Friday 30th October

Our class today began talking about KED schools. In order to create a new educational environment, KED schools decided that a complete new system was necessary. They changed the whole approach to teaching and learning, focussing on the student's autonomy and independent work. The kids are supported by individual tutors and are involved in a coaching process. They also have a learning portal, which organizes all the contents in step courses. Technology is a key point in these schools, as students need access to their learning resources and materials. But the most relevant aspect is the way education is organized. Pupils are not grouped according to their age, but according to the step course they are following. They focus on achievement, goals, coaching and assessment. But I wonder if we could reallistically apply the KED schools system in our own classrooms. Is it possible to implement a specific aspect or element of this learning approach within a rigid schedule that is so hard and difficult to modify? Would it make any sense using specific techniques that only seem to work when they are framed in a coherent system?

Francisco also reflected about how to allocate resources in order to improve our schools. Francisco thinks that investing money in buying technology – for example, one computer per child – is pointless unless teachers know what to do with these resources. This is what happened in southern Spain, but it didn't really work. Instead, he considers that we should spend money in teacher training, making it our priority. When teachers have the knowledge and skills to manage their classes they will be able to promote a real change in their own schools.

This launched a very interesting debate about the differences between the English educational system and the Spanish one. Francisco also explains how this particular training programme for teachers was first held in Ireland, but it didn't seem to work. So the authorities from Madrid decided to change its location to Chichester, where the summer training course for bilingual teachers worked quite well. Anyway, Francisco insists in the importance of creating a network of teachers who can work together and share their resources, materials and reflections. If we manage to set up a network, the outcomes of our training programme will have the opportunity to spread and reach many more people in Madrid.

Personally, what I find stressful and rather uncomfortable in this approach is the way it pushes every individual to make the most of his/her own skills in order to obtain a maximum productivity. This particular frame of mind seems to be obsessed with efficiency and effectiveness, with a never-ending process investing in our own improvement, eternally revising our own performance. Moreover, we are encouraged to monitor this process using objective and clear indicators, which can be combined and measured in a rigorous way by ourselves or eventually by external inspectors also. Within this peculiar frame of mind, nothing seems to be good enough, as there is always the possibility of improvement. Perfection is unattainable, and neurotically trying to achieve it can be exhausting and depressing. Perhaps we should learn to accept our own flaws, our own limitations and our own imperfections. I don't picture myself as being an unhappy, unsatisfied and anxious teacher in perpetual search of outstanding performance. Why should be get involved in this tiring and continuous effort in order to be the best teacher ever? I would rather be a happy, imperfect and human teacher that tries to do his best without getting obsessed to become an ideal model of teaching effectiveness.

I guess that our teachers at Chichester University consider that this peculiar group of 20 Spanish teachers could become the vanguard of a revolutionary change in our way of teaching and learning. Sometimes I feel they are pushing us a bit too much, forcing us to abandon our comfort zone and throwing us into the unknown and hazardous space of risky pedagogical innovation. According to Francisco, “Whenever there is stability, there is no progression”.

I imagine that both our teachers and the educational authorities that are paying them hope that this training course might launch a chain reaction in our own educational system. But first they have to convince us that such a change is positive, convenient and necessary. Personally, I consider that feeling that our traditional way of teaching is being put at stake is not only challenging, but it might also be counterproductive, as it can be discouraging at the end of the day.

This makes me reflect about the safe permanent posts that Spanish teachers get after passing their competitive examinations and becoming civil servants, in comparison with the situation of English teachers, who are regularly assessed and whose position is always threatened by an adverse Ofsted report. Is this the best scenario to enhance the teacher's performance, motivation and happiness? Do we really want to transform the Spanish educational system in this direction? Isn't it better for the teacher – and also for the educational system as a whole – to concentrate on education rather than on struggling to get and maintain a good position in a highly competitive scenario? Are we sure that introducing market criteria in the selection, assessment and professional development of teachers is the best way to become a human and happy teacher?  

