Continuous Professional Development (CPD)

Be always ready to continuos learning is needed for the teaching improvement.

CPD obligations are common to most professions. CPD is a planned, continuous and lifelong process whereby teachers try to develop their personal and professional qualities, and to improve their knowledge, skills and practice, leading to their empowerment, the improvement of their agency and the development of their organisation and their pupils.

Nowadays I’m a teacher, but I’m not working yet because I’ve just finished my studies and I’m preparing my competitive exams for next June.

But, if I were already working in a school I would like to attend to the courses of the CEFIRE which gives a lot of support for teachers by free, because it’s funded by Conselleria. I would like to learn more about how to assess taking in to account the 8 competences based on the multiple intelligences of Howard Gardner, I think I would chose some course like that, but the offer is really wide.

Besides, it would be great to take part in an Erasmus + programme funded by the European Union. I find it very interesting because we can learn a lot of things travelling to others countries and adapting their best practices. It’s a beautiful experience to share knowledge around the UE and improve our skills in teaching and also in language and communication.

I hope someday this programmes will be available for all teachers, working or not, because there are very interesting courses and experiences that if we aren’t in a school/high school we can’t access to.

There are also other ways to be aware of the continuous development as:

• Classroom Action Research: teachers develop research questions, collect and analyse data and then they share their data with others teachers and write about it.
• Communities of practice: are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do, teaching in that case, and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.
• Professional Learning Communities at School: teachers update their professional knowledge and skills within the context of an organised, school-wide system for improving teaching practices.

In my opinion, Professional Learning Communities at School are one of the best ways to practise CPD, because it’s easy organize a group in the school (it could be formal or not) where talk about teaching practices and try to improve the students learning sharing their best experiences, but also the errors, because all teachers learn about it and with less effort teachers can find better solutions to their problems.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter the programme we chose, the important thing is be aware that we should be responsible of our Professional Growth. 

Objectives and Assessment in a CLIL Context

Usually, here in Valencia, when we implement a CLIL Program, we based our lessons in the content of the subject, and the knowledge of the language is not a really aim, we use a foreign language sometimes as a language of work, sometimes to learn vocabulary… but teachers don’t teach the language in fact. What I mean, is that maybe we are too focused on achieve the curriculum objectives (and that’s what we assess) that we forget to teach and assess the language competence because it isn’t said literally in the curriculum.

I know that is important to teach the objectives established in the curriculum, but in CLIL, is also important focus on how to learn the foreign language explaining new grammar structures, vocabulary and language for communication and interaction. But, we have to take into account, that the objective of a subject is understand their content, we should avoid too only teaching language per se, forgetting their purpose of the subject. So, for me, the most important thing to teach to my Students in Economy, my subject, is to teach a well-balanced mix of both: content and language learning.

In order to what I’ve said, it seems to me a good model teaching in CLILA[1], which it defines three dimensions:

1.    Subject-specific skills and competences
2.    Subject-specific themes
3.    Communicative competences in the foreign language.

I would like to teach Economy focusing in contents, like understand how the market operates, some important skills as do a good research of information and know how to use it, and communicative competences as show opinions and personals points of view about current issues, teaching the structures that they need to show their opinion, using as support the descriptors of the language level, making it an additional aim apart from the curriculum.

For instance:

Skill: Be assertive showing your point of view.

Content: Market operation

Communicative competence: I can give or seek personal opinions in an informal discussion with friends, agreeing and disagreeing politely.

In that case, use this model is as a matter of fact, an instrument to do the assessment, because the descriptor allow teachers to focus the achievement of the students in the language competence in an integrated way whit the content objective.

I would assess their learning monitoring their learning from the beginning to the end:

1.    Diagnostic Assessment: to know what the student’s level is.
2.    Formative Assessment: to check how students are learning.
3.   Summative Assessment: To add all the contents, skills and communication competences acquired at the end of the course, as addition of the all assessments done during the course.

In my point of view, apart from assess their abilities, contents and language knowledge, is important to assess their behavior and their progression to take into account the inter-personal part of the learning process.

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[1] Ute Massler, Daniel Stolz &Claudia Queisser (2014) Assessment instruments for promary CLIL.

Advantages and disadvantages of the ELP

First of all, I would like to describe what the ELP is:

The European Language Portfolio is a tool developed by the Council of Europe to provide a way of teaching and assessing all languages in Europe.

Each school can adapt the ELP, but it must have three compulsory parts:

1. Language Passport: summarizes the linguistic identity saying how many languages you speak, what your level in each skill is (listening, speaking, reading and writing), what kind of certification you have and which your intercultural experiences with the language are.
2. Language Biography: is used to record how languages are acquired and learned and monitoring the progress in language learning (doing a tick in each descriptor we have achieved to do).
3. Language Dossier: contains a selection of work that shows the evidence of the language learning.

I have to say that I have never listened to talk about the ELP since two weeks ago, when the teacher explain us all above the ELP. Last year I did a master in Teaching Education (Economics specialty) and although I’m not working yet, if I had to teach my subject in English I would like to use the ELP because I believe that is a very interesting tool which has a lot of advantages. 

One of the most obvious advantage, in my opinion, is that make language learners to be more aware of the learning process, and this helps to be more objective whit the self-assessment and also develops a planning skill of their own learning.

I will teach in High School, so I think that is an important advantage use a tool that encourage learners to be more autonomous, because students are in age when they have to start to be seriously responsible of their learning and practice active learning.

According to that, when teachers use descriptor during the course when the students are doing activities, they know what is the objective, what is expected of them, and they can organize their learning process, know how to work and plan what could they need to achieve the aim. Set objectives also helps to motivate the students, who can see that they are improving their knowledge of the language progressively.

