Effective English Language Learning for Children: The Role of Songs, Rhymes, and Chants - , Resúmenes de Literatura

¡Descarga Effective English Language Learning for Children: The Role of Songs, Rhymes, and Chants - y más Resúmenes en PDF de Literatura solo en Docsity! DIDÁCTICA INGLESA III UNIT 1: SPEAKING 1.- LEARNING TO SPEAK IN ENGLISH 1.1.- EXPECTATIONS Most children equate learning an L2 with learning to speak it and they expect it to be as easy and effortless as with their L1. to maintain motivation, they need to be given opportunities to speak English as soon and as much as possible. 1.2.- THE INITIAL STAGES It is important that children leave their first few lessons with some English to “take away”: vocabulary for basic concepts, simple greetings and introductions, a few rhymes and songs,… Many language programmes begin with a lesson to help pupils understand why they are learning English. You can ask them to think of any English word they know and attention can be focused on pronunciation. In the early stages of learning much of the English pupils will learn to produce will be formulaic language, language that is produced as whole chunks rather tan being put together word by word. It often consist of routines or patterns which children memorize: simple greetings, social English, routines, classroom language, asking permission, communication strategies,… 1.3.- ORGANIZING SPEAKING ACTIVITIES Some speaking activities require pupils to work together in pairs or groups, or to move around. We should think about how to arrange the classroom in order for these activities to be carried out. Pupils may also like to record themselves from time to time and listen to their recordings afterwards. It is very motivating and can help them become aware of the structures and vocabulary they are using and of pronunciation. The teacher needs to develop a repertoire of activities providing a balance between control and creativity, repetition and real use and provide varied models of spoken English. 2.- SONGS, RHYMES AND CHANTS 2.1.- WHY USE SONGS, RHYMES AND CHANTS? Children love songs, rhymes and chants, and their benefits for language learning are: • A linguistic resource • A psychological / affective resource • A cognitive resource • A cultural resource • A social resource 2.2.- PRONUNCIATION BENEFITS OF USING SONGS, RHYMES AND CHANTS Songs, rhymes and chants are particularly useful for practising pronunciation. This includes: • Individual sounds and sounds in connected speech: songs and rhymes are useful for showing what happens to sounds in connected speech. • Stress and rhythm: they can also be practised in a very natural way. Encouraging children to clap the beat as they go along or say rhymes will help to develop a sense of rhythm in English. Weak forms occur regularly in songs and rhymes and they often practise the use of / /, which is the most frequent vowel in English. • Intonation • Ear training: you can ask the pupils to listen and count how many times an individual sound or word occurs in a song or rhyme. Rhythmic patterns can be presented visually by using large and small circles or boxes. 2.3.- TYPES OF SONGS, RHYMES AND CHANTS Opie and Opie suggest that rhymes can be divided into two categories: those which are essential to the regulation of games and children’s relationships with each other and include dips, skipping rhymes, which are used to eliminate children when deciding who is going to be a key person for a game; and those that are “mere expressions of exuberance” and include jingles, slogans, nonsense verse, tongue twisters, scary rhymes and jokes. Many rhymes are traditionally used by children to perform actions in groups, to clap together in pairs or when skipping. Finger rhymes or plays involve actions just for the hand and children can remain seated. Riddles and jokes not only practise language but also encourage children to think. They play on words and follow a repeating pattern of statement / replay or question / answer. Tongue twisters have always been favourites and use alliteration which makes correct pronunciation difficult and a real challenge. Chants have always been popular in the playground and at sports events. Older children might find some traditional songs, rhymes and chants a little childish or uninteresting. Teachers often use English pop songs, especially some of the classics such as those of the Beatles. 2.4.- WHEN AND HOW TO USE SONGS, RHYMES AND CHANTS Songs, rhymes and chants can be used in many different ways: as warmers, as a transition from one activity to the next, closers, to introduce new language, to change the mood, to get everyone’s attention,… Here is a flexible framework for using songs rhymes and chants. It may not be necessary or appropriate to use each stage: • Change the end • Silent sounds • Writing skill • Reading skill • Speaking skill • Grammar • Cultural knowledge of the English Speaking countries: • Different parts of the world • Match the picture • Different food • History • Traditions • Postcards • Musical sense: • Follow the rhythm • Inventing a melody for the text of a song • Sing along with the tape • Sing in rounds • Identify the instruments • Hum and guess • Make a pop group / choir / orchestra • Motor skills (dancing): • Training left / right / in front / behind • Do a video-clip • Artistic skill (drawing): • Draw the song • Draw the storyboard • Draw the missing parts • Draw the actions • Guess the lyrics • Creativity. Songs help to relax the classroom’s atmosphere and break the monotony of the lesson, and they are also easy to remember. 3.2.- DISADVANTAGES We should consider some points before using songs in our classroom: • You need the equipment to play the songs. The best situation would be to have a steady CD player with 2 cassette socks where you could produce copies for your students, microphone, and 4 loudspeakers well positioned around the classroom. • You need to prepare the lyrics previously. Nowadays the easiest way to find the lyrics of a song is the Internet. • The text of some lyrics is sometimes very poor or has slang or bad grammar structures, but these “failures” can sometimes help understand cultural features and learn the up-dated language. • You have to have a well isolated classroom. • You have to design extra lesson plans for the exploitations of your songs (handouts, exercises, activities and assessment). • You have to find the songs yourself, ask your students to bring you some or borrow them from a music library. The Internet is good source of music. • You can also have the problem of suiting the musical tastes of all your students. You could do a survey on likes and dislikes before selecting the songs you are going to use. 4.- RHYMES Rhymes, like songs have the advantage of being pieces of the oral literary tradition of countries and a very good way to teach children culture together with vocabulary, pronunciation, intonation and rhythm, and they remain in our long term memory. Nowadays teachers can collect rhymes or songs from the Internet or buy Nursery Rhymes and Songs books. It is up to the teacher to use them when the topic is relevant or the grammar structure needs to be further practised. 4.1.- SOME TRADITIONAL RHYMES AND SONGS All the rhymes or songs used in the classroom should be explained beforehand. All the words have to be explained by drawing or miming first. The teacher has to tell the rhyme sometimes first and then ask students to repeat it. Most of the rhymes useful for young children are very repetitive. We can divide them into lexical topics, which is convenient for Nursery school education, student and Primary School education (numbers; colours; days of the week, seasons and months of the year, weather conditions; animals; parts of the body; actions). Sometimes it is useful to select the rhymes or songs according to their grammar content, especially in secondary education and bachillerato (present tense; future tenses; past tenses; present perfect / simple past; imperative; conditional; prepositional verbs; relative pronouns). 5.- TEACHING SECOND LANGUAGE SPEAKING Teachers want their pupils to achieve a communicative competence that allows them to interact in a different language. Somehow, this aim is not given the time and attention necessary in our classes. The reasons are varied: the amount of students per class, the time devoted to foreign language teaching, the lack of motivation,… In order to be successful in our society, effective speaking plays a decisive role. Thus, the importance of this skill needs no further proof. Speaking and listening go hand in hand; they share the same medium and almost always happen at the same time. Teachers must be especially patient when practicing oral activities in class: shyness and lack of confidence can be important barriers for students. 1.1.- THE NATURE OF SPOKEN LANGUAGE Some of the lack of interest in speaking activities come from the fact that we learn to speak our mother tongue naturally. This may lead us to the wrong assumption that we might learn a second language in the same way. Both writing and speaking are productive skills but the pace at which the message needs to be delivered is completely different. Spoken language contains many incomplete sentences, passive is rarely used and prefabricated fillers are often introduced. Nevertheless, the essential difference between these two skills is the need for accuracy: oral speech is full of mistakes and hesitations even for a native speaker, and our students need to be aware of this fact to approach both skills differently. 1.2.- KNOWLEDGE VS. SKILL It is not enough to know the grammar rules, the vocabulary and the right pronunciation; we also need to assemble all those abstract ideas into a piece of spoken speech. 6.- SOME PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS 2.1.- STUDENT NEEDS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR THE CLASSROOM There are some aspects that we can prepare and improve to make learning to speak easier for our pupils: • We should allow them to encounter examples of formal and informal conversations. • It will be easier if they realized that spoken language is less organized and not as specific as written language. • Interactions must be as real as possible • We must allow our students some rehearsal time to improve the results. • Motivation and self-confidence are vital for the development of this skill. We need to build up a positive environment around speaking activities. 