overcoming clil pitfalls a project based learning …
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UNIVERSIDAD DE JAÉN Centro de Estudios de Postgrado
Master’s Dissertation/ Trabajo Fin de Máster
OVERCOMING CLIL PITFALLS: A PROJECT BASED LEARNING
PROPOSAL FOR THE AREA OF
ENGLISH AS A FIRST FOREIGN
LANGUAGE
Student: González Abad, Manuel José Tutor: Dr. Julio Ángel Olivares Merino Dpt.: English Philology
January, 2017
ABSTRACT
This work has been developed as an answer to the main training needs in terms of CLIL
methodological requirements and development and adaptation of CLIL materials that,
according to Pérez Cañado (2014, pp. 15-19), current in-practice CLIL teachers show
within Europe and, particularly, in Spain. Thus, in this paper we offer a Project-Based
Learning didactic proposal which aims to show in a practical way how the different
methodological requirements of CLIL could be developed through this approach,
mainly based on the encouragement of motivation, the active participation of the
students and cooperative learning. This proposal is developed as a booklet, whose
sequence of tasks aims to facilitate the teaching-learning process to both teachers and
students, and whose final objective, the artefact of the project, is the creation of a
picture book by each one of the groups that may be involved within it.
Keywords: CLIL; Project-based Learning; teacher training needs; picture book
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INDEX
1. INTRODUCTION 1
1.1. Sections 3
2. JUSTIFICATION OF THE TOPIC 3
3. OBJECTIVES 5
3.1. General objectives 5
3.2. Specific objectives 6
3.3. Personal objectives 6
4. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND LITERATURE REVIEW 6
4.1. CLIL methodology 6
4.1.1. CLIL in Andalusia 7
4.1.2. CLIL characteristics and advantages 8
4.1.3. CLIL current pitfalls in terms of teacher training needs 9
4.2. Project Based Learning (PBL) 11
4.3. Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT) 12
4.4. Lexical Approach 14
4.5. Cooperative Learning 15
4.6. Inquiry-based Learning: KWL 16
4.7. Web 2.0 tools 18
5. METHODOLOGY 19
5.1. Selection of area and topic 19
5.2. Target context 20
5.3. Format of the proposal 20
5.4. PBL implementation 21
5.5. Integration of proposal and curriculum 23
5.6. Suggested development and timing 24
6. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 24
6.1. Didactic Proposal: How to make a picture book 27
7. CONCLUSIONS 47
8. REFERENCES 49
8.1. Legislative References 53
APPENDIX I. TRANSCRIPTIONS AND COMPLEMENTARY RESOURCES
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Training needs of in-service teachers on methodological aspects 9
Figure 2: Training needs of in-service teachers on materials and resources 10
Figure 3. Kagan’s suggested seating arrangement for Cooperative Learning 16
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1. INTRODUCTION
Paraphrasing Marsh and Langé (2000, p. 2), as well as Cenoz, Genesee, and Gorter
(2013, pp. 244-246), currently, the acronym CLIL1 (Content and Language Integrated
Learning) could be defined as an umbrella concept under which a variety of methodological
approaches are included, having all of them in common the promotion of the teaching-
learning process of the contents of an area or subject through a foreign language, a second
language or a regional or minoritarian language. Therefore, according to Pérez Cañado (2016,
p. 12), within the CLIL spectrum, and being sometimes difficult to establish the boundaries
between them, we could include other multilingual programs such as immersion or Content
Based Instruction. Nevertheless, within our close Andalusian context, and especially among
primary and secondary school teachers, the most extended vision of this approach is that one
that allows to join together a non-linguistic curricular area and a linguistic area with the main
objective of carrying out a teaching-learning process between them. This can result in
bilingualism or plurilingualism situations in some cases.
Thus, within this more common way of understanding CLIL, the non-linguistic area
contents form the base to learn the language and the target language itself is only used as a
vehicular instrument. This means that the process of language learning should be carried out
in an integrated way, “unconsciously” in some way, by the student through the learning
process of other area contents. However, because of this very reason, since the student works
the foreign language from contents related to other areas, further than the proper contents of
that subject, the linguistic ones should be selected too, trying to integrate always the different
linguistic skills.
In spite of these requirements, this process normally leaves the study of the language
itself and its related contents relegated to the Foreign Language area, which furthermore, does
not normally benefit from the advantages of CLIL. As a result, the Foreign Language area is
normally kept as a most traditional place, still focused mainly on the work of grammar and
vocabulary, hopefully, throughout the different linguistic skills.
On the other hand, this relatively new CLIL approach for teaching languages also
demands a whole set of methodological characteristics for its correct development. Among
them, we could highlight that any methodology derived from CLIL should try to offer a
teaching-learning process focused on the student (student-centred). This learning process
should be based on the promotion of cooperative learning by tasks (Task-based Learning) or
1 Also known by its initials in Spanish: AICLE (Aprendizaje Integrado de Contenido y Lengua Extranjera); and
in French: ÉMILE (Enseignement de Matières par l´Intégration d´une Langue Étrangère)
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projects (Project-based Learning), with the main aims of offering meaningful and relevant
activities for the students and, at the same time, leading to an interactive way of learning
where students are able to develop their autonomy to its maximum level. Furthermore, a
correct balance between BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills) and CALP
(Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency) should be offered to the students in order to
allow them to acquire progressively a correct proficiency level, although not necessarily
native. In terms of teachers, within CLIL, they should acquire a role of facilitators, have a
proficiency level of the language and have a good command of the particular contents of the
area to teach.
All these methodological needs place teachers in a new position for which not all of
them are prepared. This fact is clearly reflected in Pérez Cañado (2014, p. 3) research, which
points out the “theoretical and methodological aspects of CLIL”, as well as the “development
and adaptation of materials and resources”, among others, as key aspects in terms of teacher
training needs across Europe and, particularly, Spain. Thus, it is within these teacher training
needs where we can find many of the pedagogical challenges that CLIL currently confront
within our Andalusian context.
As an answer to these teacher training needs in terms of CLIL theoretical and
pedagogical aspects, the first part of this work shows a literature review which tries to
summarise the most relevant characteristics of the CLIL methodological aspects in which,
according to Pérez Cañado (2014, pp. 15-16), teachers show less practice knowledge: Project-
based Learning, Task-based Language Teaching, the Lexical Approach, Cooperative Learning
and use of Web 2.0 resources. Furthermore, this literature review, which aims to be used as a
guide of easy a quick consultation for teachers, acts also as the base upon which construct this
work didactic proposal.
Thus, the second part of the paper includes the mentioned proposal, which is based on
Project Based Learning and has been developed in accordance to the legislative requirements
of the area of English as First Foreign Language. Following these guidelines, the project will
revolve around the topic of picture books and will have as final result the creation of one of
them by the different groups of students to which it is oriented. The main aim of this didactic
proposal is showing a real didactic transposition of the methodological requirements of CLIL
and, at the same time, offering a solution to the necessity of creation of materials adapted to
the real CLIL demands. In this way, if we achieved this, we would also collaborate in the
elaboration of an integrated curriculum adapted to our current Andalusian legislative
framework.
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1.1. Sections.
In order to fully understand the contents and structure of this project, a brief summary
of its different sections is offered in the following lines.
Thus, this project is divided into eight main sections and two appendices. It starts with
a brief introduction that contextualises the work, focusing mainly on CLIL methodology and
some of its current needs. After that, section 2, justification of the topic, offers a more
complete explanation of these CLIL needs, showing the importance of the topic selected and
of the outcomes of this work. This is followed by section 3, which specifies and highlights the
main objectives of this work, but also, the specific and personal ones.
Section 4 is, then, devoted to the theoretical guidelines that underpin this work. In this
way, the theoretical framework of CLIL implementation in Andalusia is presented together
with an extended version of the main aspects and data of Pérez Cañado (2014) and other
authors’ researches that show the importance of the topic selected and niche we come to work
on. After this, a literature review of the main methodological aspects that, according to the
previous mentioned researches, represent the higher levels of teacher training needs in CLIL
is presented, focusing mainly on their pedagogical and practical aspects.
Following section 4, section 5, the methodology section, includes the different aspects
that have been taken into account for the correct design of the proposal, at the same time that
it shows the process of construction of the proposal upon the main methodological guidelines
of Project Based Learning. Subsequently, since the main result of the paper, the didactic
proposal, is included within the appendices, section 6 is devoted to the discussion of this
result in relation to the required methodological characteristics of CLIL.
This is followed by section 7, which includes the main conclusions of the paper in
relation to its main objectives and section 8, which includes the different references that
support and that have helped into the development of this work.
Finally, the two section of appendices are worth being mentioned, since they include
the didactic proposal, in appendix I, as well as complementary materials that may be needed
for its correct development in appendix II.
2. JUSTIFICATION OF THE TOPIC
In spite of the demands of our current society, and of the Andalusian one in particular,
with a constantly growing number of bilingual schools and legislative requirements, such as
the ones included within the Order of 28th June 2011, regarding the promotion of a teaching-
learning process based on CLIL within these schools, the truth is that this methodology still
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shows some pitfalls in terms of correct implementation that need to be attended. Focusing on
this work main aims, in relation to materials and resources, authors such as Ruiz Garrido and
Saorín Iborra (2009), Ruiz de Zarobe (2010) or Pérez Cañado (2014), agree on the fact that
the main materials to which teachers have access to put this methodology into practice, do not
always agree with its methodological requirements.
In this way, the bilingual materials offered by the different publishing houses are not
usually different from the traditional text books, which leads to teaching-learning processes
that are placed far from the expected development of autonomy and of the ability to learn how
to learn demanded by CLIL. Furthermore, it is quite frequent to find in these cases that the
contents offered have been simplified in comparison with the ones that would be taught in the
mother tongue, which makes obvious the negative consequences of this fact for the students
and their learning process.
On the other hand, the didactic sequences offered and promoted by the Andalusian
Government2 are limited to a few didactic units per grade, which keeps them far from
representing the total amount of contents to be carried out during a school year. Furthermore,
we could also mention that their curricular background is now obsolete within our current
legislative framework dependent on the Law 8/2013, of 9th December, for the Improvement of
Quality in Education, and derived Andalusian Orders and Decrees.
It is worth highlighting also that, in spite of the advantages offered by the CLIL
methodology, CLIL materials are normally focused on the teaching process of contents from
originally non-linguistic areas, but almost nothing is developed or offered by the
Administration or publishing houses in relation to the teaching process of the area of First
Foreign Language through CLIL. Consequently, English lessons rarely include this kind of
approach. On the contrary, these lessons are normally organised in a more traditional way,
more focused on a more explicit way of teaching vocabulary and grammar at an oral and
written level.
Thus, according to Pérez Cañado’s (2014) research and Ruiz Garrido and Saorín
Iborra (2009), the necessity of the teachers to offer an answer to the mentioned
methodological needs and lack of materials comes up. This requires from them the ability to
look for alternative resources and more innovative proposals according to the CLIL
methodological needs, the exploitation of Web 2.0 resources and the creation of their own
materials. At the same time, according to Pérez Cañado’s (2014) research, a higher
knowledge and training in student-centred methodologies, such as Project-based Learning, 2 (http://www.juntadeandalucia.es/educacion/webportal/web/aicle/secuencias-aicle)
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Task-based Language Teaching, Cooperative Learning or the Lexical approach is also
required from teachers. Furthermore, all these needs emerge in an everyday-more
bureaucratized profession that makes this role of the teacher as researcher and creator of
materials even more difficult.
