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.