Theoretical Background
Below you can find a few key excerpts from our original Design Proposal for this project. This is primarily intended to share out thinking and brainstorming process with you so that you can understand and apply some underlying theories from which this curriculum has been built. It's certainly not necessary for you to read this in order to use this World Adventure curriculum, but it may be fun to read and engage with.
We have removed in-text referencing from this to make it a more conversational read, except for instances in which there are direct quotes taken from the text. However, should you like to do some further reading yourself, you can consult our full reference list on the Videos, References and Further Reading page of the Teachers Guide.
Enjoy!
Key Frameworks
This group has chosen to put together a design project targeted at English Second Language (ESL) learners between the ages of 7 and 13 years old who have an intermediate English language ability. We intend to develop an integrated curriculum in which we provide the teachers with a guide to the materials and educational structures that encourage learner-centred project work and media-based resource appropriation whilst learning. This curriculum will attempt to increase and expand the students’ current understanding and use of the English language but will not be founded on specific level or goal achievement. Instead, there will be a focus on authentic and situated language practice through constructionism-style activities mediated through technological resources and devices. This project will be designed as a 4-week open-source curriculum intended to be used as trial in an ESL classroom environment. The teacher will be provided with the theoretical framework, curriculum material and support guides for the desired student interaction patterns as well as models and examples of how to develop assessments with and for the students. When the trial is completed, the hope is that teachers or schools can use the concepts from these 4 weeks to develop longer curriculums more tailored to their environments in which they can draw on the initial structures they were provided by this design. Our activities will be designed upon and rooted in the constructionism learning and teaching theories from Seymour Papert, Lev Vygotsky, Don Norman, Sugata Mitra, Brennan & Resnik, Mouza & Levigne and the New London Group. We will not be able to encapsulate and manifest their ideas in their entirety but will rather be taking on and developing some of their key concepts.
From Brennan, Resnick and Papert we will draw a constructionist framework for our design. The project will therefore emphasise a social and interactive context that places a high value on the pedagogical role of media. Furthermore, students will develop or produce concrete instantiations of abstract ideas through tangible outputs, intelligent manipulation of objects and a sense of failure as being a normal step in a refining process. The project will also entail a lot of collaboration in which students will integrate talking and reflecting when problem solving. Learning will therefore be situated alongside media manipulation and participation in a classroom community environment. The educational design will work within the taxonomy of Mouza & Levigne in which technological use supports learning to understand and create, learning through collaboration, anytime and anyplace learning and we may be able to integrate learning by gaming if appropriate open source structures are found. The resource appropriation projects for the students will also encourage the flexible learning developed by the aforementioned scholars and will develop interaction through projects of participation, social networking linked to content authoring, playful experimentation with output intention and adjustment and shifting of provided resources through micro content authoring and improvement.
Since this project will rely on collaboration between students, media and resource appropriation as well as DIY creations, the work of Vygotsky will be vital in framing and guiding these activities. Vygotsky outlines a large comparison between independent problem solving and problem solving under guidance of a teacher or in collaboration with more capable peers, the latter of which he totes as more effective. This approach will be rooted into the foundation of the project as well as amended to fit framework in which the teacher is also able to shift emphasis off themselves to encourage students to problem solve by finding guidance in the form of instructional videos, blogs, podcasts. This will also aid students in developing resource finding systems. In this DIY environment, we are wanting the project to foster independent knowledge development in students beyond teacher or peer assistance, which can be successfully achieved if technology is used as a practical tool for accessing knowledge beyond the immediate classroom environment to inform their learning. The work of Sugata Mitra in his hole in the wall experiments offer strong evidence that this approach could be highly successful for a young learner environment. Furthermore, Mitra’s research has interesting applications to the acquisition of language through technological problem solving and media use which we would like to explore further in this ESL environment and the associated curriculum we are designing for it.
