N.B. As I was unable to attend the final session, this blog along with two others entitled Mind the Gap and The company words keep, replace the diario and dossier for Tema 7 & 8.
Learning through playing
Perhaps the biggest difference between Finland and other countries comes at the very beginning of the child's educational career. They don't formally start schooling until they are 7 years old and are not tested formally at all until well into their teens. This is in huge contrast to Spain and the UK where students at primary age are regularly tested. Rather than push very young children to learn how to read, write and do mathematics, the focus is on creative play. Academic prowess and competition is low on the agenda and children are encouraged to learn how to make friends and communicate, how to dress themselves and develop other social skills. Emphasis is placed on the “joy of learning”; before children can become effective learners they must learn to enjoy school and to develop as happy and responsible individuals.
Equality and Society
One key ingredient to the secret of Finland’s success is how society treats teachers. Teaching is considered as prestigious as (if not more than) medicine and law. Teachers are highly qualified and competition for jobs is fierce. They are also trusted and respected enough to be able to flourish and instigate real change and wield real power without government interference. They choose what and how they want to teach and only carry out assessments when they feel it is needed. Teachers performance isn't observed or graded but they are encouraged to reflect and develop professionally at meetings with senior management.
Finland goes against the grain of trends in many countries in it's attitude to equality. The concept of “good schools" or “bad schools" simply doesn't exist because they strive to make all schools “excellent schools”. Parents rarely fret about where to send their children because the local school is just as good as any of those in the area. Many countries, having seen the PISA results, have scrambled to emulate the success of Finland. What they fail to understand though is that it's not simply a question of how the school system works in isolation, but how the whole society interacts with it. Finland as a society has a lower wage gap between rich and poor and very low levels of child poverty. The society is also culturally very homogenous and so they don't face the same pressures to bridge the gaps that other countries face. Being a culturally and economically homogeneous society means that equality in the classroom is much easier to achieve. What’s more, as teachers and schools have such autonomy they are essentially impervious to political change and not beholden to the whims and agenda of governments.
Student Experience
Apart from the Finnish attitude to equality, another key aspect is how students are treated in the classroom. As mentioned previously, teachers carry out assessments when they feel it is needed and there are no mandatory exams until the age of 17- 19. Students have the least amount of class hours in the developed world and the least amount of homework but still end up the best. Class assessments are usually observations made by the teachers and have no impact on student progression and are used purely as formative assessment to help the student improve. Increasingly, the curriculum focus is moving away from traditional subject based model and students are instead encouraged to develop C21st skills such as digital skills, collaboration and research skills through project or phenomenon based learning. The argument is that, in life, knowledge is not sliced up into chunks and students must learn to take a holistic approach to life and learning. It's a persuasive argument and an approach that seeks to teach children to understand the world around them rather than pretending that facts and figures will prepare them for life.
Conclusion
It is clear that we can learn a lot from Finland and apply it to the Spanish system. It will, however, require a sea-change in attitudes of the society as a whole towards education. For me, the two most important are moving away from constant assessment and respecting teachers and their profession more.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/sep/20/grammar-schools-play-europe-top-education-system-finland-daycare
https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2017/aug/09/worlds-best-school-system-trust-teachers-education-finland
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39889523
https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2012/apr/09/finish-school-system
sábado, 30 de diciembre de 2017
jueves, 21 de diciembre de 2017
Mind the gap! - Task Based Learning
N.B. As I was unable to attend the final session, this blog along with two others entitled The Finnish Miracle and The company words keep, replace the diario and dossier for Tema 7 & 8.
My second lesson plan attempts to use some of the principles of Task Based Learning. TBL is a branch of communicative language teaching and focuses on the students’ ability to carry out a task, thus fluency is more important than accuracy.
My second lesson plan attempts to use some of the principles of Task Based Learning. TBL is a branch of communicative language teaching and focuses on the students’ ability to carry out a task, thus fluency is more important than accuracy.
A typical task might
include, a visit to the doctor, a job interview or a phone call. Given the importance that the EU and
the CEFR gives to students being able to ‘do things’ this approach is becoming
very popular and can be useful in the classroom.
