Subproject: 03
“New foreign language education policy in schools: An English language
programme for young learners” code. MIS 299506, 299512 & 299514
The Greek EYL Programme
Introducing English in the first grades of primary school:
The teachers’ response and their emerging training needs
Dr Evdokia Karavas
Faculty of English Studies
University of Athens
Poliglotti4.eu Expert Seminar
9-10/2/2012
Action:
New foreign language education
policy in schools:
An English language Programme
for young learners
Project:
English for Very
Young Learners
The EYL Project
The project entitled “English for Very Young
Learners” is part of the Action: “New foreign
language education policies in schools: learning
English in early childhood”
The project is co-funded by the European Social Fund and the Greek state
through the Regional Operational programme (Education and Life long learning),
is implemented by the University of Athens and realised by the Research Centre
for English Language Teaching, Learning and Assessment of the Faculty of English
Studies (http://rcel.enl.uoa.gr).
2
The project
The project (launched in 2010) involves the introduction of English to students of the first and second
grades of Greek public primary schools and is part of the wider interventions in the educational
system implemented by the Ministry of Education for the development of the New School.
Design and development of the
curriculum, the syllabi, the
learning materials and tasks (for
the first and second grade of
primary school) and the design
of an e-learning educational
portal for teachers and parents.
Training of teachers
appointed to teach
English in the first and
second grade of
primary school for the
first time
Evaluation (internal and
external) of the project
which seeks to monitor
and assess the
implementation of each
phase of the programme
and each stage of the
training programme.
● The internal evaluation will take place during the first two years of the
project implementation (2010-2012), while the external evaluation will take
place during the third year (2012-2013).
● The external evaluation will be carried out by experts in the field who will also
act as plenary speakers in an international conference that will be held in Spring
2013 for the dissemination of the project results.
3
The project implementation timeline
Development of the curriculum and learning materials and tasks for first/second
grade learners; implementation of the programme in 800 all day primary schools
throughout Greece.; development of the EYL educational portal; information
seminars to school advisors and primary school teachers; specialized training of 15
in-class teachers (project partners) in teaching English to Young Learners (June –
August 2011); bottom up evaluation of the materials; revision of materials for the
first grade and development of materials for the second grade; internal evaluation
of the project; development of the textbook for the third grade of primary school
(available online http://rcel.enl.uoa.gr/peapabc/cclass.htm)
2010 - 2011
2012 - 2013
2011 - 2012
Implementation of the revised materials and tasks for the first and second grade in
950 all day primary schools; ongoing evaluation of the materials for the first,
second and third grade; development of online teacher training modules and
materials for face to face training; training school advisors and trainers; ongoing
internal evaluation of the project; hard copy development of materials for the first
and second grades in the form of a dossier.
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Nationwide
implementation of EYL
programme in the first
and second grade of
primary schools;
ongoing training all
primary school English
language teachers;
external evaluation of
the Project ; monitoring
of the nationwide
implementation of EYL
during which teachers
will be asked to
develop cross-curricular
activities (in
cooperation with
teachers of other
subjects and primary
school teachers).
The EYL curriculum
The curriculum…
…taking into account Greek young learners’ needs and interests aims at the
development of social literacies that learners have already developed in their
mother tongue and the development of learners’ intercultural awareness
…is learner centred and task based facilitating the development of
learners’ cognitive, social, affective, psychomotor skills.
…consists of a series of graded tasks on familiar everyday topics organised
in cycles which correspond to each school semester.
All material is accessible and downloadable from the EYL website
http://rcel.enl.uoa.gr/englishinschool
5
Tasks http://rcel.enl.uoa.gr/peapabc
6
Each task is accompanied by description, aims, teacher notes on activity
implementation, supplementary materials (activity pages, pictures, songs, stories etc)
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First year of EYL project implementation:
Baseline and formative internal evaluation
Baseline evaluation - September-December 2010:
Survey of the profile of school units
through online questionnaires that were
filled in by the pilot school headmasters.
They provided information about their
schools, their teachers and their
students. The data was used as a
springboard for reports and articles
written by the Project Team.
Survey of the profile of 897 teachers
engaged in the project through a
questionnaire completed during the
information seminars and online.
Survey of parents’ attitudes and views
whose children attended EYL project
classes (7250 completed questionnaires).
