Introducing English in the first grades of primary school: The teachers’ response and their emerging training needs

Introducing English in the first grades of primary school: The teachers’ response and their emerging training needs

“New foreign language education policies in schools:

learning English in early childhood”

code. MIS 299506, 299512 & 299514

Poliglotti4.eu Expert Seminar on Early Language Learning

9-10/2/2012Leeuwarden, The Netherlands

The Greek EYL Programme

Dr Evdokia KaravasFaculty of English Studies

University of Athens

The EYL Project

The project entitled “English for Very Young Learners” is part of the Action: “New foreign language education policies in schools: learning English in early childhood”

Action: New foreign language education

policies in schools: learning English in early childhood

Project: English for Very Young

Learners

The project is co-funded by the European Social Fund and the Greek state through the Regional Operational programme (Education and Life long learning), is implemented by the University of Athens and realised by the Research Centre for English Language Teaching, Learning and Assessment of the Faculty of English Studies (http://rcel.enl.uoa.gr).

The project

Design and development of the curriculum, the syllabi, the learning materials and

tasks (for the first and second grade of primary school) and the design of an e-learning

educational portal for teachers and parents.

Training of teachers appointed to teach English in the first

and second grade of primary school for

the first time

Evaluation (internal and external) of the

project which seeks to monitor and assess the implementation of each

phase of the programme and each stage of the training

programme.

The internal evaluation will take place during the first two years of the project implementation (2010-2012), while the external evaluation will take place during the third year (2012-2013).

The external evaluation will be carried out by experts in the field who will also act as plenary speakers in an international conference that will be held in Spring 2013 for the dissemination of the project results.

The project (launched in 2010) involves the introduction of English to students of the first and second grades of Greek public primary schools and is part of the wider interventions in the educational system implemented by the Ministry of Education for the development of the New School.

The project consists of three main actions

The project implementation timeline

Development of the curriculum and learning materials and tasks for first/second grade learners; implementation of the programme in 800 all day primary schools throughout Greece.; development of the EYL educational portal; information seminars to school advisors and primary school teachers; specialized training of 15 in-class teachers (project partners) in teaching English to Young Learners (June – August 2011); bottom up evaluation of the materials; revision of materials for the first grade and development of materials for the second grade; internal evaluation of the project; development of the textbook for the third grade of primary school (available online http://rcel.enl.uoa.gr/peapabc/cclass.htm)

Implementation of the revised materials and tasks for the first and second grade in 950 all day primary schools; ongoing evaluation of the materials for the first, second and third grade; development of online teacher training modules and materials for face to face training; training school advisors and trainers; ongoing internal evaluation of the project; hard copy development of materials for the first and second grades in the form of a dossier.

Nationwide implementation of EYL programme in the first and second grade of primary schools; ongoing training all primary school English language teachers; external evaluation of the Project ; monitoring of the nationwide implementation of EYL during which teachers will be asked to develop cross-curricular activities (in cooperation with teachers of other subjects and primary school teachers).

2010 - 2011 2012 - 2013

2011 - 2012

The EYL curriculumThe curriculum…

…is learner centred and task based facilitating the development of learners’ cognitive, social, affective, psychomotor skills.

…taking into account Greek young learners’ needs and interests aims at the development of social literacies that learners have

already developed in their mother tongue and the development of learners’ intercultural awareness

…consists of a series of graded tasks on familiar everyday topics organised in cycles which correspond to each school semester.

All material is accessible and downloadable from the EYL websitehttp://rcel.enl.uoa.gr/englishinschool

http://rcel.enl.uoa.gr/peapabc

Tasks

Each task is accompanied by description, aims, teacher notes on activity implementation, supplementary materials (activity pages,

pictures, songs, stories etc)

First year of EYL project implementation:Baseline and formative internal evaluation

Baseline evaluation - September-December 2010:

Survey of the profile of 897 teachers engaged in the

project through a questionnaire completed

during the information seminars and online.

Survey of the profile of school units through online questionnaires

that were filled in by the pilot school headmasters. They provided

information about their schools, their teachers and their students.

The data was used as a springboard for reports and articles written by

the Project Team.