The approach was
popularised by N. S. Prabhu in India.
In his book “Second Language Pedagogy, (1987) he identified three types
of task in this approach: Information gap, Reasoning gap and Opinion gap.
Information gaps
involve the transfer of information from person to person. Students have the opportunity to
request information, ask for clarification and negotiate towards an
outcome. Examples might be,
completing a profile of something or someone, arrange a time to meet depending
on the timetables the students have.
In my lesson, students play “Who am I?” to guess the ‘occupations’ of
their classmates.
Reasoning gaps are
similar to information gaps but students have to analyse the information to use
reason or logic to come to a conclusion.
Students might have to for example, decide on the best hotel to stay in
on holiday depending on the price/characteritics of the options. In my lesson, students decide on the
best candidate for the jobs they created adverts for, based on performance in
the interviewee.
Opinion gaps involve
students expressing personal preference.
This could involve a debate or choosing a favourite from a list of
options. In my lesson, students
decide on the best/worst from a list of unusual jobs.
“The company words keep” - The Lexical Approach
N.B. As I was unable to attend the final session, this blog along with two others entitled Mind the Gap and The Finnish Miracle, replace the diario and dossier for Tema 7 & 8.
The lexical approach is based on the book by the same name by Micheal Lewis, published in 1993. It focuses on the function of ‘lexical chunks’ - any pair or group of words that are commonly found together. The title for this blog comes from a much earlier quote from John Firth who, in 1957, said “You shall know a word by the company it keeps.” It is appropriate for this course as we are focused on ‘contexts’ in language teaching and Frith is noted for his work on the context-dependent nature of language.
The lexical approach is based on the book by the same name by Micheal Lewis, published in 1993. It focuses on the function of ‘lexical chunks’ - any pair or group of words that are commonly found together. The title for this blog comes from a much earlier quote from John Firth who, in 1957, said “You shall know a word by the company it keeps.” It is appropriate for this course as we are focused on ‘contexts’ in language teaching and Frith is noted for his work on the context-dependent nature of language.
Within the term
lexical chunk there are many different related terms, for example,
collocations, prefabricated phrases, formulaic language and frozen phrases,
among others.
Although lexical
chunks cover all of the above, collocations are sometimes dealt with apart. Chunks
include set expressions such as ‘by the way’, ‘up to now’ or ‘If I were
you’. Collocations include things
like ‘totally convinced’, ‘extremely busy’ or ‘a terrible accident.’
Grammar can also be
lexis, in the example above, “If I were you” demonstrates how parts of grammar
are stored as a single unit in memory and used in everyday speech, rather than
consciously remembered as, say, a second conditional.
Collocations can be
problematic for learners of English, there is no real reason why we say a
tall/high building but we can only refer to a person as tall. Thus Micheal Lewis suggests that
collocations should be the smallest unit of meaning, rather than individual
words. Teachers should try as much
as possible to expand the lexical repertoire of students to include chunks of
language rather than learning a word in isolation.
Within this approach
comes the idea of ‘noticing’ put forward by Batstone (1996), it’s not enough
for students to read a text that contains collocations and lexical chunks, they
should be trained to actively look for them, to notice how language is
typically used and to internalise it to use again.
This approach attempts
to avoid translation from the L1 to the target language. Students need to be exposed to set
phrases and chunks to avoid making awkward translations for their own
language. One classic mistake that
affects Spanish speakers is the tendency to say “I am agree” rather than “I
agree”. Teachers also need to be
careful with giving a set-in-stone translation. The word ‘soft’ could be translated in many different ways,
depending if we mean “a soft voice” “soft skin” or “a soft drink”. Likewise, how many different meanings
does “take off” have depending on the context?! To use the title of this very blog - Context is king!
In the lesson plan, I
have attempted to use the Lexical Approach using a short text and asking
students to create a ‘friendship test’ using hypothetical situations. They are directed to ‘notice’ chunks of
language both in the text and in the second conditional sentences given as
examples. They then recycle this
lexis to make their own sentences.
