This Bolton School was Failing – until it Gave Each Pupil an iPad

• From “The Telegraph”

• By Joseph Lee, Jan 2015

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‘There’s like a sense of belonging that you have your own device, that the school trusts you and you don’t have to share with anyone,’ Aadil Pariejwala, 15, says. ‘You have access to everything at the touch of your hand, literally.’

The sense of trust runs deeper than just putting iPads into the care of young people. The school wanted students to have greater access to their teachers and constructed its new buildings around this idea. Classrooms are open-plan, the few offices have walls of transparent glass and there is no staffroom as such, just a work area for teachers that students are free to enter. The school has added to this accessibility by giving teachers’ email addresses to students, who can use them to ask for help and advice. ‘Quite often when you talk about technology, people say you’re going to have less of the human touch from the teachers,’ Chohan says. ‘But we find they get more contact. Students who won’t necessarily speak up 1. ____________ can get help direct from the teacher.’ Others can follow up on their ideas and questions 2. _______________ they think of them outside school.

But perhaps the biggest change is the spirit of cooperation 3._______________ between students and staff. As Aiman Mahmood, 14, puts it, ‘You have these relationships with teachers, and that’s not what you find in many schools. Who would be prepared to stay after school and devote their time to the students? That’s really helpful for us.’

As a result, there is less of a sense of ‘them and us’, which motivates better behaviour. ‘It helps to show that students and teachers are not all that different,’ Sana Ismail, the head girl, says. Breaking down these kinds of barriers, which many teachers may see as protective, can create 4.________________ as well as having positive effects. Jenny Muter, the assistant head of the English department, says, ‘I got absolutely spammed the first year I was here because they needed so much help. But we say that if you need the help, we will give you the help.’

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All the material for classes is provided on the iPads through Apple’s iTunes U app, a tool for schools and universities to publish and manage courses, keeping books, videos, 5._________________, tests and discussions in one place, where teachers can update them instantly. Since last year, students have been able to design their own courses, which they upload to iTunes U to show what they have learnt and help other students. There has been another advantage, too. ‘I think we developed an understanding with the teachers, especially making the iTunes U courses,’ Huzaifa Moosa, the head boy, who has published a guide to the characters in To Kill a Mockingbird, says. ‘We understand how much effort they go to provide good lessons for us.’

‘They love doing that,’ Muter says. ‘It’s like, “Wow, I get it, I’m a mini-teacher.”  ’

All the student-6.________________ courses published on iTunes U are available worldwide. ‘To be able to walk into an interview and say, “I’ve produced a public course and have 2,000 people who subscribe to my content and they’re using it” – that’s really powerful for a 16-year-old student,’ Chohan says.

For teachers it helps answer the question students often have about the 7.__________________ of their learning: publishing work that others will read, use and may comment on feels like making an impact in the real world. More than 600 visitors a year come to learn about Essa Academy, and they often find themselves the audience for mini-presentations by students. Teachers say that although many of the children have never left Bolton, since the school is an educational celebrity, the world comes to them.

 

v Task 3.3. Speaking. Below are questions for you to discuss in class after you read the text.

1. Do you think that having no proper “staffroom” is a benefit? Give your arguments.

2. Would you like to introduce “a work area for teachers that students are free to enter” in the school or university where you work? Why/why not?

3. Do you find it wise to give students tasks to prepare their own educational courses and upload them in on-line resources? What benefits might students gain doing such a task? Think of courses you could entrust your students with and discuss them with your mates.

 

Writing skills. Argumentative Essay

v Task 3.4. What is an essay? What types of essay do you know?

Essay is a piece of academic writing on a particular subject giving a personal view and providing arguments.

There are many types of essays, which can be classified in different ways. Commonly mentioned types of essay are:

· Argumentative essay (analysing a certain phenomenon, topic, problem in order to provide arguments in favour of the author’s opinion)

· Persuasive (aiming primarily to convince your readers of the correctness of a certain point of view)

· Expository (summing all the facts on the problem, analysing them and drawing conclusions). Expository essays have variations:

o Definition essays explain the meaning of a word, term, or concept.

o Classification essays break down a broad subject or idea into categories and groups.

o Compare and contrast essays describe the similarities and differences between two or more people, places, things or ideas.

o Cause and effect essays explain how things affect each other and depend on each other.

o Process essays (sometimes called “How to” essays), explain a procedure, step-by-step process, or how to do something with the goal of instructing the reader.

· Descriptive (describing one’s experience, providing sensory details etc.)

· Narrative essay (tells a story and in many ways similar to a descriptive essay).

v Task 3.5. Writing. Write an argumentative essay on using digital technologies in school education.

