Online journals on biligualism, CLIL and language teaching

A very good way of learning about new developments in second language teaching is to regularly read online journals. Fortunately, most of them are either free or just require a reasonable fee for teachers and school districts. As I said, it is essential to keep updated in new developments and to learn about experiences in schools all over the world offering CLIL, bilingual and/or second language courses.

The online journals I (try to) follow regularly are the following. I have copied/pasted the excerpts of the aims for your information.

1. Porta Linguorum, Universidad de Granada.

Numbers published: 21 numbers so far. 

Aim: Porta Linguorum is an international inter university journal specialised in foreign language didactics. It aims to publish empirical studies, critical revisions, and theoretical models related to the factors that influence the teaching and learning process.

Free access.

2. Encuentro, Universidad de Alcalá.

Numbers published: 22

Aim: The goals of Encuentro are didactic and methodological training, together with the development of reflection and classroom research on the part of language teachers. These goals also govern the content of the journal: applied linguistics, language teaching and learning, the presentation of research and innovations, values and interculturality, literature teaching, and related matters.

Free access.

3. Latinamerican journal, Universidad de La Sabana.

Numbers published: 7

Aim: LACIL is a peer-reviewed journal focused on CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning), multilingualism, interculturalism, and Call, throughout Latin America and around the world.

Free access.

4. Asian EFL Journal.

Numbers published: 76

Aim: The Asian EFL Journal is published monthly and presents information, theories, research, methods and materials related to language acquisition and language learning. 

Free access.

5.  International CLIL research journal.

Numbers published: 7

Aim: The ICRJ is an electronic refereed journal which acts as a platform for researchers across the world who work on Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). Research in this field is often published in a range of journals reflecting different disciplines. The ICRJ attempts to consolidate insights and research findings into a single publication so as to enhance accessibility to those in the field.

Free access.

6. CLIL journal.
Numbers published|: 4
Aim: to provide an easy accessible and high level resource of information for teachers working on or interested in working in CLIL programs.
Subscription required but the journal can be read online for free.
Free access.

7. Revista de lengua para fines específicos.

Numbers published: 19

Aim: LFE invites submissions of original full-length articles, short articles and book reviews from scholars in the field of languages for specific and professional purposes. This includes areas of discourse analysis, pragmatics, sociology, contrastive analysis, global languages, development and implementation of specialized corpora and software, learning and teaching techniques and methodology, curriculum development, among others.

8. International Journal of Bilingual education and Biligualism.

Numbers published: 18

Aim: The International Journal of Bilingualism (IJB) is an international forum for the dissemination of original research on the linguistic, psychological, http://www.todoele.net/jslt.htmlneurological, and social issues which emerge from language contact. While stressing interdisciplinary links, the focus of the Journal is on the language behaviour of the bi- and multilingual individual.

Subscription required.

9. Journal of Immersion and Content-Based Language Education.

Numbers published: 2

Aim: JICB aims at publishing research on language immersion and other types of content-based language education programmes that are subject matter-driven and subject matter-accountable. The journal provides a forum for research on well-established immersion and content-based programmes as well as research on new initiatives within the broad field of content-based language education.

Subscription required

10. Journal Todoele.

Numbres published: first issue on June 2014

El objetivo principal de la publicación es crear un forro de debate para investigadores y profesores de español de todo el mundo que contribuya al desarrollo y enriquecimiento de un campo en constante crecimiento. En ella se recogerán trabajos teóricos e investigaciones sobre todo lo relacionado con el español como lengua extranjera.

Subscription required.

CLIL Resources and Best Practices

I have spoken about the work done by the CPR in Córdoba, Spain, with bilingual programs, multilingualism and CLIL. CPR stands for 'Centro del Profesorado'. They are public institutions funded by the deparments of education in Spain that offers professional development courses for teachers in the city of Córdoba in this case. In a previous post I introduced Pilar Torres' blog. He is an advisor at the aforementioned CPR and coordinates the professional development program for second languages and literacy programs.

 

At the beginning of every school year, the CPR in Córdoba organizes a course for those teachers who have just started working in one of the bilingual schools in the city. Bilingual programs are getting more and more popular and there are always new teachers entering the programs. The course takes place several evenings after school. They have presenters with various backgrounds but there are always teachers with experience who share their experience and expertise. The new teachers get insight of what it means to work in a bilingual program and what the expectations are. There are always theoretical presentations in which key concepts in the implementation of bilingual programs are reviewed. Linguistic concepts such as BICS and CALP,  language scaffolding, integrated teaching,  the need of working with the 5 language skills etc. are introduced and explained. Teachers have access to a theoretical framework that will help them in their daily work.

This is a very important part for new teachers but I find it even more interesting that teachers share their experiences about how they create their lesson plans following a CLIL approach. There are examples for secondary education in subject areas such as Maths, Science, Social Studies and CTS . Most of these examples are available online and I highly recommend to have a thorough look at them because they are real examples implemented in a bilingual program and can be very inspirational for teachers working in North America. Naturally, the target language in most of these programs in Spain is English so the examples that we are going to see use mainly this language. The presentations are available in this link.

The CPR also offers continuous possibilities for professional development. Experts in bilingual education also share their expertize. Naturally some presentations by these keynote speakers are also available. In 2012, the CPR invited David Marsh, one of the leading experts in Europe in the implementation of CLIL programs and bilingualism. His presentations are also available online. Both deal with very important issues related to the implementation of bilingual programs using a CLIL approach:

• The Added Value of CLIL in Enhancing Educational Outcomes
• Benefits of Bilingualism. Insights from the Neurosciences

David Marsh: Benefits of bilingualism from Pilar Torres

The Added Value of CLIL by David Marsh from Pilar Torres

 

Pilar Torres has also included an extensive interview with Davis Marsh in her blog taken during his stay in Córdoba in 2012.

