PROGRAMMES AND PATTERNS OF WORK

This chapter contains guidelines for creating or adapting work programs and explains how
English can be cross-curricular.

Some teachers are required to work very closely to a given syllabus. Some more or less have to
create their own programmes within rough guidelines. Others have to create the whole
programme for themselves. Whatever our circumstances, that is to say, however much external
guidance or control there is of what we teach, we always have to make choices at some level
about what happens in the classroom. Having identified our priorities and their practical
implications in Part I, we are now in a better position to make consistent and effective choices
rather than haphazard decisions.

The priorities and realities discussed in Part I will help teachers to decide if, why, and how to
adapt their programme or coursebook, if they have one, to suit particular classes. They will also
underpin any decisions we make about creating our own schemes of work. Finally, they imply
the steps we can take to integrate language work and other work in the curriculum. These
concerns provide the topics for the three chapters in this second part of the book. This section,
like the first, ends with detailed practical suggestions for classroom activities. 4 Working with a
coursebook. 5 Working without a coursebook. 6 Integrating language work and other subjects.
Practical Activities 2

1. Working with a coursebook.

This chapter looks at three aspects of working with a class coursebook: -- choosing a
book; - supplementing the book if necessary; - planning your progress through the book.
There are two common but extreme attitudes to coursebooks. The first is that it is wrong
to deviate to any appreciable extent from what you have been given. The second is that it
is wrong not to! Not only are both of these views unhelpful, they have also missed the
point. The question is not 'Is it a good idea or a bad idea to use a coursebook extensively?'
The important questions are 'What does the coursebook do well?' and 'What does the
teacher do better?' When we have answered these questions we can each decide to what
extent using a coursebook will suit our particular circumstances, what kind of coursebook
will be appropriate for us and our classes, and how best to use it.

The coursebook helps the teacher by providing:

- a clearly thought out programme which is appropriately sequenced and

- structured to include progressive revision;

- a wider range of material than an individual teacher may be able to collect;

- Security;
 - economy of preparation time;

- a source of practical teaching ideas;

- work that the learners can do on their own so that the teacher does not have

- to be centre stage all the time;

- a basis for homework if that is required;

- a basis for discussion and comparison with other teachers.

The coursebook helps the learners by providing a teacher who is more secure because of
all the above. It also offers the learners:

- a sense of purpose, progression and progress;

- a sense of security;

- scope for independent and autonomous learning;

- a reference for checking and revising.

Together these make quite an impressive list of advantages. No doubt you could add
others. However, there are several things that the teacher can often do better than a book,
which are vital to successful language teaching and which tie in very closely with the
priorities identified in Chapter 2. For example, the teacher is usually much better than the
coursebook at:

- providing the spoken word in spoken exchanges,

- adjusting work in response to the reactions of the children;

- using communication other than words and pictures to back up language

- elements;

- setting up learning activities which encourage learners to talk and profit from

- interaction.

We need to keep these points in mind when choosing a coursebook.

Choosing a book for whole class use is always something of a leap in the dark. It may
well be that you will not have a really good picture of its suitability until you have been
working through it for some time. However, identifying the potential strengths of
coursebooks generally, as above, can give us a starting point for looking at the strengths
or weaknesses of any specific book. On this basis, we can make ourselves a list of
 questions about a book we are considering. If you set the questions out as a chart which
you complete by blocking in a score from 1–5 (1 is poor, 5 is very good) you can get a
clearer picture of the potential of any book. By dealing with several books in this way,
you then have a comparative basis for making a decision.

2. Working without a coursebook.

Many primary language teachers will have to work out their own programme in one way
or another. Some teachers may have one coursebook as a resource book for themselves
but none for their class. Others may have been given a syllabus in the form of a list of
topics to work on in any way they choose. Some of you may have to work the whole
programme out from nothing. This chapter offers one way of constructing your own work
programme. It is suitable not just for teachers in schools, but also for those who are
working independently It would also be useful for those who are working with children
under eight years old, for whom a formal syllabus is only rarely provided.

It is, in fact, surprisingly daunting to have the freedom to do what you like! However, the
task is not as difficult as it may look. You will need to sort out three main things:

- How to give the programme a unifying thread and identifiable purpose.

- What topics to include and what to include under any particular topic.

- How frequent and how long language lessons should be if it is left to you. We will
look at each of these in turn.

Both teachers and learners need a programme which clearly has purpose and coherence.
Learners need it because we all learn better if we can see what it is we are trying to do.
This is for two main reasons. As learners:

- we need to know where to direct our energies;

- we need to have a mental framework into which we can fit new knowledge

and understanding. Teachers need a clear and coherent programme because:

- they too need to know where to direct their energies;

- it provides a central path through the otherwise limitless complexities of a

language.

3. Integrating language work and other subject.

Recent language acquisition theory stresses that one very powerful way we 'get hold' of a
language is by receiving and producing real messages. So, learning other things in
English will help children to learn English. In the process, they will be handling real
meaning rather than just words and structures for their own sake.

