CLIL Unit for Arts and Crafts subject

Here, you have a CLIL Unit for Arts and Crafts subject. The title is "My body" and it's for 2nd Primary Education.

I hope you enjoy it!

Training courses for teachers!

Today, I have to think about training courses:


Which training courses would you like to have access to as a teacher? Why? Which is, in your opinion, the best way to share good practice amongst teaching professionals? Why?

          Everybody thinks that Teaching Degree is an easy career because we teach children. But, they are wrong, because a teacher is learning and studying along his life. Nowadays, the society demands us a continuous learning and training in different areas, especially in a second language and in Information and Communication New Technologies (ICT).

In Spain, having a good level in English as a second language is a fundamental requisite to find a job. That’s good, because in the rest of Europe children acquire two languages at least when they are growing. In addition, the Education System has to improve the foreign languages methodologies. Spanish people are very good at grammar or writing a composition, but they find a lot of difficulties in listening, comprehension and speaking in another language. That’s why the young teachers have to take into account it and use innovative methodologies which assess the four basic skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. For that reason, training courses about teaching in foreign languages which develop successful methodologies could be useful for the improvement of students’ linguistic competence. Personally, I would like to attend courses in which I can see first-hand methodologies like Finland’s ones.

In addition, a teacher have to change and adapt to the word demands. Technology has developed some instruments to improve the teaching and learning process: blogs, digital blackboards, webs…So, if we love our job, we will interested in use innovative ways to motivate our pupils and achieve a meaningful learning. That’s why I’m a Primary teacher specialist in Information and Communication New Technologies (ICT). Despite of that, I would like to research more: recycling is essential!

However, if we really want to improve our education, sharing our experiences, materials and resources is completely necessary! On internet, we can find a lot of information. But, in our own school there are also a lot of creative teachers with whom we should share our advices and teaching strategies. Therefore, educational discussions in small groups could be helpful for the school’s development and especially for the teachers’ enrichment.

From my point of view, a teacher have to be trained in all areas as he can, because a class is a little world in which sometimes you have to be not only a teacher but a doctor, a nurse, a policeman, a psychologist, an artist… So, we shouldn´t be limited by the government’s demands, because there are a lot of knowledge that we have to learn and then to teach our students. We shouldn´t forget our main task: prepare people to live in the real world.

The Natural Approach

Do you know the term Natural Approach? This is a method for beginners based on observation and interpretation on how a person acquires his first language. It emphasizes on communication rather than grammar. One of the things which is very important and conclusive when learning is that the input has to be comprehensible. However, if the input is not comprehensible, you can continue learning because the accent, the entonation... gives us some information. This is the non-verbal communication. 

For that reason, this kind of learning, which defends that we shouldn´t use our mother language in class, is so important in the Kindergarden. In this period, children can acquire a language more easily!

CLIL: Transforming theory into practice

Nowadays, everybody is talking about CLIL education. We can find a lot of interesting information about that new term. However, a CLIL teacher needs to learn how to transform the theory into practice and it is not easy!

Here we have a useful article in which we can learn how to prepare a CLIL unit for our subjects in only five stages. I hope it helps you!

http://www.unifg.it/sites/default/files/allegatiparagrafo/20-01-2014/coyle_hood_marsh_clil_toolkit_pp_48-73.pdf

A wonderful and helpful video for teachers!

I have found in British Council webpage a very enthusiastic conference by Carol Read who is a teacher, a teacher trainer and a materials writer with over 30 years experience in English language teaching. Nowadays, she works as a writer and international educational consultant advising on pre-primary and primary foreing language programmes and delivering customised teacher education courses.

If you are a teacher, this video could give you some resources to motivate your pupils, but I think that the real secret of motivating is the teacher, because he/she has the power to create an atractive learning.

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/carol-read-secret-working-children

CLIL Article by David Marsh

Do you know the term CLIL? Maybe, you have heard it, but you don´t know where it comes from. If you are a student or a teacher and you need to know more about CLIL, this article is for you! David Marsh gives us a general idea about why it's convenient to use CLIL in our classes. And in addition, he answers the most common questions abut this kind of learning.

http://archive.ecml.at/mtp2/CLILmatrix/pdf/1UK.pdf

David Marsh on CLIL

The University of Cambridge share with us a useful interview with David Marsh who has worked on multilingualism and bilingual education since the 1980s. David gives a great insight into CLIL answering relevant questions: the futur of CLIL, advice on how to start up CLIL, programme and much more. Enjoy it!

David was part of the team which conducted groundwork leading to the launch of the term CLIL in 1994. In 2002, he coordinated production of CLIL - The European Dimension: Actions, Trends and Foresight Potential for the European Commission (DG EAC).  This overview of the situation in Europe was used in the compilation of the 2004-2006 EC Action Plan: Promoting Language Learning & Linguistic Diversity. 

David Marsh was Born in Australia, educated in the UK and now based in Finland, he has extensive experience of teacher development, capacity-building, research and consultancy in a range of different countries in Africa, Europe and Asia.

What is the most important thing you would teach your students?

In my English course I have to think about:

If you were not limited by the demands of the national/regional curriculum, what would you say is the most important thing you would teach your students about your subject (in a CLIL context)? How would you assess their learning?

Sometimes, I think that education would improve if teachers were not such limited by the demands of the national or regional curriculum which don´t take into account the student needs. The curriculum changes depending on the government interests and it damages the teachers’ work and especially the pupil teaching-learning process.  Despite of that, the education content have to be regulated because everybody have his own way to teach and it could be a problem.