All the presentations, pictures and links embedded in this post are taken from the blog by Pilar Torres. I highly recommend everyone interested in bilingual programs, second language acquisition and multiculturalism to visit this blog.

 

Spanish Civil War 1

On July 18th, 1936, a part of the Spanish army attempted a coup d'etat to take power from the democratic republican government. The insurgents led by General Francisco Franco succeeded in taking over only in about half of the territory, the other half remained loyal to the legitimate government. This situation led to a civil war that lasted for almost 3 years and caused a fracture in Spanish society which is still present today.

The Spanish Civil War has been one of the most studied topics in Spanish history. There has been an incredible amount of research on the causes, development and consequences of the Spanish Civil War. However, there is still many unknown facts related to the victims of political violence, especially after the war ended. Moreover, the civil war has become a rich backdrop for literary, film and other artistic works.

My plan for this post is to offer some interesting links on the main causes of the war, its development and consequences. I will try to find the most objective references about a historical period that even today raises deep passions in Spain. I'd like to focus on resources and works of art that deal with the following topics:

• How the Spanish Civil War and the political repression in the years after affected the lives of anonymous citizens.
• How the Spanish Civil War affected international relations with a special interest in the International Brigades.
• Works of art that have been inspired by the Spanish Civil War films and novels.
• The work of photojournalists in the Spanish Civil war: Robert Capa, David Seymour, Gerda Taro and Agustí Centelles among others.
• The propagandist posters during the war.

There are many websites with information about the Spanish Civil War. Some of them are produced by associations or political parties that support one of the contenders. Other websites have been produced by universities or high schools. These are my suggestions:

• Los Caminos de la memoria: this is a website created by six European institutions from 6 different countries. The website links the great worlds in Europe with the Spanish Civil War. The site is also available in 6 languages
• Website from the high school Maria Moliner in Tudela de Duero, Valladolid, Spain. This is a very thorough website that offers students a complete vision of the Spanish Civil War. It is divided in 5 sections: causes of the war, contenders, development, international  involvement and consequences. It is highly recommended for research projects.
• Another interesting website with a lot of data and information is kept by the high school, Sabuco, in Albacete, Spain. The Social Studies department offers this website to their students as part of their class resources for the subject.  The links to the songs that both sides sang at the time as well as all the information about casualties and the fate of the refugees will likely be very interesting to the students.
• Documentaries about the Civil War and its historical roots, published by Didactalia. Didactalia is an educational community which offers a repository of resources for K-12 education mostly in Spanish. It also offers links to many other repositories.
• Guerra Civil Espanola gives us an almost unlimited list of links related to the Spanish Civil War, the participants, the International Brigades, etc.
• Two examples of webquests which can help us to create our own activities. Webquest created by Ignacio Martinez Jimenez. A webquest created in a school in Minnesota by Liz Perona.
• A good source of information in English is the website provided by Spartacus Educational.

• Obviously, several documentaries are available online. The documentary produced by Granada television goes deep to explain what historical facts triggered the war, its development and its consequences. Numerous people who took part in the war offer their visions and opinions of the war. The historical advisors are Javier Tusell, Hugh Thomas and Ronald Fraser, which guarantees historical accuracy and impartiality. The length of the documentary, 6 chapters of an hour each, is not very manageable in a class but it can be a good tool for research. All chapters are available online in English and Spanish.

These are suggestions of resources where to find information in Spanish about the Civil war. In my next post, I'll talk about how the Spanish Civil War influenced international relations and the views on the International Brigades.

Newspaper Article about Bilingual Programs in Spain

On September 30th, 2013 the article "Bilingües a la Carrera, ("Bilingual schools boom") was published in the Spanish newspaper El País. In the article we learn about the plans of two Spanish Autonomous Communities, Murcia and Castilla-La Mancha to offer bilingual programs in all the K-12 schools in both provinces. Most schools will likely select English as their second language of instruction in various subject areas. According to the article, 70% of the schools in Castilla La Mancha don't offer bilingual programs yet. In the case of Murcia 30% of secondary schools and 70% of elementary schools still need to start offering the program. The task ahead is very ambitious considering they are to complete this in just 5 years.

I find it very positive that the educational authorities try to offer the same educational opportunities to all students no matter where they live. It also seems that even though students have studied a second language from K-12, many are failing to demonstrate sufficient fluency in these target languages - something needs to be done. Parents expect their children at least to finish high school with a high command of more than one language. In addition, today's society demands citizens to have deep multicultural understanding. Needless to say that it is the educational authorities' duty to meet these demands and promote good educational programs for students.

 

Having said that, reading the article doesn't give you a very clear plan ahead for the expansion of the bilingual programs. University professors, experts and teachers unions in the article warn about the negative effects of implementing bilingual programs too quickly while sacrificing quality and without sufficient resources. I would like to point out four elements that appear in the article that need to be clarified to offer quality bilingual programs in most settings.

• Resources. Spain has been suffering a severe economic crisis in the last 6 years of which we have not seen the end.. According to the article, Murcia has reduced the number of teachers in 7% and Castilla-La Mancha 15% in the last 2 years. To develop an ambitious bilingual program like this with overworked teachers in large classes is probably not ideal. On the other hand, the article is not specific about funding and plans for program sustainability. The provisions made do not seem very realistic. This is a long distance race that will require a permanent influx of money for teacher training. 

• Linguistic capacity. The different provinces in Spain should reach an agreement about the level of proficiency that teachers who are working in bilingual programs should have. On the other hand, teachers will need to continuously work to improve their command in the target language.

