English -Suggested Guidelines (Grade 5)

 

DRAFT

 

ENGLISH (Grade 5) - Suggested Guidelines

 

Competency A: Listening and Speaking Skills

Standard 1:  Students will be able to develop competence in listening and spoken language in order to communicate effectively across a variety of contexts and to a range of audiences.

Student Learning Outcomes:

  • Show awareness of one or more listeners by developing sensitivity to ways that others express meaning in their talk and non-verbal communication. 

 

  • Listen and understand longer conversations from different contexts, short lectures and talks, radio and TV broadcasts, stories, and descriptions of events and will be able to identify main ideas. 

Knowledge:

Students will:

 

  • Learn to prepare and present an argument to persuade others to adopt a point of view

 

  • Engage in extensive conversation that require performing everyday tasks and speech acts, talking about matters of interest and sharing key ideas on varied topics.

 

  • Talk confidently in extended turns and listen purposefully in a range of contexts

Skills:

Students will be able to…

1. Speak confidently using varied vocabulary and tone to express, persuade, instruct, or offer advice to engage the listener. (e.g. talking about reports, articles, programmes, etc).on grade level topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly:

  1. follow agreed-upon rules for discussions and carry out assigned roles
  2. pose and respond to specific questions to clarify or follow up on information, and make comments that contribute to the discussion and link to the remarks of others
  3. review the key ideas expressed and explain their own ideas and understanding in light of the discussion
  4. respond with suggestions, feedback, and different points of view (e.g. provide positive verbal and non-verbal feedback, give comments/interject when appropriate, agree/disagree appropriately and politely, offer simple evaluative comments on peer performance/presentation etc.)
  5. use roles of participants in group work effectively (for e.g. know the roles of facilitator, advisor, timekeeper, encourager, writer, speaker in the group)

2. Engage in simple conversations that require performing everyday tasks and speech acts, such as introducing themselves and others, giving directions, making a call, making requests.

3. Participate in discussions, presentations, performances, role play, improvisations and debates.

4. Recall and discuss important features of a talk, possibly contributing new ideas within a familiar and an unfamiliar group settings

Assessments:

Formative Assessments:

Class presentations

Speech debate competitions

 

Summative Assessment:

Various listening audios along with text can be used, based on that students can be assessed.

During class and group discussions, encourage students to:

  • Talk confidently 
  • Shape and organise ideas clearly when speaking
  • Demonstrate careful listening, including by asking questions to develop ideas and extend understanding.

 

  • To help students develop their understanding of group roles and responsibilities, sometimes give each student a specific role in a group discussion and specified success criteria, for example 
  • Facilitator – makes sure that everyone contributes and that discussion keeps moving towards the goal
  • Timekeeper – keeps track of time and makes sure the discussion is moving forwards at a suitable speed  
  • Recorder – records key ideas clearly and concisely for everyone to refer to
  • Reporter – summarises the group discussion for the rest of the class (using the Recorder’s notes) 

In some group discussions, expect students to decide for themselves the different roles and responsibilities for each member of the group. 

  • Provide opportunities for students to plan and deliver a 5-minute presentation on a topic they are interested in (e.g., a sport, an animal, a hobby). Encourage other students to listen carefully so they can respond and ask relevant questions at the end of the talk.

 

  Standard 1 Continued…

Standard 1:   Students will be able to develop competence in listening and spoken language to enhance the effectiveness with which they are able to communicate across a range of contexts and to a range of audiences.

Student Learning Outcomes: Present knowledge/ideas and interact with others using a variety of speaking skills and incorporating essential components of speech delivery

Knowledge:

Students will:

  • Recall and discuss important features of a talk, possibly contributing new ideas within a familiar and an unfamiliar group settings 
  • Convey ideas about the characters in a drama/playscript in different roles and scenarios through deliberate choice of dialogues/speech, gestures, and movements.

Skills:

Students will be able to individually or collaboratively…

 

 

  1. Describe the situation in pictures/illustrations using multiple sentences orally (e.g. What is happening in this picture?)
  1. Speak clearly and fluently using the appropriate voice qualities: pace, volume, tone, stress and enunciation, pronunciation.
  2. Contribute to group conversations by coming up with new ideas and discussing them at length

Assessments:

Formative Assessments:

Class presentations

Speech debate competitions

 

Summative Assessment:

Various listening audios along with text can be used, based on that students can be assessed.

