Aprendizaje basado en el juego para la enseñanza de inglés como lengua extranjera en primaria

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Running head: PLAY-BASED LEARNING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE 1

Play-Based Learning in Foreign Language Education at Elementary School

Final Report of the Internship with Graduation Purposes

Leidy C. Briceño 20102165023 Edgar F. Pedraza

20102165027

Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas Facultad de Ciencias y Educación

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PLAY BASED LEARNING IN FOREING LANGUAGE EDUCATION 2

INTERVENTION THROUGH PLAY IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE EDUCATION AT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Leidy Carolina Briceño Barreto [email protected]

Edgar Fernando Pedraza Sanabria [email protected]

Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas Facultad de Ciencias y Educación

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TABLE OF CONTENT CHAPTER I: Presentation Introduction……….5

Objectives………...5

Student’s Information….………6

School Information………..6

Internship Context…..……….7

CHAPTER II: Theoretical Framework Literature Review………...10

Social Constructivism……….10

Cooperative Learning……….13

Play Based Learning………..17

CHAPTER III: Pedagogical Implementation Methodological Approach………..21

Expected results……….……….22

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Achieved Results………30

Data Analysis……….36

Conclusions and Comments………...67

Annexes………...72

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CHAPTER I Presentation

Introduction

This paper attempts to discover and understand how play-based activities contribute to the process of foreign language learning at primary school. The current intervention is approached from Vygotsky’s theory of Social Constructivism and the main issues under scrutiny are: Play based learning and cooperative learning. The discussion is focused on the social nature of playing and how this promotes learning of the foreign language, specifically for elementary students through relationships between them and how this provides students with tools to construct their own knowledge.

Objectives

● To discover and understand how foreign language learning is affected by play-based activities designed with pedagogical purposes for children.

● To observe and analyze social interactions manifested during the English classes when implementing play-based activities.

Pedagogical objectives

● To engage students with English language classes. ● To enhance students’ disposition for cooperative work.

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Student’s Information

Name: Leidy Carolina Briceño Barreto Code: 20102165023

Email address: [email protected] Telephone number: 3673031

Cellphone number: 310-326-3805

Name: Edgar Fernando Pedraza Sanabria Code: 20102165027

Email address: [email protected] Telephone number: 6 83 88 22

Cellphone number: 312 3841961

School information

Name: I.E.D. Veinte de Julio Address: Carrera 7# 24-01 sur Neighborhood: Veinte de Julio Zone: San Cristobal (Zone fourth)

Principal: German Augusto Avendaño Chavez Telephone: 2721598 / 3660830

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Internship Context

The internship proposal was implemented in a public school focused on primary and secondary education approved by Ministry of Education in 1995. This, bearing in consideration the article number three of the Acuerdo 031 of 2014 and the chapter number two of the Acuerdo 038 of 2015.

The current proposal was implemented in elementary school students from eight to eleven years. Most of the students were from lower-middle-class homes, mostly made up of only one parent, siblings, grandparents or uncles who assumed the fatherhood of the students. By teachers’ and students’ testimony is known that many of their homes were dysfunctional. The students’ daily life took place in the fourth zone of the south east of Bogotá. Due to its location, this area presents contrasts at a cultural and social level, where different classes and social groups could be observed like Afro-descendant, indigenous Ecuadorians, displaced, Venezuelan migrants and humble people from all over the country.

Institution

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surroundings in search of some monetary aid (alms) or food. The social stratum of this institution is between one and two.

Mision

El Colegio Veinte de Julio IED, formará personas con visión reflexiva, analítica, crítica, propositiva, con actitud investigativa, que les permita construir conocimiento, en procesos de comunicación significativa para relacionarse dinámicamente con su entorno social, cultural y natural.

Vision

El Colegio Veinte de Julio IED, proyecta a diez años ofrecer a la comunidad educativa, clima escolar democrático y procesos de formación centrados en la comunicación y en la utilización del conocimiento para el mejoramiento del entorno.

Taking into account the previous mision and vision, the undergraduate languages program of Universidad Distrital proposed a syllabus to contribute in the meaningful learning that fosters interactional practices that favor the social, cultural and ecological environment.

Duration of the Internship

Starting date: May 2018

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According to the Acuerdo 038 of 2015, we had 384 hours to carry out the internship. For that reason, these hours were divided in four months, 20 weeks, 77 days and six hours per day, before the end of the semester, taking into consideration, the attendance issues of the school and holidays.

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CHAPTER II Theoretical Framework

Literature Review

In this chapter, we discuss fundamental concepts for the understanding of this pedagogical implementation. These are social constructivism, cooperative learning and play-based learning. This chapter attempts to explain and describe how play-play-based activities contribute to the process of foreign language (henceforth FL) learning at primary school. The current intervention is approached from Vygotsky’s theory of Social Constructivism and the main issues under scrutiny are: cooperative learning and play-based learning. The discussion is focused on the social nature of playing and how this promotes learning of the FL

specifically for elementary students through relationships between them and how this provide to students tools to construct their own knowledge.

Social Constructivism

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knowledge depends on where and when, such as in what social context, we are learning”. This is to say that learning process involves cultural and environmental items where interaction between individuals is a basis to construct knowledge

In view of the SCT definition of the learning process, Vygotsky (1978) suggests that such processes occur by dialogue, where subjects share experiences, ideas, feelings etc. through language as a mediator and also where the role of learners consist of reconstruct ideas in their own minds. In addition Mitchell & Myles (1988) support the idea that, in social learning learners are “active constructors of their own learning environment”. According to Ellis (2000) the learning process is based on the assumption that learning emerges not through interactions but in interactions where learners get involved in doing specific tasks helped by another learner or the teacher ,and then, they internalize the way to carry out those tasks by themselves. On the other hand, Lantolf & Johnson (2007) reinforce the idea of language learning as a process mediated by social activity “not that social activity [merely] influences cognition… but that social activity is the process through which human cognition is formed” (2007 cited in Swain, Kinnear & Steinman, 2010, p.153). That is to say that L2 learning is meaningful when takes place in interactive environments where learners share experiences and get involved in their own learning process.

