8 Theme-based teaching and learning

8.1 Issues around theme-based teaching

The essential notion of theme-based teaching is that many different

activities are linked together by their content; the theme or topic runs
through everything that happens in the classroom and acts as a
connecting thread for pupils and teacher. Good theme-based teaching
has produced some of the most inspiring teaching that I have ever seen;
done less well, it leads quickly to chaotic and ineffective classrooms.
Because it can lead to such extremes of learning experiences for
children, it is worth taking a long, hard look at what makes for good
theme-based teaching.
Effective theme-based teaching is extremely demanding on teachers in
both planning and in implementation; knowledge of a wide repertoire
of activity types and resources is needed to plan for children of all
abilities to be stretched and learning all the time, and to avoid children
spending too long on cognitively less demanding activities, such as
drawing pictures. Skilled management of class, group and pair work is
needed to keep all children actively learning, even when good activities
have been planned. An equality issue also can arise if teachers choose
themes that they hope will keep the interest of the most demanding
pupils, but then neglect the interests of quieter pupils. Knowledge of
patterns of cognitive, language and motor skills development is needed
to plan, ensure and evaluate progression in all areas of the curriculum
through theme-based teaching over the school year. Organisational and
technical skills are needed to ®nd or create a wide range of resources. To
the knowledge and skills required for good theme-based teaching, we
must then add the language-using demands that will be made on the
foreign language teacher to carry out theme-based work in the foreign
language.
Dif®culties with maintaining progression, motivation and control, as
well as a range of more politically motivated concerns about standards,
have led to the demise of theme-based teaching in many schools in
England, where it was a major methodology from the late 1960s on (see
next section). At the same time, theme-based teaching is being espoused
by Ministries of Education elsewhere around the world who are
dissatis®ed with the outcomes of other types of primary or elementary
school curriculum.

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 Theme-based teaching and learning

In this chapter, the origins of theme-based teaching are brie¯y

described, as a starting point for using the ideas in foreign language
teaching. We then look at the various stages in the process of planning
teaching around a theme and investigate how to maximise language use
and language learning. Examples of themes are used to show how the
language learning potential of theme-based teaching can be identi®ed
and offered to pupils.

8.2 Theme-based teaching of a foreign language

8.2.1 Origins and transfer to foreign language classrooms

Theme-based, or topic-based, teaching has been practised since the
1960s in UK primary classrooms, where children typically spend all
day with the same teacher. In this setting, different areas of the
curriculum can be taught in an integrated way, without being
separated into subject areas that have to be taught at speci®c times
by separate teachers. Teaching that is integrated around a theme is
claimed to better suit the way that young children naturally learn. In
its original (®rst language) uses, theme-based teaching required
teachers to choose a theme or topic, such as `People who help us',
and then to plan a range of teaching and learning activities related to
the theme, that incorporated aspects of mathematics, science, art,
language, history, geography, music and so on. For example, children
of ®ve or six years might work with the teacher to make a list of
people who help them on the way to school: parents who make the
breakfast, a friend who walks with them to school, the lollipop man
who helps them cross the road, the playground helper who looks
after them before school begins. They could then draw pictures of
each person and write their names underneath. They could then put
the pictures in order on a frieze of `People who help us each day'. In
this activity, the children would have worked on their language,
literacy and art skills, and on the concept of temporal sequencing
which will be needed in maths and in history. Another day they
might visit the ®re station to learn about how ®re engines work. In
the process of this activity they might cover aspects of geography
(drawing a map of where the ®re station is in the town); some science
(about ®res, oxygen, water and chemical extinguishers); some maths
(counting the engines and the personnel, working out how many go on
each engine); some language work in writing a letter of thanks after-
wards, and so on. With creative thinking and skilled organisation, a

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 Teaching Languages to Young Learners

theme can generate a long list of activities relating to all areas of the
curriculum under one theme.
Theme-based teaching has been transferred across from general
primary education to the teaching of English as a foreign language
(Garvie 1991; Holderness 1991; Scott and Ytreberg 1990). It offers one
way of solving the problem of what to teach in primary FL classrooms,
where a focus on the language itself might not be appropriate (Tongue
1991), and meshes with ideas about communicative language teaching,
in that children will have opportunities to learn the foreign language
through its use to carry the thematic content. The potential of theme-
based teaching to provide realistic and motivating uses of the language
with meaning and purpose for children is clear; the realisation of that
potential requires, as in ®rst language teaching, high levels of knowledge
and expertise from teachers.