Lesson Plan - Task Based Learning
This lesson is
designed for students in 4º ESO and uses a Task Based approach. For more information about the Task
Based Learning please see the post entitled Mind the Gap
In this session, the
objectives are as follows:
Revise vocabulary related
to jobs
Prepare a job advert
Prepare and execute a
job interview
1. As a warm up,
students play “Who am I?” with jobs.
Each student is given a card with a job and in groups of 4, students ask
each other questions to try and guess each other’s jobs.
2. The teacher writes
up some unusual jobs on the board.
eg.
Pet Psychologist
Chocolate Taster
Video Game Tester
Professional Queuer
Personal Shopper
In pairs, students
decide which jobs is the worst/best/most interesting
Students brainstorm
some other unusual jobs.
3. In pairs they
choose one of the jobs (from the examples given or their own idea) and write a
job advert for it on A4 paper, including qualifications and skills needed. (Time limit of 10 minutes)
4. Teacher elicits
some typical interview questions. eg. What are your strengths?
In the same pairs, students
write 5 questions to and in an interview.
Meanwhile, the teacher
puts the job adverts up around the room.
Students move around
the room and look at the adverts made by their classmates.
5. Students line up in two lines sitting
opposite the partners they wrote with.
Students in line A are the interviewers and line B are the
interviewees. Students from line B
move one place so they are no longer with their original partner.
The interviewers carry
out the interview with a time limit of 3 minutes. The interviewer should take short notes.
After the time limit,
the interviewees change places again.
Repeat until students are back with their original partner.
6. With their original
partner, the interviewer reports back on the interviewees and together they
decide on the best candidate for their job.
Feedback with
everybody saying who they chose for their job and why.
In this lesson, the evaluation will be
formative and based on the performance of the interviewers and
interviewees.
It deals with the following competencias claves
Competencias en comunicación lingüística
Competencias sociales y cívicas
Sentido de la iniciativa y espíritu
emprendedor
Conciencia y expresiones culturales
The Contenidos
are as follows:
B2.1 Estratexias
de produción: planificación y execucion
B5.1 Patróns
sonoros, acentuais, rítmicos e de entoación
B5.3 Aspectos
socioculturais e sociolingüísticos:
B5.7
Recoñecemento e uso de rutinas ou modelos de interacción básicos, segundo o
tipo de situación de comunicación.
The Criterios de avaliación are
as follows:
B2.3. Producir textos breves ou de lonxitude media, tanto en conversa cara
a cara como por teléfono ou outros medios técnicos, nun rexistro formal, neutro
ou informal, nos que se intercambia información, ideas e opinións, se
xustifican de maneira simple pero suficiente os motivos de accións e plans, e
se formulan hipóteses, aínda que ás veces haxa vacilacións para buscar
expresións e pausas para reformular e organizar o discurso, e sexa necesario
repetir o dito para axudar a persoa interlocutora a comprender algúns detalles.
B2.5. Interactuar
de maneira sinxela pero efectiva en intercambios claramente estruturados,
utilizando estratexias de cooperación na interacción e fórmulas ou indicacións
habituais para tomar ou ceder a quenda de palabra, aínda que se poida necesitar
a axuda da persoa interlocutora.
B5.1. Discriminar
patróns sonoros, acentuais, rítmicos e de entoación de uso común, e recoñecer
os significados e as intencións comunicativas xerais relacionados con eles.
The Estándares de Aprendizaje are as
follows:
PLEB2.1. Utiliza
recursos lingüísticos para entender e facerse entender, como a utilización de
expresións memorizadas ou fixas (para pedir que lle falen máis a modo, que lle
repitan ou que lle aclaren) e o uso de exemplos e definicións, ou de aspectos
paralingüísticos como os acenos, a entoación, etc.
PLEB2.4.
Desenvólvese adecuadamente en situacións cotiás e menos habituais que poden
xurdir durante unha viaxe ou estadía noutros países por motivos persoais,
educativos ou ocupacionais (transporte, aloxamento, comidas, compras, estudos,
traballo, relacións coas autoridades, saúde e lecer), e sabe solicitar
atención, información, axuda ou explicacións, e facer unha reclamación ou unha
xestión formal de maneira sinxela pero correcta e adecuada ao contexto.