Thursday, 29th October

As a starter tuning-in activity, Francisco showed us this morning different images depicting famous and also members of his own family. This was his way to introduce David Marsh, who seems to be one of the most important authors in the CLIL world. As bilingual teachers, we all know tht CLIL stands for 'Content and Language Integrated Learning', but Francisco wanted to make sure that we could correctly explain what CLIL is about. For example, are we using a CLIL approach when we teach our content subjects in Spanish? In order to clarify this controversial point, Francisco asks us to discuss in our groups which is the correct definition of CLIL. We must agree on one and write it down. After a long and frutiful discussion, we discovered that CLIL does not exactly mean teaching content in a foreign language, as this would be more likely labelled as an immersion educational programme. CLIL focusses both in teaching language through content and in teaching content through language, so the teacher should take into account both aspects. The key word here is probably 'integrated', meaning that if we want to use CLIL effectively we cannot fail to consider either the content or the language.

By the way, I find quite useful and interesting this particular technique of asking pupils to discuss about the best way to give a certain definition. While teaching philosophy, giving clear definitions and clarifying conceptual differences is a crucial point. Instead of giving the answers to the students the teacher can ask them to find their own definitions by themselves. But I can't help wondering whether this strategy is the best way to teach difficult abstract contents. I mean, isn't it a bit misleading? It may lead our students to get confused and find that they are completely lost! How can we manage to teach complex and massive contents in one single lesson? There is a possible way to sort out the problem, which is the one that Francisco used in our class today. The teacher can give different definitions, which correspond to different answers given by different authors in different moments. Supposedly, the last one should be the most precise, accurate and appropriate. But is this really the case? How do we know that the last definition given in chronological order is really a valid, definitive, final solution? Why should it be? And how can we convince our students, after opening such a can of worms, that this controversy must find an at least temporary end.

There is another point here in which I tend to be quite critical. I' afraid that all these debates and controversies about the exact definition about what CLIL is and what it is not could be regarded as Byzantine discussions. Is this really important for us and our teaching? Shouldn't we focus our attention on what to do rather than on these petty academic problems about definitions?

Anyway, according to the CLIL guru David Marsh, a good definition of CLIL would be the following one: An evolving educational approach to teaching an learning where subjects are taught through the medium of a non-native language. Actually, today we learnt that CLIL began to be used in the early 1990s to describe and design good practices such as those achieved in different educational environments where teaching and learning took place using a foreign language.

But CLIL is not a universally accepted approach to teaching. In order to deal with some of the most ommon criticism about CLIL, Francisco prepared a 'scrambled eggs' activity. He gave us a bunch of words that we were asked to reorganize in order to reconstruct the original sentence to which they belonged. The sentence happened to be a very critical statement about CLIL, something like 'CLIL is not useful because it requires lots of work and effort for the children' or 'CLIL is just for private schools, where they have all the resources they need'. Then we were asked to reflect in pairs and in groups about these statements, just to check if we agreed or disagreed with them. This is a clever way to create a debate about how teachers could manage to sort out the problems that a CLIL approach can produce. This can be used in my own teaching giving my students some controversial statements, hoping that they will find a way to produce suitable arguments for a rebuttal. The point is trying to shift the focus from the teacher to the students, so instead of giving them the correct answers they will hopefully find them by themselves. However, I found that there was a missing part in this lesson. What about the obvious and undeniable drawbacks of CLIL? We didn't talk about that! The teacher just gave us two obviously oversimplified statements that we were supposed to rebutt, but there was not even the shadow of a fair and contrasted debate between two opposing points of view, for and against CLIL. I guess that everybody in this training course must consider that we are all obviously enthusiastic supporters of this particular approach to teaching, regardless of its flaws, problems or possible counterproductive effects.

Francisco also asked us a rather tricky question: Is your personal approach to CLIL in the classroom a good one or a bad one? Perhaps we should make a difference between the idea of integrating content and language in our teaching (which is what CLIL is supposed to be about) and the methodology that we use when trying to put this approach into practice. David Marsh thinks that CLIL should also be about having fun and being happy at school. Actually, he thinks that we can have bad teaching through another language, but we cannot have bad CLIL, as CLIL is composed of good practices. But I am afraid that this statement is based on a poor tautological definition of CLIL!

