1 of 57

Strategies to foster inclusion in the English classroom

March 15th & 22nd 2023

Session 2

2 of 57

Session 1	Session 2
The need for inclusion	Well-being and Social and Emotional Learning
Principles that foster inclusion	Universal Design for Learning
Neurodiversity & SEN	Learner-centred approaches

On this course

3 of 57

To consider Social and Emotional Learning and the wellbeing of neurodiverse students in our classes.

Part 1

4 of 57

recharged

rested

cheerful

calm

absorbed

intrigued

amazed

confident

secure

lively

open

relaxed

content

motivated

eager

comfortable

hesitant

exhausted

puzzled

impatient

bored

alienated

burnt out

concerned

insecure

bothered

self-conscious

disappointed

overwhelmed

conflicted

frustrated

helpless

5 of 57

choice

fairness

dignity

justice

freedom

space

integrity

acceptance

acknowledgement

affection

belonging

community

cooperation

empathy

compassion

kindness

power

growth

challenge

competence

creativity

participation

purpose

balance

equality

inspiration

fun

laughter

safety

sleep

movement

rest

comfort

6 of 57

My names		In other languages:
Original script	English script
Michelle Clare	Michelle Clare	Micaela, Miguelina
Michelle
Shelli / Shelly
Please call me: Michelle

Adapted from Activities for Inclusive Language Teaching, A.M. Smith, Delta Publishing

What's your name?

7 of 57

Learner well-being

8 of 57

well-being

Fostering well-being at school

achievement

9 of 57

What is well-being?

10 of 57

Well-being = health & happiness

Emotional

Physical

Social

Work

Societal

resilience, managing emotions

healthy eating and good exercise habits

communicate, develop meaningful relationships

pursue one’s own interests, beliefs and values, professional enrichment

participating in an active community

There are five major types of well-being. These are

Emotional well-being – the ability to be resilient, manage your emotions and generate emotions that lead to good feelings

Physical well-being – including healthy eating and good exercise habits

Social well-being – the ability to communicate and develop meaningful relationships with others

Workplace well-being – having a sense of purpose and meaningful activity as well as professional enrichment

Societal well-being – the ability to participate in an active community or culture.

Obviously these were written for adults but I think they're the same for children with the exception of work, but I think school could quite easily replace this one. Being happy at school, knowing why you are there and that what you’re doing is meaningful, is an important aspect of a child’s well-being.

Here is a question for you.

11 of 57

What do you think influences well-being in children?

Activity

12 of 57

Factors that influence well-being in children

safety

security

agency

13 of 57

Well-being in young people

Improving wellbeing in schools Evidence and recommendations from a ‘Head of Wellbeing’ pilot November 2018, Nuffield Health

Feeling cheerful
Interested in new things
Feeling loved
Able to make up own mind
Feeling confident
Feeling close to others
Feeling good about myself

Thinking clearly
Dealing with problems
Energy to spare
Interested in others
Feeling relaxed
Feeling useful
Feeling optimistic

14 of 57

What can influence well-being?

home and school environments
stress
temperament
relationships
identity & self-esteem

15 of 57

The whole child

Physical

Emotional

Social

Cognitive

Creative

16 of 57

Personal

Social

Academic

17 of 57

Think about students in your class.

What affects their well-being?

Think about the three spheres:

Activity

18 of 57

Think about students in your class.

What affects their well-being?

Think about the three spheres:

Example

I haven't had breakfast.

I can't do this activity.

I had a fight with my friend.

19 of 57

Activity

Go to www.menti.com and type in the code

5740 2255

20 of 57

Your answers

21 of 57

I felt like I

wasn't learning.

I feel like

I'm behind.

I start to think

the worst things

about me.

It makes me feel

like I’m not

good enough

I felt like I

didn’t deserve to

be in that class

SEN and self-esteem

This means it’s especially important to try to help these students find strategies that work for them. The problem is that this isn’t a simple process because each child is different. So there may be a lot of trial and error. What works for one child may not work for another.

There are lots of things that contribute to feelings of failure and one big factor is assessment. I’m not sure whether the system is at all different in Castilla y Leon, but here in Andalucía in most schools, there is a big emphasis on testing. Even first graders have regular tests and exams and culturally they have a lot of importance - students and their parents often see their test scores and grades as the only measure of progress. This is a problem for those students who don’t get good grades because they feel that they can’t learn English.

