CASE STUDY #16

Imagine you are a new English teacher at a Primary school in a big city. It has three groups in each
grade and three English teachers.
The school has a limited amount of money to spend on equipment, but it has participated in an
Innovation Project and, as a result it has been awarded with a full equipment of computers and
tablets.
Moreover, this school is actively involved in several Projects and Programmes.
School projects:
 Linguistic Programme (CLIL) in which some subjects are being taught in English.
 A KA2 Erasmus+ Project about “The Environment” with four European partner organizations
(involving only Primary schools)
 ELP (European Language Portfolio) for all levels.

Your Reader School Plan is working this year through traditional tales in the three official
languages of the Valencian Community. Design an eTwinning project devoted to work on this content
for your third level class, where you’ve got 26 students, 3 of them are from Romania, 3 from Poland, 4
from Ecuador and 3 from China.

1.- Introduction
2.- Legal Framework
3.- Social Context: Collection of information.
4.- Definition of the words and problem. Authors and theories.
5.- Development of the Project:
 Definition of the objectives
 Definition of the contents
 Definition of the activities
 Methodology: Specific measures.
 Resources: Selection and implementation of the tools we need to help the student.
 Attention to diversity
 Evaluation about knowledge, learning-teaching process and teacher’s assessment.
 Assessment for Diversity
 Timing: After a month: analyse the situation and take further actions.
6.- Conclusion

1.- Introduction

The purpose of this case study is to design an e-Twinning project devoted to work on traditional
tales. In order to structure the essay correctly, I will first give a definition about eTwinning platform and
then we will explain how to foster reading in Primary education. Then, I will give some practical
examples of activities that we can carry out in this Project. Finally, I will end up with my personal
opinion as a conclusion.

As it is said in Topics 15 and 16, at this stage of the teaching and learning process, it is very
important to bear in mind that, as teachers, we must help the students to develop not only, their
communicative skills, either productive (speaking or writing) or receptive (listening and reading), but also
their systematic and reflective knowledge of the language itself, with the aim of improving and
encouraging communicative competence.
2.- Legal Frame and Social Context:

First of all, I considered essential to mention the legal framework in order to contextualise and
justify the importance of ICT and literature in our English class:

The LOMLOE 3/2020 29th December, establishes the importance of ICT as a way to transform
our educational system.

Moreover, the Royal Decree 126/2014 justifies the use of eTwinning and other ICT tools in
objective “I”, and also defines seven key competences, where Digital and linguistic competences have a
special relevance in this case study.

Finally, our Decree 108/2014 establishes the contents in all the levels of primary education, and
highlights the importance of working not only English as a language, but also the cultural traditions and
values of the English speaking countries.

 Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. 2001

 Organic Law 2/2006, 3rd May
 LOMLOE 3/2020, 29th December
 Royal Decree 126/2014, 28th February 2014
 Decree 108/2014 4th July, modified by Decree 88/2017, 7th July
 Order 44/2011 of 7th June, which regulates the plans for promoting reading in Primary Schools
of Valencian Community. ESTA SE USA PARA LECTURA

3.- Social Context:

4.- Definition of the words and problem. Authors and theories.

Before proceeding any further, it is important to mention the Order 44/2011, 7th June of the
Valencian Community which regulates the plans of fostering reading in Primary Education.

As the school has to be a reflection of our society, there is no way to teach and learn nowadays
without the use of new technologies. Here is where eTwinning takes a special relevance. But what is it?
E-twinning is an initiative of the European Commission that encourages collaboration between European
educational schools through the use of ICT. E-twinning brings schools the opportunity to create a project
among two or more centres to share culture and knowledge.

5.- Development of the Project:

Once having exposed the Legal Framework In which we based this case study, we are going to
explain some activities that can be carried out in the English class to work on fostering reading through
eTwinning platform:

First of all, we should bear in mind that we are teachers of Year 3 of a multicultural class, where
the half of our students come from other countries. This brings to us freedom to work on eTwinning
projects with other schools, because our students are more opened to know about other cultures.

As we are going to work on traditional tales during the whole year, I have decided to design a
year project based on Grimm brothers’ tales’ compilation.
The title of my project will be “Reading is magic!”, and my three main objectives will be the following:

 To understand/acquire English through simple and well-known tales in the mother tongue of our
students.
 To value the importance of literature as a way to understand our closest environment.
 To see different artistic representations and points of view about a tale.
 To develop ICT skills through the use of Computers and tablets.
 To foster awareness about the care of the environment.
 To use the Portfolio (EPL) as student’s assessment.
 To prepare student for future responsibilities.
 To foster family participation.

Contents:
Contextualized, prioritized, organized
Vocabulary: house, little, pigs, bricks, straw, sticks, wolf
SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES: I blow, I destroy.
Verb Tenses: Present Simple, Present Continuous.

Activities: Introductory, reinforcement, consolidation

The project will be working one traditional tale each month of the year. There will be four lessons to
each tale, and these four ones will be recorded by all the teachers that participate in the project, in order to
share the teaching methodologies and techniques of each one.

