FAT AND SKINNY QUESTIONS IN CLIL

 

First things first:

Happy New Year to all readers! 

I am sure you will have guessed that this post is going to focus on one of the topics for our  January seminar session, i.e., teacher talk strategies to make content comprehensible for students. Undoubtedly, effective questioning is one of those strategies because it enables the teacher to keep students' attention and increases learners' engagement in the class. I wrote a previous post about this topic a few years ago. You can read it here. 

Below these lines, I would like to share my personal decalogue on Do's and Don'ts regarding effective questionning in any content area:

1. Provide students with enough time to answer your question: not every learner processes thinking at the same speed. (This was  demonstrated in the early 1970s through deep  research  conducted by  a giant in the field of Education: Mary Budd Rowe. You can access it here. )

2.Try to include "fat" questions as often as possible. They will increase students' thinking skills and  make room for discussion and debate among students. Do you need ideas on how to create them? I hope this list  I have written will be useful. 

3. Do plan your questions in advance. Needless to say that you will always have to improvise some of your questions depending on the students' responses  but you know that one crucial ingredient of effective teaching is planning. 

4. Avoid the "hands-up" approach as much as possible. What can you do instead? At least, I can think of the following : 

- Ask students to prepare their answers in pairs or small groups after having given  the question some thought.

- Ask a question, pause for some seconds for  all students to think of  an answer and then call a student's name at random.

5. Encourage students' questions and replies to each other's questions and responses.

6. Give positive feedback even if students' answers are not on the right track. Try giving some clues or examples  so that the student realizes his answer was not accurate and starts a self-correcting process. 

7. Avoid excessive praise since this may discourage other students who are not so skillful at answering. 

8. Focus on one question at a time. Thus, you will be able to offer the  specific language support they need for their responses.

9. Create a trustworthy learning environment so that students  do not feel anxiety if they do not provide you with the right answer.

10. Show that you are interested in students' responses. Your facial expressions and non-verbal language in general are bound to be helpful for learners to gain trust and improve their reponse while they keep on talking. 

I said  I would offer my personal decalogue so my post should finish here. 

Looking forward to knowing about your questioning strategies  in our seminar session on January 18th.

Further reading:

 

https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/professional-learning/teacher-quality-and-accreditation/strong-start-great-teachers/refining-practice/teacher-questioning/effective-teacher-questioning

Factworld Journal 17: Sustainability Education

Keith Kelly, Hristina Bancheva, Dilyanka Bezlova, Lyubov Dombeva  and  Rod Holmes have dedicated Factworld Journal 17 to issues related to Sustainability Education. (You can download the entire pdf version of Journal 17 at the foot of the page).  Their reports offer really accurate insights into sustainable development and if you have encouraged your students to take part in the competition I mentioned in my last entry, I am sure they will find plenty of support and evidence for their ideas. The journal also includes  students' feedback on the classes in Sofia. This feedback  is the best proof that eco-schools that embrace education for sustainability are also schools that succeed and do really well.

Last but not least, all of you who are working on  sustainable education with students are encouraged to send  Keith Kelly and Stefka Kitanova  your own work, classroom materials and articles for publication . Requirements and details are described in the inside cover of the journal. 

Youth citizen entrepreneurship competition

      
                         

Encourage your students to participate in the UNESCO Youth Citizen Entrepreneurship Competition.  In their own words, young people aged 15+ can demonstrate all their STEAMS (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics, Sports) skills by submitting their innovative ideas and projects with a societal impact, which champion and implement one or more of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s). The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 related targets address the most important social, economic, environmental, health and governance challenges of our time.

First of all, register and create an account.  If you have an innovative idea on one of the  17 SDGs, you can send your entry until the entry deadline (31 July 2017).  You may also support your entry by submitting a video presentation of your idea or project (up to 3 minutes).

Entries will be posted on the competition website and are subject to online commenting and public voting. From among the finalists, the judges will make the final selection of three winners (Grand Prize, 2nd Prize and 3rd Prize) in each category.

Entries will be evaluated based on their entrepreneurial vision, feasibility,   innovation, leadership, social impact, and sustainability, among other factors.

The People's Choice Prize will be given to the entry with the largest number of votes in each of  the two categories.

In addition, an Entrepreneurship Campus Prize will be given to three entrants who have  demonstrated outstanding ‘entrepreneurship spirit’ by actively taking part in the Entrepreneurship  Campus.

I reckon this is a great opportunity to  empower young entrepreneurs to create a sustainable world so I would like to thank Stiftung Entrepreneurship and Goi Peace Foundation for organizing this competition. Good luck to all the young entrepreneurs ready to take part in it!

Debates in the classroom to help students handle the 4Cs

In addition to providing meaningful listening, speaking and writing practice, debate is also highly effective for developing argumentation skills for persuasive speech and writing. Debating is, indeed, an essential thinking skill that our students have to practise in order  not to be afraid to express their opinions when they are not the same as others’ . Equally important is the ability they will acquire to respect others’ opinions.

I would like to share a  lesson plan  that any teacher can use either for English language or for any subject which is implemented through English.  It includes some guidelines for the chairperson, the timekeeper and the audience. You will also find a very simple assessment tool so that the students who act as the audience can take an active part throughout the debating process. I reckon this peer assessment tool would be an effective way to engage students and foster their critical thinking skills  by asking them to assess their peers. 

Apart from the lesson plan above, teachers will also need   a tool to assess their students debating skills. 