A surprising piece of information that I learnt from this video is that CLIL teaching in Spain is considered to be among the best ones in Europe. Primary education teachers seem to be doing a particularly brilliant job in Spain. Where is the secret of their success? They communicate with other colleagues and they work in teams, they use games and play a lot in the class, they use active and motivating methodologies, they use a wide variety of different activities so they can adapt the rhythm of the class… But I guess that Francisco considers that the secret of success is never giving up!

During the afternoon we also had the opportunity to reflect on these questions at the beginning of Kathy's session. Kathy thinks that all these new activities and techniques that we are learning can be integrated in our teaching style without the need of getting rid of all that we have been doing so far. Perhaps it is not necessary to fundamentally change everything. She reminds us that we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water! Hopefully we will be able to maintain whatever works and complement it with these new activities and approaches. To be honest, I am not completely sure about this. I guess that the way we teach is conditioned by a general understanding of our task and our goals that works as a broad frame of mind that underpins everything we do. Using these techniques makes sense if your methodology is coherent with a dynamic, student centred approach. How can we make them work without changing the more traditional, vertical, transmissive model? Wouldn't it be a chaotic incoherent mixture of perspectives? Wouldn't it be extremely confusing both for the teacher and the students?

Wednesday, 28th October

This training course seems to be designed in order to show us new amazing surprises every single day. Today, in a brief though extremely intense conversation with Francisco during the coffee break, we talked about the importance that both of us give to values in education. He told me that he is carrying out a research project on this particular subject, which I consider of capital importance. Apparently, there is a whole school of thought stemming from Neil Hawkes' work, which emphasises the role that values should play in our educational systems. He explains his points of view in this video and also in this document. Neil Hawkes does not only think that values should be taught at school, but he also supports the idea of creating a completely new educational environment in which ethical values should be the cornerstone of the whole curriculum. According to Neil Hawkes, teachers should talk about the moral values in which they believe, fostering the development of respect, care or responsibility, for example. But, even more important than that, teachers' behaviour should be a living model of these values, showing the students how these principles can be put into practice in order to build better lives and strengthen community links.

I couldn't agree more with this particular approach to education. Many philosophers, politicians and educators share the common idea that common values are essential in our society. Ethical values model the way we live and define our social and personal priorities and influence our everyday interactions. The kind of person that you are depends on the values in which you believe, so it is crucial to take these values into consideration in order to become the kind of man or woman that you really want to be. This is a basic point that Aristotle, a very wise Greek thinker, pointed out a long time ago. I feel really happy to know that his ideas are not forgotten, as I can feel its inspiration in Neil Hawkes' reflections and proposals. I wish we could foster a serious debate in Spain about these issues, as a first step in the complex process of transforming our educational system into a more human, ethical and reflective one!

Tuesday, 27th October

Today I was really touched by a video that Francisco showed us in his class, and which can be accessed at https://vimeo.com/43938001 . It is about the peculiar approach to education that is put into practice in the Kunskapsskolan schools. In these KED schools, as they are called, students seem to have great autonomy and independence. Their schedule, their tasks and their learning programmes are flexible, personalised and adaptable, so the use of resources, time and space can be individually customised. Each student has a personal logbook, where he or she can keep track of his or her particular goals, tasks and assignments. KED schools use a learning portal to provide students with specific learning contents, materials and resources. This is an excellent way to deal with differentiation, as it allows brilliant students to design their own learning paths and rhythms. Such approach makes it possible for an outstanding student in 7th grade to finish its curriculum and move on to 8th grade in the middle of an ordinary school year. Every kid is taken care of, as each individual learning schedule is periodically revised and checked. There is also a coaching system so that every student keeps in close contact with a teacher who monitors his or her development and learning evolution. Typically, the coach will ask his or her coachee which are the goals that he or she wants to attain, and how is he or she planning to achieve them. Such a personalized organization is a wonderful way to grant every student the specific attention that they individually deserve.
In comparison with other schools, these wonderful KED schools seem to be an exotic and unreachable educational paradise. Considering how stressed and busy I am in my own school, I wonder how they manage to organize weekly meetings between each student and his or her corresponding coach. I also wonder whether my own students would be responsible, mature and autonomous enough to rely on a flexible and modular learning portal without the physical presence of a teacher to guide them. I guess that these kids must come from very special families, who must have invested a lot of energy, time and affection in teaching their own children the basic skills that such an independent kind of work requires. Nevertheless, it is a fantastic example of what can be achieved, and a powerful source of inspiration. I wish I could some day work in such a marvellous way!

