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УДК 811.11(07)
Irena Steblaj
Master of Arts in Pedagogy, Languages and Literature
Danila Kumar International School, Slovenia, e-mail: irena.steblaj@guest.arnes.si
INQUIRY BASED LEARNING
Irena Steblaj
Магистр в области педагогики, языков и литературы
Международная школа Данила Кумар, Словения e-mail: irena.steblaj@guest.arnes.si
ПРОБЛЕМНО-ОРИЕНТИРОВАННОЕ ОБУЧЕНИЕ
Abstract. I will describe three models in teaching and learning languages (and also other areas) I have experienced as a learner and teacher. When I was a student, language teaching and learning was fact based. We had to memorise vocabulary and all kinds of structure and grammar rules teachers passed to us in the form of presentations and written exercises. All we had to do was to reproduce what we had learned. It was similar when I started my career as an English teacher. We passed facts to our students who reproduced them when we tested them. In the eighties new methods and approaches were introduced mainly by good professional development for English teachers and also by new course books and programmes. Teaching of language was based on various activities, which was more successful than previous model. Lately more and more teachers have started to introduce constructivists inquiry based methods of teaching and learning. It is based on a belief that we should learn naturally, the way we learn in real life. We construct the meaning and form concept from what we already know by exploring and being interested in the world. The belief, that given enough time, resources, motivation, proper environment and scaffolding all students are capable of high performances, should lead us teachers at our work.
Key words: communication; research; inquiry; teaching and learning.
Аннотация. Статья анализирует три подхода к обучению языкам (модели применимы к другим дисциплинам). Первый подход - знаниево-ориентированный - предполагает заучивание лексики и репродуцирование материала, трансляцию материала в фактическом виде, предъявление в готовом виде синтаксических конструкций и грамматических правил, их отработку в упражнениях, оценивание знаний по предмету. Второй подход - практико-
© Steblaj Irena, 2014
ориентированный - появился в 80-е гг. ХХ в. благодаря новым тенденциям в обучении английскому языку, разработке альтернативных учебных пособий и программам и ориентирован на практическую деятельность учащихся. Разнообразие видов деятельности, в которую вовлечены учащиеся, обеспечивает более высокую эффективность данного подхода. Третий подход к обучению - проблемно-ориентированный - наиболее конструктивен. В соответствии с ним обучение осуществляется по приближенной к реальной жизни модели: субъект формирует представления на основе уже имеющегося жизненного опыта при наличии познавательного интереса. Сегодня ведущим фактором в работе педагога должна стать уверенность, что при наличии необходимых временных, материальных ресурсов и мотивации все учащиеся способны продемонстрировать высокий результат.
Ключевые слова: общение; исследование; проблема; обучение; преподавание.
Fact Based Teaching and Learning
Fact Based Teaching and Learning is model which we experienced as students from elementary through the university. Each subject area consisted of individual facts and procedures which needed to be drilled and memorised. Once this pieces of information were mastered they were put in sets of facts and then combined to form concepts. These isolated facts, sets of facts, and concepts were taught in a predetermined sequence with facts as the basic foundation and building blocks for everything else. Each topic and each subject area was learned in isolation. Tha assumption was that each subject area consisted of a common core of known knowledge which needed to be broken down and taught sequentlly to students. In this model, the smallest unit of curriculum was a fact.
This model is usually a textbook based curricular model. The texbooks that dominated classrooms were distillations of already known knowledge, written to inform students. They read texts, filled worksheets, tried to guess answers wanted by teachers in classroom discussions and took tests to see if they had mastered the facts. Lots of topics and facts were covered, few in any depth and most were forgotten within forty-eight hours of taking the test. Most students ended with superficial knowledge and little desire to keep learning.
Activity Based Teaching and Learning
As teachers were frustrated with fact-based teaching and poor results they moved to activity based teaching. Instead of facts, these approaches were built around activity as the smallest unit of curriculum. Each subject area took the form of a pie with different wedges representing facts, concepts and skills. The subject matter was taught through activities rather than isolated memorisation. Sometimes activities were chosen because of the facts that could be learned from the activity. Other times activities were chosen according to particular skills and procedures that students needed to learn. Still other times, activities were chosen because they allowed students to develop broader concepts related to the topic of study. As long as students enjoy the activities, teachers did not worry about how they related to any broader
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whole or whether they learned a specific objective. Sometimes activity was just for its own sake. Students responded positively to the activities and results were good. But this focus on activity for the sake of activity began to lose appeal. It was tiring to constantly develop new activities.
That is why more and more teachers, schools and school systems have moved to Inquiry Based Teaching and Learning.
Inquiry Based Teaching and Learning
Inquiry Based Teaching and Learning engages students actively in their own learning. Students learn in the most constructive manner. This method is committed to relevance and quality rather than to quantity. It emphasises the active construction of meaning, so that students' learning is purposeful. The starting point has to be student's current understanding, and the goal is the active construction of meaning by building connections between student's experience and information and the process derived from the inquiry into new content. The teacher's role is to create and facilitate an educational environment which encourages students to be as active as possible.