PLEB5.1.
Exprésase cunha pronunciación clara, aceptable e comprensible, e utiliza
adecuadamente os esquemas fonolóxicos básicos, aínda que teña que repetir
algunha vez por solicitude das persoas interlocutoras.
https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/speed-job-interviews
Lesson Plan - The Lexical Approach
This lesson is
designed for students in 4º ESO and based on the Lexical Approach. For more information about the Lexical
Approach please see the post entitled “The company words keep”.
In this session, the
objectives are as follows:
-Increase the repertoire
of vocabulary and collocations relating to personality and friendships to
describe a friend
-Synthesise previous
knowledge of the second conditional to create a friendship test based on
hypothetical situations.
1. On the board, the
teacher writes:
My cat is a(n) __________ cat.
Students work in
groups of 2 or 3 to think of an adjective for as many letters of the alphabet
as they can. e.g.:
a - amazing
b - boring
c - cool
The students share
their work with another group, then with the class. The teacher provides an
adjective for the more difficult letters if necessary.
e.g. zany.
2. The teacher now
writes:
My best friend is ___________
Individually, students
choose 5 adjectives that describe their friend (can be from the list, or others).
In pairs, students
then decide what are the 5 most important qualities for a friend to have.
In groups of 4,
students compare lists and decide on a new one.
The groups share their
lists with the class and justify why they chose them.
3. Students read the
text entitled “Cheat!” then order the events in the text. (see below). Compare with a partner and feedback as a class.
4. The teacher directs
the students to the text and asks them to look for:
collocations / phrasal
verbs with “look” (x6)
exam vocabulary (x6)
embedded question
words (x2)
vocabulary about
bodies and emotion (x2)
collocations with
had (x4)
Students work
individually, using a highlighter or pen to underline the lexis, then compare
with a partner. Feedback as a
class
5. The teacher writes
on the board:
What would you do if
your friend were cheating in an exam?
If you were Mo, would
you tell the teacher?
Students talk to their
partner about the situations then share with the class.
The teacher elicits
the grammatical form: 2nd
Conditional and the relevant question headers:
What would you do if +
past simple
If you were / past
simple…+would+inf
(Elicit use of were
instead of was in these sentences)
6. Teacher gives out
the following questions between two:
What would you do if
your friend told a secret of yours to everyone?
a)
Forgive
and forget.
b)
Talk to
them about how you feel.
c)
Get
revenge.
If you won the lottery, would you share it with your friend?
a)
Without a
doubt!
b)
I would
buy them a good present
c)
No way!
Students talk to their
partner and decide on their answer.
Share with the class and justify.
Students then decide
what kind of friend would answer a), b) and c)
e.g.
a)
He/she is
a good friend but maybe too good!
b)
He/she’s a
good friend
c)
He/she’s a
bad friend!
Students work together
to identify the word chunk or collocations in the answers (eg. forgive and
forget, without a doubt, no way)
7. Students create
their own questions and options using the question frames (and word chunks if
they wish).
The teacher monitors
to help with any doubts.
Students share their questions with other groups and discuss the
questions.
8. For homework,
students create five questions and options to make their own friendship
test.
The evaluation will be
formative, based on the questions created at home.
The questions created
by students will be uploaded to the blog as part of their portfolio of
work.
It deals with the following competencias claves
Competencias en comunicación lingüística
Competencias sociales y cívicas
Aprender a aprender
This task is related to the following Contenidos
B4.1 - Estratexias de produción: Planificación, Execución, Revisión.
B5.2 - Patróns gráficos e convencións ortográficas
It is based on the following criterios:
Criterios de Evaluación
B4.1. Coñecer, seleccionar e aplicar as estratexias máis adecuadas para
elaborar textos escritos breves ou de media lonxitude (por exemplo,
reformulando estruturas a partir doutros textos de características e propósitos
comunicativos similares, ou redactando borradores previos, e revisando contido,
ortografía e presentación do texto antes da súa escritura definitiva).
