Spotlight 7
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Implementing a Child-Centred Approach to Primary Schooling in a Bilingual Setting
Rosamond Mitchell
Introduction
In 1975, Comhairle nan Eilean (the Western Isles Islands Council launched Scotland's first Bilingual Education Project (BEP). This was a research and development project, based in 20 of its rural primary schools, which also received financial support from the Scottish Education Department. In 1978 a further group of schools was involved in the project and, in 1981, bilingual education became official policy in all Western Isles primary schools. Between 1984 and 1986, at the invitation of the SED, a research team based at Stirling University carried out an external, retrospective evaluation of the work of the project (Mitchell et al, 1987). The evaluation provided an important opportunity to study the influence of the project in Western Isles schools, and the extent to which its ideas were being implemented, ten years after its inception. This paper is one of two SCRE Spotlights arising from the evaluation project. In Spotlight 6, an account is given of the proficiency of Western Isles children in their two languages, English and Gaelic, as reflected in the language assessment work of the evaluation project. This second paper describes the impact of the project on curriculum and methodology. This dimension of the evaluation project's work should be of interest to educators concerned generally with the implementation of a child-centred curriculum, in primary schools throughout Scotland, as well as to those with special interests in bilingualism and bilingual education.
The 1975-81 Bilingual Education Project
The original BEP is well described in the book produced by its two directors Bilingual Education in the Western Isles, Scotland (Murray and Morrison, 1984). From the start, the project had a far wider rationale than the simple introduction of Gaelic alongside English as a medium of teaching and learning. The broad aims of the project were to make the curriculum of Western Isles schools more relevant, in terms of language, curriculum content and learning experiences, to the needs of the bilingual child. The hope was that children would leave their primary schools both knowledgeable about, and having positive attitudes towards, their local environment, physical and social. In addition, their skills in both English and Gaelic were to be systematically developed.
To these ends, the BEP team worked closely with class teachers in order to promote change both in the content of the primary curriculum, and in teaching methods. The curriculum was to be given a strong local orientation, with learning beginning from the personal lives and experiences of the children. Curriculum integration was to be fostered by means of class themes and projects; special attention was paid to the curriculum areas of Gaelic Language Arts and Environmental Studies.
The Project was concerned not only to raise the status of Gaelic Language Arts teaching, but also to transform its character, traditionally that of isolated lessons concentrating on formal literacy skills. The BEP team argued that the development of oral skills should be the foundation of Gaelic Language Arts work, through discussion, storytelling, etc, and that language work of all kinds should be integrated as far as possible with other areas of the curriculum. In particular, they argued for a special, association of Gaelic Language Arts work with Environmental Studies (with different types of Gaelic writing, for example, arising from an ongoing ES theme or project). They argued for an early beginning to the teaching of Gaelic reading, and provided a range of attractive, high quality Gaelic children's books, from which it was hoped books suitable to the interests and reading levels of individual children could be chosen. In teaching Gaelic writing, they favoured building children's confidence and fluency as writers, without an overemphasis on formal accuracy in the early stages.
Environmental Studies was to be organised thematically, with a strong local focus. Children were to be encouraged to go out into the local community and countryside, to gather information at first hand using a wide range of research and reporting techniques (photography, tape-recording, sketching, modelling, map-making etc) in addition to developing skills of book-based research and report-writing.
As far as general teaching methods were concerned, the BEP thus favoured a child-centred approach, with learning taking place through direct experience, through practical activities and through discussion. Here the BEP was clearly in line with the 'progressive' thinking expressed in the 1965 Primary Memorandum, and now effectively a consensus view regarding what constitutes good primary practice.
Lastly, the two languages of the children and of the community, Gaelic and English, were both to be used as languages of teaching and learning, with all age groups, and across the curriculum as teachers felt it appropriate.
Planning the evaluation study
In planning the evaluation study, it was clear that one of the main ways open to us of judging the effectiveness of the 1975-1981 BEP was to discover to what extent the ideas of the project were in operation in Western Isles primary classrooms, ten years on. After a preliminary round of interviews with the head teachers of all schools involved in the original project, therefore, we concentrated our efforts on visits to a smaller number of schools, to study in detail the classroom implementation of BEP ideas. In all, eighteen classrooms were visited, one or two in each of ten schools, scattered throughout Lewis, Harris and the Uists. Each of these classrooms was visited by a bilingual fieldworker, for a period of several days. The fieldworker observed the teacher and pupils at work, using a variety of observational methods: she also interviewed the class teacher, regarding aspects of the curriculum which it was not possible to observe. (In addition, she administered the assessment tasks described in Spotlight No 6.) The account given below of classroom life in these schools is thus derived from both observation and interview.
