Biological webquest

I've begun a webquest with 3rd Biology. The site is in English, though they can write the documents in Catalan and reference pages are in Spanish or Catalan. Anyway, at least, they have to understand the text.

Here is the address:

https://sites.google.com/site/decalegsobremediambientangles/

Surprisingly, pupils in third course seem to translate more easily than those in fourth!!

Using English texts in the classroom

I've tried using one-page text in the classroom with the 3rd of Biology and the 4th of IT.

It's not extremely difficult for them, I think it's a good tool to begin with in CLIL. Of course, they complain, some of them are absolutely convinced they will never be able to understand that... but almost all the pupils have enough level to try, at least.

I've used two different approaches:

• Asking them to underline and look for in the dictionary the unknown words. It has some failures, the main one is that some pupils underline words already known and translate them, not worrying about the meaning of the more difficult ones. It's their way to obtain a positive mark without working
• Asking them to translate to Catalan. It's a bit more boring, but at least they are obliged to fully understand the text. It works better with short text like this:
  http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/20-tips-thatll-make-your-blog-work.html

It may be interesting trying other approaches, like asking them to answer questions or underlining some information, or using occasionally shorter texts...

El Joan i jo (la Sïlvia) varem anar a la trobada de CLIC de la UAB. Va ser interessant, encara que la part universitària cau una mica lluny. Hi havia bàsicament exemples d'activitats concretes fetes per professors des de 3er de primària a Batxillerat.

El que no hi havia era cap model organitzatiu de centre...

La pàgina web del grup organitzador és http://grupsderecerca.uab.cat/clilsi/

La pàgina web de les jornades, http://jornades.uab.cat/semiimmersio2011/

I l'etiqueta pel twitter és #aiclecat

Encara no han penjat res més que una salutació, però es suposa que ens uns pocs dies haurien d'haver les presentacions que va fer la gent

En fi, a veure com organitzem el curs vinent

Using video in Biology

In the 3rd level of Biology I've showed them a two minutes video about the digestive system.I asked them to write down what they have understood




It was the fisrt time I tried something like this, and I have to confess it wasn't a very successfull experience. I think it's better to use subtitle videos or give them the text. I'l try this way next time