2.2.- FORM-CENTERED. MEANING-CENTERED AND FLUENCY There are three levels or components in the learning process that, sometimes, overlap in time: become a mini-dialogue. It also makes the exercise just a bit more meaningful. • Chain work: it uses picture cards or word cards. Put all the cards face down in a pile. Pupil 1 picks up a card on which there are some bananas. He/she says to Pupil 2 “Do you like bananas?” Pupil 2 then picks up the next card and answers, “No, I don’t like bananas, but I like apples.” Pupil 2 turns to Pupil 3 and says, “Do you like apples?” and so on. 8.3.- DIALOGUES AND ROLE PLAY WORK Working with dialogues is a useful way to bridge the gap between guided practice and freer activities. First the teacher will have to present the dialogue. Dialogues which involve some sort of action or movement are the ones which work best with young children. Intonation is terribly important too. After the pupils have heard the dialogue a couple of times, let them all repeat it with you. Then let half the class do it with the other half of the class and then let the pupils do it in twos. You can present dialogues using objects or through role play. In role play the pupils are pretending to be someone else. For young children you should go from the structured to the more open type of activity. Beginners of all ages can start on role play dialogues by learning a simple one off by heart and then acting it out in pairs. The next stage can be to practise the dialogue, but changing a word. In real role play, the language used comes from the pupils themselves, so your pupils will have to be familiar with the language needed before you can do the role play itself with them. Those who want to can keep the information given. Others might want to move into a freer activity and have a completely different conversation. Dialogues and role play are useful oral activities because: • Pupils speak in the first and second person. • Pupils learn to ask as well as answer. • They learn to use short complete bits of language and to respond appropriately. • They don’t just use words, but also all the other parts of speaking a language – tone of voice, stress, intonation, facial expressions, etc. • They can be used to encourage natural “chat” in the classroom. 8.4.- FREE ACTIVITIES Using controlled and guided activities which have choices wherever possible provides a good background for activities where children say what they want to say. Some characteristics of free activities: • They focus attention on the message/content. • There is genuine communication eve though the situations are sometimes artificial. • They will really show that pupils can or cannot use the language. • They concentrate on meaning more than on correctness. • Teacher control is minimal during the activity. • The atmosphere should be informal and non-competitive. • There is often a game element in the activity. The range of free activities is endless. Most of the examples that are presented here are based on the information gap principle – that A knows something that B doesn’t know, and B wants that information. a) Pairwork: you can give information to the half of the class, and they then have to pass it on to the other half. With older children, give one pupil map A and the other map B. Pupil A explains to Pupil B where the various places are, or Pupil B can ask where the places are. Another activity could consist of giving everyone in the class a picture to colour. Ask all the As in the class to colour one part and all the Bs to colour the other part. When they’ve finished, put an A with a B facing each other and ask them to ask the other person how they’ve coloured in their part of the picture. They should end up with two identical pictures. b) Groupwork: take any picture, copy it and give one picture to each member of the group. Each pupil then has to describe to the others what is in his/her picture. When the pupils have heard what is in all the pictures, they decide on the correct order of the pictures. Another activity could be that the group has two objects or pictures of objects which have to be woven into a story. You start off the story and a pupil continues adding something using his/her object. c) Whole class activities: in these activities all the pupils get up and walk about, and they tend to be a bit noisy. You can make cards which are similar, but a little bit different. Make two copies of each. Each pupil has one card, which they memorise, and leave face down on the desk. Everyone then walks around trying to find the person with the identical card just by talking to each other. When they think they have the same cards, they check by looking at their cards. You can also use questionnaires, which are a mixture of groupwork and whole class work, as well as a mixture of written work and oral work. Split the class up into groups and ask them to find out about favourite foods, how much television people watch, when bedtime is,… Once the preparatory written work is done, they can all go around asking each other their own questions. They can present their results orally or in writing. 9.- TEACHER-LED ORAL REPETITION DRILLS Oral drills provide essential basic practice physically and mechanically. To build security and confidence, students need to repeat words safely. Drills should also be fun, lively, and varied. There are many ways to drill and it’s best to learn and use as wide a range as you can. • Choral drills: the whole class repeats chorally after you. Where possible, try to add miming for students to copy as they say the words. • Individual drills: individual students repeat when you indicate them and/or say their name. Mix individual and choral drills. They work best when accompanied by a consistent gesture from you, so students know when to speak. It’s important to drill at a good, brisk pace. Consistent visual cues are essential for efficient drilling. Gestures with the hands, use of the eyes or a nod of the head both encourage and facilitate participation. They’re also useful for guiding and improving pronunciation. Some ideas: • “Conduct” the class through a word using a beat for each syllable, highlighting the stress by raising your hand on the stressed syllable. • Count the number of syllables one at a time on the fingers of your raised hand. • Mime punching yourself in the stomach for the schwa. Once students get used to these gestures, you can also use them for self- correction. To correct a student who makes a mistake during an individual drill, elicit the correct form from other students. For individual students, guide them towards the correct pronunciation by miming or la-la-la-ing the correct form for words they say wrongly. For variety, students can repeat in different groupings: first the right half of the class and then the left; all the boys and then all the girls; in groups, columns or a row at a time,…This can be more fun if it’s sometimes competitive between groups. • Silent drills: when the students are silent, say a word one. Ask them to repeat it to themselves silently five times. Then, elicit the word back from them to see who can say it best, or move onto repetition drilling, or repeat the procedure once more. • “Almost silent” drills: ask students to repeat words aloud five times quietly to themselves on a given signal. • Back-chaining: it’s much easier to get the correct rhythm, sentence stress, weak forms and intonation if you drill the sentence backwards, in chunks. • Mood drills: all drills benefit from an injection of humour if you sometimes model words in fun and silly ways. You can use a chart representing faces in different moods. Students copy the model in the given mood. Alternatively, point at a face, cue students with a gesture and ask them to say the new word or phrase according to the mood they see. • Substitution drills: ask students to change one or two words in the phrase as it will be more meaningful than just repeating. This can become more fun if from time to time you respond naturally to what you’ve made them say. Simple one or two word substitution drills work well to practise with the whole class. • Open pairs: for basic question/answer exchanges a good way to practise is in pairs selected randomly by you (open pairs). Once an exchange has been established, elect a student to play each role while the rest of the class listens. This technique provides more variety and also has a number of advantages: • Students get used to speaking together with you still in control. • Modelling the exchange and behaviour required ensures everybody knows what to do before they do it together in closed pairs. • You can make students who wouldn’t normally talk to each other do so. • You can make students who don’t normally volunteer language get used to speaking in front of the class with relative security. • Students will be more attentive in case they’re suddenly going to be put on the spot. • The words carry more meaning when students are asking and answering together. • The class can enjoy the freedom of choosing who answers the next question, and begin to personalise their practice. 10.