One! Two! Three! CLIL-to-go!

Next Tuesday I will have the pleasure of meeting a new group of Secondary teachers  and develop the first seminar session of eight that willl take place during the year course 2016-2017. It is always an inspiring challenge for me because I will have to cater for what they need for their classroom practice and they belong to different schools, teach a variety of subjects through English and different levels too. Therefore,  the beginning of a new CLIL seminar is a type of cooperative game that allows all of us to develop our problem solving skills  as a team and is awarded with the best prize for a teacher: increase learner's motivation.

As I have  just introduced the concept of games, In this first entry I would like to encourage CLIL teachers to make their students take part in healthy competitions - those that  will  help them develop important skills they'll use well into adulthood, like taking turns, developing empathy and tenacity.

Let me provide you with three of them for different subjects: 

- "We are different, not indifferent" is a contest to fight against bullying and it is organized by the ONCE. All students from Spanish public, private and government-subsidised schools can participate. The contest is open to all groups of non-university  students: Special Education, Primary (years 3 to 6), Secondary, Basic Vocational Training, Baccalaureate and Vocational Training (intermediate and higher levels).

- The European journal for Science teachers Science in Schools organizes a  writing competition on the strangest species on Earth. (If you are a Science teacher and you do  not know about this magazine, please have a look at it because it is really worthwhile: the contents include teaching materials and projects in Science education, up-to-date information on cutting-edge Science, interviews with inspiring scientists and teachers, reviews of books and many other useful resources for Science teachers. Online articles are published in many European languages and you can download them for free)

- For Math teachers, Math counts  Foundation  organizes a series of competitions but this time you have to pay if you want your students to take part in them. However, the resources section of the website provides you with a huge variety of problems and the video library offers a collection of videos that pose very interesting topics for Maths. 

We will develop the topic of healthy competition in length in our seminar session, among other essential  topics  for our CLIL contexts: classroom language, planning a CLIL lesson, developing the 4 Cs, task types in CLIL, etc. 

Therefore, One! Two! Three! CLIL-to-go!