INGLES

UNIT 1. INTRODUCTION TO THE BRITISH EDUCATION SYSTEM: PRIMARY SCHOOL

Structure and organisation

Across the UK, each school year runs from early September to July and it lasts for a minimum of 190
teaching days, which is 39 weeks long. Schools are open five full days per week. Breaks and holidays are
different to the Spanish Education system, as shown in Table 1:

Legally, the age of compulsory education in the United Kingdom varies depending on where you live. It
is compulsory for all children between the ages of 5 (4 in Northern Ireland) and 16 in Northern Ireland,
Wales and Scotland. However, if you live in England, you must stay at school until you are 18 years old.

Schools in England are usually divided into Key Stages. Early Years Foundations Stage (EYFS), is not
compulsory and, therefore, is not a Key Stage, as it is for children between 3 and 5 years old. In Primary
schools, children undertake key stages 1 and 2 and they finish their Primary Education when they are 11
years old. Then, they will move onto Secondary school and do key stages 3 and 4, finishing when they are
16. Primary and Secondary Education are compulsory across the UK. After that, in England, you can choose
to continue your education taking one of the following options:

 Key stage 6: stay in full-time education.

 Start an apprenticeship or traineeship.
 Spend 20 hours or more a week working or volunteering, while in part-time education or training.

Table 2 gives an overview of the different key stages, with their corresponding years and age of students:

If we compare the British Education system with its Spanish counterpart, there are some similarities
and some differences. Both systems offer education to young children, but it is not compulsory in either of
them. They are also alike in the stages of compulsory education: Primary and Secondary. Besides, these
countries offer pre-school education for young children, although it is optional. The key stages in Primary
education and in Secondary education differ. In the British system there are two stages in Primary and
Secondary education, whereas in Spain there are three stages in Primary education and only one stage in
Secondary education. Regarding the school year, it starts in September in these two countries, but the
Spanish academic year finishes earlier than the British one. As for holidays and breaks, whereas the Spanish
system has got two main long holiday breaks that set the beginning of each term (Christmas and Easter),
the British academic year has got more short breaks throughout the year. Figure 1 summarises some of the
key features of both education systems.
Types of school
There are five stages of education across the United Kingdom: early years, primary, secondary, Further
Education (FE) and Higher Education (HE). The schools that provision these stages fall into two
broad categories:

 state schools
 independent (or private) schools.

The first ones, state schools, receive funding from the government and/or local authorities, whereas the
schools in the second group, indepentedent schools, are self-funded.

State Schools

In England, 93% of the children go to State schools. These schools are regulated by government and
inspected by a range of bodies. They receive funding from the Government or the local education
authorities and, generally, must follow the National Curriculum. The types of schools that belong to this
group are listed in Table 3 below:

Independent Schools

In England, 7% of the children attend independent schools. These schools are also known as private
schools, since they charge fees to attend because they do not receive funding from the Government or local
education authorities. They can also be funded through gifts and endowments. Independent schools are
exempt from following the National Curriculum and have freedom in the way they are run by the board of
governors.

Special Schools

Although for all school types it is mandatory to establish a clear Special Education Needs (SEN) policy
that follows the code of practice for SEN and vulnerable children, there are some secondary schools that
are specialised in an area of special education needs:

 Communication and interaction

 Cognition and learning
  Social, emotional and mental health
 Sensory and physical needs.

Thus, you can find across the UK schools and colleges with specialised facilities that dedicate, for
example, to care and education for children and young adults who experience Severe Learning Difficulties
(SLD), or schools that offer specialist education for pupils that are affected by deaf or hearing impairment.

There is an interesting website of a group that provides services to families with children and young adults
with special educational needs by offering information on the schools/colleges/education centres and
support groups assorted by types of special needs. If you are interested, you can click on the link below.

Types of school in Primary Education

Most pupils attend state schools, that is, publicly funded schools. There are two types of schools that offer
services to children:

 Maintained schools: these are paid for by the Local Education Authority.
 Academies: these are funded by the Government.

In contrast, only a minority of children go to independent or private schools, which offer a wider
curriculum and is run without restrictions from the government. Families pay fees to attend.

Some features of primary schools are:

 In both groups of schools, classes are limited to 30 pupils by statute (legally), less than in
secondary schools.
 They are mixed sex, that is, they educate girls and boys together, without making gender
differentiation.
 Most faith schools are run by the Roman Catholic or the Church of England, although there are
also a few schools of other faiths or beliefs, like Jewish or Muslim schools.

In England, primary age children can be educated at home, since according to Section 7 of the Education
Act 1996, parents have the right to educate their children at home. Parents can choose home education for
their children if, for example, they have a short-term intervention at hospital, health reasons or due to
religious beliefs. If children are educated at home, their parents do not need to be teachers themselves and
they do not have to follow the National Curriculum. However, they must grant that the education provided
is efficient, full-time and adapted to the child’s age, ability and aptitude. So, if their child has any special
educational needs they must cater for it.

The National Curriculum in England

Children start school at the age of 5 (4 in Northern Ireland) and finish when they are 16 (in Northern Ireland,
Wales and Scotland) or 18 (in England). As already mentioned (see section 3.2.), the Education system in
the UK is divided into five stages:

 Early years
 Primary education
 Secondary education
 Further Education (FE)
 Higher Education (HE)

There is no one and only framework Act (law) for compulsory education. Instead, several Acts of
Parliament convey different aspects of education, such as curriculum, assessment or school structure.
Regarding Primary Education, Section 78 of the 2002 Education Act establishes the following general
requirements, which only applies to all state-funded schools, but not to private institutions:
State schools must offer a curriculum that is balanced and broadly based. This also applies to academies
in accordance with Section 1 of the 2010 Academies Act:

The national curriculum establishes the core knowledge that all teachers need to include in their
programmes of study. This curriculum pursues to promote the development of pupils' knowledge,
understanding and skills. Legally, it is mandatory for all state schools (all schools funded by the
Government or Local authorities). However, academies and private schools do not have to follow it,
although they must offer a balanced and broad curriculum, as already mentioned, which includes English,
Maths and Science.

The national curriculum sets out both the subjects as well as the standards that children should reach for
each key stage in every subject. There are 11 subjects, which are divided into two types: ‘core’ subjects
and ‘other foundation’ subjects, as represented in Table 4.

In addition to these subjects, it is compulsory to teach religious education in all key states both in Primary
and Secondary Education in all types of schools, that is, maintained schools and private schools. Sex and
relationship education will be offered only in the key stages of Secondary Education.

By way of example, we include here the programme of study for Year 1 for the English subject. As you
will see, it includes statuary requirements (compulsory because they are in the national curriculum) and
some additional content (notes and guidance) which is not compulsory. The English subject has the
following components:
  word reading
 reading comprehension
 writing – transcription
 writing – composition
 writing – vocabulary, grammar and punctuation

In Figure 3, you can read below the statuary (compulsory) and notes and guidance (optional) for the
component ‘word reading’:

Standard Assessment Tests

At the end of each compulsory Stage, students are assessed. In Primary Education, they are assessed twice,
in years 2 and 6, through SATs (Standard Assessment Tests). These tests aim at measuring children’s
educational achievement to help schools to account for the attainment of their pupils and their progress. In
Secondary Education, all students must take their GCSE's (General Certificate of Secondary Education) at
age 16. In England, the results of these official exams will allow them to go onto further education and then
higher education or vocational training. If they do live in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland, they can
finish school and go into the working world.

In Primary Education, the SAT exam is a multiple-choice, pencil-and-paper test set and marked by the
Standards & Testing Agency and carried out in UK schools. This standardised assessment test is
administered all over the country every year, and it compares the results of children against the average
attainment expectations for their respective age groups.

KS1 SATs in Year 2

At the end of Year 2 (when children are 7 years old), in May, children sit their Key Stage 1 (KS1) SATs.
From 2023 on, the KS1 SATs will not be compulsory anymore, or non-statutory, which means that schools
will be able to decide whether they administer it in their school or not.

This test comprises two parts:

  Reading
 Maths

In KS1 the children’s teacher is who assesses their ability in reading and maths (number, shape, space and
measurement). The average of these sections is the official score for the SATs tests. Additionally, teachers
will also evaluate children in other areas, namely: science, writing, and speaking and listening. However,
this teacher assessment is not part of the official score. It only serves to show the quality of the education
at a school.