Another advantage is that using the ELP foster the continuous assessment and also the self-assessment, so students are more aware about what they can and cannot do and because of this they understand better the teacher assessment (they compare it with the progress they have record in their language biography).

Related to my subject, I find very interesting use the language dossier with a professional purpose, they can compile evidence of their abilities that help them to find a job in the future (covering letters, CVs, economic news comments…)

But, to my mind, teaching with the ELP has disadvantages too. The biggest disadvantage that I see is that it takes a lot of time prepare the activities in order to work with the ELP, it would be interesting to have some supporting resources to make easier this work, that requires a big effort from the teacher. I guess that another disadvantage is that you need the support of the school to work with the ELP in a whole way, because to my mind it has no sense work only during a year or in a lonely subject with the ELP.

In my opinion there are more advantages than disadvantages, so it’s a good idea extend the use of the ELP in order to improve the assessment of a language and the awareness of the own learning process.

Scaffolding

"Teaching is not transferring knowledge, is to create the possibilities for its construction."

Scaffolding in Education is related with H.O.T which it means teach in order to build the basis of a perdurable Knowledge.

To achieve that, we have to take into account:

• Context: be natural, be relevant, be active, make sense, allow discovering...
• Connections: connect the knowledge with another areas, knowledges, child's culture...
• Coherence: link everthing they've learnt with a real context.
• Challenge: appropiate balance between linguistic and conginitve challenge. Remember that a new content should be a step more, but not too difficult.
• Curiosity: make them move and learn by their own. We have to create the expectation and curiosity.
• Care: take care for children and treat them individually.
• Community: Children need to feel part of a community (they feel valued and secure).

How can we create a scaffolding lesson? I strongly recommend you to read the article "Scaffolding Strategies to use with your students" where explains that we have to follow this steps to build an unforgettable knowledge:

1. Show and Tell.
2. Tap into prior Knowledge.
3. Give time to talk.
4. Pre-teach vocabulary.
5. Use visual aids.
6. Pause, ask questions, pause, review.

Multiple Intelligences

All of our students are good at something and we have to help them to realize in which intelligence are they good, because the better you feel, the more you improve in anything.

The theory of multiple intelligences by Howard Gardner is a theory of intelligence that differentiates it into specific modalities, rather than seeing intelligence as dominated by a single general ability. Each person has a combination of this activities.

Gardner choose 8 abilities:

• Linguistic: facility with words and languages. They are typically good at reading, writing, telling stories and memorizing words along with dates.
• Logical/Mathematical: good at logic, abstractions, reasoning, numbers and critical thinking.
•  Spatial: deals with spatial judgment and the ability to visualize with the mind's eye.
• Bodily/Kinesthetic: People who have high bodily-kinesthetic intelligence should be generally good at physical activities such as sports, dance, acting, and making things.
• Musical: sensitivity to sounds, rhythms, tones, and music.
• Interpersonal: People who have high interpersonal intelligence are characterized by their sensitivity to others' moods, feelings, temperaments and motivations, and their ability to cooperate in order to work as part of a group. Good interacting with the others.
• Intrapersonal: This refers to having a deep understanding of the self; what one's strengths/ weaknesses are, what makes one unique, being able to predict one's own reactions/emotions.
• Naturalistic: ecological receptiveness and "sensitive, ethical, and holistic understanding" of the world and its complexities.

The way we learn better is related with the multiple intelligences we have, so, teachers must use different styles of teaching to adapt the learning process to each kind of students we have. 

Teaching in H.O.T.

Higher Order Thinking

H.O.T is thinking on a level that is higher than memorize, it means that we have to think in order to learn something, and what is more, we have to use what we have learnt.

H.O.T involves learn something by understanding it (not memorizing, because you can memorize something without understanding it) and thinking for yourself about it.

According to that, we can say that H.O.T is a way of learning that has the following features:

• Does not include memorization.
• Require that we do something with what we learn.
• We must understand the information, connect them, categorize them, manipulate them, put them together in a new way and apply them.
• Is related with Metacognition: To think about your thinking (understand the processes involved in thinking).

It’s very important to teach in a H.O.T way because this helps to scaffold learning, and doing H.O.T questions to the scholars about the content that they study, we achieve to build the basis of a perdurable knowledge.

Higher Order Thinking is more difficult to learn or teach, but is also more valuable because such skills are more likely to be usable in novel situations.

For example, H.O.T is very important when we are teaching in CLIL because we have to teach the 4 skills of a language (listening, speaking, reading and writing) and that concern to promote an active way of learning, because students have to be able to speak and write by themselves, creating new knowledge adapting structures they have learnt before (by reading and listening) to new situations. In English students learn by manipulating information and applying it, memorizing is not effective. 

Classroom Atmosphere

Recently, I read an article about how important is that your classroom tells a story and attract students’ attention and curiosity.

Always is necessary create a good atmosphere at class, but in my opinion is more important when in addition you are going to teach in a foreign language. Learn in another language cause some stress in students, so a relaxed and comfortable environment it’s needed to achieve that students speak and ask questions without fear.

What makes a safe environment it’s a combination between good behaviors (teacher-student, student-student) and classroom decoration.  

You could thing that decoration is important only for pre-scholar, but a good decoration in class always increase visual stimulation, and as a result, they learn without notice it.

For example, you could make posters in your class with the commons polite forms to ask questions, maps abut countries you are talking about, objects related with the topics of the subject (like bills of different countries if you are talking about international trade), curiosities, news, pictures about famous films… And you can also put the names of the objects right next to learn new vocabulary.

All decoration should be done it with a purpose, which is provoke natural conversations around it.

I recommend you to read that article that could give you some ideas about how to decorate your classroom and why:

Click at the picture to go to the article.

Be creative, your students will thank you!