DI MARZIA VACCHELLIISTITUTO MAZZARELLO

CINISELLO BALSAMO 4 SETTEMBRE 20144 SETTEMBRE 2014

EAS CLIL alla scuola primaria: introduzione

Social relationships and meaningful activity

“Learning is not an end, but means to building social relationships and engaging in meaningful activity. What does this mean for our schools?

If we are to be a nation of lifelong learners, school has to become a place where students take charge of their learning for life – where they become eager constructors of knowledge, and view the entire world around them as a rich and welcome resource.»

(Eckert, Goldman & Wenger 1997).

It is as learner we become educators!

“Teachers need to act as themselves – as adults and thus as doorways into the adult world – rather than constantly acting like teachers, that is as representatives of the institution and upholders of curricular demands, with an identity defined by an institutional role.

They should act as members end engage in the learning that membership entails, and open forms of mutual engagement that can become an invitation to participation – it is as learners we become educators! “ (Wenger, E. ,Communities of Practice, ‘Learning, Meaning and Identity’, Cambridge University Press.

1998).

Calendar Time

Users and designers

Children can participate in a design process either as user or as designers. As users children can contribute on different aspects:

Children are good at giving unreserved criticism to something existing (e.g. a prototype).

Children can give feedback on both contents (what is fun?) and structure (what is motivating?).

Children can evaluate interactivity and different designs.

(Pedersen 2001).

European dimension

Ogni cittadino dell’Unione Europea dovrebbe saper usare in modo funzionale la sua madre lingua e almeno DUE lingue parlate all’interno della UE.

Si leggano le reazioni del 10 giugno 2014 alla decisione di Matteo Renzi di lasciare in Italiano e in Inglese la pagina web ufficiale della UE dopo il 1 luglio (inizio della presidenza italiana):

http://www.euractiv.com/sections/languages-culture/italian-presidency-website-will-not-be-french-or-german-302693#comment-1

Free lessons during the holidays?

From: “Commission looks at language skills to boost EU 'prosperity”

http://www.euractiv.com/culture/commission-looks-language-skills-boost-eu-prosperity/article-175337In France, Education Minister Xavier Darcos

recently unveiled plans to offer free English lessons to students during school holidays, describing failure to speak the language fluently as a handicap in today's world (EurActiv 04/09/08). 

 

Language Learning as a lifelong process

Language learning is a LIFELONG process, the communication stresses, calling on vocational and adult education to do more to promote it. It also says more effort should be made to offer a wider variety of languages, and calls for more teacher exchanges to take place to enhance their own fluency. 

The text will also highlight the potential to better exploit EU languages abroad and non-EU languages within the bloc itself.

Language diversity as « a source of wealth»

Describing language diversity as "a source of wealth" for Europe, EU Multilingualism Commissioner Leonard Orban told a public hearing on 10 September that "languages are the most effective tool to promote intercultural dialogue". Outlining the case for language learning, he warned that mutual incomprehension can act as "a barrier to exchange between cultures" and "lead to misunderstanding and conflict". 

60 % EU students learn two foreign languages

http://www.euractiv.com/culture/eu-students-learn-foreign-langua-news-222667

Most EU students learn two foreign languages: Study (28.09.2009)60% of students in upper secondary

education study two or more foreign languages, according to figures published last week by EU statistical office Eurostat.

6%, however, do not learn any foreign language at all, the data revealed, while a third of students only learn one. 

2007: figures on language skills in Europe

The latest figures on language skills in Europe, which relate to 2007, were published by EU statistical office Eurostat last week (24 September) ahead of European Languages Day, which was celebrated across the continent on Saturday (26 September). 

Secondary schools in the Czech Republic, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Finland all reported that 100% of their students learn two or more foreign languages, with Slovenia and Slovakia (both 98%) and Estonia (97%) following close behind. 

. 

One foreign language

The highest proportions of students studying one foreign language are to be found

in Greece (92%),

Italy (74%), Ireland (73%), Spain (68%) and Malta (60%).

English dominant

English dominant  

English is the most studied language in all member states for which data were available, except for Luxembourg, where English, French and German have equal standing, and the UK and Ireland, where French is most popular

Starting early…..

Iniziando presto, alla scuola materna o alla scuola primaria con la bilingual education si può raggiungere l’obiettivo lanciato dall’Unione Europea:

Definizione di Bilingual Education

« Any system of school education in which, at a given

moment in time and for a varying amount of time simultaneously or

consecutively, instruction is planned and given in at least two languages”.