In light of this situation, the following work and subsequent didactic proposal try to
respond to the necessities and demands of current CLIL teachers in terms of methodological
knowledge background and support for development and adaptation of materials. At the same
time, it tries to open a not so worked field, such as the development of CLIL materials for the
English as First Foreign Language area, through a process where the teaching process of the
language is not left aside but carried out in an integrated and transversal way in response to
the linguistic needs that the students demand. This process, obviously, can be guided and
controlled by the teacher during the process of scaffolding, where different planned tasks will
aim to arouse within the students the mentioned linguistic needs.
On the other hand, it also aims to help into the development of an integrated CLIL
curriculum, since the process of curricular specification carried out integrates the different
elements of the current Andalusian curriculum into an actual didactic proposal based on
CLIL, which could be used as a guide for teachers in terms of future curricular development
in regards to CLIL.
In this way, according to the main characteristics of the Order of 28th June 2011 and
of the current curricular framework, whose methodological requirements are mainly shaped
within the Appendix 1 of the Order 17th March 2015, we try to offer a didactic sequence easy
to follow either by students or teachers, which aims to show how to integrate a project within
our current and real context, at the same time that it gathers the different CLIL demands
regarding methodology, contents and exposition to the language, all of it without simplifying
the mentioned contents, but being correlative to the pertinent cycle and grade.
3. OBJECTIVES
In the following section the different aims of this work are specified and divided within three
main sections in accordance to their character: general, specific or personal.
3.1. General objective
- To create a Project-based Learning unit of work able to overcome the main
methodological pitfalls of CLIL, in terms of teacher training needs, in an easy to follow
format for both teachers and students.
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3.2. Specific objectives
- To help teachers get familiar with CLIL-required student-centred approaches, such as:
Project-based Learning, Task-based Language Teaching, Cooperative Learning or the
Lexical Approach, and to show a real example of how to put them into practice.
- To help in the elaboration of an integrated curriculum for CLIL, offering a project based
scheme of work adapted to the current Andalusian curriculum and legislative framework.
- To offer a real way of linking and integrating subjects beyond the competence
interdisciplinarity suggested by our current legislative framework.
- To show an easy and adaptable way of using Web 2.0 tools within the CLIL lesson.
- To contribute to the online repository of CLIL materials to which teachers have access.
3.3. Personal Objectives
- To get deeper into the knowledge of CLIL and its main methodological characteristics.
- To be able to respond to the demands on the current CLIL teacher through the creation of
original CLIL materials, adapted to the real methodological requirements of this
methodology.
4. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND LITERATURE REVIEW
The following sections introduce the most relevant aspects of CLIL for this work and
show the theoretical framework, in terms of teacher training needs, that supports it. After this,
the second part of the literature review carried out is presented. This one is mainly focused on
the CLIL methodological aspects in which teachers show more training needs, with the
double objective of being a quick guide of consultation for any CLIL teacher and of being the
theoretical framework and pedagogical basis on which this paper didactic proposal is
constructed. After that, the section ends with other important aspects for current CLIL
teachers and our scheme of work, such as the Inquiry-based Method or Web 2.0 tools.
4.1. CLIL methodology
Based on researches derived from immersion programmes in Canada and bilingual
teaching models in North America, the term CLIL was first coined and launched by a team of
representatives of the “UNICOM, the University of Jyväskylä (Finland), and the European
Platform for Dutch education” (Pérez Cañado, 2016) in 1994. CLIL represents and innovative
methodological approach in which language and a non-linguistic area constitute with the same
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importance learning objectives, and where, in linguistic terms, the emphasis is normally given
to meaning rather than form. This requires the use of a more integrating teaching-learning
methodology, and demands from teachers to pay particular attention to a teaching process in
which the learning process of the “non-language subject is not taught in a foreign language
but with and through a foreign language” (European Comission, 2006).
4.1.1. CLIL in Andalusia
Given the importance that plurilingualism acquires in Europe, and once the
combination of content and language is understood as an aim for the correct incorporation of
European students in a lifestyle where mobility should be promoted and available for
everyone, the mentioned methodology starts to arise during the mid-90s, after the Council
Resolution of 1995, which would be ratified by the European Commission’s (2003) Action
Plan 2004-2006.
Focusing on Spain, and more specifically on Andalusia, because of the high level of
legislative autonomy given to each Community and the different implementation of CLIL
within each one of them, it is the Plan for the Promotion of Plurilingualism in 2005 which,
according to the European policies, introduces this methodology for the first time. This Plan,
partially founded by the European Union, included a budget of 141 million euro allocated for
the investment of technical and human resources, teacher training programmes, mobility and
innovation of the curricular design.
All this set the base for, among others, the more than 1000 bilingual schools that are
currently in Andalusia and where the still legislative framework in terms of bilingualism, the
Order of 28th June 2011, define them as those schools that promote the acquisition and
development of the students’ linguistic competences in relation to the different
communicative skills through CLIL. Furthermore, the Order establishes that at the mentioned
schools, students should study at least two different non-linguistic areas through English,
French or German, at least in a 50%, following a methodological, functional and
organisational model based on the principles of the mentioned approach.
The Order promotes the elaboration of an integrated curriculum of languages at the
bilingual schools, as well as the creation of own materials focused on the promotion of
learning contents in a foreign language. At the same time, it encourages the design of
communicative tasks, the use of the European Language Portfolio, the inclusion of linguistic
competences for the development of “basic” (currently, after the Law for the Improvement of
Education, “key”) competences, the incorporation of communicative activities in all language
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lessons given at the school, the establishment of links between languages through a common
methodology and, finally, the creation of methodological plans based on a communicative
approach. (Andalusian Government, 2011, pp. 7-8).
4.1.2. CLIL characteristics and advantages
On the one hand, as stated by Coyle (2007, p. 551), CLIL is mainly characterised, and
different from other bilingual methodologies, because of the integration of content,
communication, cognition and culture within its teaching learning process.
Thus, according to this author, contents should allow among the students the
development of the required curricular skills and competences, at the same time that they
establish a meaningful context for them, where the use of the target language is required in
order to complete some tasks. In this way, the context creates a relevant learning process
where the language is learnt by the students as a mean to carry out the different tasks through
which learn the non-linguistic area contents. In terms of communication, students should not
only learn the contents but also the target language, with the main intention of communicate
their knowledge and personal ideas about the contents. Regarding cognition, the teaching-
learning process of CLIL should put into practice the different mental processes that are
needed in the construction of knowledge, which require from students to mobilise their higher
and lower order thinking skills (HOTS and LOTS). Finally, concerning culture, lessons
should encourage cultural knowledge and reflection.
In accordance to these characteristic and to Marsh (2002, pp. 65-70) we can
summarise the advantages of CLIL around these four main aspects:
- From the contents perspective, it allows the development of the skills and competences
related to a non-linguistic area, at the same time that the students improve their language
skills.
- From the communicative perspective, the longer exposition to the language derives in a
higher possibility of using it. At the same time, the lexical variety is wider, because of the
different semantic fields worked within the subjects, which furthermore, gives new
opportunities for Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills (BICS) and Cognitive
Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) use.
- From the culture perspective, and thanks to CLIL cooperative focus, it allows to establish
meaningful comparisons among cultures, promoting values and attitudes towards
tolerance.
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- Finally, in terms of cognition, there is no doubt of the intellectual effort and put into
practice of the mental processes carried out by the student, which gives them the
opportunity to develop a wider range of communicative and non-communicative skills.
4.1.3. CLIL current pitfalls in terms of teacher training needs
In spite of its multiple advantages, because of its relative few years in practice,
particularly in our country, CLIL still encounters some pitfalls that need to be overcome.
Focusing on our work aims, mainly related to teacher training needs in this field, we can
mention that according to Pérez Cañado (2014, p. 2) “The new – and increased – demands
which the implementation of this approach places on teachers have been largely overlooked
and insufficiently addressed” which, as a result, places teachers in a delicate position in terms
of “linguistic and intercultural competence, theoretical and methodological aspects of CLIL,
materials and resources, and ongoing professional development” (Pérez Cañado 2014, p. 2).
Having selected among these items the methodological aspects of CLIL and materials
and resources as core problems to solve through this paper and its derived didactic proposal,
the following lines summarise the main aspects and data of Pérez Cañado (2014, pp. 10-19)
and other authors researches in relation to these aspects, allowing us to show the importance
of the topic selected and the niche upon which the didactic proposal is developed.
Thus, through Pérez Cañado’s (2014, pp. 10-19) study we can check how many
teachers still show important deficits in knowledge, activity design and put into practice of
key CLIL approaches such as Task-based Language Teaching (item 25 of the graph), Project-
based Learning (26), the Lexical Approach (27), and Cooperative Learning (29).
Figure 1: Training needs of in-service teachers on methodological aspects. (Pérez Cañado, 2014).
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This shortage in terms of methodological aspects is also supported by other authors,
such as Pena Díaz and Porto Requejo (2008, pp. 157-159), whose questionnaires showed that
the “40% of the participants (teachers of bilingual schools) do not have specific knowledge of
bilingual methodology and the rest have attended short introductory courses on the subject”.
Furthermore, they highlight that the methodological knowledge of many of the interviewed
teachers only “falls back on their colleagues’ experience” and that a significant percentage of
these participants think that “Second Language Teaching methodology can be extrapolated to
Bilingual Teaching”.
On the other hand, if according to Pérez Cañado (2014) Spanish teachers are the ones
who most needed training in all the aspects analysed within her research, the gap is especially
important in terms of materials and resources. According to the aforementioned researcher,
Spanish teachers “require further work on materials design and adaptation (respectively, items
32 and 33 of the graph), as well as on the integrated curriculum (item 34) and tandem
teaching (item 41)”. In this way, the following graph make visible these training needs, which
include other aspects such as access to authentic materials for bilingual teaching (31), use of
multimedia software (36), use of online reference materials (37), use of social media (38), use
of web quests (39), use of interactive whiteboards (40) and use of computer-mediated
communication (41).
Figure 2: Training needs of in-service teachers on materials and resources. (Pérez Cañado, 2014).
These results are supported by other authors such as Ruiz Garrido y Saorín Iborra
(2009) or Ruiz de Zarobe (2010), who deeply encourage the adaptation and creation of
materials by in-practice teachers for a correct development of the CLIL lesson.
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In this way, this work is developed as an answer to these main training needs, trying to
offer teachers a didactic proposal in which the mentioned CLIL methodological
characteristics are included in a practical way. Therefore, we aim to offer an innovative and
adapted-to-CLIL material, which is furthermore fully integrated in our current curriculum. At
the same time, the didactic proposal deepens in a not-so-worked field within CLIL: the use of
this methodology within the English as First Foreign Language class.
The following sections, offer a literature review of the different methodological
aspects in which this proposal is based on, aiming to act also as a quick guide for teacher
consultation.
4.2. Project Based Learning (PBL)
Project Based Learning is the main CLIL-recommended approach on which our
didactic proposal is based. Borrowing the Buck Institute for Education’s (2016) definition, we
can explain PBL as “a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by
working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to an authentic, engaging
and complex question, problem, or challenge.”