- REPETITION DRILLS IN PAIRS AND GROUPS Students in closed pairs and groups can practice together much more economically in terms of class time. It also saves your voice and is a more effective way for you to monitor individual progress, as well as being much more fun for your students. Here we have four basic practice techniques to encourage students to drill and help each other together in pairs and groups. • Reading aloud: reading aloud is a specific, difficult skill. It involves looking at a text, recognising words and remembering how to say them correctly, • Spidergrams: students are given a series of word or picture prompts around a theme, to provide a skeleton for a question/answer exchange. • Revolving circles: for this activity, you need a large space. Provide some general word prompts and elicit some questions for each topic. Each half of the class forms two circles, one inside the other, so they’re looking at each other, forming pairs. They ask and answer as many questions as they can for a minute. Then clap your hands and the outer circle revolves clockwise, so students change partners. A variation of this could be that students have a minute with each partner in the circle to find out who they’ve got most in common with. • Mingling: for any question/answer exchange, students can practise first in groups with the students near them, and then stand up, move around and ask the whole class. This is called mingling, and there are several way to do it: • Asking the same questions: to complete a personal copy of the information (e.g. a class phone book). • Asking different questions: from prompts to as many others in the class as possible in a given time limit: skeleton prompts, sentence stems (unfinished sentences),… • Assuming responsibility for one question: students (or pairs/small groups) can each be responsible for one question to ask the rest of the class. When they’ve finished, the original groups come back together, combine their results and thus produce a survey of the entire class. • Class surveys: class surveys work well if you add a guessing element. Produce a grid and draw it on the board for students to copy. Tell them the total number of students in the class. They have to write their guess in the first column and, once they’ve asked everybody, they should write the real number in the second column. At the end ask How many did you guess correctly? To see who “won”. UNIT 2: WRITING 1.- WRITING 1 1.- LEARNING TO WRITE IN THE L1 AND L2 The kinds of writing activities pupils do tend to fall into two sets: learning to write, where pupils are involved mostly in tightly guided copying which focus on “surface” features, and writing to learn, where there may be less tightly controlled writing activities. The demands of activities and tasks for productive skills can be divided chiefly into two: the first is connected with choosing the right language while the second is concerned with thinking and having ideas. It is important to understand what native-speaker children can do in terms of writing at different stages so that teachers do not make unrealistic demands on children writing in a foreign language: • Preparatory stage: (7) the child acquires the basic mechanisms of handwriting and spelling. • Consolidation stage: (7-9) writing is still personal, colloquial, situational and context-bound. Children are becoming fluent story writers and are more aware of the notion of audience. They develop much greater awareness of the fact that the success of writing depends on its communicative effectiveness with others. • Differentiatioin stage: (9-10) the structure of a story becomes more formal. Children are more aware of a range of text types and the different purposes and audiences for these. 1.1.- WHEN SHOULD CHILDREN LEARN TO WRITE IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE? Children learning English may not write very much in the first year or two. Teachers need to be especially sensitive to the different demands and purposes of written tasks they impose on their pupils and to be aware of a variety of ways of supporting their writing. 1.2.- THE INITIAL STAGES Copying provides opportunities to practise handwriting, learn and consolidate their understanding of new vocabulary, develop an awareness of and confidence in English spelling and practise a range of simple sentence patterns they have learned to use in speaking. An important principle is that children should not be asked to write something that they cannot say in English. Pupils in the second year may move on to practise writing sentences and very simple, short texts. Writing practice also helps gradually to widen and consolidate the range of vocabulary, grammatical structures and sentence patterns they can produce. Children enjoy personal writing, so it is a good idea to personalize writing tasks, where possible. The more pressing need is to ensure writing is contextualized and, where possible, sometimes relates to a real-life situation. It is a good idea to have older pupils producing written work for others to read and respond to. 1.3.- ENGLISH SPELLING English spelling is illogical and difficult and is not easy for young children to learn. There are four main ways in which children learn the spelling of words: • Visual style: learners respond to the shapes of words and the patterns of letter strings within them and have a feeling whether something “looks right”. • Auditory style: it is better for learners to sound the word out as they can recognize the relationship between sounds and letters or groups of letters. • Kinaesthetic style: the writer lets the hand remember the kind of movements and shapes made when producing words. • Linguistic style: some children might draw on as they grow older and develop skills in seeing relationships between words based on grammar, meaning, and so on. It is important to remember that a multi-sensory approach is probably best for all young learners. Examples of spelling games: hide and seek; noughts and crosses. 2.- GUIDELINESS FOR A SUPPORTIVE WRITING CLASSROOM • Reinforce the connection between writing and speaking English and reading and writing in English. Use a range of activities to show your enjoyment of reading and writing, and instill enthusiasm for reading and writing in the pupils. • Try to develop an awareness of environmental print. • Make sure your own classroom has many examples of English writing, functional print. • Develop the concept of English letters. • Have special “letter days”. • Count the words in a line of print or clap for each word spoken to develop a concept of word. • Reinforce the concept of words and letters with alphabet songs, jingles and games. • Create a Post Office. • Help pupils build lists of high frequency words from their reading and writing. • Organize resources so that there are word bank cards placed around the room which pupils can refer to. The cards show a word and a picture. 3.- WRITING IN THE LATER STAGES • By doing previous oral preparation before the writing task, you may also help your students to produce good writing. • It is a good idea to set writing exercises in class. You should grade the level of difficulty (by grading the length or by grading the level of control and guidance of students’ writing) as well as the level of demand from your writing tasks. It is then advisable to keep in mind the scale they are going to follow when they are learning to write: copying, doing exercises, guided writing and free writing. Some activities are: • Simple writing practice: tell your students to match words to pictures or to sort words into sets and then write them down. • Read and write: ask your students to read a text and then design some writing activity based on the understanding of the text. • Speak and write: ask your students to speak (you set the activity) and then they must write what they have said. 2.- WRITING ASSESSMENT Assessment is a fundamental and unavoidable part of teaching. Testing should enable us to measure progress in an individualised way and motivation will depend on how we use the results of the test. Assessing writing has a lot to do with the level of guidance and the level of difficulty the task has had. You can use quite a variety of techniques, for example, correcting exercises orally in class. It is advisable that you plan all these before the course begins. Decide how many compositions / exercises you want to evaluate. Think of the criteria and discuss them with your students. It is very useful to fix a correction code and make it familiar to your students. Red colour is not the best one to use in your correction; the green one, for example, has not the negative associations and it should result less discouraging for your students. Many teachers use different colours for different types of errors. It is also a good idea not to underline all errors (especially if they are too many). UNIT 3: TOPIC-BASED TEACHING 1.- WHAT IS GOOD PRIMARY PRACTICE? There is a need for constant reflection on what we are trying to achieve in teaching English to young learners and how we might best approach its implementation. 1.- WHAT IS GOOD PRIMARY PRACTICE? It is clear that greater knowledge and understanding of theories of child development and learning, the ways in which children learn a foreign language and studies of the kinds of classroom conditions which promote foreign language learning will all contribute to our understanding of good educational practice in the teaching of English to young children. 1.1.- HOW DO CHILDREN THINK AND LEARN? Primary education has generally been influenced by attempts to discover the ways in which people think and learn, most notably in Britain by Piaget, Vygotsky and Bruner. The most well-known aspect of Piaget’s theory holds that all children pass through a series of stages before they construct the ability to perceive, reason and understand in mature, rational terms. Teaching can only influence the course of intellectual development if the child is able to assimilate what is said and done. Piaget’s work has more recently been criticised because it says that children do not pass through stages of development in which they are unable to learn or be taught how to reason “logically”. Rather it was the unfamiliarity of the tasks which the children were given to assess their information processing skills that led to failure. The work of Bruner and Vygotsky has become influential more recently. Bruner was primarily interested in describing the different processes that are implicated in problem-solving. Vygotsky argued that in the beginning speech serves as a regulative, communicative function; later it serves other functions and transforms the way in which children think, learn and understand. It becomes an instrument or tool of thought. Both Bruner and Vygotsky place a greater emphasis than Piaget on the role of language, communication and instruction in the development of knowledge and understanding. 1.2.