Development communicative competence using iPad, cooperative learning and teaching thinking

Sonia Lara (*)Álvaro González (+)

Sara Ibarrola (*)

* School of Education and Psychology Universidad de Navarra+ Irabia-Izaga School

SPAINslara@unav.es – agonzalez@irabia-izaga.org – sigarcia@unav.es

Abstract: In this paper we present how the teaching-learning system CommunicARTE develops the communicative competence of Primary students. This proposal is based on the communicative approach, placing an emphasis on fostering real situations of communication rather than retention of decontextualized grammatical norms or reproduction of the theory of linguistic or literary analysis, addressing grammar, syntax, and labours with different types of text in meaningful instructional contexts. The Teaching for Understanding framework (Blythe et al., 1999) is established as a structure that articulates the design of the entire instructional process and seeks to provide sufficient space for personal expression. This proposal follows the trend in language education that goes beyond the focus on linguistic or grammatical competence through project work, cooperative learning, the use of rubrics and thinking routines.

Keywords: iPad; Language education; Communicative approach; Teaching for understanding; Cooperative learning; Project-based learning; Thinking routines; K-12

Introduction

In the Language Education there has been during the last decades an evolution from a language education approach centered on linguistic or grammatical competence to an approach that aims at the achievement of communicative competence (Council of Europe, 2001).

From the communicative approach, the use of the language is fundamental and not only the systematic study of the language as object of knowledge. The language teacher needs to design learning situations through which the student feels the need to use the language to understand and express themselves better. In this way the objectives and methodology in the teaching-learning process of the language should favor the development of the four linguistic abilities: oral and written comprehension and oral and written expression (Guerrero, 2015, López, 2000, Martín, 2009, Mendoza, 2003, Ruiz, 2011). All of them must be taught and learned.

However, language education has traditionally focused on written rather than oral skills, as there is less teaching material to teach and its evaluation is rarely done in schools (Álvarez, 2013). However, there is a common agreement on the importance of integrating oral language in the Primary Education classrooms, giving them greater visibility along with written language (Spanish Educational Law, 2013). A path of research has been progressively consolidated around the explicit teaching of linguistic and discursive procedures characteristic of oral genres (Abascal, 2010, Vilá, 2005).

ComunicARTE: A System of Teaching and Learning of the Language

ComunicARTE is an interactive teaching and learning system of Spanish Language and Literature, to work on iPad (Gonzalez and Muraciole, 2015, Lara et al, 2015a, 2015b, 2016). This proposal is based on the communicative approach, emphasizing real situations of communication rather than the retention of decontextualized grammatical norms or the reproduction of the theory of linguistic or literary analysis, addressing grammar, syntax and work with The different types of text in meaningful instructional contexts. The Framework for Teaching for Understanding (Blythe et al., 1997) is established as a structure that articulates the design of the entire instructional process and seeks to provide sufficient space for personal expression. Several methodologies are

integrated: Cooperative learning strategies that using the potential of social learning to develop understanding (Johnson and Johnson, 1994; Kagan, 1995, 1997, 2009); Theory of the Multiple Intelligences attending, on the one hand, to the diversity of the students and, on the other hand, to the globality of the person (Gardner, 1983); Thinking routines to make thinking visible to introduce or explore ideas, to synthesize or organize such ideas and to deepen them (Ritchhart, Chirck and Morrison, 2011); Mind mapping to translate thinking into paper . It is applied for two purposes: first, to express and translate thought; And then as an effective study technique (Buzan, 2013).

The Development of Language Skills from the Communicative Approach

What processes and strategies are involved in listening, speaking, reading or writing? Different models have been proposed to identify and classify the different skills that interact with each other and progressively construct each of these four competences. Following some of these models, we analyze how the materials of ComunicARTE, specifically the three projects elaborated for five year of Primary (9-10 years), work these four skills from the communicative approach. Each of these projects is designed to work through 40 class-sessions with an average duration of two to three months.

Throughout each project the students work on three different products, all of them individually but with the help and constant feedback from the classmates: (I) Final reflection. Final self-assessment writing on the work done during this project in which they describe how they have worked and what they have learned. It is an exercise in metacognition in which they reflect on what has been accomplished; (II) Oral presentation. They are preparing throughout the project and improving with the comments of the companions. Finally they present it to the teacher. The students have a rubric with the quality criteria that is maintained throughout all the projects; And (III) Final product is linked to the content of the Project (eg, writing a reportage, a tale, a script theater).

Figure 1: Interaction of the communicative skills in the work process of each Project

Figure 1 represents the working process followed throughout each of the three projects that make up the academic year. The students work individually on their three end products, but constantly helped by their peers’ feedback throughout the process.

Next, we describe in detail this process, describing how each of the communicative skills is worked out.

WritingThe theoretical model of written expression more diffused and applied to the teaching is that of Flowers and

Hayes (1980) that establishes as necessary micro psychomotor and cognitive skills.