The survey was conducted through
questionnaires distributed by the English
language School Advisors.
Collecting data from 1135 teachers
across the country that took part in
information seminars organised by
School Advisors. Information about the
teachers was collected through school
advisor reports of their seminars.
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First year of EYL project implementation:
Formative - internal evaluation
175 teachers who taught in the first and
second grade evaluated the educational
material by filling in questionnaires
distributed by the School Advisors.
At the end of the 2010-2011 school year,
online questionnaires were filled in by 405
teachers in order to evaluate the entire
Project.
The teachers evaluated the educational
material and reported on their experience.
Data was collected with regard to their
experience, their cooperation with other
colleagues, their students and the school
units.
The results of this evaluation were used by
the materials development team (consisting
of practising teachers) for the revision and
enrichment of the first and second grade
tasks and materials .
The data collected were analyzed and
evaluated for further development and
improvement of the EYL Project.
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Investigating the profile of first and second
grade primary English teachers
2010-2011: 800 all day primary schools throughout Greece, 2000
teachers
Questionnaire completed by 897 teachers (163 online and 734 during
information seminars)
Questionnaire elicited data on
a) teachers’
background
d) teachers’
b) the
c) availability
e) teacher
perceived difficulties
composition and quality of
identified
in teaching young
of classes
school resources
training needs
learners
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Profile of teachers: Biodata
Age
25-35 years old
Teaching Position
36-45
46+
permanent position
0%
31,4%
hourly paid
seconded from secondary schools
0%
28,9%
22,8%
39,7%
35,2%
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40,2%
Profile of teachers: Biodata
Teaching experience in
primary/secondary education
Teaching experience in the
public sector
experience in primary education
experience in secondary education
1-5
years
26,9%
11-20
years
47,9%
experience in both
22,1 %
5-10
years
19,9%
12,9%
65%
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Profile of teachers: Biodata
Experience teaching very
young learners (under 8)
YES
38,3%
MA in MA other PhD 1%
Language
5%
Teaching
10%
BA
other
3%
NO
61,7%
BA in
English
Language
and
Literature
80%
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Postgrad
uate
students
2%
Profile of teachers: Biodata
Teaching first/second grade
Attitudes towards the
introduction of English in the
first and second grade
taught either 1st or 2nd grade learners
taught both grades
positive or very positive
negative or neutral
10,6%
49,4 %
50,6 %
89,4%
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Profile of classes
Teachers reported
having on average
20 students/class
89,6% reported having 1-10
learners from different
ethnic backgrounds in
1st grade
92,3% reported having 1-10
learners from different
ethnic backgrounds in
2nd grade
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Learners attending English lessons outside school
% teachers
No of first grade
students attending
English lessons
outside school
% teachers No of second grade
students attending
English lessons outside
school
16,8%
0
2,5%
0
62,5%
1-5
43,2%
1-5
15,2%
6-10
36,7%
6-10
3,7%
11-15
12,1%
11-15
1,9%
16-20
5,4%
16-20
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Teacher perceived difficulties in dealing with young learners
Do you experience difficulty with the
following:
Great difficulty %
Some difficulty % No difficulty %
Getting learners to concentrate on task
17,2
75,9
6,8
Training learners in following class rules
23,8
70,2
5,9
Training learners in respecting others
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70,7
14,3
3,8
49,2
47
7,3
51
41,7
Dealing parents’ concerns and anxieties
2,9
32,8
64,6
Cooperating with class teachers
4,3
16,6
79,1
Accessing writing materials
27,1
49,5
23,4
Adapting activities to suits the needs of
my class
Designing appropriate activities for my
class
17
Need for extra material
syllabi
1.4
Websites with EYL activities
5.9
Model lessons
8.5
Guidelines for teaching young learners
10.3
Audiovisual materials
19.9
Activities/materials
60.6
Lesson plans
5.7
0
10
20
% teachers (437 responses)
18
30
40
50
60
70
Comparing teaching experience with perceived difficulties
Teachers with no experience
with very young learners…
…reported having difficulties or
great difficulties in dealing with
young learners (training in following
classroom rules, helping learners
concentrate on the task at hand)
and in designing and adapting
activities for very young learners.