• According to the article, there is not a consistent bilingual program model in Spain and the differences among programs in the 17 Spanish provinces can be enormous. Bilingual programs should have a consistent framework all through the country. Students should have similar amount of time exposure for the subjects taught in the target language. The expectations for the students of reaching a level of achievement at the end of the program should also be similar. All students should be assessed using a same set of benchmarks created by the government or from a unified source.

• Change in pedagogical principles. This is a key element that it is not considered very often in Spain. Pilar Garcés, a professor at the University of Valladolid, mentions it in the article: "we cannot teach a subject area in the target language the same way we used to in Spanish". Lecture style classes will not give students the skills they need for a globalized world. Unless meaningful changes are made in the bilingual programs, our students will fail. Students have to use the language in context, learn to do research and collaborate with peers using the target language.

I would also suggest a discussion about the expansion of bilingual programs in Spain. A bilingual program needs to emphasize the development of students' cultural awareness. Bilingual programs can be the trigger to encourage students to participate in international programs, work with other schools and take advantage the ICT in a globalized world. Students are more likely to continue in the bilingual programs, if they are able to make meaningful connections between the language they are learning and the culture from which it was derived.

It is encouraging that educational authorities in Spain are trying to expand bilingual programs so every student has the chance of enrolling in a bilingual program. Unfortunately, without a long time plan we won't offer quality programs and students won't acquire the command in the target language, nor the cultural awareness necessary in our globalized world. To rush the implementation of these programs can be counterproductive in the long run.

III International Conference on Bilingual Teaching in Educational Institutions

There has been an exponential growth of bilingual schools in Spain in the last ten years. It  is generally agreed that getting an education in two languages is highly beneficial for students not only for professional  but also for cognitive reasons. It has not been an easy task, despite the enthusiastic interest of parents, students, teachers and educational authorities. The challenge has been very important. Teachers needed training not only to improve their fluency on the target language but also on innovative pedagogics that involve to teach content along with a second language. Resources had to be developed from scratch since a direct translation of the existing resources was not the right answer to the challenge. 

Most provincial governments developed  training or support programs so schools could offer quality bilingual teaching. Schools had the opportunity of hiring language assistants to work with teachers in their classes and help develop resources in the target languages. Teachers have also been offered summer courses to continue improving their command in the target language. Working groups, sometimes at the international level, were created to allow for the sharing of resources and experiences. I have already blogged about some of these groups who have been sponsored by a European institution or developed by between schools in two countries.

The Department of Education in Madrid in partnership with the Rey Juan Carlos University hosted the International Conference on Bilingual Teaching in Educational Institutions in 2010 and 2011. The goal of these two sessions was "[to establish] a theoretical and practical framework" for bilingual programs. Experts and researchers in bilingual settings were present at the conferences but also "a large number of teachers from every educational level interested in sharing their experiences and knowledge." Fortunately for us, the keynote speakers' presentations from both conferences are available online.  We have access to the rest of the sessions only of the 2010 conference.  I was specially interested in learning about the experiences in secondary education and some of them are extremely inspiring and give us a good insight of how teachers are teaching subject areas in the target language.

The third conference will be held in Madrid on the 18th and 19th of October, 2013. This year's title is: "Bilingual Education: Consolidation and Perspectives for the XXI Century" and it "aims to go deeper into and move forward in the analysis of bilingual education". The key themes of the conference are intriguing, as the list provided on the conference website reveals.

• CLIL and good practice
• CLIL assessment in different subjects
• Bilingual education: teacher training and updating
• Activities and resources to support CLIL methodology
• Technological tools for bilingual education in the XXI Century
• The importance of literacy in the bilingual classroom
• Bilingual teaching in secondary education
• Future challenges in bilingual programs
• Academic language in different subjects
• Bilingual teaching in higher education

Sadly, I won't be able to attend the conference but I look forward to having a look at the presentations once they are available online.  I just hope that all the sessions will be posted online and not only the keynote speakers' sessions. All the information above and the presentations from the previous conferences are available on this website: http://www.cieb.es

Approaches to bilingual education in European countries

The blog mantained by Pilar Torres is a great source of information about second language acquisition, bilingual programs, CLI, cooperative projects and much more. Her posts have been featured on my blog before and it won't be the last!

The Centro de Profesores in Cordoba, Spain, where Pilar is an advisor, has recently organized a Study Visit called "The ABC of Plurilingualism in Andalusia". The Study Visits programme, for education and vocational training specialists and decision makers, "is an initiative of the European Commision's Directorate-General for Education and Culture. Its objective is to support policy development and cooperation at European level in lifelong learning, notably in the context of the Lisbon process and the education and training agenda 2020 (E&T2020), as well as the Bologna and Copenhagen processes and their successors." (Source: Directorate-General for Education and Culture's website)

 

Experts involved in bilingual programs from 11 European countries took part in the Study Visit and learnt first hand about the bilingual programs in Andalusia, Spain. They also introduced the language and bilingual programs in their respective countries. Twelve presentations are available online that portray different realities and ways of implementing bilingual programs. Ireland's experiences are particularly interesting, efforts are aimed at increasing the knowledge and daily use of their native language, Gaelic Irish, in the battle against the dominance of English. Another interesting case is Hungary and their goal to preserve Hungarian minority cultures in such as Romania or Slovakia.  The twelve presentations show a different scenario but with in many cases similar challenges ahead.

