Computer programming as an educational tool in the English classroom: a preliminary study

Abstract

Computational thinking, a problem solving method that uses computer science techniques, has recently become mainstream as many governments and major Internet companies are promoting programming skills among children. However, little is known about how programming affects other aspects of life beyond the acquired programming skills. In this regard, this paper summarizes the work done in the school San Diego and San Vicente (Madrid, Spain) during the third quarter of the year 2013/2014, where we conducted a study with four groups of students in 4th and 5th grade to measure to what extent the use of computer programming in English classes can be an interesting educational tool with a positive impact on the learning otucome of the students. The results show that the groups working with programming activities improved more than the groups using traditional resources. Moreover, when asked via surveys at the end of the study, most students felt that coding was a positive influence, not only for learning English, but for developing other important skills as teamwork and learning to learn.

Full text

Computer programming as an educational tool in
the English classroom
A preliminary study
J. Moreno-León
Programamos.es
Sevilla, Spain
jesus.moreno@programamos.es
Gregorio Robles
GSyC/LibreSoft
Universidad Rey Juan Carlos
Madrid, Spain
grex@gsyc.urjc.es
Abstract—Computational thinking, a problem solving method
that uses computer science techniques, has recently become
mainstream as many governments and major Internet companies
are promoting programming skills among children. However,
little is known about how programming affects other aspects of
life beyond the acquired programming skills. In this regard, this
paper summarizes the work done in the school San Diego and
San Vicente (Madrid, Spain) during the third quarter of the year
2013/2014, where we conducted a study with four groups of
students in 4th and 5th grade to measure to what extent the use
of computer programming in English classes can be an
interesting educational tool with a positive impact on the learning
otucome of the students. The results show that the groups
working with programming activities improved more than the
groups using traditional resources. Moreover, when asked via
surveys at the end of the study, most students felt that coding was
a positive influence, not only for learning English, but for
developing other important skills as teamwork and learning to
learn.
Keywords—computer programming; coding; English;
educational tool; computational thinking; technology-
enhanced learning
Disclaimer
This document is a draft. The published paper can be
accessed at IEEExplore.
I. Introduction
The modification of computer science teaching in K-12
education to include the development of computational
thinking is one of the latest trends in the educational landscape
[1]. In Wing’s words [2], computational thinking “involves
solving problems, designing systems, and understanding
human behaviour, by drawing on the concepts fundamental to
computer science” (p. 33).
Moreover, taking into account estimates from the European
Commission, by 2020 there will be a shortfall of 900,000
workers with a good digital competence and computer
programming skills [3] and other similar estimations exist in
the US as well [4]. In the last years several governments
around the world have begun to modify the curricula in schools
to promote the development of computational thinking of
primary and secondary students through computer
programming or coding. Thus, in Europe computer
programming is already part of the national curriculum in nine
countries: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Greece,
Ireland, Poland, Portugal and the UK (England) [5]. But not
only governments have joined this movement, as industry
leaders have launched various programs to promote the
teaching of computer programming and the development of
computational thinking among children, youth and adults.
Google, for instance, tries to increase student exposure to
computer science in school, after school, and with summer
programs with its CS First
1
initiative, whereas Mozilla, as part
of its Webmaker campaign, promotes coding with Appmaker
2
,
a web tool to easily develop application for mobile devices.
According to the operational definition of computational
thinking developed by the International Society for Technology
in Education and the Computer Science Teachers Association
[6], one of the basics of this process is “generalizing and
transferring this problem solving process to a wide variety of
problems” (p. 9). Hence, the general research question of this
paper is in how far computational thinking affects other
curricular activities. In particular, this work was designed to
test whether the use of computer programming in English
classes can be beneficial, not only regarding the computer or
technology skills that students would acquire, but because this
educational tool could have a positive impact on learning
outcomes of students in relation to their English language
skills. Therefore, the specific questions we want to give an
answer to in this research paper are following:
 Does the use of programming in English classes
improve the academic outcomes for students?
 Does the use of programming in English classes
increase student motivation in this subject?
II. Background
A. Computer programming as an educational tool.
Scratch.
The use of computer programming in schools as an
educational tool to enhance learning in other disciplines is
increasingly common in all levels of education in many
countries [7,8,9]. With this goal in mind several languages and
1
http://www.cs-first.com/
2
https://apps.webmaker.org/

