Paper N 23 Titulo: Literacy with very young learners Sub theme: EFL in Diverse Contexts

Autora: Myriam Abalos Non-member

myriamabalos@gmail.com

Teaching very young learners in different contexts is a real challenge for teachers. It has to do with the basic combination of routines and thinking skills, kinaesthetic work and the building of confidence through significant games and ideas that promote trust and a sense of industry (Erikson, 1963 in Williams & Burden, 1997) in supportive, stimulating environments. Teaching implies the idea of transformation (Freire, 1969) and this word seems to have a twofold purpose. Nowadays it is said that real learning (Holt, 1969) occurs when what is learnt is really meaningful (Ausubels Meaningful Learning Theory, 1965 in D. Brown, 2000) for the learner, no matter the circumstances in which said learning is applied, in formal as well as in informal education. The question is: what is significant for a fiveyear-old child? As soon as we are in contact with kids this age, we realize that the here-and-now is the answer. Children want to know what happens around them and how and when they can play with others, which of course implies knowledge of the rules of interaction and games. In summary, they want to discover what is still unknown to them. Children are naturally curious; therefore, helping them unravel the world around them in a natural and playful way definitely becomes what is known as significant learning. At the same time, the idea of transformations has to do with the obvious negation of reproduction (Moore and Hendry, 1990). Politically speaking, reproduction also holds philosophical and sociological ideas based on cultural capitalism and symbolic violence. Are schools uniform? (Bowles and Gintis, 1976 in Bilton, 1996). Are the central values of society equally transmitted to new generations? Why is culture always (considered to be) arbitrary? Reproduction also holds the old view of the educational system in which techniques, strategies, contents, ideas were repeated automatically to form habits. According to this behaviouristic learning view, a childs mind was considered a tabula rasa, empty box or blank slate (Lightbown and Spada, 1993); therefore, each learner was supposed to receive and drill contents or ideas already thought of, already mastered by someone who knew more and had the authority to conduct the whole process. In conclusion, the concept of transformation represents not only a different social perspective of education, but also the new trend of thought-provoking ideas ready to be developed by someone who wants to know and discover by him or herself what learning is all about.

Consequently, transformations in young learners can be real if they are fostered from kindergarten onwards, through significant ideas and contents put into practice in order to be re-discovered, re-invented and experimented by all students every time this is required along their truly diverse learning processes, as we know that we all learn in different ways. My approach was based on stressing the idea of meaningful learning and on emphasizing the use of games, songs, ludic activities and kinaesthetic tasks in general that could actually promote a natural learning situation. Through my pilot scheme, I could demonstrate how I have coordinated the teaching of English to Very Young Learners through meaningful classroom materials and activities in difficult contexts. As a teacher trainer, I have always observed and assessed primary and high school courses and, because I have been trained for this, it is not difficult for me to think of activities, aims or strategies for the different levels. But kinder was a new area of implementation, since six or seven years ago there was no teacher training college for kindergarten in English in our country. However, when, in one of the institutions (Teacher Training College) where I work, I was asked to send my trainees to practise in kindergarten, a new perspective opened up to me. The knowledge of the social constructivist theories (Williams and Burden, 1997) of how small kids learn was one thing, but implementing the what, how and why was completely different. Consequently, I worked really hard trying to make my student teachers feel comfortable with the new experience. It was one thing to improve my own teaching, since I had worked in kindergarten at bilingual schools for many years; it was another to try to tell someone what to do and how to do it. Besides, these kids had never been exposed to a foreign language, as the schools I was made to choose from were Argentine state schools. At first, my attention was focussed quite naturally on my student teachers! They had to succeed in doing this, and above all, they had to show what they were learning through their internship course. Little by little my attention was fully absorbed by the small kids and by what they offered us. This is why I have decided through this paper to demonstrate how the teaching of Literacy, i.e. the development of Reading and Writing (together with Listening and Speaking) can be fostered from Kinder 5 in different learning contexts through the use of teachers observations and consequent actions to help very young learners to set off building their own identities. It is important to know that the experience of how little kids can and do learn English in state schools in our country was actually carried out through a real, applied pilot scheme in Ciudad Autnoma de Buenos Aires at different schools. (Abalos, 2006) The first question that should be asked is: what is Literacy? What does it imply? How and why is it important to promote Literacy in the early stages of learning a foreign language? The starting point is to reflect on what the process of reading is and what it implies from the central viewpoint that all learners learn to read in different ways. According to Gary and Maryann Manning (1996: 1) Young children construct many notions about reading and writing long before they begin kindergarten. In fact, some children can actually read and write before they start school; others find learning to read and write relatively easy once they start school. We have found that children who become literate at an early age or who become successful readers and writers share several common characteristics: 1) they have been read to regularly, 2) they have had