(Hamers and Blanc, Bilinguality and Bilingualism, 2nd ed. New York, Cambridge University Press,2000)

Dialogical

la bilingual education dovrebbe quindi essere

dialogica,

Significando cioè che entrambi, docenti e learners usano” two or more languages” in classe per scopi comunicativi.

Productive language and language reception

“However, the quantity of productive language in each of the languages used by the pupils may differ from the quantity of language reception, which is accordingly the quantity of language input in each of the languages offered by the teacher”

( Daniela Elsner, Jörg-U.Keßler, Bilingual Education in Primary School, Narr Studienbücher, Narr Verlag, Tübingen, 2013, page 2)

Immersion programmes

Negli immersion settings la maggior parte delle discipline (almeno più del 50 %) sono insegnate nella target language al fine di provvedere a un vero e proprio ‘language bath‘ come suggerisce il termine. L’idea dietro questi programmi era ed “ to immerse” completamente in un’altra lingua, mentre lo sviluppo della prima lingua è supportato costantemente (e. g. Martin 2012: 38).

Buoni esempi sono :i French immersion programmes in Canada, or Swedish immersion programmes in Finlandia.

Diffusione della metodologia CLIL

La metodologia CLIL si è diffusa progressivamente sempre di più in Europa sia a livello di scuola primaria che secondaria (cf. Coyle et al. 2010, Marsh & Meyer 2012, Egger & Lechner 2012).

Nell’ambito di questo quadro, più del 50 % delle discipline sono insegnate nella lingua target mentre l’altra metà è proposta in prima lingua.

Ore aggiuntive per le Istruzioni

Parallelamente, sono aggiunte lezioni di lingua straniera agli studenti, e

molto spesso

Ore aggiuntive di istruzioni in lingua straniera

precedono I programmi CLIL.

The most pending questions about Bilingual Education at Primary Level

The most pending questions about bilingual education at primary level deal with the following aspects:

What would be the benefit of bilingual education for content matter?

How can bilingual education cater for the needs of the specific subject content rather than just serve as additional language input?

Pending Questions II

Which approach(es) to bilingual education are most promising in primary

school settings?How can bilingual content classes and

subject matter be evaluated andassessed?

Pending Questions III

Do primary teachers (both modern language teachers as well as content

teachers) need a specific additional qualification to teach bilingually?

Could bilingual education enhance both language and content learning or

would it rather water down one of those or even both areas?

Are bilingual educational settings appropriate for learners with migration

backgrounds or would such settings rather impede their learning of the

majority language?

The 4Cs-Framework (Coyle)

The 4Cs-Framework (Coyle, 1999, 2006) offers a sound theoretical and methodological foundation

for planning CLIL lessons and constructing materials because of its integrative nature. It is built on the following principles:Content, Cognition, Communication, Culture.(see Coyle, 2006: 9-10).

Content

Content: Content matter is not only about acquiring

knowledge and skills, it is aboutthe learners creating their own knowledge and understanding and developing skills (personalized learning);

Cognition

Cognition: Content is related to learning and thinking

(cognition). To enable thelearners to create their own interpretation of

content, it must be analysed for itslinguistic demands; thinking processes

(cognition) need to be analysed in terms oftheir linguistic demands;

Communication

Communication: language needs to be learned which is related to

the learning context,learning through that language, reconstructing

the content and its related cognitiveprocesses. This language needs to be transparent

and accessible; interaction in thelearning context is fundamental to learning. This

has implications when the learningcontext operates through the medium of a foreign

language;

Culture

Culture: the relationship between cultures and

languages is complex.

Intercultural awareness is fundamental to CLIL.

Its rightful place is at the core of CLIL

A new paradigm

Embracing the CLIL approach does not automatically lead to successful teaching and learning.

To truly realize the added value of CLIL, teachers need to embrace a new paradigm of

teaching and learning and they need tools and templatesthat help them plan their lessons and create/adapt their materials.

Teacher Training

The CLIL-Pyramid is based on the 4Cs-Framework and was developed

as an integrative planning tool for material writers and lesson planners. It has been successfully used in both pre- and in-service teacher training courses in Germany and across Europe.2

CLIL - Pyramid

Quality Principles (Dialnets)

The following quality principles and strategies are based on the latest insights from

CLIL research, second language acquisition (SLA), teaching methodology, Cognitive psychology, extensive classroom observation in several countries, as well as a critical refl ection of the author’s

personal experience as a CLIL teacher, teacher trainer and

materials writer. (Dialnets- Towards Quality CLIL)

1. Rich Input

Strategy No. 1: rich InputMeaningful, challenging and authentic. Those should

be the main criteria for selecting appropriate classroom materials.

