RATIONALE

The wordy VLRC is a process oriented strategy created to address the needs of three group of primary children with a basic level of vocabulary  to acquire new abilities and levels of performance in English.   It was designed taking into consideration common contextual features from three Colombian schools that share characteristics such as the age, learning styles, cognitive, affective and linguistic needs; as the CIEL Project team (2000) expresses “students learn more effectively if they are able to choose activities and materials, which fit best into their dominant learning style”. It is also a learning scenario that aims to provide learners with different resources that allow them to transform information into knowledge. Learners will use the VLRC once per week with the guidance of the instructor, but will be encouraged to use the additional resources independently.

The students from the target populations are in level A1, according to the Common European Framework. They attend an average of 3 hours of English for academic purposes per week. Their level of motivation for the English class is particularly high, but it often decreases when the activities are not highly meaningful or appealing, or when the materials are not attractive or colorful.  Since students are becoming less egocentric, they benefit from experiencing different patterns of interaction, including pair and group work.  Their vocabulary is limited to basic topics, which makes it difficult for them to express themselves in the target language.  The most predominant learning styles among the learners of the three institutions are the visual and the kinesthetic.