My CLIL Science Corner

  HELLO! HELLO!   How are you doing? It's the countdown!  The end of the school year is always stressful and the temperature isn't helping at all   But... teachers are here to help    Two days ago @teach.and.learn.english shared a post about REVISION GAMES (visit her account to read it) on Instagram and I decided to create a new version of the game called "GIVE ME FIVE"  . Today 3rd graders have played this game and you can't imagine how much they have loved it!  How to play GIVE ME FIVE   I have created a wheel with the topics I wanted my students to revise. I have used the app "Wheel of names" to create the wheel (Click on the image to play "Give me five"  I have divided the students in 5 groups and I have given each group a sheet of paper, a pencil and a rubber  It's time to spin the wheel! They have had 1 minute to write 5 words about that topic. I have used the app online-stopwatch to control the time  The speake...

 💖 Hi teachers! 💖 Just three school days for our desired and deserved Christmas break 😉!  I'm sure you have worked very hard writing your lessons plans, creating your own materials, dealing with classroom management, attending meetings, working during the weekend... Yes, as teachers, sometimes we think we are superheroes with superpowers and we end up  the first term overwhelmed.  At the beginning of each school year,  I promise myself it is going to be different. I try to convince myself that I will only be working during the week, but this never happens. I end up working at school, after the school and at weekends. Too often, as teachers, we think we must create all our resources and that is really exhausting and time-consuming. Does this sound familiar to you? If it does, keep reading 👇👇 As many of you, I have been creating my own resources, but then I realised I didn't have free time for me and my hobbies. That is why this term I have started implementi...

HIYA! 😊 Today I have a question for you: "What's the perfect age to implement CLIL?". Many times in schools CLIL is thought to be perfect for older students (10-11 year-olds) and implementing CLIL  in the first grades (6-7 year-olds) is not considered appropiate. We tend to think that CLIL is better for the third cycle because students have a better command of the target language. They have been studying the target language for some years so they have learned more vocabulary and grammar if we compare them with younger students. But... is it possible to teach 6-7 year-olds with a CLIL approach? My answer is it is! I have taught Science with a CLIL approach in the first cycle of primary school and I must confess it is highly rewarding 💖 Teaching CLIL in the  first grade (6-7 year-olds) can be challenging, but also very gratifying. At this age, kids get easily involved and if you provide them with the vocabulary and structures they need, they start using the language in a ...

  GOOD AFTERNOON! 💕 Well... or good evening or good morning, depending on when you are reading this post 😊 In this blog, I have already dealt with the following principles of CLIL: ☑ The 4 Cs ☑ Scaffolding ☑ Bloom's Taxonomy Today's post is about " The 3 As tool in CLIL ". Are you ready? 😉 The 3 As tool is used for planning CLIL lessons. Whereas the 4 Cs helps us in the overall planning of the unit, the 3 As tool is of great help when we plan the language our students will need in the activities we have planned. The 3 As stands for A nalyse,  A dd and A pply. Let's have a look at the three stages: 👉 Stage 1 : ANALYSE content for the language OF learning. This means the key phrases and the vocabulary needed. 👉 Stage 2 : ADD to content language FOR learning. This refers to metacognitive or learner's strategies, language for group/pairwork, understanding instructions, how to deal with not understanding... To me, this stage is highly important. If we wa...

  HAPPY WEDNESDAY! 💕 This morning I was revising the posts I have written in this blog and I have realised I hadn't shared one of the most important principles of CLIL: THE 4 C's . So here I go! What are  the 4 Cs? The 4 Cs stand for:  CONTENT , COGNITION , COMMUNICATION and CULTURE . A successful CLIL unit should combine the 4 Cs . CONTENT refers to the subject or theme of the lesson or unit. When planning CONTENT of the unit, it is essential to think of the knowledge, skills and understanding we want our students to learn. COGNITION refers to thinking skills our students will develop during the learning process. When planning the activities of the unit, we should include activities that help our students go from low thinking levels to high thinking levels (Bloom's Taxonomy). You can also read about " Bloom Taxonomy and CLIL " and " Activities based on Bloom's Taxonomy " in this blog. COMMUNICATION refers to the students' use of the target ...