Figure 4 summarises the parts of the KS1 SATs, showing the different parts of each examen and
the time allotted to each of them.

KS2 SATs in Year 6

Key Stage 2 (KS2) SATs take place in the last term of Year 6, when they finish their studies in Primary
Education (at age 11). It is a more formal process of testing than KS1 SATs, since students are not examined
by their own teachers, but they do an official standardised assessment test, designed by the College Board
and administered nationally.

Students all over the country need to sit tests in the following compulsory areas:

 Reading
 Maths
 Grammar, punctuation and spelling (GPS)

Unlike in the case of KS1 SATs, which are corrected and evaluated by the child’s teacher, the KS2 STAs
are marked externally, and a report of the results is sent to schools in the first two weeks of July. These
results are used to measure both the child’s progress and the school’s performance.

In addition to these tests, some schools can also be required to take part in science tests, so as to check the
level of students in science subjects. The selected schools are randomly chosen as a representative sample
of schools in the country as a whole. The students who sit for this test will have to do three papers of 25
minutes each to complete:

 Biology
 Chemistry
 Physics

Figure 5 depicts a summary of the tests included in the KS2 SATs, specifying the number of papers and
the timing for each test area.
UNIT 2. BUILDING PARENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIPS

It is universally acknowledged that building a trustful family-teacher relationship and positive

communication is crucial to get parents involved with their children’s education. But, why is it so
important? Establishing and developing parent-teacher partnerships is an effective strategy to support and
foster students’ learning process. However, some parents tend to think that they can turn the education of
their children over to the teacher after Nursery or Infants School. This belief is wrong. In fact, the
connection parents-teacher seems to be closely related to student success and to improve students’
outcomes throughout the school years, especially in Infants and Primary Education. We cannot forget
that parents are responsible for the education of their children and that home is the first school of life.

Parents’ involvement does not necessarily imply that they have to come to school activities, they can be
actively involved with their children at home, helping them in their learning process. We must bear in mind
that parents can have different socio-cultural backgrounds that might influence the way they help their
children. So, our role as teachers is to support and guide parents on how to effectively help their children,
for instance with their homework or in setting up some routines for children to study at home. Obviously,
this relationship does not take place overnight. The teacher needs to spend time and effort in building a
positive relationship with families. This will increase the probability of getting parents involved in the
education of their kids.

Who benefits from this relationship? All the parties involved will benefit: teachers, parents, students.
In Figure 1 below you can see some of the benefits of positive cooperation for each of them.
We will finish this first section with the following quote from Lekli and Kaloti (2015, p. 102),
which summarises the positive effects of the relationship between parents and teachers on students:

"A student who knows that the teacher communicates on a regular basis with his/her parents and who knows
that his/her parents trust the teacher, will likely put more effort into school. (Davis, 1995, p.23-24) Putting
more effort into school, being more hard-working and attentive to school subjects implies more
concentration on the lesson, and less disruptive behaviors in the classroom which would undoubtedly
negatively affect the teaching process. Likewise, a student who knows that the teacher rarely or never
communicates with his/her parents, and/or his/her parents do not trust the teacher is likely to cause the
opposite. So that would be counterproductive and of course it would create problems for the teachers on
the management of the classroom environment and the management of the disruptive behaviors caused by
pupils."

We will divide this section into two parts. On the one hand, we will address one-way communication, that
is, a person sends a message to another and does not receive feedback, in this case it would be
communication from the school (sender) with families (receiver). On the other hand, we will deal with two-
way communication strategies, that is, when the receiver sends feedback to the sender. In this case, it
would be communication between the school and its families, in which both could be the sender or the
receiver. Figure 2 below depicts the concept of one-way communication and Figure 3 the concept of two-
way communication.

One-way communication

As already explained, one-way communication in the school context refers to the information that the
school or the teacher sends to families. Some examples are:

 Weekly or term reports with student progress

 Classroom or school newsletters
 School website / social media
 Infographics
 Home flyers of school events

How should be this written material?

 Keep it simple and accessible to families. There is no point in using

sophisticated or specialised terminology that parents cannot understand. You
want to get your message across, so provide clear information.
 Be concise and to the point. You need to provide concise, accurate information
so that parents will read and understand it. For example, don’t use a newsletter
announcing a school event to mention other topics, like school holidays or news
about changes in the menu of the school canteen. In sum, do not beat around the
bush or parents could miss the important message in the newsletter.
 Make it visually appealing. Use the same font, font size, colour, layout in your
written correspondence. Use diagrams, tables, charts, infographics to help
parents digest and understand better the information.
Using one-way communication strategies has some benefits, but also some drawbacks, which
are summarised in Table 1:

Two-way communication
Two-way communication takes place when there is interaction between the sender and the receiver of a
message. At school, this type of communication takes place, for example, when teachers dialogue with
parents. This interaction should be based on mutual respect and trust and should allow for contrasting
perspectives. Some typical examples are:

 Phone calls home

 Parent-teacher conferences
 Open school days
 Send-home parent surveys

This type of communication strategies has some advantages and some disadvantages, which
are summarised in Table 2:

Making phone calls home

Let’s be honest. Teachers tend to contact parents to share a concern about the student more often than to
celebrate or recognise students’ success. This does not help to build a positive relationship between teachers
and parents, who may end up feeling that making or receiving phone calls is a source of tension rather than
a chance to engage in productive interactions.

But how can address parents or guardians in different situations? Watch this video to see some sample
conversations giving advice, thanking, or congratulating.

What things can you do to be ready for the phone call? See Figure 6 to find out some useful tips you
can do before actually calling a family.
Once you are ready to call, you will make the phone call and engage in meaningful conversation with
families. What will you say? Sometimes we do not know how to start a conversation or what to say. The
'sandwich' approach is a really useful strategy you can use to keep the conversation going in a positive
tone. You just need to follow three easy steps conveyed in Figure 7:

Figure 8 includes some extracts of conversations that illustrate this communication strategy. Pay close
attention to the examples below:
In the 1990s, Joyce Epstein and her colleagues developed a framework to build positive relationships with
families, known as the Framework of Six Types of Involvement, or the “School-Family-Community
Partnership Model”. This model, which has undergone some revisions, has remained the most influential
model in establishing relationships among teachers, parents and schools. In this chapter, we will introduce
this model, which aims at establishing a systematic approach to establishing and developing parental
involvement.

The Framework

Eipsten and her colleagues (1997) based this framework on their research on parent-teachers-school
relationships. They found that some teachers do not involve all parents equally, as some of them have
stereotypes. For example, some believe that those parents who are single parents or who have low socio-
economic backgrounds are not able to engage in their child’s education. However, we want all students to
succeed in their learning process, so we need to encourage all families or guardians to be involved. We
cannot only encourage only those families that we feel more comfortable with.

This Framework of Six Types of Involvement proposes six different ways to engage parents or guardians
in their child’s education, as shown in Diagram 2 (adapted from Epstein 1995, p. 704, in Ihmeideh, AlFlasi,
Al-Maadadi, Coughlin & Al-Thani 2018: 190-191):

These authors further develop each type of parent-teacher/school communication by providing sample
practices, challenges, implications for students, parents and teachers. In Diagram 3 there is a selection of
sample practices that will help to illustrate each type of parents’ involvement.
Comparatives and superlatives
Comparatives

We use comparative adjectives to compare two people, animals, or things.

FORM

One syllable adjectives = adjective + -er + than:

This student is taller than Peter.

This classroom is bigger than the other one.

Two or more syllables adjectives = more + adjective + than:

Mary is more intelligent than John.

The book I am reading is more interesting than the one I read last month.

The opposite of more is less. We use less + adjective + than: Your teacher is less strict than my teacher (my
teacher is more strict).

We use much / a lot / a bit to emphasize the degree of comparison:

This student is much more popular than any other.

This exam is a lot worse than the previous one.

He is a bit taller than me.

AS + ADJECTIVE / ADVERB + AS = used to say that two things or people are similar in some way:

Mary is as clever as her sister.

COMPARING ACTIONS WITH ADVERBS

She drives fast, but I drive faster.

With adverbs ending in -ly, you must use more to form the comparative and most to form the superlative
(She speaks more quietly than her teacher)

Superlatives

We use superlative adjectives to compare more than two things.

