1. Sultan Qaboos University
College of Education
Educational Curriculum
English
spelling course
Done by:
Shareefa Al-Harrasi
Huda Al-Belushi
Dalal Al-Hajri

2. The plan:
Submitting
day
TaskWeek
212a. Choose a course topic
b. Decide the context.
c. Set the rationale
Weeks 2 &3
63a. Decide the source of the needs
b. Decide how to get the information.
Weeks 4&5
273a. Write the specific learning outcomes.
b. Decide the procedure of knowing the
learning outcomes.
c. Decide the source of the material.
Weeks 6,7&8
34a. Decide the best way of delivering the
course.
Week 9
174a. Decide behavioral indicators and tools
for assessing the main intended learning
outcomes.
Weeks 10 &11
15a. Organize the resources.Weeks 12 &13
135a. Write the reflection sectionWeek 15
155a. Submit our project.Week 17

3. Description of the course
Context:
The course will be designed for grade 10 students in Nizwa secondary school. It will
be twice weekly in four months and each lesson will take 45 minutes.
Rational:
We have noticed that 10 grade students lack the skills of spelling English words
correctly. This problem in spelling has become one of the major reasons for
misunderstanding of many words or mixing up the meaning of words which differ in
one or two letters. Most of the students have difficulty memorizing the spelling of
words in the right way. Therefore, it will affect their reading and writing skills
negatively. They ;also, do not have the courage to write anything without checking a
dictionary.
Gradually, this course will improve students spelling abilities. In addition, it will
teach them how to avoid misspellings by using spelling strategies and tips and by
recognizing spelling errors quickly. Moreover it will provide them with synonyms,
antonyms, homonyms, suffixes and prefixes.

4. Need Analysis:
We have distributed a questionnaire to students at grade 10 in order to find out their
needs . It consists of two parts; the first one is a spelling exercise, eight multiple
choice questions, to test the students' skills in spelling English vocabulary. We have
found out that 96.6% of the students answer the first question correctly, and 79.5% of
the students choose 'leaves' as the plural form of 'leaf' in the second question. 95.4%
students did well in the third question and 90.9% also choose the correct spelling of
the word 'because'. About 95.5% of the students choose the correct answer in the fifth
question and 90.9% did well in both the sixth and the seventh questions. Although the
students did very well in the previous questions, in the question before the last one
only 70.4% of the students chose the right adjective of the word 'respect'. It seemed
that almost all the students did well in the first part. That is because our questions
were very easy compared to their levels or maybe the students use a dictionary or ask
for help while answering. The second part of the questionnaire measured the students'
abilities and knowledge of spelling through scales questions..
The results that almost 55.1% were not good spellers. This gave us a clear idea that
the students have experienced some spelling problems. We also found out that they
are not familiar with affixes, silent letters. Surprisingly, not many students use
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5. effective strategies to memorize words such as dividing the word into syllables, or
link it with sounds that they already familiar with. Some students tended to spell the
words according to their pronunciation, but they have difficulties with vowels, silent
letters . Thus, they prefer to use a dictionary while writing. All of them agree that
such course will help them in developing their skills such as vocabulary and writing .
Goals and Objectives:
Goals:
By the end of the course students will:
1- Develop their spelling abilities in English language
2- Develop their English language
3- Build more vocabulary
4- Develop their writing skills
5- Develop their pronunciation skills
6- Know the basic rules of spelling
7- Apply spelling strategies and tips to memorize words.
Objectives:
By the end of the course students are expected to:
1- Break words into syllabus to memorize them.
2- Divide long words into prefix and suffixes to memorize them.
3- Identify different plural forms added to the roots .
4- Recognize common synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, homophones and
homographs easily.
5- Be familiar with compound words and derived.
6- Avoid misspellings by recognizing spelling errors quickly.
7- Distinguish between vowels and silent sounds.
8- Write a text without any spelling mistakes.

