Foreign Language Teaching Methodologies: Active

Is born out of the crisis of direct methodology (1920-1960).

Middle ground between the traditional and the modern:

L1 and written texts and explicit grammar + oral language and dialogue

Foreign Language Teaching Methodologies: Direct

Emerges at the end of the 19th century - beginning of the 20th century (1902- pedagogical coup d'état in France).
Main target/aim: learn to speak in an active and global way.
Theory based: François Gouin + learning theories (psychology).
Teacher: leads the class, possesses all the knowledge.
Priority to oral language learning and exclusive use of the foreign language.
Phonetics and pronunciation.
Dialogues + written materials.

Foreign Language Teaching Methodologies: Traditional

Its main aim was to facilitate access to literary texts.

Elitist conception of teaching (high social classes).

Learning was teacher-centred (vertical transmission of linguistic knowledge).

Predominance of written language learning.

Grammar and translation activities (explicit and traditional grammar).

L1 was predominantly used.

Materials: grammars, dictionaries, literary texts.

CLIL Sequence

Final Project

CLIL & EFL

CLIL is an integrated process, a methodology for language teaching. It is based on certain methodological principles that are particularly important according to research in the didactics of foreign languages, such as the need for the learner to be placed in a situation of authentic communication. On the other hand we must introduce the concept of EFL which is the didactics of the foreign language.

	EFL	CLIL
Who teaches?	The language teacher (foreign)	The teacher of a non-linguistic subject
What is the objective?	Teaching/learning a foreign language	Teaching non-linguistic content
What do they teach?	Pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary...	Mathematics, natural sciences, music, history...
Who does the teacher work with?	With other teachers of the same language	With the foreign language teacher
What are we evaluating?	Language skills and knowledge	Skills and knowledge of a subject but sometimes also of LE
What feedback is provided by the teacher?	Linguistic feedback	Feedback on the material and sometimes on the LE

TYPES OF CLIL

1) Hard CLIL is focused on the subject which is/are taught entirely in L2 (30% of the maximum annual hours)

2) Medium CLIL is focused on the subject (partial immersion) which is taught in L2 (just part of the subject not all of it) and only 1 hour per week (15 hours per semester).

3) Soft CLIL is content focused (focused on L2), a non-linguistic content taught in the L2 subject area (45 minutes per week).

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)

Nowadays, it is impossible to conceive education without the implementation of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). For this reason, in the last session the teacher showed us a few resources we could use in the future which are:

• Applications for character designing: Ifunface, Muglife, Snapchat, Talkr... Creating a commendable character to explain some contents helps promoting significative learning. This kind of tool it's not only useful for the teacher but also for the students who can apply it in the making of presentations.

• Genially: It allows you to create infograms, slides, interactive murals, graphics, tests, maps, audio, video, gifs, timelines, animations... It is a very useful tool to perform interactive activities.

• Thinklink: Similar to Genially but easier, it is appropriate for designing presentations with different links attached to videos, tests, songs...

• Microphone and tripod for mobile phones: allows you to record students' speeches and presentations in video or just audio.

Scaffolding 3: more techniques

Other methodological strategies used in language learning are:

• Slow down speeches and oral expressions paired with appropriate gestures.

• Repeat structures doing emphasis in problematic parts with pronounced intonation.

• Take advantage of students feedback to redirect the speech.

• Use visual organisers to accompany and complete the explanations (schemes, mind maps, Ishikawa diagram, videos...).

• Communicative schemes and grammatical structures.

• Error correcting codes.

• Total Physical Response (TPR):

Students internalize and understand the meaning of words and grammatical structures trough the repetition of different movements and gestures that the teacher perform. Thereby, the learning and comprehension of the nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs... becomes more dynamic, intuitive and easier. This is a key technique in the first years of children's education where reading and writing isn't developed yet. 

• Storytelling techniques: 

This refers to the use of stories or tales to communicate complex information in a more dynamic and motivational way. Storytelling appears as a useful tool to teach abstract concepts and ideas, introducing connections between them and students' interest and context.