CLIL Me In
Start date: Aug 1, 2016,
End date: Jul 31, 2017
PROJECT
FINISHED
The project "CLIL Me In" meets, on the one hand, the national concerns which are mirrored in the results of the project "Key for Schools" in the last 2 years and, on the other hand, the regional concerns related to the teaching of English (whose results haven´t been that positive) and to the growing need to use this language in the present and future marketplace. Inded, the results published by IAVE and MEC related to the English tests from 2014 and 2015 show that they are much lower than expected regarding the recquired national standard and that the Lower Alentejo presents a value expressively below the medium one. In the same form, the headship of the parish of Beringel shows a lot of concern on improving te learning of English among its youngsters, not only because it's the international language, but also because the airport in Beja will need in a near future to hire new employees. That's why the implementtion of CLIL becomes so important in order to make possible to create concrete opportunities to use the English language and to improve its assessment, by promoting the students' self-esteem and to the ones who didn't succeed in the process of learning it in a formal way, without additional lessons and preparing them to the real needs of the job market. In an European multilingual and multicultural post-Bologna context, where internationalization is the keyword and where everybody seems to agree that it is urgent to ensure students (and teachers) have effective English language skills , the new opportunities provided by the "Content and Language Integrated Learning" (CLIL) persent high potential for the future.Although still at an incipient stage in Portugal, this methodology has known in the last decade, particularly in Europe and specifically in Spain and Italy, a wide dissemination with good practice reports from different levels of education, supported by a vast published research that emphasizes the importance of using the English to "do things" and highlighting aspects such as the benefits for those involved, students, teachers and the institutions.Therefore, the main objectives of this project are:- change the model of the process of teaching the English Language;- prepare effectively the students to the actual job market which is progressively more scattered, demanding and global;- improve the tachers' skills when teaching English and when teaching the other subjects intervening on the CLIL processs;- improve the articulation among teachers in their schools and with other intervening schools;- instate new methodology of teaching and learning;- promote the use of learning skills and resources which enable the development of metacognition;- introduce new assessment tools;- promote the students' educational success on the subjects used in the CLIL approach.According to the mobilities, there will be 22, with 11 participants each. The selected training courses reply to the institutions' needs and their modules adjust themselves to the gaps and objectives to reach by the 4 institutions which participate in this project, and they are the following:- "English Language Develpment for Teachers plus CLIL Methodology for Primary Teachers", in Malta, and dynamized by the "Easy School of Languages";- "Innovative Approaches to Teaching" in Prague, and dynamized by the "ITC - International Training Centre".As for the participants' profile, their selection will be done by the headmasters of the Schools involved (with the supervision of the coordinator of the project) and they will have to be teachers from the 3rd to up to the 5th grade who are directly working with the classes involved in this project. On the 2 primary schools from Beringel, the CLIL approach will be implemented on the 3rd grade (subjects: Natural and Social Sciences and Arts and Crafts); on the other 3 school grouping, it will be applied on the 5th grade (subjects: Arts and Technological Education and Maths). The participants will attend 5 preparatory language sessions every 6 weeks, they will also be present on preparatory meetings and public prsentations of the project. There will be a middle a mid-term review of the project on the 6th month and another one at the end of it, and participants will be supervised by the project coordinator and by a Professor from the University of Évora. However, as far as the local training is concerned, there will be training providers who are responsible for the follow-up and monitoring of the work accomplished by the trainees.The expected results will be:- greater coordination between the different school departments and levels of education in the institutions;- promotion of an organizational and collaborative culture among the institutions;- pedagogical strategies update;- implementation of new assessment tools;- adoption of success measures on the learning process (In English and other subjects involved);- use of student focused methodology.