- HOW HAVE THESE THEORIES INFLUENCED PRIMARY CLASSROOMS? The main features of primary practice in Britain between the 1960’s and 1980’s can be listed as follows: a) Teacher autonomy b) A child-centred curriculum and methodology. This led to a concern for the education of the whole child, including his/her moral, physical, emotional and intellectual growth. c) Individualised learning, where children were free to work at their own level and pace. d) A topic-based approach, emphasising the integration of different aspects of the curriculum. e) A methodology whose emphasis was “learning by doing” and problem- solving, involving frequent use of work in small groups. The Department of Education and Science document lists the features which, in the teaching of English, are held to represent good primary practice: e).)1 Using language to make, receive and communicate meaning, in purposeful contexts. e).)2 An “apprenticeship” approach to acquiring written and oral language, in which the adult represents the “success” the child seeks and yet offers endless help. e).)3 Maximum encouragement and support whilst errors are mastered; the appreciation that mistakes are necessary to learning. e).)4 Working on tasks which the children have chosen and which they direct for themselves. e).)5 Employing a variety of forms with a clear awareness of audience. e).)6 Working with teachers who are themselves involved in the processes – albeit with special expertise. e).)7 Reading literature for enjoyment, responding to it critically and using that reading for learning. 1.3.- HOW DO CHILDREN LEARN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE? Ellis suggests that there are eight features of classroom discourse which may be important in SLD (Second Language Development): The teacher’s use of language (language input) 1 Quantity of intake 2 An input rich in directives 3 An input rich in “extending” utterances Types of activity used and support provided 4 A need to communicate (purposeful communication) 5 Adherence to the “here and now” principle The learner’s use of language 6 Independent control of the prepositional content 7 The performance of a range of speech acts 8 Uninhibited practice 1.4.- HOW CAN CHILDREN BE HELPED TO LEARN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE? A child’s concentration span increases as he/she grows older. Teachers should keep the number of new language items introduced to a reasonable level and present and practise new language items in a number of different ways. Wood argues that activities or interactions are more likely to enable a child to memorise items since they are more meaningful to the child. Rehearsal is a powerful aid to deliberate memorisation. 2.- IS THERE A BEST WAY TO TEACH PRIMARY EFL? It may be useful to consider two models of classroom practice: the classical EFL practice model and the mainstream primary practice model. A stereotyped version of classical EFL is characterised by a presentation and practice model, developed largely with adults and focusing on questions of language and communication. Mainstream primary practice embodies a less structured conception of language, more appropriate to Various forces stimulate children into activity, most evident among them play, creativity and curiosity. In the language classroom, the teacher can exploit what children do naturally. Activity-based learning is lively and enjoyable. It is concerned with making the how of learning more effective. The children will learn a lot more than the target language item, and more than the teacher might have expected. 3.- PRACTICAL GUIDELINES It is difficult to be practical without being specific. Each reader’s/teacher’s situation will be unique. While being realistic, however, it is valuable to keep in mind something to aspire to. Each teacher will at best be able to adapt some of the ideas presented in this section of the paper. 3.1.- PLANNING THE TOPIC The teacher first needs to choose a topic that is appropriate for his/her particular group of pupils. It needs to be wide enough to appeal to varying interests and levels of abili8ty and perhaps both boys and girls. The school environment or locality will to a certain extent dictate the topic choice. Having chosen a topic, a quick brainstorm is a good idea. It may produce a topic web, which is a free exploration of ideas. In this way you can check for balance and identify the structures, activities and resources required. At this point it is valuable to glean from the children what they would like to find out about the topic. Their questions will reveal much about what they already know and where their interests lie. It can provide a framework for the topic and generate ideas for activities. 3.2.- IDENTIFYING LANGUAGE SKILLS At this point, more specific planning is essential. There can be no hard and fast rules about creating a lesson. Sometimes an activity will generate the language focus. Usually the teacher will identify a language requirement and devise an activity where the language will genuinely be needed and can be taught purposefully. The pupils’ coursebook will identify the language skills deemed appropriate for the age group or ability level, but the teacher may find that they need a particular structure or skill earlier. 3.3.- DEVISING ACTIVITIES There are several different kinds of activity. The teacher will need to be clear what the activity is demanding of the pupil. Activities can include one or several of these cognitive skills: describing, identifying and recognising, matching, making connections, comparing, sequencing, remembering, solving problems,… The type of activity chosen will depend upon the language available, the language targeted, the resources required, the size of the class and groups and the material in the pupils’ coursebook. The factors to take into account when devising activities include language, skills, resources but finally and most importantly cognitive challenge. Young language learners find tasks which are cognitively challenging more interesting than those with obvious solutions. 3.4.- PROVIDING CHALLENGES Among the most challenging learning activities we can provide for children are open-ended activities, where the outcome or answers are not known. This leads us into the realm of problem-solving and investigations. The children actually have to think rather than simply remember. They realise that this kind of activity is less threatening because there is no established right or wrong. They are encouraged to be more confident and creative. A varied approach combining open-ended and closed activities is probably the best. 3.5.- ORGANISING RESOURCES In the primary EFL classroom , the most obvious single resource is the pupils’ coursebook. This may be enhanced by a write-in activity book, reading books, dictionaries, cassettes, games and videos. When planning a topic, the teacher needs to refer constantly to the coursebook. Some exercises might be replaced by more meaningful and enjoyable activities. Structure, balance, challenge and variety are the key words here. The next task is to identify and list the materials and resources that will be required. Most primary teachers collects odds and ends that may come in useful some day. A more specific collection is required for exploring a topic. The display area itself becomes a valuable resource. Supplemented by a class dictionary of topic words and wall posters made by the pupils the classroom itself becomes a lively language resource. All these resources will need organising. The EFL teacher might be able to make a large, simply bound book at home. The children could write something individually for the book and could also collaborate on a class story and provide the illustrations to go with the text. A collection of target language/English books, especially picture and story books, is of course an ideal language resource. 4.- THE TEACHER’S ROLE The topic-centred, activity-based approach does not call so much for a change in the teacher’s role but for an extension of it. The teacher will still have to introduce new language and provide practice with repetition. As well as content and activities, the teacher needs to consider the following issues when planning classwork. 4.1.- PREPARING THE CHILDREN First, the children need to be prepared linguistically to give them the confidence to use English. This will involve initial input and ongoing support and feedback. Second, they will need to be prepared for the topic in general and the activity in particular. Third, the teacher will have to spend some time preparing the children for working in an “English-speaking” environment. Codes of behaviour and noise level all form part of this area of preparation. 4.2.- PROVIDING LANGUAGE SUPPORT The teacher must be clear as to what language he/she will teach, together with its context (topic) and activities. The kind of language support the teacher gives will vary from situation to situation. Activity-centred learning frequently involves groupwork. The teacher may need to interrupt an activity from time to time and call the groups together to teach or reinforce a language point. The use of structures to highlight intonation, word order an tense formation may continue as before. 4.3.- MANAGING THE CLASSROOM Mobility is the key here. If neither desks nor children can move freely, the teacher will find it difficult to set up groupwork. In a more freely arranged classroom, the teacher can form groupings as required. The smaller the group, the greater the children’s involvement. The groups do not necessarily need to be doing the same kind of activity simultaneously. Having each group produce something different from the rest creates a genuine reason for sharing activities. It is worth establishing ground rules in the first few lessons about the use and sharing of resources, levels of noise and standards expected. Children do need to know if they are allowed to use the mother tongue, for what purposes and for how long. Where several teachers work together, it is vital that they agree on a common policy to avoid confusing the children. As the groups understand their tasks, they can be sent off quietly to collect resources, plan and get started. As the children become involved in their activities, the teacher is gradually left free to go round to each group and provide language support until he/she senses the need to call everybody back together for specific language teaching or to share something that one particular group has discovered or achieved. 4.4.