A report by Pilar Torres about the rationale behind bilingual programs and their implementation in Andalusia is available in the same post. I have mentioned in previous posts that the approach to bilingual programs in that Spanish province is very thorough. I highly recommend you to read the whole report to fully understand the work that they've done in the last 20 years. Some of the strong points of the bilingual programs in Andalusia are the following:

• The existence of a log term program that goes from kindergarten to the last year of secondary education.
• It is a program open to all students and there are not prerequisites to start the program.
• The concept of multilingualism : students are encouraged to take another language outside the two working languages in the bilingual program. This concept of multilingualism is even more obvious with the launching of bilingual programs in not so popular languages in Spain such as Chinese or Portuguese.
• Collaboration with other countries is encouraged so students can get a dual diploma at the end of the some of the bilingual programs (French and soon Chinese).
• The use of language assistants as key resource for students and teachers.
• The compromise of initial and continuous training for the teachers working in the bilingual programs.
• The establishment of an international teacher network to create quality resources available online.
• The placement of a bilingual program coordinator in every school.
• Schools normally use a CLIL approach when implementing bilingual programs.

The program's strengths are obvious but there are also challenges ahead such as how to integrate students with learning disabilities in a bilingual program, or how to create attainable, rigorous benchmarks for all the students. And we should not forget the effects of the crisis in programs like the language assistants or the in-service programs for teachers.

All the participants in the Study Visit agreed to present closing remarks with proposal and ideas to better face the challenges for the future. We can certainly learn a lot from their challenges because we face many similar ones too. We should continue to build the foundation of this kind of international collaboration to improve the quality of our bilingual programs.

International CLIL Lesons Plans

The European Centre for Modern Languages is in an institution created by the Council of Europe "whose mission is to encourage excellence and innovation in language teaching and to help Europeans learn languages more efficiently."

The ECML goals are clearly stated on the website:

• focusing on the practice of the learning and teaching of languages
• promoting dialogue and exchange among those active in the field
• training multipliers
• supporting programme-related networks and research projects

To achieve these objectives the ECML organizes international projects on language education. Some of these projects are complete and many of the resources and materials derived from these projects have been placed online. They can be very inspiring and helpful to us.

The most recent 4-year project runs from 2012 to 2015. There are 15 ongoing projects and their results will be published in due time. The list of ongoing projects is extensive and very interesting. All the working teams are international and, in many cases, there are many participants from different educational institutions in Canada. I am particularly interested in three of them. I look forward to their results! They deal with some of the issues we encounter in our schools every day. Topics I have tried to discuss and reflect in this blog:

• Literacies through Content and Language Integrated Learning: effective learning across subjects and languages
• Using open resources to develop online teaching skills
• Plurilingual whole school curricula - PlurCur

One of the already completes projects is Conbat + Content Based Teaching + Plurilingual/Cultural Awareness. I think that the name of the project gives us clear information of the objectives and they are detailed on the website.  What is very interesting to have a look at? First the training kit for teachers available online. And second, the didactic units produced by teachers in several countries in three different languages, English, French and Spanish.

 

The units are mainly for junior and senior high school and cover most of the subjects areas. There are sections for the teachers to get the pedagogical needed insight and also the working sheets and handouts for the students. The fact that there are examples in three languages, produced in different countries makes them very rich and inspiring.

My suggestion is to spend some time reviewing them, even if we are not very fluent in some of the target languages. We will get some inspiration from them for sure.

CLIL Resources and Experiences

It is not the first time that the approach to bilingual programs in Andalusia, Spain, is mentioned in this blog. They are taking very inspiring steps to ensure the quality and consistency in the bilingual programs. Related to the idea of implementing bilingual programs, I also previously mentioned three key ideas that were proposed by Professor Frigols for bilingual programs following a CLIL approach: continuous professional development, integrate the curriculum and collaboration among teachers.

I think these are the three key elements to make our Spanish bilingual programs thrive and we can be inspired by some of the activities developed in Andalusia. Most of the information in this post has been taken from the blog by Pilar Torres, which I have previously introduced, and from the website of the Teachers Centre in Cordoba, Spain, the place where Pilar Torres is an advisor. I am going to talk about three projects that I find particularly intriguing. But my advice is one should have a deeper look at the attached blog and the website because there are a lot of interesting experiences, proposals and ideas available.

The first project is related to teachers collaboration and teachers' continuous professional development. In Andalusia, the teachers who start in a bilingual program have to undergo a training program. Not only this, teachers and schools are encouraged to be in contact and participate in new professional opportunities. This way teachers always have the opportunity of continuously learning from each other and from the forming of different experiences in the schools. All of these materials are available online in the previously mentioned blog by Pilar Torres. An example of these formative activities is the presentation by the teacher Antonio R. Roldán introducing bilingual programs and how they are implemented in his school, IES Alhaken II.

Sesiones 11 12 nuevos bilingües  

The second presentation I would like to comment on is by Beatriz Martínez Serrano, team leader of the Bilingual Program at the school IES Miguel Crespo. She introduces the work they are doing in her school which I find particularly interesting and links directly with the 3 key elements in a bilingual program:

• Collaboration among the teachers working in the bilingual program. They work in joint projects and use an integrated curriculum.
• Inclusion of a third language, French, in the projects.
• Use of the E-PEL (the electronic version of the European Portfolio of Languages) as a teaching and self-assessment tool.
• All teachers are language teachers therefore they have to work on the 5 skills of language. In the presentation there are examples of best practices  in all subject areas.
• Related to the previous point, the subjects in the bilingual program have a reading plan for students

A very inspiring project that gives plenty of ideas for our schools.

La implementación del e pel en el ies miguel crespo (beatriz martínez) 

I have spoken about collaboration among teachers, why not with teachers in a different country and a different curriculum? First I'd like to mention that some of the presentations in the Teachers Centre website are about how the program of International Language Assistants can be a great resource for students and teachers in the schools. There is another presentation about how Europeans Programs such as Twinning or Comenius can also enhance the bilingual programs.