programming environments have been designed to enable
children from 6 or 7 years onwards to learn to program and
build different types of interactive applications, animations and
video games. The most successful educational programming
language nowadays is Scratch [10], a programming platform
that includes a development environment and a website where
the community can host their projects, run, study and reuse
other programs, and share ideas or suggestions with other
programmers. The Scratch usage statistics
3
leave no doubt
regarding the global nature of this movement, with more than
3,500,000 users and more than 6,000,000 shared projects on
the web. Fig. 1 provides a screenshot of a Scratch project
hosted in the Scratch web platform.
Fig. 1. Example screenshot of a Scratch project. On the right, the
visual elements used to program in the Scratch environment.
On the left, the resulting program (above) and the sprites
(images used in the program) (below).
One use that is being given to this tool, in addition to
videogames programming, is to create interactive scenarios to
narrate stories and bring characters to life following a storyline.
An example of the educational use of programming to enhance
the development of other skills is the research performed by
Burke and Kafai [11], runnig a writing workshop in which
students had to create stories using Scratch instead of with
pencil and paper. Both students and researchers concluded that
these experiences had been very motivating and positive, not
only to develop digital literacy, but also to improve the learning
of linguistic content.
B. English language skills of Spanish students
Regarding the English language skills of Spanish students,
the results in international tests show that there is still much
room for improvement to achieve the objectives set by the
European Commission. The last study in Europe, European
Survey on Language Competences, secondary research [12],
assessed the English language skills of 53,000 students from
3
http://scratch.mit.edu/statistics/
14 countries attending the last year of compulsory secondary
education. This study provides the percentage of students that
reach the levels in the Common European Framework of
Reference for Languages, focusing on a range from A1 to B2.
The percentage of Spanish students in the B English level, the
highest one, was between 24% and 30%, percentages far from
the 50% which is originally proposed by the European
Commission as a target reference point for European Indicator
of Language Competence.
III. Methodology
For this study we have worked with two groups of 4th
grade students (9 and 10 years old) and two groups of 5th grade
students (10 and 11 years old) formed by pupils of similar
characteristics with regard to age, number of students,
academic result, gender distribution and English subject
grades.
In each of the levels 4th and 5th, we have worked with a
control group and an experimental group. In 4th grade, the
experimental group consisted of 13 students, while the control
group was comprised of 15 students. In 5th grade, the
experimental group consisted of 19 students, while the control
group was formed by 18 students.
The study was divided into the following phases:
1. Initial training of English teachers participating in the
study.
2. Initial questionnaires, to measure both English skills
and several aspects of motivation.
3. Classroom work of English teachers with students.
The experimental groups included some programming
activities, trying to work the vocabulary and grammar
of the unit by developing different projects with
Scratch. The control group worked this unit in a
traditional way, using the same type of activities that
had been used to date.
4. Final questionnaires, to measure both the English
skills and several aspects of motivation.
A. Initial training of teachers
None of the two teachers who participated in the study had
prior experience with Scratch, so a training course was planned
to provide these teachers with the necessary rudiments to cope
with the environment, know the basic features and discover the
type of activities that could be developed with their students in
the classroom. Although an 8 hour course was proposed, due to
the workload of teachers only three hours of instruction were
given. One of the teachers had previous experience with
programming computers, having a college degree in web
application development, and, obviously, during the training
sessions he showed a bigger improvement than his peer.
B. Initial questionnaires
Before the study, students filled out an initial questionnaire
to measure the knowledge they had of the contents of the
following English unit. In addition, students filled out a
questionnaire intended to collect other type of information as

