Advanced Diploma in Primary English Language Education

The programme provides perspectives on the change and development in the primary English language curriculum for teachers to reflect, re-examine, and refine their classroom practices. It enables teachers to develop competencies in the design and practice of assessment and evaluation. 

This programme is for current primary school teachers who hold either a:

• Diploma in Education (Dip Ed), OR
• Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) from NIE or its equivalent.

To be considered for admission into one of the reviewed Advanced Diploma above, applicants will need to have at least 2 years of teaching experience in the corresponding subject.

Participants are required to complete 20 AUs within five years to qualify for the award of the Advanced Diploma.

Participants can apply for individual courses at their convenience, in consideration of their work commitments. However, IEL4416: Professional Portfolio (Primary English Language Education) can only be taken after successful completion of the other 7 courses.

Course Code	Title	No. of AUs
IEL4409	The Language Development of Multilingual Children	2
IEL4410	The Grammar of Authentic Texts	3
IEL4411	Teaching Vocabulary Explicitly with Online Resources	2
IEL4412	Enhancing Speaking and Listening Skills in the Classroom	3
IEL4413	Deepening Reading Skills in the Primary Classroom	3
IEL4414	Improving the Craft of Writing in the Upper Primary Classroom	3
IEL4415	Conceptualizing and Designing an English Curriculum	3
IEL4416	Professional Portfolio (Primary English Language Education)	1

IEL4409: The Language Development of Multilingual Children

This course considers how languages are learned in homes and schools by children in multilingual societies. Further, the course considers the potential issues involved in children’s educational success when the home language environment and support structures are not those expected by schools and vice versa. Since the relationships between home and school languages are significant in home/school transitions and mismatches, these are explored through the use of data from relevant research studies conducted in Singapore. Techniques from contrastive linguistics will be taught to enable teachers to more effectively capitalize on pupils’ strengths and anticipate their difficulties in language learning.

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IEL4410: The Grammar of Authentic Texts

This course aims to equip participants with the knowledge and ability to teach and explain the grammar items tested at the primary school level. Participants will also develop a deeper understanding of how different types of texts are structured, and how each could be used to teach specific types of grammatical features.

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IEL4411: Teaching Vocabulary Explicitly with Online Resources

This course introduces the systematic, explicit teaching of vocabulary using examples from the myriad online tools now available for the purpose. By increasing teachers’ language awareness, of vocabulary in particular, the course will assist teachers in honing their skills to teach this aspect of language knowledge explicitly. Tools and techniques will be demonstrated, practised and evaluated. Particular attention will be given to tools based on corpus linguistics, for example, word clouds, and to the exploitation of online dictionaries in the classroom. The tools and teaching strategies will enable teachers to raise their students’ consciousness and interest in vocabulary to facilitate effective word study and independent learning.

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IEL4412: Enhancing Speaking and Listening Skills in the Classroom

The English Language Syllabus 2010 spells out explicitly the speaking and listening skills that primary students need to be equipped with. This course aims to keep participants abreast of critical oral and listening skills in today’s context as well as enhance their pedagogical knowledge in teaching these skills and in drawing them out more visibly and extensively in the primary classroom. Participants will have the opportunity to design meaningful learning activities to support student development in the areas of speaking and listening.

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IEL4413: Deepening Reading Skills in the Primary Classroom

This course is for teacher participants who are already equipped with basic skills for teaching reading that can be employed in the primary classroom. The course aims to extend and deepen participants’ understanding of reading instruction by offering them the opportunity to reflect on reading conversations in their classrooms and to explore ways to further develop their students’ close and critical reading skills. Participants will learn how to craft effective activities to support students’ reading skills.

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IEL4414: Improving the Craft of Writing in the Upper Primary Classroom

What do I look out for in students’ writing? How do I help them improve? This course aims to help participants in deciphering what makes for effective writing and how then to support and improve their students’ writing. Participants will be offered practical strategies in alignment with the English Syllabus to break up the complexity of writing into short-term writing goals that build up students’ proficiency in writing. Participants will also design and share lesson packages to support specific writing goals.

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IEL4415: Conceptualizing and Designing an English Curriculum

This course in curriculum design aims to develop understandings and practices among teachers to assist them in achieving a well-positioned, balanced, and coherent English language curriculum for learning in their schools. The course will demonstrate to participants how to align the curriculum with the principles and processes of teaching and learning in the English Language Syllabus and how to achieve coherence in schemes of work and lesson plans. Further, language learning will be considered from the vantage point of teaching from lower to higher-order thinking within lessons and across lessons.

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IEL4416: Professional Portfolio (Primary English Language Education)

This capstone course is for teacher-participants who have already completed the seven other courses in the Advanced Diploma in Primary English Language Education programme. The successful completion of this course is the final criterion for the award of the Diploma. Teacher-participants in this course will have to prepare a professional portfolio that demonstrates their understanding of theory-practice nexus as it relates to primary English language education, drawing on what they have learnt from all the courses in the programme, and making reference to their own practices in school.

Participants who have completed the 8 courses within the 5-years validity period can apply for accreditation of these courses into the programme by completing the form here.

Using the Advanced Diploma for entry into NIE’s full-time Bachelor of Arts (Education) / Bachelor of Science (Education) OR part-time Bachelor of Education

Upon successful completion of this programme, you may wish to apply for admission into the NIE/NTU degree programme. Admission is not automatic and all applications would be given due consideration. The admission criteria for returning teachers who are interested in using the Advanced Diploma to help gain admission into the full-time Bachelor of Arts (Education) / Bachelor of Science (Education) OR part-time Bachelor of Education are as follows and may be subjected to further updates from the Office of Teacher Education:

• Obtained at least overall Pass in Dip Ed/ Dip PE/ Cert Ed and a minimum of 'C' Grade in an Advanced Diploma (obtained prior to the introduction of GPA System) or a minimum of CGPA of 2.50 in an Advanced Diploma (obtained after introduction of GPA System)*

AND

• Recommendation by Principal

*For admission to Bachelor of Education (Primary) Part-time Programme, in addition to the above criteria, candidates must also meet the following:

• Be employed by the Ministry of Education;
• Have at least two years of trained teaching experience; and
• Have an annual appraisal grade of at least Grade C or better.