Didáctica

Informal Learning and the Teaching of English at Primary School A Literacy-based Project Work

Falabella M.  * 

Mona Lisa Smile (2003)

First words

Over time, men and women have invented, created, built up and used an infinite number of objects: tools, crafts, costumes, among others. These objects, together with the books and articles written, photographies taken and interviews carried out, are testimonies that talk to us about different societies. When a historian takes the decision to put into practice a research work, making questions about the origin and the use of those objects, for instance, is paramount. Thus, these materials become source of rich information that paves the way for the reconstruction of the history of any culture. Fortunately, museums and public libraries have been created to preserve this cultural heritage and are those informal scenes of education the ones that are open not only to investigators, but also to every single member of a society.

It is the aim of this article to show the way, we, educators of a new century, can create meaningful and cross curricular teaching sequences, relating and interrelating the above mentioned informal contexts with formal ones as the school is, and explicitly expose the way the teaching of English at primary school should be understood, considering the foreign language under question as a means to reach an end and not as an end itself.
In the subsequent passages, I will start by stating the main differences between formal and informal contexts in connection with both teaching and learning aspects, to further devote some paragraphs to deeply explain the impact of informal contexts as new scenes in education. Finally, I will exemplify the way informal contexts, like public libraries, can become the place to implement a cross-curricular, literacy-based project work, relating Literature, Language, History, the Teaching of English as a language that differs from the mother tongue, and incorporating the formal context, as well.

Knowledge is like a garden: if it is not cultivated, it cannot be harvested (African Proverb)

Informal Learning and Formal Settings

Informal learning can be defined as an emergent paradigm within the field of theories of learning, which seeks for the systematization of teaching-learning effects in new contexts.  The context of informal learning is characterized by fostering the development of interesting and relaxing tasks, through which the acquisition of knowledge is not paramount and the topics dealt with are neither fixed nor structured.  Because of the aforesaid, the main features of informal learning are the following:

• The objectives and aim tend to be wide and open.
• Participation is generally voluntary.
• The context where the task is fulfilled has a close connection with real life.
• When considering informal learning, diversity and individualities are taken into consideration.
• Tasks tend to generate a product of performance, rather than acquiring an organized corpus of contents.
• The process of learning is motivated and regulated by each individual.  (Asensio & Pol, 2002)

If we pay close attention to the facets just listed, there are clear differences between formal and informal learning, differences that can be summed up as followed: in a formal context, the explicit objective is learning, but students, sometimes, fail in this intention. Laxity is inherent to informal contexts, and it is there where students, in general, get a lot of knowledge. (Mestre & Antolí, 2007)

Informal and Formal Learning, and the planning of a Teaching Sequence

Taking into consideration the points already explained, we can straightforwardly set up the distinction between informal and formal learning when referring to the planning of teaching. In formal learning, objectives are closed, quite fixed in most situations, and delimited by the school curriculum; main contents are the conceptual ones, whereas the student’s attitudes and procedures are secondary; the type of knowledge to be handled is theoretical and finished, and it is presented in a lineal or homogeneous way; last but not least, evaluation is product-oriented and summative, measured through quantitative parameters, and it is planned to be solved individually. On the contrary, if we picture in mind informal learning, in general terms, aims go beyond the mere limits of a syllabus and are open; the utmost contents to expound are the procedural and the attitudinal ones over concepts themselves. They are analyzed through tasks to be solved, tasks which are challenging, diverse, related to the student’s interests, thus, changing; finally, when it comes to evaluation matters, we see that it is process-oriented or formative, with a qualitative methodology backing it up, designed to be worked out  either individually or in groups, which truly highlights its social essence. (Asensio & Pol, 2002)

