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My name is Erika Amatulli. I studied at The University of Milan from 2009 to 2015. The first cycle of my university studies consisted of a three-year bachelor program in Philosophy. In 2012 I earned a 1st level degree in Philosophy of Logic. The second cycle of my university studies consisted of a two-year master program in Philosophical Sciences. In 2015 I earned a 2nd level degree in History of Logic.  Furthermore, I studied piano at The Civica Scuola di Musica Claudio Abbado from 1996 to 2008, earning a Diploma in Music Theory and Solfeggio at The Conservatory of Trento “F.A. Bonporti” and passing the 5th year piano exam at The Conservatory of Genova, “Niccolo’ Paganini”.  From April to June 2016, in Milan (at “the Scuola secondaria di primo grado Moscati Mameli”), I had the opportunity to teach three children (two Chilean children who had just moved to Italy and one Chinese Child) Italian as a second language. I was a volunteer and, without any previous experience, I tryed to teach these three children the basics of Italian, helping them do their daily homework and improve their communication skills. Thanks to this first experience, I started to develop a strong interest in language education (how languages are learnt and taught).

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Since January 2017, I have developed a project addressed to 23 children of different ages (between 6 and 10 years old) who did not attend courses of Catholic Religion concerning ‘Interculture, Citizenship and Costitution’ in a Primary School near Milan (Istituto Comprensivo Mediglia). Furthermore, in the same school, I had the opportunity to work as a special ed teacher with two boys.

My project (“Citizenship and Costitution”) included five learning units, concerning different topics: “the History of the Self”, “Environmental Education”, “Nutritional Education” and “Road Safety Education”.
The content and the degree of detail was calibrated in accordance with children’s age, intercultural and linguistic competence.

Working with small groups of students and in a different classroom, I decided to use only my laptop.
My students can freely have access to it and use it for our purposes.
Finally, during the year, everyone can check his/her Learning Diary (our portfolio), constantly updated and personalized.

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Starter Activity: Photo Mosaic with course participants to celebrate cultural heritage

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Starter Activity: Photo Mosaic with course participants to celebrate cultural heritage

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Statue of Leonardo da Vinci (Pietro Magni, 1872). Milan, Piazza della Scala

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Statue of Leonardo da Vinci (Pietro Magni,1872). Milan, Piazza della Scala. - Copia

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3) First Module: The importance of being Language-aware

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3) First Module: The importance of being Language-aware

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So far I had the opportunity to develop a project addressed to 23 children of different ages (between 6 and 10 years old) who did not attend courses of Catholic Religion concerning ‘Interculture, Citizenship and Costitution’ in a Primary School near Milan. I could/can work with children who are mainly Italian dominant bilingual (born in Italy, able to speak Arabic at home but unable to read or write on Arabic) or arabic dominant bilingual (born in Italy, able to speak, write and read Arabic at home, able to speak, read and write Italian with a lot of difficulties) and children who had to start with the basics. The majority are from Egypt and Morocco, but I had one student from Ecuador and one student from China.
Considering the peculiar aspects of my project, I had to acknowledge the importance of being a language aware teacher. Language awareness is the first step to learn to communicate with students characterized by different social and cultural backgrounds. When the language spoken at school is completely different from the language spoken at home, children can experience a lot of difficulties not related to the specific subject that is taught, but to the unfamiliar language that is used to teach it.
A teacher who is not language aware is a teacher who is not aware of the fact that a language can become a real barrier that prevent the learner from reaching the real contents of his/her lessons. This misunderstanding can have a very negative effect: the strategies implemented by the teacher to help the learner won’t be effective because they won’t solve the learner's real problem (low linguistic proficiency).
I think that I was able to become a more language aware teacher, even though I know that I need to develop some aspects of my language awareness, especially considering all the activities linked to the assessment. Last June, during a course (programme of study), I discovered that all the tests I had designed were not completely suitable for the students who spoke Italian as a second language. They were not stratified and not “calibratable” in accordance with children’s age, intercultural and linguistic competence.