6. Syllabus:
This course focuses on helping students to improve their spelling skills in order to
adapt other skills such as reading and writing. Since this course focuses on spelling
skills so obviously the type of syllabus will be skills.
Strategy1: 'LOOKS - THINK - COVER - WRITE – CHECK' method
1. Write the word you want to learn on a piece of paper. (correct spelling! lowercase
with a capital for proper nouns - months/days /cities etc.)
2. Look at the word (See the shape).
3. Say the word. Can you break it down into syllables: Wed / nes/ day? Any silent
letters?
4. Cover the word.
5. Write the word. No peeking! Use other strategies to help: memory tricks, visualize
the word, syllables, word-within-words.
6. Check the word carefully. Check each letter is in the right place and correct.
Strategy 2 Develop Phonemic Awareness
Select words children know — from books, rhymes, songs, and so on — and
discover together how knowing one word can help with the recognition or
writing of others, just by changing the beginning letter(s). For example, when
reading the chant "Mary Mack" or the book Zoo-looking by Mem Fox
(Mondo, 1996), write the words Mack, black, back, crack, quack on a chart.
Invite children to suggest other words with the same sound: pack, sack, whack,
track. Ask children, "How will this help you with your reading and writing?"

7. Strategy 3: Explore Sounds
Tell children you have noticed them listening for sounds in words they are
trying to write — so you will help them discover how different sounds can be
written. Reread familiar books, rhymes, chants, and songs, asking children to
listen for words with a particular sound. List these on a chart; for example,
words with a /k/ sound: kite, cat, school, bike, Christine, truck, cake, back.
Help children to identify the letter(s) that represent this sound. Underline these
and ask children to group the words according to the different ways the sound
is represented. For example:
kite, bike, cake
cat, cake
school, Christine
truck, back
Reinforce how the same sound may be represented in more than one way,
depending on the word. This is important for children whose first language is
not English, particularly if their first is a phonetic language, such as Spanish.
During the next few days, ask children to find other words they know with this
sound and add them to the class list. I usually explain that kids must say a
word to listen for the sound, and I do not confuse them by referring to the
sound by a particular letter name. As other sounds are explored, ask children
how this will help them with their writing.
Strategy 4: Discover Spelling Patterns
Tell the children that thinking about what a word looks like is a useful spelling
strategy, so you are going to explore some common spelling patterns together.
Reread a familiar big book, poem, or so on, selecting a particular spelling
pattern to look for. For example, look for and list words with ea, such as:
bead, bread, dead, instead, great, read, treat, break.
Ask children to identify and underline the ea spelling pattern in each word, say
the words, and group them according to their pronunciation, such as:

8. bead, read, treat
bread, dead, instead, read
great, break
Select one of the words and show how knowing it can help with the spelling of
other words in that word family. For example, great: greater, greatest,
greatly, or break: breaking, breaks. Ask children to try this with the other
words you've found. Talk about how thinking about spelling patterns and
building on word families can help with reading and writing.
Students read passages to build their vocabulary and develop their skills which
will be tested through dictation quizzes. Students also will be asked to write a
short paragraph weekly and edit it after receiving the feedback from the instructor.
Moreover, Students will be given readymade texts containing spelling mistakes
and they are required to correct those mistakes and differentiate between similar
spelled words to help them in comprehension reading . Besides, students will
listen to lecture about word form, syllabus, vowel sound and the most misspelled
words. Not only that but also students will play small games and activities to
practice their spelling in a funny, interesting and effective way.

9. Course Schedule:
No. Week Content
1. Week1 a. introduction to the course
b. pre-test to determine students' level
c. paragraph1: write about yourself and your hometown.
d. Spelling tips:
 LOOKS - THINK - COVER - WRITE – CHECK
 Develop Phonemic Awareness Explore Sounds
 Discover Spelling Patterns
e. List of vocabulary (10 words)
f. game or activity
g. homework ( reading passage)
2. Week2 a. Spelling Rules:
 Spelling Plural Nouns
 Possessive forms
 Contractions
b. Write the second draft of the paragraph 1
c. List of vocabulary (5 words)
d. Dictation 1
e. Reading task
f. Task or activity or game (the teacher is free to choose).
3. Week3 a. Syllabus:
 Breaking words into syllables
 practice with syllables
b. List of vocabulary (5words)
c. Dictation 2
d. Writing activity
e. Task or activity or game
4. Week4 a. Vowels :
 Pronunciation
 Long and short vowels
 More practice
a. Topic: we write but we don't pronounce it
 The combination " ough"
 Swallowed syllables
 Silent letters
f. List of vocabulary (5 words)
g. Dictation 3
h. Task or activity or game

