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Per un profilo europeo dell'insegnamento
Start date: Jun 1, 2015, End date: May 31, 2016 PROJECT  FINISHED 

The main aim of the project was to introduce CLIL into the school “Pertini”, attended by pupils of the pre-primary and primary school, and students of the junior high and the two high schools - a ‘Liceo’ focusing on sciences, and a 'Hotel and catering school'-. Two years ago the CLIL has been used as an experimentation in the last class of the high school by the History teacher. Even if its impact was somewhat limited, everybody considered it effective and really interesting. Infact, CLIL strategies can help students to be self-confident while they are speaking and expressing their ideas. Furthermore, collaborative learning helps to get and keep in touch with other students. Learners work in groups on the same task simultaneously, thinking together and working through difficulties. For this reason, drawing up the project, it seemed urgent to give 7 teachers a training opportunity, to enhance their professional skills, knowledge and awareness of practice of new, unfamiliar approaches. 4 mobilities were dedicated to “CLIL for secondary” courses. Since it seemed necessary to introduce CLIL also into the primary and middle school to motivate and encourage L2 young learners, two more teachers were involved in the project. Later on, a third teacher of the pre-primary school was engaged as well, in order to propose CLIL through songs, games stories, and role playing. Regarding the profile of our institution, it’s a small countryside school. Our aim is to provide a multilingual education. The small number of pupils often allows to reach good learning outcomes, also for L2. For these reasons, in the last two years, the institution is gradually moving toward a European dimension, facing the challenges to promote the European Development Plan, to encourage teachers’ and students’ mobility abroad, life-long learning, to increase their skills in using tools, and to introduce new student-centered methodologies finalized to prevent school abandonment, high risk unemployment, and to enhance future active citizenship. The two course providers for the mobilities were the International Projects Centre in Exeter (UK) and English Matters in Dublin. Six teachers attended CLIL courses. One teacher from the primary school attended a course about “ Drama techniques in the English language classrooms”, deeply linked to CLIL. Five mobilities happened during summer, the last two during March. The mobilities were extraordinary experiences, in terms of individual learning outcomes, considering that, before attending the courses, most of our teachers did not know how to define what CLIL represented in terms of its “philosophy”, activities, features and aims. Once back in Italy, all the beneficiaries gave a significant contribution to the European Development Plan of the school. A major goal of the project consisted in the fact that CLIL was consolidated in the Liceo (30 hours in History, and a practice teaching experience in Physics). The greatest result, however, was that CLIL was introduced also in the primary school (20 hours in History). All the teachers have learned a lot from the practice teaching CLIL experience, and they have often changed their class management strategies, helping some of the shyer students approaching public speaking. Generally, teachers’ attention has incredibly increased since they’ve realized that CLIL can be quite inclusive. The use of innovative IT resources (LIM, online…) has been an important tool consistent with the interest of students. In conclusion, the project keeps having a deep an impact on the whole school, where the staff believes in the central role of the learner as an individual. Now we are trying to define the learning outcomes of the various grades of education. We see learning as a unique, continuous, integrated process and we plan following a vertical, harmonious perspective (vertical alignment), avoiding to leave behind any child. During the current year students and families appreciated the effort to reinforce L2, introduce CLIL and facilitate mobility. The school philosophy is to promote an idea of education based on individual progress, without forgetting inclusion, cooperation, collaboration and good practices. E-twinning, contacts and relationships with European partners, which were built up during the entire year, can be precious in the future and they reflect the richness of Europe’s human capital, improving the effectiveness of this challenging process, and eventually contributing to analyze and minimize the shortcomings.

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