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Tell it Again – The Storytelling Handbook for Primary English Language Teachers Part 1: Methodology Writing activities in the story notes Writing at word-level Purpose • labels for pictures/diagrams learning new vocabulary, • crosswords handwriting and spelling • anagrams (words with scrambled letters) • word puzzles • picture/word dictionaries and mobiles • charts or grids for surveys and questionnaires • classifying words into word families • concept/word webs • menus/shopping lists Writing at sentence-level • captions for pictures • speech bubbles for characters • writing information from charts or grids • writing simple questions for other pupils to answer • re-writing scrambled sentences correctly Writing at text-level • diaries • descriptions • advertisements • instructions • invitations • letters • posters • poems • stories or simple books all of the above and practising new structures and functions all of the above and planning, drafting, editing and understanding layout Common writing functions children will practise include: ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● describing/comparing people, animals and places asking questions giving information in response to questions describing present actions predicting future actions narrating present and past events describing causes and effects or problems and solutions giving reasons, explaining. The description of specific language-learning skills outlined so far in this chapter now leads on to a discussion of learning to learn and learning about culture. Learning to learn Learning to learn, also referred to as learner training, is an umbrella term for a wide variety of activities designed to develop metacognitive awareness and learning strategies. The aim is to focus childrens’ attention on how they learn, in addition to what they learn. It takes into account that different learners have different ways of learning and different preferences regarding activities and learning materials. It therefore aims to encourage pupils to become aware of and develop their own learning strategies so they can become more effective and independent learners. The development of metacognitive awareness and positive attitudes As mentioned above, learning to learn includes the development of metacognitive awareness which includes knowing about oneself as a learner. In storybased lessons, this is a term that incorporates the following strands: language awareness, cognitive awareness (learning how to learn), social, cross-curricular and intercultural awareness. The development of these different strands can contribute to the global development of the child. Children need to gain a range of learning strategies and social skills, as well as linguistic and intercultural understanding, so they can foster positive attitudes, values and beliefs which contribute to their motivation to learn, to their realisation of their own ability to learn, and to their future learning. The development of learning strategies Generally, learning strategies are what we do to learn. Some strategies will differ from learner to learner depending on a range of variables such as the nature of the learning task, learning preference and motivation, while others are more general. Sometimes they are used consciously, that is a learner will make a deliberate and conscious decision to use a particular strategy, at other times they are used unconsciously. Some can be observed, for example, repeating words aloud; others cannot, for example, when a child is working something out in their head. There are two major groups of learning strategies, those that are more generalised and used to regulate learning (metacognitive) and those that are more task-specific (cognitive) and involve actually manipulating the subject to be learnt, in this case, doing things with language. Research has shown (O’Malley et al 1985, Ellis and Sinclair 1989) that the combination of metacognitive and cognitive strategy training is particularly effective in helping learners learn how to learn and to be able to transfer strategies to other tasks: ‘Students without metacognitive approaches are essentially learners without direction and the ability to review their progress, accomplishments and future learning directions.’ 42 Part 1: Methodology © British Council 2014
Tell it Again – The Storytelling Handbook for Primary English Language Teachers Part 1: Methodology (O’Malley et al 1985: 24). O’Malley et al applied this scheme to language learning and added a further category, which they called ‘socioaffective’, strategies that are used by learners to involve themselves in social and group activities in order to expose them to language input. This three-part typology is useful in that it is relatively simple to apply and to extend, especially in the primary English language teaching classroom. What is important is that learning strategies can be taught and self-awareness can be developed. The teacher plays a crucial role in this process by providing children with opportunities for reflecting on and experimenting with the process of language learning as an integral part of the language-learning experience. This provision needs to be carried out explicitly so that children are made consciously aware of what they are doing and why. The process is a long and gradual one, integrated systematically into the language-learning aims of a course, but not overriding them, as the main goal of language teachers and children remains language learning. The learning strategies that can be developed through each story covered in this book are highlighted in the story notes. It is important to remember that many strategies used for learning English can also be applied to other subject areas. Children should be reminded of this when appropriate so that they learn to transfer strategies and develop an overall awareness of their learning across the curriculum. The three categories of strategies are outlined here, together with some of the related strategies within each category. ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● ●● Comparing. Pupils can be encouraged to analyse and compare differences and similarities between English and their mother tongue. This can arouse their curiosity about language and develop language awareness. They can also compare different aspects of daily life from their own country with that of the target culture to become aware of cultural diversity. Self-questioning. Pupils can be taught how to ask themselves questions about their learning in order to reflect on the content and processes. Self-assessment. Pupils can complete selfassessment sheets in order to reflect on the content of learning, upon how they learn, as well as on their own performance throughout a lesson and their contribution to the class. This will help them monitor their progress and maintain motivation, and highlight strong and weak points. Self-correction. Provide opportunities for pupils to check their own work either individually or in pairs. This helps them to take on responsibility for their own learning and work out where and why they may have made a mistake. Reviewing. Pupils can be taught to review systematically in order to aid long-term retention and to identify what they know and do not know, as well as to become aware of their strengths and weaknesses. Selecting activities. It is useful from time to time to give pupils a selection of different activities to choose from. This allows pupils to choose activities according to their own interests and needs, to decide for themselves what to do, and to plan their own work. Metacognitive strategies These include thinking about learning: planning, monitoring and evaluating learning, and can also involve children reflecting on aspects of the learning process through hypothesising, comparing, self-questioning, self-correction and selecting activities. ●● ●● Planning learning. In the primary English language teaching classroom it is generally the teacher who takes the main responsibility for planning learning. However, by being well organised and explicit the teacher can model how planning can take place. Children can also be involved in thinking about what they already know about a topic and what they would like to find out, and set relevant objectives. They also need to be clear about how to focus their attention during activities. Hypothesising. Pupils can, for example, be encouraged to work out the meaning of a word or the rules of grammar for themselves. See the section on learning grammar on page 33. Cognitive strategies These include, for example, sorting, classifying, matching, predicting, using visual and audio clues as aids to meaning, repeating, using a class library or dictionary. They require pupils to do things with the language and their learning materials and relate to specific activities in specific skills areas such as listening or reading. In some skills it is often the nature of the task that will determine the type of strategy to use, for example, listening for specific information for a picture dictation or reading in chunks when skimming a text. With other skills areas, however, such as vocabulary development or speaking, there appears to be more variety in terms of individually successful strategies and personal choice. For example, some pupils may prefer to memorise words by associating them with a picture, others may prefer to repeat them aloud several times. Figure 8 on page 45 lists common activities found in the story notes and the skills and strategies they develop. It also shows how many activities require pupils to use and develop a combination or cluster of strategies. Part 1: Methodology © British Council 2014 43
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