Following Bender’s (2012) guidelines, several factors are needed in the process of
development of any PBL scenario, among them, we can highlight:
- The election of a central topic. This topic should be something meaningful and relevant
for the students, and therefore, close to their context, needs and demands.
- The creation of an anchor. The anchor is an introductory mean (such as a video, a letter, a
person’s request…) used to offer the students the background information needed, which
will create among them a learning need and that will set the base for generating interest
and motivation.
- The establishment of a driving question. After the information received from the anchor,
students should be encouraged and guided to stablish a specific driving question, which
will be the element that “engage students’ attention and focus their efforts” Bender
(2012). This driving question should guide the project towards a final objective: the
artefact.
- The activation of content within the students. Through brief discussions, questions and
visual aids that will allow us to find out what the learners already know.
- The encouragement of generation of inquiry questions. Inquiry questions are all those
additional questions that will arise during the project in relation to our central topic and
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driving question. They are focused on more specific project or tasks, and its generation
should be encouraged among the students by the teacher.
- The scaffolding process. It is understood as the process of construction of knowledge that
helps the student towards creating the final product of the project (the artefact). This
process can be offered at school, through teacher resources, tasks, instructions, games,
web quests, textbook units, vocabulary exercises…; but also out of it, thanks to the
collaboration of the other members of the educational community.
- Cooperative team work: It is also a key aspect within this approach. It helps to make
learning experiences more authentic and to develop social skills. It includes practicing
negotiation skills, decision-making processes, turn-taking tasks, etc.
- The creation of an artefact. The artefact is the final product of the project, which can be
offered in many different forms: a handcraft, poster, video, presentation, webpage…
- A public outcome. The project should go beyond the students’ classroom, making it
visible for the school and if possible, for the rest of the educational community, through a
display, conference, exposition etc.
- A continuous process of assessment. This process should be based on both, teacher and
peer feedback, and should be included within all the activities and tasks of the project.
This will make students reflect about their work and progress, and will help the teacher to
spot learning difficulties and/or project pitfalls.
As stated by Bender (2012), this approach can be put into practice in many different
ways. Depending on the aims of the teachers, some may move to full time PBL, while others
may wish to combine PBL with the work of one or several traditional and instructional units.
Derived from this, teachers may use it as the learning base of the school curriculum, of a
whole year or term, or just work it during a restricted period of time. However, what teachers
cannot leave aside during this work process is their role as “facilitators and instructional
coaches” Bender (2012, p. 39).
4.3. Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT)
If PBL makes a project the main focus of a term or academic year, we could place
task-based learning a step behind, since it normally makes a task the central focus of a lesson.
According to Nunan (2004) TBLT is mainly focused on mobilising communicative language
and competences in a process that requires transforming real-world tasks into pedagogical
tasks. He, defines these pedagogical tasks as
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A piece of classroom work that involves learners in comprehending, manipulating,
producing or interacting in the target language while their attention is focused on
mobilising their grammatical knowledge in order to express meaning, and in which the
intention is to convey meaning rather than to manipulate form. (Nunan, 2004, p. 4)
Therefore, within this learning process carried out through tasks, the focus is placed on
meaning rather than on grammatical forms, nevertheless, as mentioned by (Nunan, 2004, p.
10) this latter aspect is still important and should not be forgotten, since meaning and form are
interrelated and it is this very grammar what allows the user to communicate different
meanings.
In this way, Willis and Willis (2007) determine that within a TBLT lesson, the
language to learn is not pre-established by the teacher, on the contrary it is determined by the
needs of the students while completing the central task on which the lesson is based.
According to these previously mentioned authors, a TBLT lesson should follow
certain steps:
- Pre-task. During this phase the topic should be introduced by the teacher at the same time
that any language needed for the task should be elicited. The students receive the
instructions to follow in order to complete the task, and the teacher could include
examples of other people or students putting it into practice in order to give the students a
model on which base their work. The student should take notes, assess the requirements
and prepare for the task.
- Task. Students carry out the task making use of their linguistic resources. In this stage the
students normally work in pairs or groups, and the teachers should acquire the role of
monitors and encouragers.
- Planning. The students gather the results of their tasks within a report. This process can be
oral or written, but it should assure a certain time of practice in groups for the students.
Teachers should assist and answer students doubts, following a role of advisers.
- Report. Within this stage, students should show to the class their oral or written report.
Teachers could offer some feedback during this process and should give opportunities to
the students for comparing and contrasting their task with other similar ones, encouraging
a process of reflection and self-assessment.
- Analysis. During this last stage, the teacher should encourage a process of reflection and
analysis of the language used and worked during the task and report stages: focusing on
specific language areas to work, correcting mistakes, highlighting certain correct aspects,
etc.
14
- Practice. Finally, in accordance to the needs that students presented during the task and
report stages, the teacher would select specific language areas to practice through different
activities, trying to encourage and increase students’ confidence in language practice.
4.4. Lexical Approach
Introduced by Michael Lewis in 1993, upon the base of "Language is grammaticalised
lexis, not lexicalised grammar" (Lewis,1993, p. 89), the Lexical Approach is defined by
Richards and Rodgers (2014, pp. 216-217) as an approach based on the assumption that it
should be lexis, in terms of words and word combinations, what should stablish the basis for
language teaching and communication, rather than grammar or language functions or notions.
These approaches, therefore, place lexis within the main focus of the language teaching
process, creating a base of “chunks of language” (lexical units) “that should be learned and
used as single terms” (Richards & Rodgers, 2014, p. 218).
Within their article, Islam and Timmis (2003a, p. 1), make a distinction of “chunks of
language”, dividing them into “lexical chunks” and “collocations”. The former is normally
used as an umbrella term used to refer to “any pair or group of words which are commonly
found together, or in close proximity” (Islam and Timmis, 2003a, p. 1). These lexical chunks
can be distinguished from the latter because they can combine a lexical content word and a
grammar function word such as if I were you or out of my mind. On the other hand
collocations would be defined by them as “as a pair of lexical content words commonly found
together” (Islam and Timmis, 2003a, p. 1), such as strong accent or terrible accident.
Therefore, as previously mentioned, this approach is based on the premise that the
determining facts that encourage fluency while learning a language is the rapid access of the
user to a wide range of chunks of language and not on a set of grammar rules and isolated
words. As a result, this approach encourages activities based on increasing the amount of
chunks to which the learner of a language has access, through activities, where the process of
making students noticing about these chunks is a determining factor. Thus, according to Islam
and Timmis (2003b, p. 1), activities within this method could include making the students
select lexical features they think will be useful for them; or even sometimes making noticing
explicit, such as highlighting particular items within a text before offering it to the students.
Based on this noticing premise, Tomlinson (2003, pp. 251-259) bases the correct
development of the Lexical Approach on some basic aspects of the Language Awareness
Approach. Consequently, activities within the lexical approach should have as main objective
“to help learners to notice for themselves how language is typically used so that they will note
15
the gaps and achieve learning readiness” (Tomlinson, 2003, p. 253). This process should be
experimental at first and, before focusing on the language of the text or comprehension
questions, should allow students to show their opinions and doubts about the text. Only after
that, an analytical point of view should be encouraged. During this analytical phase, students
should focus on a particular characteristic of the text, identify different examples of that
feature, make discoveries and, finally, generalisations about the use of that characteristic.
4.5. Cooperative Learning
After years of competitive and individualistic promotion of learning and a process of
research in education mainly based on teacher-student interaction, around the mid-60s
researchers started to wonder about the relations among students and their implications within
the learning process. Currently, it is one of the recommended ways of learning included
practically within any approach, but still many teachers do not put it into practice or do not
know how to do it correctly.
According to Johnson and Johnson (as cited by Scott, 2006, p. 134), cooperative
learning can be defined as the use of small groups within the class with the intention of
making students work together to accomplishing shared goals. The ideal group is that one that
promote positive interdependence among the students that form it, trying to make students
have an impact on each other. This requires introducing within the group “the feeling that one
cannot succeed unless everyone succeeds” (Scott, 2006, p.135), promoting interaction among
them and developing the correct social skills. According to these authors, it also requires an
extra work from the teachers in terms of structuring lessons and curriculum in a cooperative
way, as well as developing abilities in diagnosing the problems that students may encounter
working together in order to take action.
Among the different types of cooperative learning, described by Johnson, Johnson and
Holubec (as cited by Scott, 2006, pp. 134-135) we can highlight two main ones, Formal
Cooperative Learning and Informal Cooperative Learning.
On the one hand, in Formal Cooperative Learning, groups are normally long-term,
from weeks, to terms or even a school year; and are ideally formed by four members. Within
this kind of grouping students normally have shared learning goals and complete together
specific tasks and assignments that the teacher has to offer. Furthermore, the functions of the
teacher require a process of previous decisions, where the teacher should decide learning and
social objectives, the size of the groups, the role of different members of the group and assure
16
heterogeneity. At the same time, the teacher should select materials and arrange space to
encourage interaction and interdependence.
On the other hand, in Informal Cooperative Learning, teachers and students acquire a
similar role, but the objectives of their assigned task are short-term, as they are the groups to
form, which are normally pairs. From a few minutes to a whole class, the main objective of
this kind of grouping is promoting discussion among students, through tasks whose
instructions and product should be explicit and precise.
These two kinds of groupings can obviously be combined within the classroom
depending on our interests, allowing students to interact and learn from different classmates
throughout the lessons and the school year. Thus, finally, it should be mentioned that
according to Kang (1994, pp. 35-38) the ideal group arrangement for Formal Cooperative
Learning, which will allow to promote a correct interaction of its members and maximise the
benefits for them, should respond to the one included within the following figure.
Figure 3. Kagan’s suggested seating arrangement for Cooperative Learning. Adapted from Kagan (1994).
4.6. Inquiry-based Learning: KWL
Inquiry-based Learning is another student-centred methodology based on creating the
adequate context to arouse curiosity and encourage motivation among students. Sharing many
characteristics with Project-based Learning, Kampa and Vilina (2016) describe the advantages
and the process of application of this method into the Foreign Language class.
Thus, according to these authors, the method is a “three-step process” (Kampa and
Vilina, 2016) in which students should reflect about three main aspects every time a topic,
17
project or unit of work is introduced in the classroom. Three main questions should start and
encourage this process of self-reflection: What do I know about the topic (project, unit of
work, etc.)?, What do I want to know?, and, finally, What have I learned? This process
normally starts with a driving question related to the topic or learning process we are going to
introduce, from which students will start to reflect about. This characteristic makes this
approach ideal to combine with PBL. Furthermore, it should be mentioned that the process of
reflection about the previously mentioned questions or topic should be summarised within a
KWL chart, that should be placed at a visible point within the class and also reflected
somehow among the students work materials. Thus, one of the key aspects to highlight within
this learning process is the active implication of the students in their learning process,
allowing them from the beginning to keep track and reflect about it.
Delving into this approach, according to Kampa and Vilina (2016) the question What
do I know about the topic? should start the process of self-reflection. Either in small groups or
class-work, students should start mobilising their previous knowledge about the topic and
should elicit previously known vocabulary while the teacher is encouraging participation and
discussion among them. During this process of discussion, students will mobilise their
different linguistic skills while the teachers should keep track of their main answers within the
KWL chart.
In this way, establishing what students already know facilitates the process to carry out
during this second step, What do I want to know?, where students should start to wonder
about their needs and aims of learning in relation to the topic to work or driving question.