Informal and Formal Contexts, and more aspects related to Learning

The same distinction can be contemplated if we refer to the planning of learning. How can we activate knowledge? If we consider formal learning, we will surely come across a poor connection with previous knowledge; there will be implicit, personal conceptions; and knowledge will be judged as a static and inert matter to deal with. Quite the reverse occurs if we ponder on informal learning. The relationship with previous knowledge is pretty noticeable; personal conceptions are truly explicit, and knowledge is seen as something to be meaningful and related with real life. Focusing on the context, a similar division takes place: formal learning is quite de-contextualized from actual life and meaningful, social knowledge, whereas the contrary happens with informal learning (Asensio & Pol, 2002). How about motivation and regulation? In formal learning, motivation is extrinsic, thus, it does not trigger curiosity and previous interests, and regulation is external which means that it is directed by the educator. This provokes weak communicative products, for instance; in contrast, intrinsic motivation and novelty are the basis to refer to informal learning, as well as internal regulation, that is, the one that emerges from the students themselves, fostering diverse and rich communicative results. Interaction cannot be left aside when analyzing this tension. This point is almost not present in formal learning, due to the fact that the supremacy lies on individual work. Not at all is this found in informal learning. Here, individual aptitudes and skills, along with the social ones, are superlative. Is there any alteration if the heart of the matter is emotions? The answer is a positive one. We will come by cold contents with little consideration of the educational actors’ emotions, and this totally opposes the experiences in the context of informal learning. Going a bit further, if we are still in doubt, in order to distinguish formal settings of learning from informal ones,  it is useful to consider the following aspects when analyzing the latter: the place of explicit and implicit norms when defining contexts and their effects on the tasks; who and how formulate the aims for the participants; the different procedures used by the participants to fulfill those tasks and reach the set objectives; the role of the context in the creation of social and individual knowledge; and the characteristics of the resulting social relations  (Lacasa, 1997)‏

Concluding

All the aforementioned is not more than a brief outline to distinguish the main features between formal and informal learning. It is imperative to recall that there exist very traditional plans of informal learning, and in the other way around, suggestions developed in formal contexts which gather the prototypical characteristics of informal contexts. So, what to do? The ideal situation is to reach the convergence between both formal and informal pedagogy to promote the progress of competent and active citizens in different dimensions of life. Thus, the school as formal scenery of education can take profit from informal settings, and vice versa, informal contexts can be highlighted if they are valued and expanded at school. Summing up, neither one extreme nor the other is recommendable, but the value of their complement.

Informal Contexts as new Scenes in Education

As human beings, we are constantly interacting with culture through both formal and informal education. Independently of the environment where the process of teaching-learning takes place, the principles that characterize appropriate practices are similar. What fosters the construction of knowledge from an innovative perspective reads as follow: rich contexts where to find materials and source information, scenes to enhance social interaction, syllabi to increase the transfer of knowledge to new contexts, methods to allow any educative actor to evaluate what has been learnt, and problems to solve on behalf of more active, autonomous and responsible people (Pons, 2006).

Formal contexts for learning, together with informal ones, are environments of intellectual adventures. Asensio & Pol (2002) list four new scenarios that include what the education of our citizens should consider: our natural heritage, our cultural heritage, society and its way of working, and the virtual world. The suitable use of each of these contexts requires effective, particular techniques, and the handling of the general approach of informal learning.

Plenty of examples could be put forward to back up what has just been said, examples to describe the whole field of education as one that includes, affects and is affected by the teaching of English as an international language, characterized by the global issues of the twenty-first century. Though by the end of this article the reader will be able to analyze a thorough illustration specially created and designed for the circumstances, -experience that is currently being piloted-, briefly, we may typify the matter in this way: under the title “Hunt Treasure”, the teacher of Biology together with the teacher of History and the teacher of English and their students can execute a project work, researching certain geographical area of their town or city. Imagine how rich the task would become if the area is one that hides fossils, for instance. Subsequently, the government can help the educative institution create a museum to show what has been found –if suitable, of course-, and publicly acknowledge the students and the educators’ work, as a team. This is the way of exploiting our natural heritage as a new scene for education, in combination with formal instruction. Another brief sample could be one relating the informal setting of our society and its way of working and school. Altogether, the teacher of Social Sciences and the teacher of English with a group of students can accomplish a project work to deeply analyze how fair their city or town is when coming to considering diversity and individuality. Moreover, thanks to the advance of information and communication technologies (ICT), the teacher of English can get into contact with another teacher from another city and with their students, to later create a blog entirely in English to compare the results got from the investigation in both cities. In both examples, the integration of language and content would be considerably and meaningfully triggered and fostered.

Cultural Heritage

Though we have concisely described four contexts to deal with informal learning mixed with resources taken from the formal one, thus, in constant connection and interconnection, the one which will draw on our attention is the cultural context. If we look at it from a traditional perspective, we will notice that it is clearly considered as a legacy, which contributes to the building up of a common identity received by everyone exactly in the same way and in the same sense. On the contrary, from a new angle, we will find that cultural heritage is seen as repertoire of goods that produce new and diverse effects of meanings and actions of interpretation, according to the cognitive and symbolic competences of the receptors. At the same time, it posses meanings, which are both historically and contemporarily determined, depending on the cases.  This novel change in the standpoint articulates with an alteration in the functions of our cultural heritage by our present society (Weber,?)

