How would you act on pupils who are not interested in learning English? Give an example addressed to children of the t hird level of Primary School. Reason your answer. The practical case I am going to develop is related to topic 21 as regards methodology with students who are not interested in learning English. As our current legislation Lomce Lomce 8/2013 and more specifically specifically our Decree 108/2013 pinpoint that we should bear in mind our students characteristics to adapt the teaching/learning process to our class and reach successfully our pupils get a B1 level in the English language as the Council of Europe also highlights. In this case, we are dealing with learners on sixth course of Primary Education. They are in groups of four which favours working individually, in pairs, or small groups. The first thing we should consider when dealing with these kind of students is that of motivation. To motivate these pupils, we should know as much as possible about their interests. A good resource we can take advantage of is the use of KWL charts. When we start a new unit, for example “Animals”, we write in a first column what our students already know about about the topic (vocabulary: dog, horse, lion...) or anything they could know like that there are pets and wild animals. Then, in a second column, we write about what our students want to know or what they expect to learn in this topic, for example: “we want to learn about sea animals” and finally, at the end of the topic, we ask our students what they have learnt and we would write in the third column their answers. This way, with CLIL activities, they would be learning and using English at the same time they learn about things related to their interests. It is also important to bear in mind the t he theory of Multiple Intelligences of Gardner because in our class some students will develop some intelligences more than others. It would be useful to take this into account and for example, when doing simple projects, like for example about “Cricket, the British National Sport”, we we can make groups and design an specific task to each one according to their characteristics and their likes. For example look for information and write it to the student with a linguistic intelligence, measures and dimensions of the pitch (mathematical intelligence), what countries this game is the national sport in (spatial intelligence), to expose the project (intra-personal intelligence) and playing a cricket match in accordance with the P.E. teacher (kinesthetic intelligence). We should not forget to foster the use of the new technologies and a great amount of resources like flashcards, f lashcards, board-games, cards, storybooks, songs, etc. in class. TIC’s are a good resource to call pupils’ attention using web pages, blogs or online games. “Comic life” life” would be a good online resource where students design their own comics and write t heir own dialogues or stories.
Besides, facing restless students, the use of dynamic activities through the use of Asher’s Total Physical Response Method will allow our students move around the class when following instructions or m iming. With all these activities and strategies described above, we do not only work the English language and the teaching of other contents through the foreign language but we also contribute to develop some Key Competences like learning to learn or Entrepreneurship Competence (they can share or sell their comics) apart from Linguistic, Artistic or Digital Competences. As a conclusion, when dealing with students who are not interested in the foreign language, we can use their interests to motivate them. Furthermore, the use of great amount of resources (TIC’s and materials) and activities will avoid our students being bored in class. Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence and Asher’s Total Physical Response Method will help us adapt our teaching to our students’ characteristics and create a good communicative atmosphere, making all the learners participate actively in the teaching learning process.