After the superlative we use:

in + names of places or singular words for groups of people (class, school, team, family...): Michael Phelps
is the best swimmer in the world.

of + periods of time or a number of people (of the year, of my life, of the students): I am the most intelligent
of my brothers)

FORM
One syllable adjectives = the or a possessive adjective (my, your, his, her, Paul's) + -est

October is our busiest time of year.

Two or more syllables adjectives = the or a possessive adjective + most + adjective

I am the most intelligent of my brothers

The opposite of the most is the least: He is the least hardworking student in the class.

SPELLING
One syllable adjective (consonant + vowel + consonant) = double consonant + -er / -est (hot, hotter, the
hottest; big, bigger, the biggest)
Two syllables ending -y = -ier / -iest (happy, happier, the happiest; healthy, healthier, the healthiest).

IRREGULAR COMPARATIVES AND SUPERLATIVES

Good - better - the best
Bad - worse - the worst
Far - further - the furthest
Little - less - the least

UNIT 3. CLASSROOM INTERACTION AND MANAGEMENT

DEFINITION OF CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

In the first chapter of Unit three, we will provide a definition of what is meant by “classroom management”.
Then, we will reflect on classroom management styles that different teachers perform depending on the
context. We will finish this chapter by exploring different strategies and techniques that will be useful to
improve classroom management.

Classroom management seems to be crucial to ensure that the lessons run smoothly, and that there is no
disruptive behavior from students.

So, if having a structured learning environment that promotes learning is so important, the first thing we
need to ask ourselves is: what is classroom management? According to Delceva–Dizdarevik (2014: 52):

In other words, classroom management is about:

 Building a positive relationship with students

 Creating a positive atmosphere for learning to take place
 Getting students involved in the learning process
 Ensuring discipline in the classroom
 Managing effectively your class will have a positive impact on both teachers and students.
Teachers will feel they are not wasting their teaching time, as the classroom will be more
productive when students are focused and working on tasks. Students will improve the quality of
their learning process and will feel more motivated to learn.
 Figure 3 summarises the phases for successful classroom management proposed by Delceva–
Dizdarevik (2014: 53):
 These steps encompass all the teaching process from the very beginning, when lesson planning and
preparation take place, to the very end, when the teacher reflects on their own teaching practice as well
as on the success of the lesson. So, to be successful in managing a class, it is necessary to carefully
plan our classes, to set the timing and the rhythm during the lesson, to establish clear rules to diminish
or remove undesired behaviour that might interfere with the learning process, to evaluate the teaching
and learning process, and to reflect on the effectiveness of the lesson planned.

Classroom management styles

Classroom managements styles refer to the practices and strategies that teachers use to promote and
enhance students’ engagement and learning, that is, to the actions and techniques that teachers use in order
to ensure a positive learning environment in the classroom. Therefore, these styles have a direct impact on
both the students’ success as learners and on the teacher’s satisfaction and, ultimately, effectiveness as a
teacher.

Martin and Baldwin (1993a; 1993b) proposed a classification of classroom management styles following
Wolfgang & Glickman’s (1980) study on teachers’ beliefs about discipline. This classification includes the
following classroom management styles: non-interventionist, interventionist and interactionist. Each
style is defined as follows (Djigić & Stojiljković 2012: 66):

 Non-interventionist: it is based on the belief that a person has his own needs
that tend to express and accomplish themselves, so the teacher undertakes
minimal control.
 Interventionist: it is based on the belief that human development is affected
mainly by the external environment (people and facilities). This belief affects
the teacher to assume full control under the situation in the classroom.
 Interactionist: it focuses on the mutual influence between the individual and
the environment. In this case, control over the situation in the classroom is
shared between teacher and students.

Figure 4 below depicts these styles in a continuum taking teacher control as the key dimension:

As research has demonstrated, teachers act according to all three styles, although one model usually
predominates over the others in beliefs and actions. If this is so, one may wonder whether one style is better
than the others. In general, most surveys agree that the best style is the interactionist model, as this style:
However, teachers should adjust their styles in order to meet their students' needs, since every classroom
is different. What works well in one class does not necessarily mean that it will be effective in another class.
Each student and each group are different, and teachers need to identify which style will help that particular
group work more efficiently. Even more, a teacher may adopt different styles in the same group depending
on the situation.

These three styles pivot around teacher control, as shown in Figure 4. This main guiding principle can be
further broken down into three dimensions: people management or personality, instructional management
or teaching and behaviour management or discipline. These dimensions are further described for each
classroom management style in Table 1 below:

Classroom management: strategies and techniques

As already mentioned in the previous section, classroom management styles encompass three dimensions:
personality, teaching and discipline. Just as a reminder, these dimensions are described, using the words in
Djigic & Stojiljkovic (2011: 821), as:

We will follow these three dimensions to provide a set of strategies and techniques to help teachers manage
their classrooms successfully.

Personality: strategies and techniques

A) Seating plan
At the beginning of school year, it will be very useful to use permanent seating arrangements to help you
to learn your students’ names or take attendance, for example. This permanent arrangement can be modified
to adapt to the different learning activities in which students will be involved. Calling your students by their
names will make them feel that you know them and will be the starting point to build a relationship in the
classroom.

B) Classroom displays

In order to create a welcoming and motivational environment for students, showcase student work, posters,
visuals or maps. This decoration will let students know you value their work and, at the same time, it will
give them a sense of ownership.

C) Welcome students

Welcoming and greeting your students not only on the first day, but every day, will create a positive
atmosphere in the class, and will improve students’ academic engagement. Don’t just introduce yourself.

D) Share your story

It is important to let your students get to know you if you want to build a relationship with them. As in any
relationship, it is two-way channel. You can start by explaining to them why you went into teaching, or
what your interests and hobbies are, for example. Telling funny anecdotes will also boost the class
environment any time.

Teaching: strategies and techniques

A) Physical classroom organisation

The organisation of a classroom is crucial to allow the teacher and the students to move freely about the
classroom, to interact among them and to minimise distracting others or disruptive behaviour. A good
planning of the classroom space will let teachers and students identify the different instructional areas for
different teaching purposes. For instance, if the teaching activity is that students present their work to the
whole group, a space where students can sit down in a semi-circle would be necessary. Having different
corners or spaces will enable students to anticipate what kind of activity they will be doing and where they
need to go. This will make transitions run smoothly, which will result in maximising class time and in
minimising misconduct.

B) Variety of teaching activities

Use a range of different types of activities and different teaching methods when planning your lesson. This
variety will ensure that students will not get bored of repeating the same activity time and time again.
Besides, variety in teaching activities will enhance differentiated instruction, as it will cater for different
learning styles, for different types of intelligences and interests.

C) Giving instructions to students

Giving clear instructions to students will enable students to understand better what is expected from them.
Follow these tips:

 Use clear and precise language: short and complete sentences, nouns instead of
pronouns, concrete terms rather than abstract nouns.
 Repeat instructions: do not assume all students will understand the activity the
first time you explain it. Optionally, you can ask one student to explain or
rephrase what they have understood to the rest of the group.
 Explain the purpose of the activity: if students understand why they are doing
an activity, how it is connected to the content they are studying, it will be more
meaningful to them.
  Provide examples: if you can show your students examples of how to do an
activity, it will help them know what the teacher expects.
 Break the activity into chunks: if an activity involves a series of steps, divide it
into smaller parts, and provide directions for a single part at a time. Then, go on
to the second part of the activity and give instructions for this second part.
Continue until the task is completed. This is especially necessary when teaching
younger children.

Discipline: strategies and techniques

A) Establishing classroom rules

Rules are essential to set up a classroom framework that will guide students’ behaviour throughout the
school year. It is important to get students involved in establishing these rules as well as their consequences.
You can get them involved by:

 Brainstorming disruptive behaviour.

 Writing rules using affirmative sentences (e.g. treat your classmates with
respect). Using negative sentences create a more oppressive atmosphere in the
classroom.
 Establishing the consequences, both positive and negative. What will happen if
a student breaks a rule? How can you reinforce rules in a positive way? For
example, using stickers or behaviour charts.
 Getting students to make a poster with the classroom rules and display it in class.

B) Establishing classroom routines

Establishing classroom routines is a proactive strategy that will support the learning process by building
positive behaviours and controlling negative behaviour. The first thing a teacher has to do is identifying
class routines, like using the toilet, sharpening pencils, checking attendance, handing in or returning student
work, turn-taking, or getting teacher’s attention. Teach the expected behaviour for each routine and review
it frequently to ensure students’ understanding and teacher’s consistency.