This process can start also in small groups, encouraging conversational skills through
discussion to, after that, move the discussion into a class level. During this process, teachers
could offer different hints to encourage the wondering about specific topics and should keep
track of the students’ answers within the second section of the chart, dedicated to it.
Finally, the last step of this method, What have I learned?, will start once the pertinent
topic or unit of work is finished. Students could once again start this process of reflection in
small groups, which will help them to increase self-confidence, to later, move the discussion
into a whole-class activity. Finally, the results of the learning process should be once again
included within the last part of the chart, helping students to be aware of all they have learnt
in relation to the topic. Within a project-based process, such as the one we offer within our
didactic proposal, students may use all they have learnt to create or develop their artefact.
18
4.7. Web 2.0 tools
According to Dómenech (2010, p. 291) the term Web 2.0 was first coined by Tim
O’Reilly in 2004, who defined it as “a second generation of web history, based on user
communities and a special selection of services and applications of internet, modified thanks
to social participation”. Therefore, this new way of understanding the web put an emphasis on
collaboration through web users, making a group of people interact in the process of
elaboration of contents. In terms of education, it demands an active role of the students within
the class and to place the teachers as a moderators and facilitators of the learning process,
being able to organise information, Web 2.0 resources and knowledge in accordance to their
students’ needs (Castaño, Maíz, Palacio, Villarroel and Domingo, 2008, pp. 14-18). Thus, this
situation demands a change of methodology within the classrooms, as well as the integration
of new digital and non-digital competences and skills that help teachers and students to find,
organise and process the vast amount of information that the web offers, allowing them to
transform it, successfully, into knowledge.
As a result of the possibilities offered by the Web 2.0, many current methodologies
base their process of learning on the use of its resources, thus, Gamification or The Flipped
Classroom are quite representative examples of methodologies within this field. At the same
time, this new way of understanding the web and derived resources have allowed the creation
of multiple platforms through which people can learn from any place at any time, such as
MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), moodles or m-learning applications such as
Duolingo3.
In this way, we are currently living in a time where the previous concept of ICT
education, understood as learning about and learning to use ICT tools, is changing to allow
people learn through this new resources. Therefore, we are moving from the concept of ICT
education to the concept of Technology-Enhanced Learning, and we cannot let our students
out of it. Web 2.0 resources for education are as varied as the web itself, and they include
blogs, wikis, social nets (Edmodo, Google +, Facebook…), virtual words, virtual and
augmented reality, podcasts, vodcasts, collaborative maps, forums and virtual platforms such
as Moodle, video streaming sources (Youtube, Ustream, Vimeo, Voki…), books and
presentations websites (Slideshare, Scrib, Google Books..), gamification-based webs (such as
Kahoot or Class Dojo)… (Moreno, 2012). Their number and variety is immense, so depriving
our students of the advantages of their use within the CLIL lesson is not justified.
3 Mobile-learning platform focused on teaching languages through Gamification.
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5. METHODOLOGY
Within the previous sections, we have described the concept of CLIL, its process of
integration and development in our Autonomous Community, what the main characteristics
and advantages of this methodology are, as well as its main current pitfalls in terms of teacher
training needs. In accordance to them, we have focused our literature review on aspects such
as PBL, TBLT, the Lexical Approach, Cooperative Learning or Web 2.0 tools, in which
according to Pérez Cañado (2014, pp.15-19) the mentioned needs are higher. Furthermore,
together with these last, we have also included a brief explanation of the Inquiry-based
Learning method, which we consider a fundamental one within any active and participative
methodology such as the ones promoted by CLIL and PBL. All these aspects give us the
necessary pedagogical basis upon which develop our work.
Thus, we can see how many of the methodological approaches through which CLIL
can be put it to practice share many common characteristics, aiming over all a student-centred
approach, where curiosity, motivation, cooperation, and in our terms, the development of the
communicative competence, are key aspects. This facilitates their combination and integration
in a didactic proposal, such as the one included within this work, whose design process is
described in this section.
5.1. Selection of area and topic
This paper offers a PBL proposal oriented to be worked within the area of English as
First Foreign Language in Andalusia. The main aim for selecting this area was the previous
research carried out where we find out that CLIL didactic materials offered by publishing
houses, the Andalusian Government (CLIL Didactic Sequences in
http://www.juntadeandalucia.es/educacion/webportal/web/aicle/secuencias-aicle), and even
the majority of web resources, were oriented to work non-linguistic areas. Since this respond
to the main definition and way of understanding CLIL, from our point of view, the advantages
of this methodology cannot be left aside in the Foreign Language area, where materials are
still mainly oriented to the only work of lexis and grammar. Something similar occurs when
we talk about PBL resources for teachers. The previously mentioned sources do not offer
many project-based sequences, but numerous guidelines upon which construct a project, and
when they do, they are normally, once again, oriented to the work of non-linguistic areas,
leaving aside the advantages of this approach within the Foreign language area. Therefore, the
area for the development of the didactic proposal offered within this paper was selected as a
direct answer to this scarcity of materials and resources around it.
20
On the other hand, the topic selected, and upon which the proposal is developed, is the
creation of picture books. This topic has been chosen as answer to our current curricular
demands in terms of promotion of reading among the students. These demands, mainly
gathered within the Article 4.6. of the Order of 17th March 2015, include aspects such as the
inclusion of 30 minutes of mandatory reading for every grade within the daily schedule of
schools. Thus, instead of forcing students to read, the proposal aims to offer a new brunch of
children literature to students, more in accordance with the characteristics and demands of
many of them and with which probably they will feel more comfortable, intending overall, to
arouse interest and motivation towards reading among them.
5.2. Target context
The didactic proposal is obviously focused on a bilingual context. This means a
school, under the legislative framework of the Order of 28th June 2011, where students have
been normally in contact with English since Pre-Primary Education and where their daily
contact with English goes further than the English as First Foreign language, through other
subjects carried out through this language.
Thus, it is expected to be worked with a 6th grade class, which according to the
schedule stablished by the Appendix II of the Order of 17th March 2015, should include at
least 3 hours of English weekly. This schedule may vary in accordance to the use of the
autonomy hours assigned to each school, but only the compulsory hours will be taken into
account within this proposal
Finally, in accordance to our legislative framework expectations and the classification
offered by the Common European Framework of Reference, at this grade, our students should
be around a A2 level. Obviously, the differences among students will be patent, from students
who are good at English and are motivated towards it, to students who do not and do not feel
comfortable with the subject; from students who attend English Academies, to students who
do not; from high-ability students to the support required by students with specific
educational needs… Nevertheless, the characteristics of the methodology followed, and the
high amount of cooperative activities aim soften these differences.
5.3. Format of the proposal
Our didactic proposal follows a textbook format in which the different activities that
represent the process of scaffolding are sequenced and numerated with the intention of
facilitating the teaching-learning process to both, teachers and students. In this way, together,
21
they will put into practice a PBL experienced based on a format they are used to, and not in a
set of not interconnected worksheets. The different sheets that form the booklet will be
worked together with a research journal, where students will keep track of their findings
throughout the project. Thus, in accordance to the characteristics of each lesson, the teacher
will offer progressively the different worksheets that form the booklet sequence, and will be
the students the ones in charge of progressively forming it together with their individual and
group notes.
As a result, each one of the students will end the proposal having a personal booklet,
which, after having been used as tool to promote learning in regards to the English language
and to picture books and their different characteristics, will be used as a guide for the second
part of the project, the physical creation of the picture book.
Thus, this didactic proposal represents the first part of a project that will integrate
contents of mainly three different subjects: English as First Foreign Language, Arts and
Crafts and Castilian Language and Literature. During this first part, mainly focused on
contents related to the first and third mentioned areas, students will learn all the necessary
aspects regarding picture books that, during the second part of the project, more related to the
contents included within the Arts and Crafts curriculum, will allow them to create the proper
picture book.
5.4. PBL implementation
The process of construction of this first part of the project, which forms this paper
didactic proposal, has been developed according to the methodological characteristics of PBL,
as it is expressed within the following lines:
- Central topic. As previously mentioned, the general topic selected, in accordance to the
close context, needs and interests of the students, is picture books.
- Anchor. The anchor of the project is shown during the first activity of the didactic
proposal through a Web 2.0 resource, the Voki platform (http://www.voki.com/). This
means of communication is intended to increase interest and motivation among students.
At the same time, through it, we present the problem on which the project is based:
Younger students need picture books for their lessons and free time, and we, as oldest
students of the school, may help our schoolmates to acquire them; Why don’t we create
them?
22
- Driving question. After the information received through our anchor, the third activity of
the proposal promotes a discussion where students should develop the driving question of
our project: How can we create a picture book?
- Activation of content. The activation of content is promoted by the creation of a KWL
chart and through a discussion where students should start to talk about what they already
know about picture books. Consequently, the promotion and generation of inquiry
questions will start whit the second part of the chart: What do I want to learn? During this
process, students will be encouraged to reflect about their learning expectations, what will
derive in many inquiry questions that we could guide in accordance to our aims. This
process of promotion and generation of inquiry question will continue throughout the
development of the proposal, sometimes having the students as a source and others the
very activities demands.
- Scaffolding process. The different activities included within the proposal will create the
different contexts that will put the scaffolding process into practice. Therefore, it will be
encouraged and developed through a wide range of tasks that will give our students the
necessary knowledge to finally develop the artefact of our project: the picture book. These
tasks, mainly based on cooperation, will integrate characteristics of different
methodologies and will allow the students to put into practice different combinations of
LOTS and HOTS. At the same time, these tasks will encourage the use of a balanced
combination of BICS and CALP, which will vary in accordance to the characteristics of
the activity. Furthermore, it should be mentioned within this section that the different
methodological aspects required by CLIL have been included transversally throughout the
proposal and, as a consequence, their advantages will be included within the scaffolding
process that the students will carry out.
- Cooperative team work: Students will be distributed in groups in accordance to Kagan
(1994) suggested seating arrangement. Furthermore, the different tasks of the proposal
will promote different ways of cooperation, encouraging dialogues between pairs and
group discussions that will progressively lead to the development of a wide range of social
skills.
- Artefact. As previously mentioned, the artefact of the project will be a picture book, which
will be created by each group during its second part.
- Public outcome. The main objective of the project is to offer these picture books to
younger students of schools, coping with the public and social character that any project
should offer. This, furthermore, should be preceded by a process through which students
23
expose their final work to their classmates; and could also include an exposition of the
picture books for schoolmates, parents or teachers during an official presentation of the
books.
- Assessment and evaluation. Peer and teacher feedback is continuously encouraged
throughout the different tasks, which usually ends with a process of debate were students
discuss about the adequacy or not of their results. Furthermore, it is worth mentioning
that, in accordance to the characteristics of the students, teachers should offer during some
activities rubrics, in order to help students, understand and assess what they are asked to
do. In the same way, each teacher should decide the percentage, within the summative
assessment required by our current legislative framework, that he/she assigns to the
project in accordance to the selected way of working it. A continuous evaluation and
assessment of the different tasks through rubrics is also suggested, with the intention of
monitoring the learning process of the students as well as possible deficiencies that the
proposal could show among particular groups.