 

The last project is a Comenius Regio Partnership between Huelva province in Andalusia Spain, and Bournemouth UK. The partnership consisted of elaborating lesson plans for Science. Nine bilingual schools in Huelva, Spain, and eight schools in Bournemouth, UK, took part in the project. The results are available online. The lesson plans also integrate content and language teaching and are a great example of teachers partnership:

It is always inspiring to see how bilingual programs are implemented in other countries and in other educational systems. I think the approach that they are taking in Andalusia has very valuable elements and can be helpful for us: continuous professional development, integrate the curriculum and collaboration among teachers. Moreover, their experience adding a third language, French, into the program could be our next challenge here.

Encuentro, Journal of Research and Innovation in the Language Classroom

I am a great follower of the blog by Pilar Torres and I have talked about it before. Pilar Torres is language advisor in the Teachers Centre in Cordoba, Spain. Her blog is a great source of information about research on languages, educational program, CLIL, resources and so on.
 

In her blog I learnt about Encuentro, an online journal sponsored by the Faculty of Arts, Education and Tourism of the University of Alcalá in Spain. It is part of the Open Access Journal Movement so all the information is available online for free. Numerous linguists, professors, teacher trainers from different universities are involved in developing the journal, therefore the high standards of the published articles is guaranteed.

The goals of the journal are clearly stated on the website: Encuentro’s focus is on training in didactics and methodology, and on the development of classroom research and habits of reflection on the part of language teachers. Accordingly, the journal publishes articles in the following fields: applied linguistics, language teaching and learning, values and interculturality, literature teaching, and related matters; it also publishes accounts of classroom research and innovation.

Until 2004 the journal was published in printed format. From that date on the journal is published online and all the previous numbers are also available.

The last number, 2012, offers a monograph on CLIL. Bilingual programs using a CLIL approach have been growing steadily in the last 10 years and there is great interest in developing strategies to improve their implementation.

All the articles are interesting but I would like to point out three of them that I believe can clarify aspects to face the challenges that we encounter in our work.

• Interview with professor María Jesús Frigols. Professor Frigols  works at the VIU (Valencia International University). She currently teaches graduate and post graduate education students.  She has also been involved in developing most of the linguistic policies and strategies implemented by the European Union. In the interview she analyzes some of the issues teachers need to challenge when implementing CLIL in various educational systems in Europe. Her advice to implement CLIL successfully is simple: continuous professional development, integrate the curriculum and collaboration among teachers. Advice that has been always present in this blog. 
• The second article is by Peeter Mehisto: Criteria for Producing CLIL Learning Material. In a previous post, I talked about an article, with the same title, by Peeter Mehisto in which he gave clear strategies and steps to produce good CLIL resources. In this article he expands the ideas presented and he gives us specific examples of CLIL resources. He also provides information about the rationale he has followed to choose the criteria to elaborate the CLIL materials.
• The third article is from the 2011 journal: Use of Authentic Materials in the ESP Classroom by Gabriela Torregrosa & Sonsoles Sanchez-Reyes, University of Salamanca. I have introduced various authentic materials for the Spanish class in the blog because I  do believe they can be very useful in the bilingual classes . In the previous article by Peeter Mehisto, he speaks about the importance of  "incorporating authentic language and authentic language use" in our CLIL materials. This last article gives us "a review of the different opinions of experienced authors and their arguments for and against the use of realia and authentic materials in the ESP classroom". Although the article centres resources for the English for Specific Purposes Class, the content can be adapted for our needs in a Spanish bilingual program.

Encuentro can be an excellent source of information on research on languages, CLIL and language acquisition. The articles have an outstanding quality and deal, in many cases, with issues that we need to face every day in our classes. It is a good idea to save the link in our favourites.

Videos to better understand CLIL

Any time I talk about CLIL it comes to my mind my experience as a second language learner, and particularly as an English learner. English was not the first language I took at school, French was. I started English in high school but I have to admit that I always wanted to learn. Probably some famous rock bands have to be blamed for this interest. It was a long time ago and  the communicative approach to teaching had not reached my school. I learnt a lot but I always had the feeling that something was missing.

At the time I had not heard of bilingual education nor CLIL but I remember very well  one of the first things I did when I went to England for the first time as a student. I went to every second hand book store I found and I bought textbooks in almost every single subject area in the curriculum. Why? Because I felt that I lacked the language of science or history, let alone maths. So I bought textbooks on the sciences, socials studies and even home economics. This was the age before the Internet so reading lots of books in the target language was one of the cheapest and most available way to learn. Other than that, I would have had to enrol in a school in an English speaking country.

My experience has made me think about the importance of acquiring second languages in bilingual programs using a CLIL approach. And this is why I try to introduce resources that can help build a consistent bilingual program in our school. The short clips in today's post are from three different professors who have been researching on CLIL in the last years and advising the European Union on language policies. The clips introduce very interesting topics and issues that we encounter in our daily practice.

In the first clip, David Marsh explains how he ended up in CLIL after different experiences working with languages in Asia and Europe. There are some hot themes in the clip that I think deserve especial attention:

• The need of creating a significant part of our resources for a CLIL approach. Transferring the resources from the country where the language is spoken is not going to work. We have experienced this so often!
• That is why it is so important the support from the education authorities and the concept of work group among the teachers, language arts and subject teachers.
• The need of combine language, content and "fun". Languages can open up many oppurtunities for students to participate and enjoy cultural activities. 
• CLIL will not end with language teaching, it will enhance it.
• CLIL is much more than teaching through a subject.

The other two short clips are part of a group of videos produced by a Think Tank on CLIL that took place in 2009. Professor Do Coyle speaks about two very important ideas when implementing CLIL:

• CLIL helps to explore how language can be used to support the learning of a subject. Language is a learning tool. Using a second language to teach a subject will enhance this pedagogical value because teachers will need to be more conscious about how they use and model the language so that students interact and move forward in their subject.
• The concept of Pluri-Literacy: how the use of different languages affect literacy.

