San Marino Scuola Secondaria di Primo Grado Inglese Syllabus

This syllabus outlines the English language curriculum for the Scuola Secondaria di Primo Grado (Middle School) in San Marino for the 2022/2023 academic year, based on the school's Piano dell'Offerta Formativa.

General Objectives:

The curriculum aims to develop students' ability to understand and use English in everyday situations, building upon skills acquired in previous years. It emphasizes a communicative and functional approach, focusing on practical language use in various contexts. The curriculum also aims to foster an appreciation for European languages and promote multilingualism.

Competency Goals by the End of Middle School:

• Students should be comfortable using European languages to understand and utilize information, construct dialogues, and delve deeper into subject matter within and across disciplines.
• Students should meet the descriptors outlined in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) for English. Receptive skills (listening and reading) are targeted within a range of A2 to B1, while productive skills (speaking and writing) are targeted at A2 level.

Skills Development:

• Listening: Understanding simple instructions related to school life, grasping the communicative situation, identifying keywords, recognizing familiar structures, functions, and vocabulary, connecting different pieces of information, distinguishing main ideas from supporting details, and recognizing basic intonation patterns and formal/informal registers.
• Reading: Recognizing text types, understanding communicative intent, identifying the topic and keywords, recognizing and connecting different pieces of information, selecting required information, and inferring the meaning of unfamiliar words or phrases using context, prior knowledge, and dictionaries.
• Speaking: Interacting coherently with correct pronunciation and intonation, using vocabulary, functions, and structures appropriate to familiar situations, using basic formal and informal registers, producing short guided texts (presentations, descriptions), reporting on simple topics prepared in class, and holding basic conversations on topics of interest and daily life.
• Writing: Selecting and using functions and structures appropriate to the purpose, completing texts with appropriate vocabulary and structures, reordering jumbled sentences or dialogues, responding to specific information requests, completing and formulating dialogues and guided texts with correct spelling, and producing short texts (presentations, descriptions) on familiar topics.

Knowledge and Content:

The syllabus covers a review and consolidation of functions, vocabulary, and structures learned in previous years. New topics and vocabulary are introduced gradually, building upon existing knowledge. Key areas of focus include:

• Greetings (formal and informal)
• Spelling
• Introductions
• Asking/granting permission
• Giving/receiving personal information
• Telling time and date
• Expressing preferences
• Talking about likes and dislikes
• Expressing possession
• Describing daily and school routines
• Talking about habits and frequency
• Describing images, objects, places, people, and animals
• Making suggestions and invitations
• Accepting/refusing suggestions
• Asking for and giving directions
• Talking about quantities
• Discussing food preferences
• Shopping
• Ordering food and drinks
• Talking about abilities
• Giving, accepting, and refusing advice
• Discussing hobbies and free time
• Describing physical appearance
• Talking about past actions and events
• Asking for and giving directions
• Talking about future actions and events, making predictions, and expressing intentions
• Expressing obligation, necessity, and prohibition
• Making comparisons
• Commenting and expressing opinions
• Asking for and giving information about transportation

Grammar:

Grammar is introduced and reinforced through exposure to and analysis of texts. Students are encouraged to deduce grammatical rules from examples. Key grammatical concepts covered include:

• Articles
• Personal pronouns
• Plural nouns
• Demonstrative adjectives and pronouns
• Imperative
• Possessive adjectives
• Saxon genitive
• Interrogative words
• Present simple of "be," "have," and regular verbs
• "There is/are"
• Adverbs of frequency
• Prepositions of time and place
• Countable and uncountable nouns
• Indefinite and partitive adjectives
• Conditional ("would you like...?")
• Present continuous
• Past simple
• Modal verbs ("can," "could," "will," "would," "must," "may," "might," "have to")
• Comparative and superlative adjectives
• Compounds of "some," "any," "no," "every"
• Present perfect

Methodology:

The teaching methodology emphasizes a communicative approach, placing language functions in meaningful situational contexts. The curriculum follows a gradual and cyclical progression, respecting individual learning paces. The four distinct phases of the learning process are:

1. Presentation 2. Comprehension 3. Repetition 4. Assimilation

A variety of teaching methods and digital tools are employed to engage students and create a motivating learning environment. These include:

• Teacher read-alouds
• Individual reading
• Frontal lessons with explanations
• Guided lessons
• Individual and pair work
• Group work
• Activities with digital content
• Discussions and debates
• Brainstorming
• Problem-solving
• Cooperative learning activities
• Real-world tasks
• Use of multimedia texts

The adopted textbook is used flexibly and supplemented with teacher-created materials, access to the textbook's digital resources, online and print dictionaries, computers, tablets, smartphones, and interactive whiteboards.