8.2.2 Variations on a theme

In the simplest version of theme-based foreign language teaching, a
topic provides content for a range of language learning activities.
Halliwell (1992) goes beyond this and suggests that the links between
the foreign language classroom and other lessons at primary level can
work in several directions:
± other subject areas, such as maths or art, can offer teaching techni-
ques and activities, as well as content, that can be used in the
foreign language classroom;
± foreign language lessons can provide content for other subject areas;
± whole subject lessons can be taught in the foreign language.
This last variation edges foreign language teaching towards a partial
version of immersion education, found increasingly in European
schools, sometimes under the banner of `plurilingual' education; for
example, German pupils learning geography in English (Wode 1999) or
Scottish pupils learning Maths in French (Hurrell 1999).
A further variation on theme-based teaching is an `activity-based'
approach, for example that developed by Vale and Feunteun (1995). In
this approach, an overarching theme links the content of a lesson, and
learning of language takes place as children participate in a range of
activities on the theme, such as sorting, measuring and playing games.
Again, many of these activities come from other curriculum areas.
Figure 8.1 shows some of the many activities that can be transferred
from other subject areas for use in the foreign language classroom
(drawing on Halliwell 1992; Vale and Feunteun 1995).

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 Theme-based teaching and learning

comparing
then & now making
®nding out drawing
charts,
about people timelines
graphs
places
using maps measuring
History
making grids, surveys
charts Geography Maths
role play sorting
writing and reading

drama experiments

stories English Science testing

Activities from
poems other subjects growing things
rhymes e-mail
Physical
Education Inf. Tech.
composing
sequences publishing
Cookery Art/craft
movement searching
the Web
races collage
cooking collecting making
recipes models painting
tasting puppets
masks

Figure 8.1 Subject area activities to use in the FL classroom

(drawing on Halliwell 1992, Vale and Feunteun 1995)

Examples of lessons using very simple language to carry out activities

can be found in Halliwell (1992).
Vale and Feunteun suggest that activity-based approaches offer
`whole learning / whole language experience' in which the activities `are
of value to the overall educational and social development of the child,
and not merely to develop English language skills' (Vale and Feunteun
1995: 28).
Whole language approaches to teaching ethnic minority children have
been popular in American elementary schools (e.g. Genesee 1994).
Theme-based and whole language work can successfully construct
meaningful learning opportunities for children, but so too can many
other tasks and activities, including those discussed elsewhere in this
book. The notion of `whole-ness' does not only apply at the macro level
of a theme across a lesson or series of lessons, but can apply to the
smallest activity in which meaning, form and use are combined in social
interaction: a child who needs a pencil and asks successfully for it in the
foreign language has used the language in a `whole' discourse event

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 Teaching Languages to Young Learners

(section 3.2). Furthermore, as we have seen with the teaching of

discourse skills, vocabulary, grammar, and literacy skills, there are some
aspects of language that cannot fully develop without focused attention.
It is a paradox that we need to work with: that focused and partial
practising may be needed for the development of macro-level holistic
language skills (Widdowson 1998).

