CLIL units

This website gives access to a set of units to work on different topics in the English classroom. Many of them are addressed to Secondary students but there are also proposals for Primary: The Human Body, Air & Atmosphere, Ecosystems, Habitats & Ecosystems, Water in Nature , Plants, Education for Health, The Earth and Living Things, Exploring Food , Exploring Food , Growth, Sculpture , Landscapes, Understanding Comics How to draw a comic strip, Houses of the World, Exploring 2D Shapes, ICT in English, Where are you from? A country report, Living and Moving around the World,

Some useful websites to work on the universe

These are some links to websites with useful resources for classes working on the universe as a topic in their English coursebooks or through projects in a CLIL approach.

- NASA for Students offers a wide range of materials sorted out according to school grades or levels. Each set contains stories, interactive activities, videos, glossaries...

- Solar System Planets are introduced in size order in a video presentation. Its author adds an imaginary planet, Tamen, and explains the impossibility of its dimeensions in the written information provided in YouTube.

- Amazing Space website's section Tonight's Sky uses images taken by Hubble Space Telescope to explain what can be seen in the night sky each month.

- Some other links and information can be found in this other blog, created some years ago to help teachers with the implementation of The Universe Unit in INEBI pilot scheme.

Power Point presentations in English

A colleague emails me the reference of this collection of slide presentations related to various curricular subjects and topics, e.g. science, geography, health... it is part of Miss PopCorn's Page, a website devoted to the learning of English as a second language in primary school.

TEFL Clips

TEFLclips is a site dedicated to the use of YouTube and other video sharing sites in the English classroom. They upload a new lesson plan every week.

CLIL Cascade Network

Laura tells us through the chatbox in this blog about CLIL Cascade Network , a project funded with the support from the European Commission as an activity in the Lifelong Learning Programme. Registration is required in order to access this web contents.

In this page you can find information about some CLIL courses organized by the Summer University of Lapland and the University of Jyväskylä, in cooperation with the CLIL Cascade Network partnership in autumn 2009.

A couple of Easter videos

Origami Easter Basket
This web page shows a video with instruction to make an origami coloured paper basket. Script is available.

This other video can be useful for practising counting and numbers with young children.

How to make a podcast

Once we have decided to create a podcast, there are different ways and tools we can choose from. These are two simple ideas:


1. Using an online recorder such as Vocaroo or Clear Dropboxes (see gadget below):




2. Using Windows recorder (it creates 'wav' files) or free software such as Audacity. Recordings can be stored in sites such as Goear. Take into account that wav files should be previously converted to mp3 format.

Podcasts

A podcast is an audio or video digital-media file which is distributed over the Internet and can be listened to in portable media players and personal computers. Further information can be read in these Wikipedia entries: in English / in Spanish.

Podacastsinenglish.com is an example of website focused on English learning through podcasts.


This other site collects a series of podcasts recorded by children. The result is an audiobook with a version of Homer's Odyssey in Spanish.

Simpler use of podcasts can be found in blogs. This example of a post in a classroom blog presents students' recordings in Basque about some animal categories.

This video can help us understand the characteristics and uses of podcasts:

Easter

These are some websites containing facts and activities related to Easter:



Topmarks (facts, customs, a 'make a card ' activity and recipes)


DLTK (crafts, games, worksheets, colouring pages...)


The Fun Place (activities, crafts, colouring pages...)


Easter Games and activities (ideas for games, links...)



A short video with pictures related to traditional Easter celebration in the USA.

Source of the picture: www.flickr.com/photos/40221941@N00/449352012

Self-assessment

Self assessment in the Primary classroom of EFL can be approached in a number of ways. Most coursebooks include sheets or boxes at the end of a unit with questions about activity preferences, sense of performace, etc. but their filling can become a kind of meaningless routine for the student. A more intregrated option can be found in portfolios following the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Portfolios foster self-assessment and learning awareness through record sheets, questions or work collection for the dossier. This model of portfolio can be useful with that purpose.

Other resources:
Involving language learners in assessment: a new paradigm (article)

Some examples of self-assessment sheets related to the use of ICT.
Example of a sheet about work on a particular Webquest.

eTwinning

We commented on eTwinning in a previous post in this blog. This service enables teachers to contact with other colleagues around Europe and participate in school projects of different kinds. You can browse through these ideas for inspiration or have a look at the 2008/09 prizes.

Converting text to speech

VozMe is a Google utility that allows converting written texts in English, among other languages, to mp3 sound. Users select between feminine or masculine voice and files can be saved. Although the pace and intonation may sound a bit 'robotic', the pronunciation and stress are good enough.