About the course
Language development is central to students’ intellectual, social, and emotional growth, and should be seen as a key element of the curriculum. The language curriculum is based on the belief that literacy is critical to responsible and productive citizenship. The curriculum is designed to provide students with the knowledge and skills they need to achieve this goal.When students learn to use language in the elementary grades,they become aware of the many purposes for which language is used and the diverse forms it can take. Language is the basis for thinking, communicating, and learning. Students need language skills in order to comprehend ideas and information and to interact socially as this will help students to thrive in the world beyond the classroom.
The language curriculum for Intermediates is designed to engage students in tasks that they see as meaningful in order to motivate them to analyse, evaluate, and create text out of interest as well as to meet curriculum expectations. The expectations encourage students to explore issues related to personal identity and community concerns as they interact with increasingly complex and/or challenging texts; to critically analyse and evaluate perspectives in texts and the influence of media on their lives; and to write about and discuss topics of relevance that matter in their daily lives. The expectations also promote the use of language knowledge, skills, and strategies to facilitate learning in other subjects, such as science, mathematics, history, and geography, and as a tool to help students understand and participate in society beyond the school.
Teachers in the intermediate division explicitly teach and model the use of language knowledge, skills, and strategies across all subject areas. Real, purposeful talk is not only an essential component of the language curriculum; it needs to be threaded throughout every day and across the curriculum. Explicit teaching and modelling help students to identify the skills and strategies they need in order to become proficient language users in a variety of contexts and to move towards achievement of the expectations. While students in the intermediate division continue to engage in rehearsal through shared and guided practice, the goal of instruction is to move them to a greater level of independence as language users. Students require multiple, diverse opportunities to practise independently and demonstrate their achievement of the learning expectations.
Grade 8 - Language
Course length
10 Months
Course Price
CAD $ 1000.00
Course Developer
My Learning Oasis
Course Code
Department
Instructor Name
Language 8
Intermediate
TBD
Curriculum Policy Document
Language, Grades 1 – 8, 2006 Revised
Oral Communication
Section 1: Listening to Understand.
By the end of Grade 8, students will: -
Listen in order to understand and respond appropriately in a variety of situations for a variety of purposes.
Specific Expectations:
Purpose
1.1 identify a range of purposes for listening in a variety of situations, formal and informal, and set goals appropriate to specific listening tasks.
Active Listening Strategies
1.2 demonstrate an understanding of appropriate listening behaviour by adapting active listening strategies to suit a wide variety of situations, including work in groups.
Comprehension Strategies
1.3 identify a variety of listening comprehension strategies and use them appropriately before, during, and after listening in order to understand and clarify the meaning of increasingly complex and challenging oral texts.
Demonstrating Understanding
1.4 demonstrate an understanding of the information and ideas in increasingly complex and difficult oral texts in a variety of ways.
Making Inferences/Interpreting Texts
1.5 develop and explain interpretations of oral texts using the language of the text and oral and visual cues to support their interpretations.
Extending Understanding
1.6 extend understanding of oral texts, including increasingly complex or difficult texts, by connecting, comparing, and contrasting the ideas and information in them to their own knowledge, experience, and insights; to other texts, including print and visual texts; and to the world around them.
Analysing Texts
1.7 Analyse a variety of complex or challenging oral texts in order to identify the strategies that have been used to inform, persuade, or entertain, and evaluate the effectiveness of those strategies.
Point of View
1.8 explain what the use of irony or satire in an oral text reveals about the speaker's purpose and perspective.
Presentation Strategies
1.9 identify a wide variety of presentation strategies used in oral texts, evaluate their effectiveness, and suggest other strategies that might have been as effective or more so.
Section 2. Speaking to Communicate
By the end of Grade 8 students will:
use speaking skills and strategies appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
Specific Expectations:
Purpose
2.1 identify a range of purposes for speaking in a variety of situations, both straightforward and more complex, and explain how the purpose and intended audience might influence the choice of speaking strategies.
Interactive Strategies
2.2 demonstrate an understanding of appropriate speaking behaviour in most situations, using a variety of speaking strategies and adapting them to suit the purpose and audience.