Museums and public libraries are good examples of new contexts for learning. Both differ from the school in the fact that they offer such an informal situation of learning that the experiences got in other institutions are barely applicable to them. Screven (1974, in Weber, ?) characterizes as follow the way learning occurs in these settings, specifically in museums:

• Heterogeneity: when referring to age, culture, interests, and reasons for their visit.
• Will: without necessarily connecting it to school objectives. Of course, this point becomes controversial if we picture in mind groups of students that drop in a museum thank to a visit organized by their educators.
• Movement: through galleries, enjoying the freedom of analyzing what one wishes and ignoring what is not considered of our interest, or in the other way around: disregarding what is socially considered “important” and paying attention to culturally irrelevant matters.
• Lack of pre-selected educative objectives: general curiosity is the heart of the matter, and what guides and leads the visit.

This change in our point of view can also be evidenced in daily expression. For example, we used to refer to museums or libraries as if they were just old and boring places. In Spanish, there exist even idioms related to this fact, such as: “¡es más viejo que un museo”, “¡esto es más aburrido que ir a un museo!” Moreover, it is something natural to bring to our minds a visit to a museum, full of warning posters with phrases like: do not touch, do not run, do not eat, do not take photographs, etc.  Fortunately, there are new expressions, fresh thoughts that show the other side of the coin:

“Museums are in fashion, they are less solemn, and they stop being just a place for specialists. Far away from absolute truths, they tend to be a scene for reflection, criticism, and learning (Dujovne, 2007: http://www.revistatodavia.com.ar/todavia16/notas/dujovne/txtdujovne.html).” 1 

“Museums invite us to fulfil learning experiences that are never unique, due to the fact that more than a look is necessary (Camilloni, 2002: 12)”

“Who build up museums, manipulate history, cut it out, interpret it and show it to fulfil ideological and political aims. It is time for us as spectators to move away from silence and passivity to question museums with the same freedom they use to question the past. After a period of irreverence on behalf of artists, who were the ones that radically questioned that solemnity, it is the right moment to be more critical and reflective: not to destroy, but to create a new view of those institutions (Dujovne, 1995: ?)”

As a public library is considered part of our cultural heritage, -along with museums, for example- as they preserve the culture of a nation or a community with the paramount aim of being shared, they foster learning, they are excellent centres for research work which can be attacked from different perspectives, such as methodology, didactics, psychology, communication, etc. These perspectives will impact differently, according to the purpose set. Bearing in mind that the informal sceneries mentioned could be used as interactive, democratic, sensitive, professional, arguable contexts, we will present  a project work relating formal settings (the school), informal scenes (the public library) curricular subjects (Literature,Language and History), alongside with the teaching of English as an International Language in the twenty-first century, a time characterized by globalization.

The Project

• Literacy-based project: Let’s go to the public library!
• Informal context: Public Library set in the city of (…), in Argentina.
• Participants: fourth-graders at a private primary school in the city, their teacher, the teacher of English, and those parents who voluntarily wish to participate in this project.
• When does the project take place? Once every twenty days, approximately, during the whole school year.

Rationale

In every single society, adults tell stories to the youngest to talk about life. Those stories are paralleled to our own ones. They help us explore the relations that there exist between people and the world surrounding them, to know about hopes, fears and all kinds of feelings.

Literature is a cross-curricular context at primary school in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. This context is made up of groups of texts such as rhymes, poems, tales, legends, riddles, among others, that enhance children to play with fantasy and imagination. It is the one that involves them holistically, giving them the possibility to express their opinions and emotions.

As stories are essential for the learning of the mother tongue, so are they an invaluable source for those children who are getting closer a foreign language. The reasons to back up this statement are the following:

1. Any story situates the language in a meaningful context, not in isolation.
2. To tell stories closely connected to the students’ personal interests is a great gear to enhance students, and consequently, to trigger their intrinsic motivation.
3. Stories are a form of enjoying the language in a funny and joyful way –key point at primary school- They are the springboard for role-plays, mimicry, crafts-making, games, among so many tasks.
4. Stories and tales are perfectly adaptable to any topic/content being worked with, as well as to cross-curricular work, especially if we are talking about stories previously known by children in their mother tongue. 
5. Stories teach us about ethic and moral.
6. Stories have the capacity of making concrete what is abstract.
7. Children love listening to a tale over and over again, and dramatize it, changing roles, analyzing which the feel much more comfortable in, etc.
8. Through a story, the foreign language is repeated and recycled in a natural style, maybe very similar or equal to the way children are exposed to a story in their mother tongue.
9. Every story fosters the development of the four macro skills (listening-speaking-writing and reading) It will be the educator’s role to design  the appropriate didactic strategies for the group under question, integrating the skills mentioned above to reach the fifth one –which includes the rest- namely, interpretation.
10.  Listening to the educator telling stories cultivates the students’ creativity, in consequence, little by little, step by step, students will create their own stories in L2
11.  Every tale develops the students’ critical and reflective thinking upon what has been narrated in the story, though at the very beginning, probably, the debate occurs in their mother tongue.  (Grondona White & Moyano, 2004; Egan, 2005; Justice, & Pence, 2005)

