W- stands for Webquest

 As an EFL teacher, I've been looking for effective ways to engage my learners and help them to become more autonomous. Research has proven that the internet is a valuable source of language resources and also an excellent tool for students to find information and apply it in their learning process. Webquests, which are tools that make use of these internet resources, are becoming more and more popular. 

What is a WebQuest?

“WebQuest” is the name given to an instructional model for web-based learning projects that draw on information and communication resources on the Internet. According to Dodge (2006), the instructional design of WebQuests is based on the principles of constructivism and is sometimes referred to as inquiry-based learning. The constructivist approach emphasizes the role of students as the main agents of learning.

The activities planned in a WebQuest allow students to use the Internet to acquire new knowledge and apply it to complete the task. Dodge (2004) proposes six steps or building blocks to be carried out by the learners which include:

• an introduction 
• a task 
• resources
• the process
• an evaluation
• a conclusion

The introduction contains background information for the WebQuest. The task is a description of the activity. The process provides step-by-step instructions for the learners to follow in order to complete the task. The resources include links to the Internet resources that the learners will use throughout the task. The evaluation informs the learners how their task will be assessed in the form of a checklist. The conclusion brings closure to the task and enables the learners to reflect upon what they have learned through the WebQuest (Dodge, 2004).

It has been claimed that technology, particularly WebQuests, can provide opportunities for collaboration and the practice of integrated language skills such as reading, writing, and speaking (Blachowicz, Beyersdorfer & Fisher, 2006). Research also emphasizes the benefits of WebQuest for EFL learners as they foster real communication while the learners complete the tasks. Moreover, they are exposed to authentic material and meaningful content

Click on the following link to access a template I have adapted from the work of a colleague in wakelet.com  https://wke.lt/w/s/H-j0Eu

Bibliography 

Blachowicz, C.L.Z, Beyersdorfer, J. & Fisher, P. (2006). Vocabulary development and technology: Teaching and transformation. In M. McKenna, L. Labbo, R. Kieffer, D. Reinking (Eds.). International Handbook of Literacy and Technology (pp. 341-348). Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates

Dodge, B. (2004). The WebQuest page: Site overview. Retrieved from http://webquest.sdsu.edu/webquestrubric.html

Dodge, B. (2006). The WebQuest Page. Retrieved from http://webquest.sdsu.edu/overview.html

S-stands for Socio-Emotional learning

During the last two years, there have been abrupt and hasty changes in our world. Consequently, we need to help our students to develop skills and provide them with experiences that go beyond simply learning an additional language. As education practitioners, we are fully aware of the importance of including core areas of the 21st-century skills such as the four C's collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity. However, the events generated by the pandemic outbreak and its effects on humankind's mental health became a cardinal issue. Emotional development, as the Cambridge Life Competencies Framework states,  " is now an important foundation for success at all ages and emotional skills underpin and support both social and cognitive development in learners"(p. 5, 2020). Moreover, emotional development impacts on academic and social success over and above the effect of cognitive ability.  Social and emotional learning (SEL) is defined as an essential part of education and human development. SEL is a process that aids young people and adults develop healthy identities through the acquisition of skills and attitudes, and the management of emotions. Individuals learn how to achieve personal and collective goals by establishing supportive relationships founded on empathy and caring decisions. Therefore, we should create activities that provide learners the opportunity to develop their emotional skills. 

In the following link, https://padlet.com/bollainbrenda/ycdcjkjm6llgd1fy  you will find a tool inspired by Wholehearted School Counseling that I have called "The feelings & Emotions wall" in which I invite my students to share drawings, poems, songs, and thoughts about how they are feeling. Not only have I been surprised by the impact these activities have had on my dear students, but also I have been flabbergasted by how they are able to express their feelings and emotions in a different language. (which is something that I highlight in my comments). 

According to CLCF (2020), the result of cultivating effective emotional management skills leads to motivation improvement, positive response to feedback, and improved social relations. 

Regarding classroom behavior, emotional development can lead to:

• Higher test scores and grades

• Minimal disruptive behavior and confrontation

• Maximised on-task behavior

• Increased social skills

If you are interested in getting more activities and tools to help your students develop SEL, leave a comment and I will be glad to share them with you.

References: 

The Cambridge Life Competencies Framework (2020). Emotional Development.  London, UK. Cambridge University Press

R-stands for Rebus

 Working with my group of young teachers has certainly been a great source of inspiration to write entries for this blog.  We've recently been exploring ways to supplement English language materials through the use and adaptation of stories, poems, games, chants, songs, and evidently, using online tools and apps.

One of the suggestions was to include rebus in poems and stories. A rebus is a written text that includes words and pictures. They're described as "deep in thought" as they foster cognitive development which is the way in which we understand or make sense of the 🌎 around us. How we learn, acquire, develop and use the language to express 💡 and 💭. 