Monday, 26th October

As I become more and more involved in my training course, becoming progressively familiar with the different activities and techniques that English teachers use in their classrooms, I am also beginning to reflect on the basic philosophical ideology underpinning this particular approach to teaching and learning. Of course, it is an extremely well organized, highly effective and efficient way to understand education. Teachers are supposed to design accurate lesson plans, to know a vast repertoire of teaching tools and resources, to regularly assess the students' progress and to carefully reflect on their own teaching practice. Moreover, they are systematically evaluated by inspectors who sit in their classes while they are teaching, and who have the scary power of determining whether the teacher's performance is satisfactory or inadequate. Unlike Spanish teachers, British teachers are not civil servants with a permanent post and a life-long safe and predictable career. They are recruited by the school principal, and if their work doesn't meet the expected quality standards, they might be eventually dismissed. In order to prove that they are following the national curriculum they must keep a precise and detailed record of all their activities. I can imagine the overwhelming amount of paperwork involved in such a task, and I can also guess how stressful this job must be, taking into account the considerable pressure that they must bear. And, last but not least, they are also in charge of making their pupils learn!

The overall impression that this educational system makes me feel is not very exciting. I admit that their pedagogical techniques, centred in the student rather than in the teacher, are much more interesting and appealing than the ones we generally use in Spain. However, I find that English teachers are forced to work within a general scheme that is focussed on productivity and accountability, that is obsessed with bureaucratic evaluation and that considers that teachers should be carefully monitored in order to prevent any deviation from the programmed schedule. This does not really match my personal conjectures about how a relaxing and happy working environment should look like. As a teacher, my ideal scenario is much closer to the Finnish way of understanding education. A few years ago I had the wonderful opportunity of witnessing how schools work in Finland. I witnessed how Finnish teachers do their jobs, and I was really amazed when I discovered the freedom and happiness they enjoyed in their classrooms. Of course, Finland cannot be compared with England – or, for the same reason, with Spain. But there are some aspects of Finnish education than make me wonder whether there could be a substantial flaw in the British way of addressing pedagogical problems. To start with, teachers are very respected people in Finland, as education is considered to have a very prestigious and important role in Finnish society. Becoming a teacher in Finland is a dream that can only be achieved by the most brilliant students. This means that most Finnish teachers have a very clear vocation, excellent qualifications and outstanding skills. They are so committed with their job that there seems to be no need of having an inspection system. There used to be one, but it was suppressed as it was considered superfluous, making a stark contrast in comparison with British educational system. I described all my impressions from this visit to Finland in a presentation (written in Spanish) that can be accessed at the following Internet address: http://www.elviajerosuizo.com/resources/secreto_finlandia.cesar_prestel.pdf Anyway, there are also some aspects in Finnish educational system that make it difficult to generalise its general approach to other countries, such as Spain or the United Kingdom. So learning how English teachers deal with their classes can also shed light on the difficult challenges that we are facing in our modern societies. I wonder if it would be possible to create a synthesis between Finnish spirit and British efficiency, in order to foster a human, engaging and productive way of teaching.

