What do we need to achieve effective plurilingualism?

Every people agree with the importance of knowing English nowadays. This language has become the “lingua franca” and it is taught all over the world. Students from every country learn English at school. And some of them achieve a good level. But being plurilingual is more than this.

“Language learning is a lifelong task” as the Council of Europe says. People should face new language experience out of school. Because of that, the aim is to develop a linguistic repertory in which all linguistic abilities have a place.

You can speak one or more foreign language, but if you keep them in strictly separated mental communicative compartments, you will not be plurilingual.

Therefore, it’s important to use different languages at school to acquire contents in order to achieve effective plurilingualism. And CLIL methodology provides interesting activities that help teachers and students in this goal.

Learning history in English

History is a subject that requires a high knowledge of the language in order to understand exactly not only what happened but also why. A good explanation about any historical fact needs long sentences with subordinate clauses to complete the information and introduce details. History is not only a list of dates and events. We need to put them into context, to relate them, and studying the causes and the consequences.

Nevertheless, it’s not impossible to use L2 to teach history. The CLIL methodology provides a wide variety of activities that allows the use of a foreign language.

I tried to do it in a clil didactic unit about the Iberian Peninsula in the Middle Ages. I think it’s important to combine both L1 and L2 if you are explaining local history. It’s very interesting to read original texts. For instance, in my unit I suggest reading a piece from “Llibre dels Fets”, in valencian, and listening the song “Veles e vents”, from Raimon. Then, students could do activities in L2 to acquire the main vocabulary and to scaffold the language. At the end, it would be interesting that teacher reinforce the main ideas of the unit in L1, if he thinks it’s required.

In conclusion, if teachers of history use the CLIL methodology, I’m sure their students will learn both, contents and language, properly.

Lessons from the learners

In traditional classes, teachers only explain lessons to the students. This is the way most used at all times, even nowadays. But this type of teaching must be completed with others methods that improve learning. One of these methods consists in transforming learners in teachers. Why not? In fact, according to some scientific studies, we learn 95% of what we teach someone else. It’s surprising, isn’t it?

Therefore, we should integrate this tactic in our classes. For instance, we could introduce the topic to the students. Then, they could do some exercises in order to check what they have learned about the explanation given by the teacher. And, finally, students could say the others, in groups of two or three, some parts of the topic.

Explaining to the others is HOT (Higher Order Thinking) because students understand the facts, connect them to each other, categorize them and apply them. When we receive information, our brain only works the knowledge and remember dimension. But when we give information, we use also the cognitive apply, the process evaluate and even the creating. In other words, we achieve most of the levels of intellectual behaviour developed in Blooms Taxonomy.

We only learn 10% of what we read

Reading is essential in life because we receive many information through this way. If you want to improve your knowledge you need to read books written in different times by different people. This is obviously. That is why reading always have been one of the main skills taught in schools in all times and all over the world.

Nevertheless, reading is not enough to learn and achieve new knowledge. It’s necessary complete it with other kind of activities. In fact, we learn only 10% of what we read, according to William Glasse, an American psychiatrist.

If you want to endure your understanding, you have to hear, to see, to discusse, to experience personally and even to teach someone else. William Glasse says that you learn 95% of what you teach.

Therefore, it’s important to use a mixture of activity types in order to progress in your learning. Remember: reading is not enough.

 

 

 

 

CLIL, a good way to learn a new language

What is the best way to learn a new language, focussing the study in the language or studying any subject, as maths, history or sports, in the language that you want to learn? This question was discussed in the second class of Methodology. The teacher explained us some knowledge theories supporting the acquisition of a new language through the content. I learned a new concept: CLIL – Content Language Integrated Learning – . I’ve never heard it before. But now, I think that CLIL means to use a foreign language as a tool in the learning of a non-language subject. The experts asseverate that students are be able to speak a second language fluency thanks to this methodology.

Then, the teacher talked about  the Bloom’s taxonomy and the revision made by Anderson, a former student of Bloom. The original taxonomy emphasised on the teacher, but the revised taxonomy was focused on the student. There are other differences, but the two theories support that we learn through some thinking skills. Therefore, using questions in the classroom from all levels of Bloom’s will help teachers to scaffold learning.

I have not yet understood exactly the Bloom’s Taxonomy, but at the end of the class, the teacher explained us a clear idea: students learn more not only remembering. They need also to understand, to apply, to analyse, to evaluate and, finally, to create. And how to achieve this goal? Using questions from all levels of Bloom’s.

 

 

 

My best teachers

My first teachers were quite authoritarian because when I was a child, in the beginning of the seventies, that was the normal way of teaching.

But some years later, education began to start in Spain. In my 6th year, I had a young teacher with new ideas and a lot of new projects.  His name was Rafael, but we called him “Don Rafael”, although he preferred only Rafael, without “Don”. But, it was difficult not to say “Don” to the teachers in those years.

“Don” Rafael put some of his news ideas into practise and, I remember that the students liked them. One of the news was that students were sitting in groups. And the teacher ordered different works to each group. Then, we explained our work to the others students. In that way, we learned the lessons with fun.

Nevertheless, I had others good teachers although they were more traditional. One of the classic teachers was “Don José Bernardo”, who was also one of my best friend’s father. “Don José Bernardo” was very strict and he always explained the lessons sitting in his desk or standing in front of the cupboard, writing mathematical operations. Sometimes, he hit us with a stick. But that wasn’t unusual in those days. The only teacher never hit us was “Don Rafael”, the modern.

Methodology for teaching in English

I’ve just started a course about Methodology for teaching in English. I don’t know so much about pedagogy, because I’m a journalist. For that reason, I think the course will be interesting and will offer me useful skills for my future work as a teacher. For the moment, the first exercise is to create a blog. Here it is. I hope the blog will improve in some days, because I am a complete beginner in blogs right now.