Presentation of the Comenius Multilateral Project

1. Literacy Across the curriculum in different languages and context: Functional Approaches to Reading and Writing Presentation of the Comenius Multilateral Project Teacher Learning for European Literacy Education (TeL4ELE) 2011 - 2013 PORTUGAL

2. WHAT WILL I BE TALKING ABOUT HERE? Ourexperiencewiththeimplementationanddevelopmentoftheproject, considering • Teachers’ reactions • Trainers’ evaluation • Learners’ progress

3. TEACHERS’ REACTIONS Whenfirst in contactwith Languageteachers I already do thiswithmystudents… Non-languageteachers If I do this, I willnothavethe time to teachthemthesyllabuscontents…

4. TEACHERS’ REACTIONS Bythemiddleoftheacademicyear… Languageteachers Thisisnotexactlyhow I havebeendoingit… Non-languageteachers Afterall, learningthegenresislearningthecontentsofthe discipline, islearningthesubject

5. TEACHERS’ REACTIONS Some difficulty in graspingtheideathatitisthelanguageitselfthatworks cross-cuttingnotthe Portuguese Language classes/ Portuguese Language as a subject … butgraduallycoming to termswiththeideathat… … Portuguese as a subjectisnotsupposed to beinstrumentive to theothersubjects, itistheothersubjectsthatneedanadequatepedagogy to teachtheirgenresandmakethestudentsawareoftheimportanceoflanguage in theconstructionofknowledge

6. TEACHERS’ REACTIONS Onceunderstoodandworkedwith, thepedagogymadetheteachersawareof: 1. texts as complexobjectsthatneedexplicitteachingoftheirgoalsandstages; 2. thepotentialityofinterdisciplinarywork (e.g. studentsawarenessofsubjectandthemecomplementarityandofrelationalwork); 3. workingalongwithcolleaguesfromother disciplines (developcommondidacticstrategiesandcommonperspectivesonlearningandteaching in differentsubjects);

7. TEACHERS’ REACTIONS Onceunderstoodandworkedwith, thepedagogymadetheteachersawareof: 4. sharingknowledgeandexperiencewithcolleaguescomingfromdifferentrecontextualizingknowledgeanddiscursiveformations; 5. developmentofcommonstrategies to overcomelearningdifficultiesandcommonassessmentpractices. A lotof hard work, but a veryrewardingone

8. TRAINERS’ EVALUATION What texts to use? Pandora’s box • Text typology in the National Syllabus • Text typology in national assessmentpractices • Textbooks Acknowledgementof a research need: • mappingofgenres in the Portuguese school

9. TRAINERS’ EVALUATION A lot to do yet, but a willingness to continue. Some aspectsworthconsidering: • from 5th grade on, oneteacherimplementingthepedagogy in oneclassisgood… butallthestudents in that classe beingtaughtbyteachersimplementingthepedagogy in allsubjectsbeingtaughtisevenbetter; • need to move froman experimental use andapplicationofthepedagogy, as withthisproject, to a long-runimplementation, withthesupportoftheeducationalauthorities; • thenecessity to involvetheMinistryofEducation in whateverwill come next .

10. TRAINERS’ EVALUATION In general trainersfeelthatthepedagogy: • wasentirelyuptakenbythetrainees • wasappraised as a means to reconfigure thetraineespedagogicanddidacticrecontextualizingpracticesofwhatconstitutesknowledge in theirsubjects • understood as a means to establishinterdisciplinaryprofessional teams in schools

11. LEARNERS’ PROGRESS • Data fromonestudent: • Portuguese as a secondlanguage • Grade 7 • Aged 13 • Originallyfrom Guiné-Bissau • Lived in Englandbeforemoving to Portugal • Arrivedatthebeginingoftheacademicyear

12. LEARNERS’ PROGRESS Eu / sou / otomista / porque / encaro / a / vida / de / uma / forma / positiva / Porque / fasso / as / coisas / para / ganhar / não / pa- ra / perder / eu / digo a / mim / mesma / que / vou / ganhar /.

13. LEARNERS’ PROGRESS Estou num arquipélago Bijagos numa ferias di pascoa está muito calor. Depois dou um mergulho e a água está muito fria; gosto do cheiro da praia e xxxxx da agua; e do barulho das onda e ouvi musicas e barulho das pessoas; vejo o céu está limpo as pedras e as pessoas e as arvores. É o momento mais feliz da minha vida.

14. LEARNERS’ PROGRESS The teacher’s reflection: (…)she only wrote very short texts, often consisting of a single sentence. The texts had a lot of repeated words, no punctuation and a lot of spelling mistakes. Her ideas were often confused and not in accordance with the writing assignments. The implementation of Reading to Learn had very positive effects on E.’s writing development. She learned how to write from a model text, drawing on its structure and language resources. I now reckon that the traditional approach to writing – providing students with a topic and general guidelines for its development – is not supportive enough for someone like E.

15. LEARNERS’ PROGRESS Working on stages made it possible for E. to write better texts (although future work has to be done on phases). I feel she now has the capacity to better understand the writing assignments. By drawing on language resources explored during reading, she is also in a better condition to develop her ideas and to deliver a piece of writing that resembles … a text. Despite the E.’s progress, it has to be acknowledged that the Reading to Learn strategies where only implemented for a very short time. There is still a lot of work ahead. Sara Ribeiro