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Part 1 The young language learner

In the morning    Lunch    In the afternoon

Part 1 The young language learner

go shopping

see my

friend

have, pizza.

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ba.v£ a. mu. Sic. lessom

Timeline

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Fig. 24 Examples ofvisual support

Catering for learning styles

Auditory and kinesthetic support can be provided with the help of action rhymes and songs, stories, games and drama. For topics linked to Science and Maths this can be provided by engaging pupils in simple experiments or surveys where children are actively engaged in doing something (see page 145 on Investigations into Pens). The list of activities linked to the eight intelligences (see chapter 3) shows how we can use a whole host of activi-ties such as word games, reading puzzles, drawings, craft work, surveys, and diagrams. The outcomes could include a drama, a set of posters, a play, cre-ative writing, and so on. It may be useful to share these with another class, or even parents, which then provides a meaningful and purposeful context.

We have seen how many learners have a visual style which of course plays an important part in cross-curricular work. Along with the usual U array of visuals, there are also other useful graphics, called graphic organ-jij izers or visual frameworks, based on the work of Mohan (1986), who u works with teachers of bilingual children in Canada (for morę on this see |T ' also Brewster 1999, Chamot and 0'Malley 1994, Hooper 1996 and Tang 1992). These organizers help to link any background knowledge pupils ;;i have to new knowledge. Most of all, theyłielp to structure the informa-j.i    tion which is contained in a story, or poster or description and so pro-

; i    vide scaffolding for both language and thinking. Figurę 24 shows

: I guidelines for developing and using key visuals. Table 5 shows how these link with activities, thinking and language.

When teachers plan to use a key visual to link language learning with content learning they need to: consider the main learning and language learning focus of the lesson; analyse the thinking and language demands of the main learning expected; link this to an appropriate visual and activ-ities; organize work in pairs or groups as appropriate; use the planned activities supported by key visuals to draw on pupils' existing knowledge, model new language, allow for rehearsal and consolidation and applica-tion of their new knowledge. These guidelines are represented by the key visuals chart (Fig. 25).

Morę on stories and investigations

Many stories can easily be used to tie in language learning with a wide variety of cross-curricular topics. Even if we take a less obvious area, such as citizenship and eąuality of the sexes, there are several contemporary fairy tales, rewritten as satires, which have this modern theme (see, for example, The Paperbag Princess and Princess Smartypants, both of which can be used to encourage pupils to think about gender stereotypes), as well as teaching new vocabulary, struct&res and language functions.