C) Using positive feedback and reinforcement

Who does not like receiving a compliment after hard work? Everybody does and so do our students.
Providing positive feedback motivates them and predisposes them to repeat the positive behaviour. Follow
these tips to encourage them to keep doing their jobs well:

 Provide positive feedback immediately after the positive behaviour occurs.

 Be sincere and don’t overact.
 Address an individual student rather than a group.

D) Gamifying classroom management

 Using gamification is a powerful and recognised tool to grab students’ attention and boost their
interest in following expected behaviour. ClassDojo (https://www.classdojo.com/) is a free digital
tool that help classroom teachers track down positive and negative behaviours on each individual
student. Colao (2012, para 5, in Chiarelli, Szabo & Williams 2015: 83) claims that “teachers using
ClassDojo reported a 45% – 90% increases in positive behavior and a 50% – 85% decrease in
incidents of negative behavior”. Chiarelli, Szabo & Williams (2015: 83) continue to describe
ClassDojo stating that since this gamified online tool gives:
Definition of classroom interaction

The online Cambridge Dictionary (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/) defines interaction as: “an occasion
when two or more people or things communicate with or react to each other”. When applied to school
context, interaction refers to communication between teachers and students, and the different ways in which
this communication takes place is known as patterns of interaction, or interaction patterns. This
communication is fundamental in all classroom activity, and it determines the student learning achievement.

Selecting patterns of interaction is crucial and it influences all the teaching/learning process, from
the lesson planning to the learning outcomes, as shown in Figure 5 below:

An intrinsic feature when interacting is reciprocity, as it implies collaboration between the two
(or more) parties involved in communication. In a language learning class, the active engagement
of parties is even more important for language learning to take place, as explained by Sundari,
Rafli & Ridwan (2017: 100):

When teaching young learners, teachers have the advantage that they are naturally prone to talk
and interact, so they should take advantage of it to foster language learning. Naturally, when
children start learning the new language, they are able to communicate in a very limited way by
repeating chunks of language they have heard or practised beforehand. Nevertheless, they need to
have the change to be creative with language and interact with their classmates, who have a similar
level of cognitive and social development. Peer interaction offers them the opportunity to take
risks with language, as they feel more relaxed than when talking to the teacher, which boosts their
language learning. After all, as Vigotsky’s (1978) sociocultural theory states, learning is a social
process that takes place when interacting between peers, or with a teacher or an expert. Ellis (2000,
in Fahim & Haghani 2012: 694) argues that:
Types of interaction patterns

Choosing a specific interaction pattern for an activity serves a double purpose. On the one hand, teachers
need to think what teaching/learning aims they want their students to achieve when doing an activity. On
the other hand, a teacher needs to foster cohesion in the group because if students feel involved and they
identify themselves with their class, they will be more prone to engage in their own learning, thus playing
an active role in this process.

In this section, we will follow Ur’s (1996) classification of interaction patterns, as it is commonly used in
the specialised research. Table 2 explains the different types of interaction and their definitions, as
summarized by Sari (2018: 42):

Types of interaction patterns

Choosing a specific interaction pattern for an activity serves a double purpose. On the one hand, teachers
need to think what teaching/learning aims they want their students to achieve when doing an activity. On
the other hand, a teacher needs to foster cohesion in the group because if students feel involved and they
identify themselves with their class, they will be more prone to engage in their own learning, thus playing
an active role in this process.

In this section, we will follow Ur’s (1996) classification of interaction patterns, as it is commonly used in
the specialised research. Table 2 explains the different types of interaction and their definitions, as
summarized by Sari (2018: 42):

Let us see a few examples of some of these patterns of interaction, as illustrated by Sari’s study (2018). In
the closed-ended teacher questioning (IRF) pattern, the teacher (T) starts the interaction by asking a
question to students (Ss), who answer this question and they receive feedback from the teacher (T). So, the
interaction pattern that follows this structure: T-Ss-T. The following excerpt (Figure 6) illustrates this
interaction pattern when an Indonesian teacher (T1) made some comments on a short movie that the class
had watched.

Choral responses take place when the teacher (T) asks a question and gives a clue or a model that students
(Ss) repeat. The structure of this interaction pattern is T-Ss. Look at the following example in Figure 7:

In the student initiates-teacher answers pattern, the student (S) addresses the teacher (T) or asks a question.
The structure followed in this pattern of interaction is S-T. Figure 8 exemplifies this type of interaction
pattern:

When the teacher (T) initiates the interaction and different individual students (S) respond, the pattern used
is open-ended teacher questioning. So, the structure of this pattern is T-S. Figure 9 illustrates this type of
pattern of interaction in an Indonesian classroom:

Some of these types of interaction patterns are more teacher-centred, that is, the teacher takes most of the
talking time in class and is the main focus of the teaching/learning process, whereas others are more student-
centred, that is, the student plays an active role in their learning process and talks more time during class.
The relationship between the types of patterns of interaction and student/teacher centred approaches is
depicted in Figure 10.

Varying interaction patterns

Varying the patterns of interaction that we use in class is crucial to:

  Improve the students’ achievement of the proposed teaching objectives.
 Vary the pace of the classroom by making it more dynamic.
 Cater for diversity in the classroom.

What other benefits does it bring to the classroom? See Figure 11 to find out more reasons to change
interaction patterns during a class.

The benefits are notorious, so when planning lessons, teachers can not overlook the importance of varying
patterns of interaction. Luckily, this planning is not really challenging. All a teacher needs to bear in mind
is mixing some of these general patterns (Figure 12):

When a teacher plans a lesson, they need to take into account the learning aims and the interaction patterns
to be used during the class time to ensure that the lesson is effectively implemented and successfully
performed by students. The same activity can pursue different objectives and, therefore, require different
interaction patterns. For instance, a teacher wants to do dictation in class. This activity can be led by the
teacher or students can work in pairs. Table 3 displays the teaching aims and the teaching procedure or
steps for these two interaction patterns.

Non-personal verb forms

Gerunds

It is the -ing form of a verb (making, speaking, reading). They are used:

 After certain verbs (like, enjoy...): I like reading, I enjoy working.

 After prepositions (in, on, after, before...): I will be at home after studying.
 As the subject or the object of a sentence: Playing is good for children.

Infinitives

To + infinitive

USE:

 After certain verbs (decide): We decided to leave.

 After a lot of adjectives: It is difficult to learn this lesson.
 Meaning a purpose: I came to Spain to learn Spanish.

Bare infinitive (infinitive without to):

USE:

 After modal verbs (can, must, could, should...): You can teach English.
 After some verbs (make, let and sometimes help): The teacher let us finish the task.
 After some verbs of perception (watch, see, hear, notice, feel...): I watched her walk away.

The imperative

FORM

Verb + object (if needed): Sit down, shut up.

Negative = do + not or don't: Do not read this book / Don't read this book.

It is expressed by using the base form of the main verb, which is used without a subject. It is used:

 To give commands and orders: Don't talk; wait a minute.

 To give instructions: Open your book and read the text on page 2.
 To give advice or warnings: Do not forget to take your notebook with you; Be careful
 To make an offer or an invitation: Have a piece of cake; Came in.

The imperative of do + main verb can be used:

 For polite emphasis: Do take your coat off.

 To be persuasive: Do try to eat a little more; It will be good for you.
 To show irritation: Do stop talking! I am trying to explain this.

Making suggestions

We use let's (let + us) + main verb to encourage someone to do something with you: Let's visit the head
now; Let's go to the classroom now.

Negative = Let's not + main verb: Let us not forget that book.

Emphatic form = Do + let's + main verb

UNIT 4. LEARNING INDIVIDUALLY, LEARNING TOGETHER

Working individually

The first thing that we must clarify is what we mean by getting learners to work individually. This term is
self-explanatory, in individualistic learning students work by themselves, independently, to accomplish
learning goals.

In a context in which group work is gaining momentum, working individually has been and is being
relegated to a second plane in the classroom. However, we cannot underestimate the value of getting
learners to work individually when:

 the activity to be carried out is non-divisible, that is, it cannot be divided into
different parts to work in groups.
 the activity involves some sort of drill or practice.
 directions for completing the task are simple and clear.
 students are expected to succeed in completing the task.
 there are enough or adequate resources for each student.

