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Interscholastic CLIL Implemention Project, Developing Relevant Professional Teaching Skills
Start date: Mar 22, 2014, End date: Mar 22, 2016 PROJECT  FINISHED 

The Interscholastic CLIL Implementation Project (ICIP) was developed as a cooperation between two participating schools, the Vienna Vocational School for Office Apprentices (BSVB) that provides education within the Austrian dual system to office trainees who attend school twice a week and are trained practically at the Vienna City Administration and the First Vienna Bilingual Middle School (VBS) that ensures bilingual secondary education to pupils of heterogenic social and educational backgrounds. One participant of each school was selected for the project, Michaela Fricek (BSB), an experienced vocational school teacher of English, German and Communication and Cultural Diversity, who has a Master`s Degree in Translation (English and Portuguese) from the University of Vienna, in addition to being a counsellor for interpersonal communication. Anne Millea (VBS) is an experienced middle school teacher with a degree in English and Irish from the University of Dublin, apart from her excellent knowledge of music and teaching English as a first and second language. The aims of the projects were to obtain solid knowledge of CLIL, acquired during a teachers’ training course at the University of Teacher Education in Vienna. The course consisted of various workshops by CLIL experts such as Keith Kelly (founder of a CLIL school in Bulgaria), Stewart Simpson and Dr Teresa Ting (University of Calabria). Moreover, the participants aimed at implementing and improving CLIL in their respective schools based on collegial feedback and continuous intervision in order to broaden their horizons, as well as at developing CLIL lesson plans and curricula. Above all, the European Development Plan was given special attention to by establishing networks with teachers within the EU due to a mobility to Malta to get insight into the European dimension of CLIL and modern online tools such as hot potatoes, Multidict, Wordlink and Textblender. Apart from the activities already described above, the project partners met regularly in order to discuss the benefits of CLIL, reflected their CLIL lessons and gave each other honest feedback, which was based on predefined checklists in order to ensure sustainability of the project and to implement CLIL competences properly. All newly acquired skills from the seminars were implemented in a hands-on-way. In addition to that, the participants regularly conducted meetings with their principals to put CLIL into practice and improve its performance. Additionally, the networks with other teachers that had been established during the stay in Malta were an excellent way of pooling knowledge about online CLIL tools implementation in other EU countries. The results of the project were disseminated not only to the students themselves but also fellow teachers, the students` parents and the trainers at the Vienna City Administration. Concerning the VBS Anne Millea has implemented the latest CLIL Teaching Methods in both bilingual and DLP class types across a range of subjects. Due to her knowledge of CLIL, she has become aware of the fact that the major focus of her teaching skill was to be set in acquiring improved English skills in a content subjects without marking errors concerning grammar etc. like in traditional English classes. Her major ambition was to stimulate joy of life-long learning of English as a medium for communication in these subjects. In the long run, the VBS has benefitted enormously by the project due to the implementation of CLIL and the international perspective that Anne Millea brought to her classes and has acquired a better understanding of how to prepare students for vocational school. By implementing CLIL in the subjects such as History, Geography, Biology and Music she has enabled the students to express themselves in the target language, English, about content topics. Moreover, her lessons are planned competence oriented observing the aspects of the four Cs of CLIL: content, cognition, communication and cultural objectives. Additionally, Anne Millea has made the students aware cross curricular of the international dimension of learning and cooperation in a united Europe.
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