Aims and Principles
- Individual, including aesthetic, creative, critical, cultural, emotional, expressive, intellectual, for personal and home life, for working life, for living in the community and for leisure.
- Leaving Certificate programmes are presented within this general aim, with a particular emphasis on the preparation of students for the requirements of further education or training, for employment and for their role as participative, enterprising citizens.
- All Leaving Certificate programmes aim to provide continuity with and progression from the Junior Certificate programme. The relative weighting given to the various components -e.g. personal and social (including moral and spiritual) development, vocational studies and preparation for further education and for adult and working life -- within the programmes may vary.
- Programmes leading to the award of the Leaving Certificate are of two years duration and are offered in three forms:
- The Leaving Certificate (Established)
- The Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme
- The Leaving Certificate Applied
- All Leaving Certificate programmes, in contributing to a high quality education, emphasise the importance of :
- self-directed learning and independent thought
- a spirit of inquiry, critical thinking, problem solving, self-reliance, initiative and enterprise
- preparation for further education, for adult and working life
- lifelong learning.
The Leaving Certificate (Established)
The Leaving Certificate (Established) programme offers students a broad and balanced education while allowing for some specialisation. Syllabuses are provided in a wide range of subjects. All subjects are offered at Ordinary and Higher levels. In addition, Mathematics and Irish are also offered at Foundation level.
The certificate is used for purposes of selection into further education, employment, training and higher education.
The Leaving Certificate VocationalProgramme (LCVP)
The Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme is an intervention within the Leaving Certificate (Established). LCVP students study a minimum of five subjects (at Higher, Ordinary or Foundation levels), including Irish and two subjects from specified vocational subject groupings. They are also required to take a recognised course in a Modern European language, other than Irish or English. In addition LCVP students take three Link Modules on Enterprise Education, Preparation for Work and Work Experience.
In particular, the LCVP aims to foster in students a spirit of enterprise and initiative and to develop their interpersonal, vocational and technological skills.
The Leaving Certificate Applied
The Leaving Certificate Applied is a distinct, self-contained Leaving Certificate programme. It is designed for those students who do not wish to proceed directly to third level education or for those whose needs, aspirations and aptitudes are not adequately catered for by the other two Leaving Certificate programmes. The Leaving Certificate Applied is structured around three main elements Vocational Preparation, Vocational Education and General Education which are interrelated and interdependent. This programme is characterised by educational experiences of an active, practical and studentcentred nature.
Preamble
A Common Syllabus Framework
The Leaving Certificate Russian syllabus is set out in the context of a common syllabus framework for the teaching and examining of French, German, Spanish and Italian. The syllabus is "communicative" in the sense that it is based on the purposes to which learners are likely to want, need or expect to put the knowledge and skills they acquire in class to use, and in the sense that the objectives detailed in the syllabus
are expressed in terms of language use. It is not, however, "communicative" in the narrow sense of confining itself to oral face-to-face communication. Nor does it presuppose a rejection of explicit teaching about the target language and culture; indeed, it presupposes quite the contrary.
Introduction
Structure of the Syllabus
The two main components of the syllabus are its general aims and a set of more specific behavioural objectives. These behavioural objectives, which derive from the general aims, are subdivided into three components: Basic Communicative Proficiency, Language Awareness and Cultural Awareness. Finally, details of assessment are described under the heading assessment. The syllabus layout is therefore as follows:
- General Aims
- Behavioural Objectives
- Basic Communicative Proficiency
- Language Awareness
- Cultural Awareness
- Assessment.
The syllabus content is designed in units of general activities/themes. The performance targets are designed to help teachers and learners to work out schemes of work and to ensure that learners are clear about what is expected of them in relation to each general activity/theme. Assessment of student performance will emphasise language and communication skills rather than the information content of any particular section of the syllabus. Some of the communicative and linguistic skills, including the grammatical knowledge that students will need for the realisation of the performance targets, are elucidated in Section 1, Basic Communicative Proficiency as Linguistic Skills Structures and Grammar. These exponents are, of course, distinctive to each language, and begin the process of translating the framework syllabus into the concrete practice of the classroom.
An integrated approach to the three broad components of the syllabus is recommended. Classroom activities should, where possible, involve more than one of the three areas; for example the choice of certain authentic materials might provide the focus for working on certain aspects of any two
or all three components. Many of the activities listed in Section 2 Language Awareness will help learners to develop the more global skills necessary to perform activities outlined under Basic Communicative Proficiency. Activities described under Cultural Awareness will allow learners to extend many topics listed under Basic Communicative Proficiency by drawing comparisons, giving examples, describing differences in the way of life of different communities, etc.
Basic Communicative Proficiency
At the outset, some observations should be made about the different sections of the behavioural objectives component and their relationship to each other. The first and largest section is titled Basic Communicative Proficiency. The objectives specified in Section I are for the most part related in a very obvious way to practical challenges that might be faced by the learner when operating in the target language community. On the other hand, a fair proportion of the objectives in this section may also be seen as relevant to activities and discussion that are likely to take place through the target language in the classroom.