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functions (inside the child) as a result of interaction with his peers or the adults in his

environment. The evidence of the development can be observed from two different levels: “at the level of overt independent performance and at the level where performance is mediated by someone else” (Lantolf & Thorne, 2007). That is to say that shared experiences and knowledge do not just simply exist during conversation, it transcends since a mere

conversation to our deep conscious in order to strengthen and enrich the individual’s potential development.

The learning process previously described from SCT is composed of important constructs as Scaffolding, Internalization and Imitation. These concepts are the basis to understand how FL learning is developed within SCT.

Scaffolding: The concept of scaffolding suggests that the knowledgeable person (adult, teacher, or peer) helps the less knowledgeable (child, or student) to accomplish a task which he or she would not otherwise be able to do by himself or herself.

(Mansoor & Mastaneh, 2012, p. 696).

Internalization: Internalization is a negotiated process that reorganizes the

relationship of the individual to her or his social environment and generally carries it into future performance (Winegar, 1997, p. 31 cited in Lantolf & Thorne, 2007). This concept explains the relationship between social communication and mental activity and it is the way through which we gain control over the brain. The key to this process resides in the ability to imitation of human beings.

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Imitation: Vygotsky (1987) states that imitation is “the source of instruction’s influence on development” (p. 211). This process does not occur immediately after a given pattern appears in the learner’s linguistic environment at it serves as a basis of spontaneous language production.

The concept of Social Constructivism contributes to understand the social aspect in

knowledge construction where internal and external factors affects learning in different ways. As we have said social interaction is imperative in language development, so it would be pertinent to think about an effective strategy that matches with Social Constructivism and contributes in promoting such social interactions in a meaningful way. We answered to this with cooperative learning.

Cooperative Learning

The concept of cooperative learning (from this point CL) has been proposed in this implementation due to the implicit importance of social interaction in the Socio

Constructivist perspective discussed before.

According to Dooly (2008) cooperative learning “is a process meant to facilitate the

accomplishment of a specific end product or goal through people working together in groups” that implies that students and also teachers construct knowledge and work together in order to achieve goals. The basis of CL is constructivism where besides building knowledge, this also is transformed by learners and teachers, too. The role of the learner is not passive because CL implies a responsibility for learning.

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On the other hand, Slavin (1991) affirms that “cooperative learning is a form of small group instruction where students work in a social setting to solve problems” (Slavin, 1991, cited in Doolittle, 1995, p. 8) that is to say that cooperative learning not onlylooks for the acquisition of knowledge as an end, but also aims at the resolution of collective problems; this, in turn, contributes to the well-being of a group. According to Sharan (1990) the social settings are composed by “elements as face-to-face interactions, characterized by students, where group members encourage and facilitate learning process of other members. during this process students provide each other with efficient and effective help and assistance, exchanging needed resources, provide each other with feedback in order to improve the performance, advocating efforts to achieve mutual goals, being motivated to strive for mutual benefit and challenging each other’s conclusions and reasoning to promote higher-quality” (Sharan, 1990, cited in Doolittle, 1995, p. 9) . These issues, from problem solving to challenging each other’s conclusions within a group and classroom is what is pursued by implementing cooperative learning and play in this pedagogical intervention because such issues also belong to play as characteristics of it, and are mediated through language due to the need of stating rules and settings.

Moreover, Vygotsky (1978) claims that learners can perform at higher intellectual levels in cooperative situations more than working individually. The author considers that children initially experience knowledge through social interaction with other children and adults; these interactions and one learning goal have as a purpose stimulate growth and development.

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according to Johnson & Johnson (2017):

1. Positive interdependence, which means that students must believe they cannot achieve goals without their partners’ help and vice versa.

2. Promotive interaction happens where students help, assist, encourage and support each other’s efforts to learn

3. Individual accountability is the assessment of individual performance, then giving results back to the individual as well as to the group.

4. Social skills.

5. Group processing is the way groups assess themselves and state new goals.

Thus, we see that CL disseminates responsibility and work into the group, encourages to help partners and gives to every student an active role in his/her own learning process. Then, there is a gain in social abilities. Johnson & Johnson (2017) agree with this by stating that “When individuals work together to complete assignments, they interact (mastering social skills and competencies), they promote each other’s success (gaining self-worth), and they form personal as well as professional relationships (creating the basis for healthy social development)” (p,9) and during their many years of studies they realized that CL came with important benefits to students when working cooperatively, increasing areas such as

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increases, commitment to each other’s professional growth and success increases, and productivity increases (p,8)

These quotes sum up those social skills improved by means of Cooperative learning, possible by another important issue, the understanding of what are one’s actions for and which is implicit within the process of CL and is highlighted by Johnson & Johnson (2017) “Realizing that one’s performance is mutually caused by oneself and one’s colleagues” (p.3). At this point we may notice that this process brings to mind scaffolding proposed by Vygotsky in the way that students perform first aided by peers and teacher and gradually performs by themselves in order to collaborate into the group work.

But CL has something else to offer to this intervention now that we have already

considered the academic and social advantages of implementing it on the classroom. In words of Johnson & Johnson (2017 p, 2) “Cooperative learning is part of a basic change in

organizational structure from a competitive-individualistic “mass manufacturing” model of organizing to a high-performance team-based organizational structure.” In this quote we see more than the definition of how CL works, thus we demonstrate its influence in students’ social skills and as a way of life which is challenging current social beliefs in which people seek out individual success and benefit over well-being of the community. This is not to ban individualistic work which is also necessary into groups and communities, but it is an attempt to take it out from the competitive view, and the latter, CL also attempts to change its

approach of winning and lose for grades to competition for fun.

