Schools working on BE

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Comment by Manuel F. Lara 16 hours ago

Secciones Europeas de Albacete
Bienvenido al blog de idiomas de las Secciones Europeas en centros de enseñanza primaria y secundaria de Albacete. Este espacio de colaboración quiere ser un instrumento que permita al profesorado participante en este programa educativo intercambiar experiencias y compartir recursos de interés.

Comment by Manuel F. Lara 20 hours ago

Página de la Sección Europea del IES Izpisúa Belmonte de Hellín

Comment by Manuel F. Lara 21 hours ago

ANL Pay Arias

Continuación de la Implantación del Nuevo Modelo Plurilingüe en el IES Pay Arias: Elaboración y Desarrollo del Currículo Integrado y Estrategias Metodológicas y Elaboración de Materiales para ANL.
- Laura Meseguer

Comment by Manuel F. Lara 1 day ago

Wiki del IES Moraleda de Zafayona de Granada

Comment by Manuel F. Lara on June 12, 2009 at 2:58pm

Blog de J.Damian Alvarez. CLIL E.O.I de La Gomera

Comment by carolina román on May 14, 2009 at 1:57pm

Hi everybody! I had the chance of reading all your comments and I was really surprised we all have the same problems! This happens many times, we tend to think our problems are just ours and that is not just like that. I am the coordinator of the bilingual section in IES Sierra Nevada High School in Fiñana (Almería). Unfortunately, our students come to secondary education without any prior training on bilingual lessons. However, we have seen great improvement and that helps us keep on working hard. I found it funny what you say about these teaching process being somewhat a NGOs volunteer extra-tasks taken by teachers. I thought bilingual programmes in northern Europe were much more developed, at least these countries have a longer research backgroud What do you think about it? As far as David is concerned, I agree with you with this new approach of concentrating on English as a subject with native speakers training with smaller groups. I think results tend to be better. The problem of finding teachers of specific subjects teaching in English seems to be a problem here in Andalucía too, so many bilingual sections might be at risk if this situation would continue. In our high school the Science teacher for the bilingual section is from Castellón, 600 Km. from where we work, because apparently there were no available teachers in Andalucía (?) Anyways, I think there is a lot to talk and discuss. Me and one of my co-workers, Javier Moreno have several links you can find where we deal with many topics concerning bilingual teaching/learning/training. I would be very pleased if you could have a look and make any remarks or ammendments! Thanks for your comments.

Carolina Román

Comment by Manuel F. Lara on May 14, 2009 at 9:01am

Pepa Gómez, coordinadora de la sección bilingüe de C.E.PR. " San Roque" de Churriana de la Vega, Granada nos ha mandado una wiki que está realizando en su centro donde se puede encontrar mucha información.

www.pepagomez.wikispaces.com

Comment by David Bradshaw on May 13, 2009 at 8:18am

Hi Sharon,

It is very interesting working at all levels. I've been involved in bilingual education here in Spain for nineteen years and during that time I've worked in the different levels individually at various times of my career, starting in Infants, moving to Primary, then to Secondary, but it's only in the last two that I've been able to take a global view of the system.

The problems you describe and the differences between Primary and Secondary are very much the same here, with more difficulties for finding teachers and time in Secondary for English instruction. In Primary we take a CLIL approach, teaching Science and Art in English in the three schools with two of the schools also giving PE in English in some year groups. But this is almost impossible to do in Secondary, because of the qualifications required by law to teach specific subjects at this level. We have opted so far to concentrate on English as a subject, increasing the number of hours in the timetable with respect to those legally required and including conversation classes in small groups with native teachers in as many groups as possible. I'm very lucky this year in that I have a very good team of teachers, but another problem is the turnover of staff in the private sector here in Spain, which makes continuity and consistency of standards difficult to guarantee. What is very true is that the advances that the children make at Primary level are checked somewhat when they move up to Secondary, just as happens in your situation. Hopefully I can liaise between the different levels within the schools and reduce this over time, implanting common objectives and approaches, but having moved into an existing culture in two of the three schools (the third one opened this year and is functioning very well, despite the mixture of students - they come from 69 different schools!) this is going to be a slow process.

I hope this gives you abroad idea of what we're doing over here. Please let me know more about how you do things in Finland. I'm sure there is a lot we can learn from how you approach bilingual education over there.

Best wishes,

David

Comment by Sharon Keaveney on May 12, 2009 at 6:28pm

HI David,

It must be very interesting to be working with all levels. I have been on maternity leave for the last two years, but will be returning to work in the autumn and will be working a lot with our secondary students. It would be interesting to hear more about your programme and how it differs at each level.

We have an English immersion programme here in Finland, all our students are Finnish, and we have found that while at primary level it is fairly easy(although hard work) to adapt curriculum and find native speakers to teach the different grade levels, and to reach a good balance between mother tongue and L2 instruction, at secondary level it is much more difficult. Our students are not in an international school but follow the standard Finnish curriculum - and sit Finnish exams in their final school years, so we have many issues relating to what is the best subject choice for English language instruction (L2) and mother tongue instruction. It is also much more difficult for us to find subject teachers who are willing to take some lessons in English - or to be able to ensure the standdard of English used is suitable for the sudents.

At the moment we have "native speaker" english lessons and then "grammar lessons" (taught by a local English teacher), which will ensure that students are prepared for the state exams, in addition some of the other teachers offer to teach part or all of their subject in English , but this varies form year to year and the standard varies from class to class. It is difficult to maintain the good language skills developed at the primaery level.

Would be great to hear more about how you do things

Sharon

Comment by David Bradshaw on May 12, 2009 at 1:51pm

Hi there. I'm reonsible for the development of a bilingual programme in three schools (each with Infants, Primary and Secondary sections) here in Madrid. We are in the second year of the programme and I am very interested in sharing experiences and ideas with people who are going through the same process.
I was very interested to read Cleo's comments and would very much like to hear more about her research.

As Sharon says, I hope we can share some ideas here.

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