Abstract
This article presents the results of a study on teachers’ perceptions regarding specific work with tasks in the CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) classroom, a context where academic content and a foreign language are learnt simultaneously. A questionnaire consisting of closed and open questions was administered to 25 teachers working in a school participating in an innovative project based on the implementation of tasks used as an instrument to promote cooperative learning. Following an interdisciplinary approach, the teachers worked in collaboration to design tasks that were organised and linked around a common topic. These crosscurricular themes were selected in the different subjects with the objective of making students work towards a common final goal through several developmental stages. The results of the study show that the teachers are concerned about the methodological difficulties that the use of tasks entail, about their own ability to cope with them, and about the problems that they encounter to collaborate. However, the teachers also value the benefits of this strategy in terms of achievement of learning objectives, and display a high degree of motivation to continue working with this model.
Highlights
The main objective of this study is to analyse the perceptions of teachers involved in bilingual education about the use of cooperative learning and tasks, and if working in this way may bring about more involvement by students in the learning process
This research confirms the assumption that using tasks is a suitable strategy to promote cooperative learning in a CLIL context (Coonan, 2012; Dalton-Puffer et al, 2010)
Teachers described a number of difficulties that could seriously harm the work with tasks and the promotion of cooperative learning: again, stability of staff; the increase of time that these strategies demand; the difficulty to engage students and to foment group cohesion with very different class dynamics; the lack of cooperation from families; and more importantly, the great diversity of factors related to students
Summary
The main objective of this study is to analyse the perceptions of teachers involved in bilingual education about the use of cooperative learning and tasks, and if working in this way may bring about more involvement by students in the learning process. Teachers addressed the difficulties arising from: the necessity to possess a solid understanding of the characteristics and methodology of tasks and cooperative learning; the involvement of students in the realisation of tasks; the appearance of some class management problems; the absence of the necessary time to coordinate with other teachers; and the lack of understanding on the part of the families of the nature and benefits of this kind of work. The degree of success of the implementation of tasks and cooperative learning is measured by the reports that teachers make of the degree of achievement of the objectives by the students and of the students’ involvement To analyse this dimension within the assessment of the programme, we have used the data provided by the teachers in questions 6, 7, and 8 of the questionnaire. There is not a specific time devoted to coordination with the language assistants and this implies that they are not properly used because if content teachers had more time to work cooperatively and collaboratively with the language assistants, they could design activities carefully which might be different to the ones that are traditionally included in the textbooks and encourage more enriched learning activities for students
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