Learning Activities

  • Provide opportunities for students to talk in pairs about what they have done over the weekend or during a holiday. They can then either join another pair to report back to, or report back to the class. When reporting back, ask each student to report back on what their partner told them rather than reporting back about themselves.

 

  • Encourage students to reflect on their own and others’ presentations and contribution to discussions. Help them to give constructive feedback on others, for example, by asking them to say two things that went well and one thing that could have been better. Allow opportunities for further activities where students are expected to respond to previous feedback.

 

 

 

                                 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Competency B: Reading and Critical Thinking Skills

Standard 1: Use knowledge, skills, and strategies related to word identification/decoding, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension to construct meaning from informational and literary texts while maintaining a positive disposition towards reading.

Student Learning Outcomes: Phonics:

  • Use effective strategies to tackle blending unfamiliar words to read, including sounding out, separating into syllables, using the analogy, identifying known suffixes and prefixes, using context
  • Apply phonic/spelling, graphic, grammatical and contextual knowledge in reading unfamiliar words and sentences. Read with some expression and clarity.
  • Read with fluency and expression, taking some notice of punctuation, including speech marks and joining in and extending rhymes and refrains, playing with language patterns

 

Knowledge:

Students will:

 

Learn to use grade-level phonics and word analysis in decoding words and read a range of stories, poetry and information books and begin to make links between them

 

 

 

 

 

Skills:

Students will be able to…

  • Apply grade-level word analysis skills to:
  • Read common high-frequency words by sight at an appropriate grade-level.
  • Identify and know the meaning of the most common prefixes and suffixes (Pre-, re-, mis-, -less, -ful).
  • Read grade-appropriate irregularly spelled words.
  • Recognise and  match contractions to words (e.g., couldn’t – could not).
  • Recognise silent letters in words and match sounds to their corresponding letter patterns:
  • Initial and final consonants
  • Read and understand questions by marking Wh-words and identify their meaning to answer questions (simple knowledge-based to more implied meaning-based questions given in the text.

Learning Activities:

  • Provide opportunities for learners to develop word knowledge skills along with reading skills. Ensure that:
  • Students have access to dictionary.
  • Pick out new words regularly and display them on the class wall. Add in words. By the end of the year, should master at least 100 new words.
  • use their knowledge of suffixes, prefixes and word roots to work out the meanings of words
  • research the origins of proper names and places, the months of the year and the days of the week
  • Provide students lists of words/expressions to research in pairs or groups, for example: 
  • familiar words with meanings that have changed over time, e.g. want, approach, awful, nice, clue, naughty
  • From word knowledge, take students to difficult and complex texts covering various genres. A good combination of descriptive, informative text along with poetry will assist in language building skills.

 

 

Standard 2: Use a variety of reading strategies appropriate to the reading purpose, meaning and type of text to comprehend and analyse a range of literary (prose, poetry and drama) and informational texts (expository, persuasive, procedural, and functional texts).

Student Learning Outcomes:

  • Discuss the meaning of unfamiliar words encountered in reading; read a range of fiction and nonfiction books and begin to make links between them and infer the meanings of unknown words from their context
  • Read and understand questions by marking Wh-words and identify their meaning to answer questions (simple knowledge-based to more implied meaning-based questions given in the text.
  • Locate information in different parts of the text, collate the information and list the major points.

Knowledge:

Students will:

 

  • Begin to interpret imagery and techniques, e.g. metaphor, personification, simile, adding to understanding beyond the literal

 

  • Explore the features of texts which are about events and experiences, e.g. diaries and compare writing that informs and persuades.