Using pictures to represent words dates back to Egypt and its hieroglyphics and the Chinese pictographs. However, it wasn't until the 1500's that a particular format of picture writing was invented in France. It was called rebus and they became very popular in Europe. In fact, Lewis Carroll author of "Alice in Wonderland" was passionate about rebus. 

Rebus can make reading fun, entertaining, and help children develop reading and writing skills as well. 

Here's an example of what a rebus story would look like using Google slides and the emoji keyboard. You can share the slides with your students through the school LMS and ask them to complete the story or write their own. It is worth giving it a try. I'm pretty sure your student will love to interact with those popular characters they find everywhere nowadays. 

If you found this post useful, please leave a comment 👇

source: https://kottke.org/tag/Lewis%20Carroll

source: https://www.scribd.com/document/233884544/Rebus-an-Effective-Teaching-Tool

P-stands for Poetry in the EFL classroom

 It is no secret that most EFL students struggle with grammar, and this is a relevant issue when planning my lessons. In many cases, the problem lies in the student's motivation. Currently,  my B1 learners have been working with adverbs of manner and I came across some exceptional ideas. One of them, I actually put into practice, was having my students write short poems using adverbials of manner. Khansir (2012) suggests that poetry can be used to develop learners’ knowledge of English and to teach structure, grammar, and vocabulary. Moreover, poetry can foster students' motivation to read and write in order to achieve academic proficiency (Antika, 2016). 

The main aim of this approach was to motivate the learners. Hence, I provided them with some tasks in the flipped classroom so they could learn about the use and form of adverbials. Later, during the online session, they completed a fill-in-the-blanks activity with a wonderful and romantic song exclusively composed for the topic of adverbs by an ingenious ESL teacher AlanSmithRobertson👏. Once the grammar was contextualized, the learners discussed how adverbs are used to add depth and emotion to sentences and writing tasks. At this point, the learners were introduced to the idea of including adverbs in poems 🙌. I shared with my students a Padlet where they could find an extraordinary tutorial and some examples of adverb poems - one written by me in honor of the Ukrainian people- 💗. I invite you to take a look at my students' work and leave your opinion in the comments.👇

Antika, R. (2016). Poetry in EFL Classroom. TELL-US JOURNAL, 2 (2).

Khansir, A.A. (2012). Teaching Poetry in the ELT Classroom. International Review of Social Sciences and Humanities, 3 (1). 

C- stands for Cognitive Needs

This week I had the fortune to meet a group of young English teachers preparing for their Young Learners Certification. In a discussion moment about young learners' physical, emotional, and cognitive needs, several interesting points were brought up by these young practitioners. One of their main concerns was to fulfill the cognitive needs of their pupils since they reckon this area of paramount importance. The field of teaching English to young learners has expanded enormously in the last ten years. However,  Cameron (2001) suggests that implications for teaching young learners need to be addressed from beyond the classroom and children should be considered as active learners. In her paper, Cameron highlights key ideas from Piaget's and Vygotsky's work that can provide information about how we think of children as language learners. Although Piaget gives less importance to the role of language in cognitive development than does Vygotsky, we ought to acknowledge that Piaget's argumentation of the limited capacity of children as sense-makers of other people's actions and language is key to understanding how they respond to the tasks and activities we plan in the language classroom. On the other hand, Vygotsky posits that language provides children with a new tool for doing things and for organising information. But he also states that adults play an important role in helping children learn by reading them stories, asking them questions, and talking to them while they are playing. We can conclude then, that as adults and as teachers of young learners, we must make the world accessible to them since "the ability to learn through instruction and mediation is characteristic of human intelligence" (Cameron, 2001, p 6).

Some ways in which we can cater to the children's cognitive needs is by providing them with plenty of opportunities to develop numeracy and literacy skills.  And by giving them activities to think abstractly. In the following link, you will find an extraordinary work by Herbert Puchta "Developing thinking skills in the young learner' classroom" 💡.  I hope you find it useful to cope with the challenges of the 21st- Century language classroom. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lB8R6PsiTydX5xHNzF7znXKzFeFbSoOB/view?usp=sharing

Reference:

Cameron, L. (2001). Children learning a foreign language. Teaching Languages to Young Learners, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511733109.002

A also stands for AUTONOMY and... B for Blogging

 

As EFL teachers most of us have experienced a profound feeling of frustration especially when we have spent long hours designing activities to maintain our learners motivated and engaged. We then discover that our students are reluctant to use the language in pairs or groups or to participate in collaborative activities. And to our deepest disappointment, students do not reflect on their learning process and are not able to learn from their errors. 