Teachers with experience reported
experiencing less difficulty in these areas
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Comparing teaching situation and postgraduate studies with perceived difficulties
Marked tendency for secondary school teachers
seconded to primary to experience greater difficulties in
dealing with students and in designing appropriate
activities than their primary school counterparts.
Non experienced
teachers with
postgraduate
studies
secondary school
teachers
seconded to
primary school
primary school
teachers
Less advanced
but experienced
teachers
Marked tendency for teachers with postgraduate studies but no
primary teaching experience to experience greater difficulties
than their less advanced but experienced counterparts in
dealing with young learners and designing activities.
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Findings and their implications:
Facts, realisations, decisions
Fact 1
Realisation
Decision
• Over half of our teachers were well experienced (11-20 years of teaching experience)
and over 60% had experience teaching in the primary sector BUT despite their
experience these teachers had never received formal systematic training in young
learner methodology.
• 1/3 of our sample were novice teachers (1-5 years) and lacked any kind of formal
systematic training in EYL methodology.
• Over 60% of our sample did not have any prior teaching experience with very young
learners which meant that the majority of our teachers were not familiar with the
special characteristics and challenges posed by the particular age group.
• In the vast majority of EYL project classes a significant number of students are from
different ethnic backgrounds and are learning English as a third language
• The training programme addresses a very diverse group of teachers with a wealth of
different training needs.
• The training programme had to include a range of general and more specialized training
modules in order to cover the needs of the less and more experienced teachers.
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Findings and their implications:
Facts, realisations, decisions
Fact 2
Realisation
Decision
• As data from the teacher profile were being analysed we were informed that
due to school mergers which were decided by the government as one
measure against the financial crisis, the project schools in the following year
would rise to 960. As a result of these mergers, the teaching body in project
schools would change by 40%.
• Designing a long term coherent training programme with face to face
seminars spanning the three years of the project is not viable due to
constant changes in the composition of our teaching body
• The training programme had to be viable and sustainable regardless of
changes in the composition of the teacher body or in the composition of our
trainer group. The training programme had to be coherent offering training
in more general areas of EYL methodology and progressively leading to
training in more specialized areas
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Findings and their implications:
Facts, realisations, decisions
Fact 3
• We had managed to collect data from less than half of our project teachers despite
the fact that a) seminars by school advisors were offered throughout Greece and b)
teachers also had the option of completing the questionnaire online. This shed doubts
on the effectiveness of the cascade model of training in this particular context.
• Given that a number of our project schools are located in remote areas and islands in
Greece, providing face to face seminars to these teachers is extremely costly in terms
of time, money and human resources.
• Difficult to ensure the quality and “reliability” of training through the cascade model.
Difficult to coordinate and manage a large group of trainers (who have not specialized
in EYL methodology) and to ensure that a consistently high level of training will be
Realisation delivered to all project teachers throughout Greece.
Decision
• The EYL training programme could not focus exclusively on face to face seminars
delivered by trained multipliers. In order to ensure that all teachers have the same
training opportunities, in terms of quantity and quality, the training programme
should take the form of a distance learning on line programme consisting of a range of
training modules each focusing on a different area of EYL methodology and
responding to the needs of the less and more experienced EYL teacher. The online
training modules will also be developed for use in face to face seminars organised by
school advisors.
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The EYL training programme:
Training Modules
1. INTRODCUTION
5. Storytelling for
young learners
Understanding and
managing the young
learner classroom:
 Teaching Young
Learners
 The pre-primary
learner
 Teacher as Manager:
Class Management
 Teacher as materials
developer (T's Kit)
 Using the L1 and L2 in
the young learner
classroom
 Culture through
Language
 Cooperating with the
school principle and
fellow teachers
6. Dealing
with parents
Each module consists of:
4. Organising theatre
activities and class
events
a) lively powerpoint
presentation with
information relating
to the module theme
b) extracts from videotaped
EYL project lessons
3. Using games &
crafts
c) pre-while-post viewing
activities
d) awareness raising and
self-assessment quizzes
2. Using chants &
action songs
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e) suggestions for further
reading and suggested sites
with related material.
The training programme 2012-2013
Developing cross curricular
projects
Development of three
further training
modules
Using technology in the
young learner classroom
Assessing young learners
Making the on-line
training platform more
interactive
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http://rcel.enl.uoa.gr
rcel@enl.uoa.gr