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large groups where students have a responsibility with him/herself and within the group as part of it will also help to increase students’ awareness of his/her own place in society as well as awareness of other persons’ lives.

Play (Play-based learning)

As it was mentioned before, knowledge is a construction built within and by the society, thus cooperative learning arises in accordance with such perspective. But we still lack of one last definition in order to understand and close the major idea of this pedagogical

intervention. In this same line of thought (social constructivism and cooperative learning) comes out play as the last gear to move forward and understand play’s importance in primary school.

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In his book “Playing and Reality” Winnicott talks about confidence supporting the idea that during play the child gets confident because in play time “The potential space happens only in relation to a feeling of confidence(...), that is, confidence related to the dependability of the mother-figure or environmental elements, confidence being the evidence of

dependability that is becoming introjected”(p.4). This potential space is at “the interplay between there being nothing but me and there being objects and phenomena outside

omnipotent control.” (p. 4) Thus, play is defined as the way children start to first experience culture, acquiring and expressing such learned cultural elements, and moving from child's self to understand people as constituted realities outside and different from the child’s. There is a double way work here. On the one hand in gaining confidence during play when situations are out of his control because on the other hand such situations are mediated by someone (teacher in this case) or environmental elements (the classroom) which give the child the dependability to perform by him/herself relating to other children and share their experiences. This performance is better seen or manifested in play.

Moreover, this idea is supported by an article published by Montana State University (MSU) (2010) that states “When children move from a self-centered world to an

understanding of the importance of social contracts and rules, they begin to play games with rules.” (p. 3).

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equal.”(p.8) and also because “Playing games in the classroom can also help create a friendly and positive atmosphere…” (p.8) Thus, play arises as a valuable tool for work relationships inside the classroom which means to construct better relationships among students and teacher, allowing them to recognize mates and adults like, as we said before, constituted realities which think, feel and differ from them. It is also true that teachers that use games encourages his/her students to do more on their own and may increase the confidence level, especially of those shy students with low confidence. Besides games offer real life contexts where students can perceive their different ways to solve same situations.

But we still lack of something to match play and the rest of this work in spite of all the displayed reasons and is the answer to this question: Why games for teaching language? Now that we have defined play and talked about its importance as individual and shared experience we must highlight the importance of language as mediator for normal

development of any game, because it is by using language that rules are stated within games. In this regard, it becomes clear why language is so important when playing, because it is used to manage and control the game. It offers a real opportunity to develop language skills, especially speaking. To support this idea, in her work, Emblen (2014) quotes

“Play and language are known to develop alongside one another in the typical population with the first signs of play emerging around the time when a child speaks their first words and a child’s ability to use mental representation aids in the

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Then, when selecting games a teacher must be aware which fits better to its class. In fact, it is good to keep in mind when selecting a game that a recipe for a good educational game is one that balances both fun and challenge (Steve Sugar.1998.p. xvi as cited in Sigurðardóttir 2010). For this reason we would like to make emphasis in these two mentioned elements.

In the first place, fun is a very important issue when teaching anything not just languages, because of what it produces in students. Games in this case provoke strong emotions. “Strong emotions, such as happiness, excitement, amusement and suspense allow students to feel positively about their learning situation and are therefore likely to have a positive effect on language learning.” Sigurðardóttir (2010). This is also translated into an improvement of social relationships into the language classroom, “language students need to be emotionally involved, meaning they need to feel something while they are exposed to the language.” Sigurðardóttir (2010).

Secondly, challenging language students by using games can be really useful due to play’s feature of realism. Sigurðardóttir (2010) confirms this when says “Games can be a very good way to practice this skill [speaking in real life situations] because they can easily be used to reenact various situations from real life and provide students with practice in their

fluency.”(p. 8)

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CHAPTER III Pedagogical Implementation

Methodological approach

The current internship is framed within the language teaching approach developed by Dr. James Asher called Total Physical Response (TPR). The underlying belief of TPR is that by combining language instruction with motor activities, students are able to learn quicker, more effectively, and in a stimulating atmosphere. TPR strategies involve listening, speaking, and physically moving. This method taps into all of the modalities of learning and is able to appeal to all learning styles. Asher’s studies showed that students who use TPR showed a greater retention of the FL than the non-TPR students. In addition, his research indicated that the kinesthetic approach of acting out commands is vital to retention when learning a

language. Asher discovered that most students are better able to internalize the linguistic code when language is coordinated with movement of one’s body. He emphasized the importance of listening comprehension and the significance of acting out commands and vocabulary. It is suggested that TPR help to incorporate activity and movement to language learning, making it more meaningful, interactive, and giving it more purpose for students.

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which at the same time we do observe students own interpretations and constructions about the world.

Expected results

The internship proposal looks for:

● Student’s appropriateness of their own context through language learning. ● Student’s engagement to the FL learning process through play-based activities.

Chronogram

The current internship proposal was applied during four months divided in three units thought from a logical sequence of topics that were focused on the learning of basic

vocabulary in English, in addition to this, these units were designed in order to promote the subject self-recognition in its own specific context and the students’ memory and it was articulated in the following syllabus:

UNIT I: About Myself Duration: 120 Hours

Description

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Skills Developed: Social skills, listening and speaking

Types of games used: Introductory Games, Physical Games and Theoretical Expression

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UNIT 2: My Family, Friends and Mates Duration: 120 Hours

Description

In this unit, we want to call the attention about people’s different characteristics from one’s which are part, as oneself, of the community, but without forgetting the other living beings that coexist with us.

