Language Assistant

The year 2013-14 we have enjoyed the presence of a language assistant: Laura Whitehead, a university student that has helped us in our pile project. Her experience is explained here:

I believe that project PILE this year has been a learning experience for everyone involved, myself included. The use of a Language Assistant coupled with the act of learning English via different subjects means that one way or another, everyone is learning something. For myself, as the Language Assistant, this meant revisiting a few subjects that I had not studied since my own schooldays but learning them from a completely different perspective. I have also been able to learn things that are not taught in the UK, through experiencing a different curriculum. I have been able to experience and notice the differences between the English and Spanish schooling systems, working in a Catalan school has been particularly interesting for me. I also hope that PILE is a learning process for the teachers involved, as hopefully both they and the students have benefitted from my status as a native speaker, both linguistically and culturally. I know that I have enjoyed learning about culture and language from students and teachers alike. However, most of all, i am positive that project PILE is a great way for the students to learn. Because, rather than confusing the subject matter, I believe that learning different subjects whilst learning English makes the subjects twice as clear for the students and teaches them to think laterally. Furthermore, all of this is done in such a way that the students are also enjoying the lessons.

INTERVIEW IN PREMIÀ DE DALT RADIO

School year 2012/2013

In technology we began with the credit of Water (use, waste and save) that connects with the curriculum in the design of water nets, layouts and flows calculations.

On the third term we have been working on electrical and electronic systems and we have begun calculating the values of resistors with colour codes.

We have also been getting to grips with diodes, capacitors and transistors. We learnt how to calculate circuits with these electronic components.

In May we began with the second part of electronics: digital binary. Eventually they learnt how to design logic circuits to solve some problems.

In science we started studying chemistry. First, we worked on the structure of the atom and separation methods. After that we introduced the periodic table. We focused on names of elements, for this purpose we played bingo and learned a new song, found on you tube. There are several other games you can find in the science link.

In biology, looking at the human body, we worked on the reproductive system. Later we continued with systems related to nutrition: circulation, respiration and digestion systems.

The topic of WW1 was taken from the curriculum and chosen for the PILE Project. A variety of materials were used and concepts were only taught in English for this topic. Students were engaged in communicative tasks and worked on developing their reading and listening techniques. The exercises were often quite challenging as the topic was new to them but they managed to remain motivated and keen to practice and improve their English skills.

Materials used can be found on the links of this blog and they have been improved designing new activities to engage students in oral expression.