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When the language of schooling is completely different from the mother tongue, children can experience a lot of difficulties not related to the specific subject that is taught, but to the unfamiliar language that is used to teach it. For this reason the students can become discouraged or even lose their interest.  As I said, a teacher who is not language aware is a teacher who is not aware of the fact that a language can become a real barrier that prevent the learner from reaching the real contents of his/her lessons. This misunderstanding can have a very negative effect: the strategies implemented by the teacher to help the learner won’t be effective because they won’t solve his/her real problem (low linguistic proficiency).
Another important aspect is represented by the linguistic/cultural attitudes that can be conveyed by a teacher who is not language aware. In this case, the teacher tends not to assign an equal value to every language spoken by his/her students, giving priority or even a higher value to the language/ culture of his/her monolingual students (the majority). The children who speak two or three languages can perceive their teachers linguistic attitudes, reacting consistently.
During these two years, I observed that, in a monolingual atmosphere, children tend to avoid speaking their mother-tongue at school. They always use their second language in front of the other monolingual students, considering their first language as the language that can be spoken only at home or among the other students who share the same origin, culture and social condition.
In my opinion, a language aware teacher is a teacher who  acknowledges the beauty and the value of all the languages spoken by his/her students, allowing them to speak these languages in the classroom or even to teach them (maybe only some words).
Finally, a language aware teacher is a teacher who underlines the real benefits of language diversity: the opportunity to discover new cultures (ways of life, thinking and perceiving the world) through different languages (removing an important barrier to mobility) and the opportunity to reach a better linguistic awareness of the L1 through the L2.
Thinking about my experience, I remember two situations where greater language awareness would have helped me design the learning for my students. During the first and the second year, two children arrived, one from Morocco and one from Egypt. I could not speak arabic or french and these two children could not speak english or italian.  I would have liked to know their mother-tongues in order to communicate with them from the beginning! Luckily there were two egyptian students who became two perfect loyal translators and interpreters!! In that case, my conscious perception and sensitivity in language learning, teaching and use was not enough, I would have liked to have an explicit knowledge about the language (mother tongues) spoken by these two great and courageous students.

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5) First Module: Get started with Language Awareness

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5) First Module: Get started with Language Awareness

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Thinking about the first activity I did with my students (divided into small groups) at the beginning of this year, I decided to implement a creative activity. I prepared 100 images (photographs) representing very different children’s games, past and present games. I allowed every child to choose just one photo according to his/her taste. Afer that, I asked to provide a title and a short description of it (period of the year, place, number of the children involved, the name of the game, related feelings, explanation of the choice connected with the student’s tastes and memories).
It was just a funny semiotic activity in order to get to know the new students and to engage the students I had already known.  It worked at every level because I could calibrate this activity in accordance with children’s age, intercultural and linguistic competence.  During the second activity I asked the children to present themselves and their relatives in order to understand or to remember my students’ origins and their social/linguistic/cultural background. The students who were seven years old were allowed to write this presentation using their mother tongue (arabic), especially to write their names and their relatives’ names.
Finally, I asked the older kids (8-9-10 years old) to write a short autobiography or to realize a short interview involving two schoolmates (one female and one male) in order to complete their biography. Also this activity worked very well. If I had had more time, I would have liked to realize some big posters, like two years ago. I had asked my students to provide different recipes from their countries and to report them using their first and their second languages. It was one of the most effective, colourful and appreciated activities I did during that first year.  Finally, I would like to hang on the wall a big world map, near a big poster presenting the different words used to greet in different languages (especially the languages spoken by my students).

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One of the effects of globalization is expressed by the development of multilingual and multiethnic societies. A necessary tool for communication within this kind of societies is represented by the language competences. Of course, this dimension can be related to language awareness.
Thinking about the concept “European Citizenship”, the linguistic proficiency in at least two/three languages seems to become a necessary requirement. Defining language awareness as “the explicit knowledge about language and conscious perception and sensitivity in language learning, teaching and use”, it is clear that people who can prove their bilingualism or their linguistic competences (knowledge of a second/third language with a high level of proficiency) tend to be language aware too. They experience a lot of benefits: for example, the opportunity to discover new cultures (ways of life, thinking and perceiving the world) through different languages (removing an important barrier to mobility), the opportunity to reach a better linguistic awareness of their L1 through the L2, the opportunity to progress in their career.
Even though the meaning of language awareness is different from the meaning of language competence (a person can prove his/her language competence without being language aware), I really think that a deep knowledge of many languages underpins and creates the real conditions of a strong language awareness. A person who knows many languages, spontaneously, tends to look for and to identify a common underlying proficiency (Iceberg Metaphor) which is acknowledged as the key aspect of the language awareness.