Findings of the evaluation: curriculum
The curriculum of these Western Isles classrooms tended to be dominated in the mornings by Mathematics and English Language Arts, and in the afternoons by Environmental Studies, integrated with Art and Craft, English Language Arts or Gaelic Language Arts. Almost all Environmental Studies work was organised around projects or themes: about one-seventh of the observed curriculum work (mostly in Language Arts) was based on pupils' personal experience, and a similar proportion (mostly in Environmental Studies) was judged to have a local orientation.
English Language Arts received the largest share of curriculum time (over 30%), mostly as an autonomous subject, but sometimes in combination with Environmental Studies. By contrast, Gaelic Language Arts received less than half this amount of time, but was much more likely to be integrated with another curriculum area (again, Environmental Studies). The pattern of teaching of the two Language Arts subjects was also strikingly different. Discussion was the commonest activity observed for Gaelic Language Arts, followed by creative writing; for English, however, reading and writing practice were most common. Organisational patterns were correspondingly different; the whole class was likely to participate together in a Gaelic Language Arts activity, whereas English work was most usually done individually.
These striking differences testify to the influence of BEP ideas on the teaching of Gaelic Language Arts. This influence was not complete, however. The teachers generally reported beginning the teaching of Gaelic literacy skills substantially later than the BEP had recommended, and after the initial establishment of English literacy skills. Once Gaelic literacy training was begun, practice activities (such as formal comprehension exercises) were used to a greater extent than BEP had intended. So it seemed that the project had substantially influenced the teaching of Gaelic Language Arts, without entirely supplanting more traditional practices.
As far as Environmental Studies were concerned, project recommendations were generally being followed. The teaching of science, health and social studies was almost completely integrated within an Environmental Studies framework (though geography was also taught as a separate subject, to a few older classes). As we have seen, part of the work in Language Arts was also integrated with Environmental Studies, as was some Art and Craft work (and Mathematics, though to a very minor extent). Classes were typically undertaking three or four Environmental Studies projects per year, of which one might be based on a work of fiction (especially with older classes). In choosing topics for the remaining projects, the teachers reflected the concerns of the BEP that Environmental Studies should have a strong local orientation, beginning from the personal experience of their pupils. (Thus for example, younger children might begin a project on 'houses' or 'animals' with studies of their own homes and pets, while older children undertook more sophisticated explorations of the local environment, for example, a study of pollution in local trout lochs.) In addition, the teachers expressed a concern for achieving 'balance' between social studies and science/health topics, here reflecting the influence of recent nationally-produced documents on Environmental Studies, alongside the influence of the local project itself.
Pupils' practical data-gathering, reporting and reference skills were actively being developed within Environmental Studies project work, in ways envisaged by the BEP. Field trips were a feature at favourable times of year, though community resources were being exploited somewhat less than the original Project had intended. But overall, the conformity of work in this area of the curriculum with BEP intentions (and also with those of the Committee on Primary Education, SCES, 1983) was very striking.
Findings of the evaluation: general methodology
It is now over twenty years since the publication of the 1965 Primary Memorandum, and in the interim we have learned a great deal about the challenge presented to teachers in their everyday practice by the idea of a child-centred curriculum, in which both content and ways of learning are tailored to the requirements of the individual child. In their report Learning and Teaching in Primary 4 and Primary 7, HMI have documented the rather limited extent to which such ideas have been implemented in practice in primary schools throughout Scotland (SED, 1980). Similarly, large-scale research carried out in English primary schools in the post-Plowden era has found that much teaching and learning has been 'individualised' only in an organisational sense (Galton, Simon and Croll, 1980).
It was against this background, then that we approached the question of the extent to which the Western Isles BEP had succeeded in establishing a child-centred methodology in local schools. The class teachers interviewed for the evaluation study clearly shared the strong commitment of the BEP to practical experiential learning, but were also well aware of the difficulties associated with such an approach, under constraints of time, space, and pupil differences of age, ability, and bilingual competence. On the whole, the teachers said they were using activity-based methods less than they would like, though several also defended book-based work as an equally valid way of learning. Our direct observations showed that relatively little of pupils' time overall was spent on practical activities, though in all classrooms, pupils were seen to do some, usually at least once a day. However, as we have seen earlier, there was a clear association of practical activities, and also of discussion, with the curriculum areas of special concern to the BEP, Gaelic Language Arts and Environmental Studies.
One part of the evaluation study used the same techniques as had been employed by Galton and his colleagues in their study of English primary classrooms, to investigate the character of teachers' interactions with their pupils in different organisational settings. The overall findings were remarkably similar, as can be seen from the table. (The 'Task Interactions' are teacher questions and statements which are related to the substance of the ongoing work; 'Lower Cognitive Level' interactions are those involving the exchange of factual information, while 'Higher Cognitive Level' interactions involve the discussion of problems and ideas. 'Task Supervision Interactions' are teacher questions and statements of a supervisory nature, while 'Routine and Social Interactions' are non-work-related.)
