphs
should be indented 1 tab space or block format should be used. Please use appropriate capital
letters, bold and/or italics for headings. The word limit must be strictly observed.
Your submission should be reader-friendly and accessible; therefore the entire submission must not
exceed one slim binder or file. Please do not use clear pockets. Staple the assignment together.
Original materials such as laminated flash cards, props, and other bulky materials should not be
included. You should, instead, provide reduced size, colour-photocopies of these items. For
example, 8 laminated flash cards could be reduced onto a single A4 page, printed in colour and
labeled with Flash Cards, original size 8x10.
Other points:
Do not submit any original student work, only submit high quality photocopies. The
originals belong to the student, parents and school.

References listed on your reference list should have been cited in your activity analysis and
vice versa.

You must attach a signed BABEd Assignment Cover Sheet to the front of your assignment.
The cover sheet can be found on the general BABEd Information moodle site.

You are strongly encouraged to submit your assignment on the Turnitin activity for this
assignment on our moodle site, before the due date. You can then review the originality
report and revise your submission as necessary to avoid plagiarism.

Deadlines
Please submit a hard copy of your assignment in the assignment box with a completed cover sheet
outside the Programme Office, RMS 219, 21 December 2016
Please also submit a soft-copy of your assignment in MS Word to our moodle site by the same date.
M.M.Lo and B Moorhouse, Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong

BABEd (LangEd) English

Ethics
Since this assignment requires you to collect data (e.g. collecting student work and taking
photographs of students work during the activity) during the teaching practicum, you should inform
your mentor and you should get the principals consent first. You should do this as early as possible
in your TP. Some schools accept verbal requests whilst others request official letters.
*Students having to conduct more than one assignment (from different teachers) in their TP school
are advised to present ONE letter covering information of ALL the assignments, instead of sending
several separate letters to the same principal.
Students who attempt to obtain consent from principals through verbal requests are strongly
reminded to assure the principal concerned that the data collected will be (1) used solely for the
assignment(s); (2) viewed by the course teacher(s) concerned, and (3)discarded after the
assignment(s) is/are completed (4) Students names will be removed from any work.
Schools which require a formal consent letter should use the letter provided on moodle. Please send
a copy of the consent letter to your tutor (Margaret or Ben).
Assessment Criteria
Hurdle Requirements: Informed consent: _____ 4 activity plans: _____ Supporting evidence:_____
KEY: E= Excellent, G=Good, S= Satisfactory, M= Marginal, U= Unsatisfactory
E

Content
a. Relevance of the background information regarding the school and learners the
activities were used with.
b.. Accuracy and clarity of the analysis of the language focus of the activities, and
usefulness for the students.
c. Quality of the design of the activities, drawing on principles, theories and
classroom strategies related to the teaching of phonology, vocabulary, grammar
and discourse/text types.
d. Depth, soundness and clarity of the pedagogic rationale for the designed
activities with reference to principles, theories and classroom strategies related to
the teaching of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and discourse/text types.
e. Depth of the reflection on effectiveness of your teaching and your activities,
using evidence of students responses and/or work.
f. Relevance, quality and pedagogical soundness of the recommendations for
improvement to the activity designs and/or implementation.

Form
a. Clarity and completeness of the activity plans and the presentation of teaching
materials.
b. Clarity, coherence and accessibility of submission, including organisation of
sub-sections, clear and consistent layout, accuracy of written expression, spelling
and punctuation.
c. Relevance of references; clarity, consistency and appropriateness of academic
conventions for quoting, paraphrasing, attributing sources of information, citing
references, compiling a reference list etc. according to the guidelines provided.

Comments
Grade____ Examiner_____ Date

M.M.Lo and B Moorhouse, Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong

BABEd (LangEd) English

Activity Plan (number 1, 2, 3,4)

[Title of Activity/Type of Activity]
Date and time of lesson:

Class:

Background: (brief description of how the activity fits into the sequence of learning within the
whole lesson and the unit/theme)
Objectives of the activity
Language Analysis:
Pedagogic Rationale (150-200 words)
PROCEDURE
Step
Procedure
heading
Timing
Interaction

Materials (list here, and attach)

Evidence of student response (please attach)
Critical Reflection (350-400 words)

NB: You may do two of the four activities within one coherent lesson. If you decide to do this, you
may use one activity plan, but include two sets of objectives, two pedagogic rationales, and two
reflections.

M.M.Lo and B Moorhouse, Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong