IMPLEMENTING FULLAN’S 6CS IN IMPROVING ENGLISH LANGUAGE LITERACY AMONG

9-YEAR-OLDS
ALIZA ALEXANDER SELVARATNAM SALIM
INTRODUCTION
This paper aims to study the implementation of the Fullan’s 6Cs in improving the English
language literacy level among a group of primary school students.
Literacy, especially within the English language has various definitions. According to the
National Literacy Trust states that literacy comprises the ability to read, write, speak, and listen
as a literate person should be able to communicate effectively with others and to understand
written information. Ingles and Aers (2008) and the Oxford Dictionary define literacy as the
ability to read and write children learn to speak fairly easier than reading and writing as it
involves a more arduous process. Most definitions of literacy narrow down to the ability to read
and write (Ingles&Aers,2008; Blake&Hanley,1995). Therefore, literacy is defined as the ability of
an individual to read and write.
Literacy is a universal agenda that has been a matter of importance as the impact of it towards
an individual’s progress is significant. The significance of achieving literacy is visible through
emphasis given in the second shift of the Malaysian Education Blueprint especially in the English
language. Lacking literacy skills holds a person back being unable to succeed in school and
eventually being out of job market (Faleti,2017; National Literacy Trust; Plan International
UK,2017; The Guardian,2014). Laying a solid platform and equipping children with literacy tools
prevails success in the future (Faleti,2017). Hence, achieving literacy is substantial for personal
and social growth of an individual and the nation as a whole.
Having realised the consequences of illiteracy, the literacy level of my Year 3 students was
alarming. Their inability to master their native language (Bahasa Malaysia and Tamil) in terms of
reading and writing has contributed to their inability to comprehend English as their second
language. They are unable to comprehend instructional and communicative language, lack of
basic phonics, null reading habit, lack of an English-friendly environment and demotivated to
learn. Their socioeconomic background elevates this issue as they lack parental support in using
the language and providing them the basic environment of learning (The Guardian, 2014).
In order to improve their literacy level and to create a meaningful and trusting learning
environment, an intervention was necessary. Paul Tough (2016) stated that a great relationship
and a great pedagogy will bring success to disadvantaged students. This brings to the Deep
Learning Theory by Michael Fullan (2014). The Deep Learning Theory is (a) a focus on concepts,
integration of knowledge, and cumulative experiences (b) an emphasis on intrinsic motivation
and ownership of the material (c) active listening (d) interactions and relationships (Rhem,1995;
McKay & Kember,1997). Through this, students seek meaning and apply ideas (Meeks et
al.,2013). Deep Learning Theory facilitates improvements in academic achievement and
increases years of education attainment through the Fullan’s 6Cs of the 21 st century
competencies (National Research Council, 2012). The Fullan’s 6Cs as a framework in creating a
new pedagogical approach for an English lesson will fit the purpose of attaining progress in
literacy as well as creating a meaningful and trusting environment for the students to learn and
progress. As shown in the figure below, the Fullan’s 6Cs comprises critical thinking,
communication, collaboration, creativity, citizenship, and character education.

Figure 1 : Fullan’s 6Cs

Using the Fullan’s 6Cs to create a great pedagogy and great relationship, an English lesson
intervention was designed. The theory was integrated in a new pedagogical design based on
the students’ needs and interest in order to create a meaningful and trusting learning
environment, focusing in achieving literacy progress.
This study aims to gauge the effect of this intervention based on the Fullan’s 6Cs on the
students’ literacy level as well as their attitude towards learning and their surrounding through
a social-emotional behaviour assessment. At the end of this study, these questions should be
able to reflect the effectiveness of the intervention:
1. What is the effect of the Fullan’s 6Cs intervention on
(a) literacy achievement of a group of primary school students?
(b) social-emotional behaviour of a group of primary school students?
METHODOLOGY
Using an action research model forwarded by Kolb (1983), the study was conducted in a
primary school in Kuala Lumpur. The students were from a Year 3 English lesson group with an
overall low academic achievement as evidenced in their 2016 final examination results. The
intervention was implemented with 19 students - 15 boys and 4 girls. These students lack
language proficiency in both their native and second language. 7 students attend remedial
lessons for Bahasa Malaysia (native language) and have failed their first Bahasa Malaysia LINUS
assessment in 2017. They display weak productive skill in Bahasa Malaysia. However, both their
receptive and productive English skills are weak as they display difficulty with information
retrieval and writing words and simple sentences.
The teaching-learning cycle began with planning, followed by an intervention, observation and
reflection on the part of the teacher (Kolb, 1983). I was able to complete this cycle using school
assigned learning materials as well as supplementary materials. My focus was lifting the 19
children’s reading and writing capacity over a period of 28 weeks.