We call this type of assessment summative - where we test knowledge or skills at the end of a unit of work. The other type of assessment is formative assessment, sometimes called Assessment for Learning and this is continuous assessment, where we evaluate students throughout the school year and adapt our teaching accordingly. We don’t have time to go into assessment on this course, but I did want to mention it because it can play an important part in a student’s wellbeing.

The bottom line is, try to get to know your students as well as possible, develop a positive relationship with them, and encourage them to take responsibility for their learning and discover what helps them learn.

30 mins

22 of 57

Social & Emotional Needs & SEL

23 of 57

CASEL SEL wheel

24 of 57

«…implica la capacidad de reflexionar sobre uno mismo para autoconocerse, aceptarse y promover un crecimiento personal constante […]. Incluye también la capacidad de hacer frente a la incertidumbre y a la complejidad […]; identificar conductas contrarias a la convivencia y desarrollar estrategias para abordarlas; contribuir al bienestar físico, mental y emocional propio y de las demás personas, desarrollando habilidades para cuidarse a sí mismo y a quienes lo rodean a través de la corresponsabilidad”

LOMLOE

25 of 57

Self-awareness

challenges

feelings

beliefs

thoughts

preferences

strengths

26 of 57

Self-management

Impulse control
Stress management
Self-discipline
Self-motivation
Goal-setting
Organisational skills

27 of 57

Self-management

Activities to:

identify triggers
calm down (grounding techniques)
develop perseverance
get ready for learning
listen & respond to others
take breaks

28 of 57

Social awareness

Activities to:

develop empathy
value diversity
show kindness

29 of 57

Relationship skills

Activities to:

develop teamwork
respect different opinions
show interest in others

30 of 57

Responsible decision making

Activities that:

allow for choice
evaluate consequences

31 of 57

Look at the pictures. Which SEL skills do you think they develop?

Activity

32 of 57

33 of 57

CASEL free course

34 of 57

To explore the basic tenets of Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

Part 2

We’re now going to look at UDL. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework to help teachers design teaching and learning that supports all students. It starts from the premise that everyone learns differently and aims to remove barriers to learning.

The key word here is universal. With this principle, when our curriculum and lessons work for some students, they work for all students. For example, playing captions on a video. When I showed you those short video clips last week, I turned on the captions in English. These captions are necessary for anybody who has a visual impairment. But they also help anyone else understand what is being said. Perhaps you had trouble understanding the accents of the children, or they used unfamiliar expressions. Perhaps you had no trouble at all. But the captions certainly didn’t hinder or stop you from understanding.

35 of 57

why

what

how

36 of 57

37 of 57

Key words

choice

autonomy

relevance

authenticity

safety

feedback

collaboration

community

challenge

clear goals

self-assessment

coping skills

motivation

expectations

ACCESS

BUILD

INTERNALISE

Starting from the bottom, we have Provide options for recruiting interest. Here we need to try to get our students interested in what they're going to learn. Here are some keywords: it needs to be relevant to them, authentic and it should have value. Individual choice and autonomy can play a big part in this - if a learner gets to choose to do something they're interested in, their motivation will be much higher. They also need to feel safe enough to take risks with their learning and with few distractions.

The middle section is provide options for sustaining effort and persistance. Once they've started, they need to keep going so this clear relates to self management. Giving Ss feedback that shows how they are learning and what they can do to improve, varying the level of challenge, making sure goals are clear and having students work in groups are key elements.

At the top we have provide options for self regulation. We can encourage students to reflect on their progress and so self evaluation tasks. We can also help them develop strategies to deal with any problems they encounter. And generally, foster a growth mindset.

38 of 57

Key words

visual

auditory

customisation

vocabulary

translanguaging

multiple media

grammar

decoding

schemata

patterns & connections

multiple modes

ACCESS

BUILD

INTERNALISE

Multiple means of representation.

Starting with access, we have Provide options for perception. So making sure we provide content in different formats including visual, auditory and giving students options for customising how they want to receive information.

The middle section is provide options for language, mathematical expressions and symbols. This is wehre we need to make sure that students have the vocabulary and structures they need for an activity. They may need help with decoding information - we can use visuals to support text, for example. Allowing students to use their other languages to access information and build understanding - if they understand something in Spanish, we can use this to help them learn the language for the concept in English.