Language Awareness
The objectives listed under Language Awareness and Cultural Awareness are highly relevant to the communicative challenges of the classroom and the "real world" and are intended to have an important enabling role with regard to the attainment of a reasonable level of communicative proficiency. However, they also have a valuable contribution to make in connection with the wider language education and intercultural consciousness-raising functions of foreign language learning.
The raising of the learner's awareness about the workings of the target language and about his or her own encounter with the language, which is the underlying purpose of the objectives set in Section 2
Language Awareness, has direct relevance to the fostering of effective use of the language. Research has shown that developing this kind of awareness - within the context of a rich and interesting target language input - accelerates progress towards grammatical and lexical accuracy and therefore towards communicative efficiency. Talking, reading and writing about the target language in the target language can promote both fluency and accuracy. As far as the language education dimension is concerned, the various objectives listed in the section are designed to develop awareness not only of a range of aspects of the target language but of relevant aspects of the mother tongue and other languages known to the learner and thus, at least to an extent, the functioning of language in general. Such awareness can be expected to improve the learner's ability to use the language for a wide range of purposes.
It is clear that certain misunderstandings of the `communicative approach' - in particular the opinion that grammatical understanding and accuracy are no longer relevant - have not been helpful to the learners, and this syllabus (in part through the enhanced role of language awareness) is designed to produce a more balanced spread of skills.
Learner Autonomy
Many of the performance targets in the Language Awareness section of the syllabus are also aimed at promoting learner autonomy and enhancing learners' chances of success by equipping them with the skills to find their own way. While recognising that it is helpful for teachers and learners to have a definedcontent syllabus, it is accepted also that it would be impossible to include in the syllabus all the words and structures that learners will meet when using the target language. Learners will therefore need to develop communication strategies to cope with words and structures they have not previously met. Effective language learning involves using a range of strategies to deduce meaning similar to those specified in the
performance targets in this section, such as using not only linguistic knowledge but also context, background knowledge, etc. The performance targets exemplify what is understood as language awareness in the syllabus.
Cultural Awareness
Section 3 of the Behavioural Objectives component Cultural Awareness is similarly versatile in its potential usefulness. Taking into account cultural differences is often absolutely essential for successful communication.
It will be clear too that unfamiliarity with the major cultural reference-points (social, political, historical, etc.) of the target language community on the part of a non-native speaker also can hamper communication. As in the case of the objectives in Section 2, a further element in the rationale for the objectives in Section 3 is their likely favourable impact in terms of encouraging "content-instruction" through the medium of the target language. The intention that the Section 3 objectives should contribute to cultural and intercultural education generally is reflected in the fact that these objectives focus not only on the target language community but also on its relationship to Ireland and the Irish way of life, and in the fact that they refer not only to culture-specific issues but also to issues which go beyond cultural divisions.
Level Differentiation
Details relating to aspects of the examinations are described under the heading of assessment. Rather than regarding students taking Ordinary level as unable to perform all the tasks required at Higher level, it is recognised that the needs of Ordinary level students to communicate successfully within the target language community are no less great than those at Higher level, and that therefore all behavioural objectives are important at Ordinary level. The different approach to the two levels for assessment purposes is described under the heading differentiation. By providing a common syllabus, however, the reality of the classroom is respected, as the timetable will not always facilitate the separation of the two groups for teaching.
Time Allocation
A minimum period of 180 hours over two years is envisaged for teaching the syllabus content. Where possible, additional time should be allocated, particularly in the first year.
Conclusion
This syllabus aims to lead every pupil towards four basic outcomes as a result of the experience of modern language learning in the classroom:
- a communicative competence in the target language
- awareness about language and communication
- an understanding of how to go about learning a foreign language
- a level of cultural awareness.
Taken together, the general aims and the behavioural objectives (expressed as general activities/themes and as performance targets) represent a broad consensus view of the ground which a senior cycle modern languages programme would appropriately cover and which a Leaving Certificate modern languages examination would appropriately assess.
General Aims
The following general aims are proposed by this syllabus for the teaching and learning of modern languages in the senior cycle.
1. To foster in learners such communicative skills in the target language as will enable them to:
- take a full part in classroom activities conducted in the target language
- participate in normal everyday transactions and interactions, both spoken and written, both at home and abroad
- extract information and derive enjoyment from the mass media and the more accessible literature of the target language community
- consider as a realistic option the possibility of pursuing leisure activities, further study and/or career opportunities through the medium of the target language.
2. To give pupils a critical awareness of how meaning is organised and conveyed by the structures and vocabulary of the target language, and thus to contribute to their understanding of the workings of human language in general.
3. To help learners develop strategies for effective language learning.
4. To equip learners with a broad acquaintance with the cultural, social and political complexion of countries in which the target language is a normal medium of communication and thus to help raise their awareness of cultural, social and political diversity generally.