My name is Sabina Trasatti and I am a law teacher in a secundary school called “Carlo Urbani” situated in Porto Sant’ Elpidio. I am fifty-nine years old and I have a long-lasting experience in teaching. However I always have an unvaried desire to keep me up-to date about new methodologies and about changes of the community.

So I have begun this path some years ago and I am still pleased to face this challenge.

It was a great surprise for me to be accepted in this course and I have been very happy. even if I know it will be very arduous and stressful for me. In fact I have a lot of interests (hacking, dog breeding, gymnastic, dance, cinema and theatre) so I am already aware that it will be a very demanding year. I hope I will be able to overcome difficulties.

By means of this course not only I want improve my teaching skills but also to learn new theories about CLIL and compare italian teaching experiences with those of other foreign countries.I think this course wil be very important for my job because I teach to students who will face an exam where my subject require CLIL methodology.Also, I am sure that this course will help me to improve my English for my next travels.

I have already had some experiences with on line learning because training at my school also provide for this learning methodology (e.g. occupational safety courses)

See you soon and good work to everyone!!!

With this my first post on PADLET I just want fix ideas about the use of it as suggested by our teacher Ms Serenella Silenzi in the lesson on 15th February.

In fact I will use my PADLET as a “Learning Diary” refering to this exciting experience in the amazing world of “CLIL Methodology”.

So here I will share with others collegues of the course my learnings, my thoughts and appreciations about resources , key-ideas and key-words.

I think that Learning Diary is a great instrument to “meta-riflettere” ( I don’t know an equivalent word in English but….I should create it!!) 

Of course there are other sites suitable to keep a Learning Diary (as Google Sites, Spark Adobe, Time lines, Weebly, Sway) but I think PADLET is the easier and very amusing too!!!

I think that this project could be also suitable to be used in the eTwinning Platform.

It was very exciting to compare our work with those of other groups of collegues and sincerely I found some PBL PLANS much more interesting than mine…. This is very challenging. 

Of course we hadn’t time to adopt all the preciuos tips given us by Ms Silenzi….and we were also very tired….however it was a great exercise.

The lesson of the day was about breakfast and the teacher compared the habits in the Uk with those in other countries, including Italy.

What actually impressed me was that the lesson was much more interactive than mine.

Continously the teacher asked the students their opinions, ideas, suggestions, experiences either in formal and in informal language.

The teacher also provided her students some images describing various dishes and equipments suitable for different breakfasts.

From my first experience I can definitely infer that internship is basic to improve my teaching skills.

He showed us a form with a lot of questions regarding “learning strategies” that he planned for the teachers but I believe it could be very useful also for the students.

Infact it could stimulate the process of “meta-cognition” that is previous and essential to any type of learning.You can see the questionnaire attached below.

Your post intitled “ Don’t change the text, change the task…...” is very encouraging!!

However, in my opinion, the teacher has to adjust his/her contribute to language teaching according to the level of knowledge of the language of his/her students (or a bit higher…..).

My experience is exactly the opposite of yours; sometime I wonder that, at the last year of a secundary school, students get into difficulty to undersdtand the meaning of simple texts so that I have to do a great work to further scaffold and facilitate both the grammar and the content. 

Two days ago I had the pleasure to attend a CLIL lesson of my collegue Pierluigi Stroppa who is a Science teacher in a class of our "Liceo Scientifico" ( an high school where are tought scientific subjects )Student’s age was 15-16.

The topic of the lesson was “the atom” and obviously some aspects of the matter had been previously debated in Italian.

The CLIL lesson has been earlier planned by the Science teacher together with the English teacher of the same class and the L2 teacher participated in the CLIL lesson to help students in case of specific language difficulties and to support the DNL teacher.

The lesson was divided in:

Reading, translation and tasks (one hour), Listening and tasks (one hour).

My collegue adopted the “scaffolding” technique to make easier the text.  All the tasks had to be done in group and they consisted in various types such as: fill in the blank, multiple choice, true or false and also calculations.

The specific arrangement of the desks fostered cooperative learning and the teacher's language was sometimes formal sometimes informal but always in english: I think it is a good way to address very young students and to create a very friendly and not stressing learning environment!! Indeed the students were really engaged and motivated.

I have sincerely to congratulate my collegue on his performance and I hope I will be as capable when I will invite him to my CLIL lessons!!!