 

 

 

Skills:

Students will be able to…

  • Provide an accurate textual reference from more than one point in a story to support answers to questions.
  • Identify character traits and setting to predict the proceedings in the text.
  • Read and enjoy a variety of reading-age-appropriate and high-interest books and texts from print and non-print sources:
  • Read a paragraph as a larger meaningful unit of expression to recognise that the main idea in a paragraph is carried in a sentence called the
    topic sentence. Other
    sentences in the paragraph support the topic sentence.
  • Locate information in different parts of the text, collate the information and list the major points

Assessments:

 

Formative Assessment:

 

Summative Assessment:

  • Encourage the students to read independently and for a variety of purposes. Make up a book reading chart and display it in the class. Ask students to add in the book name (they’ve read) in front of their name. At the end of each week, organise a session on book reading. Tell students to:

 

  • Talk about books they have read / are reading
  • Keep a reading log with comments, observations and predictions about books during reading, as well as reviews and reflections after reading.
  • read and compare a range of different authors, and different books by the same author 
  • read a range of fiction genres and begin to identify those they find most appealing
  • make use of a variety of non-fiction books, both across the curriculum and to further leisure interests
  • find out as much as they can about a book (fiction or non-fiction) before they read it, and evaluate the book for writing style, topic, genre, audience, purpose, clarity and organisation before beginning to read it properly

 

 

  • Revise the features of different fiction genres by giving students a number of short extracts illustrating some of the usual features of the genre. For example, select a description, an adventure, science fiction, a detective story and a traditional tale.

         In pairs, learners first decide the genre of each extract. They then make a list of the typical features of each genre, both those illustrated in the text and those not illustrated in the text. They discuss their lists with another pair.

 

  • Use the activity above for non-fiction text types, for example a recipe, an explanation, a biography and an informal letter. 

 

  • When reading texts as a class, check that students can both read closely, and skim and scan for information or evidence in a text.
  • Help students develop these skills by giving them a few minutes to try and find the answers to simple questions relating to an extract of the text. Model how to skim read quickly to find the relevant paragraph, for specific information without reading the whole text.

 

         Once students have answered the questions give them more time to read the whole text closely to see if  they gave the correct answers.

        

 

  Competency C: Vocabulary and Grammar

Standard 1: Use vocabulary accurately and appropriately as well as understand how speakers/writers put words together and use vocabulary to communicate meaning in familiar and unfamiliar settings

Student Learning Outcomes: Classify words into different categories, and use more naming, action and describing words, from pictures, signboards, advertisement labels etc. in their immediate and extended environment

Acquire and use grade-appropriate words and phrases, including those that signal precise actions, emotions, or states of being (e.g., quizzed, whined, stammered).

Knowledge:

 

Students will:

 

To classify words into different categories and use more naming, action and describing words from a range of sources and in their immediate environment

 

To learn and classify age-appropriate words and phrases, including suffixes, nouns, adjectives, synonyms and connotations and opposites in text

 

Skills:

Students will be able to…

  • Identify the difference between base words and new words by adding suffixes and use in different contexts according to the grammatical status of the words. (e.g. act is a verb and active is an adjective.)

 

  • Use suffixes to make nouns, adjectives (e.g. ion, ay, ship, ance, ence, able, le, ful, ent).
  • Connect and use words synonyms with positive and negative connotations and opposites in text.
  •  
  • Locate, identify, differentiate between, and use some simple pairs of words including homophones
  • Analyse and use some analogies and more similes in speech and writing using “like” and “as __ as”. (e.g. she is as graceful as a swan)
  • Recognise and use onomatopoeia in their writing.(e.g. clang, buzz, twang)

Assessments:

Formative Assessment:

Daily class work,

Vocabulary wall

Spelling log

Read aloud sessions

 

Summative Assessment:

Class tests, vocabulary and grammar quiz, use of effective vocabulary and correct grammar in their writings

Learning Activities:

 

  • This is an area in which many spelling errors are made by students in this age group, so it needs consistent work. Useful strategies include:
  • making links between related words, e.g. medicine, medical
  • investigating the spelling of final unstressed vowels, e.g. final unstressed ‘er’ in butter and ‘ee’ in city
  • sometimes saying the unstressed syllable as if it was a stressed syllable, e.g. ‘in-ter-est’ for interest
  • finding words within words, e.g. car-pet; ‘there’s a rat in separate!’
  • using rhymes and mnemonics, e.g. difficulty – ‘Mrs D, Mrs I, Mrs FFI, Mrs C, Mrs U, Mrs LTY!’
  • learning the most common high frequency words and reinforcing these with regular use.

 

Standard 2:

Understand and use punctuation, syntax, grammatical functions, rules and applications for developing accuracy and meaning in their spoken and written communication.