- PROVIDING FEEDBACK AND ASSESSMENT In order to develop confidence in the children, teacher-to-child feedback should always be supportive and positive. By creating the opportunity for groups to share their tasks and the end-results, the teacher enables the children to provide feedback for each other. In closed activities, the children can assess their own achievements by matching their results with the predicted outcome. Testing is only encouraging to those who do best. The teacher needs therefore to balance testing with assessment based on classroom observations. Children can be directly involved in the assessment process by filling in a questionnaire or commenting on their own learning orally. The answers will give the teacher a valuable insight into the pupils’ perceptions of their own learning. A quick note in the teacher’s record book of which children were successful and which had difficulty for each activity will identify the range of ability within the group. Such records are invaluable for report writing and as a basis for discussion with parents. 5.- A FRAMEWORK FOR TEACHING ENGLISH TO YOUNG LEARNERS 5.1.- THEORETICAL BACKGROUND • The ELT world: there are some aspects of applied linguistics and ELT that are relevant to the formulation of an approach. A clear picture of the way in which a learner learns or acquires a second language is beginning to emerge and teachers need to take note of these learning mechanisms. An important Topic-based teaching is a useful, helpful, practical and exciting way to teach either all of the time or some of the time. Some of the reasons are: • It is easier to relate the lessons to the experiences and interests of your pupils. • The children can associate words, functions, structures and situations with a particular topic. association helps memory, and learning language in context clearly helps both understanding and memory. • Topic-based teaching allows you to go into a subject in depth and brings out reactions and feelings in the pupils which are not always covered in the textbook. • Working on topics allows you more easily to give a personal or local touch to materials which may not have been produced in your country. • Topic-based teaching allows you to rearrange your material to suit what is happening generally at the time of teaching. • The amount of time that you spend on a topic can be as long or as short as you like. • The work in the classroom naturally includes all the language skills as well as guided and free activities. 2.- HOW TO SET ABOUT IT? • Choosing your topic: usually the teacher will decide which topic to work on, but if the pupils are interested in a particular subject, and you think they can do it in English, then try to work it into your timetable. • Planning time: ideally, you should decide at the long term planning stage which topics you are going to word on and how long you plan to spend on each topic. sometimes topic work will simply crop up while you are working on the textbook, and this would be decided almost on the spur of the moment. • Collecting material: once you have some idea of possible topics, you should start looking for materials at once – all sorts of written and spoken texts, pictures, objects, cards, ideas,… When you find something, make a note of it at once. If you can write on the back of the material, do so, otherwise write it down on a piece of paper, label it and then put it into the ring binder or cardboard box you keep for that topic. The teacher will do most of the collecting, but the pupils can often help to find pictures and objects in connection with a particular topic. • Functions and situations: once you have your topic and a collection of connected materials, word out which situations and functions of the language you want to concentrate on. The point is that the topic decides which situations and functions you can take up, and you have to make a selection as to which ones you want to concentrate on. • Methods and activities: familiarity brings security, so make use of the full range of what is already familiar to the pupils as well as activities which are in the textbook. However, you may find that stepping outside the textbook can lead to much more creative thinking on the part of teachers and pupils alike. • Assessment: since topic-based work is complete in itself, it gives you and the pupils a good opportunity to assess what you’ve been doing. Do this assessment in the mother tongue. Ask the children what they liked/didn’t liked doing. UNIT 4: MATERIALS 1.- SELECTING MATERIALS 1.- AIMS AND OBJECTIVES Before selecting materials familiarize yourself with the aims of your teaching programme. The basic aim is to prepare children to benefit fully from the more formal teaching they will get at secondary school: they will become aware that what they say/ write in the L1 can be said/written in the L2. the teaching materials used should take the child forward as directly as possible towards your aims and objectives. The objectives should be decided first, and then materials should be sought. 2.- METHODOLOGY Must contribute to the general aim, and it’s also an important criterion for the selection of materials. There is sometimes a tendency to use activities for their own sake, because they are enjoyable or ‘work’ as activities, without due regard to their value as language learning exercises. The things pupils do in class should be interesting and enjoyable, but also be carefully examined in terms of their language teaching and learning potential and how they relate to what has previously been learned and what has to be learned. 3.- WHY USE A COURSEBOOK? • It is a useful learning aid for the pupil. • It can identify what should be taught/learned, and the order in which to do it. • It can indicate what methodology should be used. • It can provide all or most of the materials needed. • It reduces the teacher’s workload. However, no teacher should allow the coursebook to set the objectives of the term, let alone teaching the coursebook to be the objective. If the teacher has established that the aims of the course and those of the coursebook are reasonably complementary, there seems limited reason for objection, although the book may need to be adapted to the particular requirements of the class. 4.- SELECTING A COURSEBOOK The starting point will probably be the publisher’s catalogues or the information on the back of the book. It’s also useful to look at the contents charts, in which the contents and aims are listed. Coursebooks need to be examined carefully and compared against each other, e.g.: Superworld, I-spy, chatterbox, Pebbles, Super Me… Questionnaire: • What methodology does the book adopt? • Does one approach predominate? • How are new teaching points graded? • Is the organization lineal or cyclical? • Are there opportunities for independent work? • Are learning strategies developed? • Are there examples of authentic language and materials? • What is the socio-cultural context represented? Etc… 5.- SELECTING SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS Provide variety. When selecting supplementary materials, ask yourself how they relate to the language presented in your coursebook, what practice they will provide and your pupils’ motivation in order to select materials that will reinforce, consolidate and extend structures and vocabulary. You can also look at authentic materials and games children play in the L1. 6.- PRODUCING YOUR OWN MATERIALS It can be time-consuming. You may do this if the coursebook does not provide enough practice, it is not very appropriate or interesting, or you may only want to provide more variety. • Making worksheets: it is useful to create a template for producing worksheets; it can be a great help to the teacher for organizing activities. Your pupils can keep the worksheets and personalize them, involving them more actively in the learning task. When designing worksheets, think about: • How you want your pupils to use them? E.g. picture dictation, true or false?(agenda) • They provide exposure to varieties of English and different speakers. • They allow for the participation of students through repetition and recording activities. • It’s simple to use, and tapes are reusable and storable. • Audio extracts are very motivating, as they involve breaking the classroom routines. Disadvantages: • Its sound quality is not always good. • Verbal messages demand a great deal of concentration by students. • Most materials are predetermined, so there are few opportunities for adaptation or adjustment. Considerations: • They must demand listening, they must really help students to improve their listening abilities. • They should challenge students to do their best in order to achieve this goal. • Process is more important than results; getting right answer is not the most important aim. • They should be interesting for students and as natural and authentic as possible. Activities: listening comprehension, songs, jigsaw listening or paused listening. • The video player and the video camera (image & sound): they present communicative situations in a complete way, so it’s a powerful tool. It’s also possible for the students to make their own videos. Advantages: • They are highly motivating for the students. • They allow teachers to use image or sound separately as well. • Many of them are integrated with textbooks so they provide a wide range of aims and activities. • They are reusable and accessible. They can be played or paused as many times as needed. • They are easy to use and you don’t have to turn the lights off so students can watch and make notes. • If students create their own materials, interaction and motivation are guaranteed. • As language is presented in its context, children learn it meaningfully. Disadvantages: • TV screen may be small, so they must be carefully placed for everyone to see it. • There may be some difficulties regarding availability, so it is advisable to plan in advance. • Video materials are predetermined, so there are few chances for making adaptations. • Some technical skills are needed when connecting TV and the video player. • It may be difficult for the students to understand that learning with video is not just for fun. Considerations: • Video recordings must be suitable for the students’ age, level and interests. • Teachers must be familiar with the use of these appliances. • For the audio player, the length of the section should not be long, 8-10 minutes. • Short and clear instructions must be given so the aims are achieved. Activities: the same suggested for the audio player. There are, however, some other possibilities: • Static images can be a useful way of warming up by anticipating or predicting what is going to be seen. • Sound with no images is another way to get students involved in the task. • Transferring information. Comprehension. Dialogues. Video books or related worksheets can be used to carry out many tasks before, during or after it is played. • With the video camera you can: create stories, acting, miming and guessing. Drama. Role-play. 4.