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  Breaking Barriers: Compensatory Teaching in Primary Language Teaching Greetings to our valued Primary educators. On this occasion, we will explore a fundamental topic in the world of education: teaching foreign languages to our young primary school students, and how compensatory teaching can make a difference. Teaching a foreign language in primary school is an exciting challenge and full of possibilities for the growth of our students. However, each student is unique and can progress at their own pace, which brings us to the question of compensatory teaching. What is Compensatory Teaching? Compensatory teaching is an educational approach that recognises the individual needs of students and adapts to make sure that everyone has equal opportunities in the learning process. In the context of teaching foreign languages in primary school, this means adjusting the curriculum and teaching strategies to meet the specific needs of each student. The Key: Personalizing Learning Compensator...

  From Theory to Practice: Applying Compensatory Teaching in Foreign Language Sessions for Primary School Students Greetings to all educators engaged in the teaching of foreign languages in primary school. In this post, we're going to put compensatory teaching theory into action, exploring how we can apply these principles in our class sessions to create meaningful and equitable learning experiences. https://youtu.be/Ul0BKMASGJc?si=xPcUp1KzMsFaiGqM Foreign Language Class Session: Beginner Level 1. Initial Assessment Let's start by applying the initial assessment. Before the class, I have prepared a simple activity in which students must greet each other in the foreign language. I observe each student as they interact, take notes, and make a quick mental assessment of their initial skills. 2. Content Differentiation                                          ...

What is cognitivism? Cognitive strategies refer to mental processes that we perform consciously or unconsciously. With them, students achieve a complete learning, obtaining the information to the letter. Within the cognitive strategies we find: Strategies of recirculation of information: The basic strategy is review, which as we already know and its own name indicates, consists of repeating, and therefore reviewing, information over and over again until it is retained in their long-term memory. Elaboration strategies: We use them to interrelate the new information with the previous knowledge that the students have. These are used to remember names, dates, categories, elements... With them they can make comparisons between what they have learned and what they already knew before. Organizational strategies: They allow students to structure and order information. With them they can group information and classify it, and then establish hierarchies in the information. Therefore, cognitive p...

  Cognitive Strategies in Action: How to Teach a Foreign Language in Primary Education We recently explored in detail what cognitive strategies are and how they relate to foreign language teaching in primary education. Now, it's time to put that theory into practice and figure out how to apply these strategies in an exciting teaching session. In the primary classroom, children are like sponges eager to learn, and our cognitive strategies can boost their ability to acquire a foreign language effectively. Join us on this journey as we explore how to design a session that encourages foreign language learning in a dynamic and participatory way.  (Google image) Foreign Language Teaching Session: Cognitive Strategies in Action 1. Connection to previous experiences The session begins by connecting the new language with the students' previous experiences. Let's ask the children about what they already know in their native language that relates to the topic we will be addr...

Before talking about how to use social strategies in the field of teaching a foreign language such as English, it is necessary to know what this strategy is and what it is based on. It is not simply an individual process, but is deeply influenced by social and cultural interactions, and recognises that people learn a new language best when they have the opportunity to communicate with others and participate in real-life language situations. We need to consider some key aspects of social strategy in order to implement it in the classroom. Interaction and communication, we need a focus on real and authentic communication rather than memorisation of grammar rules or vocabulary. Students should have the opportunity to interact in the language through group activities, conversations and communicative tasks. Cultural context is important for understanding aspects such as customs, traditions, understanding culture can help students communicate more effectively and avoid cultural misunderstand...

We as teachers have several keys to using this strategy in the classroom, such as working through role-plays and simulations, project-based learning, and real materials. First of all, we must not forget that in order to carry out this strategy in the classroom we must create an appropriate and specific climate, in which the pupils feel integrated in the classroom and confident to practice with the foreign language. Role-plays help us to enable learners to simulate experiences where language is used in a realistic context, role-plays make practice and creativity more common in the classroom. Project-based learning as we already know, students will have to research, and teachers will have to present the foreign language we want to use, so we allow the knowledge of the foreign language to be in a meaningful context. We must bear in mind that all these activities should have a playful approach so that the pupils do not think that the foreign language subject will be of no use to them and ...

