▲ SHEARING

This is the last task of my English course that I have to publish here. After this, I'm going to come back to writing about things that I want to share with P.E. teachers.

In this post I have to answer to these questions: 
- Which training courses would you like to have access to as a teacher? Why?
- Which is, in your opinion, the best way to share good practice amongst teaching professionals? Why? 

I think teachers need to have access to different kinds of training. Because it’s important to recycle our knowledge and be aware of the new findings in education. Teachers should take into account the educational innovations and non-stop to complement their knowledge.

So when I become teacher I want to do complementary courses and participate in congresses.

I think that sharing your achievements as a teacher is key for the education improvement. All the teachers have experiences which can help to avoid future mistakes and to get better results.

As a teacher you can share your experiences in different ways… One of my favorites is using a blog. In your blog you can share your ideas and discoveries with everybody and they can answer to you or disagree…anyway, you can teach, learn and share with everybody.

But, there are other ways to share your good practices with other teachers. You can go to a congress or a debate or be registered in education forums. Moreover you can publish your studies (or read about other teachers studies) in many different journals.

The last year in March, here in Valencia, there was an event where 2.000 teachers met to share educational experiences. I think this could be one of the best ways of sharing good practices among professionals, because all together can contribute to the solutions and discuss about how to get better as teachers.

Well... the point here, is that I'm beginning to share, with you.

▲ THE MOST IMPORTANT OF TEACHING P.E.

The question I have to answer in this post is this: If you were not limited by the demands of the national/regional curriculum, what would you say is the most important thing you would teach your students about your subject (in a CLIL context)? How would you assess their learning?

I think the most important thing of my subject is that the P.E. teacher has a lot of time for making his/her students understand how important the physical activity is for human health (physical and psychologycal health). Nowadays we know that a regular physical activity can make that we have a good quality of life. It’s our responsibility, as teachers, to promote something which is key for a happy life.  And P.E. teachers teach this subject for more than 10 years … and when the children finish secondary school, a lot of them stop practicing physical activity.

The truth is that only P.E. is not sufficient physical activity for a child, we have to make them love physical activity and create a habit in them; they have to practice activity out of the school. Moreover, 2 hours each week isn’t sufficient for a kid! I think the school should teach minimum 3 hours each week, but… this is not the issue.



The most important of my subject is that the physical activity well done is one of the best things for each human being, and you have to teach all your students to understand when the physical activity is well done. They have to be critical with their surroundings, practice sport respecting everything and enjoy all the benefits the physical activity could provide them.

In a CLIL context, Physical Education has to be a tool for the mental and physical health of the kids when they cooperate, compete (fair play) and play alone or with their mates. And try to better oneself... I think it’s necessary and you can teach it in all the languages you want.

How would I assess their learning? Depending on all the content and values we work but… I think that.. .in the end, if a student proves that he understands why physical activity is so important and he practices it regularly and… he is critical with the things that happen in our life, they are learning what they need to learn with the subject. You can put the mark that you want, but this isn’t the real and useful aim of the subject.

I want to assess the learning with projects, with their real habits (there are a lot of different physical activities, I understand not everybody likes football or volleyball but… there are sports for everybody… so it isn’t an excuse) and with their own reflections and correct behaviour. I will assess them spending time with their learning and doing a good job as a P.E. teacher.

▲ USING ELP IN P.E.

In my personal opinion ELP (European Language Portafolio) could be very useful in Physical Education for teaching English as a foreign language. In Secondary School students are beginning to see that English could be useful in their life if they have the opportunity to use it.

If you teach using CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) lessons, your students can discover that English is not only a subject and if they complete their own ELP while they are learning, they could be conscious about their learning, their proficiency and their own progress.

The ELP has three components. First, the Language passport, which describes the learner’s proficiency and competences. Second, the Language biography, which facilitates planning, reflection and assessment through the descriptors for each language proficiency level. And finally the Dossier in which the learners collect all the evidence of their developing proficiency.

It’s important to take into account the advantages and disadvantages of using ELP with my groups.

The three components of ELP make that the learners be more aware of their own learning. This is important because they are becoming autonomous and responsible, and it promotes their autonomy.

If students are aware of their aims and which the steps to follow are, they are going to be more motivated and they are going to be able to  take the control of their own learning. Before, during and after the learning activities the learners are made aware of the goals for learning and the competence they have to acquire.