10. 5. Week5 a. Consonant Blends:
 Words starting with consonant blends
 more consonant blends!
 More tips on consonant blends
Word form:
 Root
 Prefixes
 Suffixes
 List of vocabulary (10 words)
 Homework (write words and underline the suffixes and the
prefixes).
 Task or activity or game
Writing Test 1
6. Week6 a. Special words:
 Compound words
 Derived words
 synonyms
 antonyms
 homonyms
 Homophones
 Homographs
b. List of vocabulary (10 words)
 Dictation 4
c. Write their second draft of their writing ( test paper)
d. Task or activity or game
7. Week7 a. Commonly Misspelled Words
b. Games
c. List of Vocabulary ( 10 words )
d. Reading activity
e. Dictation 5
Reading Test 1
8. Week8 a. Revise their prior knowledge of Grammar :
 Past tense
 Present tense
 Future tense
b. Editing task
c. Dictation 5
c. Revision
d. games
9. Week 9 The Final Test

11. Course Textbooks and Materials:
Kobayaa. Mohamad J. (2007). Correct Spelling and Dictation in English. Lebanon,
Beirut: Dar El Rateb.
http://www.artofspelling.com
http://www.skillsforlifenetwork.com/?atk=1335
Games:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/english/spelling_grammar/spelling/play.sht
ml
http://www.spellzone.com/games/against_clock/index.cfm?wordlist=119
http://www.spellzone.com/games/word_search/index.cfm?wordlist=119&width=13&
height=10
http://www.spellzone.com/games/bouncing_anagram/index.cfm?wordlist=119&speed
=2
http://www.spellzone.com/games/witch/index.cfm?wordlist=119&speed=2
Practices:
http://www.spelling.hemscott.net/puzzles35.htm
http://www.studyzone.org/testprep/ela4/a/suffixp4.cfm
http://eps.schoolspecialty.com/external/read_write_think/practicing_homophones.pdf
Teaching Methodology:
The course will be delivered in the classroom which requires students' attendance.
There will be lectures, but it will be students –centered learning approach so the
participation of students is very important to make the learning process more effective
and interesting. The teacher will use various methods in applying activities such as
individual, pairs and group activities as the tasks require. The theoretical part will
integrated with practical one (listening, reading and writing, dictations and
games).The teacher will employ a variety of materials such as visuals. For example,

12. writing the rules and spelling in the bored and displaying a video or pictures. Shehe
will also use print papers which will contain the materials, tasks or games. Another
tool that can be used is audio like listening to pronunciation of the words. There will
be also listening tasks and dictations. Dictations will be based on the list of
vocabulary or on the short reading passages that the students are required to read
either as homework or in the classroom. The teacher will use free to use either aloud
or silent reading. There will be sudden writing tasks and sometimes in the same topic
to see their progress in spelling abilities. The teacher will use different games such as
word cross, word build, missing letters and so on.
Assessment:
Students' work in this course will be assessed as follows:
component Weighting
5 Dictation quizzes : based on reading that
students are required to read and from the list of
vocabulary that the students will learn
25%
2 Writing test 20%
1 Reading test 10%
The final test 40%
Participation and attendance 5%
Course evaluation:
This course will be evaluated through three elements. First of all, the final test in
which the teacher will compare it to the pre-test which has been conducted at the
beginning of the course. Secondly, the students will have a portfolio in which they
keep their whole activities through the course and the teacher will observe their
improvement. Finally, the teacher as well as the students are required to give their
feedback about the course and how we can improve it.