Skills Developed: Social skills, listening and speaking

Types of games used: Physical Games, Theoretical Expression Games, Drawing and

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UNIT 3: My Environment Duration: 120 Hours

Description

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Skills Developed: Social skills, listening and speaking

Types of games used: Cultural Games, Theoretical Expression Games, Physical Games and

Educational Games. (Sigurgeirsson, 1995)

At the end of each unit a product was made (written and handicrafts) where the use of the concepts studied in each of these stages were evidenced. This is described in the following chart

UNITS GENERAL OUTCOME

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This is for recovering memory as an act that gives to students the power of judging who they were in the past, when after several years they open it.

UNIT 1: About Myself Activity: Letter to Myself in the future On this activity students were supposed to write a letter to themselves in the future in which they greeted, introduced themselves and told future dreams and ambitions. According to the unit’s rationale, this letter was thought to close a circle in which the focus was oneself, as well as reviewing last language topics.

UNIT 2: My Family, Friends and Mates Activity: The person I admire the most (Sculpture in clay)

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sculpted for each student by modeling clay. With this we pretended to highlight those people, the ones they admire, for

demonstrating to students that the

construction of oneself absolutely needs of the rest of people.

UNIT 3: My Environment Activity: A graphic representation of my environment

Students were asked to draw their own neighbourhoods, where they live or grew up. This is almost like the letter to future but taking into account that they and their families are not the only people living there. With this activity we want students to be conscious about the space they occupy on the society and what it looks like.

Assessment

Teacher’s role

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process as during social interactions. Of course, as teachers, we had the role of guides for students in every step of development of this project and also as facilitators by providing vocabulary, concepts, settings and materials to students in order that they could carry out the games. Teachers provided feedback to students when they needed to reinforce, enhance or finally catch a word meaning.

Learner’s role

Keeping in mind that the reason for implementing play-based activities in language learning are children, because of their disposition to play is simply natural, then students are the center of this project. They should get a commitment and participate of the activities prepared and guided by the teacher. During the implementation of the project students had the opportunity to work individually or per groups, this should have led student to reflect about themselves and their role on the group, on the society.

Finally, students provided the teacher with the social and language phenomena to observe and analyze.

Material’s role

The designed materials for this implementation are absolutely necessary tools which allow the games to be developed, providing the images and the concepts to play with. But, these materials were not used for games only, but for art crafts too, which became finally products or artifacts made by the students, their ideas and feelings about certain topics.

Teaching procedures

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each other through play-based activities and allowed the teacher to observe different social as well as language learning process phenomena. Thus, every unit attempts to work on different aspects that conform and build up the human experience trying to move students from individual to collective context promoting a reflection about such issues during the classes. The language component of these units, and at the same time of the project, was meant to be logically displayed and taught but without losing of sight the social component already mentioned, moving from the individual to collective.

Achieved Results

Bearing in mind the objectives of this internship we would like to present the results achieved by implementing play-based activities during the English classes in order to understand the impact on students’ context and language learning process. On this section, found categories will be described. The analysis of these will be found later on a section entitled “Data Analysis”, in which the empirical and theoretical evidence and support will be displayed.

Social contracts and rules

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just for fun. It led students to conflictive situations such as insulting each other or even fighting for right or wrong accusations. From this issue, rules were highlighted at the play time to understand that through the fulfillment of these, benefits for the group and for each member of it can be gained. With the forthcoming classes, most of the students started to apply rules in order to have the opportunity to participate on games; this allowed carrying activities out avoiding conflict.

Social Values and Competence

There were many situations during the classes that promoted students’ tolerance and respect level with their partners. There were situations when fellowship arose during the play-based activities. But we also noticed since the very first classes some cases in which a

student’s success meant their mates’ failure. When competing, we found students who wanted to win by themselves when on teamwork during some games or forcing the victory trying to cheat. These kind of situations also happened on individual work, in which we used to hear a student’s complain for a classmate’s negative commentary about his/her work. There were also students who were reluctant to work with some others because of past disputes and personal issues. After tracking for several classes particular cases in different classrooms it was observed a change on their behavior, specifically in what is related to acceptance, as well as in other cases in which an aggressive or violent behavior remained the same.

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different contexts and find different opinions and perspectives that otherwise they would had ever known. This sort of situations we were looking for on the different classes in which group work was mandatory, even if the number of members per group was exceeded, nobody worked alone. It was found that during games and other play-based activities rivalry

decreased and allowed students to develop activities successfully. It was found in some cases that among those students that once had a dispute then had common goals and ideas. Of course, this did not always work and there were some cases in which students did not tolerate each other and fought.

We, teachers, took advantage of these situations and tried to highlight students’

achievements and differences (as something that enriches the class and the society) during the classes in which there were physical activity as well as when doing hand-craft or

presentations. There were also attempts for grouping those students with personal issues in order to make them cooperate, sometimes went fine and sometimes went wrong.

With the passing of time competitiveness was substituted by solidarity, thus we found that during games students gave moral support to mates and demonstrated commitment when group work, even when they were grouped with someone they did not like since before. Most of the times, they tried to get over these issues in order to play or participate. As we

mentioned, it was observed that when students played the differences that once divided them were gradually left behind.

Engagement

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were developed outside, while these took place, students from different grades could observe them and most of the time these activities resulted very attractive for them. It made them to stop there for some minutes and tell to their classmates and friends about the observed games and extend an invitation to observe too. In some cases, it was noticed that secondary students stayed in front of the door looking at the activities developed inside the classroom.

Thus, secondary students’ attitude towards these activities demonstrated that play-based activities are interesting for them too, and that they can get engaged with elementary students at play time explaining or simply collaborating with the tasks that were difficult to develop by elementary students.

Motivation

At play time, though it was rare, it was observed that some students avoided playful activities due to their fear to face the defeat. This same situation was presented during

different classes by several children, most of the time the same children. They expressed their disagreement with the activities when they gave their turn up, they passed. When the teacher asked for the reason why they did it, they blushed up and manifested in low voice that they did not want to lose. On the other hand, most of the students had positive reactions to playful activities. They participated actively on these, asking the teacher to choose them.

