Eaquals Riga 2017

1. Using LEGO® as an English
language learning tool
David Bish
Director of Academic Management
EF Education First
Dr Diana Cojocnean
Babes-Bolyai University,
Napoca

2. Using LEGO® as an English
language learning tool

3. Tableau
Task ideas

4. Scaffolding

5.  Hands on
 EFL tasks with LEGO®
 Concept & Pilot Course Design
 Sample stories and projects
 What we from the study
Workshop outline

6. Concepts
 LEGO Education:
• Social constructivism
• Realism
• Flow
 Story building activities:
• Task Based Framework
 Building Challenge:
• Project Based Framework

7. The pilot course
 Summer 2016
 Newland Park Academy, UK
 EF and LEGO Education
 6 two-week younger-learner ‘immersion’
courses
 Using LEGO sets in a semi-formal way as
an EFL tool

8. EF Newland Park

9. Create yourself

10. Materials

11. Syllabus
GO! B1 StoryStarter
3) Food for thought
Writing a recipe
Designing a pop-up restaurant
Giving instructions, sentence stress
Cookery actions, foods and eating places
Local foods
New) And while we were eating…
Day-to-day storytelling
Recounting group social occasions
Social conversations
Imagining reactions of other people
10) Communications and Technology
Listing important inventions
Writing an email to a computer helpdesk
The passive, sentence stress
Technology vocabulary
Local communications
CU4) The latest technology
Tech theme.
Discussion of importance of ICT
11) Past times
Writing about museum exhibits
Relative clauses, pronouncing pauses
History vocabulary, descriptive adjectives
Local history
BTS7) Night in the museum
Collaborative storytelling
Expressing dramatic events
Using adjectives to build an atmosphere
15) Tell me a story
Writing the end of a story
Writing a story in text messages
Past simple vs past continuous
Books and story genres and conventions
Local books and stories
DDS4/5) The old man’s gift/Runaway
kitten
Day-to-day storytelling
Retelling classic tales
Writing an ending for a story
17) The world of sport
Writing a biography of a sporting hero
Writing and explaining the rules of a sport
Modals of obligation (must, should, have to, ought to)
Personalities, Sports, places
Local sports
DTS8) Super stadium
Day-to-day storytelling
Group problem solving
Considering people’s needs
Describing a space

12. Task Types

13. Storybuilding
③②①
Talk as you build

14. Storytelling
https://youtu.be/4gsq2EBoKZ0

15. Project

16. Project

17. Project
Pirate Ship Group https://youtu.be/FUeIe1Aa5jc

18. Project
Maze Group https://youtu.be/hKrEznZL0lo

19. EFL learning outcomes
 Inter-student communication
 Engagement in task completion
 Building confidence while speaking
 Contextualizing language structures and
vocabulary
 Increase in interest and motivation

20. Challenges
 Difficulty in monitoring all groups
 Students staying on the given task
 Storytelling difficulties for lower
levels
 Learned classroom behaviour is
hard to overcome.
 Assertive and higher level students
dominated the storytelling phase

21. Lessons Learned
Students can get into a state of flow.
Learners become more expressive given the
opportunity to be creative.
They are not going to come up with what you expect
but that is OK.

22. Conclusions
Use of LEGO in an EFL classroom can:
Create a context favorable to socialized language
learning
Enhance children’s collaboration in group task and
projects
Engage children in natural language use
Facilitate the production of narratives
Boost students’ confidence while speaking in English

23. Any questions?
David.Bish@EF.com