8.2.3 Choosing theme-based teaching for the foreign language

classroom
Theme-based teaching can be used in large or small amounts, and in
varying concentrations. In concentrated form, and in skilled hands, it
could replace course book and syllabus altogether. More realistically, it
can be adopted for one or two lessons in a week, or for several weeks
in a term, to supplement other work, and to help teachers build up the
skills and knowledge that are demanded. Even when the course book
is used fairly closely, theme-based ideas can provide extra activities.
Many course books use topics or themes to structure their units,
although this is often a super®cial covering for a grammatical or
functional sequencing. The title of a unit, such as `Pets' or `My
Family', can be treated like a theme, and adopting a theme-based
approach can extend teaching and learning beyond the con®nes of the
text book.
Foreign language teaching, in adapting ideas for theme-based
teaching, should try to avoid as far as possible the kinds of problems
faced by its use in ®rst language education, mentioned in section 8.1. It
is clear, although again somewhat paradoxical at ®rst sight, that good
holistic learning experiences are constructed through rigorous attention
to detail in planning and teaching. As with using stories, there is no
magic that can replace informed and detailed analysis and planning by
the teacher. In the next section, we see how planning can move from
content to language learning goals.

8.3 Planning theme-based teaching

The language learning opportunities offered by theme-based teaching in

the foreign language classroom arise from the content and the activities
that pupils undertake. Together, the content and activities produce
language-using situations and discourse types. In this section, we see
how planning can move from content /activity to language use, and
produce language learning goals for theme-based lessons.

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 Theme-based teaching and learning

8.3.1 Advance versus `on-line' planning

Theme-based teaching can be tightly planned in advance, or it can be
allowed to evolve `on-line' through dynamic teaching and learning, that
changes direction in the light of task outcomes, developing and evolving
with the emerging interests of children and teacher. Like the effortless
movement of skilled dancers, it would be a mistake to think that this
type of teaching can take place without years of painful practice and
experience. Even the expert teacher will usually need to carry out
careful planning of a theme in advance, to prepare sub-themes, tasks
and materials, and to identify the language learning goals of each
activity.
The dynamic nature of theme-based teaching can be enhanced by
building in `choice points', where pupils and teacher have choice over
direction, activity or timing. As a theme proceeds, there may be points
at which the class can decide which of two or more possible directions
the theme-based work will take. In a theme-based lesson, children can
be allowed to choose a ®xed number of activities from a small set of
activities. They can also be encouraged to take some responsibility for
their own learning by being required to organise their time. After a
plenary session in which the tasks for the lesson are explained and
understood, children can decide in what order to do the activities; the
only constraint is that they must complete all activities within the given
time, which could be the lesson or the week. To help with time manage-
ment, children can copy a list of activities from the board, number them
in their chosen sequence and tick them off as completed. The use of
choice points contributes to children's capacities for self-directed
learning by giving them supported practice in making decisions as
learning proceeds, so that later they will be able to identify these points
themselves.

8.3.2 Finding a theme

Finding a theme or topic is the easiest part! A theme can come from the
children's current interests, from topics being studied in other classes,
from a story (e.g. dinosaurs or conservation of the environment from
Dinosaurs ± Chapter 7), or from a local or international festival or
event. A list from Vale and Feunteun (1995) of possible themes shows
something of the range of sources:
± Spiders and mini-creatures
± Circus

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 Teaching Languages to Young Learners

± Potatoes / vegetables
± Islands
± Bridges
± Jack and the Beanstalk
± Halloween / festivals
± The House that Jack Built.
Children might be given a stake in the process from the start by asking
them to suggest themes, or to select a theme for the term from a list. It is
necessary for staff across a school to liaise over themes, so that children
do not ®nd themselves studying the same theme more than once with
different teachers.