Sue Hughes talks about obvious issues in education, that we tend to forget:

•  Every teacher is a language teacher
• Students come with different knowledge of language if we have to use to our benefit, no matter if it is a language from another country or the specific language of, let's say, science or history.
  

We all know how important it is that we have access to CLIL research to better understand how to implement a bilingual program. We don't need to forget though, that what makes a consistent bilingual program is our daily practice in school. This and how we can work as a team in the school and how we can learn from other schools' experiences and share our knowledge with them.



The European Language Portfolio

In a previous post, I introduced the bilingual project that the IES Llanes in Seville, Spain is doing. I mentioned that the different subject area teachers that work in the bilingual program get involved in multidisciplinary projects. Students can self-assess their progress and building their personal language portfolios  in the target language. These portfolios follow the structure of the European Language Portfolio (ELP). For those not familiar with it, here is further information extracted from the websites of the European Council.

The ELP was an initiative of the Language Policy Division of the Council of Europe. It was piloted from 1998 to 2000 and launched in 2001. Basically, the ELP is a personal document for the language learner that has three parts:

1. A language passport where the learner can summarize his/her linguistic and cultural identity, language qualifications, experience of using different languages and contacts with different cultures. It is important to point out that the passport includes all the learner's contact with languages, at school but also outside school.
2. A language biography that helps the learner to set learning targets, to record and reflect language learning   and on intercultural experiences and regularly assess progress.
3. A dossier where the learner can keep samples of his/her work in the language(s) that he/she is learning. 

The goals for launching the ELP are:

1. to support the development of learner autonomy, pluralingualism and intercultural awareness and competence;
2. to allow users to record their language learning achievement and their experience of learning and using languages.

The ELP works in close relation with the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). The CEFR was designated to provide transparent, coherent and comprehensive basis for elaborating syllabuses, learning materials and the assessment of language proficiency. The CEFR describes language proficiency at six levels: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2. This scheme makes it possible to compare resources, tests and examinations across languages and national boundaries. It also provides a basis for recognizing language qualifications.

The Language Passport in the ELP will use the six levels of proficiency summarized for the five skills of listening, reading, spoken interaction, spoken production and writing in a self assessment grid. 

The descriptors in the different cells of the self-assessment grid are expanded into checklists of tasks that can be used to plan, monitor and evaluate learning. For example, the descriptor for B1 WRITING might be expanded into the following tasks:

• I can write notes giving simple information to friends, service people, teachers and others who feature in my everyday life.
• I can write personal letters giving news and expressing my thoughts about music, films etc. in some detail and getting across what I feel is important
• I can write notes or message to check information and ask about or explain problems with reasonable precision.
• I can take down messages communicating enquiries and relaying problems.

When learners can perform these tasks in another language they can record in their Language Passport that their level for writing in that language is B1.

Moreover, teachers can expand and adapt these checklists to adjust to the different tasks and projects they are working with their student. This way students can monitor their progress regularly and very accurately.

 

All the information in this post has been taking from two websites from the Council of Europe. Both provide clear and thorough information about language policies in Europe and explain in detail the origin and goals of the ELP and the CEFR. The websites also include examples of experiences implementing the ELP and the CEFR and best practices. Both websites are a great tool for teachers who want to start using portfolios in their classes.

To learn more about the CEFR in the Canadian context visit: Link.

To see a copy of the CEFR self assessment grid, click below:

The ELP and CEFR are two tools worth exploring. They can be very useful in our Spanish Bilingual Programs.

Using Portfolios in the classes taught in Spanish

I would like to share my reflections on Roy Lyster's very interesting presentation in Calgary that I spoke about on January 13th . The two main ideas I got out of that day are:

• It is essential that teachers working in bilingual program are integrating both language and content when teaching.
• It is important for teachers to collaborate though, in my experience,  it is always a challenge in a senior high school.

During his presentation, Mr Lyster introduced very inspiring examples of best practices by some teachers working in French Immersion schools in Quebec. They used different techniques to target the improvement of language skills while teaching content.

After reading his article and the notes I took from his presentation, a question rose in my mind: do we have to assess language in the subject areas taught in the target language? If so, are there any examples available that can inspire our teaching practice?

 My experience in this matter is limited because I have never taught any other subject than language arts. However,  from talking with teachers, their answer is usually that they don't consider language in the final grades for students. I am not pointing fingers at anyone; on the contrary, I know the work load teachers have and it is not easy to collaborate with the others because of different timetables and so on. But as we can see in the example below, there are many possibilities worth exploring.

I was very fortunate to meet the team leader of languages and coordinator of the bilingual program at the IES Llanes in Seville, Spain., Lola Aceituno. It is a Gr. 7-12 school but the bilingual program goes from grade 7 to grade 10. There are several aspects I liked about their project:

• The team leader works hand in hand with the teachers in the bilingual program to identify and create resources together.
• Teachers work in collaborative projects integrating different subject areas and different languages.
• They use ICT to work together and make all the resources more accessible.
• They have adapted the frame of the European Portfolio of Languages so that students can assess their improvements in the target language in the subject areas taught in English.

I'd like to introduce some of their interdisciplinary projects which I find particularly inspiring.  Students work on a project called "Unequal population distribution" and they focus on different aspects according the subject area from which they work. After completing the assignment in all the subject areas, students complete a final task in which all the learnt skills are applied. All of the resources are online are accessible to students, parents and teachers. Click on the image to get more information:

 

 

Another very interesting feature is the self-assessment sheet that students complete after the final task. The sheet follows the structure of the European Portfolio of Languages, so they use the "I can.." statements to be aware of how much "language"they have learnt working in the project. This is a great example of how to integrate language and content and how to assess the language piece in a subject area taught in the target language.

 



A second example of multidisciplinary task is this one on Fables. Students worked on fables from different perspectives and integrating different artistic means: literature, art, music, drama. To make things a bit more complex, students work the same topic in three different languages .