Additionally, but not necessarily, individual work can be subsequently used to complete group work in
a more complex task like, for example, doing an oral presentation in class.

In fact, not all tasks are suitable for group work and learners perform better when working alone. This is
true for both offline and online learning. In the latter context, online learning, it has been studied and
concluded that certain types of tasks are more successfully completed when children work individually
rather than in pairs or in groups:

The main benefits of getting young learners to work individually, therefore, seem to involve three main
areas:

 On-task behaviour: they concentrate for longer periods when working on their
own.
 Off-task behaviour: they get less distracted than when interacting with peers.
 Task performance: they perform better in drills and practice tasks.

We may add a fourth advantage of individual work: personalising learning. When assigning individual
work and activities to students, teachers can cater for individual differences, learning styles and needs by,
for example, offering a choice in terms of the materials used to complete the activity. You can ask a student
to do additions by completing a worksheet, by recording themselves solving them, or by solving one
addition and jumping as many times as the number of the result. This way, a teacher could adapt the same
practice to different learning styles, in this case: reading/writing, auditory and kinesthetic.

Figure 1 summarises the main benefits of individual work in the classroom:

As already stated, the advantages of using individual work are meaningful. So, it is important to save some
time when planning our lessons to give students the time and space to work on their own.

Working alone: autonomy and self-regulation

In the recommendations of the Council of Europe (2018), the acknowledgment of the importance of
instilling and developing competences from early childhood is clear:

This is particularly necessary when referring to life-long learning competences: “[t]he importance of early
self-regulatory skill has seen increased focus in the applied research given the implications of these skills
for early school success” (2018: 84). Therefore, the Council of Europe recommends to:

Self-regulation and autonomy are two concepts that are intrinsically related. Learners who have these skills
are motivated and proactive in their learning process. These skills can be enhanced by making students
work individually and by introducing strategies and techniques that foster the development of these lifelong
competences. For example, in her study, Padmadewi (2016) proposes a series of techniques to lead
Indonesian students in primary school to have autonomous learning in the classroom. These strategies focus
on promoting autonomy and self-regulation in reading skills. Most of them are meant for individual work
and can be transferred to our own context:

 Empowering reading logs for initiating reading habits: giving choices of what
books to read and asking learners to set their own goals (how many books to
read a month, how long to read every day…).
 Evaluating the reading log: involving students in the evaluation process together
with the teacher (for example, asking students to reflect on their goals and
whether they had achieved them).
 Rewarding through Reading Rocket and other systems to enhance the power of
repetition: reinforcing positive behaviour through a point system or certificates
for achievements.
 Reading cards and journals: using reading cards to promote introspection
(students complete the cards/journals to think how they have learnt and what
they have learnt).

There are more strategies to increase learner autonomy and responsibility for other subjects and
contents. Figure 2 presents some strategies adapted from McCombs (2010).
Group work

Group work occurs when two or more students work together to achieve a common goal, which can be
completing an activity, learning some content or giving feedback to another group’s work. Each member
of the group is responsible for contributing to the common objective and for helping other group members
in the task. Thus, group work fosters an “atmosphere of achievement” (Panitz 1996, in Palmer, Peters &
Streetman 2003).

Group work brings benefits to students that go beyond enhancing cognitive development, as students
build deeper knowledge and understanding when they engage in meaningful interaction. Group work also
develops students’ social skills and teamwork skills, since they have to interact to complete an activity.
Some of these skills are conveyed in Figure 3.

Group work also promotes civic values, according to Johnson and Johnson (2002: 102):

Individual work and group work complement each other. Teachers can not only use one of them to
organize and plan their classwork. A combination of both is necessary for successful learning to take place.
The use of individual or group work will depend on the type of activity and learning objectives. For
example, a teacher may ask students to solve a mathematics problem following three steps:

Now, picture this situation: you are a teacher and you have prepared a group work activity, for example,
solving a puzzle. You group students and ask them to do the activity. Some questions arise:

Some teachers believe that grouping students and asking them to work together will make students
cooperate, be responsible and learn, and they feel disappointed when this does not happen. You hear
teachers making comments like: “group work does not work”, “getting students together is a waste of time”,
“some students do not work with their partners and just misbehave”. Effective group work does not occur
in the classroom as if by magic, there are some elements (Figure 4) that the teacher needs to take into
account when planning group work (Slavin, Hurley, & Chamberlain, 2003: 184-187):

For example, imagine that a teacher wants students to do dictation in pairs to review the water cycle. In
order to make sure that the group worked well, the teacher would need to structure the activity in such a
way that both students needed each other to finish it and that each student had something to do during the
activity. The text would have two paragraphs, student A would get paragraph 1 and student B would get
paragraph 2. In this way, the teacher would ensure that both students would be engaged during group work
and that they would need each other to do the task, as each of them would only have part of the material
necessary to complete it:

1. Structure interaction:

a. Student A dictates the first paragraph and student B copies.

b. Student A proofreads student B’s copy and corrects any mistakes.

c. Student B dictates the second paragraph and student A copies.

d. Student B proofreads student A’s copy and corrects any mistakes.

2. Setting goals: the specific goal of this activity is reviewing the water cycle. For so doing, students
will have to dictate each other part of a short text related to this content.

3. Individual accountability: both students will be engaged during the activity because they will be
either dictating, proofreading or copying. Each of them must perform their part well so that the group
successfully completes the task.

Making groups

Is there an ideal number of students for group work? The answer is it depends. If the teacher or the
students have no or little experience with group work, the best choice would be to start with pair work.
Why? It is easier to interact only with one classmate than with three or four at a time. It will make students
feel more comfortable and more focused on the task, and the teacher will feel they have some control over
what is going on in the classroom. When the students are more skilled or have more experience with group
work, they can work in groups of three or four. Larger groups can be more difficult to handle for
cooperation and to ensure that all group members equally contribute to the task (Bertucci, Conte, Johnson
& Johnson 2010: 270). In addition to teacher and student experience in group work, there are other factors
to consider when choosing the group size:

 Time: if the time for an activity is short, the group size should be short as well.
They will need less time to organise and start group work, and they will have
more time to interact.
 Task: if the task is simple, for example completing a worksheet, small groups
will work better. If the task is more complex or requires more students to
 perform it, for instance recording an advertisement, then a group of three or four
students would be necessary.
 Resources: the lack of enough resources for an activity may dictate the size of
the group. For example, in a class of twenty-four students, if you want students
to play a ball game to review some vocabulary and you have eight balls, then
group the children in groups of three.

Figure 5 summarises the key factors to consider when deciding group size.

Once the group size is decided, the teacher needs to consider how to group students. There are three main
ways of assigning students to a group: random selection, teacher selection, student choice. Each of them
has got its advantages and disadvantages, as Table 1 shows:

As you can see, there are advantages and disadvantages for each of them. Changing how you form groups
is probably the best solution depending on the students and the activities they have to do. The important
thing is that the teacher decides the way of making groups when planning the lesson, before the class starts.
This will make students feel you have planned the lesson and that you have the final say in class. Whatever
way the teacher decides, while students are working in groups, the teacher needs to get involved. Here is a
list of dos and don’ts a teacher should do while group work (Figure 6):

Managing group work

The final section of this chapter will provide some general guidelines on how to manage group work and
some problems that might have arisen while getting students to work together. Regarding the first issue,
group work management, we will consider three different moments to implement and manage group work
in the classroom (adapted from University of Waterloo Centre for Teaching Excellence (n.d.) and from
Palmer, Peters & Streetman 2003):

1. Planning group work

2. Implementing group work
3. Ending group work

When planning group work a teacher needs to do the following (Figure 7):

Once the task and group work has been designed, it is time to carry out the task in the classroom. How?
Follow the tips in Figure 8:

It is important to finish group work well, follow these tips to wrap up a group work task (Figure 9):

Ideally, when students get together to work in groups there would not be any problems or difficulties. But,
the reality is that there are. Not only in class, but also with other colleagues or with families. Have you
never heard comments like
How can we handle these situations? There is not one simple solution for every situation, but these tips can
be helpful (Figure 10):

Learning to overcome these and other difficulties related to group work is a process. However, the benefits
of group work for students are so many and so important for their personal development that taking a chance
on getting them together is really worthwhile.