Friday, 23rd October

 A relevant part of Kathy’s class this morning was focussed on revising all the activities we learnt so far in our training course. She asked us to discuss how we could possibly adapt them to our own learning environments when we go back to Madrid. Interestingly enough, when talking about these activities, the first thing we came across with was the remarkable list of obstacles that make this adaptation so difficult. When teachers have little time, they tend to focus on the content rather than on the language. Many of us, especially if we teach in the last years of secondary education, have to stick to a very broad and demanding syllabus. As we feel that many of these activities are highly time-consuming we are afraid that putting them into practice will make it very difficult to cover all the prescribed contents. Moreover, the physical structure of our own classrooms does not favour a dynamic, interactive approach to teaching. Our students are sitting on rows, according to a teacher-centred approach which is connected with a vertical transmissive model of the educational process. There are additional difficulties related to our CLIL approach to teaching. For example, when working in groups, our students tend to talk in Spanish, not in English, so this is an important issue that the teacher should be able to control. We also have to face the big challenge of teaching our contents in English to students that have very different levels of knowledge and fluency in this foreign language. But perhaps the biggest difficulty is connected with our own frame of mind. For example, my own teaching is focused on keeping control over the educational process – and I find that this interferes with a student-centred teaching style.

In any case, I am sure that we will need some time in order to make our students understand how this new methodology works. We need a scaffolding strategy in order to put all these new techniques into practice. Shifting from a teacher-centred approach to a student-centred style is not easy. We should find a realistic way to implement these changes little by little. For example, we could foster peer interaction and mushrooming groups, that would work. Other activities, which involve movement, will be – at least for me - much more difficult to put into practice.

However, I will not let all these obstacles stop me from improving my way of teaching. As Francisco very kindly asked me to do, I am trying to figure out how we could possibly implement some of these new techniques in our old-fashioned schools. For example, creating a bank of activities, techniques and resources would be very useful, as it would help us to prepare our lesson plans and to combine different options and possibilities. It would be great if we could share these materials and resources, fostering collaboration and creating an active network of bilingual teachers committed with methodological improvement. The wiki that we have created, and which can be accessed at http://chichestermadrid.wikispaces.com/, is a good example of what can be done. I hope I can find more exciting and promising ways to make the most of our training programme here in Chichester.

Thursday, 22nd October

This morning Simon James talked to us about the English educational system. But before beginning his lesson, he spent some minutes talking about himself, explaining his own professional career and giving some details about his work as a secondary education history teacher. He also talked about Cornwall, the place he comes from. I find it extremely surprising that all teachers talk about their personal background, their professional development and their peculiar interests and passions. This makes the relationship between them and the students much more human and interesting, and for me it is one of the most appealing aspects of this new approach to teaching. Actually, here I have a good example of something that I could really do with my own students when I go back to my school!

Simon's class was also revealing in another sense. In contrast with what other teachers did, he spent most of the time talking to us, presenting a detailed and thorough overview of the different schools, stages and teaching standards in English education. His session reminded me of my own teaching, which tends to be based on dull and extensive lectures. I know it is not the most engaging way to teach, but I find it extremely difficult to cope with the full contents we must cover using a different approach. Simon's presentation makes me feel relieved, as he didn't use creative, original, interactive and kinaesthetic activities, he didn't bring any signs and he didn't ask us to move around or dance. Fortunately, it seems that my own methodological approach is not so bad, if such a good teacher as Simon uses it when necessary! However, he admitted at the end of his class that 'the more you talk, the less the students learn'. I definitely agree. As a matter of fact, I also try to improve my own methodology introducing teamwork and dynamic activities when possible. The point is that, unfortunately, I find that most of the time this possibility is very remote.

But Simon is also a sensitive and very human teacher. He insisted on the importance of thinking about what the children will be doing during the class, not only in what the teacher is going to do. A good lesson plan should take into account both things. And it should encourage students' active participation and critical thinking. So Simon considers that, after a class, instead of asking the students 'What did you learn today at school?' or 'What did they teach you?', we should ask them 'What questions did you ask today in your class?'

He also stressed the importance of assessment. This tends to be a difficult issue, as correcting the students' mistakes should be done in an assertive though positive way. Simon recommends to avoy the use of 'but', and replace if for the expression 'and even better if…' For example, instead of saying 'Your homework was quite good, but you made some grammar mistakes' (which can be interpreted as a negative comment on the student's lack of proficiency in grammar, despite his good job), we could say 'Your homework was quite good, and it could be even better if you could improve your knowledge about grammar'.