Clarity and Coherence
2.3 communicate in a clear, coherent manner, using a structure and style appropriate to the purpose, the subject matter, and the intended audience.
Appropriate Language
2.4 use appropriate words, phrases, and terminology from the full range of their vocabulary, including inclusive and non-discriminatory language, and a range of stylistic devices, to communicate their meaning effectively and engage the interest of their intended audience.
Vocal Skills and Strategies
2.5 identify a range of vocal effects, including tone, pace, pitch, volume, and a variety of sound effects, and use them appropriately and with sensitivity towards cultural differences to communicate their meaning.
Non-Verbal Cues
2.6 identify a variety of non-verbal cues, including facial expression, gestures, and eye contact, and use them in oral communications, appropriately and with sensitivity towards cultural differences, to help convey their meaning.
Visual Aids
2.7 use a variety of appropriate visual aids to support and enhance oral presentations.
Section 3: Reflecting on Oral Communication Skills and Strategies
By the end of Grade 8 students will:
reflect on and identify their strengths as listeners and speakers, areas for improvement, and the strategies they found most helpful in oral communication situations.
Specific Expectations:
Metacognition
3.1 identify what strategies they found most helpful before, during, and after listening and speaking and what steps they can take to improve their oral communication skills.
Interconnected Skills
3.2 identify how their skills as viewers, representers, readers, and writers help them improve their oral communication skills.
Reading
Section 1: Reading for Meaning
By the end of Grade 8 students will:
read and demonstrate an understanding of a variety of literary, graphic, and informational texts, using a range of strategies to construct meaning.
Specific Expectations:
Variety of Texts
1.1 read a wide variety of increasingly complex or difficult texts from diverse cultures, including literary texts , graphic texts and informational texts.
Purpose
1.2 identify a variety of purposes for reading and choose increasingly complex or difficult reading materials appropriate for those purposes.
Comprehension Strategies
1.3 identify a variety of reading comprehension strategies and use them appropriately before, during, and after reading to understand increasingly complex or difficult texts.
Demonstrating Understanding
1.4 demonstrate understanding of increasingly complex and difficult texts by summarizing important ideas and explaining how the details support the main idea.
Making Inferences/Interpreting Texts
1.5 develop and explain interpretations of increasingly complex or difficult texts using stated and implied ideas from the texts to support their interpretations.
Extending Understanding
1.6 extend understanding of texts, including increasingly complex or difficult texts, by connecting the ideas in them to their own knowledge, experience, and insights, to other texts, and to the world around them.
Analysing Texts
1.7 analyse a variety of texts, including complex or difficult texts, and explain how the various elements in them contribute to meaning and influence the reader's reaction.
Responding to and Evaluating Texts
1.8 evaluate the effectiveness of a text based on evidence taken from that text.
Point of View
1.9 identify the point of view presented in texts, including increasingly complex or difficult texts; give evidence of any biases they may contain; and suggest other possible perspectives.
Section 2: Understanding Form and Style
By the end of Grade 8 student will:
recognize a variety of text forms, text features, and stylistic elements and demonstrate understanding of how they help communicate meaning.
Specific Expectations:
Text Forms
2.1 analyse a variety of text forms and explain how their particular characteristics help communicate meaning, with a focus on literary texts such as a memoir , graphic texts such as a map and informational texts such as a magazine article.
Text Patterns
2.2 analyse increasingly complex texts to identify different types of organizational patterns used in them and explain how the patterns help communicate meaning.
Text Features
2.3 identify a variety of text features and explain how they help communicate meaning.
Elements of Style
2.4 identify a range of elements of style - including symbolism, irony, analogy, metaphor, and other rhetorical devices - and explain how they help communicate meaning and enhance the effectiveness of texts.
Section 3: Reading With Fluency
By the end of Grade 8, students will:
use knowledge of words and cueing systems to read fluently.
Specific Expectations:
Reading Familiar Words
3.1 automatically read and understand most words in a wide range of reading contexts.
