POST #5: Social Constructivism & Meaningful Learning.

According to Vygotsky's Social Constructivism, social and cultural interactions play an important part in the learning process of a child and knowledge is co-constructed, which means individuals learn from one another.

Taking into account Lev's theory (And we could also say Piaget's theory, given that as a constructivist he agrees with Vygotsky on this statement), I think group work is just as important as individual work. The most important factors to have in mind are the learning level and also the importance of organising group-work.
Group work can be applied in the classroom in several ways. First, let's start by saying they shouldn't be grouped just randomly. For example, the children should be grouped such that the students who understand the content work with the students who do not. Let's imagine, if a student did not understand a word, the teacher could have another student explain the definition to them. The more able peer might use different language than the teacher did but the student's phrasing might make more sense to the other student. What's more, the more able student would also learn something, perhaps a deeper understanding of the word or a way to explain the concept that they had not thought of before, that is why it is important to encourage group learning.

We shouldn't forget we are talking about children here; teachers need to learn to see the children, to listen to them, to know when they are feeling some distance from us. Otherwise it wouldn't be strange to find that they, as a group, couldn't keep up with the activities assigned. We should give the learner the right amount of assistance at the right time. The goal should be to
provide temporary support that will later be removed as the child acquires, and eventually masters, new skills.
For instance, graphic organizers and pictures can serve as scaffolding tools. Pictures are very specific in that they help kids visually represent their ideas and organize information, similar to what Piaget established with his four stages.

On the other hand, we have got American psychologist David Paul Ausubel. Ausubel's theory focuses on meaningful learning. According to his theory, to learn meaningfully, individuals must relate new knowledge to relevant concepts they already know. He believes that people acquire knowledge primarily through reception, not discovery. This new knowledge must interact with the learner’s knowledge structure. Let's suppose you know a kind of tree that has green leaves but the teacher gives you a tree that has red leaves. In order to accommodate this new information, you have to alter or extend your concept of tree to include this new possibility of red leaves.

Once again I find, as it always happens in education, that there is no black and white here. What I mean is that there's no need to have Vygotsky on the right hand and Ausubel on the left hand. I find for example that Vygotsky's scaffolding idea completely matches and relates to Ausubel's prior knowledge idea. If we imagine for a second that a teacher asks a student to share their own experiences and ideas about the content and have them relate and connect it to their own life, the teacher will find sometimes you may have to offer hints and suggestions, leading them to the connections a bit, but once they get there, they will grasp it as their own. It makes me wonder, if we launch learning in the classroom from the prior knowledge of our students and use this as a model for future lessons, shouldn't it be considered a scaffolding technique?

Since I haven't worked as a teacher in a school yet, sometimes I don't feel qualified to say what, if any, is the ideal theory to be used in the actual practice. However, from my experience as an English student I see that sometimes teachers have to work beyond these theories and work with a mixture of theories of learning and child development. That's why I think this isn't the exception, there's no "best option" here, both Vygotsky and Ausubel theories have had an impact on education practices. Therefore, as future teachers, they both can make a difference in our development as we grow from our own experiences throughout the process; we should make use of everything they have given us in an interrelated way.

POST #4: Piaget's Constructivism.

As we have seen so far in class, the Swiss and pioneer of the constructivist theory, Jean Piaget has been extremely influential in developing educational and teaching practises. According to him, children are born with a basic mental structure (genetically inherited) on which all learning and knowledge is based. He believes in the idea that children experience a process of accommodation and assimilation to construct their knowledge. He also points out that children learn best through doing and actively exploring.

His theory of cognitive development introduces us to a series of stages. Piaget proposed four stages of cognitive development: the sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operational and formal operational period. Given that I will be discussing and reflecting on primary school pupils and the different strategies we could follow in order to facilitate our teaching, I think it is correct to go straight to the third stage, concrete operational, since it lasts from 6 or 7 years until about 11. 
In the stage mentioned before children begin to think logically but remain very concrete in their logic. Classification is another achievement of this period. This means that children acquire the skills they lead to the ability to describe things by terms of classes, numbers and series. Egocentric thought diminishes but it is still present in this stage.

Every time we picture a classroom, it is important to have in mind that curiousness and acceptance to receive new ideas will be welcome. A great way that I can imagine to use their curiousness and catch their attention is through discovery learning, instead of providing activities and knowledge based only in grammar and structures. In other words, less grammar and more meaning is what children need, it is essential to remember that we are in a stage where children need to explore, that is why I reckon teachers should provide a variety of activities designed to promote exploration and discovery. Some examples of discovery learning activities could include art, puzzles, games, etc. Knowing that the youngest in the concrete operational stage learn how to use language and represent objects using words and big picture books, we could use those images to implement memory games. It would easily catch their attention and they would be developing listening and concentration skills plus these games can help them to learn new vocabulary. 

