1. Teaching EFL to children:
a strong and colourful tapestry.
Cristina Helena Evelyn Tinoco Teixeira
MA Language Arts
Pos-grad English Language (PUC-Rio)
BA Fine Arts (UFRJ)
CNPq Multimodality Researcher
Fundamental 1 - EFL teacher (Colégio A.Liessin)

2. t in g the
set teache
the r
the
a strong and colourful tapestry.
students
get the
tar ge mother
the gua
lan tongue
2

3. How do children think and learn?
3

4. Primary Education
Piaget’s Theory (1967)
 Vygotsky (1962)
All children pass through stages: 
Language
sensori-motor (til 18 months)

operational (til 11 years approximately)
formal operations (11 years onwards). Beginning serves a regulative,
Donaldson (1978):rs
ccu
g o communicative function
Le can n ldren
before they arniperceive, reason and
understand inen chi rational terms
Children do not pass through stages. Later transforms the way children
wh mature,
tand
erswith the tasks that
undactions and operations
think, learn and understand
Actions  Mental
It was the unfamiliarity
led essage
s higher mental processes 
mformative effects on the
to failure
urs
Language  no occevaluate,
abilityngplan,
earni handrreason
to
structure of thinking
L memorise ild en
c
Bruner (1966) when stand
r
unde ges

 instruction = the heart of human development
a
rs
Mature-thinking importance of action and intelligence = mess to learn through
capacity
Learn ng occu
iproblem-solving instruction
en
n hildr

wh e
Concrete problems c manipulation of ZPD – zone of proximal development
abstractstand
der
unprocedures 
es
messag distance between actual development level
and
Language
potencial development under guidance and
 collaboration
Learning  social interaction – LASS
4
Language Acquisiton Support System

5. How have these theories influenced
teachers in primary classroom?
• Communicate meaningfully
• Use purposeful contexts
• Work on tasks
• Use variety of forms
• Read literature
Respond to it critically
Use reading for learning
• Appreciate mistakes
• Offer endless help
5

6. Second/Foreign Language
Halliday (1993) states that when children learn
language, they are not simply engaging in one
Hence the ontogenesis
type of learning among many; rather, they are
learning theoccurs in mainly one way
Learning foundations of learning itself.
(rooting/growing/development)
- when children understand messages -
The distinctive characteristic of human learning
of language is at the same time the
is that it is a process of making meaning - a
claiming that comprehension and
semiotic process; and of learning. thing.
ontogenesis the prototypical form
learning are very much the same
(basis) of human semiotic is language. 6

7. Second/Foreign Language
mother Meaning Making Genre-
tongue based
materials
images
content-
sounds based
materials
realia
task-based
games materials
body language topic related input 7

8. Task-based Teaching
a task is a workplan learners process language
pragmatically
A task is intended to result in
language use
- language used in the real world -
8

9. CBI - Content-Based Instruction (USA)
CLIL- Content and Language Integrated
Learning (Europe)
an overlap between the second/foreign
language and content subjects
a teaching method that emphasizes
learning about something rather than
learning about language
9

10. Genre-based Pedagogy
Genres are not Bakhtin (1992), we modal our conversations in the
According to just forms.
Genres of discursive genre that are passed on to us as is our
forms are forms of life,
ways of being. They which we dominate much before we are
mother tongue, and are
frames for to any formal teaching of grammar. For Bakhtin,
exposed social action ...
Genres shape the thoughts its lexical composition and grammatical
“Our mother tongue –
structure – is not learnt in dictionaries and in grammar books, we
we form and the
acquire it in face of concrete utterance we hear and reproduce
communications by which
weduring real oral communication with the individuals who surround
interact. Genres are the
us. We assimilate the language forms only in the forms taken by
familiar places we go to
the enunciation and it is exactly with these forms (…) the
create intelligible
discourse genre enters our experience and our consciousness in
communicative action with
such a way their delicate correlation isn’t broken. To learn to
each other and the
speak is to learn how to structure enunciations (because we
guideposts we use to
speak through enunciations, not through isolated sentences, and
explore the familiar.
least even, obviously, through isolated words). (p. 301 – 302)
(Swales1997: 19)
10

11. Genre-based Pedagogy
11

12. School Genres
12

13. Second/Foreign Language
mother Meaning Making Genre-
tongue based
materials
images in
e content-
gu ag
sounds
an L based
realia hol e L /ES materials
W E FL task-based
games materials
body language topic related input 13

14. Whole Language (reading, writing,skills
Whole Language Language listening,
Whole Language
meaning-centered
Learning is a in many ways,tomirrors the speaking, thinking)
in in many part mirrors the
in many to ways, mirrors
many ways, mirrors the
whole
ways, whole
collaborative should be dealt with in
Natural Approach teaching Terrel)
Natural Approach (Krashen and its whole – not isolated
Task-based (Krashen and Terrel)
CBI/CLIL instruction
instruction
Genre-based pedagogy
activity
(which mirrors Vygotsky’s ZPD theory)
---itshares the belief that ––
itit shares the belief that –
- shares the belief that –
it shares the belief that
-it shares the belief
communication of you that –isto Language is
Languagelearn when meaning butnot an end in
students should end indo it,
you is not an be exposed itself, a
Teachers
When communication is successful itself, but a
Whole Language
facilitate the the necessary point ofend it.
youmeansas you departure
learn to an do
authentic material.
learning process the input a bit beyond the current
(with successful language activity means to an
for end.
level of competence),
Children should be
new learning takes place.
Students should
immersed in So, they should learn learn by doing -
literacy events to read by reading and as active
– with authentic prints. learn to write by engagement
reading and writing produces results.
- I do, I understand -
14

15. Whole Language in the English class
15

16. One looks back with appreciation to the
brilliant teachers,
but with gratitude to those who touched
our human feelings.
The curriculum is so much
necessary raw material,
but warmth is the vital element for the
growing plant and for the soul of the child.
Carl Jung
teching EFL to kids 16
16

17. References:
•Bakhtin, M. M. (1986) Speech Genres and Other Late Essays.
Trans. by Vern W. McGee. Austin, Tx: University of Texas Press.
•Brinton, D. M., Snow, M. A., & Wesche, M. B. (1989). Content-
based second language instruction. New York: Newbury House.
•Goodman, Y. M. "Roots of the Whole-Language Movement". The
Elementary School Journal, (90):2117
•Halliday M.A.K. (1975). Learning how to mean, London, Edward
Arnold
•Krashen, S.D; Terrell, T.D. (1983). The Natural Approach. New
York: Pergamon.
•Nunan, D (2004) Task-Based Language Teaching. Cambridge
University Press
•Patzeit, K. E. Principles of Whole Language and Implications for
ESL Learners. http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED400526.pdf
•Piaget, J. (1952) The Origins of Intelligence in Children. New York:
International University Press.
•Wertsch, J. V. (1985). Vygotsky and the social formation of mind..
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
•THANK YOU YOUTUBE!!!