many opportunities to handle books, 3) they have seen parents and other adults read and write for real purposes and for enjoyment and 4) they have been encouraged to express themselves through writing.. There are clearly different analytic and synthetic approaches that explain the learning of reading from distinct and multiple viewpoints. What is it that kids note or ignore when they begin to pay attention to the written word? Do they notice similar characters? Do they first pay attention to pictures or to letters or words? In summary, What does learning to read and write imply? (Schickedanz, 1993) What is the connection between the progressions from the physical to the cognitive skills (Cameron, 2001) in the development of writing? Does writing merely mean the drawing of the letters? What are reversals or mirror writing? What are doodles and mock letters? Are they necessary? What is the meaning of pre-writing skills? What is the importance of projective space in childrens writings? (Piaget, 1967 in Schickedanz, 1993). Cultural differences dictate to kids the conventions of reading and writing as well as those for listening and speaking in their native languages along with the social conventions through personal, communicative experiences in their different cultures. All different theories explain a piece of the puzzle. Young kids construct many notions about reading and writing long before they come to school. Clearly, I agree with the belief that the development of reading and writing starts at home and it is context bound. In general, different and varied home and later school experiences and activities help to foster high levels of literacy development. Children read the context of language, the situation at hand, and in this way they obtain clues about the meanings of words and sentences. What changes as kids get older is the way they read and write, not the basic nature of what they attempt to do. Children have to learn to answer fundamental though implicitly subconscious questions such as: Should I respond to this conversation? Should I request something verbally if I want it? How should I grasp a book? Shall I read it right side up from front to back and from left to right? Is this the first letter of my name? Is the sound and name of this letter the same or different? What is its shape? How should I hold the pen? Is this a real letter? Do different words form a sentence? Can print be read? Does print represent spoken language? Is this a story? Is it familiar to me? Summarizing, am I an emergent or a beginner reader and writer? (Schickedanz, 1993). It must clearly be understood that learning to read and write has to be taught to small kids as they follow predictable stages which demonstrate understanding, awareness, production and appreciation of reading and writing or print in general. The role of the adult is fundamental as different studies show that children who are made aware of different literacy aspects become proficient in a shorter time than those who are not. Helping children to think (Smith, 1990) seems to be the key for the achievement of these issues. Through play, children assume different roles and engage in routine-like behaviours associated with listening, speaking, reading and writing experimenting as well as initiating expertise. Therefore, it is absolutely fundamental to focus on literacy steps or stages that are essential and that all learners go through in a normal developmental process in the same way as babies do when they learn to talk, to walk and even to hold things. High in importance for the development of literacy skills is story reading as well as the teaching of key literacy concepts and strategies through the use of folk tales. Kids

enjoy being told stories, learning about characters, comparing and contrasting them with different versions, discussing perspectives through dramatizing, predicting endings, singing, visualizing and making connections, in summary, asking questions about the text. Another important aspect for the development of literacy skills is the use of the new interactive technologies that are present in daily life. These new approaches or possibilities emphasize the role of visualization and, very early, children begin to recognize that symbols carry meaning and that certain words in print carry consistent meanings, which obviously facilitate the understanding task. As a consequence, we, teachers, often tend to underestimate little kids even after they have already demonstrated to us their clear awareness and sometimes use of print long before it has been taught. As a result, the use of multimedia resources and the new technologies are absolutely advisable to enhance the teaching of literacy and language in general to very young learners. There are several fundamental reasons which prove the importance of the development of literacy skills in young learners. First, the new theories of second language acquisition state that small kids learn better and faster. Secondly, the sooner literacy is promoted, the better the results are. Thirdly, difficult contexts should not be an obstacle to transform education and finally, we, as teachers, should foster educational equity. As Fisher (2005: VII) says: All human beings have a basic right to the full development of their minds and of their capacity for learning. There is a growing realization that the development of individuals and of communities depends on education, and on the quality of teaching and learning. The needs of individuals and the needs of society meet in the need to develop lifelong and autonomous learners, students who value learning as an empowering activity, who want to learn independently and who have self-determination, self-directions and self-respect. We need to develop students who can effectively participate in society and meet the challenge of rapid social change. For teachers the challenge is how do we foster the learning that will help achieve these goals? Strengthening educational quality is one of the main aims all professional teachers should encourage in the teaching of language and literacy skills since it implies the use of multimedia resources and cultural knowledge which are essential for the kids future. All kids should have access to this knowledge as it is necessary to promote the acquisition of different topics in meaningful ways following the contents and routines done in kinder despite the problematic contexts that children might live in. Therefore, schools should become smart institutions (Perkins, 1997) which promote and generate real, practical knowledge and positive, productive thinking as the vehicles to learn and develop no matter the individual, familiar circumstances that each child has to go through.

References: Books: Williams, M. and Burden, R. (1997): Psychology for Language Teachers. Cambridge. CUP. Freire, Paulo (1969, 2004): La Educacin como Prctica de la Libertad. Siglo XXI. Editores Argentina. Holt, J. (1969, 1982): How Children Fail. England. Penguin books. Moore, Stephen & Hendry Barry (1990): Sociology. Great Britain, Hodder and Stoughton. Barcelona. Anagrama. Bilton, Tony et al (1996): Introductory Sociology. Macmillan Press Ltd. Brown, Douglas H. (2000): Principles of Language Learning and Teaching Pearson Education Company Longman. Lightbown, P. and Spada, N. (1993): How Languages are Learned. China. OUP. Schickedanz, J. Schickedanz, D, Hansen K. & Forsyth, P. (1993): Understanding Children and Adolescents. (Fourth Edition). Mayfield Publishing Company. Smith, F. (1990), To Think. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University. Fisher, R. (2005): Teaching Children to Learn Second Edition. United Kingdom. Nelson Thornes. Cameron, L. (2001), Teaching Languages to Young Learners. London: CUP. Abalos, M. E. (2006): Real, Applied Transformations from Kinder. Buenos Aires. Editorial Dunken. Perkins, D. (1997): La Escuela Inteligente. Gedisa.

Articles: Manning, Gary and Manning, Maryann (1996): Supporting Children's Literacy Development before Kindergarten. University of Alabama at Birmingham. Reprinted from Focus on Infancy, Summer 1996, Vol. 8, #4. Focus Newsletter: Focus on Infants & Toddlers. http://www.acei.org/infec.htm