5.5. Integration of proposal and curriculum
As previously mentioned, one of the aims of this paper is to contribute to development
of an integrated curriculum. In this way, this proposal has been developed in accordance to
the characteristic of the Law 2/2006, of 3rd May on Education, modified by the Law 8/2013,
of 9th December, for the Improvement of Quality in Education. This means, that the different
curricular elements included within the Decree 97/2015, of 3rd March, and specified for the
area within the Order of 17th March 2015, have been adapted and oriented to work within a
bilingual context, according to the characteristics and demands of CLIL and PBL.
In this way, the process of specification of the different curricular aspects is included
within the first two pages of the didactic proposal, in the form of an adapted version of the
structure suggested by the CLIL Sequences offered by the Andalusian Government
(http://www.juntadeandalucia.es/educacion/webportal/web/aicle/secuencias-aicle). Thus, we
aim to offer these curricular aspects into a visual and familiar format for teachers, facilitating
them the understanding of the curricular aspects that underpin the proposal, as well as the
adaptation of them to the characteristics of their particular context if it was necessary.
Therefore, all this process shows that the construction of and integrated curriculum
can be perfectly developed through a correct adaptation of the curricular requirements of our
current legislative framework, which can result into the creation of real CLIL, and even PBL,
didactic proposals.
24
5.6. Suggested development and timing
The didactic proposal has been developed with the main intention of being integrated
within our current and real Andalusian context and curricular framework. In this way, we
have to bear in mind that the majority of schools will have a textbook as a main guide with
which our project will have to share part of the schedule. Thus, taking into account the 3
hours for the area of First Foreign Language that the Appendix 1 of the Order of 17th March
2015 establishes as mandatory, the suggested timing of the proposal includes the work of this
first part of the project during, at least, one of the mentioned hours, leaving the other 2 free
for the work and progression within the class textbook. The suggested use of the class
textbook, which will be probably mandatory in accordance to the School Educational Project,
is that one that allows the student to cope with the different linguistic needs that should come
up along the project, in a way that should also allow the teacher to focus on the linguistic
topic needed, as well as to orient the mainly grammatical and lexical character that textbooks
normally present towards the demands of the project.
Thus, the booklet included within this didactic proposal is planned to be worked
during the first term for around 12 weeks (one session per week), which could be shortened or
made longer depending on our students’ progress and school holidays. At the same time, in a
parallel way, students should work within the area of Arts and Crafts different drawings
techniques for, during the second term, starting the creation of the picture book.
On the other hand, within an ideal context where the use of a textbook was not pre-
established by the school, the first part of the project, which revolves around the booklet
offered by this paper, could be worked during the first month or month and a half of a term,
making use of all the different sessions available of First Foreign Language. This would allow
to start the process of creation of the picture book during the second part of the term and to
start a new project the following.
6. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The main result of this dissertation, the booklet upon which our PBL proposal is
constructed, is included within section 6.1. Previously, the following lines offer a brief
explanation of its main characteristics, relating them to the main methodological demands of
CLIL that, as a result of the needs shown by in-service teachers in Pérez Cañado (2014, pp.
15-19), we come to fulfil.
25
Thus, as previously mentioned, this didactic proposal offers a PBL scheme of work in
the form of a booklet. This last represents the sequence of tasks that forms the first part of a
longer project, where students are expected to design and develop a picture book as final
product. This first part, more related to the contents of the area of English as First Foreign
Language, represents the scaffolding process through which students will learn all the
necessary aspects about picture books that will allow them to develop the mentioned artefact
correctly during the second part of the project.
According to CLIL and PBL demands, the proposal is based on an interdisciplinary
way of working the area. During its development, students will also learn contents related
with the areas of Arts and Crafts, and Spanish Language and Literature. Thus, students should
learn different techniques of drawing and colouring in a parallel way to the development of
the different tasks that form the booklet. In this way, the curricular aspects of the area of Arts
and Crafts should be worked in relation to the area of English, giving meaning to the learning
process of the students and increasing motivation among them when they realise that all they
are learning regarding these artistic techniques will have a real and practical result in their
close context: the creation of a picture book for younger students in the school. In the same
way, and according to other pillars of CLIL mentioned by Coyle (2007), communication, we
will also create this meaningful context for students in terms of language learning, since they
will need to learn and progressively improve their language skills (focused mainly on fluency,
but working also accuracy) to complete the project successfully.
In accordance to other main methodological characteristics of CLIL, the didactic
proposal offered demands an active and participative role of the students. As a result, students
will be encouraged to acquire a role of researchers or detectives. Thus, students will be asked
to complete a research journal that, together with the different sheets that form the main
booklet, will allow them to carry out many of the tasks. This research journal will also allow
them to take notes about all the relevant information offered throughout the project that will
help them to solve our initial problem: How can we create a picture book? Also, in relation to
this role of researchers, activities will require among others, the search and selection of
information or the elaboration of own definitions through discussion and contrast of
information
In regards to tasks, the ones included within this proposal are mainly oriented towards
the promotion of autonomous work among the groups, allowing teachers to acquire the role of
facilitators that is demanded by CLIL, PBL and the rest of CLIL-required approaches. The
mentioned tasks have been planned in accordance to the main characteristics of TBLT, thus,
26
they normally follow a structure based on different steps where students are encouraged to
mobilise previous knowledge, look for information, discuss the results in groups and, finally,
present them to the class. Furthermore, during all this process, mainly based on the
acquisition of non-linguistic contents, the teacher should try to look for possible language
needs in order to work them after the final process of discussion of the task, where some
practice about them could also be offered.
The Lexical Approach is the only methodological aspect of CLIL that is not explicitly
worked. However, a wide range of activities is offered with the main intention of activating
the required process of noticing among our students. Therefore, the teachers should be the
ones in charge of adapting the different texts offered to the process of noticing, using some of
the strategies and processes that have been previously explained within the literature review.
In terms of Web 2.0 and ICT use, it should be mentioned that the ideal context for the
project is that one which allows the different groups of students to have access to different
ICT resources, such as computers, tablets or smartphones. Thus, these resources will be
needed in many activities with different aims, as well as they will help to encourage the
promotion of autonomous work among students and to respect the different learning paces
and styles of each group. In accordance to this, and trying to fulfil CLIL demands in terms of
Web 2.0, different collaborative web tools have been put into practice within this project.
They include Voki (www.voki.com/), Padlet (https://es.padlet.com/), Kahoot
(https://getkahoot.com/) and the use of QR-codes, which will allow respectively, the
introduction of listening activities, the creation of web quests, the introduction of gamification
within the proposal and to offer quick links to different websites.
Nevertheless, in spite of this, the proposal could be also worked from a whole-class
focus, with the only requirement of an interactive whiteboard with access to internet, which
would be used together with the complementary resources included within the Appendix II of
this paper. In the same way, instead of completing the booklet and research diary using a
laptop or tablet, students could work them in printed format, if and when they were able to
watch and listen to the required audio-visuals on the mentioned interactive whiteboard.
Finally, it should be highlighted that, according to CLIL characteristics, the
development of the communicative competence is not forgotten within this proposal, but
carried out in a transversal way. Therefore, further than the previously mentioned aspects in
regards to it, it should be also underlined that beyond its main aim of learning the contents
related with the creation of picture books, the proposal includes a wide range of language
focused activities, such as oral comprehension activities (activities1, 17 and 22); speaking and
27
talking practice (through the exposition of own ideas and activities results, as well as through
conversations and discussions at pair, group and class level); writing activities (construction
of definitions, gathering of information, completing tables and questionnaires, creating short
stories for a picture…) or an adequate amount of reading practice (through the statements of
the activities, different text, the reading of picture books, web quests written information,
information gap activities…).
6.1. Didactic Proposal: How to make a picture book.
The following section includes the booklet and sequence of tasks through which the project
would be carried out. For a correct understanding of its development and characteristics it is
included in the same format it would be offered to students
Introduction: we need your help! 30
But first of all… 30
KWL chart 31
Picture books 31
Text-illustration interaction 32
Your first pages 34
Parts of a book 35
Analysing a picture book: the bibliography card 38
Analysing a picture book: paratextual elements 39
Analysing a picture book: narrative elements 41
Time to make your own picture book! 42
But… Why 32 pages? 43
Some tips before starting 44
Time to revise, reflect on and play! 46
TABLE OF CONTENTS
28
28
Identification sheet for CLIL material I
TITLE
How to Make a Picture Book
LINGUISTIC LEVEL
ACCORDING TO
CEFR
LANGUAGE
AREA
THEME
TOPIC GUIDE
FORMAT
CURRICULAR LEVEL
AUTHOR
APPROXIMATE
TIMING
CONTRIBUTION TO KEY COMPETENCES
OBSERVACIONES
A2.
English.
English as First Foreign Language.
Picture Books.
The following didactic proposal involves a PBL experience based on the creation of
picture books. It forms the first part of the project, where students should learn different
aspects of picture books before starting the process of creation. It includes definition,
characteristics and basic notions for creation.
Project-based booklet, which includes: tasks sequence in PDF, complementary
worksheets, listening transcriptions and links to web resources in written and video
format.
3rd Cycle of Primary Education – Year 6.
Manuel José González Abad.
12 -14 Sessions.
Competence in linguistic communication: The oral focus of the majority of activities, as well as the inherent
character of the written ones, involve the continuous use of the foreign language as an element of comprehension and
production in both, oral and written aspects, which clearly promotes the acquisition of this competence in the FL.
Mathematical competence and basic competences in science and technology: Although not directly related with
these competences, the unit follows many of the guidelines of the scientific research process. Thus, students will
have to check or refute personal hypotheses through a process where they will have to obtain, analyse and contrast
information before reaching any conclusion.
Digital competence: A fair number of different tasks allow to find, obtain, analyse and communicate information
through the correct and oriented use of different ICT and Web 2.0 tools, such as Voki, QR codes, Padlet or Kahoot.
Learning to learn competence: The different tasks allow the development of individual and group skills with the
main objective of obtaining, processing and transforming information into own knowledge. At the same time, they
try to assure the progressive development of strategies to work autonomously and of language learning strategies.
Social and civic competences: Group tasks demand from the students to respect the diversity of opinion, to take into
account others’ points of view and to interpret information cooperatively in order to reach agreements.
Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship competence: It is demanded continuously in activities where students
have to express and suggest own ideas, as well as plan and put them into practice, either individually or collectively.
Cultural awareness and expression competence: It will mainly revolve around artistic expression, through the
process of creation and interpretation of different illustrations that, respectively, fit or will fit a story.
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Identification sheet for CLIL material II
- Comprehend simple structures and lexis related to picture books, their main parts and the ways of analysing them,
when they are reproduced by the teacher, the selected web resources or a classmate. (3.1.; 3.4) - [3.1.1; 3.4.1]
- Comprehend the main idea of oral texts related to picture books and use different language learning strategies to
correctly overcome any information gap. (3.3; 3.5) - [3.3.1; 3.5.1]
- Participate in pair, class and group discussions using previously known language, and new language in relation to
picture books, showing tolerance and respecting others opinion (3.6) - [3.6.1]
- Use different language learning strategies to successfully start, keep and conclude a conversation or monologue in
relation to picture books, their main parts or process of analysis. (3.7, 3.8) - [3.7.1; 3.8.1; 3.8.3]
- Identify the general meaning and ideas, as well as specific information of adapted and peers’ short written texts in
relation to picture books, their main parts and their main aspects of analysis. (3.9; 3.11) - [3.9.1; 3.11.1]
- Recognise the written form and meaning of the main vocabulary of the proposal. (3.13) - [3.13.1]
- Complete written gap information activities and short personal texts, such as personal definitions or notes, using
correctly previously learnt structures and the new vocabulary in relation to picture books. (3.14; 3.16) - [3.14.1; 3.16.1]
- Use the different materials around (booklet sheets, personal notes, dictionaries…) to complete correctly the written
tasks related with the main topic of the proposal (3.15) - [3.15.1]
FIRST
FOREIGN
LANGUAGE
CONTENTS
DISCURSIVE
MODELS
TASKS
Block 1. Comprehension of oral texts
Comprehension of basic information offered by oral texts and related with picture books through
different means. Use of oral comprehension strategies. Key vocabulary identification.