There is also a third, more pragmatic reason for integrating language work and other
learning. Both teachers and learners benefit from bringing existing skills and
understanding to bear on new areas and from encountering familiar ways of working
when meeting an unfamiliar focus of teaching or learning,

Even if there are at least three good reasons for trying it, most teachers initially find the
idea of integration rather unrealistic. They either doubt their own ability to do it or they
think it will be too difficult for the children. However, as this chapter intends to show,
there are forms of integration which are worthwhile without being too complicated and
difficult for either the teacher or for the children. This is because there are several key
elements which language work and other school learning have in common.

If you compare the work you do in language lessons and the work you do in other
lessons, you will find that however different the content of the lessons, in certain respects
they build on the same processes.

In particular, those processes are:

- diagrammatic representation of information;

- repeated pattern;

- understanding through seeing;

- responding by doing.

It is these key elements in common between the subjects which will help us to integrate
language work and other learning even with learners in the early stages. It is therefore
worth looking at them a little more closely.

A diagram or chart enables us to handle complex information more easily and concisely
than we can through straightforward text. For example, if railway timetables were written
out in continuous sentences, they would be almost impossible to read. A diagram can also
show relationships and significance more clearly than can the written or spoken word
alone. The chart on pages 114-115, for example, enabled us to see the implications of our
answers about the advantages and disadvantages of a coursebook much more clearly than
if we had just answered the questions without setting them out diagrammatically.

Children encounter diagrammatic information in all subjects. In maths and science

particularly, they are themselves encouraged to learn how to express and read ideas
diagrammatically. The illustration at the beginning of this chapter is a good example. The
children are asked to read the words and draw in the appropriate picture. So, for example,
in one column they draw a small cat and then a tall cat. Or they might work across the
diagram and draw in a small cat, then a small girl, then a small boy, etc. The exercise was
originally a mother tongue maths exercise designed to teach children the concept of
coordinates. In fact, it works equally well in the early stages of English as a reading
exercise which demands an active response.

This is because language classroom work also builds on activities which carry and record
information in chart form. The grids in Practical Activities 1 are another example. So,
clearly, the handling of information in this way is an element common to other subjects
and to language study and can clearly provide one starting point for integrating the two
types of work.

The role of repeated pattern

The second starting point is the role of repeated pattern in all learning. Pattern is
fundamental to understanding and learning. It is the way we store information in our
brains. It is the way we make sense of the physical world about us. Patterns and
observation of pattern are central to maths and science.

Pattern is also the way we make sense of language. Our sense of grammar is a sense of
pattern. That is why small children produce regular but wrong forms of verbs such as 'I
eated', 'He goed'. It is why they can form plurals for words they have never met before.
Good language activities exploit this sense of pattern. So here too is a common starting
point.

Understanding through seeing

Seeing as a source of understanding is central to language work. This is because we do

not just take meaning from language. We get hold of a great deal of our mother tongue by
taking meaning to language. If we understand the message, we start to understand the
language. If we understand the language, we get the message. There is a kind of
reciprocal and mutually reinforcing relationship.

But, unlike the proverbial chicken and egg, we do in this case know which comes first;
understanding the message, since this happens before we have any active language of our
own. Something other than language must carry messages. That something else is what
we see, hear and feel going on around us. In fact, seeing as a key source of understanding
is not just an element of language learning and acquisition. It is an element of all good
teaching. Again, science and maths work make particularly full use of seeing in order to
understand. Here then is the third shared element which gives us the potential for
integration.
Responding through doing

Even in our mother tongue we do not always respond to language withblanguage.

Sometimes this is because just doing something is itself the most appropriate response to
a language message we have received. After all, if someone asks us to open the door for
them, it would be odd to say 'I will open the door for you’. We simply do it. However,
physical response is also one of the ways in which we handle partial understanding.

Not only does integration seem a good idea, but we can also see that there are common
elements between language lessons and other lessons which will help to make it work.
The next and most vital question, therefore, is what we can actually do in practice to
encourage integration both in outward events and in the children's minds. It is, of course,
always possible to slip little bits of English into other work. You can, for example,
include an occasional English poem in mother tongue classes. Or you can teach the
children an English song when it is time for music. Similarly, it is not difficult to do
simple sums with English numbers. But we are looking for something more substantial
than this, whether it be for teachers who only teach languages or for teachers who are
also class teachers and therefore already teach other subjects.

We can look for ways to:

- use work from language classes as the basis for work in other lessons;

- take techniques which the children are learning in other subjects and use them

- to promote language work;

- use topics from other subjects in language lessons;

- teach other subjects wholly in the target language.

In maths, children are going to learn at some stage to record information classes to record
information diagrammatically. They will be making pie charts and block graphs to show
provide material distributions and correlations. They normally do this with information
for work in other gathered from various class surveys showing, for example, how far
from school lessons the members of the class live, likes and dislikes, who has what pets,
and so on. Usually, these surveys are conducted in the mother tongue as part of the maths
lesson. Some of them, just as easily and far more usefully, can be done in the language
lesson. After all, the interview grids suggested on page 68 are designed for the class to
use in order to find out about each other's preferences, possessions and circumstances.
Although their purpose is to practise certain questions and answers in the foreign
language, they are an eminently suitable source of the material needed for the maths
lesson. So, what better than that the children do the survey in the foreign language class
and use the results to apply their maths?