  Hello! Hello! Today I would like to share with you the CLIL unit  I prepared for my 10-11 year-old students during the third term. Kids love animals whether they are vertebrates or invertebrates, don't they? Since they had already studied the vertebrates in L1, their teachers and I agreed to deal with the INVERTEBRATES .  Invertebrate animals are more present in our lives than we  think; that's why I decided to entitled this unit: WHAT INVERTEBRATES LIVE AROUND US? As usual, I follow the steps described in the post " How I plan a CLIL unit or project ". These are the activities that I planned: 1) DIFFERENCES BETWEEN VERTEBRATES AND INVERTEBRATES.  I  created a presentation with several slides. In slide 1 there were two groups of animals: Group 1 (vertebrates) and Group 2 (invertebrates). The title of this slide was : " What are the differences between these two groups of animals?   Students could already identify the characteristics of vertebrates, ...

WELCOME JULY! 💞 We all agree that it has been a hard school year, don't we? We have had to get used to new routines (face masks, hand sanitizers, classrooms with open windows in winter, online teaching, lockdowns...).  Each school year I need the first days of the summer holidays to get over the stressed of the school year and today I would like to share with you some tips I put into practice to recover and make the most of my summer. 1) SET OFF THE ALARM CLOCK . This is one of the first things I do on 30th June. I sleep until my body has enough. This doesn't mean I get up at 11 am, but I let my body "speak". Ok, you may have kids and that's not so easy. Then, make sure that you have time for you before everybody wakes up. During this time you can do those activities you like the most: reading a book, stretching, having a cup of coffee or tea in silent... 2) EAT HEALTHY . You may agree with me that when we are under stress we tend to eat more junk food, drink mor...

  HAPPY WEDNESDAY! 💓 Teachers, how many times have you asked your students to do an investigation and when they search for information on Internet, the web pages they find are too difficult for them to understand? In my case, I teach Science in English and that happens most of the time. However... Look! 👀 KIDDLE is a visual search engine for kids , offering safe kids webs, image and video search. It is in English, so it is perfect for CLIL and English teachers.  How is KIDDLE designed specifically for kids? Have a look at the images below: Did you know about Kiddle?  What do you do to help your students search for appropriate information? Eva💕

  Hi Super Teachers! Today's post is about the 21st Century Competences or Skills . These are 12 abilities our students need to develop in order to succeed in their future careers.   These skills can be divided into 3 categories: 1) LEARNING SKILLS . These skills teach students about the mental processes required to adapt and improve in a modern world environment.  2) LITERACY SKILLS . These skills focus on how students discern facts, publishing outlets and the technology behind them. There is a strong focus on determining trustworthy sources and factual information to separate it from the misinformation that floods the Internet. 3) LIFE SKILLS . These skills take a look at intangible elements of a student's everyday life. These intangibles focus on both personal and professional qualities. Nowadays it is not enough with "filling" our students with a lot of contents. As educators, we should help develop the 21st century skills. Do you have into account these skills...

Hi teachers! How are you doing?💖 Today I would like to ask you a question: do you bear in mind the 4 skills ( listening, speaking, reading and writing ) when planning your CLIL units or projects? I try to do so, even if sometimes it is a bit tricky. From my point of view, it is highly important that our students have time to practise the 4 skills in their CLIL class because, in fact, they are using a language to learn in a similar way they would if they were learning content in L1. Whenever they are learning contents from any subject in L1 they are also using the 4 skills: maybe they are watching a video and they are listening to information they need for a purpose (listening) ; they are discussing a topic (speaking);  they are searching for information in books or on internet (reading) or they are writing a report (writing). So, why not practising the 4 skills in our CLIL lessons?  Would you like to find out what activities I use in my CLIL lessons to practise the 4 skill...