This design clearly also rests on the idea of affordances provided to students and teachers by the technologies and media we suggest integrating into the ESL classroom environment. We will be engaging with the notions put forward by Don Norman in attempting a subtle distinction between artefact and affordance and will be closely attending to the conceptual models of social knowledge networks and writing to select appropriate affordances for the learning environment we are designing for. Lastly, our design project will heavily rely on the work done by the New London Group as we analyse and supply pedagogical frameworks and support for multiliteracies that are intended to shift classroom environments to be tied to more tangible social futures that the students will be situated in. We will be informed by the new global framework that integrates technological tools, varying communication platforms, group collaboration, independent input, and use of language and meaning as modes of representation (New London Group, 1996). In this manner, our curriculum design will point toward nourishing multiliteracies in students that are embedded in the current cultural, institutional and global order. This will occur on a macro scale in the context of our curriculum and a microscale in the curriculums developed by the schools and teachers that are modelled from our initial trial. problem solving
Key Concepts and Contexts
This design project focuses on creating a constructionist platform to enhance both the English language development and learning experience for ESL students between the ages of 7 and 13. The context for this platform is a constructionist approach to design, which will be applied to language acquisition. The framework draws upon a wide range of academic scholarship such as the theories of Vygotsky and Papert but it also focuses upon Jonassen & Land’s work on student-centred designs. In this context, the learner defines the meaning and within this, it is important to recognise that individual perspectives affect understanding. Further, this platform will encourage exploration and learning by doing, whilst simultaneously enhancing students’ English language skills. As Dewey argues in his work on experience and education, there is “no point in the philosophy of progressive education which is sounder than its emphasis upon the importance of the participation of the learner in the formation of the purposes which direct his activities in the learning process…” (Dewey, 1938, p. 67). Rather than looking at one small section of language, this platform will include individual experience and construction alongside students practicing the necessary skills to develop their English language abilities.
By developing this platform, we expect students to demonstrate grammatical competence through identifying letters and numbers and by demonstrating the ability to follow simple syntax rules. Students will also come to understand that sentences connect to create a larger story or conversation. New vocabulary will be introduced, and students will be encouraged to use this in their own representations. Practically, students will be computer literate and know that logging into their account and pressing ‘play’ will allow them to engage with the content. By combining multiple skillsets, as well as their own creativity, the students will know how to apply their knowledge through interpreting and labelling media. With varying levels of teacher scaffolding, students will identify that they can manipulate media into their own representation. Further, this project aims to enable the student to make critical decisions on what resources, media and applications they use. The ESL learners will know how to apply self-learning methods in the context of language acquisition and recognise that they can learn language with resources they select and structure themselves. The information will not be given to them; rather, the learners knows that they can decide for themselves what is important to include through situated practice. The students will also work in groups and learn that collaborating with others on knowledge production can enhance their learning experiences.
The theoretical framework will allow teachers to know that a constructionist model in their ESL classroom can further enhance English language development. The curriculum material and support guides provided to teachers will enable them to develop successful strategies to support learners in this context. The four-week trial is intended for teachers to be introduced to, and then to further engage with, a constructionist approach to design. At the end of the trial period, it is anticipated that teachers will acknowledge the success levels of this approach and embark on shifting their teaching practice and lesson plans to envelop constructionist design style. Both the teachers and students will benefit from the online structure and from the ability to learn to demonstrate flexibility in where and when it occurs.
Intentions and Positions
The intention of this design is to create a curriculum in which students will gain an enhanced understanding of English as a Second / Foreign Language through exposure to authentic English media; by manipulating that media, they’ll demonstrate and reflect on their understanding of applied language skills. In doing this, students will use language rather than first grasp theory and then apply as in a traditional classroom. Because there are no explicit levels or benchmarks in this design, it’s expected that students will acquire or polish skills by doing. Making their projects or work understood to other students and to their teachers is their primary goal and shows a deep understanding of English. As the project is entirely online, students will have an increased competence in using language in an online or digital context (situated practice), thereby promoting multiliteracy from a young age. By encouraging students to use and rethink or reframe already-produced digital artefacts, their learning is scaffolded. As in traditional ESL/EFL classrooms, students will practice reading, writing, listening and speaking skills, be introduced to grammatical structures and idioms, pronunciation patterns and writing styles. Rather than having students learn about these skills and then produce material, they face the challenge of learning and applying language in context. Though a teacher can help to guide students through the program, students will be largely self-regulated, creating their own trajectory and reflecting on their own learning. Rather than dictating an assessment pattern, teachers are encouraged to develop their own forms of evaluation in keeping with the students’ use of the curriculum.