Moreover something that could help you is that the descriptors are very concrete and easy to apply. And if your students know the descriptor at the beginning of the lesson they will know which the linguistic aim to get is. So they can take it into account during the lesson and it’s easy to learn something to them if they know which  the aim is.

But some limitations are that truly working with ELP can reduce your time at the beginning. It depends on the way you use it and if it's worth doing so. At the beginning you have to explain in detail how the ELP works, and illustrate its use. You have to be sure that your students understand everything.

But when students are already familiar with these, they prepare themselves for the activities and they evaluate themselves. So they do it alone and you don’t spend a lot of time helping them.

So it seems to be very positive and useful, but remember it depends on your students and your resources. 

You can watch this video if you want to learn more about the ELP

THE COACH

This new resource it's for you and for your students. For you because there are a lot of P.E. teachers who are team sport coaches in their freetime or in their second job. 
Actually there're a lot fathers who think and act like experts and that behaviour can break a team. A parent is not a coach and he or she shouldn't say to the coach what he must do and they shouldn't give shouts to their child teammates.

I had found this in a web so I created my own poster with English rules:

 

Violence and aggression have consequences for children and youth like injuries, lack of respect, drop-out, lack of skill improvement, conflict, intimidation, lack of cooperation... Parents should not pressure their children, their children's team or coach.

Moreover I was thinking about an idea, I created my own poster (is the same but in English) and I design a new task for our students. You can show them the poster I created (or one that you would create) and they have to create their own poster with the same rules but personalizing it with drawings and colours about their own sport (their freetime sport) and give it to their coaches. Perhaps their coaches use it in the following matches^^

I think this could be useful for a lot of children, teachers, coaches and families.

▲ LINGUISTIC IMMERSION PROGRAMME

Hello! This is one of my compulsory posts for my English course. But it could be interesting for you. I must explain which is the best linguistic programme for Valencia from my point of view and explain why.

For me, the best model to teach languages in all of the Valencian Community (where the majority of children speak Spanish and then Valencian) is the Linguistic Immersion Programme because students learn with both official languages and morevoer it's possible to introduce English like another language for instruction too.

Our students must get a plurilingual competence and in this model languages are key because each language is studied as a subject and each language is used to teach other subjects (where you learn the content of the subject and the language content in an integrated way). 
Furthermore they can see that this new languages are useful for them because they apply the grammar and vocabulary that they learnt before and they create new knowledge.

The main objective of this method is to promote bilinguism. I mean, the development of communicative competence of students and proficiency in their second language (L2) in addition to their mother tongue (L1).

In the following PowerPoint you could see the different linguitic programmes and think about which are best for you.

Linguistic Normalization Plan from garfam

▲ EDUTOPIA. AN INTERESTING ARTICLE

Hello! I want to recommend you a website, edutopia.org

Actually this is a task of my English course. I have to talk about an article of that web. But truly I recommend this web to you because there're different interesting articles for teachers.

The article I chose is Back to School: 3 Question Activities to Connect Students, and  you can find it here: back-to-school-question-activities-students

This article is a good tool for the first seasons in a new school year, when students need to feel safe in class. That’s important if you want to have a community of learners.

It will be easier for your new students to begin to talk about themselves if you help them with some questions. Here there’re three activities that you can adapt to your students.

-   1. Student Pairs: What's Your Name?

Knowing the names of the classmates is key if you want  they enjoy and feel safe.

This activity consists in a speaking between two students.They have to say their name, a phrase and do something physical to greet. 

-    2. Small Groups: Who Are You?

You can ask your students questions that allow them to know things about their classmates like What kind of music do you like? or Where do members of your family come from? When is your birthday and where were you born?

-     3. Whole Class: How Many Of You...?

In this activity you ask a question and decide how you want the student to answer. It's better if they have to respond doing something physical.

Some questions could be:

(How many of you) play an instrument? Which ones? Play a sport? Which sports?...

If you want to read the complete article visit edutopia.org  So… you know. If you need ideas for your first day with a new group you can use these tools in your class.

BUT remember! You’re a P.E. teacher! You can add physical activities or adapt these!

FLASHCARDS

Here is the post I promised. In my English lessons we make different resources for teaching English. When we talked about flashcards I decided to do my own material. I searched for some pictures on the internet and then I printed them and plasticized them.
I want to show you the result of my work because I think it's a very useful resource. Of course you can do  it too!

(All you need is: paper, scissors, cardboard, printed pictures and lining paper)

In my opinion this is a great resource, but I think teachers should use it only when it's necessary because in the majority of the P.E. content students can learn by doing.

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