B4.6 - Presentar os textos escritos de xeito coidado (con atención a
marxes, riscaduras, liñas dereitas, letra clara, letras maiúsculas e minúsculas
cando corresponda, etc.) en soporte impreso e dixital, adecuados aos fins
funcionais e valorando importancia da presentación nas comunicacións escritas.
B5.3. Coñecer e utilizar para a comprensión e a produción do texto os
aspectos socioculturais e sociolingüísticos relativos á vida cotiá (hábitos e
actividades de estudo, traballo e lecer), condicións de vida (hábitat e
estrutura socioeconómica), relacións interpersoais (xeracionais, entre homes e
mulleres, no ámbito educativo, ocupacional e institucional), comportamento
(posturas, expresións faciais, uso da voz, contacto visual e proxémica) e
convencións sociais (actitudes e valores), así como os aspectos culturais
B5.8. Recoñecer, e aplicar á comprensión do texto léxico oral e escrito de
uso común relativo a asuntos cotiáns e a temas xerais ou relacionados cos
propios intereses, os estudos e as ocupacións, así como un repertorio limitado de expresións e modismos
de uso frecuente, cando o contexto ou o apoio visual facilitan a comprensión.
The Estándares are as follows:
Estándares de Aprendizaje
PLEB4.3. Escribe notas, anuncios, mensaxes e comentarios breves, en
calquera soporte, nos que solicita e se transmite información e opinións
sinxelas e nos que resalta os aspectos que lle resultan importantes (por
exemplo, nunha páxina web ou unha revista xuvenís, ou dirixidos a un profesor
ou a unha profesora), respectando as convencións e as normas de cortesía.
PLEB5.5. Comprende e utiliza con corrección suficiente e adecuación
sociolingüística os recursos lingüísticos propios do seu nivel, e frases feitas
e locucións idiomáticas sinxelas e habituais da comunidade lingüística
correspondente á lingua meta.
miércoles, 20 de diciembre de 2017
Diario - Tema 6 - Scaffolding in CLIL
Scaffolding is the
idea of helping students to learn by giving them the support they need in order to understand,
interpret or produce the target language or content. In the context of CLIL it
is indispensable because not only are we expecting students to understand a foreign
language, but also to learn new content in that language. Rosie Tanner and Liz
Dale in their book CLIL Activities
say that, “The idea of scaffolding is based on work by Wood, Bruner and Ross
(1976) and Vygotsky (1978). Builders use temporary scaffolds to support a
building during construction, and then – once the building can stand alone –
the scaffold is removed.” The benefit of scaffolding is that students can focus
on their content rather than phrasing it correctly. By breaking the tasks
into manageable steps the teacher helps the students to achieve a goal. The
teacher begins with what the students know how to do and builds on it. David
Marsh, in the foreword to 101 Scaffolding
Techniques for Language Teaching and Learning says, “the ‘tell me
why’ generations of years gone by have been replaced by a ‘show me how’
generation.”
Broadly speaking, scaffolding can be divided into three
categories: reception, transformation and productions.
Reception Scaffolding
Examples of reception
scaffolding include brainstorming activities, pre-teaching vocabulary, or
predicting content. These techniques activate previous knowledge and help
students engage with the activities. One useful technique is listening
bingo, the teacher writes up a selection of words from a listening script on
the board in two columns, 10 from the beginning and 10 from near the end.
Student, in pairs, discuss what the listening might be about based on the
words. They then choose 10 of the words, 5 from each column.
Students then listen to the CD and mark off when they hear their words.
This technique allows them to focus on smaller fragments of the listening
rather than understanding everything in detail.
Transformation Scaffolding
This kind of scaffolding
requires students to recycle and re-use material. This might be in the
form of a quiz, or the students might make a diagram or a table. It could
also involve writing or discussing summaries or pros and cons of a text.
After a speaking activity, the teacher, rather than ask a students to
tell the class what he/she said, might instead ask them to report back on what
their partner said. A favoured technique of language teachers is a
dictogloss. The teacher reads a short text at normal speed. The
first time around, students listen, the second time they can make notes.
