OUR PROYECT: WALKING AROUND THE TOWN

Walking  around the Town is an AICLE project created by Sara González and Miriam Barreiro. This project aims to train students in the last year of early childhood education in the vocabulary (CALP) and expressions (BITS) related to their neighborhood using CLIL methodology.

The design of Walking around the town takes in account CLIL methodological orientations and the curriculum and methodological proposals for the Galician educational legislation, which include aspects such as the TPR.

You can see it in the following link:

https://view.genial.ly/5c3cc13ba4eaa03097da0051/sara-aicle

We hope you like it!!!

FROM VYGOTSKY TO BRUNER: SCAFFOLDING THEORY

VYGOTSKY

• This Russian psychologist argued that we learn best  in a social environment, where we construct meaning through interaction with others.

• He created the Zone of Proximal Development theory: we can learn more in the presence of a knoledgeable other person, who helps us to go from our current level of knowledge to the target learning.

BRUNER

• His theories were influenced by the work of L. Vygotsky.
• He believed that when children start to learn new concepts, they need help from teachers and other adults in the form of active support. They start totally dependent on they adult support, but as they become more independet in their thinking and acquire new skills and knoledge, the support can be gradually faded. This form of structured interaction between the child and the adult is known as scaffolding, and it is gradually dismantled as the work is completed.

WHY WE SHOULD USE SCAFFOLDING TECHNIQUES AT SCHOOL?

• Scaffolding represents a reduction in the many choices a child might face, so they become focused only on acquiring the skill or knowledge that is required.
• Teacher have to provide opportunities for children to constantly learn new things. This will require support of a very focused kind. To start with this, teachers need to be aware. Of the developmental state of each of the children in their class, and should provide scaffolding that is appropiate.
• As children gain confidence and competences in the areas, teachers might place them in groups to extend each other´s learning further. 
• It´s also important that teachers recognise when a child is at the point where they begin to learn independently, and decisions can be made to set them free from the scaffolding. 

FROM BLOOM´S TAXONOMY TO CLIL METHODOLOGY

As I noticed in the last post, Bloom´s taxonomy outlined six different thinking processes, from  lower-order thinking to higher-order thinking, both of which are integral effective learning.

LOW ORDER

• REMEMBERING: recognize or recall knowledge of memory. 
• UNDERSTANDING: construct meaning from different types of writings or graphics. 
• APPLYING: ability to use learned material. 

HIGH ORDER

• ANALYSING: apply what was learned in the classroom in new situations.
• EVALUATING: make judgments based on criteria and standards.
• CREATING: put elements together or reorganize them to form a coherent or functional whole.

The cognitive engagement is central to the CLIL classroom.  Effective content learning has to take into account not only the defined knowledge and skills within the curriculum, but also how to apply these through creative thinking, problem solving and cognitive challenge.  It is not enough to consider content learning without integrating the development of a range of thinking and problem-solving skills. But, this is enough? According to Crandall (1994: 256):

“Students cannot develop academic knowledge and skills without access to the language in which that knowledge is embedded, discussed, constructed or evaluated. Not can they acquire academic language skills in a context (academic) content.”

So, in CLIL methodology: language is used to learn as well as communicate and it is the subject matter which determines the language needed to learn. 

To integrate content and language learning, Coyle (1999) created the 4Cs Framework which is integrated for four contextualized building blocks:

According to her, a successful CLIL lesson should combine:

• Content: proggression in knowledge, skills and understanding related to specific elements of a subject.
• Communication: using language to learn whilst learning to use language.
• Cognition: developing thinking skills which link concept formation (abstract and concrete), understanding and language.
• Culture: exposure to alternative perspectives and shared understandings, which deepen awareness of otherness and self.

With this in mind,  a CLIL lesson is facing an important challenge: the second language level of the learners, usually, is not the same as their cognitive level. And, in this sense there is a problem: if the language level is too demanding, effective learning cannot take place. If the cognitive level is too low taking into account the language level, then, learning is restricted. 

To face this, CLIL use the CLIL MATRIX:

This tool for CLIL teachers was adapted by Coyle (2002) from Cummins´ work (1984). This matrix can be used to measure the combination of cognitive and linguistic levels of the different tasks of a CLIL lesson. According to CLIL experts:

- If a task is placed in quadrant 1, it means that this task is cognitively easy, but that requires a demanding language. This is why, in CLIL settings, quadrant 1 is to be avoided.

- Most of the activities in CLIL classes should be placed on quadrants 2 and 3 of the matrix. These tasks are accesible in terms of language demands, and are either cognitively easy or difficult.

- In a sequence of activities, there should be a progression towards quadrant 4. These tasks require to master the language and are cognitively demanding at the same time, and for this reason they should be carefully planned.

WHAT IS BLOOM´S TAXONOMY?

WHAT IS BLOOM´S TAXONOMY?

At the first class of AICLE (CLIL), we have focused on aspects of general didactics, that will be useful to develop CLIL activities. In particular, we have payed attention on some aspects of Bloom´s taxonomy. But, What is Bloom´s taxonomy?

Bloom´s Taxonomy was created in 1956 under the leadership of educational psychologist Dr Benjamin Bloom in order to promote higher forms of thinking in education, such as analyzing and evaluating, rather than just remembering facts.  The committee identified three domains of educational activities or learning:

• Cognitive:  involves knowledge and the development of intellectual skills.

• Affective: includes the manner in which we deal with things emotionally, such as feelings, values, motivations or attitudes. 

• Psychomotor: is related with manual or physical skills.

Each domain is subdivided into several hierarchical categories ranging from the simplest aspects to the most complex:

The committee produced an elaborated compilation for the cognitive and affective domains, however, they omitted the psychomotor domain. For CLIL methodology, it is important to know the cognitive domain.

AICLE/CLIL

AICLE is the Spanish acronym of CLIL, Content and Language Integrated Learning. That means  to teaching different subjects such as science, arts or physical education to students through a foreign language. 

The main point of CLIL consist of teaching both the content and the language in an integrated way. We teach both things at the same time and students learn both things at the same time. 

To understand better the meaning of CLIL, the following video seems to me very interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuBcjp7ji8g

PRESENTATION

This blog aims to show my work in CLIL (AICLE), subject of the Master in research and educational innovation in Nursery and Primary Education at the University of Vigo.

English is not my mother tongue, so I apologize in advance for the spelling mistakes and grammatical errors that may appear. I will try to do my best!!