13. Reflection:
Shareefa Al-Harrasi
Designing a curriculum is a marvelous idea for us because it consists of several
important skills. First of all the selection of the course topic; it is important to look
deeply to the need of the target audience in order to choose an effective topic and
beneficial for them. Then when we distributed the questionnaire we come across
several difficulties such as the conflict of the member's free time, the conflict with
other projects and assignments and the place of living is far from each other. With our
cooperation and time management, we could solve these obstacles and it was
interesting, too. The skill of evaluating a curriculum is also important especially for us
as a future teacher. Our job not only to teach the available curriculum, we need to
know our students needs and their level instead of only lecturing a blank minds. This
will be helpful to fill the gap of the students minds and then start giving them new
information and skills. By the end of the course, I remembered that I used to give my
relatives a course in English in summer, and I thought that applying these steps will
be very efficient in order to succeeds and achieve my goals. I am thinking also of
suggesting our course to ETS (English& Translation Society) to apply it next semester
for foundation-program students.
Huda Al-Belushi
This project is a novel idea which I like. The process of making curriculum is not as
simple as I thought before. It must be related to students' needs, backgrounds, levels,
interest and so on. Actually I have learned many useful things from designing this
course. First, the project helps me in understanding the contents of the curriculum
course. The practical part always makes learning process more effective and
beneficial. I have no doubt that low spelling competence is affect students'
performance in reading, writing and other skills. I addition, most of the time students
achieve low grades writing because of spelling’s mistakes. This course will provide
students with huge knowledge about how to improve their ability in spelling.
Moreover, this project gives me the opportunity to learn about how to design a survey
and test it among school students. Designing a survey is a step which requires
background about the subject of the project and its objectives. In the process of this

14. remarkable experience, my colleagues and I have faced many challenges in designing
our course especially in the analysis part. At the beginning we hesitated which tool is
appropriate as it is known that students don’t answer questionnaires seriously while
answering its questions ,so we tried to put simple questions that students in grade 10
will be able to answer .
Dalal Al-Hajri
Actually , this project gives me a great chance for the first time to have deep look
through designing a new course. It allows me to think how to start designing a course
according to our students’ needs .After we have noticed that student are struggling
much to spell various words even the familiar one ,we have decided to help them to
overcome this problem in short time and with less effort using different techniques.
Starting with a plan of this course encourages me to achieve a suitable course for my
students; though it was somehow difficult to set a plan for the whole course with
deadlines for each stage in designing our course. As a course develops , I gain more
inspiration to complete my work. Moreover , I have learned how designing a course
goes through several stages and in each stage I have to come up with new thing which
will lead me to the following stage. All in all ,it was very beneficial opportunity to
practice what I have learned in Curriculum class. Also, I improve my ability of critical
thinking an how to see things deeply and to relate different ideas to each other.

15. Spelling Skill Questionnaire
This survey is conducted to design a course for spelling skills. Honesty is
required in answering this questionnaire, in order to analyze the main
needs. Its aim is to measure grade 10 students skills in spelling English
vocabulary correctly. Also it will illustrate their needs in spelling English
Vocabulary.
Spelling exercise:
1. The plural form of "party" is:
a. Partys b. parties c. partyes
2. The plural form of leaf is :
a. Leafs b. Leaves c. Leafes
3. The plural form of beach:
a. Beachs b. Beaches c. beachies
4. The correct spelling :
a-Because b. Becouse c. Beacause
5. The correct spelling is :
a. Necessary b. Neceessary c. neceessary
6. The correct spelling is :
a. Independent b. Indipendent c. Independant
7. The adjective of the verb 'respect' is
a. Respectful b. Respective c. Respected

16. 8. The correct spelling is :
a. University b.Univercity c. Unvercity
Spelling Ability:
disagreeStrongly
disagree
agreeStrongly
agree
StatementsNo.
I am a good speller .1.
I spell the word according to my
pronunciation.
2.
I add (s) to the plural of the following
words , book , child ,person.
3.
I divide the word into syllables to be
able to spell it correctly.
4.
Dividing the word to its affixes helps
me in memorizing English vocabulary.
5.
I misspell words because of the
similarities between English vowels.
6.
I cannot write without using a
dictionary.
7.
I misspell words which contain silent
letters such as environment and knife.
8.
I miscomprehend texts because of
lack of spelling skills.
9.
Misspelling of English vocabulary is a
major obstacle in my writing ability.
10.
I am familiar with the silent letters.11.
Learning how to spell English words
correctly will help me in my study.
12.
Learning how to spell English words
correctly will help me in building my
vocabulary .
13.