Thematic Approach to Instructional Planning

THEMATIC APPROACH TO INSTRUCTIONAL PLANNING OBJECTIVES At the end of this lesson, pre-service teachers should be able to describe the thematic approach by giving examples BTI: 1.1.1 Demonstrate content knowledge and its application within and across curriculum teaching areas. 1.5.1 Apply teaching strategies that develop critical and creative thinking and other higher-order thinking skills. INTRODUCTION We have been looking at the different elements of creating an instructional plan. You have looked into the instructional planning cycle and identified the aspects of instructional planning models. These ideals have equipped you with the basics in determining the possible considerations in developing your instructional plans for your learners. INTRODUCTION Teaching English at the elementary level could be difficult, primarily if taught out of context. Language always exists in a communicative context. As such, teaching language should also reflect this very nature. In this lesson, we will look into the thematic approach to instructional planning and how you could use it to deliver instruction to your learners. THEMATIC TEACHING Okoro and Okoro (2016) cited the steps to employ a thematic approach in instructional planning. - Choose a theme - Integrate the theme into the existing curriculum - Designing instructional plan - Encouraging presentations THEMATIC TEACHING Choose a theme This is where the teacher or even the learners decide what would be the focus theme of the unit or lesson. This can be small concepts such as family, climate, and the beach, then more significant, more integrated concepts such as the community, atmosphere, and ecosystems. Sources of theme could be the national curriculum, unique or local occasions, children’s interests, or stories or books. THEMATIC TEACHING Integrate the theme with the existing curriculum. The teacher needs to organize the curriculum's learning objectives upon choosing the theme. This would involve determining which concepts from the learning areas could supplement the theme. For instance, a story from around which a theme of community is derived could be supplemented by Social Studies, Value Education, and Mathematics. THEMATIC TEACHING Designing instructional plan. As you have learned in the previous lesson, instructional planning involves several elements. At this stage, thematic instructional planning usually involves adjusting these elements, especially making appropriate choices of learning strategies, activities, experiences, and learning materials related to the theme. THEMATIC TEACHING Some questions to ponder at this stage could be: • Which areas of spoken and written vocabulary can I and my learners work for spelling within this theme? • Which areas of grammar could we accommodate with this theme? • What genres could my learners write using the theme as the starting point? • How can the learners and I make the theme visually impact our classroom? THEMATIC TEACHING Encouraging presentation. As the thematic approach is geared toward holistic and context-oriented, it is much more meaningful to the learners if they are allowed to present their work. This could be done collectively or individually, depending on the learners' theme or preference. Furthermore, the audience may include more than just the classroom. Presentation of their learning or outputs could involve the rest of the school, the community in general, or, with the power of the internet, the rest of the world. THEMATIC TEACHING The thematic approach to instructional planning poses advantages as an instructional approach to teaching English in the elementary years. Other than presenting language learning in a much larger context, where learners can see the knowledge they learn in a larger, more relevant context, they can also see the relationship of these concepts across time, place, and discipline. THEMATIC TEACHING This approach can also be used with other pedagogies and standards used by various disciplines, such as place-based education, projectbased learning, and cooperative learning. Furthermore, carefully selecting themes can help make complex information into more manageable ideas around these themes. REPORTING TASKS: 1. Differentiated Instruction for English Learners (Estorque, Pama, Latoja) 2. Collaborative Learning (Castro, Barnuevo K, Gamit) 3. Gamification in Teaching English (Pandat, Gamboa, Domondon 4. Selected strategies for teaching English (Toledo, Barnuevo, Frondoza 5. Assessment Strategies For English (Tipon, Olaer, Marte)