Primary English Curriculum Guide

Book excerpt: First Published in 2001. The purpose of this curriculum guide is to help student teachers and newly qualified teachers to make a start on learning how to become competent teachers of English. Despite the emphasis given in training courses to the teaching of English, newly qualified teachers often feel underprepared for it and frequently mention their concerns about this. These concerns can be partly explained by a general lack of confidence in this key area and partly by widespread media and political criticism of the teaching of literacy. It is also because it is often difficult for a student to make the connection between observation of key teaching strategies and his or her own personal practice.