Collecting data from 1135 teachers across the country that

took part in information seminars organised by School Advisors.

Information about the teachers was collected through school

advisor reports of their seminars.

Survey of parents’ attitudes and views whose children attended

EYL project classes (7250 completed questionnaires). The survey was conducted through

questionnaires distributed by the English language School Advisors.

First year of EYL project implementation: Formative - internal evaluation

175 teachers who taught in the first and second grade evaluated the educational

material by filling in questionnaires distributed by the School Advisors.

The teachers evaluated the educational material and reported on their experience.

The results of this evaluation were used by the materials development team (consisting of practising teachers) for the revision and enrichment of the first and second grade

tasks and materials .

At the end of the 2010-2011 school year, online questionnaires were filled in by 405

teachers in order to evaluate the entire Project.

Data was collected with regard to their experience, their cooperation with other colleagues, their students and the school

units.

The data collected were analyzed and evaluated for further development and

improvement of the EYL Project.

Investigating the profile of first and second grade primary English teachers

Questionnaire elicited data on

Questionnaire completed by 897 teachers (163 online and 734 during information seminars)

2010-2011: 800 all day primary schools throughout Greece, 2000 teachers

a) teachers’ background

b) the composition

of classes

c) availability and quality of

school resources

d) teachers’ perceived difficulties

in teaching young learners

e) teacher identified

training needs

28,9%

39,7%

31,4%

Age

25-35 years old 36-45 46+

40,2%

35,2%

22,8%

Teaching Position

permanent positionhourly paidseconded from secondary schools

Profile of teachers: Biodata

1-5 years 26,9%

5-10 years19,9%

11-20 years47,9%

Teaching experience in the public sector

65%12,9%

22,1 %

Teaching experience in primary/secondary education

experience in primary education experience in secondary educationexperience in both

Profile of teachers: Biodata

YES 38,3

%

NO61,7

%

Experience teaching very young learners (under 8)

BA in English Language and Literature80%

BA other

3%

MA in

Lan-guage Teach

ing 10%

MA other 5% PhD 1%Postgraduate students 2%

Profile of teachers: Biodata

Profile of teachers: Biodata

50,6 %49,4 %

Teaching first/second grade

taught either 1st or 2nd grade learners taught both grades

89,4%

10,6%

Attitudes towards the intro-duction of English in the first

and second grade

positive or very positivenegative or neutral

Profile of classes

Teachers reported having on average 20 students/class

89,6% reported having 1-10 learners from different ethnic backgrounds in

1st grade

92,3% reported having 1-10 learners from different ethnic backgrounds in

2nd grade

Learners attending English lessons outside school

% teachers

No of first grade students attending English lessons outside school

% teachers

No of second grade students attending English lessons outside school

16,8% 0 2,5% 0

62,5% 1-5 43,2% 1-5

15,2% 6-10 36,7% 6-10

3,7% 11-15 12,1% 11-15

1,9% 16-20 5,4% 16-20

Teacher perceived difficulties in dealing with young learners

Do you experience difficulty with the following:

Great difficulty % Some difficulty % No difficulty %

Getting learners to concentrate on task

17,2 75,9 6,8

Training learners in following class rules

23,8 70,2 5,9

Training learners in respecting others

15 70,7 14,3

Adapting activities to suits the needs of my class

3,8 49,2 47

Designing appropriate activities for my class

7,3 51 41,7

Dealing parents’ concerns and anxieties

2,9 32,8 64,6

Cooperating with class teachers

4,3 16,6 79,1

Accessing writing materials 27,1 49,5 23,4

Lesson plans

Activities/materials

Audiovisual materials

Guidelines for teaching young learners

Model lessons

Websites with EYL activities

syllabi

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

5.7

60.6

19.9

10.3

8.5

5.9

1.4

% teachers (437 responses)

Need for extra material

Comparing teaching experience with perceived difficulties

Teachers with no experience with very young learners……reported having difficulties or great difficulties in dealing with young learners (training in

following classroom rules, helping learners concentrate on the task at hand) and in designing and adapting activities for very young learners.