What is particular in this project is to enjoy the reading of any literary product, but not within the framework of an educational institution (formal context and learning), but in the public library of the city (informal context and learning), that place, sometimes, forgotten and even ignored by us, adults, who do not remember that is a rich and amazing setting in which not only can we find books, articles, records, for example, -which are testimony that tell us about society, and which can be interpreted by us, as efficient interlocutors and readers to obtain information and reconstruct history -, but also a place to read and share that moment with friends, with relatives or, why not, to be adored in isolation.

There and from this project, educators, students and parents will share a memorable moment, being able to invite some librarians in charge of the library to truly carry out a collaborative work with all the participants responsible of this proposal. The resolution of a task or of a problem in collaboration with the library personnel mentioned offers children a concrete context to be connected and get familiar with books and the library. This generates a personal and direct contact with both and promotes, step by step, little by little, according to the students’ needs, activities that also let students know about particular characteristics of the library, such as search strategies, possibilities offered by the building, employees working there, rules and regulations of the place, etc.  This is achieved with a constant and systematic visit to the library, creating a more usual relationship with this reading scene within the community.

The systematic visit to the public library to deal with literature as one of the contexts in our annual syllabuses is one of the diverse methods to approach its use.  This one, undoubtly, will be of particular relevance at primary school, to strengthen the learning of the target language and to promote the development of enthusiastic and independent readers.

Putting into practice the Literary Project

Once every twenty days,  in an articulated and cross-curricular procedure, the teacher together with the teacher of English, -and considering the opinion of those parents involved in-, will choose some literary exponent, existent in both languages, the mother tongue and the L2. On that day, students will enjoy the reading corner in the public library.  There, everyone (children, teachers, parents and librarians at the public library) will share, by means of the corresponding sequence of tasks, some reading, but approached in both languages. To be exposed to traditional tales, for instance, Little Red Riding Hood or Goldilocks and their translations, is a pretty enriching experience for children, since it lets them access another culture through those texts, thus, having a more concrete encounter, even discovering that the same book is read by children from other countries, contexts, languages, etc.

The performance of each meeting will be carried out in a special room that the public library has, which is not currently being used with a specific purpose.  Teachers, in collaboration with the participant families, and after the corresponding consensus with the authorities of the building, will decorate the place with cushions, mats to lie on the floor, appealing chairs and tables, bins with colorful thin cardboards and pieces of paper, baskets with pencils, felt-tips, highlighters, crayons, glue, glitter, etc, newspapers and magazines, and all what can be imagined.

Many are the final products that come to our mind as a result of the selection of the literary exponent and corresponding teaching sequence to be accomplished during each visit. But there are two central points in this project:

