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

From my point of view, teaching is a process always in progress and evolution, that is to say, is everyday changing, modifying and sometimes innovating. For this reason, it is important that teachers renew their knowledge through courses, meetings, debates, etc.

I think methodology and resources are the most important in education, therefore, these courses must be about this. Teachers need know others and new methodologies in order to improve their teaching; adapting or renewing their practice.

On the other hand, and a great way to improve our work is exchanging experiences, knowledge and resources between professionals (teachers). Organising meetings, discussions, etc. teachers can learn together each other. And this way, is a very enquiring form to acquire new views and possibilities of teaching-learning for our classes and students. Teachers have to see it such a improvement and not such a critic. Professionals must to help between them.

And to accomplish this, not only we have to do it in our school but also between schools, because the reality in each centre is very different, and this fact do more interesting this exchanging of experiences, information and practice.

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?

I teach in a Primary School and I often feel like I'm teaching things that really are not necessary or interesting for my students. Contents that are obvious and they just know or that have little bit application in their lives. Moreover, they are aware about it.

Well, if I wasn’t forced to comply with a program and follow a curriculum course my classes would be very different. Book would be use only in some situations, for practice o do exercises, for instance. Classe would be more dynamic and practical. On the other hand, knowledge would be built from students, using their experiences, emotions, problems, etc. This is a great practice for promote communication, that is, for generating interactions and the need to use English in class.

Moreover, and also very interesting, working in groups (cooperative learning). On the one hand because students can exchange their knowledge and ideas between them and to help one to other, and on the other hand because they need language (English) for expressing what they want to say others.
As I said before, I teach in Primary school, so is very important that children enjoy going to school and learning in class. For this reason, games, funny activities, quizzes, etc. must be present in my classes. Learning through fun in this period is necessary to catching the students attention and in order to motivate them.

Finally and in relation to how I would assess my students, here I propose different techniques/strategies such as:


- Portfolios

- Direct and indirect observation

- Questionaires

- Persoanl interviews

- Self and peer evaluation

- Plays (quizes, questions, trivial, tests, etc.)

-Projects


I think students learn more reflecting on the mistakes that doing a test ( and not seeing it again). I would base the assessment on student work and in daily classroom observations, practices and their participation. I think it is more important the process, reasoning and reflection that result.

The advantages and disadvantages of using the ELP with my groups

The European Language Portfolio (ELP) is an individual document of a student. This has three parts:

·  A dossier, which shows samples of his/her work, activities, tasks... 

· A language biography, in which learner reflects about his/her learning and where he/she thinks how to improve it.

·  A language passport, where you can appreciate his/her linguistic history.

In my case, I'm Primary Education teacher, and after reading and investigating about ELP, this is my opinion from my point of view and experience.

I'll distinguish between advantages and disadvantages in relation to teacher and students

Advantages:
Teacher,
- Shows learning outcomes during use.
- Offers the possibility of continuous assessment.
- Fosters interaction between students, teachers, etc. promoting cooperation.

Students,
- Promotes learner autonomy
- Enables checking achievements
- Shares information on topics investigated
- Each student's personality is reflected in the portfolio, therefore, there aren't two portfolios identical.
- Adapts to student's difficulties, encouraging them to improve.

Disadvantages
Teacher,
- If the working time is not set, you can generate chaos by students.

Students,
- It can cause insecurity, as doing it alone, he/she thinks that  is not doing it well
- It requires a lot of responsibility on children.


In general and in my opinion, I think ELP is a fantastic resource to change or modify the assessment method. It gives student autonomy, responsibility and critic and reflective thinking. And on the other hand, teacher can see the pupil evolution day by day.