Behaviour management is also a big topic Simon talked to us about. A good trick to give effective instructions to the class consists in asking the students to put down their pens in order to listen to the teacher, so they don't have any distraction. Hands up to talk, for example, can be another essential rule. When applying the rules you have to be consistent, this is very important for the children's eyes. Praise and individual attention are very effective. Learning how to manage a class is not an easy task. The best way to learn good strategies consists in observing how outstanding teachers manage their own classes.

The second big topic of our morning presentation was the amazing list of English teaching standards. There are a lot of them, and all English teachers are supposed to attain all of them. But how can these standards be monitored? Teachers are used to being observed in England. Before having formal appraisals, teachers used to buddy up. This is the way teachers' assessments started up. Nowadays, teachers are appraised every year by their staff manager. One way to do this consists in selecting three basic objectives the teacher wants to attain during the school year. In order to measure these objectives, teacher should not only decide the aims he/she wants to achieve, but also the indicators that will be used to measure these targets. The people who appraise you are the immediate people who are over you. For example, the head of the department will appraise 4 or 5 teachers in his/her department. The head of the department knows perfectly well how the other teachers do their job. He/She can observe them, perhaps for some minutes in their sessions, with a drop-in strategy. People also have the opportunity to observe what good teachers above you do in their sessions. The rough point is that teachers who can't meet these standards, even after receiving extra support, can be eventually dismissed.

The last part of the class also led me to a very critical personal reflection. If I am not wrong, there are nearly 40 different standards that all teachers are supposed to achieve. But I am afraid that these precise, thorough, detailed standards seem to be unattainable! There are so many of them, and they are so ambitious! And, how can they actually be accurately measured? Which kind of indicators and evidence can be used to evaluate our performance? And, most important of all, where can we include the human dimension of education into this assessment guide? There seems to be no reference to emotions, happiness, passion and joy in the teachers' standards, even though from my personal point of view, these are the most essential aspects that define what a good teacher is.

Wednesday 21st October

We are learning how to design lesson plans. First of all we reflected about the different curriculum approaches. Secondly, we identified the different elements in a lesson plan. In this process there are certain educational principles we should take into account. Some of them are more important than others, so we should think about them before designing our lesson plans. Scaffolding is one of these basic pedagogical principles, included in the constructivist approach developed by Vigostky and other authors. Another very important principle is cognition.

Cognition is a basic tool for problem solving. In order to solve a complex problem, we can work individually or we can do it in a big group. But if we collaborate with other people we foster interaction and we develop our cognitive skills. These activities are connected with Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) applied to education. When we face a challenging problem, we must work on it in teams to find possible solutions. In these cases, many different answers are possible, as there is no single straight solution for these situations. This kind of activity can be very interesting when teaching ethics or philosophy – ethical dilemmas or philosophical problems are so complicated that can only be managed in collaboration, and they don't have a single unique solution, but there are many different possibilities to address them. Big problems cannot be solved individually, they can only be managed collaborating in teams.

All these issues make me think about what we are actually doing in this lesson planning strand. These wonderful lesson plans are great, with so many activities and such detailed programming. But are they really useful when you are teaching 17 year old students in their sixth form? The time invested in these activities seems to be far too much, if you want to cover the complete syllabus for the A levels! I wonder how many of the teachers in this group really use these kind of approach in their everyday teaching. I, personally, combine lecturing and traditional teaching with some teamwork, which I introduce for some weeks every term. This is the only way I have found to match the requirements of our official syllabus and my own personal wish to make my classes more dynamic, engaging and motivating. We all love this methodological approach but, what if we bring the teacher's performance down to earth?

I am also troubled about the extensive amount of time required to prepare these wonderful lesson plans. In Spain we teach 20 periods every week, which means 20 different lesson plans that should be prepared in advance in a detailed and accurate way. I'm afraid I can't cope with such a huge amount of work!

Tuesday, 20th October

Today Francisco surprised us all with these challenging questions: What language should we teach in our class? How do we know which are the words that we should teach our students? If you are working with a publisher, how do you select the words you are going to use in your book? We tried to answer them, as well as we could, but it was not easy to give a proper explanation of our loose ideas. Francisco explained us that the basic words that are used in a specific field are gathered in a CORPUS (plural CORPORA), which we can always check in order to know the relevant concepts that we should be teaching in our class.

