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?

If I weren’t not limited by the demands of the national/regional curriculum I would like to improve the social skills of my students. I think it’s a complete od the subject we have to work in class

We can define Social skills as the behaviours, verbal and non-verbal, that we use in order to communicate effectively with other people. Social skills are governed by culture, beliefs and attitudes. They continuously change and develop throughout our lives. Somebody that uses social skills to effectively interact with friends, family, workmates and strangers is said to have social competence.

Some examples of social skills are:

• Eye contact with others during conversation
• Smiling when greeting people
•  Shaking hands when meeting someone
• Using the right tone and volume of voice
• Flirting
• Expressing opinions to others
• Perceiving how others are feeling and showing empathy
• Appropriate emotional responses (e.g. crying when something sad happens; laughing when someone says something funny)

I think a CLIL context is an ideal scene to training these abilities, because we are supporting our way of communication. I think with the rol-playing and the performance, we have two techniques that allow us improve our speaking and listening skills and the social skills.

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?

Nowadays, to be a teacher in a high school is a “distance rade” you have to have a degree, the master of teaching, a level C1 of valencian and a B2 of English, you never finish your studies, so I don’t think I need more courses of my subject. We are teaching teenagers, people who is starting their own life, so I think it’s very important to teach and foster social skills:  assertiveness, self-esteem, determination, and responsibility

When I watched on TV a new case of bullyng I realized we need this type of formation because I don’t want to work with aggressive students, I want to work with healthy people and dreams.

In other hand, I think as a teacher of vocational training and the specialty “services to the community”, I would like to follow courses and formation that allows me to teach to my students some values that I think the professional of social services need: respect, tolerance, commitment, honesty, empathy...

In conclusion I would like to learn how to make my students better people and good professionals. I would like to be remembered by both the subject knowledge and the values and tools for the future.

Taking into account my personal teaching context, what would be the advantages and disadvantages of using the ELP with my groups?

From my point of view the use of European Language Portfolio has a lot of advantages for students and teachers.

The teacher of Content and Language Integrated Learning, we find a guide in the ELP because allow us to know what we have to evaluate our students, what can we expect from them and in an international way we can do projects together because we can know the real abilities and skills of the other group. At European level the ELP standardized evaluation criteria, allowing mobility and sense of European integration.

If there are benefits for teachers, as the evaluation criterion is fixed and standardized for students also we can find advantages too. The European Language Portfolio allows students the peer evaluation, as in Evaluation criteria are based on "I can do" what my abilities allow me to do. Theses criterias enable students know that is expected of them, the students can standardize their knowledge, can looking for a job in other country because they have  qualified certificate level and encourages lifelong learning.

Finally, the European Language Portfolio is a tool lower linguistic assessment has great benefits for both teachers and students.

Clil

If I have to summarize in my words which is the Content and Language Integrated Learning to explain it to other teachers, I think I will describe CLIL how the ability to teach a subject through the use of a second language in order to increase the knowledge about the subject and to improve the second language. 

The interesting of the CLIL is that if the level of the subject is suitable for students, although the level of this second language is a little high producing continuous learning. 

One advantage of using CLIL is that it identifies other realities and brings us closer to different cultures coming but I think that their use will create more concerned citizens with the world around us and more sensitive to multiculturalism. 

Other reason to use CLIL in our classes is that CLIL can develop the High Order Thinking because people think in words if we know new words, we will be able to think new things, to find new solutions, new ways and create. Real learning occurs when we are able to find solutions, applying knowledge and creating. So if we use of CLIL with our estudent we can increase their HOT skills.

My best teacher

The summer of 2012 I had the opportunity to spend a great summer in Ireland. It was a different summer because we changed the sun and the beach for rainy days and classes.

One of the best regards of that summer was our English teacher, his name was Vincent. With Vincent, our English classes were always fun and exciting, you never knew what was going to happen: one day we could see an episode of "The Big Bang Theory," another day we could interpret a judgment, and were lawyers, police… and we had to win the trial. Other day we were patients and doctors and we had to know the symptoms of the different illness and give advices for the patients… One of the favorite classes was the day that we wrote a song, it was very funny and I still remember the song. All of these games allow us to learn new vocabulary, grammar and help us to express ourselves in English. I know it was really a good teacher because one year later when the group of Spanish that we met in Ireland we still remembered his teachings with a big smile, he was able to teach us like a game, always with a smile on his lips.