UNIT 5. ACTIVE METHODOLOGIES IN THE CLASSROOM

Framework for 21st Century Learning

Education must meet the needs of society and adapt to new realities and new requirements. The history of
education has changed accordingly. Traditional education answered to the demands of the Industrial
Revolution era, in which uniformity and clear standards applied, and education was approached as a one-
size-fits-all model. Students’ abilities or interests were irrelevant, and there was a high degree of uniformity
in teaching styles and evaluation methods.

This traditional view of education has changed to adjust and adapt to the new reality of the 21 st century:

Dede continues to illustrate this idea with the following quote from the economists Frank Levy and Richard
Murnane (2004):
The competences and skills that students will need in their life are not, therefore, the same as those in the
20th century, not that long ago. Based on this assumption, advocates for a change in the educational
framework have raised their voices to adapt the educational framework to the new requirements of the
21st century. Among them, the most well-known proposal is the Framework for 21st Century Learning,
developed by Partnership for 21st Century Skills (now the Partnership for 21st Century Learning, or P21),
a “not-for-profit organization committed to collaborating with school systems and communities to realize
the power and promise of 21st-century learning for every student”
(https://www.battelleforkids.org/networks/p21). This framework proposes to integrate skills into the
teaching of core academic subjects. These skills can be divided into three categories: learning skills,
literacy skills and life skills, as shown in Figure 2.

The skills and core academic subjects find the necessary support systems (standards, assessments,
curriculum and instruction, professional development and learning environments) to ensure that students
“are more engaged in the learning process and graduate better prepared to thrive in today’s global economy”
(BattelleforKids 2109: 2). A summary of this framework is represented in Figure 3.

As it can be observed, the difference between traditional education and this new educational framework is
notorious. We have changed from content-driven education to skills-based learning, from a uniform and
one-size-fits-all model to a differentiated and personalised learning environment. This change has an impact
in all areas related to education, including methodology.

Active methodologies

What kind of methodology is needed for the teaching of the 21st-century skills? Traditional
methods perceive the learner as a passive recipient of content to be memorised and practised through
drilling, that is repetitive exercises with no context or connection to everyday life.
This is not the kind of methodology for the school of the 21st century. Nowadays, the learner plays an active
role in the teaching/learning process, and learning activities are contextualised so that students can practise
the skills in situations that emulate real contexts. Therefore, the required methodology needs to be active.
'Active methodology' is an approach that can be defined as:

What does this mean? What are the implications derived from this conception?

The advantages of using active methodologies in the classroom are diverse and have a positive impact on
students’ outcomes (See Figure 4 below). These methodologies engage students more deeply with the
course content and develop the 21st-century skills mentioned in the previous chapter. Learners become
more involved in the learning process and become more responsible for their progress, which results in
better academic performance as well as in more solid and long-term knowledge. They collaborate and
interact to build knowledge and make decisions that involve actions, which promotes a sense of community
in the classroom. Teaching becomes more personalised, as different learning styles, interests and attitudes
are catered for, and teachers give more frequent and immediate feedback that guides students in the learning
process.

The next question that arises is: what methodologies are more effective? There is not one single answer
to this question, it depends on the context, the student's needs and abilities, the teacher’s preferences and
personality, and the content to be taught. Figure 5 below shows the types of activities that foster more
active learning.
A close look at the learning pyramid shows that those methodologies that involve interaction among
students and which involve participation and practical tasks are more successful as regards deeper learning.
There are many active methodologies that can be used in the classroom setting, some of the most common
methodologies are presented in Figure 6.

Due to space restrictions, it goes beyond the scope of this unit to discuss all these methodologies. So, we
will introduce four active methodologies in the subsequent sections of this chapter.

Project-based learning

Project Based Learning (PBL) is a dynamic teaching and learning strategy or method that engages learners
in carrying out complex activities autonomously. Students collaborate in small groups for a period of
time, which can take from a few weeks up to a full term, by applying knowledge and skills “to investigate
and respond to an authentic, engaging, and complex question, problem, or challenge” (Temporaktif
Education 2017). The project requires that students produce a product to be presented in class or for a real
audience. This methodology aims to make students develop not only deep content knowledge, but also to
develop key 21st century skills such as critical thinking, creativity, collaboration and communication.

The video in Exercise 2 shows two of the phases that are used when doing PBL. According to the general
framework of PBL (Temporaktif Education 2017), the whole process of implementing PBL generally
follows three phases: planning, creating and processing. This general framework would be more complete
if it added two more phases: sparking interest and presenting. Thus, the proposed phases to implement PBL
in the Primary Education classroom are:
There are seven components of PBL that teachers need to take into account when planning their projects
(Han and Bhattacharya 2001):

Cooperative learning

Cooperative learning is defined by Johnson & Johnson, fathers of this methodology, as “the instructional
use of small groups so that students work together to maximize their own and each other’s learning
(Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 2013)” (Johnson & Johnson 2014: 841). Let us analyse this definition:

 Small groups: groups are ideally composed of three or four students, depending on the number of
students in the group. Groups of three will maximise their learning and reduce distractions.

 Work together: cooperative learning is not just group work, that is getting students together and
making them work without giving them clear instructions on how to do it. This type of group work
does not guarantee that everyone will participate or that a student does not take advantage of the
work done by a classmate. Teamwork is based on highly structured strategies or techniques that
ensure that each student is responsible of part of the task so to complete the activity.

 Maximise their own learning: as we will see, one of the principles of cooperative learning is
individual accountability, which states that students learn together but perform alone.

 Maximise each other’s learning: students interact and collaborate to learn together. They learn by
interacting with each other and there is a mutual responsibility.

According to Johnson & Johnson (1999: 26-28), there are five elements for cooperative learning to work
effectively:

 Positive interdependence: when organising teamwork, we must ensure that students perceive that
they cannot succeed unless their teammates also succeed (and vice versa). In other words, students
need to be aware that they doing their work is important and necessary for the group to complete
the activity. Students must believe that they sink or swim together How is this element achieved?
When preparing the activity teachers can make sure that all team members do something by:
o giving the group joint rewards, if all members of your group score 90 percent correct or
better on the test, each will receive 5 bonus points (p.26)
o making sure that the necessary resources for an activity are divided among the group
members, that is, giving each group member a part of the total information required to
complete an assignment (p.26).
 o assigning roles to each group member. Each role implies some responsibilities that
contribute to effective group work. Look at Figure 8 to see some examples:

 Individual accountability: As mentioned before, students learn together but perform alone. This
means that each individual student has to show or prove what they have learned individually. The
team has to make sure that each individual student learns the required content, so they have to help
each other, encourage and support group members in order to achieve a common goal, which can
be, for example, completing an activity or understanding new content. In the words of Johnson &
Johnson:

How can teachers promote individual accountability? Johnson & Johnson give these ideas (1999: 27):

o giving an individual test to each student

o randomly selecting one student's product to represent the entire group
o having each student explain what they have learned to a classmate.

 Face-to-face interaction: if positive interdependence is the heart of cooperative learning, face-to-

face interaction is necessary for group work to occur. Only when students work together, can they
be responsible to peers, have the ability to influence each other's reasoning and conclusions,
provide social modelling and social support (p.28). Cooperative learning gives students an
opportunity to explain and discuss various perspectives and to elaborate new knowledge building
from what they learn from their partners, which enhances a greater understanding of the activity
or content to be learned. All this elaborative thinking enhances the development of critical thinking
skills.

 Social skills: group work requires that students develop interpersonal and small group skills and
promote tolerance and respect to others’ views and opinions. Putting students together does not
mean that they have, as if by magic, they have to be taught by the teacher. Which skills to teach?
Johnson, Johnson & Holubec (1994: 45-48) categorise social skills into four levels:
o Forming: skills needed to establish a functioning cooperative learning group.
o Functioning: skills needed to manage the group's activities in completing the task and in
maintaining effective working relationships among members.
o Formulating: skills needed to build a deeper level of understanding of the material being
studied, to stimulate the use of higher quality reasoning strategies, and to maximize
mastery and retention of the assigned material.
o Fermenting: skills needed to stimulate reconceptualisation of the material being studied,
cognitive conflict, the search for more information, and the communication of the
rationale behind one's conclusions.
Some social skills under each category are conveyed in Table 1.