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7) Second module: Linguistic diversity and bilingualism. Reflect on your own practice and decide to what extent you are already following Dina’s advice

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7) Second module: Linguistic diversity and bilingualism. Reflect on your own practice and decide to what extent you are already following Dina’s advice

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I really appreciated Dina’s advice. It’s really important to develop reflective teaching practices.
Do my curriculum reflect the learners’ linguistic and cultural richness?
In order to answer to this question truthfully, I have to identify two different levels: the level of my superficial explicit  linguistic attitudes (positive) and the level of my teaching practices (negative).
Considering the first level (linguistic attitudes), I acknowledge the beauty and the value of all the languages spoken by my students, allowing them to speak these languages in the classroom.
With my students, I underline the real benefits of language diversity: the opportunity to discover new cultures (ways of life, thinking and perceiving the world) through different languages (removing an important barrier to mobility) and I really encourage them to study many other languages!.
Considering the second level (my teaching practices), I really need to improve it. So far, I used to teach using only my mother tongue, without without encouraging my students to make comparisons between the languages they know and master quite well (in order to develop their metalinguistic competence).
Anyway, I know that I haven’t developed all the aspects of my language awareness yet, especially considering all the activities linked to the assessment.
Last June, during a short course, I discovered that all the tests I had designed were not completely suitable for the students who were not born in Italy. They were not stratified and not “calibratable” in accordance with children’s age, intercultural and linguistic competence.
Luckily, joining this course I am discovering a lot of new activities  I can easily prepare and introduce in my curriculum. I am always happy when I have the opportunity to integrate new teaching strategies within my lessons, especially when they are meaningful and necessary.
Thanks!.

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8) Second Module: The benefits of embracing linguistic diversity.Do you agree with Nell's analysis? What other benefits do you see? But also what challenges/downsides would you highlight and how could these be addressed? Share your reflections. 

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8) Second Module: The benefits of embracing linguistic diversity.Do you agree with Nell's analysis? What other benefits do you see? But also what challenges/downsides would you highlight and how could these be addressed? Share your reflections. 

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I completely agree with Nell’s analysis.

The cognitive and the cultural benefits of a multilingual classroom are evident.
Considering the cognitive level, bilingual/multilingual children have high levels of linguistic competence, they focus better on their tasks avoiding irrelevant distractions, they can gain new metalinguistic skills and develop their abstract thinking. Learning a new language or some of its aspects always requires a cooperative and supportive attitude.

Considering the cultural level, multilingual/bilingual children have the opportunity to discover new cultures (ways of life, thinking and perceiving the world) through the knowledge of different languages.
In the long run, while an important barrier (the lack of linguistic competence) to mobility is removed, future work oppurtunities increase.

For this reason, nowadays, encouraging bilingualism and multilingualism has to be considered as a teacher’s duty.

Furthermore, as underlined by Nell Foster, in a multilingual classroom teachers (who do not master all their pupils’ languages) are forced to switch their roles with their students.

Making comparisons between the languages they already know, kids and teenagers can start explaining/ teaching some aspects of their languages understanding these elements in a better way, developing their metalinguistc competence and a sense of ownership.

Thinking about the challenges, I experienced two different difficulties:
One day, some of my Moroccan students were talking to each other using their mother tongue (they were drawing). I was very happy to listen to them, but when I asked them to translate what they were saying, they started laughing without replying. Maybe it was just a secret, but I experienced a feeling of confusion and exclusion...

The second difficulty is related to some of my students’ sense of shame. During these two years, I observed that, in a monolingual atmosphere, some Arabic dominant bilingual children tend to avoid speaking their mother-tongue at school, they really do not want to speak it. They always use their second language in front of the other monolingual students, considering their first language as the language that can be spoken only at home or among the other students who share the same origin, culture and social condition.

Certainly, this phenomenon is related to negative linguistic attitudes, strengthened by the monolingual environment where the children are immersed. In this case, i do not force them to speak their language, but I try to convince them that their mother tongue has to be seen as a beautiful resource, as a strenght,  not as a weakness.

