1. INTRODUCTION
As part of my participation in the training course: “Thinking Cognitive Skills in the Clil Secondary Classroom” and following the directions given by the fantastic speaker of the course: Raquel Sánchez Ruiz, I have designed an activity for my students of 1º ESO. The subject is GEOGRAPHY & HISTORY and the topic is: PREHISTORY. The topic is related to the Unit 7. And this is the moment in which we start to study History. The first units are lessons focus on Geography and now this is the moment to deal with History. This is usually an intimidating moment. The students like the curriculum in Geography: The universe, galaxies, planets, the Earth, physical maps, the weather, climates, bioclimatic areas, etc…all of them are topic closer to their interests but History sounds far away in time, especially Prehistory and especially in 1º ESO, where the students are not mature enough to catch all the ideas and circumstances.
Our textbook: Geography &
History 1. Global Thinkers, Anaya.
2022
Unit 7: Prehistory. Topic 1: Prehistoric Ages and Sources, page 138 and next.
1.
ACTIVITIES
Taking
into consideration the difficulties experienced by the students
to study History,
I have planned and activity to increase curiosity and motivate them. So,
in the design and structure of a CLIL lesson this activity corresponding to number 1 stage:
ANTICIPATION.
The idea
is building background and to approach the students to the different
prehistoric stages and the main
features in each period. I have used “mindmapping” (see picture above) to make visible the information and
check the previous knowledge of the students. I wrote in the whiteboard the term: PREHISTORY and invite the students
to share all they knew. And I was really impressed because they covered almost all the ideas we have to develop in
the unit. You can see here the final
result.
I got the idea from Lee Fields, Donna (2017): 101 Scaffolding Techniques for Language
Teaching and Learning
(EMI, ELT, ESL, CLIL, EFL). Barcelona: Octaedro.
Page 37
Regarding
with the idea of learning situations and universal design for learning (UDL) under the needs of LOMLOE (2020), the next step in the Anticipation Level of the CLIL Prehistory lesson was the design of an
activity that match the idea of English
4All. I encourage the students to
promote their creativity and increase their critical thinking, communication and, above all, to rise their collaboration and cooperation.
The
activity is “brainwriting” (Sé algo
de esto). I have prepared a list of
questions (eight questions, one per each student) related to each of the unit topics in different pieces of papers.
Each of the students read the paper with the questions and during 60 seconds
they write all they know about the
topic. If they don’t know anything at all they wrote a hyphen. Consuming the time, they pass the paper to
the student seating to the right, they have 60
seconds again. After answering all the questions we put in common and
sharing the answers with the whole
group.
The idea, again, is taken from Lee Fields,
Donna (2017): 101 Scaffolding Techniques for Language
Teaching and Learning
(EMI, ELT, ESL, CLIL, EFL). Barcelona: Octaedro. Page 38
Honestly, I think that activity matches
perfectly the 3 principles of Universal Design for Learning : Means of Engagement (the activity was received with
enthusiasm for the students), Multiple
means of representation (presenting the information in a different way to
support their understanding) and Multiple
Means of Action/Expressions, offering the students the opportunity
to show their previous knowledge at the same time they become familiar with the different topics and sections of the unit
and be aware of periods and specific vocabulary they need to deal with the information. This made possible to study
the key terms in a funny way. All of them were involved in the explanation and increased their participation in the
classroom.
You can see here some the students’ answers:
1. CONCLUSSIONS
I was really surprised and happy with the results of these two activities. The response of the students was fantastic. They enjoyed it a lot and gave me wonderful answers, especially in the “mindmapping”. The “brainwritting” had offered to me the real knowledge and level of the students. So, I can adjust the next activities to their necessities and perform authentic English for all. For instance, the group does not know anything at all about megalithic monuments. And after sharing their answers, the students loved some responses and found another completely silly and stupid. These two activities increased their curiosity and motivate them to study Prehistory. At the same time we have activated the schemata for the unit.
Now, I am aware of the importance of planning activities focused on 5Cs and 21st century skills engaging the whole group (all the students), stimulating and motivating them while the information is presented into different ways and what is more: offering a variety of possibilities to demonstrate their learning and what kind of network I am using teaching in the classroom.
There is no doubt it is a challenge for teachers, but thanks to the course I have some other aspects to note in my teaching practice. I have understood the power of inclusion and the importance of applying the three types of mean in the use of CLIL methodology and how I can put UDL into practice with a great variety of strategies.
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