Comparison of Teachers' Interactions with Different Groupings for English and Western Isles Samples (Percentage figures: English data from Galton et al, 1980)
| Task Interactions | Audience Grouping | |||||
| Western Isles | England | |||||
| Individual | Group | Whole Room | Individual | Group | Whole Room | |
| Lower cognitive level | 17 | 36 | 36 | 16 | 21 | 26 |
| Higher cognitive level | 5 | 12 | 19 | 7 | 9 | 17 |
| Task Supervision Interactions | 58 | 37 | 27 | 55 | 39 | 31 |
| Routine & Social Interactions | 20 | 16 | 20 | 23 | 31 | 26 |
The table shows that in both contexts, most teacher talk with pupils working on their own was of a supervisory nature. Talk about the content of pupils' learning tasks, and especially talk about problems and ideas, was most often to be found when teachers were interacting with whole classes. However, talk about problems and ideas was relatively unusual overall. It seems to have been an implicit assumption of both the 1965 Primary Memorandum and the Plowden Report in English that a move away from whole-class teaching towards group and individual working would be accompanied by a reduction of factual learning and a greater emphasis on teacher-pupil discussion of problems and ideas. The results presented in the table seem to indicate that this is not the case in these Western Isles classrooms, any more than in the English Midlands. Given the clear commitment of the teachers to the BEP curriculum proposals and to a child-centred methodology, this is an important finding; it seems that it is harder for teachers to move away from their traditional role as sources of knowledge than curriculum developers have generally acknowledged.
Findings of the evaluation: language use
Taking the group of classrooms as a whole, the two languages, Gaelic and English, were almost equally used by the teachers as languages of instruction. This was the case with the older children as well as with the younger; in most schools, both languages were used across the whole curriculum, though in a few, Gaelic was extensively used only during Gaelic Language Arts and Environmental Studies.
However, this overall pattern concealed wide variations between classrooms. The main factor influencing the extent to which Gaelic was used as a medium of instruction seemed to be the proportion of pupils in a class judged by their teacher to be already fluent in the language. Where such pupils were in a majority, Gaelic predominated as the language of whole-class teaching; but where they were few in number, English correspondingly predominated. When talking to individual pupils, teachers' language choice was again very much influenced by their perceptions of pupils' bilingual competence. Pupils perceived as fluent bilinguals were addressed individually in either language (with a slight tendency to favour Gaelic); however, those perceived as having little or no Gaelic were spoken to almost exclusively in English.
This pattern of language use meant that where bilingual pupils were numerous, their school language experience was much as intended by the BEP: both languages were being used routinely as media of instruction, across much or all of the curriculum, and with all age groups. Where such pupils were in a minority, however, their opportunities to work bilingually were restricted; and opportunities for English-speaking children to develop fluency in spoken Gaelic were also more limited than the BEP had hoped.
Conclusion
It seemed that, ten years on, the 1975-1981 Bilingual Education Project had had a substantial and beneficial impact on teaching and learning in Western Isles primary schools. While the general character of teaching and learning in these schools has not been transformed to a fully child-centred, experiential model, they can be favourably compared with schools elsewhere in this respect. (The findings of the evaluation project suggest that there are quite general limits to the practicability of the 'child-centred' model, regardless of local factors.) In addition, the specific influence of the BEP can be seen in the curriculum areas with which it was specially concerned, and also in the general acceptance of the use of two languages as media of teaching and learning. This was a unique initiative, from which there is much to be learned about general strategies of innovation in primary education, as well as about the workings of bilingual education in one particular setting.
References
SCOTTISH COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOL (1983) Environmental Studies in the Primary School: the development of a policy. Committee on Primary Education.
GALTON, M, SIMON, B and CROSS, P (1980) Inside the Primary Classroom. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
MITCHELL, R, McINTYRE, D, MacDONALD, M and McLENNAN, S (1987) Report of an Independent Evaluation of the Western Isles' Bilingual Education Project. Department of Education, University of Stirling.
MURRAY, J and MORRISON, C (1984) Bilingual Primary Education in the Western Isles, Scotland. Stornoway: Acair.
SCOTTISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT (1965) Primary Education in Scotland. Edinburgh: HMSO.
SCOTTISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT (1980)Learning and Teaching in Primary 4 and Primary 7: a report by HM Inspectors of Schools. Edinburgh: HMSO.
© 1987 The Scottish Council for Research in Education. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of SCRE.
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