8.3.3 Planning content

Two basic planning tools for theme-based teaching are brainstorming
and webs. Both techniques allow the connection of ideas in non-linear
ways, re¯ecting the learning processes that we are aiming to produce.
Brainstorming is a mental process that starts with one idea and then
sparks off others through random and spontaneous links. All possibi-
lities are noted down and are then used to select from. A `web' is a way
of writing down ideas and connections without forcing them into linear
form as in a list or in text. The main idea or topic is put in the centre of
the paper or board, and connecting ideas written around it, with lines
showing connections. A web can be used in brainstorming, and / or can
be used after brainstorming to put some order into the random collec-
tion of ideas. In section 4.4.4, we saw that a theme can be considered as
including:
people + objects + actions + processes + typical events + places
This notion helps start the brainstorming process. When applied to
Vale and Feunteun's theme of Potatoes, the theme spreads from
farming and eating potatoes into areas of concern such as the scienti®c
manipulation of crops and whether international businesses threaten
local traditions. Figure 8.2 shows how a brainstorming around the
theme might develop. Notice that the ideas relate mostly to non-school
life and that they are still just content, not yet foreign language
learning activities.

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 Theme-based teaching and learning

Potatoes
and
People Objects
farmers types of potatoes
gardeners farming implements e.g. hoes
eaters cooking implements
cooks e.g. peelers, chip pans
customers
Walter Raleigh (brought the potato to England from America)
Actions Processes
digging growing
planting cooking
harvesting making crisps
peeling buying and selling
chopping staple foods in diets
chipping exploration of the New World
eating how food and cooking can spread
internationally genetic modi®cation
Typical events
the potato harvest Places
a visit to a fast food restaurant ®elds, restaurants
Figure 8.2 Brainstorming around the theme of potatoes

To this list, we can add types of discourse typically associated with

any of the above, since that will take us, via language in use, towards
language learning. Potato-related examples of discourse would include:
± menus, ordering
± instructions on seed packets
± recipes
± historical information
± newspaper reports on genetic modi®cation and international busi-
nesses.
The availability of texts like these in the foreign language will in¯uence
the theme planning. It is useful to build up a collection of authentic
materials on trips and from magazines; the Internet provides a rich
source of information in English.
The ideas can now be grouped into sub-themes, such as Growing
Potatoes; Using Potatoes; The History of Potatoes, and drawn as a web
(Figure 8.3). From these sub-themes, planning can move to identifying
activities and language goals.

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 Teaching Languages to Young Learners

where potatoes
discovery of
types of potato come from
potatoes

Growing History of potatoes

potatoes

planting,
weeding
harvesting
invention of chips
selling Potatoes

Using potatoes
pupils' eating
buying habits

preparing and
cooking

Figure 8.3 Potato web

An alternative planning procedure is to build up web linking activities

to areas of the school curriculum: maths, technology, etc. Figure 8.4
shows the topic web for Potatoes from Vale and Feunteun (1995: 236).
The rectangular boxes linked to each curriculum area contain school-
based activities, and the outermost layer shows the language learning
goals of each activity.
Activities and content have, of course, to be selected to suit the age of
the children.
The brainstorming and webbing processes can be carried out with the
children, rather than by the teacher alone. A good way to start is by
asking the children for words connected to the theme, and writing these
on the board, constructing a web as words are suggested. This can be
done in the foreign language, or bilingually, with the teacher translating
words that children suggest in their ®rst language. The advantage of
doing this work with the children is that it also provides a quick
assessment of their knowledge and interest around the topic, through
the words that they suggest and through areas that they do not mention.
The words that need to be translated provide a starting point for
vocabulary learning goals for the theme-based teaching, since they
re¯ect meanings that the children can and want to express, but for
which they do not have the language.

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 Theme-based teaching and learning

Figure 8.4 Topic web for Potatoes (from Vale and Feunteun 1995, p. 236)

An initial brainstorm can also be used to produce guiding questions

for the theme work as a whole. Children and teachers can draw up a set
of questions they want to ®nd answers to. For example, they might
want to ®nd out:
. how many types of potato are there?
. what do sweet potatoes taste like?
. where do the potatoes we eat come from?
. how many kilos of chips does the class eat in a year?
These (genuine) questions can guide the sequencing and content of
activities.

