Teacher talking time: necessary or overrated?Teachers like talking. A lot. In my experience that does not have to be a bad thing. History teachers can be great story tellers and physics teachers might at their best when they explain what makes their subject so important for real life situations. However, one…
Primary school kids also learn languages and sometimes need some help with their motivation, just like their older counterparts. Fun certainly helps with that, so a couple of students shared their resources with me and I really like the fun games website they showed me! Interested in other ICT tools…
CLIL and mathematics. By many considered to be challenging at best, maybe even impossible to implement. Don’t worry thought, I am here to help! And believe me, after teaching mathematics in English for almost ten years, I can assure you both CLIL and mathematics can be integrated use as easily…
I have always had the up most respect for primary school teachers, for various reasons. One of the most important things a primary school teacher does is facilitate differentiation: allowing each and every student to receive instruction and work on his or her own level. At secondary schools, differentiation is still…
The school year has started again after summer. Or at least in my part of the world. Students get ready for school, enter your classroom, do their work. And take notes ferociously. Or do they? In my experience, students have to take a lot of notes. (Remember, it’s ‘taking notes’,…
I like running. Twice a week I’ll run a distance somewhere between 5K and 10K. Or at least I try to. Yet I find that I don’t do it when it’s raining it’s cold outside I feel tired Motivation is a thing here. I recently signed up for a run in…
CLIL Magazine Spring Edition won’t be published for another three months, but I do want to share with you a resource I think is worth sharing. Therefore, you can already read the book review for the next issue of CLIL Magazine below. Have fun reading! Optimise your teaching competences: new…
Lesson stages Beginning of the lesson | Discussing homework | Instruct students | Individual work | Group work | Lesson Reflection Why so often forgotten? Every teacher gives instruction. Most teachers discuss homework. Quite a few activate prior knowledge. But when it comes to reflection activities in a lesson, you have to start looking…
They enter your classroom, looking around. Some might be noisy, most of them are silently waiting for the new experiences that await them at the new school. A select few has already read through the books and think they know what to expect. The students sit down, you start the first…
Lesson stages Beginning of the lesson | Discussing homework | Instruct students | Individual work | Group work | Lesson Reflection CLIL is all about simulating language output (among other things of course) and the best way to simulate output is by motivate students to talk. Sounds simple enough right? As discussed before, individual…
Last week I was invited to give a workshop at a CLIL Conference in Belgium. Apart from the fact I thought this was a great honor, I was even more surprised to hear that bilingual education has only just started in Belgium. To be allowed to help out fellow teachers…
Lesson stages Beginning of the lesson | Discussing homework | Instruct students | Individual work | Group work | Lesson Reflection CLIL is all about creating language output and engaging students. That leaves no room for individual, silent work. Right? I don’t agree Why working individually is a good thing First and foremost, I…
There is (at least) one thing every teacher does at every school. Worldwide. Discussing a test. But how can you do this in a way that is CLIL? In other words, by activating the language and engaging the students? Let me tell you how I do this, and feel free…
Lesson stages Beginning of the lesson | Discussing homework | Instruct students | Individual work | Group work | Lesson Reflection “Please open your books on page 13. Today we are going to discuss the past tense. Please listen up” Not the most exciting way to start your instruction, is it? Yet this is…
As explained in my post regarding scaffolding, this key term of CLIL is important to structure the thinking process of your students in order to help them to learn. Yet, although theoretical knowledge is important, I prefer real life examples to understand new concepts better. In this post I want…
Lesson stages Beginning of the lesson | Discussing homework | Instruct students | Individual work | Group work | Lesson Reflection Homework. One of those necessary evils of education. “Flipping the classroom” is gaining momentum, but many teachers still use homework as an important tool in their lessons. I don’t want to start a…
In my new job I will have to teach for 70 minutes in a row. I have experienced this before and I remember colleagues responding saying: I can’t make students work for 70 minutes! I agree. That’s why you should have a wide variety of activities in your lesson. Variation…
Lesson stages Beginning of the lesson | Discussing homework | Instruct students | Individual work | Group work | Lesson Reflection The opening of a lesson is an important moment of your lesson in which you establish the contact with your students and set the stage for your lesson. Just a few things you are…
Welcome to the CLIL Blog! This is the very first post on new part of the website and the beginning of another one of my CLIL projects. I look forward to supplying you with information regarding CLIL and in this specific article I would like to focus on CLIL lesson…