Transcript English as an Additional Language at Manning school

Collaborative Learning and EAL
learners
Newport 17th March 2008
The Game of MUD
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Blank
Fog
Mud
Cactus
Forest
EAL learners’ needs
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Blank This means total ignorance. Never heard of it.
Fog I have difficulty with this. My mind switches off...was badly
taught... it just bores me...
Mud A more comfortable natural state. Yes, something stirring
there. I might remember with a little help. But FACTS... I couldn’t
actually...don’t ask me.
Cactus Well yes, for what it’s worth, I know this...and this...and
this...one, two, three...and that’s my lot.
Forest At home with this. Plenty of facts. Could write an essay, give
a lecture. Move over and I’ll show you.
What is Collaborative
Learning?
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Interactive activities
Carefully structured
Accessible to all
Promotes speaking, listening and
thinking
How does collaborative
learning help thinking?
• Visual/kinesthetic support for concept
development
• Opportunities to value prior knowledge
• Supportive environments to formulate new ideas
• Opportunities to rework/reword ideas and provide
time for reflection
How does collaborative
learning help thinking?
• Opportunities to revisit learning in attractive ways
• Templates for pupils to develop their own
activities
• Scaffolds talk at all levels simultaneously
• Provides tasks that model thinking processes
• Transformation of information
How are activities planned?
• What do we want the children to know?
• What kinds of thinking do we hope they will
practice?
• What kinds of language do they need? Necessary
language and potential language?
• What key visuals best produce the thinking and
the language?
Here is an example!!
• We want children to
consider the different
habitats of animals.
• Where do they live?
• What is it like there?
• Why do they live
there?
• How do they survive
and/or thrive?
What key visual will help their thinking?
Initially a sorting grid or chart.
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This can be made into a game.
You need 4 people, one baseboard and two sets of cards (different colours.)
Work with a partner to make a team of two.
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Shuffle your cards and place them in a pile facing down.
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Take it in turn to turn over your top card and decide where to put it on the board.
team gets four in row vertically, horizontally or diagonally.
• The winning
• Decide whether to have challenges or a checking system.
Your instructions!
• Take a sample “Quicklook”
• Study it carefully in pairs. What learning needs, language needs,
social needs does it address?
• What language and thinking does it practice?
• Would it work for your EAL learners?
• What changes might be necessary?
• Now leave your partner, and each of you find another colleague
with a different “Quicklook”. Explain your activity to your new
partner and let your new partner explain theirs to you.
• If there is time, exchange your “Quicklooks”, and find another
partner to repeat the process.
Who benefits from
collaborative learning?
• Everyone
and in particular
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More able bilingual pupils
Challenging pupils
Independent learners
Children with mismatched skills
Where can I find collaborative
learning activities?
Collaborative Learning Project
www.collaborativelearning.org
Please browse through the Quicklooks on the
website and download one full activity to
try out on your EAL learners and/or your
colleagues back at school.
Collaborative Learning Project
• A teacher network since 1983
• Developed in challenging and multilingual
classrooms
• Cross phase and cross curricular
• Online library of sample strategies: templates to
support your own planning. Good enough to use and
to tweak.
• Promotes collaborative planning through workshops
and training throughout UK.