Transcript EL PLAN LECTOR EN LAS INSTITUCIONES

GENERAL OVERVIEW
In this course you will :
• learn about teaching English as a foreign or additional
language to young learners from three to 12 years old
• consider how young learners develop cognitively, how they
learn languages, and how your understanding of these two
areas can help guide you in your role as a teacher of young
learners and a teacher of language
• combine theory with practice and be provided with
examples that will help illustrate how you can teach
language to young learners in your classroom
• be introduced to ways of teaching the four language skills
(listening, speaking, reading and writing), as well as
techniques for using stories, songs and rhymes, games and
role-play in your classroom
• consider the role of assessment and evaluation in teaching
English to young learners
•
An Approach to TEYL
• Teaching English to young learners (TEYL), including
children within the 3-12 age range, in a meaningful and
memorable way requires a person to understand how
children learn and how they learn languages.
• The following diagram shows how a number of building
blocks (each representing a different part of language
learning and teaching) can be placed together to create
a structure that can represent our approach to TEYL.
• By stacking these blocks one on top of the other, we
can consider how each is crucial for the support and
development of the following tower of understanding.
Building blocks of understanding in teaching
English to young learners
Characteristics of YLs
VYLs (under 7)
YLs (7-12)
•acquire through hearing and
experiencing lots of English, in much
the same way they acquire L1
•learn things through playing; they are
not consciously trying to learn new
words or phrases – for them it’s
incidental
•love playing with language sounds,
imitating, and making funny noises
•are not able to organize their
learning
•not able to read or write in L1;
important to recycle language through
talk and play
•their grammar will develop gradually
on its own when exposed to lots of
English in context
•are learning to read and write in
L1
•are developing as thinkers
understand the difference
between the real and the
imaginary
•can plan and organize how best
to carry out an activity
•can work with others and learn
from others
•can be reliable and take
responsibility for class activities
and routines
For more information, see:
Slatterly, M., & Willis, J. (2001).
English for primary teachers.
Oxford: Oxford University Press
Piaget
(one of the best-known
theorists in developmental psychology)
“tried to work out how children
thought and developed cognitively”
children actively
construct knowledge
from their experiences
from birth, children
try to make sense
of the world through
their actions
Developmental stages of children
Sensori-Motor Stage (from 0 - 18 months)
children seem to learn through interaction with the
world around them, and through the use of their
senses. Children are particularly egocentric,
able to think about things in terms of how
they interact and link with themselves.
Pre-operational stage (from 18 months - 7 years)
children are developing towards the next stage, start
using some aspects of the concrete world around
them, begin to internalize information
in a very basic way through the use of
their imagination and memory.
Concrete Operational Stage (from 7 - 11
years) able to operate and learn through their
interactions with the concrete world around them,
moving towards the final stage which
would involve more abstract thinking.
Formal Operational Stage (from approximately 11
years of age to adulthood) able to develop more
abstract thought and understanding in this final
stage of cognitive development.
Coincides with puberty and the
development into adulthood.
Influential findings in Piaget's work
• Identified how children could
assimilate
(add new
knowledge to support old knowledge already established by
them ) and accommodate (change their present
understanding of something based on the new experience they
have had), and how they might develop their cognition
and understanding using both.
• Believed the stages were fairly fixed in age and
children went through them in this particular
sequential order - children could only move onto the
next stage when they had completed the stage
before and were ready to do so.
“Children should be given thinking time
when faced with an experience or
problem that they are trying to solve.”
Issues with Piaget's work
Margaret Donaldson recreated many of Piaget’s experiments and found that:
Piaget’s
observations and
measurements
didn’t
really reflect
the way children
were actually
able to think.
Children were able
to achieve and
understand more
than Piaget believed
they could.
Piaget didn’t consider
the role of language to
be
an important catalyst
in the cognitive
development of the
child.
Piaget had not taken into account what sense children were
making of the type of adult questioning that was used in the
experiments he carried out, or the fact that the
experiments were taking place in very unnatural and childunfriendly settings, such as science laboratories.
Lasting importance of
Piaget's work
• Established the idea of the child as a lone
scientist who was actively seeking answers
• Suggested that children had the need for
thinking time
• Thought about the child as an individual who
developed and thought as an individual
rather than a small version of an adult or a
passive and empty vessel waiting for adults
to fill his or her mind with information
• Was the first step in gaining understanding
of the cognitive development of children
Language is Central to Child
Development
Lev Vygotsky (1978)
&
Jerome Bruner (1987)
believed, in contrast to Piaget that:
• language was central to the cognitive development
of children
• it was instruction (provided by an adult, a teacher,
or a more able peer) that helped children to learn
and develop
• Vygotsky and Bruner believed that
the act of internalization for
children (moving thought from something that
was spoken out loud to thought that was in their
heads) was helped and supported when
another more knowledgeable person
talked the 'thinking' process through
with children and instructed or
guided them along as they did so.