Figure 2 : Kolb’s Action Research Cycle (1983)

Planning
The students have displayed low literacy level in English through their inability to comprehend
basic language orally and in written form. Their first Literacy and Numeracy Screening (LINUS)
assessment in March 2017 provided a quantitative proof of the observation. The LINUS
assessment assesses both reading and writing proficiency through a standardised instrument
designed by the Malaysian Examination Board. Along with this, students displayed a variety of
antisocial behaviour such as truancy, aggressiveness, lack of motivation to learn, and apathy
which could be one of the possible reason of not attaining academic achievement ( Trzesniewski
et.al,2006; Hinshaw,1992).

The current Deep Learning Theory by Michael Fullan (2013) using the 6Cs of the 21 st century
skills had gain my attention as it focuses on both academic and social-emotional behaviour
achievement. The 6Cs consist of critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity,
citizenship, and character education.
Competencies Skills
Critical thinking Self-directed thinking
New and innovative ideas
Problem solving
Making effective decisions
*Critical reflection on learning
Communication Communicate effectively orally, in writing
Active listening
Understand verbal and non-verbal communication
Collaboration Work in diverse teams
Understand responsibilities
Lead and delegate
Creativity Imagining and initiate novel ideas
Curious
Innovative
*Possess judging value
Citizenship Respect
*Patriotism
*Globally-aware citizens
Character education Honest
Self-regulation
Empathy
Self-confidence
Learning for life
*Not included in the intervention of this study
Table 1 : The explanation of the Fullan’s 6Cs by British Council, 2018

Based on this theory, a new pedagogical intervention for an English lesson was designed with
two aims to achieve which are literacy progress and social-emotional behaviour progress. The
plan included all six competencies and 24 respective skills except critical reflection on learning,
possess judging value, patriotism and global-aware citizen because these skills are abstract and
not aligned to the need of this intervention.
The intervention comprises of a variety of tasks using all the four language skills i.e. listening,
speaking, reading, and writing. Tasks are used as they are more meaningful and it gives room to
collaborative knowledge-building while taking risks and active roles in learning (Ellis, 2002). The
six stages of a task-based learning include introducing the topic, working in groups, reading and
writing in groups, sharing of learning, analyzing learning and practicing the knowledge learned
(Frost, 2004).

