Comenius CORE: CLIL Objectives and Resource-Kit in Education

The  CORE project uses systematic, qualitative methods of action-research to investigate the implementation of CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) “on the ground” in Primary and Secondary schools within a variety of socio-linguistic contexts in five European countries: Norway, Spain, Lithuania, Italy and Greece.

By clicking on the link above you will learn about the main objectives of this powerful project but  through this post I would like to  remark the quality of the video resources they have developed because they are undoubtedly very clear examples of good CLIL practice.

Find  some of the videos they have created below :
  


The Cartoon Character’s House - Technology in English from Kunnskapsfilm on Vimeo.

Step-by-step procedure for this Technology lesson that focuses on Architecture (scales and floor plans) can be found here.



Drama in English from Kunnskapsfilm on Vimeo.


See complete lesson plan for the Drama unit here.


The two videos above were produced by schools in Mallorca.  Norway has shared  this  video lesson on Human Rights.


Apart from commenting on these high-quality resources I would like to let you know about the course they will arrange in Palma de Mallorca from  October 18th till October 24th, 2014.  Click here to find all necessary information about it.

From these lines my congratulations to all participants in this project and my heartfelt gratitude for having shared your outcomes with all CLIL believers.

INGREDIENTS FOR SUCCESSFUL CLIL

        
I mentioned the following piece of information to those of you attending our last seminar session on February 18th but  as there are many of you who follow this blog although you cannot attend the seminar, I have decided to write a brief post to let all of you know about a very interesting webinar Keith Kelly will deliver for the British Council on March 6th, 10 a.m. UK time. 

You can find more information by clicking  here

THE EUROPEAN SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH GAME FOR SCHOOLS

                                       

Today I am writing to invite you to take part in an on-line Research Game that will allow  you tyo test your students' skills in the field of Research and Biodiversity and  participate in the European final on-line competition  and interact with students from abroad. 

Challenge your students' in their understanding of Scientific Research and Biodiversity with the European Scientific Research Game, an online game for students from the age of 10 years.

The game has two phases and schools can decide to participate in one of both phases:

-  Phase 1. Carry out a research project' - students will complete a scientific research in their schools and report online - open until the April 5 2014.

-   Phase 2. An online competition - the final step of the project, teams

challenge each other to be the best in playing an online video game. April 29th 2014.

You can see much more about the game here

ABOUT THE PROJECT:

The Research Game project has been funded with support from the European Commission. It  will motivate secondary school students by replicating the excitement of scientific research. The Project has created an Internet-based game to develop an understanding of research work and to teach best practices.

In the game students will collaborate internationally across Europe, to build hypotheses, research and test the validity of their hypothesis and finalise a theory based on their findings. Students will be expected to share their research findings with other groups.

Your students will learn in a fun and engaging way the logical thinking and deductive reasoning typical of the Scientific Method, core skills not only required for science, but in all their futures.

If you need more information please write to:

researchgameproject@unisalento.it

Project website

HELPING STUDENTS WITH DEFINITIONS

Some teachers who are implementing different areas through English have asked me  to help them enable their students to give definitions of essential concepts in their areas in English. Therefore, I will try to give some clues on this complex issue. Let me start by summarizing what a correct definition should consist of. I would say that a  formal definition consists of three parts.

1. The term (word or phrase) to be defined
2. The class of object or concept to which the term belongs.
3. The differentiating characteristics that distinguish it from all others of its class

Examples: 

• Water (term) is a liquid (class) made up of molecules of hydrogen and oxygen in the ratio of 2 to 1 (differentiating characteristics).
• Comic books (term) are sequential and narrative publications (class) consisting of illustrations, captions, dialogue balloons, and often focus on super-powered heroes (differentiating characteristics).
• Astronomy (term) is a branch of scientific study (class) primarily concerned with celestial objects inside and outside of the earth's atmosphere (differentiating characteristics).