Guiding the 'thinking' process
Now let's find all
the pieces with the
straight edges and
put them over
here.
Let's take all
the pieces out
of the box
and turn them
over.
And where are the four
corner pieces?
Oh, yes. Here they
are.
Piaget’s
views
• Piaget talked of
children working
through different
stages of learning
on their own.
Vygotsky’s
views
Vygotsky (1978) described
the difference between:
• what children could
achieve (and how they
could develop) on their
own
• and what children could
achieve (and how they
could develop) when an
adult was able to work
with them as the zone
of proximal development
Encouraging development and growth
Is it heavy?
How does
the stone
feel?
Do you think it
would sink if you
put it in water?
How could we put the
stones together so
that they would make
a wall?
Do you think the
big ones should
be at the top or
the bottom?
With scaffolding, children could develop and grow because the
adult would give support to their thinking and encourage them to
think in ways that would develop their own ability to think
through situations.
Making sense of experiences
Donaldson believed that children were able to cognitively develop by trying to
make sense of the experiences that they had, and by asking questions and
trying things out, or hypothesizing
The child creates a hypothesis
and searches for meaning and
patterns by using his /her own
knowledge of communication
The child uses this
gathered feedback to
establish his/her own rules
and then internalize these
rules and remember them
The child looks for clues
and uses anything around
him/her to support the
hypothesis
The child then tests this hypothesis
by listening, questioning and trialing.
The child then adjusts the hypothesis
according to the feedback received
How Do We Think Children Learn Languages?
Language learning – innate and
universal?
Noam Chomsky believed that:
• learning was innate – it
happened to all individuals
• there was an innate language
capacity in all of us which he
called the Language
Acquisition Device (LAD).
• This ability to acquire
language was later referred
to as Universal Grammar
(UG).
Critical period for language
learning?
Lenneberg thought that:
• there was a critical period, up to
the age of eleven, in which children
were able to learn language
•if language was introduced to
children after this age, it was
extremely difficult for them to
learn it. “This hypothesis is one of
the main reasons for starting the
teaching of foreign or second
languages early in a child's schooling.”
Bruner feels that there is a Language Acquisition Support System (LASS)
supplied by adults, or more able mentors, that helps children to develop such a
language acquisition device and that this input and support is crucial to the
success of language acquisition in children.
Multiple Intelligences
Linked closely with the three types of learning styles is the work of Howard
Gardner (1993) who suggested that there are a lot of different learning
styles or intelligences, as he called them, that we all have at our disposal.
Children with Linguistic Intelligence:
• favor reading, as well as the creative use of words (such as
doing crossword puzzles)
• enjoy listening and telling stories
• have good memories for names, places, dates
and trivia
Children with Logical-Mathematical Intelligence:
• favor sorting, ordering, classifying, ranking and sequencing
• enjoy research and organization
• have the ability to reason deductively and can recognize
and manipulate abstract patterns or relationships
Children with Spatial Intelligence:
• favor the use of diagrams, maps, charts, plans, pictures and seeing how
things fit together
• favor the ability to create visual-spatial representations and be
transferred mentally or concretely
• need a mental or physical "picture" to understand
the information being presented
Children with Kinesthetic Intelligence:
• lean toward the physical, and favor interaction with and manipulation of
themselves and objects
• use their bodies to solve problems, or convey ideas and emotions
• use physical activities, good hand-eye coordination and
have a tendency to move around a lot while expressing
themselves
Musical Intelligence The use of rhythm, music and song is
particularly important to this intelligence. Songwriters,
singers and musicians would use this intelligence much
more than others
Children with Interpersonal Intelligence:
• interact and relate well with others
• work effectively in a group and understand and recognize the
goals, motivations and intentions of others
• are skilled at communicating, mediating and
negotiating
Children with Intrapersonal Intelligence:
• have the ability to understand their own emotions, goals and
motivations.
• have good instincts about their strengths and
abilities
• have personal thoughts about what is happening to
individuals and the world around them
How Do We Think Children Learn a Foreign or
Second Language?
Jim Cummins (1979), suggests two types of language
that can be acquired:
Basic Interpersonal
Communicative Skills
(BICS)
Proficiency Cognitive
Academic Language
(CALP).
• everyday social
interactive language
used when
interacting from a
very early age
• language heard when
listening to children
their own age playing
• language used when
learning about and
discussing content in
an academic class
• language used by a
ten-year-old when
studying topics like
the characteristics
of the sun in a
science class
We need to prepare our students to use
and understand both types of language.