Block 2. Production of oral text: expression and interaction
Participation in short conversations using previously known structures and the key vocabulary of
the proposal. Knowledge and application of oral production strategies to fulfil oral discursive aims.
Block 3. Comprehension of written texts
Identification and comprehension of brief and adapted written text related with the topic of the
proposal, as well as, written identification of the key vocabulary. Use of comprehension strategies.
Block 4. Production of written texts: expression and interaction
Elaboration of short texts using previously known strategies and the key vocabulary of the
proposal.
Presenting own ideas and discussing them in group; Defining picture book and storyboard; Asking
for and giving information about picture books and their main elements; Comparing and contrasting
illustrations; Classifying interactions between text and illustrations; Differentiating the parts of a
picture book.
HOTS and LOTS will be worked through a wide range of tasks that include: brainstorming; free and
oriented search of information; ordering and selecting information; discussions and exchange of
points of view; watching videos; listening and oral comprehension activities; reading comprehension
activities; completing charts and pictures; drawing own illustrations; exposition and support of own
ideas and theories.
FUNCTIONS: knowledge and correct use of the language to discuss, describe, compare, analyse, argue, exemplify and
classify. STRUCTURES: Question-Answer structures: Does this picture….? Yes, it does/No, it doesn’t; Prepositions:
below/above/next to; Present continuous: you are going to...; Future Simple: you will…; Modals: have to/ could/ should;
Imperative. LEXIS: Picture book, storybook, illustrated book, illustration, contradictory interaction, symmetric interaction,
complementary interaction, dust jacket, spine, front cover, back cover, endpapers, copyright page, title page, author,
illustrator, title, publishing year/place, publisher, synopsis, storyboard, QR-code, narrator, setting, character, narrative.
ASSESSMENT CRITERIA (3rd Cycle Assessment Criteria) - [3rd Cycle Assessment Indicators]
SPANISH
LANGUAGE
+
ARTS AND
CRAFTS
CONTENTS
Spanish Language and Literature - Block 5. Literary Education: Individual or collective reading
of stories with fantasy elements and rhetorical resources adapted to the age. Identification of
narrator, main and secondary characters, as well as setting, in literary works produced by the
students or formal authors. Arts and Crafts – Block 1. Audio-visual Education: Intentional use of
images as a means of communication. Oral communication and elaboration of written texts about
the purpose of the images.
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1. Click on the picture below or scan the QR code and listen to the information that the school head
teacher sends us through this particular messenger.
2. Maybe some of you could have problems with the accent of the messenger. In groups complete this
transcription to help everyone understand the information.
3. Now that you have listened to Ruth’s message, you can discuss with your classmates and teacher
about the DRIVING QUESTION of our new Project. After that, you can write this question in your
research journal as a big heading or cover page. This will help you to organise the information within
it.
HOW CAN WE ___________________________________________________________________ ?
4. Brainstorm ideas in class. After that, think about a possible definition of picture book together with
your group. Write it down in your research journal. Do not worry if you have doubts, during the
following lessons you will be able to come back and complete or correct it if it was necessary.
INTRODUCTION: WE NEED YOUR HELP!
Hello boys and __________________! I am Ruth, the school virtual __________________. This
year, we want to give some __________________ to the youngest students of the school. Their
__________________ do not have many picture __________________ in their class library and
some of them are getting __________________. We think that we can give them some picture
__________________ as presents, with new and original __________________. The problem is that
the school has not got enough ________________ to buy all of them. Could your class help us and
make some of these picture ________________? I am sure your little schoolmates will be grateful!
MISSING WORDS: books x 3 librarian presents teachers old stories money girls
BUT FIRST OF ALL…
What is a picture book?
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5. Discuss the different questions with your classmates and teacher before completing the chart.
Summarise the main ideas for each question with your group. Do not answer the third question now,
we will come back to discuss about it at the end of the project.
WHAT DO I
KNOW?
WHAT DO I
WANT TO
KNOW?
WHAT HAVE I
LEARNED?
6. This time you are going to work in pairs. You are going to read an article about the differences
between ‘storybooks’, ‘picture books’ and ‘illustrated books’. One of you is going to have ‘Part A’ of
the text, whereas the other one is going to have ‘Part B’. Read your part aloud to your partner and
complete the missing words. Then check the answers and write the complete text in your research
journal.
* Click on the pictures above or scan the QR codes next to them to have access to the specific ‘Padlet’ that
contains your part of the text.
7. Now you can discuss in groups and complete or modify your initial definition of a “Picture Book”
on the following lines.
A picture book is ________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
PICTURE BOOKS
KWL CHART
PART A PART B
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As you know now, the relation between illustration and text in picture books is really important. It is
obvious that illustrations and words give respectively a different kind of information to the reader.
However, when they are together, illustrations and text create a global meaning that they could not
have by their own. In this way, in picture books, text and illustration interact and help the reader to
understand the story. There are 3 main types of interactions (or relations) between text and
illustrations. You will be able to understand them after completing the following task:
8. Working with your group, read the name of the three main types of interactions between
illustration and text and try to match them with their correct definition. After that, read the rest of
the information included within each section and try to put each picture in its correct place.
TYPES OF TEXT-ILLUSTRATION INTERACTIONS
A - ____________________________________________ :
In this kind of interaction, text and illustration tell the same story. They show the same information, but in
different ways (written and visual).
In this picture of the picture book Goodnight Little Hare, by Sheridan Cain (2008), we can see how the
action that the narrator describes is the same that the illustration shows.
As you know now, the relation between illustration and text in picture books is really important. It is
obvious that illustrations and words give respectively a different kind of information to the reader.
However, when they are together, illustrations and text create a global meaning that they could not
have by their own. In this way, in picture books, text and illustration interact and help the reader to
understand the story. There are 3 main types of interactions (or relations) between text and
illustrations. You will be able to understand them after completing the following task:
TEXT-ILLUSTRATION INTERACTION
MISSING TITLES:
· Contradictory Interaction · Symmetric Interaction · Complementary Interaction
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B - ____________________________________________ :
In this second type of interaction, the illustration amplifies the information given by the words or vice versa.
In this example of the picture book Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak (2013 edition), the
illustration goes further and offers multiple details to what is briefly mentioned in the text.
C - ____________________________________________ :
In the last type of interaction, the information that the text gives and the information that the illustration
shows are contradictory.
.
In this example of Willy the Wimp, by Anthony Browne (2014), we can read ‘He learned how to box’, but
the illustration on the right shows that Willy is not really a problem for Hugh, the gorilla boxer.
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9. It is time to write and draw your first pages! In the following rectangles, draw three different pages
of a possible picture book. You have to represent a different interaction between text and picture
within each one of them. Do not write the type of interaction until the end of activity 10.
A - ____________________________________________ :
B - ____________________________________________ :
YOUR FIRST PAGES
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C - ____________________________________________ :
10. Now, work in pairs. One of you will try to guess the kind of interaction between text and
illustration that your partner’s pages show. The other will explain why the suggestions are correct or
not. Here you have an example of a possible dialogue.
Now that you know what a picture book is and the different interactions that exist between text and
illustration, we are going to learn about the different parts of a picture book. Knowing the different
parts of a picture book will also help us to organise its pages and information before creating our own.
11. Discuss in groups: look at the different pictures and try to match the words below (from 1 to 5)
with the correct part of the picture book. Write your conclusions in your research journal. Do not
worry if you have doubts, after activity 12 you will come back to check your answers.
Now that you know what a picture book is and the different interactions that exist between text and
illustration, we are going to learn about the different parts of a picture book. Knowing the different
parts of a picture book will also help us to organise its pages and information before creating our
own.
PARTS OF A BOOK
A-
B-
C-
D-
E-
A – Does this page represent a contradictory interaction?
B – Yes, it does, because the text and the illustration show the same information.
MAIN PARTS OF A PICTURE BOOK:
1-Dust Jacket 2-Spine 3-Front Cover 4-Back Cover 5-Endpapers 6-Copyright Page 7-Title Page
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12. Click on the pictures below or scan the different QR codes to watch three videos that will help you
to differentiate the different parts of a picture book. After that, check with your group the answers in
activity 12 and take note in your research journal of other possible parts of picture books not
mentioned before.
13. Look below at the different parts of the picture book Duck! Rabbit! (Rosenthal & Lichtenheld,
2009) and write their name on the correct blank space. You can discuss with your group why you
think each part fits each gap.
A- B- C-
D-
F- E-
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At this point of the project, you and your group should have read at least a picture book. Now, you
will select one of the picture books you have read. You are going to use it in several tasks, so make
sure all of you like it and you agree on the election!
14. Take pictures of the different parts of the picture book that you have selected. After that, print
them and label them according to their name as you did in the previous activity (you can also use a
word processing software or app). Use, at least, all the picture book parts mentioned in activity 11.
Gather all the information in your research journal
15. Watch the videos in activity 12 again. Try to gather useful information about the different parts of
a picture book: What is it used for? Where can you find it? What information does it give to the
reader? Take notes in your research journal. After group and class discussion, revise your notes and
write your final thoughts in the following lines.
Dust Jacket: _________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Spine: ______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Front Cover: ________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Back Cover: _________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Endpapers: _________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Copyright Page: _____________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Title Page: __________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
16. As you know now, not all Picture Books have the same parts, and these are not always at the same
place. Click on the following picture or scan the QR code. In groups, take notes in your research
journal of different parts of a Picture Book that we have not mentioned before. You can also add some
useful information to your previous activity.
At this point of the project, you and your group should have read at least a picture book. Now, you
will select one of the picture books you have read. You are going to use it in several tasks, so make
sure all of you like it and you agree on the selection!
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Before making our own picture book, we need to know how to analyse a one. The following pages
contain useful information that will help your group to analyse your selected picture book.
17. One of the first steps to analyse a picture book is making a bibliography card. Click on the speaker
symbol below, listen to Ruth’s message and try to complete the following definition. Don’t forget to
check your answers with your group mates after finishing.
A bibliography card summarises the most important information of a book or picture book. It can help you
identify the title of the book, the author, the illustrator or the publisher, at a simple glance. It can also contain
other helpful data such as the publishing year and place, or even a brief summary of the plot of the book.
This brief summary of the plot of a book is normally called synopsis.
The following chart represent a bibliography card of the book Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne:
Author Anthony Browne
Illustrator Anthony Browne
Title Voices in the Park
Publishing Year 1999
Publishing Place London
Publisher Picture Corgi
Synopsis The book tells a story about four different ways of describing the same fact: the
encounter of four characters in a park. Each one of them will describe this
encounter from a different point of view.
