Teaching EFL to children: a strong and colourful tapestry.

Cristina Helena Evelyn Tinoco TeixeiraMA Language Arts

Pos-grad English Language (PUC-Rio) BA Fine Arts (UFRJ)

CNPq Multimodality ResearcherFundamental 1 - EFL teacher (Colégio A.Liessin)

a strong and colourful tapestry.

the setting

the target

languagethe

mother tongue

theteacher

thestudents

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How do children think and learn?

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Primary EducationPiaget’s Theory (1967)

All children pass through stages:

sensori-motor (til 18 months)operational (til 11 years approximately)formal operations (11 years onwards).

before they can perceive, reason and understand in mature, rational terms

Actions Mental actions and operations

Language no formative effects on the structure of thinking

Vygotsky (1962)

Language

Beginning serves a regulative, communicative function

Later transforms the way children think, learn and understand

higher mental processes ability to plan, evaluate, memorise and reason

instruction = the heart of human development

intelligence = capacity to learn through instruction

ZPD – zone of proximal development

distance between actual development level

andpotencial development under guidance and

collaboration

Donaldson (1978):

Children do not pass through stages.

It was the unfamiliarity with the tasks that led to failure

Learning occurs

when children

understand

messages

Learning occurs

when children

understand

messages

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Bruner (1966)

Mature-thinking importance of action and problem-solving

Concrete problems manipulation of abstract

procedures

Language

Learning social interaction – LASSLanguage Acquisiton Support System

Learning occurs

when children

understand

messages

How have these theories influenced teachers in primary classroom?

• Communicate meaningfully

• Use purposeful contexts

• Offer endless help

• Appreciate mistakes

• Work on tasks

• Use variety of forms

• Read literature Respond to it critically Use reading for learning

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Learning occurs in mainly one way - when children understand messages -

claiming that comprehension and learning are very much the same thing.

Halliday (1993) states that when children learn language, they are not simply engaging in one type of learning among many; rather, they are

learning the foundations of learning itself. The distinctive characteristic of human learning

is that it is a process of making meaning - a semiotic process; and the prototypical form

(basis) of human semiotic is language.

Second/Foreign Language

Hence the ontogenesis (rooting/growing/development)

of language is at the same time the ontogenesis of learning.

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Second/Foreign Language

mother tongue

sounds

Meaning Making

topic related input

realiatask-based materials

body language

Genre-based

materials

content-based

materials

images

games

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Task-based Teaching

a task is a workplan

A task is intended to result in language use

- language used in the real world -

learners process language pragmatically

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CBI - Content-Based Instruction (USA)

CLIL- Content and Language Integrated Learning (Europe)

an overlap between the second/foreign language and content subjects

a teaching method that emphasizes learning about something rather than

learning about language

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Genre-based Pedagogy

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Genres are not just forms. Genres are forms of life, ways of being. They are

frames for social action ... Genres shape the thoughts

we form and the communications by which we interact. Genres are the

familiar places we go to create intelligible

communicative action with each other and the

guideposts we use to explore the familiar.

(Swales1997: 19)

According to Bakhtin (1992), we modal our conversations in the forms of discursive genre that are passed on to us as is our mother tongue, and which we dominate much before we are exposed to any formal teaching of grammar. For Bakhtin,

“Our mother tongue – its lexical composition and grammatical structure – is not learnt in dictionaries and in grammar books, we acquire it in face of concrete utterance we hear and reproduce during real oral communication with the individuals who surround us. We assimilate the language forms only in the forms taken by the enunciation and it is exactly with these forms (…) the discourse genre enters our experience and our consciousness in such a way their delicate correlation isn’t broken. To learn to speak is to learn how to structure enunciations (because we speak through enunciations, not through isolated sentences, and least even, obviously, through isolated words). (p. 301 – 302)

Genre-based Pedagogy

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School Genres

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Second/Foreign Language

mother tongue

sounds

Meaning Making

topic related input

realiatask-based materials

body language

Genre-based

materials

content-based

materials

images

games

Whole Language in

EFL/ESL

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Whole Language

Learning is a collaborative

activity

Students should learn by doing -

as active engagement

produces results.

Language skills (reading, writing, listening,

speaking, thinking)

should be dealt with in its whole – not isolated

Teachers facilitate the

learning process

Language is not an end in itself, but a means to an

end.

Children should be immersed in

literacy events – with authentic prints.

meaning-centered whole to part to whole

instruction

So, they should learn to read by reading and

learn to write by reading and writing - I do, I understand -

Whole Languagein many ways, mirrors the

Natural Approach (Krashen and Terrel)

-it shares the belief that –

communication of meaning is

the necessary point of departure

for successful language activity

Whole Languagein many ways, mirrors the

CBI/CLIL instruction

-it shares the belief that –

Language is not an end in itself, but a means to an end

Whole Languagein many ways, mirrors the

Task-based teaching

-it shares the belief that –

you learn when you do it,

you learn as you do it.

Whole Languagein many ways, mirrors

Genre-based pedagogy-it shares the belief that –

students should be exposed to

authentic material.

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Whole Languagein many ways, mirrors the

Natural Approach (Krashen and Terrel)

(which mirrors Vygotsky’s ZPD theory)

-it shares the belief that –

When communication is successful

(with the input a bit beyond the current level of competence),

new learning takes place.

Whole Language in the English class

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teching EFL to kids 16

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One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers,

but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings.

The curriculum is so much necessary raw material,

but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.

Carl Jung

References:•Bakhtin, M. M. (1986) Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Trans. by Vern W. McGee. Austin, Tx: University of Texas Press.•Brinton, D. M., Snow, M. A., & Wesche, M. B. (1989). Content-based second language instruction. New York: Newbury House.•Goodman, Y. M. "Roots of the Whole-Language Movement". The Elementary School Journal, (90):2117•Halliday M.A.K. (1975). Learning how to mean, London, Edward Arnold•Krashen, S.D; Terrell, T.D. (1983). The Natural Approach. New York: Pergamon.•Nunan, D (2004) Task-Based Language Teaching. Cambridge University Press•Patzeit, K. E. Principles of Whole Language and Implications for ESL Learners. http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED400526.pdf•Piaget, J. (1952) The Origins of Intelligence in Children. New York: International University Press.•Wertsch, J. V. (1985). Vygotsky and the social formation of mind.. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. •THANK YOU YOUTUBE!!!