The psychomotor aspects, such as position and movement both corporal and graphic, are not explicitly worked on CommunicARTE, are aspects worked in the first courses of the Primary. In contrast the cognitive aspects are worked intensively. We show some evidence of this:

- Analyze the communication situation. Within the communicative approach an important aspect is to consider and analyze who are intervening in the communication. Frequently reference is made to its elements (Transmitter, Receiver, Message and Channel), analyzing in a special way who is the sender and the receiver and how are the interactions of the speech so that there is a good communication between them.

- Planning (generation of ideas and their organization, the formulation of objectives). Students write many drafts of their essays to organize their ideas. These drafts are reviewed several times by the partners, and are modified as necessary to produce a satisfactory final version.

- Drafting and revision of the text. The wording of the text is always individual, although you can count on the help of your colleagues to improve and elaborate the final version. Experience has shown that teacher intervention in this writing process should be minimal to encourage students to heed their peers' comments. Therefore, the teacher will see and correct only the final version.

- Control and conscious management of the writing process. The control in the process of writing is carried out thanks to the rubrics that have all the students. In them are collected all the indicators of quality that should have the written productions. They are easy to understand and employ by students, which favors and helps develop what Claxton calls "sense of quality". They know what counts and values them to do a good job.

SpeakingThe model proposed by Bygate (1987) to explain the process of speaking puts the emphasis on interaction

and communicative collaboration. It distinguishes between the necessary knowledge, such as mastery of the language system and aspects related to culture, and the skills required to adapt and adapt to communication. Both facets are necessary for successful expression. From this model we go on to explain how the different micro-skills are applied in ComunicARTE (see Figure 1):

- Plan the speech (anticipate and prepare both the topic and the interaction by analyzing the situation and writing down the intervention of the speech). Every day students present oral presentation, either in front of their work group or the large class group, to present the progress of their individual project work: worked versions of their final product, oral expression and / or final reflection (see Figure 1). Always, before making these small presentations the students make a small draft with the previous ideas that want to expose well to their peers well to the teacher. In this way students are accustomed to planning their speech in writing.

- Conduct the discourse (drive the theme -start it, develop it, relate it, close it- as well as interaction). Linked to the previous ability, the students intervene and expose their work to their classmates and / or teacher preceded by the elaboration of a script. This activity is performed in almost all sessions. In addition, in the case of work (II) "Oral expression" students have the opportunity to do as many tests as they deem necessary, to improve and to elaborate their best version before presenting it to the teacher. In this strategy the role of peers is essential to offer comments or feedback that help improve speech. All the students have a rubric with the aspects that must be taken into account.

- Negotiate the meaning (adapt the degree of specification of the text, evaluate the understanding in the receiver and using circumlocutions to fill lexical gaps). As mentioned before, students have the opportunity in almost all sessions to expose their work to peers to receive feedback from them. In these situations, students are exposed to constant opportunities for communicative exchange with their peers. Often when receiving peer feedback they should modify their speech or explanation to favor understanding of their message.

- Producing the text (facilitating production - simplifying phrases, eluding words, using pauses or repetitions -, compensating for production - reformulating what has been said, summarizing important ideas or specifying what is meant - and correcting production - Applying the rules of grammar and clearly articulating the sounds-). Almost every day the students are showing their students' drafts of their work. Specifically, the elaboration of the "Oral Exposition" would be the star product for the development of the speaking skill in which the student shows in this final work his process of planning and preparing a speech. Throughout the course the student must make three presentations in front of the teacher, one for each project of the course.

- Nonverbal aspects (control the voice and the direction of the gaze. Proper use of gestures and movements). The students have a rubric for the preparation of the oral presentation (which is the same throughout the three projects) This rubric serves both for the planning of the speech and for the evaluation by the partners of the same. This section includes non-verbal aspects that must be considered in the oral presentation.

Plan the speech

Producing the text

Conduct the discourse

Negotiate the meaningImage 1: Speaking process

ListeningBased on the premise that the language being heard should be known, the following skills can be highlighted

to foster oral comprehension (Rivers and Temperley, 1978; McDowell and Stevens, 1982; Rixon, 1981): select, interpret, Infer and retain the information. Below we describe how all of them work in ComunicARTE (see Image 2):

- Select (distinguish the relevant words from a discourse and group them into coherent and meaningful units). This skill is constantly worked throughout the three projects. The most common way to work it is to listen to small audios (can be songs, dictation, stories ...) students must identify certain words (nouns, adjectives, verbs, determinants ... etc).

- Interpret (understand content, intention, message, main and secondary ideas, what is not explicitly said, the organization of speech and tone). This skill is worked by asking students to evaluate and value the presentations of their peers. In these activities, guided by rubrics, they should give useful comments to improve the structure and organization of the designed speech. To do this, students

Inferring: “headline routine” Interpret

Retener: “Color-symbol-image routine”

Hold: “Know-discover-learn routine”

Image 2: Listening activities

-

must be attentive to understand what the partner, who evaluate, is wanting to express and how to structure the message in main and secondary ideas. These activities are frequent throughout the work sessions with ComunicARTE..

