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ENGLISH SKILLS AND CUTTING-EDGE CLIL METHODOLOGIES..
ENGLISH SKILLS AND CUTTING-EDGE CLIL METHODOLOGIES FOR AN INCLUSIVE EUROPEAN SCHOOL
Start date: Jun 1, 2016,
End date: May 31, 2018
PROJECT
FINISHED
Our Erasmus plus mobility project 2016 ("ENGLISH SKILLS AND CUTTING-EDGE CLIL METHODOLOGIES FOR AN INCLUSIVE EUROPEAN SCHOOL") aims at PROMOTING A EUROPEAN DIMENSION OF EDUCATION within our school, by giving all of the staff the opportunity to improve their language skills and communicative competences in English and by enabling a group of teachers and the headmaster to take part in an intercultural professional development experience with teachers of other European countries , in order to LEARN ABOUT EACH OTHER’S EDUCATION SYSTEMS AND EXCHANGE GOOD TEACHING PRACTICES, with a special focus on CLIL METHODOLOGIES. Liceo Scientifico “G. B. Grassi”, located in Lecco, was born in 1943 and has always been committed to INNOVATION and DIDACTIC RESEARCH. The high academic standards which characterise the teaching/learning process at our school are demonstrated by the excellent levels of performance of our students in national and international surveys (see INVALSI data). Most of our students go on to study at university with excellent results (FGA: 89.29/100 Eduscopio Data 2015). Moreover, an increasing number of them chooses a foreign university to continue their education or moves to a foreign country at the end of their education process to look for a job. Consequently, the NEED FOR INTERNATIONAL OPENING that we feel as teachers is complementary to our students’ need to be part of a European education system and a European job market. It is also linked to the increasingly urgent necessity to develop and adopt FLEXIBLE DIDACTIC STRATEGIES to cope with such emergencies as the inclusion of Special Educational Needs (SEN) students, of foreign students and of non-native Italian speakers, particularly refugees. Our project develops in TWO YEARS; besides including English language courses for school staff, it also envisages the selection of a group of SCHOOL SUBJECTS that we regard as fundamental to a European curriculum (English Language and Literature, History, Latin Language and Literature, Mathematics/Physics), which are also taught with comparable learning outcomes at our partner schools. A selection committee led by our Headmaster has identified a PROJECT STAFF of FOUR TEACHERS of the above subjects with a minimum B2 level of competence in English who are willing TO GROW PERSONALLY AND PROFESSIONALLY by spending two JOB SHADOWING periods abroad (autumn-winter 2016 and 2017) COMPARING SYLLABUSES, CONTENTS AND METHODOLOGIES with the help of English-speaking colleagues who teach the same subject in the partner school. By the time they leave for the foreign school the members of our team will already have attended CLIL methodology courses and PLANNED DIDACTIC UNITS IN ENGLISH for each of the subjects. In addition, a few school staff members will be able to IMPROVE THEIR ENGLISH SKILLS and COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE and TO GET A DEEPER INSIGHT OF THE CLIL APPROACH by attending an international ten-day CLIL METHODOLOGY course offered by the partner organization we have selected, English Matters (Dublin, July-August 2016/2017). The team will finally spend a brief period of JOB ASSIGNMENT at the partner school, after DEVELOPING A CLIL DIDACTIC UNIT IN EACH SUBJECT, TO SHARE both with the foreign colleagues and their classes and with Italian colleagues, not only in our school, but also at other similar schools of our province/region, through participation to workshops and seminars at local/regional level. Thus, THE CREATION OF AUTHENTIC TEACHING MATERIALS IN A MULTINATIONAL CONTEXT will prove beneficial not only to all the teachers involved and their students, but to a network of schools. Finally, it will just be the beginning of a process linking our students with the students of other European schools, as WE ALSO AIM TO ESTABLISH FUTURE ERASMUS+ K2 PARTNERSHIPS. ENHANCING MOTIVATION IN BOTH TEACHERS AND STUDENTS is indeed a key objective of our project as we believe that the idea of focusing on contents that are relevant and meaningful in a European perspective and employing an internationally validated CLIL approach will prove to be highly stimulating, will PROMOTE INCLUSION and will result in an INCREASED SENSE OF EUROPEAN CITIZENSHIP. On the other hand, the implementation of all of the above stages of the project will require greater flexibility and a considerable organizational effort on the part of our school and we expect as a final result not only an INCREASED ABILITY TO WORK IN TEAM AND COLLABORATE for the whole staff, but also the ACQUISITION OF A PERMANENT SET OF PROCEDURES to be applied to future international mobility projects.