CLIL

CLIL stands for Content and Language Integrated Learning and involves teaching a curricular subject through a language other than that normally used.

Language is used to learn as well as to communicate. Teachers working with CLIL are specialists in their own discipline rather than traditional language teachers.

Learning is based on prior knowledge, skills, interests and experience. The tasks are hands on and challenged for students. Learners are learning basic language skills, academic language skills and new subject concepts at the same time. Teachers have to plan their lessons to include language support as well as content teaching.

Benefits of CLIL:

v  Improves language competence and oral communication skills

v  Develops multilingual interests and attitudes

v  Allows learners more contact with the target language

Tina around the world

“Tina around the world” is a story that I have invented to explain to the pupils of the class where I’m doing my Practicum II and I will explained to the after Christmas.

As I have done a lot of effort writing the story, I would like to share it with all of you:

Once upon a time there was a girl who had a dream, her name was Tina. She was beautiful, clever and a hard worker working girl but she hadn't got enought money to pay for a travel. Every little coin she could earn she saved it as a treassure.

One night Tina went to sleep as a normal day, but that night it would be the most exciting adventure she had ever done her ion her life.

She  would sail around the world in just one night!!!!!

She put her pijamas and went to bed, she covered herself with the soft blanket when suddenly she heard a noise from the same room.

An strange and unknowned  voice said:

- Hey, Hey, Heeeeeeeeeey!!! I'm here!

Tina turned around and saw that the carpet had drawn a face.

The carpet said:

- Don't you see me, or maybe you're blind?

Tina got was shocked when she realized that who was talking it was the carpet who was talking.

Then the carpet said:

- Do you want to come whith me, are you brave enough?

Tina wasn't sure about what to answer buuuuut suddenly a loud YES came from inside her.

Tina grabbed a bag and sat down on the carpet and the carpet said:

- Whish Which country would you prefer to visit first?

- Egypt!!!!

The carpet and Tina arrived to Egypt, she could visited the magnificent pyramids and the NIl river. In Egypt Tina met an old womaen who gave her a pressent. I, it was a beatiful blue Egyptian amulet with the shape of a scarab.

Then the carpet asked again to Tina for what oanother country she would like to visite and she said:

- A ... Australia!

Suddenly she was in the middle of the Australian outback, there were lots of Kangaroos, emus, wallabies, possums, koalas and other diferent animals. She was amazed and she felt the happiest girl in the world.

In Australia Tina met an aboriginal boy, he gave her the fruit of a Baobab Tree. Indigenous Australians painted and carved the outside of the fruit and the boy wore it as ornament, he said that it would bring good luck to her.

Tina allways had wanted to attend the opera, and the carpet brings brought her to the Sydney Opera, one of the most famous one in the world. She really enjoyed, however she was getting tired, she said to the carpet to go back to Spain. The carpet was feeling a little bit dizzy after the opera and instead of going back, they went to Chinea. 

Tina wasn't angry with the carpet and decided to visit some important places. She walked along the Great Wall of China and then she went to a restaurant, she ate rice with the chopsticks. Firstly she didn't know at all how to used them but then she perfected the technique. She kept the chopsticks as a souvenir.

Tina, tired and not enough sure that the carpet could bring her back to Spain, decideds to catch a plane.

When she goet in the plane a voice said: Xing Chan Chu Bazil.

She was going to Brazil!!!!!

The carpet said to Tina:

- As we are far away fromof Spain why don’t we don't seize the day?

So she went to see the Amazon River and the Carnival. Someone gave her a fancy dress and she started to dance and dance when suddenly she was awakened by her mother.

- Sweety get up, is time to have breakfast. Said her mother with a soft voice.

- Wake sleepyhead! Insisted her mother.

Tina got up, she had a backpack full of things like a beatiful blue Egyptian amulet with the shape of a scarab, a fruit of a Baobab Tree, chopsticks and a fancy dress, also she had some rice in her pijamaes.

The girl approached to the carpet, she seemed quite doubtful and then the carpet smiled at her. 

After that, Tina and the carpet goet a really good relationship, they spent time together discovering the most beautiful places in the world  and they lived happily ever after.

The home - school connection

Children have two really important worlds: the home and the school. We know that parents and teachers play a critical role in both their children’s academic achievement and their children’s socioemotional development. When parents and teachers work together, everyone benefits.

 

Importance of Family-School Partnerships:

v  Synergy: working together

v  To know children’s context

v  Learning continuous outside of the class

v  Showing and knowing: developing memory

v  Updating – informing

v  Parents are partners

v  Research based

 

Family involvement in schooling

It is important to focus on how families and schools can work together to improve outcomes for students and teacher practices have to encourage and guide such involvement.

 

 

 

This is a take – home letter that I created as an example of a good way to let the family know about what their children are doing at school. In this case I have done the shape of a dolphin because the children of my classroom are doing a project about this animal.

 

 

Julie Fletcher

Julie Fletcher is a greeting cards and fairytales illustrator. She has worked on projects for Oxford University Press, Caterpillar Books, Ginger Fox... Generally she uses acrylics, colored pencils and collage from snippets of cloth, paper... Her animated characters are: babies, children, animals... I will show you the Merry Christmas greeting cards! They may be useful to work with your pupils and to decorate the classroom!