8.3.4 Planning language learning tasks

Having identi®ed sub-themes and guiding questions by taking a `content
perspective' on the theme, planning now has to bring a `language-
learning perspective' to it, so that planning moves from content to FL
classroom activities, with discourse types and aspects of language use
guiding the construction of language learning tasks with clear goals and
stages (as in Chapter 3). For example, ®nding out what sweet potatoes
taste like could involve a sequence of tasks such as those shown in
Figure 8.5, each using the foreign language in activities and in discourse.
In this example, we continue to use activities largely drawn from the

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 Teaching Languages to Young Learners

Theme: POTATOES
Sub-Theme:What do sweet potatoes taste like?
Tasks, Activities, and Discourse Types
Task 1
Finding a recipe to cook the potatoes
searching on the Internet for possible recipes
choosing which recipe to try
compiling a shopping list
Task 2
Going to the supermarket to buy ingredients
planning the trip
noting where things come from to put on a map
making a record of the trip with photographs or video, and
a spoken commentary
Task 3
Cooking the recipe
preparing ingredients
doing the cooking
recording and evaluating the process
Task 4
Tasting the results
inviting other classes to taste, writing invitations
conducting a taste survey and posting results on the Internet
writing out the recipe for home, school magazine
Task 5
Producing a book, or video, or photo and tape record of the whole
series of events

Figure 8.5 Tasks, activities and discourse types around the potato theme

world outside the classroom, rather than from other subject areas in the
school curriculum. The activities to be carried out by pupils sometimes
generate particular types of discourse, either as sources or as outcomes
in teaching and learning; these are underlined in Figure 8.5.
The tasks can then be organised into stages, each with language and
content goals, and ®tted to the timing of lessons. Doing the whole series
of tasks might take half a term, but it might be decided just to do a
reduced version of Tasks 3 and 4: Cooking and Tasting, that could be
®tted into one or two lessons.

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 Theme-based teaching and learning

8.4 Learning language through theme-based teaching

8.4.1 The language learning potential of theme-based teaching

The previous section shows that adopting a theme to guide planning can
open up limitless opportunities. It is necessary to select from the
possibilities to match the interests of a particular class, and then to
construct classroom tasks that will build on what pupils already know
of the foreign language and extend their language learning. In this
section, we look more speci®cally at the potential for language learning
through themes.
The use of the foreign language in theme-based teaching, and thus the
learning potential, is largely determined by the content and activities.
The language is not, as in course-book lessons, selected in advance as a
set of language items to be taught. As the previous section emphasised,
careful planning can predict and help maximise some possibilities, but
there will still be a degree of unpredictability about the language that
will arise in theme-based activities such as understanding recipes found
on the Internet or preparing and cooking food. The teacher is required
to be very sensitive to the language, both to predict language use in
advance and to make the most of the unpredictable uses of the language.
Children may need support to understand content, and, when useful
language items do occur unexpectedly, the teacher needs to be able to
seize the opportunity and help children to notice and use the language.
As we have progressed chapter by chapter through the book, we have
seen that the language learning of children is likely to revolve around
chunks of discourse learnt from talk, stories and songs, vocabulary
development, and some aspects of (mostly implicit) grammatical knowl-
edge, together with elementary literacy skills. Early foreign language
learning can be much more `organic' in its development than the linear
syllabuses of many secondary course books, graded by grammar or
function. Theme-based teaching can contribute to this organic develop-
ment from partial to more complete knowledge by building links and
connections in the networks of children's language resources.

8.4.2 Learning vocabulary

Theme-based work is likely to introduce new vocabulary items, with the
theme providing support for understanding and recall. Vocabulary
items that have already been introduced in the course book may be met
again in the new context of a theme, and the encounter will reinforce
the words or phrases while also adding new meaning aspects to them.
Some recent evidence for the bene®ts of this type of teaching for

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 Teaching Languages to Young Learners

vocabulary learning comes from the use of a foreign language as a

medium of instruction in German schools (Wode 1999). Twelve-year-
old pupils taught geography through English, after two years of learning
EFL as a subject, were tested on the vocabulary through oral production
tasks. In comparison with students who had not had English-medium
teaching, the `partial immersion' students used larger vocabularies with
a wider range of items and more synonyms. Their vocabularies also
contained more words that could not be traced back to their English
course book or to the task instructions; these words probably came
from the teacher talk during subject learning. Wode claims that teaching
content through the foreign language offers more opportunities for
incidental vocabulary learning than teaching the foreign language as a
subject.