You can see a brief video attached below regarding the first step of the lesson: it is very amusing to notice the reaction of the students facing for the first time the “CLIL concept”. Have a good sight!!
I HAD TO REMOVE THE VIDEO TO ACCEPT A REQUEST OF A COLLEGUE.......PRIVACY REASONS....A GREAT COLLABORATION IN MY SCHOOL!!!!

The teacher Mr……………talked about different topics regarding the U.S.A.: History, Geography, Literature, weather and Economy. As regards this last topic were used a lot of micro-language terms suitable for my economics and business school. 

In particular I appreciated that the teacher gave his students a lot of interesting ideas and information about “ CULTURE” (one of the most important 4Cs).

In fact he referred to the problems of migration , melting pot effects, fusing cultures, racial discrimination.

The whole lesson was in spoken English , introducing questions about previous lessons and stimulating conversation among the students in group or in pairs.

The teacher used as resources the textbook and the world map on wall.

You can see the related "observation grid" (COLT form) in this Learning Diary (revised today).

REFLECTIONS AND OBSERVATION GRID

During my internship I had a great experience because I was present at an English lesson regarding a topic I explained to the same students while I was teaching my subject that is “law”.

The argument was the “Brexit” and it was very interesting not only because the students were facing a news but also because the teacher asked the students to read a beautiful article in British daily newspaper, “The Guardian”. The teacher didn’t use the technique of “scaffolding” for this text because it was very clear and suitabe for students at B2 level.

Finally the teacher tried to elicit some ideas from the students about pros and cons of the Brexit: in this case the students worked in group.

You can see the “observation grid” below (revised today).

REFLECTIONS AND OBSERVATION GRID

I would like to share with my collegues some reflections about the lesson I attended on 19th March.

The class was teached by the English teacher Mrs…………...in a catering Institute and it was about “religious menus”. The teacher gave her students a written form to read and swarned them that sometime the clients require special menus because of their different religions.

This topic motivated the students very much because of their different nationalities: they debated in group their habits about traditional meals of their countries.

I think this is a great way to improve , in young people, values such as respect of diversity and intercultural tollerance while teaching technical language.

You can see the observation grid below (revised today).

Althought they were very useful, I desired to test myself in this difficult phase of  a CLIL lesson planning : so I created my personal “EVALUATION FORM” to assess a SITUATED LEARNING experience.  The form  is  uploaded below and  I hope you will find it complete and detailed enough. I am looking forward your opinions and advice!! 

(INSEGNARE CON GLI EAS= EPISODI DI APPRENDIMENTO SITUATO)

 Although it was enough stressful , my internship experience was  very exciting.

When I began to adopt the new methodologies learned in the CLIL course I realised  that my way to approach  students and my subject  was surprislingly changed.

The feeling that I  had was confirmed when I started teaching the module about the topic of international franchising.

Among the various tasks assigned  there was one that can be easily included   among the methodologies called  “Situated learning” or “Learning by doing” or “Emotional learning” .

In particular I asked my students to simulate a situation in which one of them ( helped by  some classmates)   was a young person  facing an interview  with an officer of a company owing a famous brand : the aim of the interview was to sign a franchise agreement. Obviously the officer was simulated by an other student and the answers and the questions  had been previously arranged by the same learners.

I remember very well  my two students were very excited  not because of the fear of the other classmates and  the teacher’s judgement  but by the strong emotion to do something very close to reality…..!

Something that suddendly dragged them in a world of adults and in particular in the  business world  where  a great assumption of responsability was requested them.

I think that the “characters” and the other students will never forget  the rights and the obligations of the franchisor and of the franchisee!!!

I strongly believe in this methodology as an excellent way to motivate   the learners using  instructional scaffolding.

Kids today can’t be satisfied with dry theoretical notions: they  need to see how those theories apply in real life, they want to see how those really work, and they want to experience those first-hand. 

It will be a pleasure for me to see again in the future , in my Learning Diary,  the videos and the picture (uploaded below)  regarding that special school day.

During my CLIL course I had the occasion to know a lot of useful educational tools as CMAP, KAHOOT, WORDCLOUD, PREZI and so on. In particular I want to share in my padlet my experience regarding the tool called  “CROSSWORD PUZZLE MAKER”. It was an excellent method to verify the knowledge of my students: they foud it very amusing too!!!