JURE 2012 Programme book - EARLI Jure 2012

108
JURE 2012 Conference Programme
PA.7.4. Approaches to Teaching Language: L1 and L2 Perspectives
Paper Session, 9.30-­‐10.30, Room: H25
Chair: Marrit Jansma
Diagnosing students’ use of strategies-­‐ A blended learning training for future English
teachers
Jennifer Friedrich
Future teachers of English as a foreign language need to learn how to facilitate their students’
learning process. Thus, this study focuses on the development of a situated blended learning
environment to help future English teachers diagnose students’ adequate learning strategy use
while reading an English text. While the face-­‐to-­‐face sessions of the university seminar were
concerned with current insights into the research on reading in a foreign language, learning
strategy use and the teaching of strategies, the online sessions allowed the N = 33 participants to
analyze video data from a large video study corpus on learning strategies (ADEQUA, Finkbeiner
et al. 2008). A practical training complemented the seminar and helped students to implement
their theoretical knowledge as well as the knowledge gained from analyzing the video clips in
school.
The explorative study consists of a pilot and the main study. During the piloting, the single
components of the learning environment were tested and instruments adapted. The main study
draws on both qualitative and quantitative data to gain insights into the future teachers’
process-­‐oriented diagnostic competencies on the basis of video data from the participants’ own
lesson, guided interviews on their lessons as well as a pre-­‐post-­‐test. A detailed evaluation of the
seminar to find out about the participants’ attitude towards the seminar concept has already
been analyzed.
Results show that according to the participants, they highly appreciate the blended learning
approach and benefit from both the video-­‐based online activities and the practical teacher
training in school. From the video data and guided interviews it becomes obvious that the
reflection on one’s teaching is essential in developing diagnostic competencies, and thus, needs
to be further examined and become an integral part of English teacher education programs.
Teaching Written Language in the First Grade
Sérgio Gaitas
& Margarida Alves Martins
Nowadays, in modern societies, it is supposed that everyone will be able to read and write. Thus,
raising standards of literacy has become a key issue for education. There has been considerable
debate and controversy on how written language should be taught. This debate, typically Anglo-­‐
Saxon, has been established mainly between advocates of two different approaches (phonics vs.
whole language or skills vs. process) and has been the basis of much research on literacy
teaching.
The first approach, often referred to as "phonics or skills instruction" argues that, in the first
place, students should focus on the individual letter-­‐sound relationships. The second approach,
known as whole language approach, postulates that, in a holistic way, students should be
immersed in written language since the beginning of schooling, that is, reading books and
writing their own stories.
In this context we investigated teachers proposed activities to engage students in written
language in the first grade.
A sample of 833 first grade teachers from across Portugal was surveyed about their classroom
instruction practices in written language. A hierarchical clusters analysis showed four different
groups of teachers that differ in their teaching approaches: a) Group 1 (N=79) more focused on
meaning construction; b) Group 2 (N=201) more focused on the systematic teaching of the code;