Continuous training for teachers: a personal option (CLASS ENTRY 3)

Talking from experience, the changing of century has produced a reflection in different fields of knowledge. And this reflection has driven to think about others ways to do marketing, different ways to work, to govern, to communicate, to educate (to teach and to learn). Practitioners of several matters have thought in alternative ways to solve new questions.

In order to give solutions to new problems in education system, practitioners of teaching have reflected on the learning process, for instance. In the last half of 20th century, experts share us new relevant information about learning and thinking process, the human brain operation or how it works in adolescent brain like Bloom's taxonomy about thinking skills levels. All of these recent approaches have contributed to develop new education theories focused on solving new situations.

In Spain, I know singular teachers that are interested in pedagogical topics. I do not know them personally but the Internet is a good way to meet them. It is logical to think that an engaged teacher with his practice work, is also interested in new technologies of information and communication. And that is true talking from experience. Most of them I meet in Twitter are engaged teachers with education system. In this sense, channels of communication through social network as Twitter or LinkedIn, for instance, could be an excelent platform to relate with others teachers who are motivated in learning and improve their learning about how to teach better.

In my view, in the world of social networks, as a motivated teacher, you could inform others about news or events about education or about your specialized matter. Engaged teachers, in general, are those share their opinions, articles, their arguments on their blogs or their tweets, with other people that are interested in read it.

Basically, to stay in contact with the new knowledge or next events about your interest, you have to follow people, groups or institutions that talk about common interests. In general, you can find out references about education events through hashtags #. For instance, you can meet information about the next conference "to get your secondary school pupils reading for pleasure" on Friday 20th of March trough the hashtag #libchat.

In other words, it is important to have a Personal Learning Entourage (PLE) to continuous learning training because in Spain is a personal option and the Internet and TICs are the owner way to achieve an entourage where find out information about our interest matters through experts or others engaged teachers. The technologies platforms as a personal blogs or social networks as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn Groups or web sites like Edutopia, TES Connect, Educación 3.0, E-Learning Heroes, between others, are virtual places where you could meet clues about where to go to improve our knowledge.

In short, everything said above is encouraged by oneself. That is because the Government in Spain have not promoted this kind of mechanisms of continuous learning for teachers. Therefore, we have to engage and motivate ourselves. And that we need to do.

Learning linguistic skills (CLASS ENTRY 2)

If you were not limited by the demands of the national/regional curriculum, what would you say is the most important thing you would teach your students about your subject (in a CLIL context)? How would you assess their learning?

In that case, I would know about my students and their learning process.  On the other hand, I would explain my strategies to help them to learn. We could choose the better path to walk along Literature, together. We could build a journey between readings and  plays, together. We could discover others type of communication through words, together too.

My ideal subject would be one that students learn to learn about their learning process throught content of History and Literature. Firstly, I should to show them how I assess their learning outcomes and which are our learning target. I would show them with videos, digital posters or other kind of audiovisual tools to communicate them what we want to learn and through what we are going to learn. Probably I use a poster or imap (conceptual map) that all could see it every day and we won't forget what our learning target is.

Secondly, I would talk them about what they need to express in words their thoughts. We start to know the tools of writing (textual genres) and then we start with practical activities through the content.

Thirdly, I would submit a project about different literary itineraries from which they could choose to do. I would use the methodology of Guadalupe Jover whose goal is to connect the inside library of adolecents with the big collective human library.

Guadalupe Jover, Taller: Itinerarios posibles para la educación literaria en la adolescencia from AELE Asociación Española de Lectura y Escritura

On the other hand, we would planning the work in groups and classroom blogs. And then, we will learn while we walk together into the universe of words and books. At the same time, I ought to create a templates and frameworks to help them to self-assess and to correct or continue the learning process.

Finally, we would have a debate about the methodology of the subject and make a critical reflection about our learning process through each lesson.

In my opinion, this have been a first approach about a new way to learn linguistic skills through content of History and Literature. In other words, I would plan this before and my students will assess my plan. Because it should be satisfactory and motivating for them. If not, is not useful.

Talking from experience, if adolescent don't control the process they loose the motivation and this is clue for their autonomous learning. As far as I am concerned, they should have rubrics about how they work diary to pass the subject and what they have to do at the end of the lesson or the term.

In short, learners (teenagers or not) should know the goals, the tools, the process and the evaluation system with rubrics or 'can do statements' than explain at least the roles of that new way to learn.

Evaluating and creating materials and tasks for CLIL classroom. (ABSTRACT Lesson 2).