- ICT FOR THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH Information and communication technologies are becoming increasingly integrated in our daily lives. From the point of view of teachers new technologies have the capacity to free them from the role of lecturers or dispensers of knowledge and to help them move towards the role of facilitators and tutors, putting learners at the centre of learning and communication. The attitude of teachers is an important element; “technophobia” shown by many teachers may create confusion and lack of interest to students. • Internet: Evaluating web-sites: it is of special interest for teachers and students to make use of the same critical evaluative skills that we used when analysing the textbook. • Chatting: as students are accustomed to using this system of communication, teachers can take advantage of their experience by using it. There are many teachers who include chatting rooms in their web pages, so students can get in touch with the teacher or the school mates. Chatting, in contrast to face-to- face communication, can bring about more equal participation among second language students. UNIT 5: ASSESSMENT 1.- ISSUES IN ASSESSING PUPILS’ LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT Assessment at primary level is an attempt to analyse the learning a child has achieved over a period of time as a result of the classroom teaching/learning situation. Assessment does not need to be based on a particular task nor is it always expressed as Listen and: discriminate sounds / follow instructions / select the appropriate pictures / to a description and draw / match / sequence pictures, words or sentences, etc… Speaking: listen and repeat / sing a song, say a rhyme or poem by heart / finish off a sentence / pass on a telephone message / play a guessing game, etc… Reading: odd one out / read a rhyme, poem or dialogue / vocabulary items and group them into families / a description and colour a picture / and transfer information onto a chart, etc… Writing: rearrange and copy letters / complete a crossword / fill in the gaps / write speech bubbles / answer simple questions / correct the mistakes in a sentence or text, etc… Grammar and vocabulary: change from singular to plural / fill in gaps / correct grammatical mistakes in a sentence / classify words, etc… 8.- PEER GROUP ASSESSMENT Pupils become involved in monitoring other’s progress. It can be a useful type of formative assessment for older children. The teacher will have to explain that the point of doing this is to support their peers and not humiliate or bully them. If this is done carefully pupils can sometimes be better at explaining things at a child’s level than the teacher and this may help the assessment process to be less intimidating. Other advantages are: motivation, pupils receive more individual attention, and it may help in classroom control. One golden rule for commenting on a pupil’s work is to make sure that peers always start with something positive. 9.- SELF-ASSESSMENT It’s not as successful or as convincing as peer assessment although it is an important part of learning to learn. The more pupils are encouraged to be responsible for their own learning and assessment, the more they will understand what is expected and try hard to achieve it. 2.- ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING The role of evaluation is to give both teacher and students the necessary feedback to ensure that learning takes place. In a learner-centred system, evaluation takes place alongside the learning process and is carried out by all participants. It becomes necessary to evaluate all the components of the process (objectives, contents, materials, etc). So we need to establish clear objectives to develop that can be easily measured in the evaluation. There are three types of contents (LOGSE): • Concepts: we learn about things: grammar rules, language functions, vocabulary… • Procedures: we learn how to do things: finding info in a dictionary, getting the gist of a text… • Attitudes: we learn to develop attitudes useful for learning in the class and for later on in life: respecting opinions, showing curiosity about others, cooperating… Assessment is only one of the processes, which help us to carry out evaluation. It refers to the set of procedures by which we obtain the information needed to judge the learning that has occurred as the result of a course of teaching. It’s basically concerned with judging the students’ achievement and progress. There is a clear distinction between evaluation and assessment. Assessment determines whether or not the objectives have been achieved. Evaluation gives information as to why they have or have not been achieved. Testing is one way of collecting the data we need in order to carry out assessment. Tests are instruments of measure and diagnosis, the means to work towards global evaluation, but they can never be seen as the sole element on which to base our evaluation of a student or an end in themselves. 1.- STAGES IN EVALUATION • Initial evaluation: is necessary in order to establish the basis of a syllabus. The aim is to gather as much information as possible about the students to help them along in their learning process, and it will point them in the right direction when it comes to selecting methodology, strategies and materials. The initial evaluation has a diagnostic purpose. It should be centred in: the students’ needs and interests; their learning styles and strategies; their previous knowledge. • Formative evaluation: its main aim is to look into the variables that help or hinder the teaching/learning process. It provides the information which will allow the teacher to revise the process along the way, to introduce the necessary changes and to open up different options so that the students can reach the intended objectives. It helps to organise and orient the teaching/ learning process. It is the stage where students should e more active. By involving the students they are made aware of their progress and shortcomings, and encouraged to reflect on their own learning. The feedback obtained helps the teacher to programme extension and revision activities, remedial work and offer optional activities to those who want to move ahead. Teaching becomes thus more learner-centred. Formative evaluation must be focused on: • Teacher/students interaction • Peer interaction • Self-evaluation • Personal development • Class work: extension, reinforcement, etc. • Classroom management • Summative evaluation: is the final stage. It comes at the end of a learning period. It focuses on learning outcomes and final achievement. It usually has to meet institutional requirements, so it concentrates on results. It should be centred on: • Getting a general idea after certain periods of time. • Drawing conclusions. • Designing changes for future syllabus planning. 2.- EVALUATION INSTRUMENTS • Observation: gives the teacher the keys to find out the different ways in which children learn. Its major drawback is that it’s inevitably subjective most of the time so it becomes necessary to select the most appropriate tools to make it as rigorous and objective as possible. The teacher has to select the behavioural patterns that are to be observed and take into account the conditions under which observation is carried out. Teachers must be able to summarise and quantify the outcome, so they have to use instruments that include simple and clear scales that give hem reliable results. E.g. checklists and class diaries. • Checklists: allow for systematic observation of pre-planned objectives; they’re simple and quick to use. • Class diaries: the teacher writes down in a free, non predetermined way, his impressions of relevant events during the lesson time. • Questionnaires: are sets of questions about a certain topic that can be used both by teachers and students to evaluate performance, attitude, learning, classroom atmosphere, etc. • Tests: with large groups and very limited teaching time we cannot follow the development of each student unless we have a means of doing so collectively. Besides, by law, teachers are required to quantify their appreciation of the students’ progress. Written exams are easier to administer and to mark than oral exams, and most students find easier to pass a written exam in an L2 than an oral exam. However, written exams are not fair for students with a good ear, good pronunciation and no inhibitions. Writing is only one of the skills involved in the process of learning a language, so it is necessary to incorporate all the other skills too. Characteristics: • They must have clear and precise instructions. • They must be realistic: adequate to the time needed and level of the students. • They must show a balance between productive and receptive skills. • They must be valid: reflect the objectives set. • They must be familiar: students should not be faced with new types of tasks during an exam; they should be a reflection of the activities that are normally done in class. Students must feel they are on familiar ground, not that they’re facing an unknown enemy! • They should include items which allow students to show different levels of attainment. Ability and achievement do not always go together (mixed-ability and mixed-level classes). • They must be expected: students should be informed beforehand of their nature so they know how to prepare themselves. • The marking criteria should be made clear so they can decide what’s most important. The teacher must explain and discuss these criteria, and when necessary, reaching agreements. • A good test will provide information to the students as well as to the teacher after a process of error analysis, which will be more effective if it is conducted in class. - Errors: La reivindicación del carácter cognitivo del proceso de ALE sugiere 4 fases de trabajo en el aula: 1. Fase de elaboración cognitiva: extremo de las tareas de presentación, contextualización y práctica controlada. 2. Fase asociativa: interior del continuum de tareas de control conjunto en el que el dominio de los contenidos desarrollados en la fase cognitiva permite su utilización en tareas de ejercitación y en tareas no muy ambiciosas de comunicación. 