# data[].attributes.headline
Experimenting translation in my CLIL lessons 

# data[].attributes.subject
Experimenting translation in my CLIL lessons 

# data[].attributes.body
In a third class the subject teacher prepared and gave me summaries in Italian of some relevant content areas students needed to learn in English. I just wanted to experiment translation of those papers as a starting point for my new module. This way the students could have an idea of what the subject content was about before shifting to authentic material and at the same time they could be involved in something they had never done before.

I know translation from L1 to L2 as an activity to use in the class is still an open controversial issue and in a communicative approach is rarely mentioned or even banned.

However now I think that if you use it “to learn English and not to learn translation”, it can be valuable and motivating.

I divided the class into groups of three and I gave each of them one of the papers prepared by the subject teacher to be translated into English.

We started the work in class and I gave them instructions about what and especially how to carry out the task and how to look up the right meaning of words in the dictionary. Then, as it’s quite a time-consuming activity I asked them to do part of it at home, even a piece each if it was impossible for them to meet all together.

We have not finished the work yet but I have noticed that the reaction of the students was positive for different reasons.

What students do during a translation activity

·       There are always students who can help the others as they have more verbal- linguistic abilities

·       They enjoy their work because I let them use their mobile phone to consult the online dictionary

·       They ask a lot of help- questions about how to organize ideas and sentences.( I admit most of them ask for explanations in Italian, but others like talking English and after repeating more than once “not in Italian, in English please” even the laziest ones try to do it)

·       Working in groups they discuss the use of language and possible choices or solutions

·        the students practice not just reading and writing but also speaking and listening

·       They learn to be flexible, clear and accurate while choosing the right word, the right sentence structure

·       They understand the complexity, difficulty, differences and similarities between the two languages

·       They create their glossary or mini-dictionary of specialized vocabulary

·       They send their work to the teacher by e-mail to be revisited and corrected

·       They have to develop a power point presentation of their translation- work and report to the whole class

·       They search on websites for similar readings on the same topic and can understand, compare and extend their knowledge of the content with more confidence and critical thought

What I think we teachers should do to make the activity of translation a positive learning activity:

·       To be sure the source- material is accessible to the students’ linguistic and cognitive level

·       To maintain the activity motivating through the use of group-work, questions and dictionary available

·       To regroup the students so that they can review, compare, discuss and correct the different parts and connect everything into a full text

·       To explain to the students the purpose of their work and showing them a practical goal

·       To support, guide and monitor their learning activity

My opinion is that you can use translation activity in CLIL lessons as long as it is just one of the many and it is not an end in itself

# data[].attributes.body
This session made me think about the” problem “of content. CLIL without subject content is not CLIL of course and authentic material is a “ must”. As the CLIL priority is to satisfy the demands of the subject-content curriculum, the subject teacher and the English teacher have to choose attentively which area to be taught, so as to ensure that the learning is as deep as it would be if the subject were taught by the subject teacher in Italian. I mean it’s not an easy thing!!

The subject teacher wants to use time more efficiently and to present some areas, completely new for the students, directly into the second language. I have meditated upon the different factors which must be considered in the selection:

1.    The language proficiency of the learners

2.    The background knowledge of the learners

3.    The excessive cognitive load. You can’t blow the students’ brain with too much information

4.    The complexity and extent of the content area

5.    The quality of the material to help build the students’ sense of confidence both with language and content

6.    The richness and variety of the materials (not just reading texts)  to elicit motivation and satisfy different learning styles

7.     The choice of materials that permits to cover all language skills and help achieve communication objectives

8.    The clear organization of the texts not to discourage the students

9.    The selection of materials which promote creative thinking, critical thought, discussion and autonomy

10.The selection of materials which leave space to construct their own knowledge and understanding of the content

11.The language of and for learning the students need to know

12.The tasks students will do and how to guide them

13.The use of questions developing with a right balance lower and higher order thinking skills

14. To mediate the difficulty of the material without simplifying too much. Students must realize that they are making progress and learning new things

# data[].attributes.body
Context

Subject: Enology

Topic: how to work in a wine cellar

Number of students: 18 (5th class)

Description: The students have to examine and determine all the parts of a wine cellar, understand and explain the uses of the different kinds of equipment and tools for the wine-making process, investigate the importance of the Enologist and lab analysis, distinguish the characteristics of different wines and know how to organize a wine tasting for the promotion and selling.