1. First of all, children should have an authentic purpose for reading, responding to the text in a genuine way.  For example, an activity that involves all the children is thinking of a different ending, in groups, for the story read, to later create a bilingual poster with them; another one could be asking for a volunteering student to read the English version of the chosen story to other pupils who are willing to listen to it, -what constitutes an authentic audience. This truly becomes a meaningful reading for readers-, to further comment upon the differences with the version in their mother tongue.
2. And secondly, day after day, the visit to the public library should become something more than usual and nice, and children should picture that place in their mind  as a setting that helps and encourages them in the process of learning as a whole.
   As an example, we present what could be a day in the public library:
   1. Already in the public library, we will select a traditional story, for example, Little Red Riding Hood, but in L2 (if it is not in the public library, the teacher of English will be in charge of providing it) Children will be shown the cover of the book and will be asked if they know it and are able to narrate it (either in English or in their mother tongue)
   2.  After the first contact, students will listen to the story in L2, and it will be the teacher the one that will put forward questions to create problems to be solved during certain stages of the plot, in order to clear out doubts, for instance. This will trigger the creation of the first hypothesis before the second reading, because children will have to pay special attention while reading /listening to verify them.
   3. Then, the students and the teachers involved in the project will go to the place where the librarian works, and together will look for –always with the professional’s guide- different books that include Little Red Riding Hood’s story, no matter the language in which they have been written. This is the exact moment that will move students closer to the way a public library functions, as it has been already mentioned in the rationale for this project.
   4. Again, in the room selected and decorated for the implementation of this project, the teachers will ask students to compare the different versions found, taking into account their presentation, language, year of publication, etc.  At the same time, and as an extra option, students can be asked to go to the computer that the library has (previous accord with the librarian, which, once more and in a highly meaningful way, will pave the way for knowing the rules and regulations in the building) and surf the Internet to find on-line versions of the story under question, in both languages, to later include that information in their final products. This moment of work is totally free. Students can work in pairs, in small groups, individually; they can focus on only one book or in many, etc.  Children will be in intimate contact with those texts, they will manipulate them, and they will find similarities and differences, what makes the project an unforgettable one.
   5.  Finally, in this first stage of the work, the teachers will formulate questions in both languages –they will have to decide what language they will begin with, in the mother tongue or the target language- to push children to find out:
      • The presence or absence of illustrations in the books, and the impact they have on readers.
      • The period of time in which they were published and the aesthetic of that age reflected in the presentation (the illustrations chosen, the type of letters, the use of color on the pages, etc. Were they books that our grandparents used to read?)
      • The target reader implicit in the book. For example, if a book is made up of pages with a lot of colorful pictures, is written with big, capital letters, and its discourse has short and repetitive words/phrases used by the target group, that text invites those children who are involved in their literacy process to be read.
      • The language the text is written in and the difference that at first time emerge among the translations.
   6. The final result or outcome can be exposed in posters, based on the students’ mind-maps, responding to the corresponding instructions, and done in both languages. In other words, the product will be bilingual.

This initial teaching sequence for further reading is paramount to trigger independent and autonomous readers, since it offers children a space to get connected and familiar with books and with the public library, while they reflect upon different aspects related to the stories they read.

Final thoughts

As educators of the twenty-first century, we deeply believe in this project of informal learning, in which the art of literature and a public library are articulated, since we firmly consider that by means of relaxing and appealing activities that focus on different intelligences and approach a topic from different entrance points, true learning occurs. On top of this, through activities that pave the way for volunteering and spontaneous participation to reach an own, personal, deep final product, we will be promoting the integral, holistic development of each of our students. Moreover, we will be leaving aside the fact that the acquisition of any knowledge, as any linguistic exponent in the area of English at primary school could be, or contents such us diverse literary genres in Literature, is fixed and structured. On the contrary, the aims and objectives of this project break this barrier, trying to go beyond, in a wider and more open way, where curiosity, personal interests, feelings, previous knowledge, and of course, the scenery selected for its creation, among others, are the true “engine” of it.

Bibliography

Asensio, Mikel. y Pol, Elena. (2002) Nuevos escenarios en educación. Buenos Aires: Aique.

Camilloni, Alicia. (2002) Prólogo al libro de Asensio, M. y Pol, E. “Nuevos escenarios en educación”. Buenos Aires: Aique.

Camilloni, Alicia. (2006)  Ideas para un prólogo in  S. Alderoqui, “Museos y escuelas”. Buenos Aires: Paidós

Dujovne, Marta. (1995) Entre musas y musarañas. Buenos Aires: FCE

Dujovne, Marta. (2007) Museos hoy, en http://www.revistatodavia.com.ar/todavia16/notas/dujovne/txtdujovne.html. Última consulta: Egan, Kearan. 2005. An Imaginative approach to Teaching.  San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Grondona White, Cristina. & Moyano. (2004). Words on Words. UK Literature for   children and teenagers. British Council Argentina Justice, Laura. & Khara Pence. (2005). Scaffolding with Storybooks. Newark: IRA

Lacasa, Pilar. (1994)  Aprender en la escuela, aprender en la calle. Madrid: Visor

Mestre, Joan & Nuria, Antolí (2007) Museografía didáctica. Barcelona: Ariel

Pons, Juan de Pablos (2006) La visión disciplinar en el espacio de las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación., in  Sancho, Juana (2006) Tecnologías para transformar la educación. Madrid. Akal

Weber, Verónica.  Aprendizaje Informal. Especialización en Constructivismo y Educación. FLACSO

 

 

---

 *  Falabella M.:

 1  Esta y las demás traducciones son de mi propia autoría.