“Which training courses would you like to have access to as a teacher? Why? Which is, in your opinion, the best way to share good practice amongst teaching professionals? Why?”

I am a teacher who loves to learn, not only for adults but also for children. I think what we learn every day, in many places and by many people. But children are so honest, are so eager to tell stories and much imagination, they are a case of learning to discover.

If I were to ask for a training course , I think it would be on how to motivate those students who at home do not give any value to school , or how to make them understand that it is very important for future reading, writing , do basic calculations and know what day we are . Since often they do not see the need to learn because they have lived very difficult things in their families.

About the best way to share best practices with other teachers, I think a good option is taking courses in the center and share experiences. Or between professionals of the same specialty, but in different centers. Since, talking face to face gives us many more possibilities to share knowledge and feedback is more immediate and more real.

So, whenever I can, I attend such activities in my school or outside it , because I think that it’s very important to continue to grow as a teacher aspect is to learn from my colleagues and apply this knowledge in my daily work.

If you were not limited by the demands of the national/regional curriculum, what would you say is the most important thing you would teach your students about your subject (in a CLIL context)? How would you assess their learning?

I work with students who have different kinds of needs, might have lack of stimulation, disabilities, students with difficulties in attention and concentration, etc. So, about my work, I can’t talk about a specific subject, because I work in a global manner with each student. For me, the most important thing is that my students learn to communicate, learn to express their needs and be motivated towards learning. And all the work through experimentation, discovery and linking both downtown and outside it. When children are motivated and safe, they are able to learn much more when they are not.

In a CLIL context I also think that is communication and work to ensure that children have a positive attitude and interest towards the language you're working. In my class of therapeutic pedagogy it is easy to work with basic language for communication because it always routines , such as greetings, the date of that day , the weather is like and then will expand and work proposed for the day content is working, but always with a very manipulative , visual and auditory material.

In my opinion, it is very important that children are motivated, but for that, the teacher must prepare the class in an attractive manner, always playful and make students participate in this process.

Finally, I believe that the best way to evaluate their progress is by observing and taking notes of their evolution.

Some basics you should evaluate are: if they collaborate in classes and are motivated, if they try to communicate using basic vocabulary, if they know the new vocabulary we work, using manual or computer games, reading cards or calculation, etc. But always in a way that students do not feel pressured by an evaluation, I believe that teachers should always choose the most natural way to assess our students.

The European Portfolio (ELP)

The European Language Portfolio (ELP) was developed by the Language Policy Unit of the Council of Europe:

• to support the development of learner autonomy, plurilingualism and intercultural awareness and competence;
• to allow users to record their language learning achievements and their experience of learning and using languages

The European Language Portfolio is a personal document that has three parts:

1. A language passport
2. A language biography
3. A dossier

In this way the European Language Portfolio:

• Helps to develop language learning and intercultural skills
• Facilitates educational and vocational mobility
• Encourages lifelong learning of languages
• Contributes to the promotion of democratic citizenship in Europe

With it we can learn more and better any language and helps us to understand and appreciate the linguistic and cultural diversity we have in Europe.

For me, it is a tool that I can use to improve my knowledge and skills about learning languages. We can also use it in different classes or schools outside the classroom or on our own. But it is desirable that it let us note in the relevant experiences of linguistic and cultural learning that we have, so what we learn in class and on the street.

In my opinion it can be useful to:

• know the level we have in every language, according to an international scale
• determine the learning objectives and note the progress that we get
• aware of the way we learn and increase it
• learn, improve and respect the linguistic and cultural differences between us and our peers or between different groups of people.

But the main objective of the portfolio should be to encourage independent learning of languages and intercultural experiences. That is, to help us become better learners of all languages and cultures so we can learn more effectively, conscious and satisfactory manner.

In conclusion, we can become more autonomous, active and friendly and better able to learn on our own.

UNIT 3 WHAT’S CLIL?

WHAT’S CLIL?

CONTENT LANGUAGE INTEGRATED LEARNING

CLIL refers to situations where the contents are simultaneously learning with a foreign language.

Also, CLIL is a flexible concept, where the most important is education and not multilingualism, because multilingualism is the added value. Besides, methodology is what we must adjust to each group. And we can use a CLIL like a tool for the promotion of foreign languages and minority languages.

On the one hand CLIL has 5 dimensions: The culture dimension, the environment dimension, the language dimension, the content dimension and the learning dimension.

On the other hand the 4 CLIL Principles are: Communication, Culture, Content and Cognition. The Communication is using language to learn whilst learning to use language.

It is also important to indicate that language acquisition is cyclical and recursive, learners acquire best when they create, discover and construct their own meanings, and other important point is that reading is essential for developing academic English skills.

In Teaching is also important to know the order of language skills and work that way since childhood education. We must begin with listening, continue the speaking, after reading and finally writing.

In my opinion, it’s very important make the content of the subjects relevant for students, connect with their lives, culture… because it’s the best way to learn. We must never forget that communication has a primary importance and the students need to recognize them for their efforts, especially working with children with specials needs as I do.

My best teacher

Before writing about my best teacher, I have to say, that at primary school I studied French, so, when I went to the high school I didn’t know nothing of English. 

I had to study English hard, but it wasn’t enough. My parents had to make a big effort and I started to go to an English academy. Eventually my marks improved. 

The most important moment for me was when I met Giowana… She has been the best teacher I've ever had. She was close, friendly and the most important, she really cared about us. When I was studying in third year of high school she helped me more with my English language. And one day she said to me that she wanted to apply for a scholarship to go a month in summer to study in England. That was very strange for me because she didn’t propose it to all students of the class. And finally I was the only one in my class who went to England. 

That summer was very important to me because I learned a lot and met many people, and the most important was that I lost my fear to speak in English. 

It was long ago so I don't know anything about her, but I would like to thank her because she trusted me and gave me such opportunity in my life.