(With permission from:    http://course1.winona.edu/shatfield/air/classdebate.pdf)

I believe that the 4 Cs which have become a must in our English classrooms can be developed in a natural way by setting  up debates in our lessons throughout the academic year. We can also use debates  as a tool to review argumentative language  and specific vocabulary before the exam period we  are immersed in right now.

Finally, I would like to recommend  debatingmatters.com, a website which will help you to develop debates with your students on a huge range of topics. (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics, Sport). Just brow subjects by A-Z here.

I hope that  this article provides those of you who are interested in debate with enough to get started. Then, you will need to adapt the resources to suit your educational  context  needs . The best argument to defend debates is to keep in mind that they bring creativity, communication, collaboration and critical thinking together. Therefore, let’s debate in our classrooms and  help students to become well-practiced critical thinkers.  

International Day for the elimination of violence against women November 25th 2016

Even though decades of mobilizing by civil society and women’s movements have put ending gender-based violence high on national and international agendas, not enough is done to prevent violence as we still witness  too many cases of domestic violence, sexual assault and other forms of violence. From these lines I would like to suggest some activities and lesson plans which can help us to arise awareness on the topic in our classrooms. 

The first classroom proposal  I would like to suggest is based on an empowerment song by Katy Perry called "Roar": 

You can find some activities I have developed to work on this song here. The lyrics of the song can be downloaded from this link.

My second proposal is based on the huge impact celebrities have on our students. Therefore,  we can choose some celebrities that have taken a stand and support the cause to end violence against women. You can ask them to read this handout in pairs and vote for their favourite. Then, in groups of four they will have to reach an agreement and later report to the rest of the students giving reasons for their choice. 

If you like quotations, you can make students read  the ones here , which were said by famous people belonging to different fields in life. Ask them to work in pairs and print their favourite one  on a sticky note. You can find an easy tutorial that describes how to print onto sticky notes directly from your computer. Students can then leave inspiring quotes either created by them or said by a celebrity they admire  around the school. 

If you wish to develop a deeper approach on the topic, this lesson plan  from Amnesty  International is a very good option since it offers a range of activities for use in different curriculum areas  for 11-18 year old students. 

I hope that our classroom practice on November 25th can  contribute  to a faster solution to the  social scourge of violence against women. 

Developing thinking skills: what Socrates would say to Bloom

I do not know whether you have read a superb book that was awarded the Espasa Essay prize in 2003: "Lo que Sócrates diría a Woody Allen", by Juan Antonio Rivera. Each of the chapters of this book focuses on a film that arises an ethical issue/dilemma and the reader is offered several possibilities to make him/her take a stand on it.

Why am I  writing about this book today? We started our seminar sessions last October and it is time to reflect on the work we have carried out to contribute to develop the so-called "thinking skills" in our students. For instance, have we used the Socratic method  and exploited  its benefits by questioning our students to help them  develop their own understanding? Let me give you an example for a Geography class. 

Why are questions so important in teaching? 

Research  leaves no doubt that instruction which includes posing questions during lessons is more effective in producing achievement gains than instruction carried out without questioning students.

When we  think about the nature of our questions,  we also need to consider the purpose of those questions, that is, what are we trying to achieve in questioning students at any particular point in our teaching time?

There are a number of purposes in asking questions, among which I would highlight: 

• to determine the level of knowledge students bring to the lesson to help activate prior learning
• to encourage motivation through active, democratic participation in the classroom
• to demonstrate  that we (teachers) have an interest in students' thoughts
• to foster cooperative learning, by helping  students learn from one another
• to help us (teachers) with classroom management since students get so involved with the task that behaviour issues are reduced significantly 

We cannot ignore the huge difference between "skinny" questions and "fat" questions, i.e. LOTS (Lower Order Thinking Skills) and HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills). The following video summarizes Bloom's everlasting theory  in a very visual  way:

Tomorrow I  will deepen on the use of  "fat" questions that stimulate critical thinking in our students  and I will show you some activity types that are bound to fulfill the same purpose of strengthening thinking skills. For an appetizer, click here to see an example on  a Technology lesson on  batteries.

Inquiry-Based Learning: Developing Student-Driven Questions in CLIL classrooms

Last August I read that Wildwood IB World Magnet School uses the inquiry-based model to put students in charge of their learning. This model is based on lessons that stem from student questions and harness the power of curiosity so   I asked myself: why don't we try doing the same in our CLIL contexts? Why not in every content area? 

When you watch the video above, I am sure you will agree that the model has to be effective if  a teacher utters a sentence as powerful as the following one:  

"All of a sudden,  we see our students doing things that really matter to them and they're excited and they're passionate and they want to talk about what they're learning".

How can we create a culture of enquiry? First of all, we need to create the atmosphere that allows students  to ask comfortably. If students don’t feel welcome in the classroom, they won't ask questions or engage in the learning. This is a great step in the right direction but it may not be enough because many students need support in asking questions and creating different kinds of questions for different situations. In order to fulfill this goal, teachers should use a variety of strategies, such as structured protocols and question starters to support students in asking effective questions.

At this point I would like to recommend a great book  by  Wiggins and McTighe:" Essential Questions: Opening Doors to Student Understanding". You can read a very interesting extract from the book here which includes essential questions organized by areas.

You can also facilitate your students' inquiry-based learning through some ready-to-use  tools for the classroom. I reckon you will like this tool provided by www.edutopia.org. (It  also includes a task on note-taking and another one on vocabulary).

On October 13th we will meet for our  first seminar session and I will try and spend some time on  this engaging issue of "inquiry-based learning" and its usefulness in our CLIL classrooms. 

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.