CASE STUDY 2

Considering that you are teaching to a group of students in year 2 of Primary Education, how would you
provide a meaningful context for learning? What type of activities would you prepare for your learners
to participate and practice using the Foreign Language?

(INTRODUCTION)

The final goal in teaching English as a foreign language is the development of ¨communicative
competence¨, that is, to enable the learner to communicate through oral and written language in real and
meaningful contexts. Indeed, this is what is stated in the article 17 of the Law 3/2020 of Modification of
the Organic Law 2/2006 on Education (LOMLOE), establishing the general objectives for Primary
Education, which says that «Primary Education will contribute to the children development of the skills
that will allow them to: objective f) Acquire, in at least one foreign language, skills to enable them to
express and understand simple messages and function in everyday situations.» Therefore, in order to
develop this communicative competence by focusing on the four macroskills, the teacher has to prepare a
wide range of contextualised and meaningful activities that will provide the students with situations and
social interactions (pair and group work) that will be close to their age, reality and interests.

(DIAGNOSIS AND JUSTIFICATION)

However, the most common FL teaching situation at the moment is one inside a classroom, where
the teacher is face to face with the pupils, in groups of various sizes, for a few hours of lessons each week,
and which can only be considered natural in relation to scholastic traditions and to the way institutions are
run. Such situations are not, a priori, the most suitable for learning a new language and putting it into
practice in exchanges which are related to real communicative needs.

Therefore, the primary concern of FL teachers is the creation of as many ways as possible of giving
their pupils an appetite to learn. The way children learn a FL, and therefore the way to teach it, obviously
depends on their developmental stage. In the year 2 of Primary Education, in this case, children are aged
between 7 and 8 years old. According to Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development they are between the
¨Pre-Operational¨ and the “Concrete Operational Stage”, which means that they start to reason logically
about concrete events and classify objects into different sets. So, it would not be reasonable to ask a child
to do a task that demands a skill that they have not yet developed.

For that reason, our Curriculum Act in force, Decree 198/2014 which establishes the Primary
Education Curriculum in the Region of Murcia (Decree 97/2015 modified by the Decree 181/2020 on the
Organisation and the Primary Education Curriculum in the Autonomous Community of Andalusia), provides
a systematic progression of the curricular elements of each subject attending to the students’ needs and
capacities.

This same Decree, in its article 13 (article 8) provides some methodological guidelines in which we
find among others the following recommendation:

- Teachers will promote that students apply learning to different contexts.

- Contents can be organised in thematic units which are close and meaningful to the students.

- The methodology will be oriented towards the development of the key competences.

Additionally, the Order of 20th of November of 2014, establishing the Organisation and Evaluation
of Primary Education in the Region of Murcia, (this same Decree 97/2015) offers some orientations about
organisation and distribution in the school and the classroom which aim to teamwork, collaboration, and
the use of the school facilities and environment to ensure a better education.

As we can see, the legislation references in our Autonomous Community of the Region of Murcia
already give us some ideas on how to plan and prepare the context and the type of activities for our
students that can be applied to any subject, including the First Foreign Language area.

(DIDACTIC SOLUTION)

In the FL classroom, one fundamental aspect to provide a meaningful context, and close to the
reality of the students and the reality of the world where this FL is spoken, is preparing a physical
environment within the classroom where everything is arranged to facilitate linguistic and non-linguistic
understanding from the part of the students. The teacher can make use of a wide variety of resources to
be displayed in the classroom which represent to some extent the real context of the countries where the
FL is used. Thus, posters, real objects, toys, magazines, books, clothes, etc., preferably from the English-
speaking countries, can be presented to the students and be part of the decoration and arrangement of
the classroom.

The availability of these resources can be a problem sometimes, since we may not have access to all
the materials we would like to have at some point. However, the use of new technologies has eased in
some way this access, and now we can buy online or download a lot of those resources from the English
world.