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9) Second module: Establishing a classroom environment that embraces linguistic diversity.

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9) Second module: Establishing a classroom environment that embraces linguistic diversity.

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Reflect on if and how you can implement Nell’s ideas and what you would see as the main challenges for yourself and your context.

I really appreciated Nell’s ideas in order to establish a classroom environment that embraces linguistic diversity.

All my students know that they are allowed to speak all the languages they know in the classroom.

Thinking about the activities described by Nell, in some few cases I adopted similar strategies:

-Two years ago I asked three students (a Syrian boy, an Egyptian boy and an Ecuadorian girl), who were nine years old and who were Italian dominant bilingual (the boys)/Spanish dominant bilingual (the girl), to bring a recipe of a typical traditional dish of their homelands. They did their homework, but all of them decided to write it in Italian! I made a mistake, because I did not ask them to rewrite it using the other languages they knew, anyway..we made a beautiful and colourful poster that included all the recipes.

-Two years ago I asked two girls who were Arabic dominant bilingual (an Egyptian girl and a Moroccan girl) and who were nine years old to translate a short poem using their mother tongues.
They did it and they prepared two beautiful drawings related to the poem.
It was a wonderful experience and I want to repeat it, absolutely!.

-Last year I asked one Moroccan student (an Italian dominant bilingual girl), who was seven years old and who was learning to write and to read Arabic (attending the Arabic School in Milan), to teach me how to pronounce the numbers from 1 to 10 in Arabic.  I remember that we laughed a lot because my pronunciation was horrible and I tended to forget what i had just learnt.
-Two weeks ago, after reading a fragment taken from the Sepulveda’s book “The Story of a Seagull and the Cat who taught her to fly”, I convinced the same student to make a drawing, using the programme Paint. She wrote the word “cat” using all the languages she wanted. She chose six languages: Arabic, Italian, French, English, Chinese and Russian. It was a successful activity!.

Finally, last week, I persuaded all my students to prepare a poster where everyone had to write one of the Key-Words learnt during the Project “Citizenship and Costitution”. All the words had to be written using all the languages my pupils know. uring the activity, all the children seemed quite excited and happy.

Thinking about Nell’s suggestions, even though I prepared few multilingual creative projects, I recognize that

-          I have never provided texts in many languages.

-          I have never allowed my students to prepare a project using all the languages they know (supporting interactions among people who speak the same language)

-          I have never asked my students to make comparisons between the languages they know or to reflect about the peculiarity of their linguistic mistakes.

These are certainly weaknesses I have to face.

The main challenges might be related to the sense of shame some of my Arabic students experience considering the use of their mother tongue at school (negative linguistic attitudes connected with the monolingual environment where my pupils are immersed) and some difficulties related to my students' lack of proficiency (especially taking into consideration their writing and reading skills) in Arabic. Anyway, when I hear my students speaking to each other using their mother tongue, I am always very proud of them (and they know that :-) )!.

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10) Second module: Implementing classroom activities What other classroom activities which embed linguistic diversity can you think of ? Do you have experiences with some of the examples Nell has shared ? If so, what’s your feedback on them ? Share your activity ideas and reflections.

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10) Second module: Implementing classroom activities What other classroom activities which embed linguistic diversity can you think of ? Do you have experiences with some of the examples Nell has shared ? If so, what’s your feedback on them ? Share your activity ideas and reflections.

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As I wrote in the previous comment, during these two years, I implemented a few activities (multilingual creative projects) very similar to the activities shared by Nell.

-Two years ago I asked three students (a Syrian boy, an Egyptian boy and an Ecuadorian girl), who were nine years old and who were Italian dominant bilingual (the boys)/Spanish dominant bilingual (the girl), to bring a recipe of a specific food of their homelands. They did their homework, but all of them decided to write it in Italian! I made a mistake, because I did not ask them to rewrite it using the other languages they knew, anyway..we made a beautiful and colourful poster that included all the recipes.

-Two years ago I asked two girls who were Arabic dominant bilingual (an Egyptian girl and a Moroccan girl) and who were nine years old to translate a short poem using their mother tongues.
They did it and they prepared two beautiful drawings related to the poem.
It was a wonderful experience and I want to repeat it with many more students, absolutely!.