3. Fase de autonomía: el conocimiento desarrollado es puesto al servicio de las tareas de comunicación, con el objetivo de desarrollar al máximo los aspectos instrumentales. 4. Fase de reelaboración: y aparición posterior del material suscita un reciclaje de todo el proceso. 1.4.- EL CURRÍCULUM COMPARTIDO El aprendizaje (para la ELMT) es un proceso de negociación y resolución de los problemas planteados por la distancia entre el conocimiento del aprendiz y el conocimiento requerido para la realización de las tareas de comunicación. Objetivos del aprendizaje de LE son: • La autoconcienciación de los roles sociales adoptados. • La responsabilidad en la toma de decisiones y en la realización de lo programado. • La tolerancia en el seno de la negociación del grupo. • La autorrelación generada por el avance hacia los objetivos marcados. • La autoconfianza como aprendices de LE. En definitiva, un objetivo de autonomía de aprendizaje que desarrolle la capacidad de aprender a aprender. El currículum conjunto surgirá de la negociación entre profesor y aprendices de 4 niveles consecutivos: 1. Decisiones a ser tomadas con respecto a la lengua. 2. Temas/contenidos a desarrollar y los procedimientos para hacerlo. 3. Selección de tareas finales y de las tareas posibilitadoras de las mismas. 4. Solución de las tareas en el aula. 1.5.- UN MARCO PARA EL DISEÑO DE UNIDADES DIDÁCTICAS DESDE LA ELMT Características: • Adopta la tarea como unidad de diseño del proceso de e-a y estructura la planificación, articulación y evaluación de las diferentes tareas a realizar. • Contempla el modelo educativo planteado en el Diseño Curricular Base. • Integra los diferentes ejes del proceso educativo: objetivos, contenidos, metodología, evaluación. • Permite desarrollar los objetivos característicos de un currículum compartido. • Genera unidades didácticas de características muy diversas, lo que permite adaptar la enseñanza a las necesidades del contexto. • Ofrece un contexto ideal para el desarrollo integrado de las diferentes dimensiones de la competencia comunicativa. • Es un instrumento práctico para la innovación y la investigación en la enseñanza de una LE. Este proceso permite a elaboración de UDs de características muy diferentes en función de la posición adoptada respecto a las siguientes variables: • La necesidad o no de presentación de nuevos elementos lingüísticos para la realización de las tareas. • Los materiales • Los roles desarrollados por el profesor y los alumnos. • El grado de participación a adoptar por los aprendices en las decisiones a tomar. • La modalidad de trabajo en el aula. Hay que vertebrar la UD alrededor de las tareas finales de comunicación. La definición de las tareas finales determina qué tareas posibilitadoras y otras de comunicación serán necesarias para su consecución. Los pasos del marco son: 1. Elección del tema o área de interés. 2. Especificación de objetivos comunicativos. 3. Programación de tareas finales que demostrarán la consecución de los objetivos. 4. Especificación de componentes temáticos y lingüísticos necesarios/deseables para la realización de las tareas finales. 5. planificación del proceso: secuenciación de pasos a seguir a través de tareas posibilitadoras y tareas de comunicación organizadas por lecciones. 6. evaluación incorporada como parte del proceso de aprendizaje. 1.6.- EL MARCO Y SU APLICACIÓN A LO LARGO DEL CURSO ACADÉMICO 6.)1 Elección del tema: constituye el punto de partida en el proceso de diseño. Debe escogerse teniendo en cuenta los intereses, necesidades, características, etc., de los aprendices. Deben tenerse en especial consideración: el nivel de los aprendices y regir el uso de términos gramaticales en la definición del tema. Los propios aprendices constituyen la mejor fuente de temas para desarrollar en clase, favoreciendo así un aprendizaje más significativo y las bases para un proceso de negociación de la actividad en el aula. 6.)2 Especificación de los objetivos de comunicación de la UD: constituye el punto de referencia. La participación de los alumnos en este paso es definitiva. Sea cual sea su grado de decisión, el hecho de que conozcan los objetivos es muy positivo, ya que redundará en una toma de responsabilidad ante su propio aprendizaje y facilitará su autoevaluación. Lo esencial es que objetivos y tareas finales sean reflejo mutuo. 6.)3 Planificación de la tarea final: toda la labor que se realice en la unidad se derivará de la tarea final y ésta se especifica inicialmente. Las tareas finales son tareas de comunicación, y servirán de indicadores de un desarrollo auténtico de la competencia comunicativa. La labor de los aprendices sugiriendo, decidiendo u organizando las posibles tareas finales resulta altamente enriquecedora. 6.)4 Especificación de los componentes temáticos y lingüísticos necesarios/ deseables: la especificación de los contenidos no se realiza previamente, sino como resultado del análisis de las tareas finales de la UD. • Componentes temáticos: el tema debe ser elaborado detalladamente una vez seleccionadas las tareas finales. La concreción de un número determinado de aspectos del tema determinará los contenidos lingüísticos. • Componentes lingüísticos: la especificación de los contenidos debe hacerse a partir del nivel de los aprendices y de los aspectos a tratar en las tareas finales. Este es un aspecto diferenciador del marco; tradicionalmente la selección de componentes lingüísticos era el primer paso en la programación. El contenido lingüístico procedimental debe también integrarse en esta fase. Está formado por todo aquello que los aprendices necesitan expresar o comprender en LE durante la planificación, organización y realización de las tareas. )1 Planificación del proceso: organización y secuenciación de tareas y lecciones. El marco de programación descrito forma un sistema interrelacionado que permite el control del conjunto de la UD en todo momento. En este paso, la unidad, articulada en tareas, es planificada usando el material elaborado en los pasos anteriores. Así, el proceso de planificación se halla integrado en el resto de pasos del marco, constituyendo un sistema interregulado. Las tareas finales se convierten en el centro del proceso de programación, desarrollo y evaluación de la unidad. Las tareas de cada lección surgirán de decidir qué contenidos, materiales y procedimientos necesitaremos en cada tarea para avanzar hacia la tarea final. La lección estará formada por un conjunto de tareas articuladas del doble punto de llegada: por un lado la tarea final/objetivo de la lección, y por otro, la tarea final/objetivo de la unidad. En función del tipo de unidad (microunidad o proyecto) el proceso de selección e incorporación de tareas aparecerá más o menos prefijado. En ambos casos es posible la incorporación de las decisiones de los alumnos al proceso. )2 La evaluación incorporada como parte del proceso de aprendizaje: es posible realizar una evaluación continua y conjunta de cada tarea/lección/etapa, rebasando las limitaciones de las evaluaciones de resultados. Para ello es necesario estructurar un sistema de evaluación conjunta en el que los criterios utilizados sean explicitados y asumidos por todos. En el curso del proceso de e-a, el alumno podrá evaluar aspectos como: • Trabajo individual. • Trabajo como miembro de un grupo. • Trabajo de sus compañeros y del profesor. • Los materiales utilizados y los procedimientos seguidos. • Los resultados obtenidos. )3 La aplicación del marco a lo largo del curso académico: una forma realista de adoptar el marco propuesto debe permitir incorporar progresivamente el nuevo sistema de trabajo. Algunos ejemplos de estos bloques de trabajo complementario son: • Formación en el uso de recursos como los diccionarios. • Objetivos específicos del DCB que no han sido tratados en las UD. • Lenguaje de aula. 2.- TASKS Tasks are activities where the target language is used by the learner for a communicative purpose in order to achieve an outcome. 1.- GOALS AND OUTCOMES Any topic can give raise to a wide variety of tasks. One job of the course designer or teacher is to select topics and tasks that will motivate learners, engage their attention, present a suitable degree of intellectual and linguistic challenge and promote their language development. Tasks are goal-oriented; the emphasis is on understanding and conveying meanings in order to complete the task successfully. All tasks should have an outcome. It’s the challenge of achieving the outcome that makes TBL a motivating procedure in the classroom. 2.- MEANING BEFORE FORM An important feature of TBL is that learners are free to choose whatever language forms they wish to convey what they mean in order to fulfil the task goals. It would defeat the purpose to control or dictate the language they must use. If the need to communicate is strongly felt, learners will find a way of getting round words they don’t know or cannot remember (I go yesterday…). The teacher can monitor from a distance and should encourage all attempts to communicate. This is not the time for advice or correction. Learners need to feel free to experiment with the LE and to take risks. Fluency is what counts. Learners need to regard their errors in a positive way, to treat them as a normal part of learning. Controlled language practice: a controlled practice activity involving repetition of patterns is not a task. In fact, it is very difficult to predict what language forms your students will use, since they are being encouraged to express themselves freely. Some role plays can be quite controlled and at the same time have an outcome to achieve (problem-solving tasks). A business simulation, a shopping game… 3.- TASKS AND SKILLS PRACTICE Teachers following a task-based cycle naturally foster combination of skills depending on the task. The skills form an integral part of the process of achieving the task goals. If you are aware of your learners’ current or future language needs, you can select or adapt tasks that help them to practise relevant skills. 4.