The FL teacher, in coordination with the tutor teacher may have to his/her own disposition an
English corner in the classroom where all of those FL materials could be shown. Throughout the year, that
corner could not only be used by the teacher, but also for the learners’ works or projects to be displayed.
 On the other hand, another aspect to take into account, and probably the most important one, is to
provide the students with sufficient opportunities to use the language in real and meaningful contexts. This
type of activities, in most cases, will approximate the students more closely to the kind of communication
situations encountered outside the classroom, where language is not only a functional instrument, but also
a form of social behaviour.

Among the wide range of communicative situations that we can plan for our students to practice
the FL in year 2 of Primary Education, we may say:

➢ Presenting the FL language as an instrument of communication by all means in the FL

classroom. For example, establishing routines where the FL will be used such as the calendar,
the weather, attendance, saying hello and goodbye, asking for permission, sharing, etc.

➢ Introducing out-of-school situations to be practised. For example, introducing oneself, going

shopping, going to a restaurant, visiting a museum, etc. In this case, the most appropriate
technique to be used is usually role-playing or dramatisation.

➢ Playing games where the FL is used. For example, ¨who is who?¨, ¨Pictionary¨, ¨Hot Potatoes¨,
¨puzzles¨, ¨riddles¨, ¨Scattergories¨, etc. In most of these games there might be a cultural and
social factor that will contribute to the students’ development of other competences.

➢ Singing songs from the English-speaking countries. Most of our students are sometimes
interested to know the meaning of specific songs they hear out of school. This is a good
opportunity to use that interest and introduce some aspects of the target language.

➢ Reading authentic or semi-authentic books in English. As we know, at this age our students like
to be told stories. They provide a rich source of linguistic and sociocultural background.

➢ Establishing a strategic partnership (Key Action 2 project from Erasmus+ programme) with other
European schools. Thus, our students will be able to share linguistic and cultural aspects of their
own countries using the FL as a means of communication.

➢ Creating a FL class blog, wiki or webquest where the teacher can post some photos, videos or
documents to be viewed and worked by the students at home, with the possibility of making
some comments using the FL.

As we can see, the scope of communicative activities is really broad, and it ultimately depends on
the organisation of the teacher (sometimes even the school) and the atmosphere that the teacher and
students create. Therefore, the role of the teacher must be to carry out an initial or diagnostic evaluation
of the students’ motivation, their needs and capacities.
 Furthermore, and concerning the students with specific education support needs, the law LOMLOE,
in its article 19.4 about Pedagogical Principles, states that ¨flexible and alternative methodology in the
teaching and evaluation of the foreign language will be provided to students with some disability,
especially for those with oral expression difficulties¨. Therefore, special attention will be paid on providing
contextualised tasks and activities that allow understanding and participation on the part of the students.
The measurable learning standards will serve as a reference to check to what extent our students have
attained the intended evaluation criteria, and therefore, the objectives and key competences.

(CONCLUSION)

As a conclusion, we can state that a proper methodology and the appropriate use of resources to
create optimal conditions for learning the FL must succeed in the students’ development and acquisition of
that language.

The right selection of communicative activities and the decisions taken by the teacher for the
management of the FL classroom will lead to the appropriate development of the students’ communicative
competence, which is the final goal in foreign language teaching.

(BIBLIOGRAPHY)

Some of the references that we have used for the development of this case study are:

• Littlewood, W. (1991) Communicative Language Teaching. An Introduction. Cambridge, Cambridge

University Press.

• Brewster, J., Ellis, G. and Girard, D. (1992) The Primary English Teacher’s Guide. London. Penguin
English.

• Law 3/2020 of Modification of the Organic Law 2/2006 on Education (LOMLOE)

• Royal Decree 126/2014, of 28th of February, which establishes the Primary Education Curriculum.

• Decree 198/2014, establishing the Primary Education Curriculum in the Region of Murcia.

• Order of 20th of November of 2014, establishing the Organisation and Evaluation of Primary Education
in the Region of Murcia.

• Decree 97/2015, modified by the Decree 181/2020, establishing the Primary Education Curriculum
in the Autonomous Community of Andalusia.