Aim

To guide the students to the organization and management of a wine cellar as part of their sector of specialization in Enology and Viticulture

Outcomes
-      To create a short guidebook for the visitors who want to know about our school cellar and our products.

-      To construct a presentation in Power Point to illustrate how a winery works and what tasks are required.

-      To give group feedback about  their own and the other groups' work progress

Teaching-Learning activities

In Class: organization of work

Discuss                    15 minutes   3 students    Tutor is available

First step: the students divide themselves in 6 groups paying attention to the fact that in each one there is a tutor, it means someone more able in the language.

Discuss                    15 minutes   3 students    Tutor is available

Second Step: each group decides which aspect of the topic to deal with and then they refer to the class. Each group has to prepare a spidergram showing the points they intend to develop.

Collaborate              30 minutes   3 students    Tutor is available

Third Step: Each group has to prepare a spidergram showing the points they intend to develop.

In Class: discuss the organization of work

Investigate               40 minutes   3 students    Tutor is available

First step: each group illustrates on the keyboard the points they want to deveolp substantiating why they think they are relevant.

Discuss                    20 minutes   3 students    Tutor is available

Class discussion about possible changes or improvements to what chosen by each group. The teacher helps them to guide the discussion so that as many students as possible contribute to the interaction.

At home

Investigate               60 minutes   1 student     Tutor is not available

Students are required to look for material to start their work. Inside each group they share tasks: one/two points each, they have to get information from the enology teacher, the Enology book, the staff in charge of the school wine cellar, from the Internet (the material found on-line must be in English and printed out for the following lesson. The teacher gives the students some websites and a mini-dictionary about wine vocabulary).

In class: They start producing material

Read Watch Listen    20 minutes   3 students    Tutor is available

Each group starts working on the material they have found. They read, select and write down notes.

Collaborate              25 minutes   3 students    Tutor is available

In groups they have to agree about how to organize their information in a clear and attractive way to create their part of the final product (the guidebook of the school cellar).

Practice                   20 minutes   18 students  Tutor is available

One or two people from each group refer to the classroom what they have done so far.

At home

Produce                   60 minutes   1 student     Tutor is not available

As the students can't work in groups at home because they live in different towns, each member has decided to carry out a part of the work on his own to complete for the next lesson when each group will review the whole aspect of the topic.

In class

Read Watch Listen    30 minutes   18 students  Tutor is available

The teacher starts the lesson with a listening activity. It's about a guided tour of a winery in which the owner explains to a group of visitors the organization of its own cellar, the activities they carry out and the quality wines they produce. While listening the students have to complete a close test and answer some key-questions.

Collaborate              30 minutes   3 students    Tutor is available

The groups put all the parts together and review what each student has done at home.

In the school cellar

Practice                   60 minutes   3 students    Tutor is available

Most of the students know the school cellar because they often go there with the teacher of Enology. They have also done their Summer internship in local wineries and experienced different cellar work environment. Each group illustrates their own part of the work orally as they were guides. Moreover, they suggest at least two possible improvements or solutions to make the cellar more functional and estimate to what extent it satisfies the market demands. Some short videos and photos are made.

At home

Produce                   10 minutes   3 students    Tutor is not available

The students send me their written work by email so that I can correct it or give some advice to organize it better.

In Class

Collaborate              60 minutes   3 students    Tutor is available

Each group look at the other groups' work sharing it through GOOGLE DRIVE, their own mobile phones or tablets. The teacher has prepared an Assessment Grid through which they express their opinions about the 5 products, pointing out weaknesses and strenghts.

In Class

Collaborate              60 minutes   3 students    Tutor is available

Each group has to adapt and construct the slides in power point choosing and combining photos, videos and written parts to add.

At home

Produce                   60 minutes   3 students    Tutor is available

The students review the whole work taking care of the layout.  They print everything.

In class: final work

Collaborate              45 minutes   18 students  Tutor is available

The students collect the 6 parts and put them together binding them in a whole guidebook.