Scholarship offers a good support for this set of educational goals. ‘With learning occurring as much in out-of-school settings as in traditional school settings, [...] boundaries are blurring making it necessary to create new avenues for curriculum development, new forms of teaching and learning, and new ways of organizing how students and teachers interact (Collins & Halverson, 2009, as cited in Mouza & Lavigne, 2013). Such a program will bridge the gap between ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ learning, keeping students in their Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky, 1978). While traditional schooling or programs have focused on reading, writing, listening and speaking, we plan to build on and develop the skills necessary for children living in a digital age. It’s hoped that the design and implementation of this online program will ‘bolster student technological literacy, transform the quality of instruction, and enhance student learning outcomes’ (Mouza & Lavigne, 2013, p. 8).
In a globalised context, the ability to self-teach or self-acquire language abilities is vital for a work population that may travel for work and function in a variety of linguistic and cultural environments. Self-teaching language skills are therefore also valuable beyond the ability to have English as a Second language and rather be applicative to other language contexts as they continue past their school environments. Applied language skills are paramount to becoming a successful language learner and user. In the past, many ESL or EFL programs focused on acquiring skills in a classroom that could later be used in new academic or professional situations. ‘Knowledge of the skills alone limits transferability and usefulness unless it is complemented by social interaction dictated by the real purpose to communicate and manipulate meanings’ (Adebe, 2013, p. 135). For this reason, we’ve centred our design around existing media that will contextualize vocabulary, grammar structures, idioms and ideas.
This fits with a more current view of situated learning, as ‘educational researchers have placed increased emphasis on a situated view of knowledge and learning as a means of helping students understand how what they learn in school applies to real-life situations’ (Greeno, 2006, as cited in Mouza & Lavigne, 2013). It also fits with the new pedagogical model of multiliteracies put forward by the New London Group that tries to align education with the new global culture of communication and collaboration in online and real-world work environments. It encourages creative problem solving in a modern climate in which there are many different platforms to learn, often under time pressure and constraints, which requires adaptable students with self-teaching skills and teaching resource finding ability. A more critical engagement with subject matter through media re-appropriation can also possibly develop thinking skills that would allow for more well-rounded citizens able to respond to social challenges and changes within our political climates. Having students engage with current, relateable media will situate and contextualize their learning. For students, being able to choose or personalize their media and programs leads to the development of an L2 self.
‘The ideal L2 self-captures individual ideas about the language learner/speaker one wants to be in the future. The discrepancy between the person at present and the imagined possible future self contributes to the motivation to close the gap by learning language’ (Dörnyei, 2014, as cited in MacIntyre, 2017). We hope that by offering students the ability to learn in a situated, contextualized environment, they’ll explore what it means to be a user, rather than simply a learner, of language. It could be argued that an informal, contextualized approach to learning may not adequately prepare students for standardized testing. It also might be argued that the language of such a program may not be ‘academic’ or applicable to future academic settings, or that the informal culture of such a design may not be transferable to future academic pursuits. Our design project seeks to add to classroom instruction rather than replace it; it could be used as part of a blended learning classroom or as a self-directed extracurricular activity. Because barriers to computer use in classrooms can include investment into personal computers for each student, our design’s flexibility in assessment, structure and delivery lends itself well to group work or mobile access, which may close the Participation Gap. Mouza & Lavigne state that ‘mobile media can be used to connect learning to place, to build and extend interests, and engage learners in a range of complex, authentic learning activities' (2013, p. 9). By capturing students’ interest with an accessible, interactive program at a young age, they may build a solid foundation for the authentic development of their L2 self.
With increasing multi-language classrooms and multimodal delivery systems, important that children are acclimatized to the culture of learning English online from an early age. Early learning would foster lifelong skills that students may transfer across country and academic boundaries. In order to gain a deep understanding of language, it’s imperative that it be applicable rather than theoretical; this learning of the past is simply not developing the skills needed by 21st century learners. If all students were to engage in early situated learning, this would mitigate many of the later cultural interventions (such as Internationalization and ESL classroom support) that many Canadian and North American institutions face today. By designing a learning environment that supports early language and multiliteracy development, our design intends to alleviate some of these long-standing issues, helping students to achieve their language, academic and personal goals.