Student Learning Outcomes

  • Recall, and demonstrate the use of more complex  common/proper nouns, countable/ uncountable nouns, collective and abstract nouns.
  • Recognize and use indefinite and relative pronouns (who, which, that, whose, where) and reciprocal pronouns (each other, one another)
  • Form adjectives from nouns and verbs (e.g., music → musical, help → helpful)

Knowledge:

Students will:

 

  • Recognise all types of pronouns learnt in previous grades including relative pronouns (who, which, that, whose, where) and reciprocal pronouns (each other, one another)
  • Differentiate between types of pronouns in different contexts
  • Recognize, articulate and use forms of common regular verbs, i.e. base, s/es, present participle (-ing), past, and past participle forms.
  • Use and differentiate between regular verbs (walk/ walks) and irregular verbs (drink – drank)

 

  •  Use of transitive and intransitive verbs in sentences i.e she bought a pan, the dog barked.  
  • Use of imperative verbs in sentences i.e. Stay here, Run fast.
  • Use of infinitive in sentences i.e. Teacher helped the students to complete the class project.
  • Understand and use adverbs of manner, time, place and frequency.
  • Identify, understand and use adverbs that qualify verbs, adjectives and other adverbs.

Skills:

Students will be able to…

  • Identify relative pronouns and use relative pronouns (who, whose, whom, which, that) to join relative clauses
  • use Indefinite pronouns: anyone, anybody, anything, everyone, everybody, everything, someone, somebody, something, no one, nobody, nothing.
  • Recognise and use the common pronoun used for both male and female
  • Identify adjectives that behave like nouns (e.g., the sick and the poor).
  • Adjectives with restricted positions (e.g. The cat is afraid/the afraid cat).
  • Use and classify degrees of regular and irregular adjectives.
  • Develop an understanding of the participles-ing, -en and -ed to differentiate between the meanings of adjectives (e.g., She is interesting/She is interested.

Assessments:

 

Formative Assessment:

 

 

Summative Assessment:

  • Display a selection of verbs with a range of different endings, including those ending in -e, -y, single consonant (e.g. take, try, stop). In groups, learners discuss the effect of adding the suffix -ing, -ed and  -s to each of the verbs.

Ask groups to describe any spelling rules they identify. 

 

  • Revise and develop understanding of plurals. Ask learners to help you to make lists of singular nouns that end in -s, -es and -ies when they become plural.

Deduce spelling rules, highlighting one example and asking learners to suggest others, e.g. if a noun ends in:

  • -s, -sh, or -x, add -es, e.g. bus, dish, box
  • -ch, you usually add -es, e.g. bench (the exception is if the -ch ending is pronounced ‘k’, e.g. stomach becomes stomachs)
  • a consonant and -y, change the -y to -ies, e.g. puppy
  • a consonant or a single vowel plus -f or -fe, change the -f or -fe to –ves, e.g. half or knife. 

Ask students to suggest a list of irregular plural nouns, including nouns that remain the same when singular or plural (e.g sheep).

  • When they are writing, it is important that students use grammar accurately. When students are proofreading their writing, give them a checklist of common errors to check and correct. These might include:
  • non-agreement of pronoun and verb (in particular, errors with the verb to be, e.g. we was, I were)
  • using an adjective instead of an adverb (e.g. I was real excited)
  • using the wrong part of a verb (e.g. I seen)
  • having a double negative (e.g. I didn’t have no …)
  • using them instead of those (e.g. I liked them gloves.)

 

 

 

 

Competency D: Writing

Standard 1: Write English legibly, fluently and with correct grammar, punctuation and spelling, for a variety of purposes.

