Informal Learning and the Teaching of English at Primary School: A Literacy-based Project Work

First words



Throughout the passing of time, men and women have invented, created, built up and used an infinite number of objects: tools, crafts, costumes, among others. These objects, together with the books and articles written, photographies taken and interviews carried out are testimonies that talk to us about different societies. When a historian takes the decision to put into practice a research work, making questions about the origin, the use of those objects, etc., these materials become sources of information that pave the way for the reconstruction of the history of any culture.


Fortunately, museums and public libraries have been created to preserve the above mentioned cultural heritage, and are those informal scene of education that ones that are open not only to investigators, but to the every single member of a society.


It is the aim of this article to show the way, we, as educators of a new century, can create meaningful and cross curricular teaching sequences, relating and interrelating these informal context with formal ones, as the school is, and explicitly exposing the way the teaching of English at primary school should be understood as a means to reach an end, and not as an end in itself.



Informal Learning and Formal Settings


Informal learning can be defined as an emergent paradigm within the field of theories of learning, which seeks for the systematization of the effects in new contexts. The context of informal learning is characterized by the fostering of the development of interesting and relaxing tasks, through which the acquisition of knowledge is not paramount, and the topics dealt with are neither fixed nor structured. Because of the aforesaid, the main features of informal learning are the following:


Ø The objectives and aim tend to be wide and open.
Ø Participation is generally voluntary.
Ø The context in which the task is fulfilled has a close connection with real life.
Ø When considering informal learning, diversity and individualities are taken into consideration.
Ø The tasks incline to generate a product of performance, rather than acquiring an organized corpus of contents.
Ø The process of learning is motivated and regulated by the own person. (Asencio & Pol, 2002)


If we pay close attention, there are clear differences between formal and informal learning, differences that can be summed up as followed: in a formal context, the explicit objective is learning, but students, sometimes, fail in this intention. Laxity is inherent to informal contexts, and it is there where students, in general, get a lot of knowledge. (Fernandez Betancor, H & Asensio Brouard, M (2000)


It is imperative to recall that there exist very traditional plans of informal learning, and in the other way around, suggestions developed in formal contexts which gather the prototypical characteristics of informal contexts. So, what to do? The ideal situation is to reach the convergence between both, formal and informal pedagogy to promote the progress of competent and active citizens in different dimensions of life. Thus, the school, as a formal scenery of education, can take profit from informal settings, and vice versa, informal contexts can be highlighted if they are valued and expanded at school. Summing up, neither one extreme nor the other is recommendable, but the value of their complement.


As a public library is considered part of our cultural heritage, -along with museums, for example- due to the fact that they preserve the culture of a nation or a community with the paramount aim of being shared, they foster learning, they are excellent centres for research work which can be attacked from different perspectives, such as methodology, didactics, psychology, communication, etc. , -perspectives that will impact differently, according to the purpose-, and bearing in mind that these sceneries could be used as interactive, democratic, sensitive, professional, arguable contexts, we highly recommend to start sketching a project work relating formal settings (the school), informal scenes (the public library) curricular subjects (Literature –stories familiar to children and written bith in English and in the students’ mother tongue are needed-, Language, History), alongside with the teaching of English as an International Language in the twentieth century, a time characterized by globalization.

What is particular in this project is to enjoy the reading of any literary product, but not within the framework of an educational institution (formal context and learning), but in the public library of the city (informal context and learning), that place, sometimes forgotten and even ignored by us, the adults, who do not remember that is that a rich and big setting in which not only can we find books, articles, records, for example, -which are testimony that tell us about society, and which can be interpreted by us, as efficient interlocutors and readers, to obtain information and reconstruct history -, but also a place to read and share that moment with friends, with relatives or , why not, to be adored in isolation…


María Eugenia Falabella
(2009)

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