gender, age, Internet access and use of electronic devices at
home, ability to perform different types of activities with
computing devices, wish to continue their studies and
subsequent career in the computer field.
C. Classroom work
The work of the unit was divided into 12 sessions in which
in the experimental groups some programming activities with
Scratch were interspersed, while the control group continued to
work the same way as they had done in the rest of the course.
Thus, the work with one of the experimental groups consisted
of the following sessions:
1. Introduction of the vocabulary of the unit. Session held
in the classroom.
2. Introduction of the basic concepts and use of Scratch
making a simple example using the computer and
projector in the classroom.
3. Reading the story of the unit and conduct of questions
related to text.
4. First session in the computer room. Creation of user
accounts; students log in and out of the website to get
used to the interface.
5. Second session in the computer lab. Children create an
animated cartoon with Scratch; the character had to
explain a recipe indicating the required ingredients.
6. Session in the classroom.
7. Third session in the computer lab. Students had to
finish the recipe and add their projects to the Scratch
study created for the class.
8. Vocabulary and grammar exercises.
9. Fourth session in the computer lab. Exhibition of the
work to their peers.
10. Fifth session in the computer lab. Students had to write
a conversation between two characters talking about a
recipe.
11. Sixth session in the computer lab. After correcting
essays, students used them to program a second
animation with Scratch.
12. Exam of the unit.
D. Final questionnaire
All students filled out the same test they took at the
beginning of the unit to check the degree of improvement
during the sessions. They also filled a questionnaire to identify
issues related to motivation and interest in the subject that
programming could have awakened.
IV. Results
A. Tests scores
With regard to improving the educational outcomes of
students participating in the study, the results are not totally
conclusive. The improvement obtained by the students in the
experimental groups, comparing the results of the initial and
final tests, is 2.65 points, while the improvement of the
students in the control groups is 2.42; that is, a difference of
0.23 points.
However, if the results obtained by each of the groups are
individually analysed, as shown in Table I, more significant
differences are observed, although the number of students is
not enough to draw final conclusions. Particularly striking is
the improvement obtained by the 4th grade experimental
group, 3.93 points, which is precisely the one that worked with
the teacher who had prior coding experience and who
progressed the most during the teachers' training sessions.
These results appear to be consistent with the findings of other
studies [8] indicating that good trained teachers are essential to
optimize students learning and obtain the expected goals.
TABLE 1. Initial and Final scores by group.
4th EG
4th CG
5th EG
5th CG
Initial test
2.80
4.00
7.30
6.26
Final test
6.73
6.85
8.66
8.25
Improvement
3.93
2.85
1.36
1.99
B. Surveys
The survey results can be used to obtain very interesting
conclusions. According to the collected answers, all students
enjoyed the classes in which they worked with Scratch, as
shown in Fig. 2. Moreover, regarding the type of skills that are
developed while learning to program, almost all students felt
that the use of Scratch had helped them to learn to work in
teams (Fig. 3), and 75% of them believe that working with this
tool encouraged them to learn on their own looking for
information on the Internet (Fig. 4).
Fig. 2. I have enjoyed the classes in which we worked with
Scratch.