8.4.3 Language learning through `communicative stretching'

Theme-based teaching can produce moments when pupils' (and some-
times teachers') language resources are stretched to their limit. Sup-
ported by meaningful content, children may be able to work out the
meaning of new or unfamiliar language, or, motivated by real interest in
a topic, they may struggle to communicate their knowledge to someone
else, as we saw the Norwegian pupil doing when talking about his
budgie in Chapter 3. Stretching resources in this way pushes the child
into the ZPD (Chapter 1) and can be very productive of learning.
One particular process that occurs in communicative stretching is the
grammaticisation of language learnt earlier as formulaic phrases or
chunks (section 5.3.1). In situations where language resources are
stretched, children may need to break down chunks of language,
previously learnt as wholes, into their elements, recombining the parts
to create new phrases that convey the child's meaning.

8.4.4 Learning discourse skills

Working with an increased range of discourse types
A real bene®t of theme-based learning is that it offers a natural use for a
wider range of discourse types, both spoken and written, than is usually
found in a course book. Themes can include different aspects of the
same topic that each require different types of discourse. Potatoes in the
above example (Figure 8.4) will be talked and written about as science,
as history and as cookery, using and producing informational discourse,
the discourse of scienti®c reports, recipes and a range of spoken
language across the different activities. Even at a very simple level of

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 Theme-based teaching and learning

language, children can begin to experience these different types of

discourse.
School-based activities, such as those in Figure 8.1, also produce a
range of discourse types, such as graphs, charts, reports, and commen-
taries. Some of these are pre-cursors and foundations of subject-speci®c
discourses that children will become familiar with at secondary level,
and for those situations where children will study some or all of their
subjects through the foreign language, early experiences with these
types of discourse will support their later studies.

Using information texts, on paper and on computer

Texts that can be used in theme-based teaching will include relevant
songs, rhymes, video, stories, and non-®ction informational texts,
including sources accessed through the Internet or on CD-ROM,
catalogues, lea¯ets and magazines, and educational materials written
for native speaker children. Informational text types provide language
learning opportunities that go beyond those of the narrative or story.
For example, an information book contains organisational features such
as a contents page, an index, headings and sub-headings. The text itself
is likely to include short self-contained chunks of information, often
around pictures or diagrams. The different types of writing ± introduc-
tion, description, narrative, argument, summary ± will use grammar
and vocabulary in different ways from stories. Information books can
be used as resources for ®nding out speci®c information or as starting
points for a theme. They offer opportunities to see the language used for
these purposes and to develop reading skills at text level. They also
provide a model for writing information texts in the foreign language.
Using the computer to access information practises the use of key
words and skimming techniques in `sur®ng the net'. On each screen, a
choice must be made about where to go next and this is done by reading
what is available and comparing the possibilities to the user's current
goal. Once chunks of text are reached, then the user needs to read the
®rst few sentences and scan the rest in order to decide whether it is
worth more intensive study. Children are likely to pay more attention to
images than to text, using the information provided by the images to
support understanding of the text. We need to know much more about
how children `read' information on computer, but it would seem helpful
to surf for speci®c information, having discussed in advance and agreed
on `guiding questions'. The computer search then becomes a task with
speci®ed outcomes, such as a verbal report back on what was found in
answer to the questions.
Instead of children sur®ng the net, teachers can ®nd useful sites in

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 Teaching Languages to Young Learners

advance that they direct children to or can download information into

computer ®les that children can then access without needing to be on
line. Pages from the computer can be printed out and used as paper-
based text.