-Last year I asked one Moroccan student (an Italian dominant bilingual girl), who was seven years old and who was learning to write and to read Arabic (attending the Arabic School in Milan), to teach me how to pronounce the numbers from 1 to 10 in Arabic.  I remember that we laughed a lot because my pronunciation was horrible and I tended to forget what i had just learnt.
-Two weeks ago, after reading a fragment taken from the Sepulveda’s book “The Story of a Seagull and the Cat who taught her to fly”, I convinced the same student to make a drawing, using the programme Paint. She wrote the word “cat” using all the languages she wanted. She chose six languages: Arabic, Italian, French, English, Chinese and Russian. It was a successful activity!.

Finally, last week, I persuaded all my students to prepare a poster where everyone had to write one of the Key-Words learnt during the Project “Citizenship and Costitution”. All the words had to be written using all the languages my pupils know. We haven’t finished the poster yet, but, during the activity, all the children seemed quite excited and happy.

Considering the other suggestions provided by Nell, I intend to design a new project:
Different groups of students will have to carry out research on a specific topic using all the languages they know.

As Nell said, this kind of activity should promote the use of the mother tongues spoken by the students as a real didactic resource. Furthermore it should support interactions and cooperation among students who speak the same language.

Finally, in order to improve my students’ memory and metalinguistic competence I will go on asking children to make comparisons between the languages they already know and to reflect about the peculiarity of their linguist mistakes.

The comparisons will concern the key words or particular expressions my students will learn within the project Citizenship and Costitution.
To accomplish these tasks they will be able to use all the translation programmes they want.

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11) Third Module: Do you already have experience with CLIL activities? If so, what works well and, what works less well? If you are new to CLIL, can you imagine using it in your lessons? What would be your main concerns?

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11) Third Module: Do you already have experience with CLIL activities? If so, what works well and, what works less well? If you are new to CLIL, can you imagine using it in your lessons? What would be your main concerns?

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I do not have experience with CLIL activities.  As I said, during these three years, I developed a project called “Citizenship and Costitution” [addressed to 23 children of different ages (between 6 and 10 years old) who did not attend courses of Catholic Religion] whose topics were defined by the Primary Teachers of the School where I work. It does not imply CLIL activities.

If I were a Primary Teacher I really would like to promote Content and Language Integrated Learning in my lessons. I think that, in this case, I would choose a topic and a goal for every group of students who do not attend courses of Catholic Religion within the topics of the Projects defined by the Primary Teachers. I would make explicit the necessary vocabulary, I would plan the whole lesson, choosing coherently two or three activities. I would like to use some visuals too.
Finally, in order to assess my students, I would create some quizzes.

If I had a real opportunity to plan a CLIL activty, I would like to start with one of the largest groups of students I have to teach to this year. It is represented by 9 children who are 10 years old: four Moroccan children (two boys and two girls), two Egyptian children (one boy and one girl), one Italian girl, one Chinese girl and one Romanian girl. Considering the Project, one of the Units I have to consider with them this year is referred to “Environmental Education” in particular, within this Unit, the topic “Water-pollution” has the main relevance. I would love to create a CLIL activity connected with this topic.

My main concerns would probably be related to the first stage of my Planning, concerning the choice of the necessary vocabulary and sentences whose understanding and memorisation might result too difficult for some students. I know the huge difficulties my students and many of their classmates experience in English..
From one hand, I know a CLIL activity could help them to face and overcome these difficulties (encouraging them to learn a topic and its coherent vocabulary using this language), from the other hand, in some cases, for some pupils, working on multiple levels simultaneously and autonomously might become extremely difficult. Anyway, also these students might take advantage of CLIL, learning important competences (cooperation), developing creativity, critical thinking and problem solving.

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12) Third Module: What do you see as potential difficulties and challenges of a CLIL approach? 

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12) Third Module: What do you see as potential difficulties and challenges of a CLIL approach? 

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From my perspective, taking the linguistic proficiency into account, some potential difficulties of a CLIL approach might concern the different levels that characterize all the different students of a single classroom.