At the top we have provide options for comprehension. Activating students prior knowledge first before building on this. We can help students make connections between what's new and what they already know.

39 of 57

Key words

different formats

oral

written

media

scaffolding

tools

goal setting

support planning

monitor progress

ACCESS

BUILD

INTERNALISE

illustrated

demonstration

Multiple means of action and expression.

Starting with access, we have Provide options for physical action. We need to consider any physical barriers students might have. Can they navigate the classroom successfully? Is it easy for them to move around? What about the use of classroom materials? Could they use a computer instead of writing with a pencil? Perhaps they need more time.

The middle section is provide options for expression and communication. Here we can allow students to communicate in different ways. Some students might not feel comfortable raising their hand to answer a question in front of the whole class, for example. How else could they respond?

We can also allow students to show their learning in different ways. For example, one student could write a paragraph, anothe could draw and label a picture, another could make an audio recording. It also means making sure that students have access to any tools they may need.

We can also provide support by scaffolding tasks. We can give students sentence starters or frames to help them express their ideas. We can give them vocabulary boards to help with spelling.

At the top we have provide options for executive functions. We can help students choose appropriate goals by giving them a framework, e.g. choose three things you want to learn in this unit, choose five words you want to learn this week. We can also give them checklists with learning objectives in can do statements at the beginning of a unit which they can tick off when they feel they can do. We can also provide opportunities for students to share their progress with us and with each other. Fimally, we can give students prompts to help them think about what they need to do next in their learning journey.

40 of 57

How can I engage and motivate every student to learn?

How does every student learn best?

How can every student show what they've learnt?

UDL questions

I know this all seem quite complicated and if you’re new to UDL, don’t worry. I’m no expert in it either!

But we can ask ourselves these questions as we plan our lessons:

And I think it goes without saying that every student shouldn’t be expected to show their learning in exactly the same way.

We don’t have time to look at it in detail on this course, but I wanted to reference it because it matches very well with my own opinions about the inclusive classroom. You can find more about it in Spanish by searching for Diseño Universal de Aprendizaje.

To summarise this section, when we follow the UDL framework to design our curriculum or lessons, we are taking into account all the variations our students might show during their learning and we’re predicting and removing any possible barriers to learning.

41 of 57

To become familiar with flexible, learner-centred approaches that work for neurodiverse learners in the English-language classroom.

Part 3

42 of 57

The Inclusive Pedagogies Framework

43 of 57

General principles

Which of these principles, if any, are a part of your English lessons?

community
multi-modality
agency / autonomy
accessibility
real world learning

44 of 57

How might they exclude?

Case Study 1

Sandra prefers a traditional teaching approach. Every lesson, she writes the target language on the board for students to copy in their notebooks. She then gives them exercises to practise the language. She holds weekly spelling tests and regular exams. Most of her students get high scores in written assessments.

Case Study 1

Nabil works in a school with a fixed curriculum. His preferred approach is Communicative Language Teaching. He has to complete certain learning objectives each lesson & complete paperwork showing what the class has done. Nabil runs a strict classroom environment and has high standards to ensure that he reaches his targets.

45 of 57

Methodologies & Approaches

Inquiry-based learning

Project-based learning

Play-based learning

STEAM learning

Nature-based learning

46 of 57

Think about the five approaches. Which ones would you like to try in your English classroom? Rank in order of preference (1=favourite)

Go to menti.com

Code: 17 34 12 8

Activity

47 of 57

48 of 57

Combining approaches

How can you implement one of these approaches into your next lesson or unit?

What activities could you do? When would you do them?

49 of 57

Example

My topic: food

My approaches:

inquiry-based learning & STEAM

What I will do:

Start the unit with the essential question: Where does our food come from?

Activities:

Have students find out about the ingredients in pizza and where they come from.

Have students follow a recipe to make pizza dough.

Have students create their own recipe.

50 of 57

Collaborative work

Group training
A plan or clear instructions
Steps to follow
Target language (on handouts or cards)
Practice of language (drill)
Repeated practice

Last week some of you expressed that you have challenges when having students work in groups. The approaches we've looked at all have collaboration in common, so I think it would be useful to explore some ideas on this.