In order to teach these difficult words we can use CLIL activities, based on scaffolding strategies. For example, in order to present a lesson on neurones, instead of lecturing our students we could prepare activities for them to do. These activities should be designed in a way that even without having a vast knowledge about the subject our students should be able to complete them in a successful way. For example, we could ask them to match the beginning and the end of some sentences, or to match questions with its corresponding answers. When preparing these activities, the teacher can use simple grammar structures that our students already know in order to help them guess the correct answer in each case. Later, just to check that they have correctly understood the contents, we can ask them to write a brief essay or to complete a drawing labelling the parts of a diagram, etc. This is also a way to change the focus of the class, from the teacher to the student.

In order to let us know how important it is to use clear, understandable language in our classes, Francisco showed us a very interesting video, which can be accessed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OaIdwUdSxE . It was Tyler Dewitt's TED talk about the way science teachers speak in their classes.

According to Tyler Dewitt, the use of serious, academic language can be a problem in order to communicate with our student and engage them. Textbooks which are fun seem to be unscientific. If we get obsessed with perfect accurate scientific expression, they will be completely impossible to understand for our students. Communication should be simple and understandable. Telling stories and using funny examples is much more effective and engaging. If we leave out the jargon and make the pupils laugh things will be much more interesting for them. A teacher should also be a good story-teller, and this has to do with emotional connection with the audience.

I couldn't agree more! In fact, I think that this is one of the basic aspects of my own teaching, and my students always tell me that this particular way of speaking is for them the most valuable and useful element of my classes. Anyway, there is an aspect that Tyler Dewitt doesn't take into account in his wonderful presentation. Even though understanding is essential, and using a simple and clear language can be an excellent way to achieve rapport and to transmit contents, the teacher should also take into account that students must be able to learn how to use educated, academic language in their tests. This is particularly relevant when we are teaching sixth form students, who must prepare their A levels. My personal experience with 17 and 18 year old students shows me that one of the most difficult aspects of teaching in such a way is the importance of teaching the pupils how to shift from an informal simplified version of the contents to an academic formal language. This skill is not easy to master, and is certainly quite difficult to teach, but it is essential, especially if our students are planning to continue studying at university.  

Monday, 19th October

Today, Francisco showed us a wonderful warm-up activity, that can also be used to launch a debate among the students. The teacher presents a controversial statement to the pupils, and asks them to decide if they agree with it or not. The class is split into two different groups: those who agree and those who disagree. A discussion is held, trying to convince the people who don't share your own position. As part of this debate, the students can fill in a table with the pros and cons of each possibility, or write different arguments that could be used to convince your opponents. The activity can also force the students to find reasons to defend not their position, but their opponents' position, and it could also include the corresponding rebuttals that could be presented against all these arguments. This activity tends to make the students feel uncomfortable, so after the debate, some time is devoted to revise all possible positions and to make a final point. Frequently there is no right or wrong position, so it is important to make it clear that all possible points of view could be acceptable. In fact, the activity can be made even more interesting, working with 'the 3 positions': my own position, my interlocutor's position and a third, neutral position, which would be the one an external observer would have. This can give the students the opportunity to compare their own frame of mind with other perspectives, and it can be an excellent way to show them that extreme positions tend to ignore the positive contributions that different approaches can give us in order to enrich our own point of view. I was fascinated by the way this activity could be used in my own classroom, as it would help me a lot when trying to deal with controversial issues, such as ethical dilemmas or problematic decisions. In fact, I was looking for useful and effective strategies that could help me to improve my performance in these kind of activities, which tend to be difficult to manage and control. I must confess that this training course is not only being interesting, but it is also being very useful and practical indeed!