8.4.5 Motivation to precision in language use

When communicating with others about a theme, it can become more
important to communicate precisely and accurately. Precision in lan-
guage use involves learners selecting and adapting their language
resources to say or write exactly what they mean; accuracy, the term
more often used in the literature, refers to using the language correctly
relative to the target form. Precision is thus user-oriented, whereas
accuracy is language-oriented. Often, of course, precision requires
accuracy, but it always requires more than that; it requires learners to
access and use the language that will best express their personal mean-
ings, and may further require negotiation with others to ensure that
they understand the meanings as intended.

8.4.6 Outcomes and products from theme-based learning

Theme-based work lends itself to the production of displays and
performances of various sorts that, because they will have an audience,
motivate children to re-write, practise or rehearse towards a polished
language performance or text.
As a theme proceeds, children will produce pieces of work ± poems,
pictures and sentences, reports, graphs and so on. These can be saved by
each child in a personal folder for the theme. As a ®nal stage in the
theme, the pieces of work are gathered together to make a record of
what has been covered for the children and for other people. Various
modes and media are possible:
. Big books produced by the class or by groups of children.
. A magazine or newspaper, with articles and pictures around sub-
themes, compiled by the class and photocopied for parents and other
classes.
. Visual display on the classroom walls or school notice board: a frieze,
sets of pictures and headings, pieces of writing, posters.
. Video, with spoken commentary.
. Performance: acting out a story or presenting a documentary-type
report.
. Computer record: web pages constructed around the theme and put
on the school web site; CD-ROM with video and text.

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 Theme-based teaching and learning

Possible audiences for these products will include parents, other

classes and teachers in the school, and children in other schools who are
communicated with by post or through the Internet.

8.5 Increasing target language use in theme-based teaching

When children spend time `making and doing' ± drawing, colouring,

sticking, modelling and so on ± language use may grind to a halt, or,
quite naturally, ®rst language may be used. When activities become
exciting and interesting, children will want to talk about what's
happening and switch to ®rst language. This is a serious potential
drawback to theme-based foreign language teaching, that parallels the
realisation that older learners working on communicative tasks may
automatically switch to ®rst language when the task becomes dif®cult
or particularly interesting (Skehan 1996). When we design tasks and
lessons to be interesting and challenging, we create conditions in which
people want to communicate with each other; using the foreign
language to communicate will always be more dif®cult than using ®rst
language and this creates con¯icting forces in the dynamics of commu-
nication. However, some very simple adjustments can increase the use
of the foreign language in this type of classroom activity.

Inserting choices or decision-making

Each step in the making and doing process offers opportunities for use
of the foreign language. If children are, for example, making a potato
puppet (Figure 8.4), they will need materials. It is possible for the
teacher just to hand out the materials, but it is also possible to turn this
into an opportunity for using the foreign language meaningfully. Pupils
can be shown the materials available and told their words in the foreign
language: potatoes, straws, string, sticks. Then, as a group, they are
asked to decide which materials they want, using simple phrases in the
group decision-making: do we need string? how many potatoes do we
need? The group then prepares a representative who is sent to the
teacher to ask for those things: please can we have four potatoes and
some string?. The teacher can support the representatives in their
language use, and may send them back to the group to check more
precisely what is needed. Each stage in this decision-making process will
generate repetition of the vocabulary about the materials, as well as
other simple but useful phrases, which the teacher will need to model
before and during the choosing. Written language could be practised if
children are given a list of materials that they choose from, or if they

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 Teaching Languages to Young Learners

have to write a list for the teacher, perhaps to request materials for the
next lesson that will be gathered in advance.
It is by noticing and exploiting such opportunities that the teacher
uses theme-based work for language learning, and not just for content
learning.

Giving feedback to each other

Pupils can plan an activity together before starting, and can be brought
together in the middle of the process to show their `work-in-progress' to
others. They can be helped to point out what they are pleased with so
far, or what they are having problems with. If planning and giving
feedback are carried out with the teacher at the beginning of the year,
pupils can gradually take over the processes themselves, using the
language modelled by the teacher. This language might include simple
ways of offering advice to others:
Why don't you . . .?
You could . . .,
and of giving positive feedback:
That's nice.
I like the . . .
At the end of an activity, time is usefully spent evaluating product and
process.