Video clips, flash-animations, web-quests, pod-casts or other interactive materials on

English websites combine motivating and illustrative materials with authentic language

input. They constitute a rich source for designing challenging tasks that foster creative

thinking and create opportunities for meaningful language output.

2. Scaffolding Learning

Strategy No. 2: Scaffolding LearningTo make sure that students successfully deal

with authentic materials and that as muchinput as possible can become intake, it is

essential for students to receive ample support. They need scaffolding3 to help them cope with

language input of all sorts. The quantity and intensity of scaffolding can be

reduced as students’ language skills advance.

3. Rich interaction and pushed output

Strategy No. 3: rich interaction and pushed outputLong’s Interaction Hypothesis proposes that

language acquisition is strongly facilitatedby the use of the target language in interaction.

Long suggests that feedback obtainedduring conversational interaction promotes

interlanguage development becauseinteraction «connects input, internal learner

capacities, particularly selective attention,and output in productive ways» (Long 1996: 451-

2).

4. Adding the Intercultural Dimension

Strategy No. 4: Adding the (Inter-)cultural DimensionGrimalda recently examined the degree of interaction among

individuals in the process of globalization (Grimalda, 2006). Preliminary results indicate that people’s willingness to cooperate significantly increases the better they know each other.

This means that students need to learn about other countries. However, factual knowledge about other countries and cultures is not enough for successful intercultural communication; neither are foreign language skills alone.

Cultures differ in many aspects including view of self, perceptions of time, and verbal and non-verbal communication styles, which need to be taken into account also.

Higher Order Thinking

Strategy No. 5: Make it H.O.T. CLIL Core Elements • Input - authentic, meaningful & challenging • Tasks - higher oder thinking - student interaction - authentic communication - subject specifi c study skills • Output - cross-cultural communication - fluency, accuracy, complexity

Scaffolding

HOTS (Higher order thinking skills)

Higher-order thinking, known as higher order thinking skills (HOTS), is a concept of education reform based on learning taxonomies (such as Bloom's Taxonomy). The idea is that some types of learning require more cognitive processing than others, but also have more generalized benefits. In Bloom's taxonomy, for example, skills involving analysis, evaluation and synthesis (creation of new knowledge) are thought to be of a higher order, requiring different learning and teaching methods, than the learning of facts and concepts. Higher order thinking involves the learning of complex judgemental skills such as critical thinking and problem solving. Higher order thinking is more difficult to learn or teach but also more valuable because such skills are more likely to be usable in novel situations (i.e., situations other than those in which the skill was learned).

6. Sustainable learning

Strategy No. 6: sustainable learning«Julia, could you please sum up the main points of

last week’s lesson?««No, I can’t. You see, first we were doing stuff on the

internet and then there were only presentationsand we didn’t write anything down. So there was

nothing to start with to prepare for today’s lesson.»Such encounters are not uncommon and this example

serves to illustrate what is meant by sustainable learning: we have to make sure that what we teach in class is taught in a way that new knowledge becomes deeply rooted in our students’ long-term memory.

Sustainable learning

Passive knowledge has to be turned into active knowledge. Competent learners are those who can deliberately retrieve knowledge and apply it to solve problems or complete tasks. Ideally, many of their sub-skills have become highly automatized through meaningful practice and they are able to display the accurate and spontaneous use of their knowledge.

In CLIL, sustainable teaching and learning is of great importance since teachers have

to facilitate both the learning of the specific content and the learning/acquisition of a foreign language.

Sustainable learning

To make learning more sustainable in the CLIL classroom teachers should:

– create connections with students’ attitudes, experience and knowledge.

– make the learning process transparent and provide clear structuring (e.g. by using advance organizers).

– make sure that results of group work are shared with all students of the class (through posters, blogs, learning diaries, websites etc.).

Definition of «Advance Organizer»

The advance organizer model has three phases of activity: Phase I : Clarify the aimes of the lesson Presentation of the advance organizer Prompting awareness of relevant knowledge Phase II : Presentation of the learning task or learning material Make organization and logical order of learning material explicit Phase III : Integrative reconciliation and active reception learning (e.g. the

teacher can ask learners to make summaries, to point our differences, to relate new examples with the organizer).

Elicit critical approach to subject matter (have students think about contraditions or implicit inferences in the learning material or previous knowledge)

The simple principles behind advance organizers are that: Most general ideas should be presented first in an organized way (not just a

summary) and then progressively differentiated. Following instructional materials should integrate new concepts with

previously presented information and with an overall organization.