The first week of the month will be devoted to work on listening skills. This activity is called:
“Wonderful stories” Teachers from each school will have to design a storytelling lesson using different
resources (Kamishibai, origami, puppets, songs, videos made with ED puzzle App by the teacher)

In the second week of the month, teachers will prepare one cooperative activity in which students
will have to talk about the tale. The name of this activity is “Talking together” Therefore, all the teachers
of the project will have an amount of games and activities they can carry out to make their students think
and explain themselves about the tale. These activities are named “Reading and Games”. It can be a
domino, a memory game, and word cards game, games online using tablets which compiles the
vocabulary of the tale and puts a structure in practice.

The third week of the month will be devoted to work on reading and writing skills. Each teacher will
prepare a text about the tale and some exercises of comprehension. The title of these activities is “We are
writers” In here, we can play to order a story, to work on the structure of a tale (first, then, last). In this
activity the students will develop logical mathematical intelligence and at the same time verbal
linguistic intelligence.
Finally, in the last week of the month, students from each school will prepare a video about the
traditional tale of that month. In this video, they will perform the tale, using colourful drawings or
puppets. The title of the activity is “Fun with Puppets”. Parents participation is essential in this activity
since they make students’ costumes and other objects for the performance in order to get more real
scenes.

The idea is to give the opportunity to each class to create anything from the tale and share it with the
other eTwinning friends. At the same time, teachers will receive lots of ideas to work on literature in their
professional futures actions.
 And what traditional tales are we going to work on in this project? I have designed the following
sequencing of tales for each month of the year:

 September: The treasure Island

 October: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory 
 November: The three little pigs
 December: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.
 January: The Grasshopper and the Ants
 February: Moby Dick
 March: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
 April: Oliver Twist
 May: Gulliver’s Travels
 June: Alice’s adventures in Wonderland

In addition, this sequence can be useful to us not only to work on fostering reading, but also to
connect each tale with the culture of the country and globalise our students’ learning. Therefore, through
Cinderella we can study the time; we can treat food content through Hansel and Gretel, or clothes through
the story of “The valiant little tailor”.

As we will implement this plan along this Academic year, we have designed different type of
activities in order to encourage students and aim to they have a pleasant time in these sessions.

These activities are: Book making with different shapes of books, to make Big books, to create
new stories based on the ones we have read, celebrate the book’s Day. Once a month students can
exchange books from their own with other partners and to use a "playground library" at the playground
when the weather is nice.

After explaining the general features of my Reading Plan, it would be worth to move on the book we, the
entire group together, are reading:

Day 1:  

1. Presentation of the book through questions.

When and where the story took place?
What are the characters of the story?
What is the title of this story?
 2. Watch a video

3. Making predictions: Changing the end of the story.

Day 2:

1. Students will listen three times the story

2. We divide students into 5 groups. 
3. We will focus on the new words pronunciation and meaning.
4. After reading aloud the whole group the fairy tale, students will read aloud the tale in pairs.
5. Then, they will finish this session reading individually.

Day 3:

1. We teachers will give each group an event from the book to illustrate. 
2. After the students illustrate their scene, we will gather them together. 
3. The students will put the events in order. We will add the words first,
second, next, then and last to each drawing.  

Day 4:  Sequencing: Story Mapping  

 We will give them a story map and ask students to complete it.  
 We will give the students a graphic organizer we can use for this lesson.
 Students can use words to describe them on the graphic organizer.

Day 5: Character Traits  

 Students compare the difference between character and physical traits.  

 We will talk about the emotions of the characters in the story.

Day 6:  Focus on the Villain ___________________________________

 To focus on the villain in fairy tales, we have created a WANTED poster for students to
complete.  
  Students will choose a fairy tale and complete the WANTED poster template.  

Exit Slips  

There is a collection of exit slips provided at the end of the post that can be used for independent
reading task.

Another option:

This week students worked on mapping and sequencing a story on a timeline. Using the
mapping skills, we have been working on students created a map of the ‘We Are Going on a Bear Hunt’
story including the natural features that they noticed in the story.

In sequencing, students organised the story onto a timeline to show their comprehension and
ability to draw and order what happened in this story.

On Friday students watched to short video versions of the story and drew a chart to summarise
what they understood.  

6) Methodology:
 Methods and different tools to use.
 Classroom and spaces organization
 Time organization
 Materials: Selected, different access paths.

7) Evaluation: Teacher’s observation, Rubrics, Self-assessment and Oral presentations.

8) Diversity

Main Principles we are going to follow:

 Quality education to all students,
 Equality of opportunity
 Inclusion and non-discrimination education
 Flexibility to adapt teaching to the diversity

Further actions:

Revision of the Teaching-Learning process every month in order to change the strategies to follow, in
case it was needed.

6.- Conclusion

In this case study, I have explained briefly what eTwinning is and how to use it to fostering
reading in our schools whereas sharing knowledge and culture with other countries in the English area.
Literature has a special relevance when teaching English as a foreign language, because it brings you the
opportunity to connect with students through imaginary worlds that, most times, are more related with our
closest society than we imagine. Giving this relevance to literature through the use of ICT, and also the
socialization with other countries, it brings our students the possibility to practice the language in real and
motivational contexts.