Reading Unfamiliar Words
3.2 predict the meaning of and rapidly solve unfamiliar words using different types of cues, including:
• semantic (meaning) cues
• syntactic (language structure) cues
• graphophonic (phonological and graphic) cues.
Reading Fluently
3.3 read appropriate texts with expression and confidence, adjusting reading strategies and reading rate to match the form and purpose.
Section 4:
By the end of Grade 8, students will:
reflect on and identify their strengths as readers, areas for improvement, and the strategies they found most helpful before, during, and after reading.
Specific Expectations:
Metacognition
4.1 identify the strategies they found most helpful before, during, and after reading and explain, in conversation with the teacher and/or peers or in a reader's notebook/reflective journal, how they can use these and other strategies to improve as readers.
Interconnected Skills
4.2 explain, in conversation with the teacher and/or peers or in a reader's notebook/reflective journal, how their skills in listening, speaking, writing, viewing, and representing help them make sense of what they read.
Writing
Section 1: Developing and Organizing Content
By the end of Grade 8, students will:
generate, gather, and organize ideas and information to write for an intended purpose and audience.
Specific Expectations:
Purpose and Audience
1.1 identify the topic, purpose, and audience for more complex writing forms.
Developing Ideas
1.2 generate ideas about more challenging topics and identify those most appropriate to the purpose.
Research
1.3 gather information to support ideas for writing, using a variety of strategies and a wide range of print and electronic sources.
Classifying Ideas
1.4 sort and classify ideas and information for their writing in a variety of ways that allow them to manipulate information and see different combinations and relationships in their data.
Organizing Ideas
1.5 identify and order main ideas and supporting details and group them into units that could be used to develop a summary, a debate, or a report of several paragraphs, using a variety of strategies and organizational patterns.
Review
1.6 determine whether the ideas and information they have gathered are relevant, appropriate, and sufficiently specific for the purpose, and do more planning and research if necessary.
Section 2: Using Knowledge of Form and Style in Writing
By the end of Grade 8, students will:
draft and revise their writing, using a variety of informational, literary, and graphic forms and stylistic elements appropriate for the purpose and audience.
Specific Expectations:
Form
2.1 write complex texts of a variety of lengths using a wide range of forms
Voice
2.2 establish a distinctive voice in their writing appropriate to the subject and audience.
Word Choice
2.3 regularly use vivid and/or figurative language and innovative expressions in their writing.
Sentence Fluency
2.4 vary sentence types and structures for different purposes with a focus on using a range of relative pronouns , subordinate conjunctions and both the active and passive voice.
Point of View
2.5 identify their point of view and other possible points of view, evaluate other points of view, and find ways to respond to other points of view, if appropriate.
Preparing for Revision
2.6 identify elements in their writing that need improvement, selectively using feedback from the teacher and peers, with a focus on depth of content and appropriateness of tone.
Revision
2.7 make revisions to improve the content, clarity, and interest of their written work, using a variety of strategies.
Producing Drafts
2.8 produce revised draft pieces of writing to meet identified criteria based on the expectations.
Section 3:
Applying Knowledge of Language Conventions and Presenting Written Work Effectively
By the end of Grade 8, students will:
use editing, proofreading, and publishing skills and strategies, and knowledge of language conventions, to correct errors, refine expression, and present their work effectively.
Specific Expectations:
Spelling Familiar Words
3.1 spell familiar words correctly
Spelling Unfamiliar Words
3.2 spell unfamiliar words using a variety of strategies that involve understanding sound-symbol relationships, word structures, word meanings, and generalizations about spelling.
Vocabulary
3.3 confirm spellings and word meanings or word choice using a wide variety of resources appropriate for the purpose.
Punctuation
3.4 use punctuation appropriately to communicate their intended meaning in more complex writing forms, including forms specific to different subjects across the curriculum, with a focus on the use of: commas to separate introductory phrases from the main part of a sentence and to separate words, phrases, and clauses in a series; quotation marks to distinguish words being discussed as words and to indicate titles; ellipses (...) and dashes to indicate sentence breaks, ambiguities, or parenthetical statements.
