Reuse, Reduce, Recycle

I live in Getxo and new containers, including the ones for organic waste, have just been installed. Maybe that is the reason why   I have become more sensitive about the need to recycle, reuse and reduce. The Town Hall of Getxo has also launched an on-line  competition for Primary and Secondary students  in the area so that they face a series of challenges that will let them learn about the benefits of recycling. Eight schools are taking part in this competition and I can say that families and teachers are as happy as students themselves. 

I was wondering how I could contribute to raise awareness about this topic in other schools and I have thought of sharing a simple proposal I have thought of with teachers of English or teachers who implement Science or Global Issues through the medium of English. You can find my proposal here.

If you can spend more  than two sessions on the topic, I would recommend a great website by Michelle Henry, a teacher of English. There is a huge variety of activities on vocabulary, audios, games,  and even songs related to the topic. Jack Johnson's "The 3 R" is my favourite. You can listen to it  below these lines:

Jack Johnson was   named a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in 2015 but seven  years before that he was interviewed  for ABC news and maybe his words  leave a mark on your students. While listening to the interview, ask them to keep these two questions in mind:

-  What did he do as a singer so as to protect the environment? Name at least two actions he carried out while he was recording. 

-  In his view, how can music change the world?

You can follow the interview here:



I hope that by  trying one or more of the suggestions above your students will collaborate to the 3 Rs.

ASSESSING STUDENTS' ORAL PRESENTATIONS IN ANY CONTENT AREA

Our last seminar session was focused on tools for peer assessment. Next Tuesday January 29th  I will suggest some tools to help teachers when they have to assess their students' speaking performances.  There are plenty of rubrics that can be used but now I would like to recommend  this  one from http://www.readwritethink.org/  because it  is really easy to use and  designed to fit any topic or subject area. The rubric proposed allows teachers to assess students in several key areas of oral presentation. Students are scored on a scale of 1- 4 in three major areas.

The first area is Delivery, which includes eye contact, and voice inflection. 

The second area, Content/Organization, scores students based on their knowledge and understanding of the topic being presented and the overall organization of their presentation. 

The third area, Enthusiasm/Audience Awareness, measures  students'  enthusiasm towards the topic and their ability to convey the message effectively  to their intended audience. 

Give students the oral presentation rubric ahead of time so that they know and understand what they will be scored on. Discuss each of the major areas and how they relate to their oral presentation. 

Focusing on speaking in CLIL contexts

Today we are going to focus on how to develop spoken interaction in CLIL contexts and we will analyse several practical activities for the classroom. The following presentation includes some basic features of speaking in English and a typology of activities for a CLIL classroom as well as some practical suggestions for different  levels.

Supporting speaking and spoken interaction

In CLIL lessons students' talking time should be increased and teacher's talking time reduced but the question is: How can we succeed at doing this? By providing students with a speaking framework that enables them to take part  throughout the lesson. This site offers a good choice of different language patterns students will need to succeed at being effective communicators in the target language.