Discuss                    15 minutes   3 students    Tutor is available

The teacher gives each group the results that come out from the teacher's rubric in which 4 points are considered:

1)   If the tasks given were completed properly (amount of information, organization of ideas, fluency, accuracy)

2)   To what extent there was mutual help in each group

3)   If each student in the group was punctual and autonomous in his/her work

If the different roles assigned to each student during the lessons have been satisfactory in terms of performance (during the different phases of the project, the students exchanged their roles as leader, reporter, organizer)

# data[].attributes.body
I keep this file here,  useful in any planning action!

# data[].attributes.body
I thought of planning a Module in which students are involved in active exploration of experience and are encouraged to reflect and exercise to be more independent from their teachers.
I wondered: "As each learner has his/her own learning style, if I make them work together maybe there are more pros than cons!"

They can share their different abilities, ideas, difficulties

They become more autonomus and flexible to various learning situations

They set their own goals

They take responsibility for their own learning

They are more active in their approach

They learn from problems and not just from the subject

From "Learning by doing" by G. Gibbs

# data[].attributes.body
A lot of material given in session 3 to reflect on, hard work to read everything, really challenging and useful!!!
This is the first time I have been writing a journal and I start to understand that it helps me to develop and do better next time. It encourages me to move on to planning something new for my following classes.
We teachers don't tend to observe and reflect on our own teaching. Evaluating our teaching lesson and our performance is often difficult.
In my opinion, the diagram below (from "Learning by doing" by G. Gibbs.) explains clearly what I should do as a teacher, especially for CLIL lessons.
To organize a CLIL lesson there's no text book, just content through language. I see it as a sort of "experimental" teaching and learning at the same time.

# data[].attributes.body
Lesson Plan

# data[].attributes.body
Collaborative teaching and learning online course

While doing an online course about cooperative learning I found a simple example to reflect and design my own collaborative lesson plan, which in my opinion can be useful to organize a CLIL module where students work together and interact during the whole learning process. I kept it in mind while doing a lesson with my students and it worked!

A CLIL lesson to enhance collaborative learning

Seven phases are shown :

Dream- students can brainstorm, think freely and share ideas  Ex.I divided a 4th class in 6 groups of 3 and I asked them to think about the relationships between animal husbandry and human welfare. In  every group the members had to exchange their roles during the various phases (leader, organizer, reporter) so that each of them could learn to give his/her own different contribution to the others

Explore-students collect information about the topic Ex- I gave each group a reading text about animal husbandry and I asked them to find in it all the ways in which farm animals contribute to humans’ wellbeing.

Map-students structure their thoughts and ideas and try to understand how they are related. Ex. Now I asked the students to compare the points they found on their own and the ones in the text.

Make-the students develop and create a product or practice an activity. Ex.The students prepared a chart listing all the benefits of farm animals to human beings and the reason why. In the third column they had to add three negative effects on humans that they thought could come from the wrong or intensive management of a livestock farm. They had to prepare 3 questions to ask the subject teacher in order to have the confirmation of what they wrote. The subject teacher answered in Italian while the English teacher wrote the main points on the blackboard.

Ask-the students interview experts and stakeholders. Ex. As this was a very simple activity, each group was required to ask at least 2 questions to the subject teacher to know more about the negative effects of industrial animal farming methods on humans and the environment they live in.

Remake-The students replan and revisit their product on the basis of the feedback or further information they received. Ex. The students added the information given by the teacher and corrected/confirmed/reconstructed their personal work.

Show- students publish or present the result of their work. Ex. A student in the group explained what observations had come out from their work. Besides each group handed in their written paper to the teachers.

I gave each group a very short assessment grid to express their opinions about the other groups’ work considering 4 points:

1.    Amount of information and explanations given

2.   Content correctness of information and explanations

3.   Efficacy of communication

4.   Level of interesting observations

The rate of evaluation was: very good, good, enough, not enough.

Each group was asked to motivate at least one of the answers.

The following lesson we watched the  documentary “ Food. inc”(in English with English subtitles) that shows the differences between Intensive farming systems and sustainable ones in the USA. I prepared and gave them a photocopy listing the main issues faced in the video. While watching they had to put the concepts in order and to make comparisons with the ones they found during their group activities.

# data[].attributes.body
I think this page is useful to keep in mind how to behave during a CLIL lesson.

# data[].attributes.body
This is a precious tool to use when planning CLIL lessons

# data[].attributes.body
Session 2 of the course has really been full of interesting points to reflect on. Why?

Because I had never thought to organize so attentively a lesson plan in advance considering all the different aspects that teaching CLIL implies.

