The PEAP Curriculum: From Vision to Classroom Practice

Alexia Giannakopoulou & Clary Kossovitsa

The introduction of an open and flexible EYL programme into the Greek educational system is a significant landmark in the ‘history’ of foreign language teaching in Greece. It’s the first programme which actually gives the EFL teacher choice as to what and how much to teach, and one of the few that consciously aims at teaching the subject matter in a context which attempts to attend to learners’ social, emotional, cognitive, aesthetic and physical needs, engaging them in exciting and culturally relevant learning experiences, depending on their personality, learning styles and other individual differences.

The development and implementation of the programme was based on current educational thought and what has widely been regarded as good practice in early language learning. A provisional syllabus was created since the materials and learning environment should emerge through trial and error and provide for learning experiences that are useful to young learners. Classroom observation helped us understand the linguistic, cognitive and pedagogical demands different learning activities posed and thus we adapted, refined and reformulated these activities while creating new learning and teaching materials. This process was like a journey, in which we travelled over the paths of theoretical exploration and data gathering to create what is called an a posteriori syllabus. The revised curriculum incorporates new content and embraces innovative pedagogical practice. In many respects, this benefits everyone in the learning community. Children learn the English language not as an end in itself but as a means of learning about the world through that language. Teachers go through the classroom routines and develop a better understanding of the processes by which the children learn the language. It seems that the aims to instil a love of the language, to develop the full potential of the children and to prepare them for their future life are being fulfilled. The vision is becoming reality.

The Transforming Power of PEAP: A Model for Young Learner and Teacher Development

Katerina Nikolaki & Evangelia Karagianni

This paper examines the relationship of PEAP, an innovative course for teaching English to Young Learners in Greek Primary Schools, to teachers’ and learners’ development. Drawing on an analysis of video-based teaching sessions and interviews of EFL teachers, it attempts to explore how the implementation of innovative teaching and learning material can facilitate educational change in an effective way. It examines how new teaching experiences can contribute to the transformation of teachers’ views, practices and emotions on the one hand and how new learning experiences can contribute to the young learners’ cognitive, social and emotional development on the other.

Beyond Online Training: Building an Online Community of Practice for Greek EYL Teachers

Smaragda Papadopoulou

In order to respond to the diverse training needs of our geographically dispersed body of primary EYL teachers, an online distance education training programme has been developed, consisting of a series of e-training modules focusing on various areas of EYL methodology. The EFL teachers’ response to the online training programme was overwhelmingly positive; not only were they thankful for the training opportunity offered, but they began sending us personal reflective accounts of their classroom experiences and their use of programme materials and tasks. These personal accounts formed a separate section in our programme website called “Teachers’ Corner”. Moreover, they sparked the idea of taking the online distance education course one step further to create an online community of practice for Greek EYL Teachers. Online collaboration among Greek EYL teachers can serve as a means to enhance their performance, allowing them to gain access to new information, express and share their ideas, concerns and beliefs, examine different ways of thinking about their profession and reflect upon their own practices. Taking advantage of the latest networked technologies we are planning to offer high quality online collaborative learning experiences to EYL teachers all over Greece. In this context, this presentation aims to present the principles upon which the Greek EYL Teachers’ Online Community will be designed, clarify its aims and objectives, and map the facilities that it will provide to EYL teachers once it has been developed.