Return to CLIL

Well the IWB lesson on diodes and a.c. rectification went really well. Maybe the fact that I had not spent too long on this one meant that I had not over-prepared for it, something I am apt to do on occassion. Keeping it simple, asking lots of questions and helping the students to work things out for themselves really does make a huge difference to my lessons now.

P, a quiet member of the class, managed to offer more by way of discussion today, though I did have to ask M to stop talking for a while to give the other 2 a chance to speak. I must try to find a better way to handle this. If I do nothing, M dominates all discussion as his English is much better than that of the others, but giving him more responsibility, having his act as "teacher" sometimes, just goes to his head and he starts to be ultra-critical of the others. I need to think harder about this problem and to try other tactics to see if anything else will work. I should probably speak to his other teachers too, to see if they have any suggestions.

Anyway, I'd like to return now to where I left off, in my journey from barely using an IWB to where I am now, via Barbara's book on CLIL. For some months, I'd been too busy preparing IWB lessons, trying to keep just ahead of my September starters GCSE class, to be able to read any of the book at all. Then one horrible day, the unthinkable happened. Barbara asked for the book to be returned.

To be fair, she did ask if I could lend it back to her, briefly, for her to use and then return it to me. Fortunately for me, she found another copy and didn't need "my" copy back, but the near miss gave me the jolt I needed to pick up the book again and start reading it again.

Naturally, I'd forgotten all that I'd read the first time around, so started again, though I did skim through the early chapters. I started making notes whenever I came across something I thought particularly useful and found myself trying more than ever to incorporate some new ideas into my teaching.

Some recurring themes struck me most forcibly. I should involve the students more in lessons. I should stop talking so much and ask the students to talk more. Much more. How, when their level of English was so poor? Answer - provide the language they need. Help them. Involve them. Help them to take more responsibility for their own learning. Let them set goals. Stop talking so much.

How to stop talking so much? I started taking mental note of how much talking I did in class and was, if not surprised, then definitely concerned. I talked far too much. For too long and too often. I wasn't teaching, I was lecturing. I was tempted to tell myself that it was due to my enthusiasm for Physics, but if I was to gain anything from this book and this whole exercise, then I had to be brutally honest with myself and not make excuses. I had to change the way I teach. Sure, I am enthusiastic about Physics and I had to retain that, but I had to go about my teaching in a different way.

As I read on, through sections on active learning, scaffolding, chunking and repackaging as well as a host of other sections, I began to pick up ideas to use in lessons. I reflected much more about my lessons and made myself think about my delivery before each lesson to see if there was a way to cut down on my talking time and to increase the students' talking time. At this point, I had begun to teach a new class, my current January starters GCSE class of just 3 students. They would be the ideal class on which to try out new ideas. If this didn't work, I'd plenty of time to change back, but if it did, I'd plenty of time to observe any effects. I could learn along with my students.

This was going to be fun.