In CLIL classroom, we have to consider content and language integrated. Following that aspect, we as CLIL teachers have to use a planning framework based around the four Cs approach and consider language in three categories: the language of learning, the language for learning and the language through learning. In addition, as CLIL teachers we have know appropiate methods to create CLIL lessons. That is important in order achieve success in learning outputs. We have also to focus on students and teachers roles in order to reach an improvement in our student learnings. So we need to keep in mind more recent development of brain research and acknowledge the influence of affective aspects for learner motivation. And finally, as CLIL teachers, we have to consider the cognition that requires focal attention and it is in this point where we have to design a plan to process inputs and to produce a response from learners. It is in that point where CLIL teachers create appropiate materials and tasks, overall 'from scratch' because there are not specific materials for CLIL lessons, nowadays. And then, it is just time to work in design of CLIL task for each specific subject. Firstly, tasks should be able to help students to understand the content and that they should be able to express suitably through the language. Secondly, tasks should allow the collaboration between learners and involve the discussion in order to work metacognition and high order of thinking skills. To sum up, we could design tasks based on posters, writing blogs, diagrams and worksheet with progressive questions with scaffolding knowledge, for instance, and we will help them and walk next to our learnes in their path in learning process.

My autonomy classroom / CLASS ENTRY 1

In order to know about the ELP, we read European Language Portfolio: structure, origins, implementation and challenges by David Little. He explains what is this in a chronological sense and introduces pedagogical concepts and a summary about its reporting function.

We have been specially attracted for its pedagogical function and we have followed the clue of professor Little. He is Director of the Centre for Language and Communication Studies ans Associete Professor of Applied Linguistic at Trinity College in Dublin and you can see and hear him in a conference (San Sebastian 4-6 october 2012) in the post before this one.

What about pedagogical function of ELP? In the article, Little explains about the importance of autonomy learning for the process of learning, overall, and in second language learning, particularly.

In the conference, Little concludes saying that an autonomy language learning environment is one that: recognizes that learners' identity has a key role to play; it exploits their existing linguistic knowledge and communicative competences; it insists that from the beginning they exercise agency in and though the target language; it recognizes that learning is not all inside the head: it is social (and physical) as well as a cognitive phenomenon; it uses logbooks / blogs and posters (and others products) to construct the story of individual and collective learning and it understand that we solve the motivational problem by exploiting learners' intrinsic motivation.

I think this approach has been absolutely interesting in order to deep into the second language learning.

And go on.

David Little. The essence of learner autonomy

 

The essence of learner autonomy: learning a language from the inside out. It is generally agreed that language learner autonomy is a matter of learner control and self-direction. Most discussion assumes that the crucial distinction is between non-autonomous and autonomous learners, and that the teacher's role is to manage the transition to self-directed learning. My own view is rather different. Although they may be novices in language learning, learners of all ages usually exhibit a high degree of expertise and autonomy in their life outside the classroom. Thus for me the teacher's role is to exploit learners' pre-existing capacity for and experience of autonomous behaviour (their agency) in favour of language learning. The teacher achieves this goal by engaging her learners' sense of identity and the knowledge and experience they have gained outside the classroom: these are the magnets to which the target language attaches itself. Most approaches to language teaching assume that the target language is "out there" and that the most teachers can do is to develop their learners' capacity to communicate as if they were outside the classroom. By contrast, the autonomy classroom focuses on the learners' here and now. Founded on the belief that authentic language use is the only reliable path to success in language learning, it channels learners' agency through the target language. In this sense learning is "from the inside out". My presentation will develop this view of autonomous language learning with particular reference to the findings of neuroscience. (David Little)

Song of Europe

Song of Europe is the statement of freedom to travel and to live however a human being decided. It captures the high quality of live in the european continent but also it reflects the long struggle to become a democracy as it was proclaimed from ancient times by greek thinkers. The author of this video is an absolutely example of the real european who traveled and lived in different parts of Europe. He speaks several european languages from different families as Germanic, Roman and Slavic. He was himself in very early age an political refugee and was not able to see his grandparents before their death because of political borders. This song is the dedication of liberty and dignity in a free Europe.

Five questions for engaged teenager learners

What are we learning? Why are we learning it? How are we learning? How successful is our learning? What are we going to learn next?

Bloom and Vygotsky in my classroom

This is an interesting video because it relates Bloom's taxonomy with the theory of Lev Vigotsky. In my opinion, both are awesome. If you use in correct sense the levels of thinking and the concept of high order thinking skills with the zone proximal development therefore you have an absolutely good recipe for your learning target. I agree with these professors because it is relevant knowing how our students learn and learn better now. That process is different, quite different than when we estudied twenty years ago. Now is time to start to work producing tasks and activities to walk attach our pupils, help them when they need it, in their learning process.

Providing effective scaffolding for the content and the lenguage

There are severals scaffolding strategies to use with our students and it is important the learners: how they learn better and what they know and what they are interesting in learn more. The most important thing we have to know is you have slow down in order to go quickly. Therefore, in CLIL class that is important: we, as teachers, have to break the information / the lesson into pieces in order to the learners grasp it and go on as their own. We recommend the reading of Rebecca Alber's article in Edutopia website. It is a clarifying text about scaffolding strategies and their differences with 'differentiation'.

