Formal English language education in Taiwan now starts at Year 3 in primary school, with an emphasis on communicative proficiency. In addition to formal education, attending English cram schools after regular school has become a common phenomenon for Taiwanese students. The main purpose of gaining additional reinforcement in English cram schools…

"Academic blogging" is a way of extending the primary classroom walls and enhancing learning through collaborative reflective responses to open-ended questions from prescribed text. Students learn from each other, develop critical literacy skills, voice their opinions and ask questions through blogging. This pedagogical approach broaches…

Increased attention to integrated approaches has resulted from demands to prioritise literacy learning while maintaining a balanced curriculum in primary schools. Limited empirical evidence to support integrated approaches to teaching physical education (PE) exists. This study explored the integration of PE content learning and the learning of…

This study investigated perceptions that children aged 6-10 years (n = 83) have of what it means to be physically active. Ideographic research was conducted utilising drawings and interviews to understand values that are placed on participating in physical activity (PA). The article questions the idea that whilst it may be commonly accepted by…

This paper describes and analyses the assessment process in a Swedish year five classroom, involving pupils aged 11 to 12 years. The paper is based on classroom observations and interviews, which were analysed to explore the assessment process in daily classroom practice, and investigates how the assessment process was understood by pupils and the…

Results from international mathematics tests are focussing the attention of national leaders on the learning of mathematics in the primary years. With this attention, comes the need to explore the factors that contribute to and impede this learning. Though much of this focus is on classroom practices, it is timely to examine the important…

There is a growing need for articulation of the theoretical framework underpinning performance as a learning medium in heritage sites and for an in-depth insight into the children's experiences therein. The aim of this paper is to explore some of the themes that emerged from researching participatory theatre in a historic house as experienced by…

Peer assessment is where students assess the quality of a peer's work. Studies have demonstrated its positive impact on learning yet most of these are in higher education. This study used training to improve the quality of written feedback in a year six primary school classroom. Action Research was selected as a research strategy given the need to…

The apparent educational underperformance of boys has received phenomenal attention worldwide for many years. In the UK, it has led to various government reports and policies aimed at raising boys' achievement. This small-scale qualitative-interpretive pilot study, undertaken in one urban primary school in North Wales, reports the findings from…

This article is about a year-long teaching and research project conducted with 696 4th graders (mostly 10-year olds) and their 36 teachers in Wyoming/USA. The researchers employed an action research approach. They planned and taught a two-day, Wyoming-themed, interdisciplinary unit, "We Are Wyoming", which integrated Social Studies,…

This article describes a telecollaboration project about the environment in the primary English as a foreign language classroom carried out in 2013/2014 between Argentina and Denmark. It combines English language teaching with intercultural citizenship education and forms part of a network of projects in Europe, the US and East Asia. This is the…

Students have a wide experience of being tested, but their perceptions of assessment are comparatively under-explored. This paper illuminates the perspectives on assessment of a sample of lower primary school students in Hong Kong. It uses focus group interviews and draw-a-picture technique to elicit their views. The main findings are that…

The Reading Recovery programme has been a key early literacy intervention in many international contexts for over two decades. As a consequence, there have been numerous investigations into its efficacy for short-term gains, but only a few on long-term sustainability. This study examines the progress of 95 Year 4-6 students from seven schools in…

This paper demonstrates the positive impact of learning through ecological fieldwork upon children's ability to write, and to write about science. Specifically we have carried out a relatively large-scale study (involving 379 children aged 9-11 years from 8 primary schools in North East England) comparing intervention classes (involved in…

The present article introduces diversity (educational, social and multicultural) of children as a resource in language teaching. Two English teachers with a total of 105 children of their language classes participated in the teaching experiment that was part of a nationwide research and development project in Finland. The aim was to develop…