Coordination between subjects

 Develop an action plan

 

NAME: Paula Carranza Antón

AGE GROUP/S YOU TEACH: infants / lower primary

SUBJECT/S YOU TEACH: English

 

1.     I would like to collaborate more with other teachers in the school and put into practice the development of writing skill. My oldest students are 2^nd graders, but I think I could initiate them a bit further than I do so far. I think, the development of oral skills I do quite well, although I will revise all the resources of the course to keep updated and improving all I can.

This year I am working in a bilingual school as an English teacher. In my school English subject and CLIL subjects are mostly independent. I would like to improve this aspect for the next year and try to collaborate with the other teachers that teach subjects in English, at least with the Science teachers. In the next term, I would like to ask them to check the course books together, with the aim to match as much contents as possible so that students could work similar vocabulary or structures at the same period of time from both subjects. Once I know what kind of tasks they are going to develop in Science, I could encourage students from my English subject to use structures that can apply in both subjects.

For example, if students are learning the senses in Science and I have in English a unit about “the parts of the body”, I could match the vocabulary with the structure “With my .... I can .....” = “With my tongue I can taste”. In this way, students can put into practice the structures they learn and they could be able to “narrate” in both subjects which will save time.

Also, I would propose students to create a final lapbook, to have a meaningful craft after the unit. It could be done maybe sometimes in Science or sometimes in English according to what the other teachers and me we have agreed beforehand.

 

In the current situation without collaboration between subjects, students learn some similar contents without any link between subjects, so it is as if they start from scratch because the assessment aims are different in both subjects, so students do not feel it is a content they already know.

In my opinion, this action of collaborative work in two or more subjects that have English language in common will benefit students giving them more confidence and feeling of being learning something useful they can apply.

Additionally, it allows them to save time and effort because they work vocabulary and grammatical structures for writing at the very same time so they can be fully connected to English.

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