Portfolios are flexible and can be used for any subject area taught in the target language. Here is another example developed at the same school for Maths.

This is a very inspiring bilingual school project which shows that working collaboratively, being aware that language is as important as content and assessing this knowledge is essential to have in a successful bilingual program . Portfolios can be a useful tool to make students aware of their progress in the target language. I hope you have some time to check it out!

Choosing original material for our Spanish bilingual class

I have already spoken about the criteria for producing good CLIL resources. I am sure that we all have our own methods for identifying good resources and we probably follow most, if not all, the steps in this previous post. I am always on the look of good authentic resources, that is,  materials that are not specifically created for teaching purposes. The possibilities are endless: magazine articles, newspapers, novels and short stories, commercials, travel brochures... and of course, feature films and short films.

I have already mentioned my interest in short films, they are very flexible and, if we choose correctly, they can be a very good way of introducing "authentic language and authentic language use, which is an important criteria in creating CLIL resources.

These are some ideas that I pay attention to when I choose a short film for a Spanish bilingual class are simple:

• I look for a story first that can be of interest for the students and fulfills some of the general outcomes in the programs of studies of SLA.
• In terms of language, I always try to find materials that can "foster academic language proficiency" and can be a linguistic challenge for the students, but always under the umbrella of the curriculum outcomes. 
• Materials that lead to the creation of projects, students' research and the use of different cognitive tools would be considered "best choices".
• Resources that can be linked to activities done in other subject areas. As educators, we have to be able to include our teaching in a broader educational frame.

I would like to introduce two short films which can be very useful in a high school bilingual program, which fulfill the above criteria.

PASEO ( cortometraje short film ) from Entrevagones on Vimeo.

Paseo by Arturo Ruíz Serrano. This short film is a homage to all "los paseados", all the prisoners that after a war are taken for a walk (paseo), from which they never return. We don't know exactly the historical backdrop of this particular story but we can assume it takes place right after the Spanish Civil War (the countryside where it is set, the outfit of the characters, one of them states that he is from Águilas, Spain, the similarities with Lorca's death). However, the poem the poet recites in the film was written much later in time by Mario Benedetti, from Uruguay.  The director wants to keep this ambiguity to focus in the main ideas of the film:

• the fate of helpless people under an abusive ideology
• the need of solidarity, even in the hardest situations.

From a linguistic point of view, the richness of accents and registers used in the film are very realistic and useful. Two of the characters use a very colloquial Spanish whereas the poet uses a much higher register. To fully understand the story, students will need scaffolding in the language.

Naturally, one more activity we can do is to read and critique the poem recited in the short film. Mario Benedetti, the writer, is a very example of an artist who always cared for human rights all his life.

Voluntario from Chinatown on Vimeo.

Voluntario by Javier San Román. The second short film is about the importance of volunteering and the reasons that drive a person to help others in an altruistic way. The main character in the film decides to help others after his personal experience when he was a child. A member of the Red Crescent saved his life when he was on vacation in Morocco at age 10. Many years later, he revives another child from another culture who is living in Spain. To fully understand this urge to help others, you only need to understand the eyes expressions of another person, as it is stated in the short film. This topic, altruism and solidarity, can lead to discussions, research and to talk about our experience as a person and as a member of a community.
 

Another very important topic in the short story is the role of social media in society. The short film is presented like a TV program in which the volunteer is asked about the search of a ten year old boy lost in the mountains for four days. The presenter is only worried about giving a professional impression in front of the camera. She doesn't show any sympathy about the fate of the young boy who is lost and she addresses him with distaste. Does she appreciate the volunteer's perspective? Can she not see the boy's look of distress?

In conclusion, two short films which can be used in a high school Spanish bilingual (or IB ) program. Both fit some of the general outcomes of the Program of Studies, both are linguistically challenging and can lead to discussion, research and collaborative work for the students, who can link some of the these themes with previous knowledge from other subject areas.

CLIL II, CLIL Lesson Plans Samples

I have spoken about CLIL, its foundations, where to get theoretical background about CLIL education. We need to start to see some examples of activities, resources created by teachers in their daily practice. Examples which can, I hope, help us to better understand the theory but also to inspire our own production of activities.

I find  the approach to bilingual education that Andalusia in Spain is taking particularly attractive. Every new teacher in a bilingual program takes an intense course that includes theoretical instruction, presentations by researchers and work sessions with teachers with experience in the program. The teachers also spend time during their introduction to the program creating activities that can be used in a class following a CLIL approach.  It doesn´t finish here, teachers keep on working together and producing activities that are normally placed online, using either a blog or a wiki. The best part of all this? All these resources are online available for us to look at, explore and reuse for our purposes and needs. And I honestly think that some are really inspiring.

First, we can have a look at the several templates they have created to create a CLIL lesson plan. The first one elaborated by Isabel Pérez, whose website I have already introduced, is very thorough and has all the components we need to include in a CLIL lesson plan. It also includes links to clarify some of the sections and links to pedagogical background behind CLIL.

 

 

All these resources can be found in the wiki created by the CEP (Centro de profesores) in Granada. The wiki is for teachers to have a common space to work together, share resources and learn form each other. It was created after one of the professional development sessions for teachers in bilingual programs and has been used as a meeting point for everyone interested in developing bilingual programs under a CLIL approach in the province.

Another template is available in the blog of Pilar Torres who is the Language Advisor in another CEP, in Córdoba. I will spend more time talking about this blog which offers a lot of useful and valuable information on CLIL and many other subjects. Today, let me just introduce a different proposal of template to create a CLIL activity. This one is more simplified but it can also be useful for our needs in Alberta.