Identity and Otherness

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implementation, that different features suggest that something happened during play-based activities with students’ identity. They also had the opportunity to observe, analyze and emphasize personal aspects of their own as well as the aspects of their mates, different from his or hers. What we noticed was that through the social nature of games students were led to an acknowledgement of themselves and of the rest of the people and living beings as essential and complementary part of their personal growth, as well as the effect of personal actions on the group wellbeing. This was evidenced most of the times during teamwork. We finally found that trough games social behaviors can be reinforced thanks to its nature of rules and settings.

Lowering stress in Language learning process

In the course of this implementation, it was noticed that students were faced with certain situations raised during the learning process which caused stressful states and different reactions in them. At first, when students were exposed to the spoken language, it took them by surprise due to the fact that it was something new for them. They tended to remain on silence and pay attention carefully in order to understand the message, when they did not achieve it, they used to get worried about it, but at the same time, some students shouted out to their classmates what they had understood and so communicate the message to others.

Some of students who did not understand what the teacher said, tended to despair and ask her to speak in Spanish, but it was also noticed that they did made an effort to understand the message in order to participate in these kind of activities.

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As play-based activities took place in the learning process, students manifested to feel comfortable toward English classes. During the development of such activities children faced their fear to be exposed and their knowledge, compared with their mates’. Once students realized their classmates also made mistakes this made them laugh and it contributed to generate a comfortable learning environment for them.

Using English

As we started this implementation, we were told that elementary students (excluding fifth grade) did not have an English teacher, then English classes were taught by the homeroom-teacher. In many cases, these teachers used guides related to certain vocabulary or grammar, as well as others who preferred to use translation and comparison as the way to develop the classes.

For these reasons, in spite of having these guides and topics consigned into their

notebooks, students showed a lack of pronunciation and usage of English. There was some vocabulary topics that seemed to be the first time they heard of, when they already had several assignments about it.

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not willing to get over. Another finding was during games in which the listening skill was pretty important, as well as the speaking skill in order to develop the activities. The teacher was always highlighting the importance of listening. There were some cases in which

students asked for more vocabulary or expressions to complete their presentations (especially during role-play activities). It was also found that most of the students, with the passing of classes, handled the sound and meaning of some words, but they wrote them like if it were Spanish (fader, moder).

Data Analysis

This section provides an account of how this proposal was implemented through a description of findings and the analysis of these. Data were analyzed to discover and

understand the impact of play based activities in the language learning process at elementary school, as well as, analyze the social interactions and issues emerged during the English classes when implementing play-based activities.

Data were obtained from six different grades from elementary school (Third, Fourth and Fifth) in a period of time around twelve to thirteen weeks. Students’ age was comprised between eight to eleven years old. Given the need of collecting qualitative data that allows us to understand the emerging features of this proposal, three tools were used. Teacher’s

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Teacher’s Journals provided us specific details and information about class issues, but also emerging features from teacher’s memory reconstruction. As Borg (2001) affirms that:

“The journal was not just a place where I recorded events or documented existing thoughts, but more importantly,[...] a forum for reflection where ideas were generated and explored and discoveries made in and through writing [...]In addition, though, the journal can also be seen as a product – an ‘evidential store’ (Thomas, 1995b: 5 cited in Borg, 2001)

In order to better understand the facts and effects that emerged we think it is important listening to homeroom teachers’ voices about the impacts and contributions of this

implementation. For this purpose, it was selected an instrument that allow teachers to express their ideas and feelings spontaneously by using their own language. We wanted to know their point of view because they share most of the time with students and were able to provide us with some information that for a matter of time we could not observe or missed.

That is why we chose self-administered questionnaires with open-ended questions for knowing head-teachers opinions and perspectives about the play-based activities and its impact on the community. Siniscalco and Auriat define standardized questionnaires as “a survey instrument used to collect data from individuals about themselves, or about a social unit such as a household or a school.” Sinislcalco, M. & Auriat, N. (2005)

We also consider students’ voices by means of the artifacts they made during the

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pp.130). On the other hand, Saldana & Omasta assert that “Each artifact evokes within its viewer a possible story of its history, or an explanatory purpose for its presence. These stories and explanations accumulate into a larger picture of a participant’s local world, and suggest a variety of emotional and affective humans meanings connected to the objects” (Saldana & Omasta, 2018, pp.63).

Data was analyzed under the scrutiny of several categories emerged from the

implementation and which answer our two main inquiries: How FL learning is affected by implementing play-based activities for children? What sort of social interactionsemerged during the English classes when implementing play-based activities? Taking into account the previous questions, data analysis were conducted through two main categories: Language issues and Social manifestations and these, in turn, were divided into subcategories according to the issues that emerged throughout the implementations of this proposal.

Social Manifestations

Language is the main tool for human communication, it brings implicit cultural marks that; within the process of learning a FL, emerge giving an account of the students’ reality. As Krauss & Chiu (1998) affirm “Language pervades social life. It is the principal vehicle for the transmission of cultural knowledge, and the primary means by which we gain access to the contents of others' minds” (Krauss & Chiu, 1998, pp.43)

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Chiu (1998) “Language is implicated in most of the phenomena that lie at the core of social psychology: attitude change, social perception, personal identity, social interaction,

intergroup bias and stereotyping, attribution, and so on” (Krauss & Chiu, 1998, pp.43)

a. Social contracts and rules

This subcategory is called “Social Contracts and Rules” because it was observed that through the use of play based activities rules were an important issue to take into account. Rules were agreed by students with the teacher and between them. In order to regulate the development of the activities and full achievement of these, students manifested some attitudes which demonstrated commitment or a lack of it while playing.

