Video conference with Primary Education CLIL teachers

On Tuesday, 2nd April 2019 we held a video conference with three experienced CLIL teachers. We connected simultaneously with Guadalupe Ruiz, David Pérez and Javier Ramos from our classroom at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos. It was great to have a chat with them and learn about their experiences. We had planned a few questions in advance on a collaborative document on Google Drive. The tool we used for the video conference was Google Hangouts.

• Guadalupe Ruiz is a Music teacher in CEIP Maximiliano Macías school in Mérida (Extremadura). She is currently teaching Music through English from 1st to 6th graders. In her lessons she uses lots of ICT tools to support her teaching.
  
• David Pérez is a Physical Education teacher in the same school. He applies the CLIL method in his lessons too. David uses ClassDojo to gamify his lessons and encourage his students.
  
• Javier Ramos teaches at Colegio San Gregorio in Aguilar de Campoo (Castilla-León). He is the 5th grade class teacher. You can have a look at his blog or follow him (@javiramossancha) and his school (@colsangregorio) on Twitter. 

We would all like to thank Guadalupe, David and Javier for sharing their knowledge and expertise with us, especially when they had a very busy schedule at the end of second term.

Thank you, teachers, you're amazing!

Sharing stories through comics

Comics can be used in our CLIL lessons as they engage learners. They are a composition of art, dialogue, character expressions and frames.  

Basically, comics allow us to tell a story by mixing images and text, bubbles that are supported with visuals. This will help our brain to process the information in an easier way than reading a large amount of text on a page.

As digital storytelling tools, many of the comic creation tools are easy to use allowing the learners to fill in their frames by clicking on a choice of characters, props, scenes, and so forth. Our learners will be able to quickly create a story, view it, and share it.

Our children can use real or made up characters. When students create cartoons or graphic images of themselves, they are creating avatars. Avatars are a safe way for students to navigate the web. They often encourage students to express themselves because they feel safe in the comic world. 

Creating comics engages students and encourages them to explore vocabulary, summarize information, and contextualize what they learn in a creative way.

The tools we have used have mainly been Pixton and StoryboardThat.

Some great comics designed by Máster Universitario en Enseñanza Bilingüe en Centros Educativos de Educación Primaria e Inmersión en Lengua Inglesa's students follow. Comics by Sonia, Daniel, Uxía, Catalina and Nadia are just examples of the creativity shown by them.