teaching efl to children final
TRANSCRIPT
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!!!