Motivating Questions

            1, Why movement and foreign language learning/teaching may contribute to inclusion?

            2, How classrooms may be organized combining movement into modern foreign language             teaching and English into Physical Education (P.E.) to promote inclusive education?

            3, How collaboration between professionals may be organized to create more inclusive   teaching?

Purpose

The present workshop offers opportunity to discuss and experience interdisciplinarity by showing examples of activities for teaching foreign languages with movement and for teaching Physical Education (P.E.) in English in order to create inclusive atmosphere and develop life-long skills. Therefore, by bridging theory and practice, the aim is to contribute to the re-thinking and re-defining of the aims of education and to overcome the dichotomy between body and mind in learning/teaching and to share and change practical experiences.

Discussed theories

Inclusion – The UNESCO Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities (2006) concerns the diversity of people, moreover the Article 3 of General Principles (idem, 2006, p.7) declares that the respect of diversity, the autonomy and freedom of each person should be regarded.

The schools, therefore need  to respond these cultural, social, ethnic, religious and personal diversities to foster the development of the quality education and society. Consequently, inclusion promotes the change of the present systems and of the educational perspective, since “it does not merely consider the students with disability and the ones with learning difficulty, but everyone, to reach a general success in education.” (Mantoan, 2003, p.16) (authors’ translation).

However, a high level of creativity and skills are required to provide the adequate teaching strategies and activities for gaining all children’s success in school, to diminish segregation and prejudices, the distance among students and teachers. Movement as a pedagogical tool may result a welcoming and stimulating atmosphere for the active participation of each student.

Practice 1      

– Learning Languages through Actions (Asher, 1977, 2009).Language learning can be challenging for anyone, especially for people with SEN, since the majority of special needs is related to literacy skills, which have a high importance in foreign language learning (Mc Coll, 2005). By this book, we will see how movement can ease the learning of any foreign language, how it can foster the understanding of foreign vocabulary and their long-term recall.

- La fabbricadeigiochi (Parente, 2010) – The book contributes to create movement and games in inclusive classrooms. It discusses the theoretical basis of games and their role in education, and it provides easily adaptable examples of games, with movement too, for different age groups. The book is important since considers mainly the different special needs of the pupils and represents a collection of activities according to these needs. Therefore, we will show an activity focused on literacy skill but with movement and taking into consideration the guidelines of inclusive education. In other words, we intend to provide an activity where mutual respect, acknowledgement of diversity and fun are the main features but still creating motivating and challenging context.

Practice 2       - The second practice focuses on the Plurilingualism Program School Experience in Algemesi (Valencia, Spain) where Physical Education (PE) has beingtaught in English. In response to the current lowevaluation of PE as a subject in schools (Peters 1966; Moreno Helin 2002)we are going to propose an example ofhow to structure a lesson, listing some key points to consider,based on the Katz (2006) methodology of learning through movement. Furthermore, we are going to reflect on the benefits that PE as a subject has to help teachers in its positive evaluation.In our examplethree important structural points will be structured as in a normal lesson: initial explanation, didactic material and oral conversations. 

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