#10 My PLE is..... my new tool

Hi everyone,

We are in Christmas time. Blessed holidays. 

I would like to talk in my last entry about my PLE. Symbaloo is a good tool for all the people in order to organize your important and useful websites for your day by day.

Nowadays, I know that my PLE is poor and it's a mess but I think it is because I don't have all the resources that I would want and I did not understand it operation for me. While I was watching the oral presentation of my classmates, I thought 

How do they know this tool? I want this webpage for my Symbaloo. It's so interesting and useful for my future.

I did not think that I can organize my websites in colors or in corners. I think is a good idea Because is very visual and catch the attention of the public.

Now, When I finish this subject I want to make a change in my PLE and I am going to do it again Because

Because now I understand their operation and now I know more websites to improve my English and teach English in a simple, clear and meaningful.

Thanks and a happy new year

Clara ***

#9 What is CLIL?

Hello:)!


'CLIL refers to situations where students are taught through a foreign language with dual focussed aims in: the learning of content and the simultaneous learning of a foreign language'.
(Marsh, 1994)

As professor Do Coyle says in his article Developing CLIL: Towards a theory of practice, Clil is ​​using a foreign language as a tool of learning a non-language subject in which students learn both content and language.

Teachers should inform and do training courses to implement this tool as useful in learning both children and teachers. But in order to be useful, it requires a good preparation and a solid foundation already is not teaching history in English but rather the goal is to work content and knowledge with the use of the language and let children learn by themselves through experimentation. Language is just the way to communicate.


By using of CLIL in many schools, children have increased language skills and expanded vocabulary. CLIL has increased participation in the classroom and ,at the same time, has helped children to communicate in a language which is not theirs of a very natural way. To getting a good CLIL, this has to meet three essential requirements:

- You have to be flexible to adapt to student learning and, at the same time motivating to engage the student's attention.

-It has to work through the 4Cs Framework (content, communication, cognition and culture)

- Learn using language and using language to learn.

If we implement a language as an obligation, most children do not learn. But, if we use in a particular context and attractive for students, benefits may be satisfactory. Although, we cannot forget that order for an activity be useful and get good results has to have a teaching staff that works to get it and do it in a cooperative and collaborative.

Clara ***

#8 The syllabus: our notebook.

I would like to explain you what means The syllabus. I studied it last year and it was very interesting and useful for my future as a teacher.

Syllabus is a document where the teacher writes what he/she wants to teach during the course and the objectives that he / she wants to fulfil. Common characteristics of a syllabus is that the cover page has explicit objectives of the course, an ordered list of components what the teacher wants to do with their respective contents and methods to carry out. Another characteristic of the syllabus is that it is a public document and it can be used in others context and not only in the school.

I believe that all teachers should do their own syllabus and thus, they can decide what they want to teach, how teaching and why they teach it. It is a good idea to order the contents from the easiest to the most difficult so that the children in that way can improve their learning step by step and it then becomes more overcome. In my opinion this kind of document is great and useful for the new teachers because it includes some material that’s is good to do in the classroom, different methods and activities to do and you can use it to make up an idea of how you have to prepare yourself, how to put everything together, simply how to carry it out. 

There are distinct types of language within syllabus such as, grammatical lexical, grammatical-lexical, situational, notional, functional-notional, mixed or multi-strand procedural and process.

For example, in the syllabus situational, pupils study the language using real-life contexts such as in the street, eating a meal. These are examples of complete sentences that are used in class day to day and its structure does not change.

This type of programming has advantages and disadvantages. Most teachers can get tired of the syllabus and follow the task from the course book because making a syllabus takes away part of their free time and maybe, a syllabus does not work as a motivation of learning for every specific kind of group and class of pupils. I agree with this statement because most teachers follow the course book and do not think about what would be better for children to learn and what the pupils can use outside of school, so therefore I believe that teachers as much as possible should use the syllabus way in their teaching. 

Clara ***