Implementing all his/her CLIL activities, a teacher decides what kind of material he/she intends to create/to find and to provide, what kind of vocabulary and specific sentences intends to present. Doing that, she/he has a specific level of linguistic proficiency in mind. This level might be the level of some pupils, but not of all the pupils. Furthermore the expressions or the structures a teacher usually adopts must be functional (communicative strategy) and can be completely new, in other words, not related to the structures or expressions previously taught. For this reason they might not be immediately understandable/easy to memorize for all the students.
I know that someone might object that the best ways a student has to overcome his/her own difficulties (in a language or in a subject) remain cooperation, involvement, motivation and dialogue and that these elements are certainly promoted by CLIL activities (all of them have a crucial role).
Anyway, I think it’s really important to be sure that all the resources given to our students can be effectively accessible. Sometimes I become aware of the fact that an activity that I thought to be adaptable for all of my students turns out to be extremely difficult for some of them, these students can work with others very well, but they find a lot of difficulties when they are asked to reflect and to focus on their task individually.
Finally, it's vital to develop activities that take into consideration all the aspects implied by the linguistic competence (writing, speaking, listening and reading), giving to them the same importance.

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13) Third Module: Unleash your creativity, reflect on a possible CLIL activity to do with your students.

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13) Third Module: Unleash your creativity, reflect on a possible CLIL activity to do with your students.

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I do not have experience with CLIL activities.  As I said, during these three years, I developed a project called “Citizenship and Costitution” [addressed to 23 children of different ages (between 6 and 10 years old) who did not attend courses of Catholic Religion] whose topics were defined by the Primary Teachers of the School where I work. It does not imply CLIL activities.
I am recfleting on a possible CLIL activity related to the topic (learning unit) “The Ancient Egyptians” and addressed to 9/10-year-old students. The titles of the sections of the learning unit I would like to focus on would be “The Ancient Egyptian writing system”.
I would prepare a short introduction, a PPT presentation made of two slides (“Hieroglyphics” and “The Rosetta Stone”) plus a youtube video https://youtu.be/WIjREbbFjNE in order to underline the relevant vocabulary associated with the topic, then I would present four following activities:

-A short quiz in order to use the new relevant vocabulary (I would use Wordwall), followed by questions made by the teacher to different students (in order to elicit individual answers).

-A short coding game (found on Pinterest, but modified by me): students have to decipher a short message using our alphabet, considering two other different codes simultaneously.

-Preparation of an “ancient papyrus leaf” using vinyl glue, gauze, vinyl glue plus coffee.
Example :
YouTube video link: https://youtu.be/LWZx1mqtS1c

-Choice and reproduction of Hieroglyphics with their meaning on a piece of paper, followed by a short individual presentation of the artwork.

Finally, considering the Evaluation, every student should compile a self-assessment form (I would use Rubistar).

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14) Third Module: List of resources and tools for CLIL. Let’s add resources and tools and share any experiences you already had with them.

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14) Third Module: List of resources and tools for CLIL. Let’s add resources and tools and share any experiences you already had with them.

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I would like to thank you for the useful tools and resources that were presented. I did not know many of them and I really hope to use some of them in the future, especially Popplet, Wordwall and LearningApps.org recommended by Letizia Cingarotto.
Last year, during a training course addressed to teachers who work with students affected by specific learning impairments, I had the opportunity to design a whole learning unit (implementable during the second year in a First-Grade Secondary School) using some useful tools and learning apps. The subject I chose was English and the title of my Learning Unit was “A jump in the Middle Ages”. In order to prepare my lesson (planning), I used the digital format of an English textbook (provided by a Secondary School teacher), Power Point/Nearpod and Cmap, in order to implement my activities I used Nearpod and Kahoot!, and, in order to increase the visual aspects of my unit, I added two short videos from Youtube and Thinglink. Furthermore, in order to assess my possible students, I prepared a short test using Quizlet.

Finally, working in a Primary school, I am familiar with Drive, Google Classroom, Padlet, Pinterest and Scratch. At the beginning of this year, I decided to prepare a small semiotic game consisting of two small quizzes, in particular, I used Canva and Nearpod.
All the children were asked to identify and to describe (in different ways, according to the age) the activities that were represented by three Flashcards selected from a large group of 100 Flashcards (!). After that all the children were asked to answer to some questions (true/false, multiple choice/open questions) related to the images I had prepared at home using Nearpod. My students really loved this activity!. In the future, I hope to have time to prepare other quizzes, using the new tools I discovered today.