I find it essential to  have a consistent approach to the way we organize our lessons plans making sure that the key linguistic, pedagogical and cultural components are included. It will help our work to a great extent and it will be the only way we can work collaboratively with other teachers in a bilingual program. In my next posts, I will talk about the CEFR (common European framework of reference, MCER in Spanish) and I will introduce some of the activities from the blogs we talked about today.

Readings to better understand CLIL

On Thursday we are having a very interesting presentation by Dr. Roy Lyster, professor of Second Language Education at McGill University. The title is Planning for Teachable Moments: Integrating a Language Focus in Content-based Instruction. To get ready for the event, attendants are asked to read the article Content Based Second Language Teaching. The article introduces some of the issues all of the teachers working in the Spanish bilingual programs have dealt with. For example, how do we integrate language teaching in a subject area taught in Spanish? Is content teaching the most important in non-language classes like maths or PE? Do we need to assess language skills or just the content? In any case, as Lister suggests in his article, collaboration among teachers is key to success. I found the study with English and French teachers in Quebec particularly interesting. I think it reflects the situation in many schools and it sheds light on the fact that results are tangible as soon as teachers collaborate with each other. To read more about the study, read the article, Linking languages to a read-aloud project.

For those who are unfamiliar with the CLIL concept, two introductory readings on the topic can be found on the British Council website by Professor Steve Darn (Content Language Integrated Learning & CLIL a Lesson Framework). Both articles give thorough insight of the rationale and principles behind CLIL without a high level of jargon and also give ideas on how to implement CLIL in a classroom.

In my experience, another common problem that teachers encounter when trying to use CLIL in bilingual programs is finding useful resources. It is not an easy task to find resources that match the Program of Studies with the linguistic needs of the students. Sometimes the content is good but the language is too advanced or vice versa. Resources that incorporate concepts such as content and language scaffolding or the use of authentic language are not easy to find so teachers need to create their own resources. And we all know the work load teachers already have.

I think following a framework that guides the production of CLIL resources can increase accuracy and can be time-saving. The article Criteria to Producing CLIL Learning Materials, by Peeter Mehisto, gives a step-by-step guide, on how to produce resources that can help us to implement a CLIL program. Peeter Mehisto is co-author along with David Marsh and María Jesús Frigols of the book Uncovering CLIL, a must-read for teachers starting a bilingual program and for those who want new ideas in the field.

The last article I would like to recommend is Creación de Actividades para el aula CLIL / TIC by Isabel Pérez, in a website I already mentioned in a previous post. Isabel gives us very clear tips on how to create a CLIL activity and how to integrate the use of ICT. She has even provided templates in her article.

 

The CLIL approach is very exciting but much learning must be done through our journey and no doubt I will be revisiting this topic again. While it is expected that we will have to create some of our own resources, it makes great sense that teachers can also increase collaboration to build up students’ linguistic capacity without jeopardizing content acquisition in our second language classrooms. With collaboration, results and our enjoyment of teaching will improve for sure.

Working through projects collaboratively II

I would like to showcase today two more examples of project based learning done collaboratively between schools from different countries. Both projects have obtained European E-Twinning awards recognising their innovation, their pedagogical value and the positive impact that they have made in all the participant schools.

The eTwinning action was launched in 2005 and it basically consists of a  platform for staff working in schools in Europe to communicate, collaborate and develop projects together. The eTwinning action promotes collaboration through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).  Extracted from and more information:

eTwinning projects can fit very well in the philosophy of CLIL:

• Language learning can be included in content classes,  projects in this case.
• The content acquired in the projects can be used in the language-learning classes.
• Students will develop very important learning skills working collaboratively in projects.  

Every year the European Union gives awards to the best eTwinning awards following these criteria:

• Pedagogical Innovation and Creativity
• Curricular Integration
• Collaboration between partner schools
• Creative use of ICT
• Sustainability and transferability
• Results and Benefits

There are specific awards for projects in French, German and Spanish supported by their respective Ministries of Education. For more information: VISIT.

All the awarded projects are excellent and I recommend 2 school projects I find inspiring and innovative:

Carpe Nuntium: voilà nuestra "FrItalianza" y aprende español: two high schools from France and Italy create an "FrItalianza" to investigate and learn about journalism and at the same time improve their language skills in Spanish.  Their activities were recorded in a blog. The project went through several stages:

• Make individual presentations to break the ice
• Show the schools, their staff using videos, recorded interviews etc.
• The world of journalism: the students used forums to talk about their views on different aspects of the media
• They worked on the topic the fight against poverty and social exclusion through investigating and analysing different tv news from Spain and France
• They created their own news programs in French and Spanish
• Through all the project they were improving their linguistic skills in a second language

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Carpe Nuntium: voilà nuestra "FrItalianza" has implemented an innovative methodology with which French and Italian students have been able to achieve a B1/B2 level in Spanish and have learnt about journalism.

The second project involved four schools from 3 different countries, Portugal, Sweden and Spain. The project includes some very interesting features:

• The teachers from every school had worked together in a previous project and used a wiki to share ideas to develop this second adventure
• The project was developed by students in different subject areas in their curriculum
• One of the main goals of the project was that all students used  numerous ICT tools
• The students investigated the benefits and risks of the Internet in a first phase
• In a second phase students worked in mixed nationality teams to create presentations on the services which are offered on the Internet using a wide range of tools
• Lastly, they investigated the use of these technologies in their own schools, using interviews with the teachers and questionnaires among the students

The project promoted safe surfing habits in the students, but has also widened the cultural horizons of the participants and allowed them to improve their written expression and reading comprehension in Spanish

Two very innovative collaborative projects in Spanish that combine innovation, collaboration, the use of numerous ICT and the improvement of language skills. Two very inspiring projects for any school.

Proyecto en la red que no te pesquen from martap