How children acquire and produce lenguage (BBC), 2001

Dr. Jim Commins talks about proficiency in English

HOTS is important in CLIL

CLIL stands for Content and Lenguage Integrated Learning. It means to learn whatever no-linguistic subject through seconds lenguages, in our case, in English. In CLIL is important how students learn, that is metacognition and then it is also important the process how we learn and overall how we learn the content better because the acquisition of the lenguage is a value-add in the way. Firstly, we have to understand about thinking process. In 50', Dr. Benjamin Bloom gave us a list for identify levels of thinking. Forty years later, it was revised by a former of Bloom, Lorin Anderson, and the research changed verbs into names and gave us a new order of thinking skills. On the top of them, there is the creative level and the evaluation and on the bottom, it is 'remembering', the level of de recall information, describing, finding, listing and naming. Secondly, we should know, also, about a new concept coined by the professor Jim Cummins. The term is CUP. CUP stands for Common Underlying Proficiency. This theory give us a new idea about our linguistic knowledge. This idea refers that we learn linguistic basis through our mother tongue and we won't have to learn them anymore to acquire L2. This theory supports the idea that it becomes easier and easier to learn additional lenguages Finally, we have to talk about methodology and the activities because they are important for teachers to enhance in the levels of thinking skills and simultaneously scaffolding the lenguage as a metaphor of you have to slow down in order to go quickly. In order to learn a second lenguage it is recommended to start with orally skills like listetening and speaking. On the other hand, we should go on with cognitive skills like reading and writing and finally we achieve the higher order of thinking skills (HOTS). http://esl.fis.edu/teachers/support/cummin.htm

DRIP and the data poor

I have just read on the Matt Renwick's blog what DRIP stand for. Data Rich and Poor Information. But in his opinion, nowadays we, as teachers, have poor data about our learning process of our pupils. He says that we need modern information about that and perhaps today we are still using a oldfashion data in order to reach the correct information. It is an interesting article. He invites to participe into a chat about this quiestion. He says: "In tomorrow night’s All Things PLC Twitter chat (follow #atplc), we will pose questions to dig more deeply into what data means in the modern classroom. There are too many ways for learners to show what they know to ignore the potential of connected learning and continuous assessment. Join us at 8 P.M. CST for this discussion". It could be an interesting debate about new forms to understand the modern education system.

Lessons from the learners

I used to receive information and instructions in order to repeat ideas about whatever subject in my degree. But about fifteen year ago, I know that I learn in different way. I pass a lot of time observed and listening, this is my slow thougth. Then I start to relate all new and old things: ideas, processes, informations, suggestions... This is my speed thougth. And then I planning what way is convenient to walk in order to improve knowledge. Allways collective knowledge because it is not finish without sharing knowledge. It is important that new knowledge was transmitted as an output in order to be shared with others: collegues, learners, friends... In sum, my experience as a student is greatful because I need receive a lot of new ideas and information and then I need related all them to produce new ideas or reflection and share them with others.

Motivation: Do you dare to dream?

Motivation and confidence may be easier to sustain by setting short term goals and recognising their attainments. It is important to progress in our learning process in whatever we dream. Steps to climb our objectives in our learning process in order to enhance our thought and knowledge. It could be important also for our cognition process about foreign languages learning because we have different learning styles and we learn in different way and skills. Then as a teachers we need to know what our pupils need to learn them and how many steps or levels are necessary to attain the objective: linguistic competences. Such a writting, listening, reading and speaking; in order to express in different contexts and situations. Summary, let's go, this is your moment. Go on!!

The learning brain

Teenagers are our opportunity

Adolescents are not a problem, they are an opportunity. It is an opportunity for change, it is a chance for human beings. I like thinking in this sense. It is for that I want to be a teacher for teenagers. I recommend to introduce us in the metacognition knowledge. It is great to find out how we know and think. It is absolutely fantastic new experience about learning because we must change our mind about learning process and overall, we must change our mind about adolescents. All I have learned in order to know more and more about thinking and learning in the course of Training for Teaching English has made me to encouraged and engaged to read and learn more and more about this issue. I am sure that it will be good for my future experience as a secondary teacher.

CLIL Resources and Material Creation for High Education (by Isabel Pérez)

CLIL: Content and Lenguage

In my opinion, both questions are important. If as a History or Literature teacher I want that my students learn contents about these subjects I need the lenguage to relate each other. Lenguage is in the base for communication, thoughts and creation of new knowledge. And this, without both items, is impossible, I mean. Firstly, the content, the ideas but inmediately the words or all kind of code to express our thoughts because without the fact of communication, the performance, it is nothing. Secondly, the code or the channel for communicate could be choose for the pupils or the teacher because the relationship to produce collective knowledge is more important than the lenguage or channel we choose. Finally, teenagers are starting off in their mental ability to think, to express, to relate with others and the code is necessary in order to undertand each other.

My ideal teacher

When I was young, I had a Lenguage teacher who teach me what the literature is. When I was teenager, I had a History teacher who teach me what the History is throught the Literature. Now I wish to show them how the life is throught our mind and thinking. Brain's teeneagers (from 12 to 16 years old) are ready to build up abstract knowledge. Then, they are able to think and create new knowledge. My favourite teacher showed me that in Literature there is two messages: the literal reading and the deep reading where you find the concept of life and human feelings.