Example of Advance Organizer

Inizio precoce, input alto, continuità, Menuk

früher Beginnqualitativ hochwertiger (Sprach-)Inputhäufiger, regelmäßiger Gebrauch der fremden SpracheKontinuitätDie Sprache, in seinem Beispiel Englisch, dient nur als

Medium um Sachfachinhalte (Mathematik, MeNuK = Fächerverbund Mensch Natur und Kultur, und weitere Fächer) zu transportieren.(prof. Piske, Fremdsprachliches Sachfachlernen in

Kindergarten und Grundschule“ ,Weingarten, 28./29.09.07)

Mathematics

http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mepres/primary/default.htm

- Syllabus completo di piani di lavoro, - esercizi, - soluzioni degli esercizi, - fogli di lavoro(Dal primo al sesto anno scolare)

Indians: Geography, dance, music, theory,arts

http://www.narr.de/narr-studienbuecher/bilingual-education

http://www.narr.de/download/narr_studienbuecher/bilingual_education/teaching_indians_lessonplan.pdf

http://www.narr.de/download/narr_studienbuecher/bilingual_education/teaching_indians_teachers_manual.pdf

Piani di lavoro del Nordrhein-Westfalen

http://www.standardsicherung.schulministerium.nrw.de/lehrplaene/upload/klp_gs/LP_GS_2008.pdf

Assessment: from the lesson plane to the rating scale

http://www.ph-weingarten.de/englisch/Studium-und-Lehre/CLIL_Unterrichtsmaterialien.php?navanchor=1010078

http://clil-network.uta.fi/index.php?id=8http://

www.alsdgc.ro/userfiles/2827-10627-1-PB.pdf (Assessing criteria and rating scales 93-94-95?

Quadro di riferimento Lingue

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages

http://www.oph.fi/english/page.asp?path=447,27598,37840

ESL and Digital Portfolio Work

ESL - Effective methodology needs to strike abalance between teacher-centered communication

and cooperative student-centered activities – promote autonomous learning and introduce

DIGITAL PORTFOLIO WORK.– adopt a translanguaging approach

(Creese/Blackledge 2010) to multilingualism by making strategic use of the L1 to support the learning process. Paraphrasing games like Taboo where students are asked to sum up the main objectives of a lesson without

Holistic Methodology

To unlock the inherent potential of CLIL, a holistic methodology is needed that

transcends the traditional dualism between content and language teaching. The shift

from knowledge transmission to knowledge creation in multilingual settings requires students to be skilled in not only assimilating and understanding new knowledge in their first language, but also in using other languages to construct meaning (Coyle/Hood/Marsh, 2010, 153).

To realize ‘life-shaping’ potential and to prepare their students for the challenges of a globalized world, teachers should focus on:

Cosmopolitan identity and genuine curiosity

developing the values... of young people’s character; emphasizing emotional as well as cognitive learning;

building commitments to group life... not just short-term teamwork;

cultivating a cosmopolitan identity which shows tolerance of race and gender differences,

genuine curiosity towards and willingness to learn from other cultures, and responsibility towards excluded groups. (Hargreaves, 2003, xix)

The 4Cs- Framework and the CLIL-Pyramid

The 4Cs-Framework offers a sound pedagogical and methodological base for truly sustainable CLIL teaching and learning.

The quality principles are intended to help CLIL-teachers enrich their lessons and materials while the CLIL-Pyramid offers a proven sequence to incorporate those principles in their CLIL units.

The true potential of the CLIL-Pyramid, however, is in the support it provides to establish and maintain connections between different subjects/topics/units

and by making explicit the study skills and literacies which might drastically change

the way we think about curriculum planning and the way we structure classroom learning in the future.

Transformative education

“ Education, in its deepest sense and at whatever age it takes place, concerns the opening of identities – exploring new ways of being that lie beyond our current state. Whereas training aims to create an inbound trajectory targeted at competence in a specific practice, education must strive to open new dimensions for the negotiation of the self. It places students on an outbound trajectory toward a broad field of possible identities. Education is not merely formative – it is transformative.”(Wenger 1998:263).

Mutuality

“In the life-giving power of mutuality lies the miracle of parenthood, the essence of apprenticeship, the secret to the generational encounter, the key to the creation of connections across boundaries of practice: a fragile bridge across the abyss, a slight breach of the law, a small gift of undeserved trust – it is almost a theorem of love that we can open our practices and communities to others (newcomers, outsiders), invite them into our own identities of participation, let them be what they are not, and thus start what cannot be started.” (Wenger 1998:277)