What I mean is that if you have a clear idea of what you want to do with   your class you can save time, go on smoothly during the lesson, the students  understand better your inputs and it’s easier for you to assess their performance. Of course it requires a lot of thinking before as I realize it’s not just the content in itself which matters but how you  should teach it and especially how much you involve all the students in the learning process. After the session the following days before organizing the assignment our Clil expert gave us, I asked myself several How- questions: how to motivate the classroom, how to develop higher thinking skills, how to enhance collaboration  and constructive participation, how to help the students, especially the weakest ones.

In my job as a teacher I have always believed that the more positive results you get from all the students ,the more you feel gratified. It’s not difficult to teach “ the brightest ones” but it’s extremely hard, sometimes discouraging to teach the ………….ones.

Assessment given by our CLIL expert Mrs Kelly Manuela Calzini

# data[].attributes.headline
The importance of a reflective learning journal

# data[].attributes.subject
The importance of a reflective learning journal

# data[].attributes.body
On the Internet I found this quote by Graham Gibbs:

"It is not sufficient to have an experience in order to learn. Without refecting on this experience it may quickly be forgotten, or its learning potential lost." (Gibbs, 1988)

# data[].attributes.body
The first session of the course made me reflect above how I teach CLIL and what I have to do to improve my work with the students especially in terms of motivation, autonomous learning and creativity. I thought about my lessons and I asked to myself”

·       Will my students be satisfied with what and how I teach them Clil?

·        How can both the students and I enjoy such lessons without being frustrated by boring readings or explanations and sometimes poor/ monotonous performances?

·       What are the advantages of spending long hours at home preparing all that stuff?

I shared these points with my students of the fifth class some days later, first giving them a simple questionnaire , then elaborating  and discussing with them the results.

Here’s the questionnaire

# data[].attributes.body
The school I work in is “ISIS A. Vegni” an Agrarian/Agricultural school (I never know how to say that) and I teach students specializing in the Enology/Viticulture sector. I have five classes from the first to the fifth. Class sizes range from 19 to 23 and some pupils stay in the boarding school the whole week. It’s a beautiful school with a lot of green areas and labs.

I’m really interested in this CLIL course and I find it very useful and motivating as I teach CLIL in a third, a forth and a fifth class. In the third class the subject is Agronomy, in the forth Animal Husbandry and in the fifth Enology.

My CLIL approach started three years ago as a project for the students of the last years. I knew very little about CLIL, I had just read the Ministerial Guidelines. Since it was just my adventure and nobody else contributed to it, I had to look for material, organize it and prepare everything myself. “How to start?” – I thought – “Well, my students are the experts in the subject, we will construct the lessons together”

I noticed that doing activities related to their main subject content, they were more participative, even the weakest ones because most of them liked to intervene giving explanation or finding information, especially of the things they had done practically with their subject teacher such as Lab experiments, wine-making processes in the wine cellar, farming practices in the vineyard, grape vine diseases, etc.

Most of the lessons were enjoyable. I learnt a lot from them and they learnt how to say that in English from me. To be honest, I was quite traditional in my teaching as I didn’t use much group work and technology (no LIM in the classroom, just the CD player). However, when we did CLIL, the atmosphere in the classroom was collaborative and this was the most rewarding aspect of my teaching.

I really want to get the maximum from this CLIL course to let my students become more active learners and me a more active teacher. I realize that if I am more motivated and positive about the little progress students can make, I am able to encourage them to be more confident and interested.

Sometimes in everyday school routine very often we teachers share the same “sad” comments: “students don’t do homework, don’t pay attention to the lesson …” and you get depressed, you don’t feel the energy to find new strategies.

Last month doing an on-line course of School Education Gateway (“Competences for 21st Century Schools”), I liked a quote by an expert.

TELL ME = I FORGET

SHOW ME = I REMEMBER

INVOLVE ME = I UNDERSTAND

# data[].attributes.body
Hi everybody! My name is Lucia and I’ve been living in Camucia-Cortona since I was 18. I graduated in foreign languages in 1984 and I have been teaching English at high school for 30 years.

I am a shy person and it takes me some time to open up but then I am quite sociable and friendly with all kinds of people.

Despite some moments of work discouragement now and then after so many years as a teacher, I still love my job and I try to do my best to get some personal satisfaction from my students.