Teachers with experience reported experiencing less difficulty in these areas

Comparing teaching situation and postgraduate studies with perceived difficulties

secondary school teachers

seconded to primary school

primary school teachers

Marked tendency for secondary school teachers seconded to primary to experience greater difficulties in dealing with students and in designing appropriate activities than their primary school counterparts.

Marked tendency for teachers with postgraduate studies but no primary teaching experience to experience greater difficulties than their less advanced but experienced counterparts in dealing with young learners and designing activities.

Non experienced teachers with postgraduate

studies

Less advanced but experienced

teachers

Findings and their implications: Facts, realisations, decisions

Fact 1

• Over half of our teachers were well experienced (11-20 years of teaching experience) and over 60% had experience teaching in the primary sector BUT despite their experience these teachers had never received formal systematic training in young learner methodology.

• 1/3 of our sample were novice teachers (1-5 years) and lacked any kind of formal systematic training in EYL methodology.

• Over 60% of our sample did not have any prior teaching experience with very young learners which meant that the majority of our teachers were not familiar with the special characteristics and challenges posed by the particular age group.

• In the vast majority of EYL project classes a significant number of students are from different ethnic backgrounds and are learning English as a third language

Realisation

• The training programme addresses a very diverse group of teachers with a wealth of different training needs.

Decision

• The training programme had to include a range of general and more specialized training modules in order to cover the needs of the less and more experienced teachers.

Findings and their implications: Facts, realisations, decisions

Fact 2

• As data from the teacher profile were being analysed we were informed that due to school mergers which were decided by the government as one measure against the financial crisis, the project schools in the following year would rise to 960. As a result of these mergers, the teaching body in project schools would change by 40%.

Realisation

• Designing a long term coherent training programme with face to face seminars spanning the three years of the project is not viable due to constant changes in the composition of our teaching body

Decision

• The training programme had to be viable and sustainable regardless of changes in the composition of the teacher body or in the composition of our trainer group. The training programme had to be coherent offering training in more general areas of EYL methodology and progressively leading to training in more specialized areas

Findings and their implications: Facts, realisations, decisions

Fact 3

• We had managed to collect data from less than half of our project teachers despite the fact that a) seminars by school advisors were offered throughout Greece and b) teachers also had the option of completing the questionnaire online. This shed doubts on the effectiveness of the cascade model of training in this particular context.

• Given that a number of our project schools are located in remote areas and islands in Greece, providing face to face seminars to these teachers is extremely costly in terms of time, money and human resources.

Realisation

• Difficult to ensure the quality and “reliability” of training through the cascade model. Difficult to coordinate and manage a large group of trainers (who have not specialized in EYL methodology) and to ensure that a consistently high level of training will be delivered to all project teachers throughout Greece.

Decision

• The EYL training programme could not focus exclusively on face to face seminars delivered by trained multipliers. In order to ensure that all teachers have the same training opportunities, in terms of quantity and quality, the training programme should take the form of a distance learning on line programme consisting of a range of training modules each focusing on a different area of EYL methodology and responding to the needs of the less and more experienced EYL teacher. The online training modules will also be developed for use in face to face seminars organised by school advisors.

6. Dealing with parents

5. Storytelling for young learners

4. Organising theatre activities and class

events

3. Using games & crafts

2. Using chants & action songs

The EYL training programme: Training Modules

1. INTRODCUTIONUnderstanding and

managing the young learner classroom:

Teaching Young Learners

The pre-primary learner

Teacher as Manager: Class Management

Teacher as materials developer (T's Kit)

Using the L1 and L2 in the young learner classroom

Culture through Language

Cooperating with the school principle and fellow teachers

Each module consists of:

a) lively powerpoint presentation with information relating to the module theme

b) extracts from videotaped EYL project lessons

c) pre-while-post viewing activities

d) awareness raising and self-assessment quizzes

e) suggestions for further reading and suggested sites with related material.

The training programme 2012-2013

Development of three further training

modules

Developing cross curricular projects

Using technology in the young learner

classroom

Assessing young learnersMaking the on-line

training platform more interactive

Questions?

Thank You!

The Greek EYL Programme