During the inquiry process students develop attributes that characterise successful students and later successful citizens of the world: they become good communicators, thinkers and develop knowledge, open-mindedness and will to take risks. All these characteristics are very important in the process of learning and acquiring of a foreign language.
While students do research which is relevant, interesting and meaningful for them, they learn and gain:
key concepts:
- Language as a system of communication
- Functions of language
- Variety in and between languages
- Literature as a means of understanding oneself and others
- Variety in literary forms
- basic skills:
- Communication: listening, speaking, reading, writing, non-verbal
- Research: observing, planning, collecting, recording and organising data, presenting
- Thinking
- Self-management
- Social skills
In this process students also develop their attitude towards language learning and other cultures. This method offers students the opportunity and the power to act and reflect on their actions in order to make a difference in and to the world. In inquiry based teaching, learning follows the following process:
LEARNING PROCESS 1. Building from the known
Talking, discussing
Brainstorming
Listing, making spider webs
2. Producing questions for Inquiry - taking time to enhance students' interest
Observing and exploring Browsing books, materials, artefacts Watching videos, surfing the Internet
3. Gaining new perspective
In-depth research Field work Interviewing Listening Writing notes Writing letters Writing summaries Reading to others Writing reports Writing news stories Writing editorials Making booklets Preparing a speech
Making webs, charts, graphs, diagrams, time lines
4. Sharing what has been learned
Revising, discussing, peer editing Presentation
5. Action
Exhibition, presentation, performance, products
Scaffolding tools
Inquiry journal / folder where students keep all material from the beginning of the Inquiry (notes of brain storming, lists, visuals) to the end of the process (notes, drafts, final product).
EXAMPLE ACTIVITIES (BASED ON INQUIRY) IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING Theme Based Inquiry
Theme based Inquiry is based on discovering, learning about, further exploring and presenting a specific theme which is of relevance to students. The ideas below could be explored especially well in keeping with international cooperation, the relevance and need of foreign language learning and interaction with a native speaker who is, in this case, both visitor and information provider.
- Training students to become tourist guides in their home place
- Preparing presentations on a chosen culture or area (British food, English speaking countries, the English language, etc.)
- Preparing a study about cultural differences between Slovenia and another country
Literature Circles
Literature circles support readers in thinking critically about books. Readers actively construct meaning from a text as well as acquire language and communication skills.
Materials:
Shared book sets or other suitable material
Procedure:
- The sets are introduced to students through short book talks
- Students must have some time to browse through books
- Students decide what they will read
- Students read a determined number of chapters before each meeting
- They are encouraged to write or sketch their connections, questions, responses in their literature logs
- Students share their responses by talking about their favourite parts, discussing sections they found confusing, retelling parts they enjoyed, talking about the illustrations, making connections to their lives,...
- Students create group responses to read material by making webs, charts, posters, murals, paintings, rewriting stories, writing a new ending, telling the story from a different character's point of view, creating a newspaper based on the book / text, setting up displays, making comparison charts, creating a game for others to play,...
- Facilitator participates as reader, not as question asker
- A part of the book can be read aloud in the group
- Literature can be scaffolded or shared through films, video or audio cassettes
Dialogue Journals
Dialogue journals are a form of written dialogue between two people, in our case a student and a teacher or language assistant. Usually students regularly write about their experiences at home and at school and then hand in their journals for response. Teacher responds to each entry in the journal.
Journal writing benefits students in a number of ways. It offers an easy and enjoyable way to practise writing and helps students form new ideas.
Students should write on a regular basis. They should feel comfortable. At the beginning they should try to write for a sustained periods of time. They should write about things that interest them or happen to them including seemingly silly things that happen to them or that they see or notice. The teacher does not correct neither grammar nor content. He / she can ask questions or ask for clarification, more information or give his / her opinion and also include examples, stories or suggestions.
- Communication focus
- Developing writing skills without pressure Easy way to practise writing Sell reflection - generating new thoughts and ideas
- One-to-one activity - establishing relationship with a teacher and a language assistant.
Graffiti Board
Students learn from exploring «what's on their minds». As they interact with people or texts, they search for patterns that connect their current experience. It is through these connections that they are able to make sense, to create some kind of unity that allows them to understand.
Procedures:
- Students are engaged in some type of shared experience (reading the same text, participating in an observation, exploring a particular concept).
- During the shared experience, students sit in small groups at tables with a large piece of brainstorming paper in the middle of the table. Students write their observations and reflections on the paper in the form of graffiti. Each person takes his/her own corner of the paper and works alone sketching and writing images, words and phrases that come to mind. There is no particular order or organisation to these images and words. They are simply added randomly to the graffiti board.
- Students within each small group share their graffiti entries with each other and use these to identify issues and connections to begin the dialogue or to create a more organised web, chart or diagram of their connections, either in the small group or as a whole class.
Webbing
- After engaging in a shared experience such as literature discussion of a text, students take time to share initial responses, connections and anomalies with one another through conversation. As in any brainstorming engagement, all responses are accepted.
