The Use of Graphic Organisers in the Language Skills Social Science Lesson: a paradigm #coteaching #methodology #ESL

The use of GRAPHIC/KNOWLEDGE ORGANISERS in the Language Skills Lessons is one of the key tools in our MEFP-British Council Programme. According to a British Council article, visual representations of information are by no means an innovation in education. The use of graphs and charts to represent statistical information and time-lines showing the sequence of historical events have long been accepted tools, while in language teaching, the mind map is already a common aid to brainstorming a topic.

Let us show you an example of a recent activity and the graphic organisers used: a Venn Diagram (used as a post-listening task) to compare and contrast and a knowledge organiser with different boxes for different topics (used as a while-listening task)

In this activity our ESO3 students had to compare the Spanish Political System and the British one.

There are many advantages for the students working in this way, among them, the versatility of graphic organisers for they have multiple uses. They can be used to structure writing projects, summarise reading texts, organise and store vocabulary, and help in problem solving, decision making, studying, planning research and brainstorming.