Teacher intervention
While the children are busy on making and doing activities, the teacher
can move around the classroom using key language items in talk with
the children, commenting on what they are making and suggesting
alternatives.

Encouraging private speech in the foreign language

Vygotsky emphasised the importance of private speech in children, the
`talking to oneself' that leads developmentally from social speech with
others to inner speech and thinking (McCafferty 1994). In ®rst language
research, a link has been found between children's use of private speech
when working on tasks and academic achievement (Bivens and Berk
1990). Talking to oneself when making or doing something can help
even adults to focus and concentrate. We do not know whether private
speech occurs in a foreign language, or whether private speech in either

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 Theme-based teaching and learning

®rst or foreign language can help language learning, but it may be

helpful to model for children the types of talk that they might say to
themselves. Certainly the link between inner speech and thinking
suggests that encouraging foreign language inner speech might have
long term learning bene®ts. If children do use the foreign language to
mutter to themselves while they are working on activities, they will get
extra practice in selecting and adapting language. The type of talk that
would be used in private speech will be useful in other, more interac-
tional, discourse.
Preparation for an activity can include the teacher modelling language
that children might use to talk to themselves as they do the activity, such
as self-evaluating language:
How does that look?
A little more red? A little more black?
or self-directing language:
®rst the head, then the body, then the tail.
Rhythmic and repetitive patterns of language will be more likely to be
recalled.

Background language exposure

Children might be encouraged to say rhymes or to sing as they work.
Playing tapes of songs as children work will give them further exposure
to the language. Very undemanding tasks, such as colouring, can have
more demanding background language, such as the teacher reading a
story.

8.6 Summary

Stories, in the previous chapter, and theme-based teaching, in this one,

both offer exciting possibilities for young learners and their teachers.
They open up the language classroom by bringing in the world outside
and linking into children's real interests and enthusiasms, not just those
that materials writers suppose them to have. There is real potential for
effective language learning to take place, and for participation in a range
of discourse events in the foreign language. However, theme-based
teaching if it is done well is very demanding. Alongside knowledge and
skills in the foreign language, excellent classroom management skills are
needed to keep everyone on task and learning; each of the possible
activities mentioned in the chapter has potential for time-wasting and

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 Teaching Languages to Young Learners

noise! I am reminded of physical education lessons when I was at

school; as a change from the usual drills and carefully regulated move-
ment, we sometimes played a game called `Pirates'. All the gymnastic
equipment was set up and we had to run around from piece to piece,
making sure we were not on the ¯oor when the teacher blew her
whistle. Some pupils had a wonderful time, using the apparatus in
imaginative ways and getting far more exercise than usual. I was one of
those children who hated gym, and this kind of lesson also suited me
®ne ± I could skulk away in a corner, linger on the same piece of
apparatus for as long as possible and choose the least demanding piece
to climb on: a low bench was as valid in this activity as the highest rope
or wall bar. The freedom of the activity not only did not increase my
physical ®tness but enabled me to do even less than usual without being
noticed!
The chapter has highlighted the following processes that can help
ensure that theme-based teaching results in well-structured and exciting
learning, rather than noisy activity for some and opting-out for others:
. careful choice of theme to involve all children;
. detailed planning, using brainstorming and webs;
. linking content with activities and discourse types;
. pre-planned organisation of materials and activities;
. teacher and class together deciding on `guiding questions' that
structure activities;
. building in `choice points' where children are guided in making
decisions over direction, activity or timing;
. management of classroom activity and use of resources;
. attention to amount and type of language use during activities;
. regular monitoring of each child's involvement and success in activ-
ities and language use, by teacher and children themselves;
. use of ®nal products to motivate and involve all children.

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