At the beginning of our intervention students tended to not following instructions and interrupting their mates interventions asking for the word in class, as well as they did not respect turns at play time. The previous emerged phenomena had as a common root “social rules” and it was noticed that it was not respected by them. All the activities proposed to this project were regulated by rules, but at early stage of the implementation, this fact caused some troubles between students at play time.

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Eventually, students were aware about the importance of rules to regulate games. It was observed that when some of them did not respect rules, their mates tended to enforce them. Additionally, they informed the teacher about the foul because they realized that the use of rules in playful activities, especially physical games, allowed them to achieve equally well- being to the members of the group, including themselves. It was one way to have everything under control. Bakeman & Brownlee (1982) confirms what has been said when they affirm that “early in life some social rules emerge quite spontaneously in the context of peer play, not as a result of cultural intervention, but simply as a consequence of a fundamental human propensity to regulate social interaction in a ruleful manner”

For example, on Thursday May 17th, a case related with rules emerged in the classroom of third and fourth grade during the class of Greetings and Farewells and the teachers’ journal says:

“There was a situation. When we went out, I warned students about following rules as the way to drive a game and told them that if they did not follow such rules they could not participate on games. Their teacher was watching us and heard of it. Once we were out a student ran away from the group and the teacher by signs told him to enter the classroom and did not participate of the activity. When class was over the teacher told me that such boy was really sad for it, but he did understood that it was because of not following rules” Tuesday, May 8th, 2018. Fourth grade.

“Students demanded to their classmates to comply with game rules; if it did not happen, they communicate it to the teacher”

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As mentioned above, in this case it is evident how students reacted to the rules; in the first instance, there was an apathetic reaction because, by not complying with the rules of the game, the aforementioned student was not able to participate in the activity and this triggered his reaction of discomfort. At first, it was evident that at the time of playing students tended to break the rules in order to take advantage of it and win; but on the other hand, it was observed that when doing it, their own classmates felt affected and due to this they demanded compliance with the rules among themselves.

Consequently, the students by themselves enforced the rules, respected them and in turn they proposed one or another rule in order to ensure that the game was done correctly. This can be observed in a case emerged from the class on Thursday July 26th, in the class about fruits in third grade:

The game had two rules, according to students’ request; the first was to complete the full race (touching every station) without going on before, and the second was to be always arm in arm among all the members of the group [...] students have expressed their agreement with the rules, which guarantees fair and equitable competition; therefore, they suggested to the teacher some rules for the game developed in class. When the agreement is not fulfilled, they ask to the teacher to admonish the person who disobeys the rule.

July 26th, 2018. Third Grade.

See annex # 21

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When homeroom teachers answered their questionnaires, we found in their words some opinions reflecting an agreement with the benefits that play brings to the classroom when we talk about rules and settings. To illustrate we have brought some of their opinions:

Q#3// “Sí, los estudiantes tienen mayor disposición al desarrollar las diferentes actividades propuestas [...] en cuanto al desarrollo de la sesión tienen en cuenta las pautas dadas por el docente.”

Q#2// “... ha mejorado el proceso de cómo seguir instrucciones [...] se fortaleció el trabajo cooperativo que llevaba el curso.”

See annexes # 52, 54

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rule is set (and its rationale) then there is not a great need to watch everybody to be following the rules.

b. Social values and Competence

There were many situations into the classes that showed up the students’ tolerance and

respect level with their partners, even solidarity. Once we started, these situations

demonstrated there were high levels of competition, rivalry and aggressiveness among them, even insulting each other when we teachers were present. There were also good and positive relationships between students and teachers. During this intervention there were lessons on which were used physical games. What we first observed was that through these kind of games competence increased among students, especially those who pretended to be leaders. What they all thought was about winning, and so we found some cases in which a student’s hurry for achieving victory leaded him or her to cheat or making attempts to complete the tasks by him or herself. In fact this was pretty common throughout the implementation but with less episodes with the passing of time.

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“I must say that I noticed that girls of this classroom have certain differences between them that do not allow them to work [...] They must be very competitive but also I must say that girls of this group are aggressive because they do not care that the head teacher and me were present, they said what they wanted to say to each other.” May 17th, 2018. Fourth Grade.

See annex # 11

This kind of situations were repeated several times. We teachers took advantage of these situations and tried to highlight students’ achievements and differences (as something that enriches the class and the society) during the classes in which there were physical games, hand-craft or presentations. There were also attempts for grouping those students with personal issues in order to make them cooperate because, in words of Johnson & Johnson (2017) “it is the face-to-face promotive interaction among individuals [...] that most powerfully influences efforts to achieve, caring and committed relationships, and

psychological adjustment and social competence. Students focus both on increasing their own achievement and on increasing the achievement of their groupmates”(p.7)

To support this idea, an entry of teacher’s journal on Thursday, June 7th demonstrates how this rivalry situations could be overcome through finding one’s likes and opinions in another person or finding this new way of doing and thinking that can be attractive and interesting in someone else. This next situation happened during a class in which the

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“Despite of having assigned groups by numbering, which at the beginning seemed to be problematic because of rivalry among girls, I found that such rivalry can be overcome when girls realized that those other girls have a way of decorating or drawing that they may want to imitate or liked. I mean, when they give others the opportunity to demonstrate who they are, this happens.”

June 7th, 2018. Fourth grade.

See annex #13

See annex #31

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consisted on writing which part of their own body they liked the most) she realized that they had common opinions and likes about decorating and also about their favorite limb.

See annex #32

But our teacher’s journals are not the only way we got to know this phenomenon. We decided to ask homeroom- teachers if they noticed an impact of games on students’ social values. They told us that through games, organization and assigning of groups students are consequently changing the way they perceive their mates’ ideas and opinions. These next answers illustrate and affirm what has been said:

Q#1// “Los juegos permiten la interacción positiva en los niños [...] al igual permite en fomento de Valores.”

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compañeros [...] ha mejorado [...] el respeto al otro, a su opinión.”

