1B FOCUS Understanding referencing in texts


These words and phrases are often used to refer back to information that has already been given:


• pronouns – he, his, them, it, these, etc. • the definite article + noun phrase – the children, the earlier insights, etc.


4 5


Use paragraph D in 2 to predict the topic of the next paragraph of the article. What details would you expect to find?


In pairs. Look at four more paragraphs from the article. Put them in the correct order. Use the reference words to help you.


E Expression


• determiners – some (of them),much (of it), a few, etc.


In addition, references to people often describe their position, job title or role in different words:


• the Indian physicist; the radical educationalist Good writers use referencing strategies to avoid repeating the same phrases. These strategies also connect different paragraphs within a text so that ideas and information can flow clearly and logically.


As with the original experiments in India, the response from pupils to SOLEs has been extremely positive, and the methodology has been enthusiastically taken up and used by teachers in schools in countries as disparate as Hong Kong, Colombia, Australia and the United States.


F


However, despite a wealth of anecdotal evidence for the success of the method, many educators remain unconvinced about Dr Mitra’s ideas and sceptical about how innovative they are. Some point out that the notion of autonomous question-led learning is as old as the teaching methods of the Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, and that only the method of researching the answers is different. Others note that task-based learning in groups has been familiar to language teachers since the 1970s.


G


In some sessions a teacher is present, but only as a mediator – his or her role is to choose which ‘big question’, for example, ‘What happens to the air we breathe in?’ or ‘Why do we learn history?’, is to be researched, to encourage the pupils and to coordinate the final phase in which the groups report their findings to the rest of the class. Where SOLEs exist in remote environments without teachers, groups of children can contact mentors by video calling.


H


These are rooms within schools where children can work in small groups, averaging four people per screen, at computers that are connected to the internet. The emphasis on group learning is key, as the earlier series of ‘Hole in the Wall’ experiments in India demonstrated that learning was optimized when children worked together in groups and shared knowledge and skills. In a SOLE session, the children organize themselves into groups and are free to wander from group to group to compare what each is doing.


6 7 16


What do you think of Dr Mitra’s ideas? Would they work in your country?


Go to page 105 for a class discussion activity about exams.


English for the 21st Century • Unit 1


C21


CREATIVITY: Acquiring knowledge


See page 23➝


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