First of all, we can't just expect children to work well in groups without any support. They need training in how to work together. So many times I've seen children who are supposed to be working in groups working individually. And it's because they aren't been taught or shown what to do.

So my first tip is to structure group work. If we just tell students to "discuss" something, they won't know what to do or know how to do it in English. We can give them a list of questions to discuss together and also give them some sentence frames to help them express their answers. It can be a good idea to drill this type of language first with the class, having everyone repeat the sentence frames. We can do the same with functional language. And actually, if you do this kind of work regularly, they'll be using the same functional language.

51 of 57

Organisation skills

Organiser

Presenter

Director

Materials manager

Time keeper

Writer

Artist

In terms of organisation, it can help to give students roles. When I do collaborative work, I give students the following roles, depending on the activity.

Organiser - divides information into

sections - especially if they're preparing a presentation.

Director - decides who will do what.

Materials manager - takes charge of the

materials and gets them ready.

Writer - makes notes or does any writing.

Presenter - presents or shares with the class.

Time keeper - keeps track of time.

Artist - draws pictures or designs any visuals.

Some of these roles I use when students are creating something, others are for presentations, and so on. Each student gets a role card that tells them their role and exactly what they are responsible for. Usually I have groups of four and I don't always have a director - sometimes I have the director if one group has an extra student. I find that having more than four children in a group makes things more complicated!

The roles are usually rotated so that students don't always have the same role, but I also try to match them to students' skills. So for example, if a student struggles with writing, I wouldn't usually ask them to be the writer.

To help with organisation on a larger scale, I like to have visuals on display with the steps we are going to carry out in that lesson. You could use a flipchart for this to show students "this is what we're going to do today". Having it visible reduced cognitive overload.

Anything that helps students see what they have to do and also if they can physically check them off on a list can help.

52 of 57

To consider how what we’ve explored fits in with LOMLOE and to create a plan of action.

Part 4

53 of 57

Linguistic

Plurilingual

STEM

Digital

Personal/Social/Learning to learn

Citizenship

Entrepreneurial

Cultural and artistic

Skills & competencies

But even if your school is not currently contemplating cross-curricular projects, you can still set up your own projects in the English classroom. Let’s look a bit more closely at the competencies and how we can develop these in our English lessons.

Linguistic is the most obvious one, as we are teaching a language. And of course, our students will be using more than one language, possibly even three or more. It’s natural that students will use their different languages at school including in the English classroom and it’s important for us to show that we value their different languages and show students how they can use their existing knowledge of Spanish or their other languages to learn English or any other language.

We’ve looked at STEAM, which links both STEM and cultural and artistic competencies. When we use a project-based or inquiry approach, we can encourage students to draw on these different competencies: scientific thinking, design thinking, and creative thinking.

In approaches such as inquiry-based learning, students develop digital competencies and the fact that many of the approaches we’ve looked at are learner-led rather than teacher-led, means they develop autonomy and initiative, which could be included in entrepreneurship, as well as learning to learn.

So you can see how a change in approach fosters all these skills and competencies in a natural way.

The challenge for us, is to create the right balance of direct instruction with these approaches so that we ensure that students are also learning the vocabulary and structures they need to be able to learn and carry our their project.

54 of 57

Session 1	Session 2
The need for inclusion	Well-being and Social and Emotional Learning
Principles that foster inclusion	Universal Design for Learning
Neurodiversity & SEN	Learner-centred approaches

Recap

55 of 57

End of course practical task

Create an action plan that includes:

the principles and strategies you want to implement in your classroom
how you will implement them
how you will reflect on these strategies and evaluate their effectiveness

56 of 57

Thank you for coming!

CONTACT:

Email: michelle@michelleworgan.com

Website: www.michelleworgan.com

Instagram: @michelleworganelt

YouTube: Inspiring Inquiries @michelleworgan

57 of 57

Useful links

CASEL: social and emotional learning https://casel.org/

CASEL course: An introduction to Social and Emotional Learning

Free SEL resources, videos and discussion tasks: Big Ideas - Classdojo

UDL guidelines: The UDL Guidelines (cast.org)

Home - an Aardman and Save the Children short film

Empathy Lab UK HOME (empathylab.uk)