Service Learning To Improve Linguistic – Communicative Competences In Pre – Service Teachers

Author(s):

Pilar Iranzo-García(presenting / submitting)Charo Barrios-Arós

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

10. Teacher Education Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

10 SES 01 B,

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-08

13:15-14:45

Room:

208.Oktatóterem [C]

Chair:

Stephen Day

Contribution

The work here presented[1] deals with the learning-service experience between the University and three preschools and primary schools which attend to pupils with special social-educative needs, to achieve that the students develop inclusive and linguistic-communicative teaching competences immersed in real contexts. Concretely, we present the results about the 3^rd year group of the preschool education degree.

Linguistic–communicative competences constitute the base for any learning, and exist enough encoded knowledge about how to develop them in multicultural contexts, typical in the current society (Cummins, 2002; INCLUDE –ED Consortium, 2011; Iranzo and Queralt, 2011) supporting the inclusiveness and social innovation.

The last PISA report (MECD, 2014) analyses the results in different competences, amongst them the reading one, and lower punctuations can be observed into the Spanish students group in relation with the OECD countries. Some of the factors that influence on these results are: the Parents' socio – cultural and economic level, the immigrant condition and the access to the preschool education. These factors turn into source of social marginalization and vulnerability (Moreno, 2013) for the pupils, but also cause dissatisfaction and impotency for the teachers. The teacher training, the participation of the students and the collaboration with the community become key elements (Iranzo, Tierno and Barrios, 2014).

Preschool education at the University for future teachers must provide them with linguistic-communicative and inclusive teaching competences. These competences are complex because they belong to real contexts and need deep learnings (Monereo y Pozo, 2005; Marcelo et al., 2014).

Their achievement requires interaction scenes between teachers-students and collaborative centers (Cano, 2011; Tierno, Iranzo, Barrios, 2013) usually limited at the Universities during the established period of the Practicum. It also gets involved with processes that influence on the self-perception of the effectiveness via self-evaluation, accompaniment, feed-back and feed-forward between students and teachers, and the analysis of the own process of learning (Boud and Falchikov, 2006; Nicol and MacFarlane–dick, 2006; Zimmerman, 2008; Van der Watering et al., 2008; Boud and Molloy, 2013).

To strengthen interactions from the academic interdisciplinary throughout the training, with an accompaniment of university teachers and scholar centers provide:

- A professionalized process for the future teachers (Putnam and Borko, 2000; Negrillo and Iranzo, 2009; Iranzo, 2012) increasing awareness to the context and its potentiality, increasing their learning.

- A reassessment of the own teaching development for the university teachers and the primary teachers integrating theoretical and practical knowledge boosting processes of reflective practice (Zeichner, 1993; Schön, 1998) which helps to overcome conditions of exhaustiveness and routine.

The service-learning responds to the suggested need because promotes an articulated learning of theoretical and practical knowledge on the students, and involves them in the resolution of real needs of the community (Martínez, 2009; Center of global and community engagement, 2013).

The subjects can be used as reflective spaces, above all by means of the academic writing which students, University teachers and primary teachers can collaborate with to improve the success at the school (He and Prater, 2014).

[1]Project “To improve the linguistic-communicative and inclusive teaching competences of the students in the preschool education degree by means of service-learning at preschool and primary schools” approved by AGAUR (The Agency for Management of University and Research Grants in Catalonia) in the call ARMIF 2014

Method

The service-learning experience has an interdisciplinary approach: All the language subjects and those related with inclusiveness found in the qualification take part in this work. The future teachers that are currently studying a degree in preschool education, in small working groups, design, develop and evaluate activities for pupils from 3 different schools, dealing with the needs and specific characteristics of each level, under the supervision of active teachers and the university teachers taking part as tutors. In particular participated in this experience: - 49 students of the 2nd year: focusing on the oral language, the second language learning and the inclusiveness. - 27 students of the 3rd year: focusing on the diagnostic of the reading and writing stages and the textual typologies. - 48 students of the 4th year: focusing on the textual composition and the reading for pleasure. - 3 university teachers of the language area - 1 university teacher of the inclusive education area - 1 university teacher academic responsible of these degree and this experience - 20 active preschool and primary teachers - 500 preschool and primary pupils. In order to investigate the developmental process of the students' communicative competences, the following tools were used: - A self-efficacy questionnaire on his own perception and attribution about their competences. - The teaching units designed by the students. - Video recordings of the activities development at schools. - University teachers' self-reports about the students' evolution and their own development as teachers. - Interviews with active teachers about the developed competences by the university students in relation with the developed capacities by the pupils and the professional conditions that, from the school, innovate in the linguistic-communicative area.

Expected Outcomes

These results related to the experience of a 3rd year group of the preschool education degree. We analyze the change in the students' self-perception about how the learning service-experience allows them to develop their linguistic-communicative teaching competences. It was also confirmed by the university teachers' team and the learning carried out. The students' self-perception of the contents and competences worked throughout the 3rd year, in relation with the service-learning experience, goes from the grades 5 to grades 8. This assessment is shared by the university teachers because the type of “deep” learning carried out throughout this year was more superficial in the past years. The Students' self-perception is that they are more competent, not only in practical aspects but also in the theoretical background, design, development and the assessment of situations and activities in the teaching-learning process. Coherently they attribute this learning to their practice with pupils at the school with whom they have carried out the service-learning, but they highlight that the practices and the theoretical preparation received in class by their teacher at the university, together with the feed-back and the feed forward between the session, have prepared them, and at the same time, their learning has increased. Students also attribute to these processes, the preparation of the activities that would be developed in the centers, to learn technical processes and teaching methods sided with the cognitive and social constructivism; attitudes such as the participation, the interaction, the individualization of the learning processes and the empathy. Students' opinion went from the worry and disorientation for the tasks to be carried out to the certainty, enthusiasm, personal motivation and a high valuation of the professional impact of this experience. Transition from preservice teachers to “competent beginning” teachers needs a good learning experience and service-learning with schools can provide it.

References

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Author Information

Pilar Iranzo-García (presenting / submitting)

Universitat Rovira i Virgili

Departamento de Pedagogía

Tarragona

Charo Barrios-Arós

Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain

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