 Group processing: after finishing an activity, the group must reflect (process) how each individual
has worked in the team and how the group has functioned as a team and if they have achieved their
goal. Students need to think about their behaviour during task completion, whether they did their
part of the activity, about the effective use of social skills for successful teamwork. It is important
that students become aware of their strengths and weaknesses in order to improve the quality and
effectiveness of cooperative learning group work. Group processing involves discussion,
reflection and providing and receiving feedback from peers. All these processes help students to
develop metacognition and the learning to learn competence.

Figure 9 summarises the five elements of cooperative learning.

We will finish this section by providing some cooperative learning strategies or techniques that can be
used in Primary Education. We will introduce three strategies or structures and see them exemplified in the
classroom through these videos.

Thinking-based learning

Thinking-based learning is “a method of teaching and learning where the teaching of a specific thinking
skill is infused into the teaching of content or subject matter” (Nor’ain Mohd Tajudin & Othman 2019:
397). In other words, this methodology tries to develop students’ critical thinking skills by providing
a structure to their thinking process supported by graphic organisers. Like the previous active
methodologies, thinking-based learning is student-centred and contributes to develop 21st-century
skills in students, such as critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, innovation, collaboration, teamwork
and the use of technological tools. This methodology is not about helping students memorise content, but
about developing a deeper understanding of the content and how it relates to other content.
There are two leading figures in this methodology: Robert Swartz and David Perkins. Each of them has
developed complementary methods and procedures to promote critical thinking in students. In the following
video, Robert Swartz explains what thinking-based learning is and how it works.

On this video, Swartz explains how we tend to make quick decisions based on positive consequences. This,
he claims, leads to a lot of trouble in our lives. Therefore, he proposes to teach students how to think
skillfully. This way, students will be able to transfer those thinking skills (decision-making, problem-
solving, verifying the reliability of sources, part-all thinking…) to their everyday life in the present and in
the future.

David Perkins explains the importance of putting the focus on making students understand, rather than on
making them memorise. Only when they really understand, they can put that knowledge into practice.
Watch this video to see how he illustrates and exemplifies this idea.

Making students really understand and think skilfully undoubtedly brings many benefits into their lives, as
can be seen in Figure 10 below, which briefly outlines some of them.

See-think-wonder

This is one of the ‘core’ thinking routines in Project Zero and its purpose is to guide students through basic
thinking processes and help them to reflect and expand their creativity and curiosity. The graphic organiser
used for this thinking routine has three steps, an example of which is included below (Figure 11).

Compass points

This second thinking routine aims at helping students see an idea/argument/concept from different
perspectives, thus enhancing deeper thinking when making decisions or evaluating different options, facts
or ideas. A sample graphic organiser is included below (Figure 12).

3-2-1 Bridge

This thinking routine is really useful to develop students’ metacognition and make them think about their
learning process, as they have to complete this routine before learning the new material and after learning
the new material, so that they can compare what they knew and what they have learned. Figure 13 shows
a graphic organiser that can be used for this thinking routine from Project Zero.

Gamification

Using games in education is not new. Games have been, more or less, present in the classroom for a long
time. However, gamification is something different. This term refers to:
These authors put forward a set of elements that feature gamification and which are depicted in Figure 14.

Gamifying is not a simple process; teachers need to follow five steps to apply gamification in the
classroom, according to Huang & Soman (2013: 7-15):

 STEP 1: Understanding the Target Audience and the Context

o Target audience: the teacher needs to know the age of their students, their learning
abilities and experience with ICT tools.
o Context: the teacher needs to know the group size, the time they have to implement the
gamification, days and time when the classes take place (e.g. before or after the break),
the sitting arrangement, the ICT tools available to students.

 STEP 2: Defining Learning Objectives

o The teacher needs to know what the learning objectives are and how they are framed in
the syllabus. These goals may include general goals (e.g. doing an assignment), specific
goals (e.g. understanding a new concept) and/or behavioural goals (e.g. increasing
students’ engagement).

 STEP 3: Structuring the Experience

o Breaking down the learning experience into smaller parts will make the final task more
achievable for students. You can organise the activity so that students complete part of
the task in each stage.

 STEP 4: Identifying Resources

o Once the stages have been identified, the teacher can choose which elements are the most
appropriate for the game from the elements included in Figure 15.
  STEP 5: Applying Gamification Elements
o At this point, the teacher decides which gamification elements will use for their game.
These elements can be either self-elements (elements that get students to focus on
competing with themselves and recognising self-achievement) or social-elements
(elements that put the students in a community with other students, and their progress and
achievements are made public). Some examples of these two types of elements are
conveyed in Figure 16.

Gamification can be complex when a teacher gets started in this methodology, so the best option is to go
little by little introducing one or two elements of gamification in an activity and then increasing the
difficulty and the number of elements as the teacher gains confidence. The use of gamification elements is
known as game-based learning.

ICT tools can help teachers in this task, as it is a useful resource that facilitates the use of gamification or
game-based learning in the classroom. There is a range of ICT tools that can be very easily introduced in
the classroom and whose interfaces are familiar to students, who are used to using them in their everyday
life, so, according to Kiryakova, Angelova & Yordanova (2014: 2), using digital tools for gamification:

 “improves the abilities to learn new skills by 40%.”

 “lead to a higher level of commitment and motivation of users to activities and
processes in which they are involved.”

Additionally, Stott & Neustaedter (2013: 1-3) state the following benefits to students:

 Freedom to fail: in games, players have multiple lives or are allowed to start
again.
  Rapid feedback: personalised immediate feedback is another plus of digital
gamification.

 Progression: students feel they make progress as they pass to the next level or
the next game.

 Storytelling: most games use some kind of story, which provides a context for
the material to be learnt.

We are aware that there is a range of websites and applications that can be used to introduce gamification
or game-based learning. As it is impossible to refer to all of them, we have made a selection of some of
them that can be used in the foreign language classroom in Primary Education in Table 2.
UNIT 6. DESIGNING LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Learning activities

In this unit, we will refer to those activities that teachers plan and design with the purpose of using them in
the classroom, that is in a formal context, with a clear didactic intention. We will not cover learning
activities to be done outside the classroom. The following quote offers a first approach to the concept of
learning activities:

Notice that this definition does not refer to learning new content, but to how students understand it –make
sense of the new information–, how they develop skills and attitudes. These three elements need to be kept
in mind when designing an activity. Besides, activities must help learners to achieve specific learning goals.
It is the teacher’s responsibility to communicate and guide knowledge and skills with a view to bringing
about learning.

Wasserman, Davis & Astrab (2009: 5-6) propose ten characteristics for learning activities to be effective:

1. Align with course outcomes: learning activities need to be connected to course outcomes or
objectives.
2. Focus on student learning: any activity should support and ensure students’ learning, they should
have a clear didactic purpose.
3. Have a compelling purpose: teachers need to communicate the purpose of the activity so that
students understand their value and importance. When students understand the purpose and value
of the activity, they get more engaged.
4. Have clear objectives: teachers need to set specific objectives and communicate them to students.
These objectives should include content, skills and/or attitudes.
5. Support the type of learning desired: not all types of activities are appropriate for all learning
objectives. For example, if one of the objectives is that students practise turn-taking, the activity
needs to be done in groups.
6. Balance content and skill development: teachers need to reflect and balance the content and the
skills to be carried out by students in a learning activity. As Wasserman, Davis & Astrab (2009:
5) explain: “When a learner is exposed to something for the first time, content will typically receive
most of the attention. Later, the learner will want to focus on developing skills by applying this
new content.”
7. Support the needs of diverse learning styles: teachers need to consider inclusive learning when
planning activities. It is important to address the students’ preferences through multiple learning
styles.
8. Include assessment of student learning: student learning should be the focus of any activity. So, it
is necessary to assess if the activity succeeds in achieving the targeted student learning. It is
important that the teacher assesses the expected learning outcome to reflect on the efficiency of
an activity.
9. Include assessment of the activity: in addition to assessing student learning, the teacher and the
students should also assess the activity itself. The analysis derived from this reflection will be
useful to make any necessary adjustments to improve it or to adjust it to other learning styles.
10. Result from an explicit design methodology: some activities follow predetermined teaching
sequences and structures that a teacher can follow. For example, a teacher may use a jigsaw
activity, which follows cooperative learning methodology, or an activity of 3-2-1 bridge, which is
a thinking routines.

Figure 1 summarises these ten features of effective learning activities.