The main cause of this problem is the passive role that learners assume concerning their learning process. They tend to rely on their teacher and do not seem able to take responsibility for their learning outcomes. Moreover, we must acknowledge that even genuinely motivated students do not always attain their full potential. It is also unrealistic to assume that encouraging and motivating learners to participate actively will turn them into autonomous learners.

What's learners' autonomy? 

According to the British Council, "Autonomy means the ability to take control of one's own learning, independently or in collaboration with others...an autonomous learner will set their own goals, reflect on their progress, and seek opportunities to practise outside the classroom" (2022). However, learners MUST be taught "how to learn". 

First, learners need to become aware of the ways they learn best, which involves their learning styles and strategies (Brazis, Kavaliauskienë, 2000). This might take time and teachers ought to guide them in this process to find out which activities and techniques are suitable for them.

Second, learners need to make significant decisions about what, how, and when to learn (Van Lier, 1996). The teacher's role is to encourage students to search for interesting materials such as websites, online magazines, blogs, podcasts, video tutorials, etc. 

Finally, students need to be given more chances to work in a student-centered classroom and more opportunities for self-assessment. This involves the students in the elaboration of tasks and activities and the administration of assessment instruments. 

Associated to A-ssesssment and A-utonomy, the topics in this entry, I found an interesting research paper in which Bhattacharya and Chauhan (2010)investigated the effects of blogging in the development of autonomy in an EFL context. A group of 35 students was asked to create blog reports at the end of a project in order to study the relationship between learner autonomy and blog-assisted language learning. Their findings revealed that blogging impacted positively the development of learner autonomy constructs such as independent decision-making skills, independence, and intrinsic motivation, among others.

In my personal experience, I can assure dear colleagues that blogging has given me the power of self-reflection and great insight. As an abecedarian in this field, I found writing and sharing my thoughts quite gratifying and I am also eager to start this empowering project with my students in order to foster autonomy and reflection.

What about you? Are you ready to initiate a blogging project with your students? 

There are many free recommended apps on the web to begin a blog, but so far my favorite has been blogger, and I assume that many of you are now quite familiar with Google suite. Thus, why not give it a try? 

References:

Bhattacharya, A., and Chauhan, K. (2010). Augmenting learner autonomy through blogging. ELT Journal: English Language Teachers Journal,64 (4)

Brazis, R and Kavaliauskienë, G Application of Multiple Intelligences Theory to Teaching English, in 'Network', A Journal for English Language Teacher Education, Vol. 3, No 2, April 2000, pp. 47-51.

Van Lier, 1. (1996). The AAA curriculum interaction in the Language Curriculum: Awareness, autonomous, and authenticity. London, New York: Longman.

Assessment in the early years

 

Assessment vs observation

I must avow that when I was teaching in preschool, there was not as much information available as there is now to become a reflective practitioner. I used to feel satisfied with the outcomes in my daily practice. However, I acknowledge the fact that I could have been a better teacher if I'd had the opportunity to access this outstanding plethora of information, webinars, and workshops, but above all, if I'd had the opportunity to be part of a collaborative community of teachers to share experiences and to help me reflect on my practice. At that time, the main focus of the assessment was placed on the outcome of assigned tests. The observation was mainly used to elaborate items and tasks in order to develop formal tests. I am currently working on a certification from the British Council about the way children learn and all this new information has shaken my beliefs and conceptions as I came across this statement:

“Young children learn in a very different way to adults or even older children (Guddemi and Chase 2004), which cannot, and should not, be assessed by written ‘exams’ or formal tests. Young children need to express themselves with the whole of their being, during play and without any constraints.” - Kathy Brodie (2013) Observation, Assessment, and Planning in the Early Years: Bringing it all Together

I dug deeper into this enthralling topic and I found out that giving scores to the children may tell us only how familiar they are with the questions or the tasks assigned in a test. Therefore, the validity of the tests could be biased. Moreover, young children may not be familiar with the structure of the questions and the test format as they present cognitive demands beyond the children's understanding. These demands are focused on measuring the child's ability to process the language, but they do not provide information about the child's knowledge of the content being assessed. 

I invite you to watch the following video provided by the British Council 

Now I believe that observation should be the main focus of our practice. We should observe children as they play; we listen to them and take notes. We should do this in their everyday activities and during more structured activities. Through observation, we get to know the child, their interests, their abilities, and their existing knowledge. On the other hand, assessment is about analyzing our observations and understanding their potential. After finding out what the information tells about each child, we ought to highlight what the children CAN do and not what they CAN'T as Scott-Little & Niemeyer posit, "Preschool and kindergarten children are more apt to show than tell what they know" (2001). 

• What do you think about this? Please write your thoughts in the comments