Identifying the level of difficulty of texts in any content area

Today I am writing this brief post to let you know about a tool that allows users  to obtain reliable research-based information on the lexical composition and level of any text, to help them make key decisions about their text's difficulty and its overall level in relation to the CEFR. The tool is called TextInspector and it was the  winner of the 2017 ELTons award for Digital Innovation. 

You can find it here and also included on the English Profile website, which offers another   two online tools:  English Vocabulary Profile Online and English Grammar Profile Online. We have already  talked about the usefulness of these two tools in previous seminar sessions and many of you have experienced  that  they are very helpful for  both  language  and  subject classes.

Textinspector is very easy to use: simply paste any text into the box and click on "analyse". It will give you an instant score and detailed feedback. 

Texts are limited to 500 words per document. To process larger documents and to save your data, please use the advanced site at www.textinspector.com (subscription required).

To sum up, Textinspector is another powerful tool that will enable teachers  to succeed at providing their students with comprehensible input by helping them  to identify the amount of vocabulary they have to pre-teach according to the language level of our students. For CLIL teachers, the tool will allow them to have a clear perspective on the difficulty of the text on the whole although it is obvious that they will need to focus on the  subject-specific vocabulary which is essential for their CLIL units. 

e-Twinning projects that foster CLIL

Among the e-Twinning projects that received the European Quality Label 2018 for their outstanding work I am very happy to write the name of one of our CLIL Seminar participants:

 Amaya Alonso

 IES Antonio Trueba 

 Project: Anatomic@art

Country members are Tunisia, Ukraine and Spain (Leopoldo Queipo from Melilla  and Antonio Trueba High Schools ) and students who took part in it are 14-17-year olds. 

You can access the project from  here.

The project aims to study the  specific anatomy  of the human body and its relation with works of art from different subjects  (Literature, Drawing, Sculpture, Music, ...). Students work in groups  which focus on  an  organ, explain  its structure and physiology and how they have been the object of important works of art. 

The project was awarded Four European Quality labels so I must say I feel very proud that a teacher from our CLIL seminar has taken part in  such a powerful project which shows clear evidence that through e-Twinning schools can develop foreign  languages, digital skills, specific subjects like Science and creativity.

Let me finish by encouraging all of you to take part in an e-Twinning project that wil fit perfectly into your CLIL contexts and reminding you that Amaya will show us the process they followed  in our next seminar session in May.

eTwining projects which are great examples of CLIL developed by one of our CLIL seminar members

It is a true privilege to share several eTwinning projects in which one of our seminar members, Amaya Alonso Cabria,  has taken part and has achieved high standards of performance as you will see when you look into the projects.

"Los misterios del bosque"  was chosen among the 12 best projects in Europe and was awarded the European Quality Label in 2015.  The aim of the project is to let students know about the legends of different places and countries by following the forests paths. Really original, isn't it?  It is indeed impressive when you see that the teachers who take part in it are a Biology teacher from Barakaldo (Amaya Alonso), a Spanish teacher form Ukraine ( Olena Baluba) and a Spanish language and Literature teacher from Melilla ( José Antonio Sánchez)

Amaya is currently taking part in Science Timeline. This project is for 16-17-year-old students and the countries that are taking part in it are Italy and Spain (Basque Country, Antonio Trueba, Barakaldo).  The aim of this project is the study of the progress of Science in human History. Students from different countries are  working  together in order to research the scientific developments from the prehistoric times (discovery of fire, stone axes, etc) to current progresses (new materials, smart cars, artificial intelligence, etc). The pupils are going to create a timeline of Science in different formats (Power point, calaméo, thinglink, etc) in mixed teamworks. Then they are going to show their results in their own schools to spread the project. Besides, they are going to take into account more intensively the advances in Science made by different scientists or researchers from their countries.

Go, look in the mirror is another project developed by Amaya and another colleague from her school,  together with  other members from Ukraine, Melilla and Tunisia. The project is in English, Spanish and French. It is aimed at 12-16-year-old students and they research  about the basic emotions (fear, sadness, hatred, astonishment, disgust, anger) and the secondary ones (embarrassment, love, anxiety…), how they affect  teenagers and how  they are reflected in our cultures (traditions and different artistic expressions).

Amaya, our heartfelt congrats on having successfully demonstrated that languages are a  fantastic vehicle to develop projects related to very diverse areas and  cultures while developing students' basic competences such as the interpersonal competence or the ICT competence. 

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.