- When students have shared what is on their minds, they create a visual web of their connections and anomalies. One member of the group serves as a scribe and write the focus (title of the book, the concept, or the name of the experience) in the middle of the web. The group works together to create an organised visual web.
- Once the web has been created, the group examines the web and reaches the group decision on what they want to discuss at their next meeting.
- As the group continues to meet, the web is always placed in the middle so it can be referred to for other topics of discussion. New ideas and issues are added in different colour of marker.
- When the group finishes with discussion, they either add to their web in another colour or create a new web showing the ways in which their thinking has changed over time.
- These webs can be used to share informally with the rest of the class or as the basis for deciding what ideas they want to present to others.
Generating Written Discourse
- After students have explored and research topics they take several small cards and write one idea per card. These ideas represent what is important or new.
The ideas do not have to be in complete sentences. The cards serve as reminders during writing.
- Once they have their ideas on different cards or slips of paper they share these with a partner to see if they need to make any changes in the ideas.
- Each student takes his/her cards and tries out different arrangements that reflect how much of these ideas relate to one another. Idea cards are added or deleted, including a centre card that reflects the idea the student sees as most central to what they want to write about the topic.
- Once students are satisfied with the arrangement, they meet in pairs and take turns in explaining their placement of the cards.
- Students then use their cards to support the writing of their text.
Getting to Know You
To become an effective language user, all learners need many opportunities to use language with other people for real purposes. Getting to Know You facilitates social interaction as each person learns something about another individual. Because the activity is informal, the language user attention is focused on meaning. This engagement focuses on the interrelationship of reading, writing, listening and speaking.
- Students are told that they will be interviewing each other to produce a class newspaper that will introduce them to parents, visitors, pen pals as well to each other. There must be some real purpose for producing the newspaper.
- Interviews from previous years or from magazines and newspapers are read and discussed.
- The class brainstorms questions to ask during the interviews.
- Once students have some ideas of questions to ask, they pair up and conduct their interviews. They are encouraged to take notes during the interviews so they will be able to remember the information. It is up to them what and how much to write down.
- Students use their notes to write or dictate to a peer an article about the person they interviewed.
- Once students produce rough drafts, they discuss them and revise them, till they are ready for publication.
Life Story Lines
- On the overhead transparency the teacher walks students through the events of his/her day. The time and the event are listed on these notes.
- Students are invited to work in pairs and take turns walking each other through their day, relaying any stories that are triggered by their reflection and creating their own time lines. Students may keep track of several days.
- Students go back through their time lines and identify stories that could develop into some type of piece of writing.
- Students pairs introduce each other to class sharing one thing they found out about their partner that they believe would be of interest to the class.
- As a culminating experience students select one event and write about it.
Learning Logs
- At the end of each lesson students take out their learning logs write the date and make an entry. It is helpful to have a brief discussion of the lesson.
- Students are asked to write about something new they learned. They can respond either to what they learned or how they went about learning.
- Questions that can be used to help students think about their entries are: What did I understand / did not understand? What new do I know now? What can I do better today? What do I have question about or wonder about?
- Students can be invited to share their entries with each other.
Literature Logs
Logs in which students write about their responses to a particular piece of literature. They should be encouraged to write reactions, connections, and questions rather than a summary of a story. Their entries can be webs, sketches, charts, favourite quotes, and diagrams as well as written reflections.
Class Logs
It is used to keep track of the significant events occurring in the classroom. The entries can be made by a group or individual students. It can include photographs, drawings, materials used in the class, handouts,...It can be used to create a class time line of most significant events occurring in the class. At particular intervals it is reread and students make decision what needs to be recorded on the class time line.
Message Board
- Students are invited to write messages to one another or to the teacher. The only restriction is that messages must be signed. Each message may be hung publicly, folded over with the recipient's name on the outside, or sealed in the envelope.
- A variety of messages can be posted on the Message Board, including personal messages, announcements, invitations, jokes or riddles for class members to respond, current events, sign-up sheets for classroom activities - anything that needs to be communicated with others.
Some More Examples of Inquiry Based Activities:
bookmaking, classroom newspapers and magazines, personal journals, sketch journals, readers theatre, pop corn reading, save the last word for me, group composed books, twice told tales, pen pals, crossword puzzles, games, advertisements, poems, puppet show, comic books, plays, travel brochures, guidebooks, manuals, dictionaries, collages, photo albums, surveys, charts, graphs, maps, book reviews- all produced by students.
If teachers try not to teach only facts (vocabulary and grammar) but also develop language concepts, various language and other skills, student's creativity, higher level thinking and attitude towards learning languages learning became more meaningful and relevant for students.
So it is very important that teachers plan tasks which stress involvement and doing something worthwhile. Students should be intrinsically motivated; that means that tasks should trigger student's curiosity, enable students to reach personal goals, and of course they should enjoy the activity.
To achieve all these teachers should use a range and balance of inquiry based teaching strategies, group and regroup students for a variety of learning situations, use multiple resources, involve students actively in their own learning, empower students to feel responsible, maintain constant awareness of the needs of second language learners and address the needs of students with different levels and types of ability.
As students learn through action, reflection and demonstration they can develop to their full potentials.