In the teaching of a foreign language the role of the affective strategy is very important, it is normal that in the classroom, when studying a foreign language we can find emotional barriers, such as fear of making mistakes, insecurities when speaking in front of the class, among many others that we have to help overcome, we as teachers must take into account several factors that are considered part of this affective strategy.  We must encourage comfort and confidence by creating a suitable environment for it, using active participation of students, where they are not afraid to make mistakes for fear of ridicule, an environment where mistakes are considered part of learning and emotionally support students when necessary, which brings us to another important factor, the emotional goals, we must help students to have their emotional goals clear and make it clear that this can be beneficial to them, learn to control frustrations and know how to show them.  Celebrating achieveme...

In the following we will provide several tips on how to apply this affective strategy in foreign language teaching in order to create an emotionally safe and motivating environment for learners.  First, active participation in the classroom will be promoted by encouraging students to open discussions among themselves and share ideas in the foreign language in order to build confidence in the group, as speaking in a foreign language can be a source of insecurity.  Second, teachers should understand that when learning a foreign language, students are going to make mistakes, so they should never correct them by showing them up, but always in a constructive way so that they can improve their self-esteem and not be afraid of making mistakes, as this is normal. They will also be taught techniques to control anxiety as it is a common symptom when learning a new foreign language and the teachers will provide them with relaxation and breathing techniques to manage it so that they are n...

Let´s talk about metacognition (Google Image) As we already know, previously, and in some current cases, education has been conceived as a process of information transfer. This means that students limit themselves to receiving information and reproducing it, but this only focuses on academic content. We, as teachers, must worry that students, apart from obtaining information, know how to use it in their daily lives. That they know how to get on and defend themselves in adverse situations. So, developing a metacognitive strategy in class is a good option to achieve this. Metacognition refers to people's ability to reflect or think about their own learning process. Metacognitive strategies are a combination of essential cognitive skills to work on problems solving and on the affective aspect. From an educational point ...

What about reading? Among the metacognitive strategies, we can focus on a method that, as teachers, you surely know very well… reading comprehension.   (Google image) In general, it is not among the students' favorite things, but in the end they will thank you because it is a good way to understand the ideas of a text, but it also serves for many other things that we will explain. Reading comprehension really helps to work on metacognition. It allows our students to use metacognitive strategies because they control, supervise and evaluate their own reading and their way of reading to understand the text. Furthermore, by having to fully understand the text, they become aware of how necessary it is to control their own learning process. Depending on how seriously they take it, they will understand more or less. Finally, it helps them to have motivation and responsibility, and in the end they will develop more and more interest in reading. I'm going to give you an example of how t...

History and origin of the method:  The Grammar Translation Method is a classical approach initiated in the history of linguistic pedagogy which has been in teaching for years.  This method originated in the 19th century and focuses on classical languages such as Latin and Greek.  Its main purpose was the reading and translation of literary and philosophical texts in their original form. Giving special importance to the translation and understanding of both the grammar and structure of the language.  Characteristics of the method:  This method is characterized by several points that we will name below:  First, there is the emphasis on grammar, which consists of once the text is read the students focus on the grammatical structure in order to give importance and learn verb conjugations, grammatical rules or syntactic structures among others. The technique of attention will be applied in order to perform it successfully. Secondly, there is translation. This fe...

Grammar Translation Method As we have said before, this field of applied linguistics is used to teach foreign languages so we will now provide different strategies to put it into practice in a Primary Education classroom.  To start with the concept of Translating Grammar, first of all, we will begin by teaching the children the basic grammatical concepts of the foreign language such as nouns, verbs, pronouns etc.  It is important to emphasize that short and simple sentences are necessary in order for the students to have a good understanding. As a resource, we will use books with the foreign language appropriate for the student's age and with a beginner level so that they can be introduced to the method.  Secondly, we can provide them with simple sentences in the foreign language and the students will start translating the provided sentences into their native language. And so little by little the level of the sentences will become progressively more complicated. Thirdly, ...