TASKS FULLAN’S 6CS

MOVIE TIME Critical thinking, citizenship,
A movie or video is watched related to the topic of the week. character education, communication
Questions are asked by the teacher and students.
New vocabulary is drilled using hands-on activities such as
Total Physical Response, clay molding and smacking game.
DR SEUSS READING Collaboration, Character education,
A story based on the movie or video is read by the students in Communication, Citizenship
a mentor-mentee reading programme using the I-WE-YOU
method.
I (mentor) – we (mentor and mentee) – you (mentee)
I AM A WRITER Creativity, Critical thinking,
Students write simple sentences based on the reading Communication
material in their I am a Writer book.
LIGHTS-CAMERA-ACTION Creativity, Collaboration,
Role play and drama using props such as face mask with Communication
music.
Table 2 : Intervention plan for each new topic
Intervention
The intervention took place for six months after the first LINUS assessment in March 2017 to
the second LINUS assessment in September 2017. The intervention took place daily for 28
weeks inclusive of the school examinations and LINUS assessment. The duration of each lesson
is between 30 to 90 minutes. Nine units (Unit 6 to Unit 14) of the Malaysian Year 3 English
textbook were covered during this intervention.
Each new topic begins with the first task which is Movie Time. Since the new units are
introduced on Mondays with a 90 minutes lesson, the students have the privilege to watch a
full-length movie or a series of videos relevant to the topic introduced. Unit 7:From the Seas
was introduced with Finding Nemo and Unit 10:A Ride in the Safari Park was introduced with
Madagascar 3. The characters and elements in the movies or videos are used to prompt simple
questions. Students begun asking their own questions Unit 8 onwards. *The use of native
language is not prohibited, but the respond given is in English supported with actions. Building
on to the movie or videos’ content, a series of activities were conducted to enhance the use of
new vocabulary through Total Physical Response activities, clay molding shapes and words, and
matching pictures with word cards through games. These tasks were conducted in groups
which are changed from time to time.
The following task during the next lesson is Dr Seuss Reading. A reading material in the form of
a booklet is created for each topic based on the movie or videos watched during the previous
lesson. The reading materials are colourful and the language used is simple and repetitive.
Students were grouped in fixed groups of three with one mentor (Dr Seuss) and two mentees.
The reading strategy used was the I-We-You method. I (teacher) reads the passage to all
students. Then, We (mentor and mentees) read the passage in their groups. Lastly, You
(mentee) reads the passage to the mentor when they have gained the confidence. The mentees
are required to set a target of the number of times they wish to read the passage in a two-week
timeframe, before the unit is completed. After reading the passage, students complete
interactive tasks attached along with the booklets. Unit 8:It’s Story Time’s task was drawing the
characters (Goldilocks and the Three Bears) in order from the smallest to the biggest. They
were also required to sequence the story in order by rearranging pictures and matching them
to the sentences.
I am a Writer is the next task in this intervention. This task takes place for two consecutive days
to give room for students to bring the writer out. The first day starts with a guided writing
practice by filling in blanks and rewriting sentences. Other guided writing practices include
matching sentences and rewriting and rearranging sentences. The sentences used were from
the passages read during the previous task. The second day required students to replace words
and characters from the sentences used during their first writing activity. New similar sentences
emerged slowly. By week 15, four students begun writing their own sentences with errors, but
structured and the correct usage of vocabulary.
The final task is Lights-Camera-Action. This activity gives room to the students to explore their
imagination and creativity with their friends. This is a fun task with music, art, and movements.
Unit 7:From the Sea was explored by creating a diorama and students presented their dioramas
by acting as one of the characters. Unit 12:Fresh Fruits needed the students to create huge
design of fruits on manila cards and they sing jazz chants.
RESULTS
The data of the study were analysed using descriptive statistics using measure of central
tendency.
Literacy Achievement
The Examination Board of Malaysia conducts the Literacy and Numeracy Screening (LINUS)
assessment twice a year - March and September. The instruments are designed by a group of
selected teachers which are then approved by the Examination Board of Malaysia. The LINUS
assessment comprises two sets of instruments. The first assessment focuses on reading and the
second assessment is focused on writing. Each assessment consists of 12 constructs. The end
result of the assessments is binary i.e. fail or pass.
All 19 students in this study sat for their pre-test using the first LINUS assessment which was
conducted in March 2017. After six months of intervention, they sat for their post-test using the
second LINUS assessment in September 2017.
 Number of students who passed or failed (n=19)
18
11
8