 

 

Classroom Management

This week we have read the article “Rethinking Classroom Management” written by Natàlia Maldonado and Pilar Olivares. This reading has given to me the opportunity to know more about classroom management and the main aspects that I should have into account as a future teacher.

In one hand the article talks about the importance of the managing teaching and learning that is not a task for an isolated teacher. Teachers have groups of pupils but they shouldn’t do their task on their own, as the article says to be effective this task must be a shared responsibility.

On the other hand, Maldonado and Olivares talk about the three interrelated areas of the teaching and learning management:

v  Organisational issues: Rights and duties. It is important to setting rules as a result of a process of negotiation.

v  Curriculum issues: What to teach? (curriculum) and How to teach? (methodology)

Engage children: practical activities/meaningful tasks.

Cooperation and participation.

v  Social issues: take into account the affective side of learning.

Ethos or climate in the classroom is crucial.

Respect and recognition.

Classroom Management Decalogue:

1.    Trust

2.    Respect

3.    Rights and duties

4.    Interaction

5.    Order/Rutines

6.    Flexibility

7.    Motivation/Goals

8.    Attention

9.    Collective action/Roles

10. Layouts

Meeting individual needs with young learners

Meeting the individual needs of each student in a classroom is a challenge for all teachers.

The article “Meeting individual needs with young learners” written by Peter Westwood and Wendy Arnold, talks about the meaning of differentiation and gives some strategies to use by teachers to adapt their approach to teaching.

An effectively teacher is the one that is able to reach the individual needs of each pupil in his or her classroom, so that requires to use different strategies according to students. Teachers

Learning goals are more and less the same for all students in a classroom, but differentiation and meet individual needs means that the approach of instruction will vary depending on the children’s interests, abilities and talents.

In terms of practical application Westwood and Arnold report a wide range of teaching techniques to promote a broad range of learning strategies. Some examples that I have found really useful are:

-          Differentiation by classroom organisation: whole-group activities/small-group activities

-          Differentiated Access to Resources: materials with different levels of complexity.

-          Differentiation by Multiple intelligences: Each multiple intelligence has unique strengths and can be used easily for differentiated instruction activities.

Remember to take into account that...  Learners learning at their own pace!!

Charlie & the big green button

The first year of University in Menorca I had an English class where we had to create a story. With some classmates we invented “Charlie and the green big button”. After class, one of our classmates illustrated the story at home with her daughter and husband. The final product you can see under the next lines.

  

What I like it the most from this activity is that as a teacher you can ask to your pupils to create a story all together. Whether children can write or are still at the prewriting stage, they all can illustrate the story.

Digital story books

There are so many tools available on the Net to create digital story books. One example is Storybird, a free storytelling website that encourages creativity helping you to make short stories that you can share and print if you wish.

Children love stories so let them be creative creating stories.

More about the MI

When you are a teacher or you are near to be a teacher (as I am), you can get lost and don’t know how to use the MI theory with your pupils. That’s why I have spent some time reading about the different resources and strategies that any teacher can use as a methodology to reach the best of each of his/her students.

The Learning/Interest Centers

The Learning or Interest Centers is a strategy to use in a classroom, consist in different stations set up within the classroom, each one has a specific focus and children choose the center they want to work with. These areas allow children to learn on their own satisfaction, so that is a hands-on learning and also this methodology also provides a very high level of autonomy for students.

Gardner has been using this method in different classes of elementary and primary grade to his researches for the Spectrum project. Through Learning Centers, children can start with the focus of each area so teachers must to organize the activities and the materials related to the different intelligences.

Two years ago I read a really useful book about the Interest Centers written by David Altimir. This teacher explains different kinds of projects that he have done with his pupils and how they learn by using the Interest Centers. So I recommend you this book:

Multiple Intelligences - Howard Gardner

After I have read the Chat with Howard Gardner I would like to post something about that. Using MI theory allows students to build their own knowledge, also is useful to encourage students to develop metacognition and to make them conscious of their own thinking and learning processes. Also I would like to highlight the enormous value of the arts and the development of creativity in early Childhood Education.

Nowadays we live in a technological society that is changing every second with a large number of transformations. In this framework human development and creativity are inseparable. The progress of humanity is related to the creativity and the capacity of innovate and have new ideas. That is why the society, through education, has to empower and enable people to be innovative, critical, creative and thoughtful.

Experts recognize that the arts in early Childhood Education play an important role in the development of the creative capacity.

I attached a video of the British Ken Robinson, expert on developing creativity.

http://www.prisma.cat/doc/mediateca/intel/video_robinson.htm


I hope you enjoy it as much as I do

Hi there!! My name is Anna, and first of all I would like to mention that  when I studied at the primary school I didn’t like English class at all, but I don’t know how, I have changed my mind and now I enjoy learning English.  I have been living for 10 months in Abingdon, a little town near Oxford, and then 8 months more in Perth, Australia. Even I had spent lot of time in an English speaking countries, my English is not as fluent as I expected to be.  I think is because I’m quite shy.

I'm studying this language because one of my goals in life is to be a teacher in another country, so I think English can bring me this opportunity. For this reason I’m trying to read in English as much as I can because I think reading in English can help me to not forget the vocabulary that I already know and also I watch TV, serials, among others. The big problem is that not always I’ve got time to do it.

I’m really motivated to learn this language and In my opinion if I’m constant in my process of learning I will improve day by day and I will feel more comfortable than now.