Friday, 16th October

Even though today we didn't have a class with Francisco, I met him at 9 o'clock before Kathy's lesson. He told me he had something to give me, and we agreed on meeting during the break. Apparently, we both were quite busy during the break, because we only had time to exchange a few words, but he gave me a very interesting document, pointing out that it was connected with some of the issues I had raised in our previous lesson planning sessions. What he gave me happened to be a brief and very clear introduction to the flipped classroom teaching approach. Flipping the classroom means moving direct instruction from the classroom to the individual learning space, and using the group learning space to develop other kind of activities, in a dynamic, engaging and interactive environment. It sounds quite nice. As a matter of fact, I had heard about it before. The teacher can upload a video with his or her explanation to the Internet, so that students can watch it at home. This makes it possible that, during the class, the pupils can focus on practising what they have previously learnt at home. It also favours a student-centered approach, which gives more autonomy and independence to students. According to the document that Francisco has given me, the flipped classroom approach has four basic pillars: 1) The teacher manages the spaces in order to create flexible learning environments, 2) The centre of the educational process is no longer the teacher, but the student, 3) Pays great attention to the contents, 4) Requires involved, enthusiastic teachers which are willing to evaluate their performance.

It sounds really appealing, but so different to the traditional teacher-centered approach to which I am acquainted that I don't really know if I would be able to implement it. Is it really feasible? Can it be done with our older students, who are pressed with their examinations and are eager to get into university?

Thursday, 15th October

Today we began with a very engaging activity, using collocations - words which tend to appear together (such as GLOBAL/WARMING, SOLAR/PANELS or FOSSIL/FUELS). The teacher distributes cards with these This is a natural way to learn a language, as these words tend to appear connected. The kids have to find the other student who has the card that matches his/her own. Then we work in the class the meaning of these concepts. The concepts can be placed by the students in a graph, showing for example the relationship between usefulness and danger for the environment. A discussion is held about the places that the pupils have found for these concepts.

With this activity we are addressing the four Cs that are important in bilingual education: COMMUNICATION, CONTENT, COGNITION and CULTURE. This is called a TPS activity: Think – Pair – Share. This is a great activity when you use the flipped classroom approach!

Language, Teaching content and Language skills are connected with Classroom management. Everything depends on the language of grammar, and also on the teacher's methodology. We should learn how to engage students, negotiate the meanings and give feedback

Some strategies that can be used to achieve all these goals are PPP: Presentation, practice and production, ESA: Engage, study, activate and TI-FO-SO-R: Tuning in, finding out, sorting out, reflection.

Wednesday, 14th October

Today we have been invited to reflect on the main traits that define a good teacher. Among them we pointed out the following:

• He/She had a broad knowledge of his/her own subject – PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCE
• He/She loved his/her subject - PASSIONATE
• He/She knew how to engage students and create rapport with them - EMPATHY
• He/She was aware of his/her pupils' difficulties and encouraged them to overcome them - CHALLENGE
• He/She paid great attention to the human dimension of education - HUMANITY
• He/She was flexible and creative - CREATIVITY
• He/She talked to us about his/her own personal emotions and feelings – EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
• He/She was caring and protective - AFFECTION
• He/She transmitted a great enthusiasm for learning and he/she loved teaching
• He/She was a great leader - LEADERSHIP
• He/She believed in his/her pupils possibilities – PYGMALION EFFECT
• He/She gained his/her authority instead of imposing his/her power – AUTHORITY

All these characteristics – and many others – are difficult to assess if we don't have a set of measurable indicators. The CLIL framework could be helpful in trying to find these indicators.

Here we can find the Target professional competences, which are especially helpful in order to know the kind of evaluation we can make of our own performance as CLIL teachers.

We can use the Repertory Grid Technique (RGT) to create a table including specific indicators for all the standards we consider important.

Tuesday, 13th October

Francisco Gutiérrez reminds us that the aim or our programme is to develop our practical teaching skills (Effective Teaching), promoting critical reading, writing and thinking, and also reflective and reflexive practice.

Our programme will be assessed using group discussion, tasks, presentations, portfolios and self-evaluation. The assessment criteria include knowledge and understanding, module skills, systematic enquiry, skills in presentation and diligent attendance (active participation)

Thinking skills can be classified into two different groups: HOTS (High Order Thinking Skills) and LOTS (Low Order Thinking Skills). They refer to two different levels of thinking. Recalling could be an example of LOTS, but connecting information and trying to give it a new sense is an example of HOTS.