PORTFOLIO

Which training courses would you like to have access to as a teacher? Why?  Which is, in your opinion, the best way to share good practice amongst teaching professionals?

In our days, teachers need to have a good trainning. Our society is profressing and changing very quickly and it demands our recycle constantly. We need to do it if we do not want to remain behind.

Languages or TIC’s are subjects dependent on many teachers, maybe because they do not see his application in the classroom. I do not have the same opinion.

I have done training courses as multiple intelligences, languages or TIC’s, I believe they are necessary for my work day a day. Now, in my Centre we are doing a formative program on educational innovation. It consists on having meetings and approaching  from the work with projects, the cooperative learning or the design of tasks among other themes.

I think this is important in my work because this training is going to help me to design acchers my students and I can teach contents in different ways. To be a teacher nowadays is no to read a book, write in a blackboard with chalk and repeat exercises like a parrot. The way of teaching has changed because our students have changed too.

"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."

                                                         

                                                         Albert Einstein

If you were not limited by the demands of the national/regional curriculum, what would you say is the most important thing you would teach your students about your subject (in a CLIL context)? How would you assess their learning?

Teching is a great job because it consists in an exchange of knowledge while you are teaching your students you can learn from them but I realize it is a hard task too because we  do not forget our students of today will turn into the professionals of tomorrow, in men and women who will have responsibilities  to assume.

For that, although Ifeel I am limited by the demands of the curriculum, in my classes I try  to teach my subject with values that go beyond those mark which the curriculum, values that are going to be useful for day after day for my students now and during all their lives.

In my opinion, teaching is not only give knowledge, nowadays you push a button and the net is full of knowledge. Our student need tools that help them to discern which is the real knowledge, how to treat this information and of that it forms. In addition, they will have to have other values that do not come explained in the books but that are going to be necessary in order that they can act as freemen. 

 Freedom, respect, will and effort, the responsibility, the commitment, the honesty, the peace and the solidarity are values that teachers can teach from our classrooms. Values as  friendship, equality in diversity and cooperation are learned in a natural way by students class. That is possible because these values are or should be inherent in. As teachers, we must never forget that it is an essential education for our students to learn education for peace and citizenship.

In reference to how to assess their work, I will say that  I think there is not only one tool to assess. Students hate tests because they do not reflect  if they have managed or not to obtain the mark  that are demanded.

Tools as portfolio, rubics, learning through the cooperation of all the parts (students and teachers) using examples from the real life and situations that students know, doing work for projects could be a good manner for learning in a CLIL context  and moreover, it provides possibilities to perform assessment.

 Taking into account your personal teaching context, what would the advantages and disadvantages of using the ELP with your groups be? 

    Language is an important way of interesting with th people around us. It is important because of the fact that it is essential to every aspect and interaction in our everyday lives. We use language to let others know how we feel, what we desire, and to ask and understand questions.

    In a world where nations and people are ever more dependent upon on another to supply goods and services, solve political disputes, and ensure international security, understanding other cultures is paramount.

As globalization and communications are bringing the world even closer together, even more urgent is the need for global citizens to be competent in other languages.

    This is the reason, learning another language gives to the learner the ability to step inside this mind and context of other culture. Without the ability to communicate and understand a culture on its own terms, the access to that culture is closed.

     For that, we need tools to do easier this learning. Portfolio is a good tool to do  because using the portfolio gets strategy to learn and teach foreign languages meanwhile I am teaching my subjet (Social Science).

     To begin with, the creation of portfolios demands to students a high degree of self-organization and self-responsibility.  For that , students increase these skills and become more  responsible in their work.

In addition to that, it promotes the participation of the assessment and its own learning.

It is important to emphasize, Portfolio requires that students take their learning  assume  and it  provides the opportunity to learn about the attitudes. Due to the fact that the pupils have to reflect their work, they probably learn more efficiently.

    Moreover, pupils learn to be creative and they also learn how to deal with information from the web. Students are able to choose what is important or necessary and what is not.
Apart from that, it provides information about the teaching learning process and  the teachers can examine skills, they can be adapted to different needs, interests and abilities of each student.

    But Portfolio has disadvantages too. First,  it can be dishonest because some tasks are worked outside the class and as teacher you do not know if it is the own student who has made work  and sometimes  it could be inappropriate to measure the level of knowledge and some facts.

    In spite of disadvantages, I realize it is a good tool to teach languages because as teachers we can know what is the start-line from each students  and we can check their progress.

    Summing up it provides the tools to work on the English language and your own materials. Portfolio gives information that otherwise we could not obtain.