18. Revise your notes in your research journal and previous activities. Where can you find all this
information in a picture book? You can also check other sources: other picture books, internet…
Author and illustrator: _______________________________________________________________
Title: ______________________________________________________________________________
Publishing Year: ____________________________________________________________________
Publishing Place: ___________________________________________________________________
Publisher: _________________________________________________________________________
Synopsis: __________________________________________________________________________
19. Make a copy of the previous chart in your research journal and, together with your teacher and
the rest of the class, make a bibliography card of the previously worked book Duck! Rabbit!
MISSING WORDS: synopsis information year place title
The following chart represent a bibliography card of the book Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne:
Before making our own picture book, we need to know how to analyse one. The following pages
contain useful information that will help your group to analyse your selected picture book.
ANALYSING A PICTURE BOOK: THE BIBLIOGRAPHY CARD
A bibliography card summarises the most important _______________ of a book. It can help to
identify the ______________ of the book, the author, the illustrator or the publisher at a simple glance. It
can also contain other helpful data such as the publishing ______________ and ________________, or
even a brief summary of the plot of the book. This summary of the plot is called ______________ .
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20. Now it is time to work only with your group. Fill the table below to make a bibliography card of
the picture book you have selected.
Author
Illustrator
Title
Publishing
Year
Publishing
Place
Publisher
Synopsis
Now that we know how to summarise the most important information of a picture book in a
biography card, we can start to analyse its paratextual elements.
21. Discuss with your group: What is the meaning of ‘paratextual elements’? Take notes of your
conclusions in your research journal.
22 Click on the speaker symbol below, listen to Ruth’s message and try to complete the following
definition:
23. According to the previous definition, discuss with your group: what do you think that the word
typography means? Write a definition in your research journal. After that, look for the word in a
dictionary and complete or modify your previous definition. Write your final definition on the
following lines:
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
MISSING WORDS: illustrations title text endpapers attention
ANALYSING A PICTURE BOOK: PARATEXTUAL ELEMENTS
Now that we know how to summarise the most important information of a picture book in a
bibliography card, we can start to analyse its paratextual elements.
The paratextual elements of a picture book are all those parts of the picture book that surround the
________________ and help to call for the reader’s ________________, such as colours,
________________ or typography. For our analysis, they will include elements such as the front cover
and ________________ illustrations or the ________________ of the book.
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24. Now that you know what the paratextual elements of a picture book are, we are going to start the
analysis of some of them. In this page, you are going to find a quick guide that will help you in this
process. First, you will make an analysis of the paratextual elements of the book Duck! Rabbit!
together with your teacher and the rest of the class. After that, come back to group work and use all
these aspects to make an analysis of the paratextual elements of your selected picture book. Make sure
these analyses are included in your research journal.
A QUICK GUIDE TO ANALYSE THE PARATEXTUAL ELEMENTS OF A PICTURE BOOK
A. Title: The title could give the reader some clues about the plot of the story. It will help the reader to make
different hypotheses about the story inside the book. The typography of the title could also offer some clues
about the plot.
· Talk about the different hypothesis you could make about the plot when you read the title of your picture
book. Is the typography of the tittle different or special?
B. Front cover illustration. In the same way that the title does, it can give us some clues about the plot of
the picture book.
· Describe briefly the front cover of your picture book. Does it give you any clues about the plot of the
story?
C. Text on the back cover: Is the synopsis included? Is there any sentence that could give you any clue
about the plot?
D. Back cover illustration: Describe briefly the back cover of your picture book. Does it give you any clues
about the plot of the story?
E. Front and back endpapers. Have they got a function within the story? Do they include any clues about
the plot?
F. Half-title page and title page: Do they appear? What information do they include?
G. Copyright page/s: Do they appear? Where are they? What information do they include?
H. Dust Jacket: Does it appear? Has it got the same illustrations that the front and back covers? Does it
include any extra information?
I. Flap/s: What information does it include? Does it show any illustration?
J. Pages: How many pages does it have?
K. Other parts: Is there any other section or part not mentioned before?
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25. Before starting the analysis, look for information and try to write a definition of the following
elements of a story. Discuss your definitions with your group first and, then, in class debate. After
that, write your final conclusions on the following lines.
· NARRATOR: ______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________.
· CHARACTERS: ______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________.
· PLOT: ______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________.
· SETTING: ____________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
26. Now that you know what the paratextual elements of a picture book are, we are going to start the
analysis of some of them. In this page, you are going to find a quick guide that will help you in this
process. First, you will make an analysis of the paratextual elements of the book Duck! Rabbit!
together with your teacher and the rest of the class. After that, come back to group work and use all
these aspects to make an analysis of the paratextual elements of your selected picture book in your
research journal.
QUICK GUIDE TO ANALYSE THE MAIN ELEMENTS OF THE STORY OF A PICTURE BOOK
A. NARRATOR:
Is there only a narrator or more than one? Is he/she one of the characters of the story or an external person?
Does he/she know everything about the story? or… Does he/she only talk about what he can see and feel?
B. CHARACTERS:
Make a brief description of the characters in the story: Who are they? What are they like? What do they look
like? Is there only one main character? Who are the secondary characters?
ANALYSING A PICTURE BOOK: NARRATIVE ELEMENTS
Once we have analysed all the different paratextual elements of the picture book, we are going to
focus now on the story itself. As you know, the most important elements of any story are: the
narrator, the characters and the setting. We have already summarised the plot of the story in the
synopsis section of our bibliography card, so we are not going to do it again. Finally, we cannot
forget that there is a really important element that we have to take into account when we analyse a
picture book: the relation between text and illustrations!
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C. SETTING:
When and where does the story take place? Are time and place expressed clearly? Or… Do you have to
guess them from the story or illustrations?
D. TEXT-ILLUSTRATION INTERACTION:
What is the main kind of interaction between text and illustration in your picture book? Is there only one
type of interaction or some of them? What are these interactions? Take pictures of different examples of
interactions and explain them.
Picture adapted from Marián Lario (2011).
27. Look carefully at this storyboard, what do you think that a storyboard is? Discuss it with your
group and try to write a definition for it. If you scan the following QR code, you will access to a
“Padlet” with extra information and pictures that can help you to construct your definition.
A STORYBOARD IS: _______________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
Now that we have all the important information about picture books and we have analysed a couple
of them, it’s time to make our own picture book! The first step to make a picture book is creating a
storyboard. The picture below represents a storyboard for a picture book of 32 pages:
TIME TO MAKE YOUR OWN PICTURE BOOK!
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Why do the previous storyboard have 32 pages? Why not 33, 40 or 50? The answer is that 32 pages is
the most common format of a picture book. This format will make easier for the printing house to
print the book, and the reason is the number of folds that are needed. Because of this, the number of
pages of a picture book should be always a number multiple of 8. The most common one is 32, then 40,
then 48, etc. For the creation of your group’s picture book you may not need so many pages, but
remember, the total number of pages should be always a multiple of 8, such as 16 or 24.
28. The previous page storyboard shows the organisation of the mini-pages of a picture book
numbered from 1 to 32. Number 1 corresponds to the front cover… Discuss in groups and complete
the following table. Then, check the answers with the rest of the class and your teacher in a debate.
Once finished, write the correct part of the picture book on the previously mentioned storyboard.
Page Number Part of the Book Information Included
1
Front Cover
2-3
4
Copyright, Publishing Year, Publishing Place, Publishing
house…
5
Small Illustration, Title of the Book,
________________________and______________________
6-29
The story of the picture book is developed here.
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29. Working in groups, make first a little draft of your picture book in the small storyboard (DIN A4
sheet). Once you think you have a good version of your picture book, transfer it to the big storyboard
(DIN A3 sheet).
Don’t forget to check the advices in the following section before starting!
Why does the previous storyboard have 32 pages? Why not 33 or 50? The answer is that 32 pages is
the most common format for a picture book. This format will make easier for the printing house to
print the book, and the reason is the number of folds that are needed. Because of this, the number of
pages of a picture book should be always a number multiple of 8. As we have mentioned, the most
common one is 32, then 40, then 48, etc. For the creation of your group’s picture book you may not
need so many pages, but remember, the total number of pages should be always a multiple of 8!
In the last step before making a real picture book, you are going to receive two amplified versions of
a 32-pages storyboard. In these storyboards, you can reduce the number of pages if it is needed, but
remember that you need a multiple of 8, what means 16 or 24 pages at least.
BUT… WHY 32 PAGES?
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Think about the distribution of the different pages before s
OPTION 1: The double page is formed by two individual pages
1.1. Will each page include text and illustrations? If so, you have to think about where and how to place
them.
Picture from Stick Man, by Julia Donalson and Axel Scheppler.
1.2. Or... Are you going to place the text on one side and the illustration on the other side?
Picture from Where the wild things are, by Maurice Sendak.
Think about the distribution of the different pages before starting to draw.
SOME TIPS BEFORE STARTING
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OPTION 2: The double page forms part of the same illustration
2.1. Where are you going to place the text? Will it appear on one page only?
Picture from The Gruffalo, by Julia Donalson and Axel Scheppler
2.2. Or… Will the text appear on both pages?
Picture from Where the wild things are, by Maurice Sendak.
Bear in mind that all these options can be combined within each double page according to your needs, but all
of it should be reflected within your storyboard.
The rest of aspects depend on you:
· Regarding the illustrations, during the following Arts and Crafts lessons, we will see different techniques
that will help you to decide about this important aspect: Are they going to be in colour or black and white?
Are you going to use colour pencils, charcoal drawing techniques, crayons, soft crayons, colour markers,
watercolours or watercolour markers, one of the many collage techniques…?
· Regarding the text, you have to decide what part of the story you are going to tell in written format and:
What type or types of font are you going to use? What will be the size? Do you want to write it by hand or
digitally? How are you going to make the illustrations?
The rest of aspects depend on you:
· Regarding the illustrations, during the following Arts and Crafts lessons, we will see different
techniques that will help you to decide about this important aspect: Are they going to be in colour or
black and white? Are you going to use colour pencils, charcoal drawing techniques, crayons, soft
crayons, colour markers, watercolours or watercolour markers, any collage technique…?
· Regarding the text, you have to decide what part of the story you are going to tell in written format
and: What type or types of font are you going to use? What will be the size? Do you want to write it
by hand or digitally?
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30. During this activity, you will have access to an online Kahoot quiz that will help you to revise what
you have learnt after this first part of the project. You can play the quiz individually or play it
together with your group to show to the rest of the class which group knows the most, you decide!
You can also scan this QR Code to practice the quiz at home!
31. Now, you are finally ready to come back and fill the box that you left empty within the initial
KWL chart: What have you learned after this first part of the project?
35. Also, using the following table, you will be able to reflect about your new abilities to use English in
different situations.
ALWAYS SOMETIMES NEVER
LISTENING I can recognise words and expressions related
to picture books and their process of creation,
such as their main characteristics and parts.
SPEAKING I can speak about picture books and their
process of creation, including aspects related
to their main characteristics and parts.
TALKING I can talk to my classmates about picture
books and their process of creation, including
aspects related to their main characteristics
and parts.
READING I can read texts about picture books and their
process of creation, including aspects related
to their main characteristics and parts.
WRITING I can write about picture books and their
process of creation, including aspects related
to their main characteristics and parts.
