Third Blog Post

In my opinion the best courses of which would get most out would be:

• The related new technologies. I could spread more and better my experience and knowledge with students and other teachers. Today internet and social networks give us an unprecedented opportunity. To know, share, assess and implement educational tools proposed in other parts of the world without even knowing these students and teachers.

• Alternative education models. Well, I think we need fresh air to remodel and motivate teachers and students. The paradigm shift is essential. This educational model designed for the industrial revolution, no longer serves this knowledge society. The contempt for art in today's society has disconnected us from our own essence.

• The related with  Teaching Science in English. Science is in essence that can provide solutions to major challenges and problems of humankind. We motivate students to fall in love with science, to reach a progress, not economic but social and environmental.

• The connected with the preparation of CLIL in the field of science courses .

The science is in English and it is essential that these subjects are taught in English.

• The related Chinese language and its teaching. My passion, which I have devoted so many years and can motivate many children and develop their skills.

 I think the best way to share good practice with other teachers is a blog, but now given the widespread use of social networks, it's almost more practical,to use facebook. Currently I am teaching organic farming for children and for me a great source of information are the facebook pages related to this field. Communication is immediate and people today is permanently available thanks to smartphones, so you can solve many questions in real time.

Of course there are other education-oriented platforms, but none so widespread and so accessible.

My opinion is that access to information right now is free, easy and comprehensive, the fundamental problem is the interest to change the educational model and its obsolete paradigms.

My second post

Right now my subject is "the school garden".

So the first thing I would do would be to assess the language skills of my students, writing, reading, speaking and understanding. Thus would a good starting point for realizing the objectives of the course.

Also I would prepare a mini test on the contents of the garden, true or false, that would be a brief one but this will give me an idea as  a starting point.

With this background information, I determine objectives, some of them for language acquisition and others, taking in account, the uniqueness of matter, would work attitude, awareness and interest of students and their skills in the work of gardening.

Objectives awareness

-Be Aware of the importance of respecting the environment in food production, for our health and for our planet.

To acquire values such as patience, effort and responsibility required in the school garden.

Objectives practical skills:

-Know Perform seamlessly own gardening tasks. Sowing, transplanting, watering, multiply, weeding, clarify, get seeds.

Objectives of the language:

To know the vocabulary of the garden in Valencian, Spanish and English.

To understand and successfully perform the tasks indicated in English.

In my opinion the most important thing I would teach students would be respect for the land and analysis about the current food model. Although it seems very large or complicated I think both are very important because they are based on our survival as a species.

Rate these attitudes to the environment and our own way of life would be complicated.

Assessment Rating

Language Objectives: To these objectives would perform on the one hand a visual test with photos or drawings of the entire vocabulary, where students would write the words. It would be a summative test.

Language objectives and capabilities: Also a practical test where all the tools in front would ask them to do certain things to assess vocabulary knowledge and ability to perform the task.

Where to evaluate and where they end is self assessed with a rubric. With phrases such as, "I understand the order transplanting plants and conducted efficiently and successfully."

objective awareness

The hardest part would be to assess awareness, a good way would be that students, after finishing the course, interview five adult family members, asking them about their habits and point of view on agriculture and ecology.

 Then they would value these answers and these would conduct us to a qualitative assessment of its reflection

ELP

At this moment I’m not teaching at any school but I’m preparing myself in order to have all the certificates to get a job as a science teacher. That’s why my opinions are based on the texts that I have read about this topic and not on any experiences related to it.

As far as I’m concerned, the European Language Portfolio (ELP) basically fulfills two main functions. On the one hand, it has a pedagogic function, whereas on the other hand, it has a more informative function.

The pedagogic function refers to the way the ELP motivates learners in the way they improve their ability to communicate in other languages and they meet new cultures. Furthermore, the ELP helps learners to think carefully about their objectives, the ways they learn, how to plan their learning time and how to be autonomous. Finally, it focuses on their plurilingual and intercultural experiences.

If we think about the more informative function, we should take into account that this document shows in a reliable and transparent way what the language level of the person is. That way, it is easy to see and understand the level that the person has reached in different foreign languages. In the world we are living in, this tool is very useful, as people travel a lot due to work needs.

I would like to be a science teacher someday. It is well-known that English is the language of science. Therefore, we should teach science in English. From that point of view, I think that using the ELP in my class would have many advantages. The main advantage would be that a learner who is using the ELP is more concerned about his/her own learning. This makes our learner more independent and autonomous. Companies nowadays look for people who are able to make decisions and work out problems efficiently. Effectiveness, efficiency and motivation are the main advantages related to the learners.

If we think about the teachers, I would like to say that the personal motivation of the learners is going to affect in a positive way the general atmosphere of the classroom. In addition, the ELP means a very interesting tool to assess our students.

However, there are also some disadvantages. These documents can sometimes be a little bit difficult to understand. I’m not a language teacher and the descriptor given in order to describe the different level are not always clear enough to me. How could I know properly the language level of a student? And what’s more, how could I make my students understand the importance of the ELP?

Bilingual or plurilingual education models?

In my opinion the question is not whether one model is better than the other, but the results that we have obtained in Valencia after many years of Valencian CLIL. This educative system has been a complete disaster. In fact, students aren’t able to use neither Spanish nor Valencian language properly. That’s why the implementation of multilingualism will not give any different results. Why? Because the actors, resources and tools that are going to be used will be more or less the same that have been used for many years. The problem goes beyond languages. It is a social and political problem. 

The new children

Another book about children's education for our changing world





This books gives us the steps that we have to follow in order to take care of what the author calls "the soul of our children". Michael Gurian will teach you how to and why to:

-Increase emotional ties in your family and restore family involvement in the education of children
-Control the use of audiovisual media made by your children
-Increase the time they spend in touch with nature
-Protect your children from any stressful brain damage that can cause them some kind of disorder, etc.

Extremely recommended!

Edutopia

This blog is fantastic. I have spent nearly an hour surfing on this website and every post is better than the next one.

On the one hand I have to say that I feel happy to know that education can be offered in a different way. Whereas, on the other hand I have to be realistic and I know that Spanish education is far away from this educational models.

At this moment I'm preparing in a Spanish school an Ecological Garden and I would like to remark from this page the following video.

Natural Intelligence

I want to introduce another book

This essay argues the importance of an education mainly focused on happiness and not on knowledge.

It explains the significance of human beings in their individuality.

We have to replace the whip for the smile because happiness is the key to widely open the brain doors in order to achieve more knowledge.