Hi there ! Yesterday I went to the cinema and I watched an amazing movie: "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales". If you love movies about fantasy, comedy and adventure, you must watch it!!! I highly recommend it!

Hi !! How are you? I hope you are doing well. This post is dedicated to an educational approach that we are learning at the teacher training college.  
               
Here goes a little introduction to it:

CLIL(Content and Language Integrated Learning) refers to situations where subjects (such as History, Geography, Maths, etc)  are taught through a Foreign Language with dual-focused aims. This means, the learning of content and the simultaneous learning of a Foreign Language. 
According to the 4Cs, a CLIL lesson should combine the following elements:
-Content: Progression in knowledge, skills and understanding.
-Communication: Interaction, using language to learn whilst learning to use the language.
-Cognition: Students have to develop their thinking skills, understanding and language.
-Culture: “self” and “other” awareness, exposure to different perspectives and shared understandings.

Finally, this is an interesting short video about this approach:

 What do you think about CLIL? Are you a Clil teacher? 

I have done an instructional sequence using the six- step procedure as a model.

Step 1 Schema building	Watch a video about animals at a zoo. Extract the names of the animals mentioned.
Step 2 Controlled practice	Watch the same video again but this time you have to pay attention to the food that each animal eats and to the environment where they live. Then, match the animals with their corresponding environment and food.
Step 3 Authentic listening practice	Listen to an animal’s factfile. Then, complete the factfile you have with the missing words.
Step 4 Focus on linguistic elements	Listen to the animal’s factfile again. Focus on the affirmative and negative form of the sentences.
Step 5 Provide freer practice	Select an animal you like and make a factfile of it with your partner.
Step 6 Introduce the pedagogical taks	Make a zoo on a big poster. Imagine and decide where to place each animal, which animals you will buy, the space you need for each animal and the food they will eat.

Hi ! In the teacher training college we have been reading about Task- Based Language Teaching. In case you do not know what I am writing about, here goes a very little definition of it:

           "This is an approach which focuses on the use of authentic language and on asking students
            to do meaningful tasks using the target language.  Assessment is primarily based on task
            outcome (in other words the appropriate completion of real- world tasks) rather than on
            accuracy of prescribed language forms. TBLT has its origins in Communicative Language
            Teaching."

Well, for homework, I had to select one or two pedagogical tasks and elaborate them in terms of macrofunctions, microfuctions and grammatical  exponents. So here it is:

TASK	MACROFUNCTION	MICROFUNCTION	GRAMMAR
Role play. At a train station. The group will be divided into two. The first group will be train inspectors and the other one will be travellers. Travellers need to know the train’s timetable.	Exchanging goods and services	Asking for and giving information	- Use polite      expressions. - Wh- questions - The time
Role Play. At the pet shop. You have decided to buy a new pet, but you do not know which one is the best for you. Make a list of advantages and disadvantages. Compare them. The group will be divided into two. The first group will be customers and the other one will be salespeople.	Exchanging goods and services.	Making comparisons	Comparisons with adjectives