VALUES I participate in group activities and I listen to,
respect and keep in mind my classmates’
different opinions.
TIME TO REVISE, REFLECT ON AND PLAY!
47
7. CONCLUSIONS
Reached this point of the study, and after the thorough process carried out, we cannot
but highlight the time-consuming process that the creation of original and adapted CLIL
materials means for the teacher. In spite of this, their advantages are obvious, particularly
when they include the correct methodological guidelines and are created to fit into the
specifics demands of a particular group of students. Thus, it is a practice that we consider
should be an inherent part of our profession since, from our point of view, we should try to
offer at any moment the most adequate context of learning to our students.
Nevertheless, we still find many occasions in which the CLIL materials used at school
continue reproducing the old-fashioned teacher-centred methodologies, mainly based on
teacher explanations and student individual repetition through activities. Moreover, in many
cases, these materials only represent a simplified version of the ones developed for the native
language. This process, although sold as CLIL by many publishing houses, leaves aside the
main methodological characteristics that underpin the CLIL approach and related
methodologies, such as the creation of a meaningful context, the active role of the students
within the learning process, the promotion of cooperative learning or the role of teacher as
facilitator. Thus, leaving aside traditional textbooks and pseudo-CLIL materials, and moving
towards the creation of own materials seems to be the most correct option, however, as stated
by Pérez (2004, pp. 15-16), teacher training needs are still high in the different
methodological aspects that underpin the process.
As a consequence of this, this paper was developed with the main objective of creating
a Project-based Learning unit of work able to overcome the main methodological pitfalls of
CLIL, in terms of teacher training needs, in an easy to follow format for both teachers and
students. In relation to it, we can mention that we have successfully developed a didactic
proposal which is able to put into practice CLIL main required characteristics in an integrated
way, making use of different approaches to which teachers are not wholly adapted yet, mainly
PBL.
Thus, from our point of view, the inclusion of PBL within our proposal is really
important, since we firmly believe that the mere teaching of non-linguistic contents through a
target language does not create the necessity of learning the language if the student is not
engaged and interested within the learning process. In this way, a student who is not
interested in Social Science is not going to find the necessity of learning the target language
just because it is required for learning the Social Science contents. On the contrary, the most
probable option is that this very student finds a double difficulty in this process, since he will
48
have to learn a subject he is not interested in, but also with the added difficulty of a foreign
language. Thus, within our paper, we have shown how CLIL practice through PBL can help
to create this meaningful context, close to the students’ needs and aims, that could really
develop this necessity and interest in learning the language.
In spite of this, not all the aspects of the proposal have been put into real practice,
therefore, it would be required to carry out a research process on the practical aspects of the
proposal to fully assure its validity. This could be carried out within different contexts to
check its real feasibility among them, since its success will be, probably, mainly determined
by the level of English of the students, who, according to the characteristics of the proposal
should have enjoyed a bilingual education throughout their Pre-primary and Primary
Education.
In regards now to some of the specific objectives established, we think that we wholly
fulfil the objective of showing a real example of adapting CLIL methodological needs into a
real didactic proposal. At the same time that, through our literature review, we summarise the
most important pedagogical and practical aspects that may help other teachers get familiar
with these CLIL-related methodological terms. In the same way, we can check within the first
two pages of our proposal how it fully integrates the curricular demands of our current
curricular framework adapting not only CLIL, but also a PBL experience to it. We aim to
encourage teachers to use it as a base, and to develop new and innovative materials upon it,
wholly integrated in our current curriculum.
In terms of our following objective, to offer a real way of linking and integrating
subjects beyond the competence interdisciplinarity suggested by our current legislative
framework, we have shown how the creation of an interdependence between subjects is also
possible. In this way, we have created a meaningful context for students where they see a
practical use of what they are learning in Arts and Crafts, which will furthermore encourage
them to learn it; at the same time that we create among them the need of learning the foreign
language through the process of creation of the picture book.
Furthermore, other of our specific objectives, related to the easy way through which
we can introduce web 2.0 tools within the CLIL lesson is made obvious within our proposal,
thanks to previously mentioned tools such as Voki, Padlet or Kahoot. As it is shown within
the proposal, all of them represent user-friendly tools, with an enormous value in terms of
increasing motivation and interest among students. Furthermore, the generation of QR-codes
is shown as a useful and time-saving tool.
49
Concerning the objective of contributing to the repository of current CLIL materials
that teachers can access online, we will finally accomplish it as soon as the paper is available
for consultation within the website of the University of Jaen. From this day onward we aim to
also share it within other platforms, since we firmly think that the collaboration and exchange
of educational practices is one of the main aspects upon teaching improvement is constructed.
Finally, in terms of personal aims we can say that we have enjoyed the process of
learning and of creation of materials. Furthermore, after all this process, we think that we
have demonstrated that the creation of innovative CLIL materials is a needed and possible to
fulfil aspect within our profession, which does not depend really on the training needs of a
teacher, but on their will to research and overcome them.
8. REFERENCES
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38D
[sarader]. (2011, June 4). Outside of the Book. [Video File]. Retrieved from
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=2
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http://www.bie.org/about/what_pbl
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Castaño, Carlos; Maíz, Inmaculada, Palacio, Gorka; Villarroel, José Domingo (2008).
Prácticas educativas en entornos web 2.0. Madrid: Síntesis.
Cenoz, J., F. Genesee, & D. Gorter. (2013). Critical Analysis of CLIL: Taking Stock and
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Council of the European Union. (1995). Council Resolution of 31 March 1995 on improving
and diversifying language learning and teaching within the education systems of the
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http://recursostic.educacion.es/bancoimagenes/web/
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Action Plan 2004-2006
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in Europe. Brussels: Eurydice.
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album-ilustrado-de-32.html
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51
Lewis. Michael. (1993). The Lexical Approach. Hove: Language teaching Publications.
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Languages. Finland: University of Jyväskylä.
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Porta Linguarum, 10, 151–161.
52
Perez Cañado (2014) Teacher training needs for bilingual education: in-service teacher
perceptions. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. 19(3),
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current CLIL controversy. Bellaterra Journal of Teaching & Learning Language &
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Wordless Picture Books. Children’s Literature in Education, 42, 325-349.
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53
8.1. Legislative References.
Andalusian Government. (2004). Andalusian Plan for the Promotion of Plurilingualism.
Andalusian Government. (2011). Order of 28th July 2011, which regulates bilingual education
in Andalusia.
Andalusian Government. (2015). Decree 97/2015, of 3rd March, which establishes the
organisation and the curriculum of Primary Education in Andalusia.
Andalusian Government. (2015). Order of 15th March 2015, which develops the curriculum
corresponding to Primary Education in Andalusia.
Spanish Government. (2006). Law 2/2006, of 3rd May, on education.
Spanish Government. (2013). Law 8/2013, of 9th December, for the improvement of quality in
education.
Spanish Government. (2014). Royal Decree 126/2014, of 28th February, which establishes the
basic curriculum of Primary Education.
APPENDIX I. TRANSCRIPTIONS AND COMPLEMENTARY RESOURCES
This appendix includes the transcriptions of the different listening activities, as well as the
complementary resources needed for the correct development of the didactic proposal.
ACTIVITY 2 TRANSCRIPTION
Hello boys and girls! I am Ruth, the school virtual librarian. This year, we want to give some
presents to the youngest students of the school. Their teachers do not have many picture
books in their class library and some of them are getting old. We think that we can give them
some picture books as presents, with new and original stories. The problem is that the school
has not got enough money to buy all of them. Could your class help us and make some of
these picture books? I am sure your little schoolmates will be grateful!
ACTIVITY 17 TRANSCRIPTION
A bibliography card summarises the most important information of a book. It can help to
identify the title of the book, the author, the illustrator or the publisher at a simple glance. It
can also contain other helpful data such as the publishing year and place, or even a brief
summary of the plot of the book. This summary is called synopsis.
ACTIVITY 22 TRANSCRIPTION
The paratextual elements of a picture book are all those parts of the picture book that surround
the text and help to call for the reader’s attention, such as colours, illustrations or typography.
For our analysis, they will include elements such as the front cover and endpapers illustrations
or the title of the book.
ACTIVITY 6
Storybook, Picture Book, or Illustrated Book? - PART A
A ________________ can be defined as a book
with specific stories for ________________. They
are normally shorter than a ________________and
they usually have more illustrations. These
storybooks can be divided into two main types:
“________________books” and “illustrated
books”. A picture book can be defined as a
________________where the illustrations are
really important. In picture books the
________________and words act together to form a
meaningful story, this means that you cannot
understand the ________________without the illustrations. Even, sometimes,
________________books can tell a story without using any word, they can use illustrations
only! On the other hand, illustrated books also have ________________, but they are not so
important. In Illustrated books illustrations only decorate the ________________, but you do
not need these illustrations to understand it.
Text for the activity adapted from: “The Dynamics of Picturebook Communication”.
Children’s Literature in Education. (Nikolajeva and Scott, 2000).
Picture book example. -Picture from
Bear Hunt (Anthony Browne, 2010)-
Illustrated book example. -Picture from the illustrated version of Harry Potter and the
Philosopher’s Stone. (Rowling and Kay, 2015)-
ACTIVITY 6
Storybook, Picture Book, or Illustrated Book? - PART B
A storybook can be defined as a
________________with specific stories for
children. They are normally
________________than a novel and they usually
have more ________________. These storybooks
can be divided into two main types: “picture books”
and “________________books”. A picture book
can be defined as a storybook where the
________________are really important. In picture
books the illustrations and ________________act
together to form a meaningful story, this means that
you cannot understand the story without the ________________. Even, sometimes, picture
books can tell a story without using any ________________, they can use illustrations only!
On the other hand, illustrated books also have illustrations, but they are not so
________________. In Illustrated books illustrations only decorate the story, but you do not
need these illustrations to ________________it.
Text for the activity adapted from: “The Dynamics of Picturebook Communication”.
Children’s Literature in Education. (Nikolajeva and Scott, 2000).
Picture book example. -Picture from
Bear Hunt (Anthony Browne, 2010)-
Illustrated book example. -Picture from the illustrated version of Harry Potter and the
Philosopher’s Stone. (Rowling and Kay, 2015)-
ACTIVITY 6
Storybook, Picture Book, or Illustrated Book? – COMPLETE TEXT
A storybook can be defined as a book with specific
stories for children. They are normally shorter than
a novel and they usually have more illustrations.
These storybooks can be divided into two main
types: “picture books” and “illustrated books”. A
picture book can be defined as a storybook where
the illustrations are really important. In picture
books the illustrations and words act together to
form a meaningful story, this means that you cannot
understand the story without the illustrations. Even,
sometimes, picture books can tell a story without
using any word, they can use illustrations only! On the other hand, illustrated books also have
illustrations, but they are not so important. In Illustrated books illustrations only decorate the
story, but you do not need these illustrations to understand it.
Text for the activity adapted from: “The Dynamics of Picturebook Communication”.
Children’s Literature in Education. (Nikolajeva and Scott, 2000).
Picture book example. -Picture from
Bear Hunt (Anthony Browne, 2010)-
Illustrated book example. -Picture from the illustrated version of Harry Potter and the
Philosopher’s Stone. (Rowling and Kay, 2015)-
ACTIVIY 8 PICTURES
ACTIVITY 29 STORYBOARD SHEET