Junior High School
Academic Content + 21st Century Skills
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Junior High School (Grades 7 - 9)
At the junior high school level students are expected to solidify their knowledge of the basic grammar structures used in the English language. However, the new 108 curriculum now places significant emphasis on holistic learning including 21st century skills such as critical thinking and teamwork. Taichung FETs design lessons that allow the students to apply their learned English, whilst also developing 21st century skills. |
Track 1 - School Developed Curriculum
Some junior high schools have already developed their own school based curriculum in line with the vision set out by the Ministry of Education. This vision states that schools should utilize their own resources and take into consideration the specific social and cultural resources from the community for addressing students’ characteristics and learning needs. The FET should therefore use the scheme of work and resources provided by the school, and work closely with the local teachers to develop the students' Core Competencies and English ability.
The FET theme based curriculum is being written to meet the goals set out by the Ministry of Education. The curriculum is competency based which puts the students at the heart of the process and contains lessons designed around real life scenarios. Although it will be impossible to hit every learning performance goal with only one lesson per week, each topic will contain a variety of activities to ensure as broad coverage as possible.
The textbook extension approach uses the textbook as a foundation for the lessons. However, rather than ‘teach the book’ the content has been split into distinct themes and topics. We have designed communicative activities that fit into these themes/topics and allow our students to apply the language that they have learned in their regular classes in an oral/aural environment.
These lessons still include the required grammar content, but are much more student-centric. This allows the students to work at their own level whilst also developing 21st century skills such as; critical thinking, making comparisons, communicative competence and connections with other subjects.
The downside to the textbook extension track is that as the textbook changes from year to year, our theme based lessons no longer match the content order in the textbook. This problem led us to developing our own self-contained FET curriculum.
These lessons still include the required grammar content, but are much more student-centric. This allows the students to work at their own level whilst also developing 21st century skills such as; critical thinking, making comparisons, communicative competence and connections with other subjects.
The downside to the textbook extension track is that as the textbook changes from year to year, our theme based lessons no longer match the content order in the textbook. This problem led us to developing our own self-contained FET curriculum.