1. Introduce the problem (thesis statement).

2. Give at least 3 arguments in favour of the main thesis

3. Write about some counterarguments (opinions that disagree with your main thesis)

4. Draw conclusions

While writing, use linking adjuncts to provide smooth transition from one idea to another. (page …)

Ø Task 3.6. Follow-up. Research and presentation skills. Find more examples of innovative schools in the world. In bullet points, write out their main features that make them innovative. Make a short story with your comments about the school of your choice to present it at the beginning of the next class.

Lesson 4. CLIL Approach

v Task 4.1. Speaking. Share with your group the story of an innovative school you have selected.

v Task 4.2. Speaking. ESSA school is very multicultural. In multicultural environment, it might happen, many students do not speak the state language of the country they have moved to. Therefore, to teach them different subjects, teachers may have to use elements of CLIL-methodology. What do you know about CLIL? Share your ideas with the class.

v 4.3. Reading. Read the text below. Take notes to answer the following questions:

1. Why and when was CLIL launched for the first time?

2. In what cases can CLIL be used?

3. How different does CLIL make the teaching and learning process?

4. What additional skills have students to master in CLIL?

5. What is the ultimate purpose of CLIL?

(Source: CLIL Guide Book:

https://www.languages.dk/archive/clil4u/book/CLIL%20Book%20En.pdf)

The progress of CLIL

The term Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) was launched during 1994 in conjunction with the European Commission. This followed a Europe-wide discussion on how to bring language learning excellence, found in certain types of school, into mainstream government-funded schools and colleges.

At the time, the launch of CLIL was both political and educational. ‘The political driver was based on a vision that mobility across the European Union required higher levels of language competence in designated languages than was found to be the case at that point in time. The educational driver, influenced by major bilingual initiatives such as in Canada, was to design … language teaching approaches to provide a wide range of students with higher levels of competence’ (Marsh 2012).

Now, some twenty years later, the concept of CLIL has emerged as not only a way of improving access to additional languages, but also bringing innovative practices into the curriculum as a whole.

CLIL as an approach has slowly been gaining acceptance in European countries. In fact, in some countries, teachers are now required to use CLIL in their classrooms. The trend seems to be that CLIL will be used more and more in the future in most of the countries of Europe.

CLIL integrates both Content Learning and Language Learning. Using CLIL, students learn one or more of their school subjects in a targeted language. Students aren’t expected to be proficient in the new language before they begin studying. They learn the language they need for studying at the same time as they learn the subject.

With CLIL, learning the content and learning the language are equally important. CLIL involves a change of focus in the classroom. When teachers use the school lingua franca (SLF) for teaching, they can tell the students everything they want them to know, and the students can understand them. However, when they teach their subject using a new language, this isn’t possible. Because of this, they have to show students how to find out information for themselves, and how to work and talk together to discover new ideas, so that using the language becomes part of the process of learning. In other words, the teachers have to change their methodology, and find different ways to help students learn.

By doing this, the teacher prepares young students for the modern world, where people work in project teams; use other languages to talk to various colleagues and to communicate with people in different countries. They are expected to solve problems, plan their own work and find out things for themselves using a range of sources, especially the Internet. CLIL, then, is designed to prepare young people for the future. It provides the first step to learning and understanding independently.

 

v Task 4.4. Speaking. Using your notes, retell parts of the text in turn with your partner.

v Task 4.5. Speaking. Do you have any experience of your own with CLIL? If yes, share it. If not, would you like to try it? Why?/Why not?

v Task 4.6. Vocabulary focus. Find in the text italicized words which mean the same as:

1. start smth.

2. agreement to take smth.

3. ability to move easily from one job, area, or social class

4. a language spoken by people with different native languages

5. two-language

6. chosen for a particular purpose

7. high quality of smth.

 

Grammar focus.

Understanding infinitives

v Task 4.7. Pay attention to grammar structures in bold type. Find them all and translate.

This type of structures is usually called “Complex Subject”. They often follow the pattern: Subject + [the verb in passive* form] + infinitive. The meaning of these phrases is equivalent to the phrases “it is [thought/believed/expected/…] that he/she/it/they…”.

Rephrase the sentences with Complex Subject from the texts with the phrases beginning with “it is/was”. Ex.: Students aren’t expected to be proficient. à It is not expected that students are proficient.

* Note: unless the verbs are never used in passive.

v Task 4.6.

4.6.1. Change the following structures into the ones with Complex Subject and complete the sentences using simple active or passive infinitives. Important: remember that the verbs “to seem” and “to appear” cannot be passivized, they are only used in active voice.

1. It was know that …____________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________

2. It has been found that … _______________________________________

_____________________________________________________________

3. It is generally thought that… ____________________________________

_____________________________________________________________

4. It is believed that ______________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________

5. It seemed that…_______________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________

6. It appears that… ______________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________

Ø 4.6.2. Add at least two more examples for each case of your own.