Types of learning activities

There is a wide range of learning activities that can be performed in the classroom, such as reading
activities, web quests, games, instructional videos, lecturing, workshops, thinking routines, debates, mind
maps, or role-plays. It is difficult to come up with a classification that encapsulates all these types of
learning activities. In this section, we will follow the typology proposed by Boise State University (n.d.),
which divides learning activities into three broad categories: didactic, active and collaborative. There is no
clear frontier to each category, so one learning activity can have features of one, two or even three
categories. However, the features of one of the categories are usually more prominent, more obvious, than
the characteristics of the other categories. Figure 2 conveys a definition of each category as well as some
sample activities.

The choice of the type of learning activity will be determined by the learning outcomes that the teacher
wants to achieve. A combination of all types should be considered when designing a course, as each type
of learning activity adds something different to the learners’ development. Figure 3 below offers some
examples for each type of learning activity, as well as some advantages and disadvantages for each of them.
Elements in the design of learning activities

In the third chapter of this learning unit, we will address the different elements that teachers need to take
into account when designing or planning learning activities, namely: activity title, learning objectives,
content, skills involved, interaction patterns (grouping), procedure or sequence/steps of learning events and
resources. We have already seen some of these elements in the preceding chapters, so we will focus here
on learning goals, content and skills.

It goes beyond the scope of this unit to cover how to do a lesson plan, that is, the teacher's guide for running
one lesson, or a course plan, which refers to planning a much longer scheme of work, in other words, the
content, objectives, activities that students will do during the whole course.

Learning goals

One of the guiding principles when designing a classroom activity is what learning objectives we want
students to accomplish. For example: do students want students to memorise or repeat new content? Do
they need to apply the acquired content to solve a problem? Do we want them to evaluate their partner’s
answer to a question?

Do these verbs (remember, memorise, apply, evaluate) sound familiar to you? They probably do. They are
part of what is familiarly known as Bloom’s Taxonomy (1956). This Taxonomy is a framework
for categorising educational goals which teachers use to create or define learning outcomes they want
students to achieve. These objectives are clearly expressed and constitute a shared framework that students
understand, so it facilitates communication between teachers and students.

Bloom’s Taxonomy was revised in 2001 by Krathwohl & Anderson, which is the one that is used nowadays.
Bloom’s Taxonomy comprises six levels of cognitive skills: remember, understand, apply, analyse,
evaluate, create.
According to their creators, these levels are hierarchical. This means that:

The fact that these cognitive skills are hierarchical does not imply that a teacher has to go through each of
them when planning a course for every new content they want to teach. It is enough if we take them into
account and use a variety of learning activities involving different levels to provide students with a range
of activities that will help them to achieve the proposed learning outcomes.

The lower levels of thinking skills in this Taxonomy are known as ‘LOTS’ (Lower Order Thinking Skills),
that is: remember, understand, apply; whereas the other three skills are known as ‘HOTS’ (Higher Order
Thinking Skills), which are: analyse, evaluate, create. If we connect this to the previous section, it can be
said that LOTS are useful for didactic learning activities, while HOTS apply to active and collaborative
learning activities. Figure 4 depicts graphically the hierarchy and the division of cognitive levels into
LOTS and HOTS.

This theory sounds good, but how does it really connect with the day-to-day at school? Bloom’s Taxonomy
offers teachers a clear framework to set learning objectives for students so that they understand the purpose
of a learning activity. To facilitate this task, we attach below (Figure 5) a toolbox to guide teachers on
specific learning objectives for each cognitive level. This toolbox is not all-inclusive, but it is a starting
point to start designing learning activities. Click on the figure to download a pdf with the toolbox.
As you will see, it has a set of verbs for each thinking skill. For example, for “remember”, the lowest level,
one of the verbs is ‘recall’. A teacher would use this verb as a starting point for defining a learning objective.
We will illustrate this through the following examples in Table 1:

Content and language skills

As in any profession, teachers need to comply with the existing legislation. Although it is not our purpose
to discuss the educational law at this point, we need to refer to some elements on it: the evaluation criteria,
contents and language skills. The evaluation criteria describe the overall result of the learning that is
intended to be evaluated in the students, at the same time as they offer guidelines to facilitate a teaching
practice that guarantees the acquisition of competence learning. Therefore, they should be the starting point
and the reference point for planning the teaching process, for the design of learning situations and for their
evaluation, as they connect the elements of the curriculum: objectives, content, competences, assessable
learning standards and methodology. In this section, we will only focus on the component of content.

The contents of a subject are embedded in the table for each evaluation criteria of any curriculum. Let us
take as an example the curriculum of the English subject for Primary Education of the Canary Islands
Autonomous Community, which comprises 8 evaluation criteria for each Year
(https://www.gobiernodecanarias.org/cmsweb/export/sites/educacion/web/_galerias/descargas/curriculo-
primaria/AnexoI_Primaria_Lengua_Extranjera.pdf). As the new curriculum of the Ley Orgánica de
Modificación de la LOE (LOMLOE) has not been developed yet, we will take as a reference the current
Education law, Ley Orgánica para la Mejora de la Calidad Educativa (LOMCE) from 2013. Figure
6 shows the third evaluation criterion for the English subject for Year 5, which is related to oral and written
interaction.

A sample activity for this is shown in Table 2, which includes the title, learning goal and contents of this
collaborative learning activity.

As you can observe, the learning goal is to interview students, which corresponds to the third level of
cognitive skills in Bloom’s taxonomy: apply. In this case, students would have to apply prior knowledge
to carry out this activity. In other words, students would have done some activities to remember and
understand the content included in the table and would use that knowledge to successfully complete this
learning activity.
People who have a skill demonstrate the ability to do something well; for example, a skilled tennis player
wins matches. We are not necessarily born with a skill to do something well. Usually, skills are developed
during life and they need to continue to be consolidated and practised or we can easily lose those skills. For
example, if a tennis player stopped practising, would he continue to be a skilled tennis player?
Language is a skill:

To be completely effective in a language we need to be competent in the language skills as well as in

thinking about language. Language skills are classified into three main types, according to the Common
European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR, https://www.coe.int/en/web/common-
european-framework-reference-languages/home), launched in 2001 by the Council of Europe. Language
skills can be productive, receptive or interactive. Production skills, also known as active skills, and
reception skills, also called passive skills can be described as follows:

As expressed in this quote, production and reception skills are intimately related and they are both necessary
for effective communication. The way we assimilate a second or foreign language is similar to the natural
process when we acquire our mother tongue. We first need to be exposed to the language before we actually
start producing the language.

Regarding interaction skills, according to the CEFR:

Interactive language skills can be considered as ‘secondary’ skills in the sense that they are really a modality
of productive skills, that is, of speaking and writing skills. Interaction involves the participation of two or
more individuals and during the interaction, all four skills (reading, writing, listening and speaking) take
place. In this sense, they involve communication among individuals.

The language skills that are included in the curriculum of Primary Education converge with the language
skills in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Council of Europe 2001a).
These language skills are visually presented in Figure 8, which does not include the new language skills in
the last update of the CEFR (2020, https://rm.coe.int/common-european-framework-of-reference-for-
languages-learning-teaching/16809ea0d4), which will presumably be also incorporated in the new
curriculum for the English subject in Primary Education in the LOMLOE.

As a way of example, the collaborative learning activity shown on Table 2 above would include the
following skills, as shown on Table 3. Notice that we have added another learning goal to make it explicit
which language skills students will address in this activity.
The CEFR includes a selection of activities for each skill that can be used for each skill. Figure 9, Figure
10 and Figure 11 convey a mind map with a range of types of activities for each skill, adapted from the
CEFR (Council of Europe 2001b).

We will conclude this section by putting together all the elements that have to be included when designing
an activity: namely: activity title, learning objectives, content, skills involved, interaction patterns
(grouping), procedure or sequence/steps of learning events and resources. We will continue with the same
collaborative activity as we have been using so far, adding the missing elements in Table 4.

Notice that we have added one more learning goal. Since the main interaction pattern for this activity is
pair work, students will also develop social skills that are necessary for group work. In this case, the teacher
will ask students to respect their partner’s turn without interrupting them. As regards resources, as this
activity focuses on speaking interactive skills, no specific materials are needed. They will use their
notebooks and the course textbook to review useful vocabulary and expressions before carrying out the
activity.