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However, we shouldn't forget that children are also easily distracted and egocentric in this stage, therefore we should be careful with group work in primary school. Teachers should have clearly defined tasks and group roles, otherwise it would lead to some negative side effects. In my opinion, considering children's egocentrism, to start off we should probably opt for cooperative activities so that students can develop cooperative skills first.
For instance, they could sit in groups of three, all of them having roles assigned. The person on left takes one position on a certain topic, the person on right takes the opposite position, and the person in the middle takes notes and decides which side is the most convincing and provides an argument for his or her choice, this way they wouldn't reject each other's opinion, they could all participate and speak their minds.

I understand that group work won't always be possible, that is why it is crucial to remember that sometimes teachers need to take the role of a "monitor" in class. That means they should, for example, walk slowly round the classroom and listen to their conversations, check how they behave, communicate, listen, supervise and even sit down with them and help them if needed.

POST #3: ELT in Primary School.

When it comes to teaching to primary school children, there are some factors that influence the learning process of a second language. We should definitely not overlook those factors if we want our strategies to work effectively.

The first concept to have in mind is the factor of learner beliefs. It is widely accepted that the learners' perceptions of what they are learning influences their attitudes, and consequently, how well they learn. Some researches have proved that there is a inconsistency between students and teachers' view about the role of grammar and corrective feedback in L2. In other words, some students expressed a desire to have their errors corrected, while very few teachers felt this was desirable.
I personally think that if we create a safe environment where the student feels comfortable, then we can easily correct their speech without any negative feelings. However, I do not reckon that interrupting the student verbally is the right way to do it. For example, if a student makes a mistake then I can write down the correct sentence in a paper and give it to them at the end of the class so that this way the conversation keeps flowing and they won't feel frustrated if they are corrected in front of their classmates.

Another concept to have in mind when teaching is motivation. Motivation has been found to correlate strongly with educational achievement. Clearly, students who enjoy language learning and take pride in their progress (integrative motivation) will do better than those who don't. However, that doesn't mean that those who learn a language for immediate goals (instrumental motivation) will not be successful. Instrumental motivation could be found as a better predictor but they both seem to be related to success in L2 learning.

There are several strategies teachers can use to help children remain more fully intrinsically motivated, as "TYLE" suggests. The one I find the most interesting is "using fun and engaging activities". Given that I do agree with the fact that "Fun" and "Motivation" are somehow connected, I think we should encourage the use of kinaesthetic activities, coloured pictures, photos, different kinds of audio-visual aids such as songs or videos or even play games to get students up, moving and laughing.

The last factor we should not forget is the age at which learning begins. There is a popular assumption that the earlier your start studying English, the more successful you will become. It is important to highlight that this is not necessarily true. Children, who already have solid skills in their own language, seem to be in the best position to acquire a new language efficiently but motivated older learners can be very successful too. In fact, some studies of the second language development of older and younger learners learning in similar circumstances have shown that older learners are more efficient than younger learners given that they start off faster and have greater metalinguistic knowledge/problem solving skills. Of course, younger learners catch up with and surpass them in the naturalistic context but not in the instructed context.  

This idea of "age and success" makes me want to come back a little to the concept of "motivation".

I think it is essential to start connecting those two ideas of "Motivation" and "Success" when teaching not only to young learners but also to adult learners. It seems to me that it would build a positive attitude toward English and as I see it that could be the first step to create an space of interest in children which would certainly facilitate our strategies as teachers.

But of course, always having in mind the idea of a learning environment situated in the real world where they can interact with each other, with the teacher and also connect with different cultures because it seems like communication is being set aside, when it should be the other way around. The only place and time learners can hear or use English is the classroom, and that is certainly not enough time per week of exposure to English, not even mentioning the fact that in almost all cases most of the teachers only speak in English in class when it comes to structures, patterns and filling in the blanks on a grammar page, making it even less time of exposure to the language.

Finally, given that primary school pupils tend to be energetic, physically active, spontaneous, curious, imaginative, I believe teachers should have a balance of engaging activities that allow students to express themselves and have different types of interaction, inside and outside the classroom.
Provide situations that give children an acceptable challenge. Activities that are slightly difficult for the child will be more motivating and even provide for stronger feelings of success when they are accomplished. This may take some trial and mistake at first but we will adapt and learn from them.

POST #2: How L1 is Learned.

Before we can describe how children acquire their mother tongue, I think it is necessary to give a first look at the word “mother”. The word “mother” means the prime care giver (it can be female or male) of a child. “Tongue” in this sense means the language that is primarily spoken by this caregiver. Therefore, when the words “mother and tongue” are analysed together, the question is asking for the process by which a child develops their first language. It is believed that children acquire the correct structure of a language by listening to people around them or their caregiver while they speak.
At the same time, we can say a baby begins to communicate at birth through non-verbal communication such as, facial expressions, crying, babbling and other sounds.

Generally, there are three main theories explaining how children learn their first language. All of these theories will help us to describe some aspects of first and second language acquisition.

The behaviorist theory believes that language learning is the result of imitation, practice, feedback on success and habit formation, as we have seen in the previous post. Children are rewarded for correct imitation and the stimulus-response theory believes that there is a stimulus that provokes a response of more and better imitation. Behaviorists also believe that environment plays a very important role in acquiring language, especially during children early language development. However, this cannot fully explain how children acquire language because children are not only imitating same words or phrases from adults but also creating the new words and forming the new sentences.

