Presentation of the Comenius Multilateral ProjectTeacher Learning for European Literacy Education

(TeL4ELE)2011 - 2013

PORTUGAL

Literacy Across the curriculum in different languages and context: Functional Approaches to Reading and Writing

WHAT WILL I BE TALKING ABOUT HERE?

Our experience with the implementation and development of the project, considering

• Teachers’ reactions

• Trainers’ evaluation

• Learners’ progress

TEACHERS’ REACTIONS

When first in contact with

Language teachers

I already do this with my students…

Non-language teachers

If I do this, I will not have the time to teach them the syllabus contents…

TEACHERS’ REACTIONS

By the middle of the academic year…

Language teachers

This is not exactly how I have been doing it…

Non-language teachers

After all, learning the genres is learning the contents of the discipline, is learning the subject

TEACHERS’ REACTIONS

Some difficulty in grasping the idea that it is the language itself that works cross-cutting not the Portuguese Language classes/ Portuguese Language as a subject

… but gradually coming to terms with the idea that…

… Portuguese as a subject is not supposed to be instrumentive to the other subjects, it is the other subjects that need an adequate pedagogy to teach their genres and make the students aware of the importance of language in the construction of knowledge

TEACHERS’ REACTIONS

Once understood and worked with, the pedagogy made the teachers aware of:

1. texts as complex objects that need explicit teaching of their goals and stages;

2. the potentiality of interdisciplinary work (e.g. students awareness of subject and theme complementarity and of relational work);

3. working along with colleagues from other disciplines (develop common didactic strategies and common perspectives on learning and teaching in different subjects);

TEACHERS’ REACTIONS

Once understood and worked with, the pedagogy made the teachers aware of:

4. sharing knowledge and experience with colleagues coming from different recontextualizing knowledge and discursive formations;

5. development of common strategies to overcome learning difficulties and common assessment practices.

A lot of hard work, but a very rewarding one

TRAINERS’ EVALUATION

What texts to use?

Pandora’s box

•Text typology in the National Syllabus

•Text typology in national assessment practices

•Textbooks

Acknowledgement of a research need:

• mapping of genres in the Portuguese school 

TRAINERS’ EVALUATION

A lot to do yet, but a willingness to continue. Some aspects worth considering:

• from 5th grade on, one teacher implementing the pedagogy in one class is good… but all the students in that classe being taught by teachers implementing the pedagogy in all subjects being taught is even better;

• need to move from an experimental use and application of the pedagogy, as with this project, to a long-run implementation, with the support of the educational authorities;

• the necessity to involve the Ministry of Education in whatever will come next .

TRAINERS’ EVALUATION

In general trainers feel that the pedagogy:

• was entirely uptaken by the trainees • was appraised as a means to reconfigure the

trainees pedagogic and didactic recontextualizing practices of what constitutes knowledge in their subjects

• understood as a means to establish interdisciplinary professional teams in schools

LEARNERS’ PROGRESS

Data from one student:

• Portuguese as a second language• Grade 7• Aged 13• Originally from Guiné-Bissau• Lived in England before moving to Portugal• Arrived at the begining of the academic year

LEARNERS’ PROGRESS

Eu / sou / otomista / porque / encaro / a / vida / de / uma / forma /positiva / Porque / fasso / as / coisas / para / ganhar / não / pa-ra / perder / eu / digo a / mim / mesma / que / vou / ganhar /.

LEARNERS’ PROGRESS

Estou num arquipélago Bijagos numa ferias di pascoa está muito calor.Depois dou um mergulho e a água está muito fria; gostodo cheiro da praia e xxxxx da agua; e do barulho das ondae ouvi musicas e barulho das pessoas; vejo o céu estálimpo as pedras e as pessoas e as arvores.É o momento mais feliz da minha vida.

LEARNERS’ PROGRESS

The teacher’s reflection:

(…)she only wrote very short texts, often consisting of a single sentence. The texts had a lot of repeated words, no punctuation and a lot of spelling mistakes. Her ideas were often confused and not in accordance with the writing assignments.The implementation of Reading to Learn had very positive effects on E.’s writing development. She learned how to write from a model text, drawing on its structure and language resources. I now reckon that the traditional approach to writing – providing students with a topic and general guidelines for its development – is not supportive enough for someone like E.

LEARNERS’ PROGRESS

Working on stages made it possible for E. to write better texts (although future work has to be done on phases). I feel she now has the capacity to better understand the writing assignments. By drawing on language resources explored during reading, she is also in a better condition to develop her ideas and to deliver a piece of writing that resembles … a text. Despite the E.’s progress, it has to be acknowledged that the Reading to Learn strategies where only implemented for a very short time. There is still a lot of work ahead.

Sara Ribeiro