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15) Third Module (Voluntary Activity): Creating a Kahoot game for using CLIL in the classroom

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15) Third Module (Voluntary Activity): Creating a Kahoot game for using CLIL in the classroom

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1)  Which is the meaning of the “Four Cs” that must characterize a CLIL Lesson       (It was explained by the Professor Coyle’s model)?.

A) Content, Context, Creativity, Culture

B) Content, Communication, Cognition, Culture

C)Content, Context, Communication, Creativity.

2) It is not possible to create a flipping CLIL

A)     True                 B) False

3) In order to prepare quizzes you can use

A)  Quizlet and Wordwall

B)  Wordwall, Popplet, Kahoot!

C) Quzlet, Wordwall, Rubistar

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Prepare your own Language Passport

To get a better feel for this type of activity, prepare your own language passport and share it with your course peers by uploading it to the Padlet below. You will hopefully notice how the activity enhances your own language awareness.

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17) Fourth Module:Students not allowed to use their home languages in the classroom.In the video, Kaoutar tells of her own experience when she was not allowed to use her home language in the classroom. Have you experienced a similar situation, or do you know anyone who has? How do you think these situations could be avoided?

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17) Fourth Module:Students not allowed to use their home languages in the classroom.In the video, Kaoutar tells of her own experience when she was not allowed to use her home language in the classroom. Have you experienced a similar situation, or do you know anyone who has? How do you think these situations could be avoided?

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Personally, I have never experienced a similar situation, but I can talk about my father’s childhood. Of course, my father was Italian, but, when he was four years old, his family (six children + their parents) emigrated from Southern Italy to Northern Italy.

My father’s family was quite poor; my grandmother did not work and my grandfather was just a male nurse who worked many hours every day. Futhermore, my grandparents’ education level was quite low… my grandmother loved to read, to write and to tell wonderful stories, mixing freely the Italian language and her dialect.

When my father was a child and started attending his primary school, he could only use Italian; every dialect was strictly forbidden. The Southern Dialects, even the Southern strong accents, were  condemned by the teachers and judged negatively. They were considered as a distinguishing mark that, in general, revealed a low and problematic socio-economic situation.
At school, my father often felt ashamed and embarrassed, he did not like his teachers at all.

From the beginning, his story taught me that, as teachers, we need to allow our students to use their languages or dialects in the classroom without judging them. The knowledge of another language/other languages has to be acknowledged, valorized (especially at school) and considered as an advantage, a real strenght.

From one hand, It is important to promote a multilingual environment and to develop language/cultural awareness, from the other hand, it is vital to explicit the weaknesses and the limits that characterize a monolingual environment. From my perspective, the next step should be represented by the official use of these beautiful languages in real tasks, school exercises and tests.
Creating a multilingual dictionary is an amazing idea!

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18) Fourth Unit: Choose the EEL project.Choose the EEL project that you liked the most and add the link to the project, explaining why you like this project and why you think this project could benefit your students.

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18) Fourth Unit: Choose the EEL project.Choose the EEL project that you liked the most and add the link to the project, explaining why you like this project and why you think this project could benefit your students.

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http://www.water-in-our-lives.eu/start/

I really liked this project because it is related to an essential topic, “Water”, that plays a relevant role within one of the Learning Units, Environmental Education, I have to prepare every year (in particular, water pollution and water wastage). This is one of the Units included in the project “Citizenship and Constitution” (addressed to 23 children of different ages [6-10], who do not attend courses of Catholic Religion) I could develop in a Primary School near Milan where I have worked since 2016.

The evident link between my actual project and this project is the first reason why I decided to choose this topic. The second reason is represented by the large number of target Languages (8) that characterizes this project (among them there is also Irish [Gaelic]!), an effective sign of its multilingual context. The third reason is represented by its multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary aspects, as well as, its ideal focus (Europe). Finally the fourth reason is represented by the final real outcome of the project “a Water audio dictionary” that could benefit my students in many ways.

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19) My Learning Scenario [PDF Format] (+ my Lesson plan [link] done with the Learning Designer).

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19) My Learning Scenario [PDF Format] (+ my Lesson plan [link] done with the Learning Designer).