The Ecuadorian Ministry of Education

The Ecuadorian Ministry of Education has proposed Advance Project as an innovative tool to improve the levels, skills and knowledge of the English Foreign language, of the Ecuadorian students, this project is focused in the environment of the learners, culture and values. This section provides four texts in which there are six units, but they are not divided into lessons. Each unit contains a dialogue in which include useful expressions, comprehension, vocabulary, games, progress checks, workbook. Furthermore, at the end of the unit we also find a section of “Putting it together” to put in practice the learned knowledge in the unit.

The student´s book has been designed according the school years they cover. They are used as follows:

School year Textbooks

8th year EGB textbook Textbook 1A (which correspondes level A1.1)

9 th and and 10 th year EGB & 1st Bachilleraro Textbook 1B (which correspondes level A1.2)

2nd and 3rd year Bachillerato Textbook 2A (which correspondes level A2.1)

According the English Language Learning Standards (EELS), which is based on the Common European Framework of References for Languages (CEFR): learning, teaching, assessment as they provide a common basis for the explicit description of objective, contents, and methods. The proficiency level set by the CFER and establisher and stablished as the benchmark for Ecuador´s ELLS are A1, A2 and B1 the progression of the level is the following:

Level A1: At the end of 9th year E.G.B

Level A2: At the end of 1st year Bachilerrato.

Level B1: At the end of 3rd year Bachillerato.

One of the advantage of this project is the interaction and communication that students develop to apply them in the daily life.

Another advantage is that the textbooks are dynamic, didactical, flexible process and promotes learner autonomy, so teachers and students are invited enthusiastically to make use of the English language for meaningful communication, Furthermore, the Ministry of Education recognizes that the main objective of the present English curriculum design is to help students develop their communicative language skills through the consideration of the following principles: “The language is a system for the expression and conveyance of meaning, the primary function of language is interaction and communication and the structure of language reflects its functional and communicative uses”. Richards and Rodgers (2001)

I am convinced that, the proposal of the Ecuadorian Ministry of Education through ADVANCE project is to improve the quality of education; obviously, it is necessary that teachers will be ready to dominate the texts and apply the techniques and methods correctly.

In my opinion, if teachers actualize their knowledge and prepare new resources, students will be able to listen, speak, read and write very well, developing an interaction based on values, and these are focused in the educational objectives for each component of the communicative competence, linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic.

According with the Curriculum Guideline proposed by the Ministry of Education there are many goals than students will be able to achieve per year. Here you are these ones:

By the end of 8th year E.G.B, students will be able to:

1. Have a very basic repertoire of words and phrases related to their personal and educational background.

2. Have limited control over a few simple grammatical structures and sentences patterns in learned repertoire, which relates to their personal and educational background.

3. Use basic expressions to impart and elicit factural information as well as socialize.

4. Link words or group of words with very basic linear connectors.

By the end of 9th year of GBE, students will be able to:

1. Have a basic repertoire of words and phrases related to their social background.

2. Have limited control of a few simple grammatical structures and sentences patterns in a learned repertoire, which relates to their social background.

3. Establish basic social contact by using the simples everyday polite forms to make request, express gratuite, etc.

4. Link words or group of words with a wide variety of basic connectors.

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