MODULE 2. Cooperative Learning

1. Communicative skills 

CALP Content Language	BICS Basic Interpersonal Language	Language through Scaffolded Language
-  Body parts: tail, pawn, claw, fang, udder, mane -   Place they live: Savannah, Africa, Continent (we can introduce the topic and localise Europe, for example) -   Footprint vs. track    -  How they survive: pride, hunt (we can introduce who hunts –lioness), offspring -  Nail vs. claw -  Colours, sizes, kind of animal: brown, black, orange... big/bigger than; small/smaller than... feline -  Food: omnivore, meat, vegetables, zebra, deer, buffalo...	- I think... - I want... I don’t want; I like... I don’t like - This/those (things) - I need... to... - Could you repeat? Could you tell me what I am supposed to do? - How do we/I...? - Please, can you lend me.../ could you help me? - Is this correct? I am doing ... in the right way?	- What previous knowledge do the pupils have? - How can students share their knowledge to other partners? - How can we help students to relate and connect contents to their own lives? Could we use the prior knowledge of our students, and using this as a framework for future lessons? - All learners need time to process new ideas and information: maybe we should suggest activities like think-pair-share, turn-and-talk, triad teams or some other structured talking time throughout the lesson.

2. Cooperative learning

Class Organization: Taking into account the young age of the students (from 3 to 5 years old) we suggest organise them in 4 mixed groups. This class structure could lend older help younger students, share opinions and consider their partners as good as them. However, in order to prevent competition between the 4 groups, we would think about activities which need necessarily part of each group –for example, to complete the task or question, each group has to work firstly individually but, once they finish this part, they would have to put in common all the information to complete the task.

Cooperative Learning Technique 1: Roundtable. Present a category (such as words that begin with "b"). Students have to take turns saying one word at a time. Task you are going to work: After we read a tale related with lions and lionesses’, we could propose to our students think about words related with the topic of the tale –for example tail, paw, Savannah, etc. They can work in pairs or groups of three, and when they’ll know a word, the responsible of the group will have to raise his/her hand and say it.

Cooperative Learning Technique 2: Team Jigsaw. Assign each student in a team one fourth of a topic to investigate. Each student completes his or her assignment and then teaches the others or helps to put together a team product by contributing a piece of the puzzle. Task you are going to work: Because of the young age of the students, we have to change a bit the technique. Instead of let them alone to investigate a topic, they could ask their family for help and bring to school photos, videos or little sentences to explain it to other students. We are going to use Team jigsaw at the beginning of the unit to be sure what they know and how they can use their previous knowledge to keep on with the investigation of the topic.

 3. Lions and lionesses poster:

4. The KWL chart.

K What do my students know about the topic before I started the unit?	W What do I want my student to learn along this unit?	L What have my students learnt at the end of this unit?
- Lion is an animal - Lion is a mammal - They are of different  colours: brown, orange, black... - They walk on all fours. - They have big teeth. - Sometimes –when they are angry– they could be dangerous.	- Lioness is the feminine name of lion. - Those animals have different footprints than humans. - How they survive: pride, hunt, offspring. - What lions and lionesses eat: omnivore, meat, vegetables, zebra, deer, buffalo... - Place they live: Savannah, Africa, Continent (we can introduce the topic and localise Europe, for example)	- Lion is a mammal animal we called feline. - They have track rather than footprint and they only have one instead of humans that they have two. - Lioness hunts and lion usually is being aware of other predators. - They will know where Africa is and how far is from us –Europe, Spain, Catalonia... - Different animals –including humans– that they are omnivore.

5. My personal thought:

⇒ I learned the steps that I have to follow if I want my students to participate actively in class: be sure what they know and how express it; be sure, as a teacher, how I can attracted them to the content of the unit; and, the most important thing, I read about some cooperative tasks that I can use to make my students more constructive in their learning.

⇒ I had a bit problem of time when I was doing the poster, because I am not used to make it online, but for sure I will use it as a functional tool in my professional day a day.

⇒ I want to learn more about scaffolding language, because it makes you think about your task and how your students can attach their objectives using contents and skills they learned in class.