Now the question is:  how can we help students in CLIL contexts to define essential concepts both orally and in written form in the area they are being taught through English? I suggest helping with some language support and using mind maps that help them consolidate the concepts they have learnt.  Apart from this, we should provide students with activities that enable them to revise the new vocabulary.  It goes beyond the scope of this post to list a big number of possible activities  but let me propose some  basic types that can be helpful: a loop game which is only  one of the many  practical activities for  CLIL classrooms  by  Keith Kelly , a matching exercise on Geography terms and  a  Pyramid game, an activity adapted from a Russian TV programme which can be adapted to any content area. 

Another thing that is highly advisable is to give  students  good models of definitions. An example of a good glossary of geographic terms can be found here.  For biological terms, this is a good site.

Last but not least, I recommend making definitions a natural part of everyday  teaching practice by prompting students' use of definitions in their daily oral interactions. Below these lines  I have listed some examples of the classroom  language you can use:

What is a…?

Give me definition of a…

How would you define a…?

Who can define/give me a definition of…?

Can anyone give me a definition of…?

What do we call this?

What is the name/(technical) term for this?

We will comment on the usefulness  of the suggested  activities  in our next seminar session on January 28th. Apart from this, we will talk about the  features of good CLIL materials and analyze some examples.

Multilingual families a linguistic treasure for Europe

Today I am writing to invite you to take part in a new project:  Multilingual Families.

 Multilingual Families is a European Union funded education project that will support and inform immigrant or multilingual parents how and why to raise their children multilingually in an informal setting and will provide resources for:

• Families
• Teachers and stakeholders 
• Children 

Resources will include:

• Sample guides and videos
• A  pack for teachers
• A community space for productions
• A repository of information on how to bring up children with 2 or more languages

The outstanding added value of the “Multilingual Families” project will be availability of materials for parents and children in all the partner’s languages (CZ, PL, EN, ES, DE) plus a further 2 common immigrant languages that are prevalent in each country as well. A total of 17 languages. 

   The project materials will be piloted to test their suitability for the target groups and to receive    further feedback   for improving the materials and to gain experience for the long-term            implementation of the materials.

   The materials will be tested by:

• Piloting workshops and online webinars of the guide for teachers and social service support staff
• Piloting by parents through teachers or social service staff
• Children will pilot in schools.

Due to its doubtless high quality, Multilingual Families was  honoured to be the European feature project of the week for the European Commission Languages Newsletter

The Facebook page of the project  (Multilingual Families - EU project)  is being posted regularly with news of the project and items of interest in the area of bringing up children multilingually. 

If you are interested in taking an active part in the project, sharing your concerns and experience, you can fill in this online form: 

For any further information you may need, please write an e-mail to: multilingual.families.spain@gmail.com 

TEACHING SUMMARIZING SKILLS AT SECONDARY LEVEL

As you showed great interest regarding summarizing in our last seminar session, I have decided to write an article on it. You can read it by clicking on the book below:

THINKING SKILLS IN CLIL CONTEXTS

We are starting our CLIL seminar in Getxo 2013-2014 with an essential  feature of   education: the development of skills that will enable our students to apply the knowledge they have learnt to solve problems, investigate the world and make judgements. This is just one of the many definitions of "cognitive" or "thinking" skills.  

Unfortunately, I must admit I  agree with John Clegg  that " the truth  is that schools don't often teach these skills explicitly. Instead, teachers hope that their learners will pick them up".  In my view, this is specially true regarding HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills).

Therefore,  my aim is to  help  pave the way for  developing  thinking skills in different subjects by  providing teachers with activities that focus on the thinking skills that should be worked on with students and the language support that is undoubtedly a must when we are implementing a subject through  English or another language which is not the students' mother tongue. For instance, students cannot synthesize a text on deforestation if they lack the  strategies that should be used to summarize a text  as well as the linking devices that connect different ideas and the vocabulary related to the topic ( not the words that appear in the text they have been given but synonyms and expressions that enable them to paraphrase without copying from the original text). 

The session on October 15th will focus on describing what thinking skills are, considering a possible classification of thinking skills and  starting to discuss  some simple activities that teachers often use to develop thinking skills in the classroom. 

Next session will take place on November 19th and we will analyze  some activities that  can be used in different content areas  to facilitate  the acquisition of cognitive skills by students. I will place special emphasis  on the language support that students will need to carry out the proposed tasks. Above all, I will provide teachers attending the session with examples on classifying and synthesizing.