See annex #52

To support this idea Johnson & Johnson (2017) emphasize:

“Cooperative efforts result in participants striving for mutual benefit so that all group members benefit from each other’s efforts [...], recognizing that all group members share a common fate [...], realizing that one’s performance is mutually caused by oneself and one’s colleagues [...], and feeling proud and jointly celebrating when a group member is recognized for achievement” (p.3) Johnson & Johnson (2017)

This is, when people we are at new situations or situations that we do not know how to manage with people we do not know it leads us to recognize the value of others’ ideas and opinions as an important and complementary contribution to our thinking. In this

sense, Sigurðardóttir (2010) points out that “games also play a big part in helping participants build relationships, and to feel equal. Playing games in the classroom can also help create a friendly and positive atmosphere where seat arrangement can differ from game to game, and thus cause diversity from the norm which can be extremely helpful in keeping an exciting learning environment.”(p.28).

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Motivation and Engagement

The phenomena raised in the framework of this implementation left commonly observed

issues among students when using play based activities. These are Motivation and

Engagement. These are dependent one from the other because if students feel comfortable during the class and this is interesting for them (motivation), they will want to keep on attending to the class and doing their best (engagement). In order to understand how motivation and engagement were affected and what emerged from this implementation, we ought to contextualize. Before we could start our classes we got knowledge of the state of the English classes on elementary school: All grades, except for fifth grade, had not classes with an English teacher. Homeroom-teachers had to prepare these classes, even when they did not know English at all. Such teachers prepared their classes since what they know and in the way they learned or were told to do. It was found in students’ notebooks trails of these classes and the methods that teachers used, most of the times translation and grammar exercises. Then, this was the first time that students faced English classes given by an English teacher, and this (having an English teacher) impacted students who demonstrated

amazement. This entry of the teacher’s journal on May 17th shows up the astonishment of students once they faced the very first class with the teacher who introduced herself in English.

“Despite of students don’t understand entirely what teacher says, they show interest on the class looking teacher’s mouth movements and trying to imitate it.”

May 17th, 2018, Third Grade

See annex # 16

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attention. Once we finished our talk, they asked very excited if we really talked in English and asked for words translations and sentences. This astonished students showed how related they were to English. At the same time it was noticed that although students had a previous approach to the language with their homeroom-teacher, the fact of listening the teacher speak in English generated, not only surprise, but in turn, impelled the students to imitate the sounds that the teacher produced.

We considered important taking into account homeroom- teachers knowledge based on their day to day experience with the students. One of them manifested (in agreement with our affirmations) in one of his answers an increasing interest and willingness among students towards the English lesson and the English teacher:

Q#3// “Se ha notado agrado y disposición por la clase y reclaman que si se va a realizar la actividad con el profesor de inglés.”

See annex # 50

On the other hand, listening to an unknown language was not the only issue that contributed to enhance students’ interest on the English classes. Of course (because of the natural relation between play and childhood) games and play based activities taken to the classroom are important concerns to keep in mind when talking about motivation and engagement into the classroom because games create a comfortable atmosphere where shy students can easily communicate (Sigurðardóttir, 2010, p.28). It is this “comfortable

atmosphere” what we pursued. Thus, we realized that both, the new teacher demonstrating that is able to really handle the language, as well as the games, contributed during this

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Several entries in the teacher’s journal evidence students who manifested joy and amusement after playing:

“Students were very participative and most of them followed the given rules.” May 8th, 2018, Fourth grade.

“About the use of the dice I would definitively say that makes more exciting the idea of decorating the drawing”

May 22nd, 2018, Fourth grade.

“They loved this activity of representing feelings.” June 12th, 2018, fourth grade.

“About the activity I can say that they always like performing different roles [...] As the roles were assigned at random it was interesting to see the way they represented the

opposite gender as well as they felt excited when the role was a father, a mother, a sister or a brother. I think they like the formers because it means power, those are the head of the family; and the later because they like (I think) the idea of their classmates (especially best friends) to be part of their own family.”

July 10th, 2018, fourth grade.

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September 11th, 2018, fourth grade.

See annexes #22, 24,26,27,30

These entries demonstrate that including activities that involve physical movement and role play during the lessons make that students get amused while practicing the language and get engaged with it. This leads us to see the importance of body and how through the use of it and its experiences students can build meaningful knowledge. Sheets-Johnstone (2003) supports this idea when he says that “The most basic form of social knowledge [...] lie in intercorporeal understandings generated in and by corporeal-kinetic knowledge of one’s own body” (p. 418) and it has been demonstrated that play is the most basic form of social

interaction.

With this in mind, and through the open-ended questionnaires, homeroom-teachers were able to state their opinions and observations about this intervention and about this topic. Homeroom-teachers’ voices were included here to understand the impact on students’ motivation and engagement on the English lessons. To start with, most of their comments were positive about the use of games. In their opinions and comments homeroom-teachers manifested that amusement was very important for students because they enjoyed and even demanded for these activities and the teachers. An illustration of this, is reflected on the following excerpts from the questionnaires applied to homeroom-teachers.

This first answer highlights that during games and some other play based activities are found different ways to express and experience the world:

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Q#3 // “Manifiestan agrado por la clase, espectativa sobre el tema o actividad que el profesor organice.”

Q#4 // “Los juegos son divertidos y a los niños les gusta jugar puesto que los alumnos aprenden más y mejor cuando se divierten.”

Q#1 // “Los juegos ha sido apropiados para la edad de los niños y de fácil ejecusión y comprensión.”

Q#2 // “Sí ha generado impacto positivo: interés por el aprendizaje a través de las diferentes actividades lúdicas.”

See annexes #50, 52, 53, 54

Consequently, these teachers’ responses support the use of games in teaching and acknowledge the importance of amusement for students. They even answered that they are willing to use some of these games and other play based activities during their classes:

Q#4 // “Sí, ya que son una herramienta pedagógica y didáctica necesaria en el aprendizaje.”