Student Learning Outcomes: demonstrate an understanding of the use of spelling patterns, e.g. vowel phonemes, double consonants, silent letters, common prefixes and suffixes etc; able to spell high frequency and irregular words; Learn spelling rules for words ending in -e and -y e.g. have/having, fry/fries

Knowledge

Students will:

 

  • Write correct spelling fluently and learn to apply knowledge of multi-syllable words and spelling pattern in their writings

Skills:

Students will be able to…

  1. Apply knowledge of multi-syllable words at grade level with correct spelling, using spelling rules, adjectives, adverbs (for eg. Ly words) and imagery to create an atmosphere of the setting
  2. Apply grade-level phonics and word analysis in decoding words.
    1. Spell common high-frequency words by sight (grade-level)
    2. Use combined knowledge of all letter-sound correspondences, syllabication patterns, and morphology (e.g., roots and affixes) to spell accurately unfamiliar multisyllabic words.
    3. Spell words made from the most common prefixes and suffixes (Un-, dis-,un-, im-,non-,Pre-, re-, mis-,-less,-ful, -ly,-ness,-able)
    4. Spell homophones

 

3. Spell and write accurately using knowledge of phonic elements, words with: 

  1. zh/ sound in certain words with the letters ge or s (measure, diphthongs (ough) silent letters, e.g., – e

 

Assessments:

 

Formative Assessment:

Daily class exercises, spelling log and word building puzzles, worksheets can be used.

 

Summative Assessment:

Spelling bee competition, application of effective word knowledge in end of unit and end of term exams can be extensively used.

Learning Activities

  • Provide opportunities for learners to develop word knowledge skills along with reading skills. Ensure that:
  • Students have access to dictionary.
  • Pick out new words regularly and display them on the class wall. Add in words. By the end of the year, should master at least 65 to 75 words.
  • use their knowledge of suffixes, prefixes and word roots to work out the meanings of words
  • research the origins of proper names and places, the months of the year and the days of the week
  • Provide students lists of words/expressions to research in pairs or groups, for example: 
  • familiar words with meanings that have changed over time, e.g. want, approach, awful, nice, clue, naughty
  • From word knowledge, take students to difficult and complex texts covering various genres. A good combination of descriptive, informative text along with poetry will assist in language and word building skills.

 

Standard 2: Apply skills and strategies for idea generation, selection, development, organization and revision for a variety of writing purposes and text types.

Student Learning Outcomes

Begin the writing task with abrupt beginnings to create a level of suspense and interest, Use complex sentences in a relatively easy manner, Each paragraph should have a separate theme/idea

Use a range of texts and genres to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective techniques, descriptive/informative details, and clear event sequences.

 

Knowledge:

Students will:

 

Write for different purposes and audience using a range of texts and genres to develop their writing skills

Skills:

Students will be able to…

 

  1. Write simple descriptive paragraphs (giving physical description and characteristics/traits of a person/object/place, using correct capitalization, punctuation and spelling,
  2. Write informal letters to people in an immediate social and academic environment for e.g. write a get well soon letter
  3. Write a haiku (poem).
  4. learn to draft and write a formal letter/ email, application, complaint 
  5. Write the main idea of a familiar and unfamiliar poem.
  6. Use summary skills to write a summary of the given text
  1. Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons.

Assessments:

Formative Assessment:

Teacher should plan a writing task almost each week; encourage students to read a range of books and Texts and apply their word and sentence knowledge in their writings.

 

Summative Assessment:

Class tests, end of unit and end of term assessments

Learning Activities

  • Make use of opportunities for writing a range of letters for real purposes, for example:
  • to the museum manager describing how the visit to the museum was and giving suggestions on the improvements of the overall layout.
  • a thank-you letter to a visitor to the school or the venue for a school trip
  • an invitation to the parents inviting them on the school’s annual day.

 

  • To help prepare learners to write formal letters for real purposes:
  • generate scenarios as a basis for letter writing. For example, brainstorm ideas for what could go wrong on the family dinner at a restaurant. Get students to plan and act out the scenario, before working in pairs to write a letter of complaint to the restaurant. Problems might include slow service, rude or clumsy waiters mistakes with food orders, cold/disgusting food. 
  • brainstorm appropriate words and phrases for writing letters, including openings and endings, and useful connectives.
  • Teach students to always proofread their writing before anyone else reads it. Proofreading should include reading their writing multiple times to check for:
          • sense
          • best choice of words and sentence types
          • spelling errors
          • punctuation errors.

 

  • Make students understand that redrafting is not just about copying their work out in neat handwriting, but is also about improving it. Initially, students need direction so they understand what to improve. This can include:
  • reference to the success criteria agreed for the piece of work
  • Redrafting a particular part of their writing, e.g. the climax of the story to include references to more senses, the beginning to include a hook, or the end to add a twist.