Fig. 3. Working with Scratch helped me to learn to teamwork.
Fig. 4. Working with Scratch encouraged me to learn by myself
searching information on the Internet.
If we focus on the English subject, all students indicated that
working with Scratch helped them learning more (Fig. 5),
although the fact that the teachers decided to work with the
program interface in this language may have influenced the
responses.
Fig. 5. Working with Scratch helped me to learn more English.
Finally, with regard to the motivation of the students in the
English subject, the raise of the motivation is made evident in
Fig. 6 and Fig. 7, as a vast majority of the students state that the
use of Scratch encouraged them to learn more English and
made them realize that English is really important for being
able to learn by themselves by searching information on the
Internet.
C. Source code analysis
In order to measure the development of computational
thinking of students, we developed a plug-in
4
for Hairball [13],
4
https://github.com/jemole/hairball/blob/master/hairball/plugins/mastery.py
a static analyser of Scratch projects inspired by Lint
5
that tries
to detect programming errors in Scratch programs. Hence, our
plug-in automates the recognition of the degree of development
of different aspects of computational thinking, specifically on:
 Abstraction and modularization
 Parallelism
 Synchronization
 Logical thinking
 Flow control
 User interactivity
 Data representation
Analysing the blocks used in a Scratch project, a score
between 0 and 3 points is assigned to each of these aspects,
depending on whether this capacity is not worked, a basic
operation has been demonstrated, the skill is in development or
a professional skill has been proved. By summing the scores
for each of the capabilities overall mastery score, between 0
and 21 points, is obtained.
This plug-in has been included in the alpha version of the
Dr. Scratch tool [14], offering the Scratch community the
opportunity to automatically assess the correctness and mastery
of their projects using this web application
6
.
Studying the average scores of the 4th and 5th grade
projects, a significant difference is observed: 6.88 points for
4th, which is considered a basic mastery degree, and 8.30
points for 5th, which represents a mastery degree in
development. If the differences in each of the aspects are
analysed, as can be seen in Fig. 7, the two capabilities with
bigger differences are parallelism and synchronization. These
results indicate that these more sophisticated skills are
developed with maturity, which is in line with other studies
that model the progression of the development of
computational thinking in primary students [15].
Fig. 6. Working with Scratch encouraged me to learn more
English.
5
http://www.unix.com/man-page/FreeBSD/1/lint
6
http://drscratch.programamos.es

Fig. 7. After working with Scratch I think that English is really
important if I want to learn by myself on the Internet.
As shown in Fig. 8, the logical thinking was not trained by
neither of the groups. Taking into account the kind of projects
developed by the students, which were storytelling projects,
our results confirm other studies [16] that state that this kind of
projects use less if statements than games or music videos, for
instance, as stories have a linear structure in which the
possibilities of creating branches provided by if statements
seems to be less useful.
Fig. 8. Computational thinking score.
V. Conclusions and further research
Much has been written and researched on how to teach
programming, both to children and adults. In the last years, the
term computational thinking has gained a lot of importance.
However, to the knowledge of the authors, few efforts have
been made to assess how other subjects and skills profit from
these abilities.
In this paper we have presented the motivation and
performance of our integration of computer programming with
Scratch in the English classroom in order to improve academic
outcomes of this subject while computational thinking of
students is developed. Based on our experience with 32
students in the experimental group and 33 students in the
control group of 4th and 5th grade at a school in Madrid, it
seems that the use of coding as an educational tool could be a
good resource for improving both academic results and student
motivation for this course. The results show that the groups
working with programming activities improved more than the
groups using traditional resources. Moreover, when asked via
surveys at the end of the study, most students felt that coding
was a positive influence, not only for learning English, but for
developing other important skills as teamwork and learning to
learn. We also have evidence that the programming skills of
the teacher influence the learning outcome of students.
However, all our results are -due to the limited scope of our
experiment- not statistically significative. Future work should
expand the number of students, the working time of
programming, which in this study was limited to one unit, and
the type of subjects in which programming will be included.
Hence, we might be able to conclude to what extent the
development of computational thinking promotes the learning
of other skills and whether students are able to generalize and
transfer this problem solving process to other areas and
disciplines.
Acknowledgments
The work of Jesús Moreno-León and Gregorio Robles has
been funded in part by the Region of Madrid under project
“eMadrid - Investigación y Desarrollo de tecnologías para el e-
learning en la Comunidad de Madrid'' (S2013/ICE-2715). The
authors are very thankful to the teachers and pupils of the San
Diego and San Vicente School in Madrid.
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