Stefania Cecchetto

Hello, my name is Stefania Cecchetto. I teach English in a lower secondary school in Mira a town near Venice.

This year I decided to join techno clil because I think it’s essential to improve my knowledge and abilities as a teacher.

Nowadays using new technologies in teaching is more motivating both for students and for teachers.

A new concept of school is emerging, and it has nothing to do with the traditional image of a static school where knowledge is transmitted to students who passively receive an amount of material to be learnt. Now students are required to take actively part to their process o f learning, and the teacher is no more the central figure in class but rather a guide who has to provide students with the means which enable the process o f learning.

The new concept is that of creating schools which become learning communities transforming the school of teaching into a school of learning, and the school where students stay together into a school where students do together.

In my opinion in this new perspective CLIL and cooperation are the key words because they approach learning as a whole interrelated event where knowledge is not divided into subjects but it’s the result of the interaction between them, in a positive learning enviroment where students help each other working together for reaching shared goals. This is what they will be required to do once they leave school.

This year the Maths teacher and I decided to plan a clil lesson on Science using cooperative learning. We proposed this idea to a class we share of young students of the first Year and they were very happy about it. It’s a class of 21 mixed abilities students. As pre-requisites they had already been introduced to the human body and they had already used cooperative learning procedure.

The final aim was that of making them work in groups and analyse one of the five senses. In the end they had to produce a final report to present to their school mates. Some chose to make a poster, others a power point, some others used padlet but they all were very enthusiastic and original in performing their tasks.

Our role as teachers was that of supporters and observers. We divided the class into four groups of four students and one of five. We tried to mix them so that in each group there was a high performer, a low performer and two/three average performers.

After giving each member of the groups a specific role, we introduced the topic in English using Padlet, we explained how the five senses work in human body, what are their roles in the perception of the surrounding enviroment, why they are so important and why it’s important to respect, protect and use them in the right way. We read a book in English and we watched some videos on Youtube then each group chose one of the five senses and started to work on it.

They worked in class and they also met at home. In the end they all produced very good material and they enjoyed presenting their outcome to their school mates in English. Some of them were very original and involved the class and the teachers in funny games and lovely activities.

They really enjoyed working together and even the weak students who are usually very shy and don’t like speaking in English were very active inside the group and took part to the activities. In the end we gave each student an assessement sheet and we tested them about the whole topic. The results demonstrated that they had learnt a lot and that the groups had worked well.