Q#4 // “Sí, ya que los juegos son una estrategia didáctica y cognitiva para poder acercar a los niños al conocimiento; y brindar un desarrollo integral pues no solo se centra en el desarrollo de los contenidos.”

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But these are not the only effects produced by the implementation, homeroom-teachers acknowledged a change on students` performance towards the class because all of them have manifested attitudes of interest for it.

Q#3 // “Sí, los estudiantes tienen una mayor disposición al desarrollar las diferentes actividades propuestas”

Q#1 // “ Los juegos implementados por la docente de inglés [...] han generado motivación e interés”

Q#3 // “Muestran disposición e interés por la clase de inglés”

See annexes #51, 52

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other in so many ways.”(p. 28) Besides, this kind of situations remind us Vygotsky's theory of scaffolding reflected when high school students aimed the elementary ones to overcome the games’ challenges by giving them clues of where to go or take or do. When they despaired, gave the clear answer or what they had to do.

Finally, as we said at the beginning of this section if students like and feel comfortable with the class, they will be motivated to continue and participate on this. And this same movement of getting interested and so motivated leads them (to students) to engage with the

knowledgeable area that we study, to a strong desire of knowing and getting involved more and more about such topic.

Identity and otherness

The current section is called Identity and Otherness because we consider that during the process of development of the project these two features were found to be manifested and affected by students’ decisions, actions and artifacts under teachers’ guidance and

intervention. In here, we will analyze copy and self-appearance under the idea of identity, whereas otherness will be analyzed taking into account Vygotsky’s idea of scaffolding.

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and the own reasons for copying someone else, in order to provide them with another perspective about copy. As researchers we found that dealing with this perspective about copy seemed to make students feel comfortable about it and about themselves. We also think that the action of copying suggests a way in which students looked for social acceptance. In the next entry of teachers’ journal on September 27th, the last class with fourth grade (in which students were supposed to decorate the bottle that became their own “time capsule”) we found a case for illustrating this doubled face reaction to copy.

“These two girls complained about how original was another girl’s work, that she was copying in spite of the fact that they had just finished decoration and their works were very similar (a copy in fact, but without original author) [...] I dared to the girl who copied to think of the reason why she wanted to do it so similar to the girls work and also that there is nothing wrong with admiring someone else’s ideas; and told to the other two girls to feel proud for making such pretty work that someone else is taking the idea for its own work because is beauty.” September 27th, 2018. Fourth grade.

See annex #15

See annex # 33

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wandering around talking and playing with someone she has not fought during the day. Most of the times she had troubles when making handicrafts or presentations and always did it better when a classmate was by her side. The teacher’s words to the three girls towards copy changed their attitude when such words offered a new way to perceive and understand their mates’ actions and decisions as well as the own. That girl who imitated her mates’ work realized that she liked the way the girls had decorated, being this the reason why she wanted to do it so (to copy), and felt shame for it but kept on working close to the girls talking to them until she finished. The other two girls had the opportunity for feeling pride because they did a work so pretty that someone else wanted to have one like theirs. Of course, we are not giving support to copy as a way to proceed in all of the cases, but we want to interpret copy in a different way taking into account this particular situation and some others presented during the implementation because we consider that through this kind of situations we had the opportunity to observe and reinforce or make efforts to change students’ attitudes and opinions, as well as it allowed them to live new experiences changing by themselves and keep on building their own identity. (As we saw in 401’s case about girls and rivalry in Social Values and

Competence section)

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See annex #34

But, why to start by mentioning copy as an issue related to identity? As it was mentioned, cheating was a common issue in most of the classes, then an important thing to consider because of the different reactions that caused on students and the actions that were taken about it. It becomes necessary to clarify what identity is in order to understand how we relate it to copy. Richardson (1982) assures that identity implies a recognition of the basics that constitute the person, “ Identity is recognition: "I am me, and nothing can change that basic fact." and also defines the Self-concept as “an evaluative function : "I am a good, or bad, person. Tomorrow, there may be some modification"(p.3)

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Now, we can put any random student in the same situation of this girl who copied and some other students or the rest of the classroom in the other girls’ place and understand that such situations are really common to most of the classes and affect or contribute to students’ identity by means of their interactions.

On the other hand, we want to draw the attention on students’ perception of themselves and their uniqueness, a basic fact that cannot be changed and that constitutes their identity, Richardson (1982). What we first noticed when students faced an activity that implied taking into account their appearance, likes and opinions was reluctance and obstacles:

“Students have some difficulties to mention their own characteristics and draw themselves because they feel ashamed talking about it.” “Some students avoided to draw or color some of their main physical characteristics (glasses, skin color, and hair color) because their mates made fun of it.”

June 7th, 2018. Third grade

See annex # 18

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proceed by confronting students with themselves and encouraging them to acknowledge their strengths.

On the contrary, we found students who had a clear idea of how they looked and what they liked, at least. On this teachers’ journal entry on May 22nd, students demonstrated a great love for themselves during the activity on the class “Parts of the body”, going beyond the

requested action (writing the favorite part of their body) and wrote “I love my body”.

“Most of the girls and boys were likely to write various parts of the body, despite of the fact that I asked to write just one. I allowed it because they took it as normal [...] They like themselves.”

May 22nd, 2018. Fourth grade.

See annex #24

When the students were asked about this, they answered astonished that they like all of themselves, how could they like just one part? There was nothing else to ask about after this, because all the answers are implicit on such statement.

Now, in order to analyze otherness and understand its relation to Vygotsky’s concept of scaffolding we would like to present a particular case given during the class called “Letter to myself in the future” in which a boy, who has concentration problems, after being helped by the English and homeroom teacher to complete the letter, was able to explain and help another boy to complete his own work.