1
Pass Fail
Table 3 : Pre-test and post-test results (n=19)
Table 3 shows the pre-test and post-test results of 19 students. The pre-test result shows that 8
students passed, whilst 11 failed. More than half of them failed the pre-test. The post-test
result shows a drastic progress with 18 passes and only one failure.
Social-emotional Behaviour
To gauge the impact of this intervention towards social-emotional learning, a Social-Emotional
Behaviour Checklist by the St. Landry Parish School Board, Washington DC (2009) was used. The
purpose of using this particular checklist is because it is comprehensive and comprises the
elements relevant to this study in terms of academic motivation and confidence. The checklist
consists five constructs - social behavioral skills, social and general problem-solving skills, ability
to cope with anger, ability to engage in self-directed academic behaviours, and emotional well-
being and level of self-esteem. Each section has six observational behaviours, except ability to
cope with anger that has five.
The checklist has a binary option of yes and no. Students’ behaviour were observed using the
checklist before the intervention (pre-intervention) and after the intervention (post-
intervention).
 Mean Scores of Pre-intervention & Post-intervention (n=19)

14.21

9.10

PRE-INTERVENTION POST-INTERVENTION

Table 4 : Mean Scores of Pre-intervention and Post-intervention (n=19)

Pre-intervention and Post-intervention Mean Scores by Construct

(n=19)

13.69
10.83

15.62
12.33

13.90
11.40

14.39
12.75

11.56
10.92
PRE-INTERVENTION POST-INTERVENTION

Table 5 : Pre-intervention and Post-intervention Mean Scores by Constructs (n=19)

The changes in social-emotional behaviour were analysed using the mean scores by constructs
(n=19) as the size of sample is small. Table 4 shows that the overall social-emotional behaviour
has progressed (M=5.10). Table 5 shows the mean scores for the pre-intervention and post-
intervention for each construct of the Social-Emotional Behaviour checklist. The most
significant progress is in the students’ ability to engage in self-directed academic behaviours
(M=3.29), followed by emotional well-being and level of self-esteem (M=2.86), ability to cope
with anger (M=2.50), and social and general problem-solving skills (M=1.64). The least progress
is in social behavioral skills (M=0.64).

DISCUSSION
The results reflect a significant progress in literacy achievement along with their social-
emotional behaviour especially the ability to engage in self-directed academic behaviours and
emotional well-being and level of self-esteem. The Fullan’s 6Cs which was the framework of the
intervention used had two additional competencies which are character education and
citizenship as opposed to the common 4Cs used in today’s lessons. As Benninga (2003) said, the
implementation of character education tend to promote higher academic scores which was
supported by a research done by the Josephson Institute (2011) that also exhibited fewer
behaviour problems and absenteeism. The integration of those competencies in the
intervention contributed in the higher literacy achievement and their motivation to learn which
has built upon their confidence.
Collaboration, communication, creativity, and citizenship competencies’ skill brought in the
element of tasks and group work. This combination of competencies was supported by Ahmed
et.al (2010) through his study that proved social relationships influence academic achievement
through motivational and affective pathways. Zitzmann (2005) added that students perform
better academically with greater peer acceptance. The Dr Seuss Reading and Lights-Camera-
Action activities created such bonding environment for the students to respect and accept one
another while exploring their potential and creativity. This environment led to confidence and
an increase in motivation which eventually elevated their literacy level. As mentioned by Tough
(2006), a great relationship and a great pedagogy brings success to disadvantaged students and
is supported by the concept of the Deep Learning Theory itself.
Critical thinking of the Fullan’s 6Cs which were included in the Movie Time and I am a Writer
did show a slight progress which was reflected through their progress in the ability to engage in
self-directed academic behaviours. They were able to display the skills of critical thinking by
being able to make effective decisions through the goal setting approach of the Dr Seuss
Reading and computing new innovative ideas through the Lights-Camera-Action activities.
Critical thinking competency requires time to be developed (Vierra, 2014). The effect of this
competency in improving English literacy in this study could not be gauged as the duration of
the intervention period was too short.
CONCLUSION
Transforming a new theory of the Fullan’s 6Cs into a pedagogical design for an English lesson
has proven to be lucrative especially in increasing literacy achievement and increasing students’
motivation and confidence to learn. However, the intervention was conducted among a small
group of students in a short period of time. The effectiveness and reliability of the intervention
has to be tested by implementing it to a larger group of sample.