- Anticipate (activate information to predict during speech the topic, style and language that can be used). Anticipation is worked before receiving feedback on a job and before starting with some concepts so as to stimulate some previous ideas.

- Inferring (knowing how to extract information from the communicative context as it helps to understand the global meaning of the discourse). This micro skill also developed during class by the interactions between students when offering feedback to their peers. In particular, after observing a classmate’s presentation, they must extract the essential idea of the speech and elaborate a slogan that fits perfectly to the core of the message (this activity corresponds to “Headlines Routine”).

- Retain (remember words, phrases and ideas to interpret them later and retain in the long term memory relevant information on the subject, the situation and structure of the speech). This micro skill is worked by asking the students to write short summaries with the most important information through the routines “Color-Symbol-Image” and “I know-I discover-I learn”.

ReadingThe interactive model (Cassany, Luna and Sanz, 2002) is developed from other theoretical models that are

ascending, descending and interactive of Reading Comprehension (Alonso and Mateos, 1985, Colomer and Camps 1991, Solé 1992). This model sustains that the comprehension of the text is reached from the interrelation between what the reader reads and what he already knows about the subject. The specific micro skills that are developed from this model can be grouped from the most instrumental to the most comprehensive and reflective ones. Let's see how they are work in CommunicARTE.

We work with both continuous texts from different nationally awarded writers and discontinuous texts such as recipes, cinema billboards, videos, maps... In all of them we work on different types of questions: direct, inferences and valuation. In addition, when they have to read or investigate a specific topic, they are presented with different strategies to collect information and organize it: mental maps, concept maps and the Cornell method (see Image 3). This is how each of the micro skills are laboured:

- Perception (training the eye to increase reading efficiency by expanding the visual field, reducing the number of fixations, developing discrimination and visual agility and perceiving the most significant aspects). In order to develop the perception, the routine "I see, I think, I wonder" is used. Students are asked to look at the text they have read and observed it carefully (for example, formal aspects (titles, epigraphs, bold, italics), words (adjectives, verbs).

- Anticipation. Predict or assume what will happen when reading (eg, how it will be a text, how a text will be, how it will continue or end) using grammatical, logical or cultural clues; focus on and interpret the non-verbal aspects of the text before reading it (eg: letter, photos, diagrams, parts of the text); Activate previous knowledge and make them available to the reading in order to build the meaning of the text. ComunicARTE uses the routines of "I used to think, but now I think" and "Compass points" to promote the anticipation of the meaning of texts.

Image 3:Reading comprehension’s activities

- Inference, main ideas and reading between lines are worked together in CommunicARTE through the following activities and routines: concrete questions to inquire in the true sense of the texts; Mapping the key concepts of the text; Routine " Sentence, Phrase, Word " to extract the main ideas.

- Structure and shape. Observe the formal aspects of the text to understand the organization of information, the typical structure of the text and the level of formality. The way to work this micro-skill is through the thinking skills of “The whole and its pairs”, to discover the parts and elements that make up a concrete textual structure (for example, the parts of a newspaper.

- Self appraisal. Exercise conscious control over the process of understanding from before you start reading until you finish. In ComunicARTE, pre-reading questions are used in the discontinuous texts, thus favoring the student's self-assessment and control before reading begins.

ConclusionsThe analysis of the skills allows improving the educative action of the language teacher in the measure that

contemplates those that are activated to exercise consciously and in an effective way the communication. They allow establishing objectives that must be worked in the classroom according to the age and the level of the students. While younger children may need to work on more comprehensive aspects of comprehension, attention and retention while older ones may work more complex micro-skills.

Although the oral language has been developed less it is possible to emphasize how the oral comprehension like the oral expression can benefit if the instructional action of the teacher contemplates the micro skills that activate in them to exercise them consciously and to communicate in an effective way. Oral language involves a series of difficulties for the children that must be known and consequently the teacher needs to implement the teaching strategies in the most appropriate way possible. The possibilities offered by the school to teach listening and speaking to children should not be overlooked. The importance of oral language skills in life highlights the need to systematically work them out of the Primary Education classroom.

The Teaching for Understanding framework, Cooperative learning and Reflective practice through thought routines and rubrics helps to develop communicative competence, since they allow working in an integrated way all the skills involved in the development of this competency of most significant and real. The support of the iPad has a catalytic effect; it does not interfere so much in the efficiency of the learning process, as in the motivation and involvement of the students. The true value of the ComunicARTE proposal lies more in the way in which the work carried out, individually and in groups, is presented than in the instruments used.

AcknowledgementsWe wish to thank the Project PIUNA 11-2015 Study of the effectiveness of using a teaching-learning system for Language in Primary

that incorporates teaching thinking and cooperative work: cognitive and non-cognitive variables (University of Navarra, Spain) for their support. More info: https://goo.gl/ExZ3nO

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