Students then compare with their partner, then in small groups to
reconstruct the text. This has the added bonus that the scaffolding is
done by the students, rather than the teacher.
Production Scaffolding
This final type of
scaffolding is especially useful as it covers the most daunting part of
language learning - speaking and writing in the target language.
Building on the David
Marsh quote, the teacher should model a speaking activity or presentation to
show students what exactly is expected of them. Templates for speaking or
writing can also be useful, for example, a guide on how to write an essay might
include how to structure it, advice on the type of register, examples of common
structures used in essays (eg. passive reporting structures), or common
cohesive devices (Firstly, moreover, nonetheless)
At the production stage
it’s also extremely important to give students time to think and plan.
Once students have planned what they want to say, the can practice with
their partner then with a group before sharing with the class. This gives them
a chance to prepare and repeat before the final product.
The Role of the Teacher
The responsibility for
scaffolding obviously lies with the teacher, however, it is important to stress
that while repetition, paraphrasing and sandwiching can be useful to help the
understanding of the students, it means that the TTT (teacher talking time) is
far too high and students miss out on the opportunity to speak themselves.
Teachers, where possible, should use elicitation and ask questions that
will encourage the students to explain the topic or content for themselves.
Finally, praise and encouragement go a long way to creating an environment
conducive to learning and producing language.
To finish off, here’s a
great presentation I found about scaffolding in the CLIL classroom from emaze.com.
Dosier - Tema 6 - 18/12/17
In this session we
dealt with the Edulingue program in Galicia and CLIL. First, some definitions: the difference between secciones
bilingües and centros plurilingües. Secciones bilingües refer to the
organisation of one non-lingustic area or subject that is taught through one of
the offical languages and at least 50% of the time in a foreign language. Centros plurilingües are whole schools
where a maximum of one third of all subjects are taught through a foreign
language.
I’ve also seen first
hand the experience of teachers who felt obliged to obtain a B2 or C1
certificate because their school suddenly decided it was necessary. Some schools offered grants to teachers
to pay for the registration for Cambridge exams and they duly attended classes
to try and get them. It was clear
that some of these teachers had no interest in language and were simply driven
to get the paper in order to keep their job. It’s a very sad state of affairs and I’m not convinced it’s
going to improve the students level in the long term if we have reluctant
teachers using the language.
The solution seems to
be to focus more time on the language teachers that we already have - grants
for exchanges abroad seem to be going in large part to those with no linguistic
background whereas they should be going to language teachers who already have a
base so that they can refresh and improve their level. Increasing the hours dedicated to
language teaching could also be an option. Finally, I think the plan should take a more progressive approach,
focus perhaps on infantil and primaria and make sure that teachers who are in
training now come out with a suitable level then progressively increase the requisites
for new teachers in secondary.
While it may sound
like I am very critical of the plan, I do believe it is a step in the right
direction but there are some snags that need to be smoothed out if it is to
really work.
We then moved onto
talking about CLIL, Gonzalo explained what CLIL is and where it comes from; our
classmate Lorena then delivered a presentation on CLIL and eTwinning. The eTwinning program seems to me to be
a very useful tool for teachers and it allows students to embark on projects in
conjunction with other schools across Europe.
Diario - Tema 5 - Criterios de evaluación y Estándares de Aprendizaje
There was a lot of
confusion among all of us as to what exactly the difference is between the criterios de evaluación and the estandares de aprendizaje.
Broadly speaking, the criterios de evaliación state in more
general terms what I want the student to do, the estandares de aprendizaje specify what will be evaluated.
Let’s have a look at
how this might be applied to a classroom task. For a class in 4º ESO, a teacher might propose the following
writing task:
(Source: Cambridge PET for Schools - Sample Paper)
In this case, the
teacher would apply the following criterios de
evaluación:
However, what the teacher will evaluate
is the following:
In order to evaluate it the teacher will need
indicadores, in this case a rubric.
The grade achieved for this will then be
weighted according to whether it is considered basico, intermedio or
avanzado. This would depend on the
decisions made by the centre, but in my opinion this type of writing should be
considered basico (working on the assumption that students at 4 ESO should in
theory finish with a B1 level.)
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