- VARIETIES OF TASKS (TYPES) • Listing: listing tasks tend to generate a lot of talk as learners explain their ideas. The processes involved are: brainstorming and fact finding. The outcome would be the completed list or a draft mind map. • Ordering and sorting: these tasks involve four main processes: • Sequencing items, actions or events in a logical or chronological order. • Ranking items according to personal values or specified criteria. • Categorising items. • Classifying items. • Comparing: these tasks involve comparing information in order to identify common points and/or differences. The processes involved are: matching, finding similarities/differences. • Problem solving: problem solving tasks make demands upon people’s intellectual and reasoning powers and, though challenging, they are engaging and often satisfying to solve. Puzzles, real life problems, completion tasks. The processes involved and time scale will vary enormously depending on the given problem. • Sharing personal experiences: these tasks encourage learners to talk more freely about themselves and share their experiences with others. It’s not so directly goal-oriented as in other tasks. For this reason, these open tasks may be more difficult to carry out in class. • Creative tasks: often called projects, involve pairs or groups of learners in some kind of freer creative work. They also tend to have more stages than other tasks, and can involve combinations of task types. The outcome can often be appreciated by a wider audience. Model making, creative writing, real-life rehearsals… 5.- CLOSED AND OPEN TASKS Closed tasks are ones that are highly structured and have very specific goals. The instructions are very precise and the information is restricted. There is only one possible outcome, and one way of achieving it. Most comparing tasks are like this. E.g. work in pairs to find 7 differences between the pictures and write them down. Open tasks are ones that are more loosely structured, with a less specific goal. E.g. comparing memories of childhood journeys. Other types of tasks come midway between closed and open. Logic problems or real-life problem-solving tasks have specific goals, but each pair’s outcome might be different, and there will be alternative ways of reaching it. Generally speaking, the more specific the goals, the easier it is for the students to evaluate their success and the more likely they are to get involved with the task and work independently. It is often the outcome that provides the motivation for students to engage in the task. 6.- FIVE POSSIBLE STARTING POINTS FOR TASKS • Personal knowledge and experience: many tasks are based on the learner’s personal experience and knowledge of the world. • Problems: tasks where the starting point is normally the statement of the problem they must solve through discussion, logical thinking… Many tasks can be made more challenging by introducing constraints. • Visual stimuli: tasks can be based on pictures, photos, tables or graphs like in “spot the difference” games. Description is what students are asked to do. A more challenging task would be to give children four pictures (of a person/place/object) and challenge them to develop a story line that links them all. Individual planning time is recommended for all tasks that require imagination. • Spoken and written texts: can also make good task material. E.g. Learners read or listen to the first part of a story, are given a few additional clues and are asked to discuss and write an ending. In order to complete the goals, students react to the content and process the text for meaning. • Children’s activities: action games, miming, guessing, playground games… children enjoy making things. If the instructions are only available in the target language, and the materials can only be obtained if they ask in L2, such activities stimulate a natural need to understand and use it. Combinations of starting points: text and personal experience, questionnaires, combinations of visual data, problem solving… 7.- LANGUAGE USE IN TASKS 7.1.- SPONTANEOUS LANGUAGE Features: • Evidence of real-time composing: unfinished utterances, repetition, use of “er…” • Linking devices and signal words that mark stages in the discourse: in fact, and, but… • Follow-up words: yeah, oh, mmh, ok… • Final evaluation: stories and anecdotes often end with an evaluative comment. • Phrases with no subject: doesn’t matter. Not on a long journey. • Questions without verbs: ok? What number? • Lexical phrases that seem to be whole units: fixed expressions: in fact…, on the way back… Lexical phrases come mid way between lexis and grammar. Often learners will acquire them as chunks, then realize how they are made up. We should not expect students to speak in full sentences when doing tasks in small groups. This would be like trying to speak written English, which is unnatural. 7.2.- PLANNED LANGUAGE It is also vital to offer learners opportunities to ‘upgrade’ their task language to a version suitable for presenting in public and reflect on the changes that need to be made. The distinction between the two extremes of spontaneous and planned language is: • Private circumstances (or equal status): spontaneous, exploratory, ephemeral. • Public audience (or higher status): planned, final draft, permanent. Learners need opportunities to use the whole range of language between these two extremes. 7.3.- PREDICTING LANGUAGE FORMS In open tasks, it is virtually impossible. Much of the language used in closed tasks will be transactional in nature; aimed at getting things done, like borrowing, buying or following instructions. Matching tasks and games like ‘spot the difference’ are also fairly predictable in terms of the basic language needed. However, the interactional side of closed tasks is rarely so predictable, because it includes some language relevant to the transaction as well as some quite peripheral, like gossip or personal anecdotes. This interactional language is nevertheless important for establishing social relations, and it should be encouraged. From the task objectives, you may be able to predict broad areas of language use, but there are surprises, even then. The best way to make a prediction is to record several pairs of fluent speakers doing the task. The students might use different approaches to tasks, especially the problem- solving type. They could well be at different stages of language development, too. It is better, therefore, to let learners do the task first, using their own linguistic resources, and then study the language that fluent or native speakers typically use in the task situation. 7.4.- LEARNING FROM TASKS: • If learners ask to be corrected, point out errors selectively; most important are those who obscure meaning and the ones you feel other students may notice. • For other errors of form, try to get students to correct themselves. • Make sure learners know how to use dictionaries for encoding. Monolingual dictionaries may help most here. • Encourage students to help each other. • Make sure they know who is to be the spokesperson or final draft- writer well before the end of planning time. • Remind them occasionally how much time they have left. 5.- THE REPORT STAGE In itself it probably presents slightly less of a learning opportunity than the planning stage. But without the incentive of the report, the learning process of planning would not happen. Their reports will not resemble native-speaker language; there are bound to be strange wordings and grammatical errors. Always be encouraging. It’s extremely important not to devaluate their achievements; take what they say and write seriously. The teacher as chairperson has to introduce the presentations, nominate who speaks next and sum up at the end. Guidelines: • Oral presentations: • Make sure there is a clear purpose for listening. • Make a mental note of points that will be useful for your summing up while listening to them. • Keep an eye on the time. • Stop the report stage early if it becomes repetitive. • Allow time for a summing up at the end. • Written presentations: (organisation): • Will you want students to remain seated while they read? • Can students get up and display their writing on the wall and walk around each other’s? • Do you want to keep the writing anonymous for any reason? • Even if the writing has been done for an outside audience, students should have a chance to read what others have written. • Purposes should initially focus on content, but could well have a linguistic focus too. • Audio and video presentations: • Will you record all the reports, or just a few? • Could you get students to make the recording in their own time? • Do you want to play every recording? • Will the whole class hear/watch or just the people who recorded? • What purpose will you set for listening/viewing? • Summing up and giving feedback: when summing up, react first to the content of the reports. Make sure you give feedback tactfully and positively. When correcting (anonymously if possible) you may like to say or write the phrase but leave a gap where the mistake occurred, letting students suggest suitable ways of completing the phrase. End the report on a positive note and acknowledge the effort students put, as well as showing keen interest in what they said/wrote. 6.-. WRITING IN THE TASK CYCLE: HOW WRITING HELPS LEARNERS 6.1.- MEETING THE LEARNER’S NEEDS In real life, only a small proportion of the population do anything more than write personal letters and fill out forms, even in the L1, so it’s worth finding out what your students need or want to be able to write. Writing in itself is a learning process (helps to clarify ideas). In a task-based approach, writing constitutes a natural part of the cycle. 6.2,- PLANNING WHAT TO WRITE Stages most people go through when writing something important/difficult. • Think what to say/not to say. • Discuss with someone how to approach the task. • Jot down some notes and ideas. • Reflect on the circumstances that led you to write. • Show someone your near-final draft and ask for comments; evaluate this feedback. • Think about layout and format • Read it through to check for omissions and spellings, etc. 6.3.- DOING A WRITTEN TASK This end product will first be introduced in the pre-task phase, then discussed as an integral part of the task stage, drafted collaboratively at the planning stage and finalised for the report stage. 6.4.- WRITING FOR A WIDER AUDIENCE To make a change, to give students a real sense of purpose and to raise motivation, it’s sometimes possible to think of other audiences that might benefit by reading something your students have written.