University of Bielefeld
Department of English and American Studies

"Playway-Rainbow"-Edition - An Introduction and Analysis of Teaching Material for English as a Foreign Language at Primary Level

Sebastian Heinrichs

Table of Contents

1. Introduction ... 3

2. The Components of the Playway Set ... 4

3. The Pupil’s Books ... 5

3.1 Appearance, structure and general aspects of the Pupil’s Books ... 6
3.2 Distinctive features of book 3 ... 9
3.3 Distinctive features of book 4 ... 11
3.4 Evaluation of the findings ... 13

4. Conclusion ... 15

5. Bibliography ... 17

6. Appendix ... 18

6.1 Table of exercises ... 19
6.2 Questionnaire for the analysis of school books ... 1

1. Introduction

Since 2003, English as a foreign language is taught at German primary schools. The discus-sion about introducing a foreign language before secondary school had been going on for sev-eral decades, though. Still, many people think that it is too early and that there is no time to integrate English lessons at primary level. Some of them are worried that learning a foreign language at a stage when the acquisition of the mother tongue has not been finished could disturb the development of the children’s language. There are also concerns that an additional subject would have negative effects on the pupils’ performance in the other subjects, since it involves the reorganization of time.
However, the outcomes of several test phases and research results speak against those fears. The findings suggest that introducing English already at primary level is a good way of preparing the children for the subject in the secondary schools. Additionally, experts argue that learning a foreign language at an early age has many advantages. Alongside first impres-sions and basic knowledge about the language, current English lessons are also designed to teach the children about culture and learning techniques. By integrating intercultural learning, the pupils are supposed to get to know the target culture, especially the environment of the foreign pupils. Thereby, tolerance towards other ethnicities can be fostered while fears of con-tact are reduced. It also supports the children’s abilities of self reflection and critical thinking. They learn to assume an objective view towards their own culture and the foreign culture, which is important for their future life in a pluralistic society. For more detailed information about aims, content and methods, the general guidelines for primary schools and the specific curriculum for English can be consulted.
In order to check what influence the research results and the consequential demands on foreign language lessons at primary level had on the currently used teaching material, I want to examine the popular books Playway 3 and Playway 4 (Klett, 2001 – Rainbow edi-tion), which are used in the classes 3 and 4, and the additional material. There is a special edi-tion for North-Rhine Westphalia, which differs slightly from the federal version. When Eng-lish became an official subject in 2003 and the first provisional guidelines had been pub-lished, the State Government decided to use Playway only after a few changes would have been made. However, this paper is concerned with the federal edition, which was published in 2001 and is still used in many schools.
The complete set of available Playway materials consists of the Pupil’s Book, the Ac-tivity Book, the Teacher’s Book and additional equipment that can be used in the lessons. Be-sides the books, there are Picture Cards, Word Cards, Story Cards (only Playway 3), CDs, video cassettes and the hand puppet Max, which is an omnipresent figure in the books.
At first, there will be a brief introduction of the Playway set, where also the functions and characteristics of each component are explained. The main part focuses on the Pupil’s Books and analyses their content, methods, design and structure, while also implicit depic-tions of values are examined. Finally, there will be a conclusion that summarizes the findings and points out the advantages and disadvantages of the Playway set. Although the analysis will focus on the Pupil’s Books, I will also refer to the integration of the additional material sometimes, because the set works as a system. It will also be necessary to refer to the Teacher’s Books at some points, since the Pupil’s Books alone give only little information about how they are intended to be used.

2. The components of the Playway set

As implied in the introduction, the Playway Rainbow Edition sets do not only contain the books for the teacher and the pupils, but also a multitude of additional material. It follows a brief introduction.
The Teacher’s Book is an impressive file holding over 350 black and white pages in A4. The introduction does not only explain the concept of Playway, but also general aspects of foreign language lessons. It presents the current understanding of foreign language teaching and learning at primary level and offers advice and proposals for teaching. Interesting are the ta-bles that show suggestions of planning the whole school year and the methodical/didactical proposals of shaping lesson sequences using the Playway material and exhausting it fully.
The Pupil’s Book guides the children through the school year. Without exception, the thirteen units treat topics that deal with aspects of their daily life. Colourful pictures, suitable for chil-dren, absolutely dominate, while text is reduced to a minimum. On 60 pages, the book offers exercises for singing, crafting, speaking and listening. The exercises are often presented as games and illustrated with photographs that show children doing them and are often based on listening to spoken or sung texts on the CD.
The Activity Book accompanies the units of the Pupil’s Book and offers additional exercises. However, the exercises in the Activity Book are more often based on crafting and also involve watching video sequences. The design is nearly the same as that of the Pupil’s Book. It con-sists of 40 pages, while the Appendix contains working material for the exercises.
The videocassettes of Playway 3 consist of the Stories Video and the Teacher Training Video. The first contains 11 English stories and sketches that apply to the units of the Pupil’s Book while the latter shows examples of how the Playway material can be used. The stories and sketches are spoken by native speakers and the combination of sound and picture is supposed to prepare the pupils for real situations.
The additional material of Playway 4 includes only one cassette. It contains 11 cartoon stories and a musical play, which shows English children acting a play. The musical play allows watching the English children in an authentic situation and listening to authentic language. Additionally, the pupils can use it as an example and act it themselves.
The set of audio CDs consists of CDs that contain listening exercises, dialogues, songs and rhymes for the lessons and a CD for the use at home, which allows the children to recapitulate on the treated topics and practise their pronunciation.
The Story Cards (only Playway 3) show pictures that can be used to reconstruct the stories contained in the Playway material. This helps the pupils retell a story.
The 83 Picture Cards show the pictures that represent important words the pupils come across during the English lessons. The teacher can show them when introducing new words or when testing and reinforcing words that already have been introduced. Associating the pictures with the new words supports the process of memorisation.
The 83 Word Cards show the written forms of the words. They are supposed to be used like the Picture Cards, but only after the children have learned their meaning and pronunciation. Otherwise, there can be interferences that are due to the different pronunciation in German.
The hand puppet Max is based on the fantasy figure that belongs to the design of the books and is present in all of the units. The teacher and the children can talk to it in order to practise dialogues. The puppet can also be used as an additional character in role plays.

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