However, now I am free to explain what I think is the most important thing I would teach to my students without any demands. From my student experience, I think that our education system is based on more content than practical purposes. For that reason, a lot of students ask themselves why they have to learn something that it is not relevant in their lives. The teaching-learning process have to be meaningful for the pupil, because he needs to feel that everything he is learning has a usefulness in his life. That’s why I think that practical contents and aims are the most important objectives that teachers have to achieve in their CLIL classes.

The CLIL methodology could help this practical contents, because the principal aim for CLIL is integrate a language as the vehicle to transmit content in a specific subject and this content also has to be integrated in children lives.

Communicating in a different language from our mother language is a practical purpose for pupils because they have to live in a multicultural and globalized world. In some subjects could be useful to learn the specific terminology in their original language in order to understand the correct meaning. For example, technology has an English vocabulary. Words as play, pen drive, hardware, software, notebook, smart tv, tablet… are so difficult to understand if we don’t have any contact with this language. We only memorize the name but not his meaning. 

In addition, the assessment also have to be based on practice. There are several ways to check if our students are learning a meaningful knowledge. In this case, I am not so keen on doing memory test in which students write as machines and in a few seconds they don´t remember anything. There are other methods such as oral presentations about a real context, compositions, role games… Everything that make them think it’s a proper method of assessment.  And the most important: we can´t forgot that we have to assess with the four basic skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking.

The advantages and disadvantages of using the ELP

In my English course I have to answer this question:

Taking into account my personal teaching context, what would be the advantages and disadvantages of using the ELP with my groups?

First of all, I have to say that I had never heard the term ELP (European Language Portfolio) before starting this English course in order to teach some school subjects. So, if you are in the same situation, it’s convenient to describe what ELP is.  The European Language Portfolio is a document, or a group of documents, for the learner created by the Coucil of Europe. It has been designed “to support the development of learner autonomy, plurilingualism and intercultural awareness and competence”, and “to allow users to record their language learning achievements and their experience of learning and using languages”. There’s a huge variety of portfolios, but all of them must have these components: language passport, language dossier, and language biography.

The ELP is not so famous in Spanish education. In fact, there are only a few schools which use it. However, this is an important instrument to learn languages in the rest of Europe. That’s why we can find several differences between the Spanish ELP and the English ELP, which is more attractive, clearer and easier to use than the first one.

           So, if I had to use an ELP, I definitely would choose the English ELP. Nowadays, I’m working as a teacher, but I see very far the use of the ELP in the Spanish schools. Maybe, that’s because we don´t know its benefits:

       Firstly, the ELP is a proper way to learn languages at school because children can acquire as knowledge as possible instead of use the typical book. The learning of languages have to change into attractive methodologies: ELP is very fun, because children are conscious about their own learning. They can assess themselves, add their own vocabulary and become more confident in each contexts they are. This process gives them autonomy to produce their own knowledge.  They are the protagonists of their own teaching-learning process and I think that this is the most important!

       In addition, the assessment is organized by topics and it permits the teacher to program his classes in real contexts where the pupil moves and the child can check his achievements. It develops the autonomy and the independent work. They are not puppets, they are the authors of their learning.

 

In spite of the advantages of using ELP in the school, there are some disadvantages, especially in Spain, where we are not get used to change the languages methods to achieve improvements in our linguistic competence.

ELP needs an exhaustive preparation by the teacher and sometimes it is not possible.  The teachers’ time is so limited and we only have forty-five minutes a day to achieve the curriculum’s objectives. That’s why I think the ELP is not going to be used in Spain. Here we have a lot of contents to teach but the most important things are forgotten.

       To sum up, ELP is a wonderful instrument but it’s too difficult to integrate in our current Education System.  We have to change!

My best teacher!

Since I was a child I would like to be a teacher because I had an incredible model to follow: my mum! She is the best teacher I know and she inspired and encouraged me to be the teacher I am!

My mother is a Spanish Language teacher in a Secondary School. She fostered me the enjoyment of literature and art. That’s way I love reading and writing. In fact, I have won some different writing awards along my life.

When I was only five years-old, my mum and I played a special game together: we were teachers and we taught different topics to our pupils, who were my toys! During my Primary period, she helped me to study and later I explained to her what I had learnt. She always was very patient and taught me with real and experienced examples. Studying was funnier with her! 

In spite of the fact that I always felt very nervous in my examinations, she encouraged me to be confident with myself. Her advices were very important to me especially in my teaching degree.

But the most important experience I had was that my mother was my Spanish Language teacher for three years. At first, I was so upset because everybody said that I would have good marks in my exams because I was her daughter. But later, it was a fantastic pleasure! I could taste my mother methodology’s and now I remember all her expressions, advices and her personal contact with her students. I think in that moment I discovered what I would be in my future: like her!

Nowadays, I’m very proud of my studying decision, because I really love it and it’s fantastic to share my job with my mum.

Hello everyone!

My name is Nieves María Requena Molina and I'm twenty-three years old. I live in Valencia but I was born in  a small village near Albacete which is called Caudete.

Since I was a child I wanted to be a teacher because I love education. During four years I have being studied Primary teaching degree in Valencia University and I'm specialist in Information and Comunication New Techologies (TICS). Nowadays, I'm so keen on English learning, because I think that it's very useful for my profesional futur and for my social life. That's way I'm doing an English course in order to teach some school subjects in English like Maths or Arts and Crafts. This is a dificult challenge!But...I will have the courage to do it! Let's go!

English world

Are you learning or teaching English? Maybe, all this words are so familiar to you! Have the courage to enjoy them!