Grammar
3.5 use parts of speech correctly to communicate their meaning clearly, with a focus on subject/verb agreement and the use of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions.
Proofreading
3.6 proofread and correct their writing using guidelines developed with peers and the teacher.
Publishing
3.7 use a wide range of appropriate elements of effective presentation in the finished product, including print, script, different fonts, graphics, and layout.
Producing Finished Works
3.8 produce pieces of published work to meet identified criteria based on the expectations.
Section 4: Reflecting on Writing Skills and Strategies
By the end of Grade 8, students will:
reflect on and identify their strengths as writers, areas for improvement, and the strategies they found most helpful at different stages in the writing process.
Specific Expectations:
Metacognition
4.1 identify a variety of strategies they used before, during, and after writing, explain which ones were most helpful, and suggest future steps they can take to improve as writers.
Interconnected Skills
4.2 describe how their skills in listening, speaking, reading, viewing, and representing help in their development as writers.
Portfolio
4.3 select pieces of writing that they think reflect their growth and competence as writers and explain the reasons for their choice.
Media Literacy
Section 1: Understanding Media Texts
By the end of Grade 8, students will:
demonstrate an understanding of a variety of media texts.
Specific Expectations:
Purpose and Audience
1.1 explain how a variety of media texts address their intended purpose and audience.
Making Inferences/Interpreting Messages
1.2 interpret increasingly complex or difficult media texts, using overt and implied messages as evidence for their interpretations.
Responding to and Evaluating Texts
1.3 evaluate the effectiveness of the presentation and treatment of ideas, information, themes, opinions, issues, and/or experiences in media texts.
Audience Responses
1.4 explain why different audiences.
Point of View
1.5 demonstrate understanding that different media texts reflect different points of view and that some texts reflect multiple points of view.
Production Perspectives
1.6 identify who produces various media texts and determine the commercial, ideological, political, cultural, and/or artistic interests or perspectives that the texts may involve.
Section 2: Understanding Media Forms, Conventions, and Techniques
By the end of Grade 8, students will:
identify some media forms and explain how the conventions and techniques associated with them are used to create meaning.
Specific Expectations:
Form
2.1 explain how individual elements of various media forms combine to create, reinforce, and/or enhance meaning.
Conventions and Techniques
2.2 identify the conventions and techniques used in a variety of media forms and explain how they help convey meaning and influence or engage the audience.
Section 3: Creating Media Texts
By the end of Grade 8, students will:
create a variety of media texts for different purposes and audiences, using appropriate forms, conventions, and techniques.
Specific Expectations:
Purpose and Audience
3.1 explain why they have chosen the topic for a media text they plan to create.
Form
3.2 identify an appropriate form to suit the purpose and audience for a media text they plan to create.
Conventions and Techniques
3.3 identify conventions and techniques appropriate to the form chosen for a media text they plan to create, and explain how they will use the conventions and techniques to help communicate their message.
Producing Media Texts
3.4 produce a variety of media texts of some technical complexity for specific purposes and audiences, using appropriate forms, conventions, and techniques.
Section 4: Reflecting on Media Literacy Skills and Strategies
By the end of Grade 8, students will:
reflect on and identify their strengths as media interpreters and creators, areas for improvement, and the strategies they found most helpful in understanding and creating media texts.
Specific Expectations:
Metacognition
4.1 identify what strategies they found most helpful in making sense of and creating media texts, and explain how these and other strategies can help them improve as media viewers/ listeners/ producers.
Interconnected Skills
4.2 explain how their skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing help them to make sense of and produce media texts.
Final reporting
Assessment is the process of gathering information from a variety of sources, such as assignments, day-to-day observations, conversations or conferences, demonstrations, projects, and performances. Teachers follow guidelines from Growing Success to analyze how well a student is achieving the curriculum expectations in a subject. As part of assessment, teachers provide students with descriptive feedback that guides their efforts towards improvement. The final grade reflects the student’s most consistent level of achievement throughout the course, although special consideration is given to more recent evidence of achievement. There may be a final assessment, such as an exam, in this course.