Linguistic, philosopher and cognitive scientist, Noam Chosmky, believes that there is a logical problem with the way behaviourism approaches language acquisition. The innatism theory believes that human beings were born with language acquisition devices in their brain which contains language universals. Chomsky suggested that there is no need to teach children language since all children were born with an innate ability to discover themselves.
His idea also links to critical period hypothesis which it stated that one would have a hard time to learn one language after they passed a certain period of time, usually before the puberty.

The third one would be the interactionist perspective differs from the innatists' view. They believe that children learned language mainly through interacting with people, included adults. This theory was represented by the psychologist Jean Piaget who believes that language development has close ties to the child's cognitive development acquired through interaction with the world. In fact, he believes that as child comes to understand the world, the language follows.
Another psychologist who supports this theory is Lev Vygotsky, who believes that language development is tied to social interaction. He claims that language is acquired through dialogue. That is his famous “zone of proximal development”.

After seeing all these three theories and what they stand for, I personally think that neither the behaviorist nor the innatist theories are able to precisely encompass the complexity of language acquisition. The most comprehensive theory we have at this point is the interactionist perspective that includes aspects of previous theories and builds its own upon them.
However, given that they all can be interconnected, I do think that all three of them can be useful when teaching, but then again it should necessary to make a balance and pay attention to the correct usage of them, always given the case.

But now the question is, how does our first language influence learning new ones? Well, there is evidence that children try to learn new languages by figuring out a set of rules that govern the language they learned before. This evidence, for instance, includes English learners’ tendency to over-generalize rules and overextend word meanings.
For example, it would be normal to find a sentence such as "I eated an apple" for “I ate an apple”.


This second language learner probably never heard anyone say "ate", yet they have learned that adding an -ed ending to a word usually forms the past tense form. This enables them to create their own sentences by over-generalizing the grammar rule.

L1 and L2 share similarities in their processes, but there are also some important differences between them. A difference related to the case mentioned before could be that errors made by first language learners are generally accepted and frequently not corrected while errors made by second language learners are often corrected.

Finally, I would like to point out something. As I see it, today, if we give a quick look at the current methodologies available, they show that communication is set aside and even neglected. In almost all cases, there are courses that revolve around grammar, patterns, repetitions and memorization without even a human interlocutor to interact with. How could you be expected to communicate if you are never given the chance to speak with a real person? Also, the fact that the work done in class is mostly grammatically oriented. Is this similar to the way in which a child "acquires a language?" I do not think so. Not so shocking why so many people fail in acquiring a second language naturally.
The fact that people think that "passive learning" means that you're not going to learn anything new is certainly a big problem, because that is simply not true. You will learn, and more than you think. Children need some room to breathe and freedom to think clearer.

"Acquisition" and "Learning" always seem to be divided into two opposing paths but in my opinion, as future teachers, maybe it should be our duty to create a third path and "Do both". The sooner, the better. It is important to make sure that our students "acquire" AND "learn" the language.

POST #1: Inheritance from Behaviorism.

It has been more than ten years since I began to learn English. I look back and try to recall from my memory how I began learning English, how my teachers oriented me, how I went through the ups and downs in my journey of learning and how I feel today, at this stage. 

It was back in primary school, at the age of nine, when I was introduced to English, i.e. words, and some simple sentences such as "Hello-Goodbye"; "My name is..", etc and we were encouraged to copy whatever the teacher dictated. The books we used contained mostly some stories, pictures and songs. My teacher spoke each sentence and she translated the sentence into Spanish also. We wouldn't ask questions or try to understand the material. All we did was write and memorize words.   

Even years later, in secondary school, our class teacher wrote some words with their pronunciation and meaning on the blackboard and we were asked to parrot them. Parroting vocabulary was almost regular. I hardly tried to understand things then. It was all so robotically-structured that it didn't even feel that English was a means of communication.
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For the reasons mentioned before, I think that even though some view behaviorism as being outdated, I reckon it is still present in almost all of today’s classrooms in some way.

It is important to remember that behaviorism stands on the foundation that all changes in behavior and learning come from a stimulus-response which is driven by reinforcement. For better understanding, this chain can be demonstrated in the following illustration:-
For example, if we see a student who is acting inappropriately and that student is given a negative response such as not being able to go to recess, they will most likely act better the next time. Likewise, if a student is showing a positive attitude, little rewards like stickers are given to them. This will probably prove beneficial in the long run because the students will want to work for this positive reward.  

Coming back a little to my experience as a student, I had higher expectations for English than any other subjects, that is why I decided to formally study English in an institute. It wasn't until then, at the age of fourteen, that I got familiar with the paradigm shift and learned to learn, to use my memory, to think, to organize my ideas, to reason, to use perception. It wasn't until then that I could understand English as a language.

I would finally like to point out that I'm not saying cognitive skills aren't tested through formal education, just that some teachers do tend to prepare students just to "pass exams". I wish I had opened my eyes in those early stages of my life but that is just exactly how it was, we studied to pass exams.