Teaching in the 21st Century is mainly about Learning in the XXI Century

A punto de inciar el curso 2019-2020, que será mi trigesimo sexto como profe de Inglés, reflexionando sobre qué significa realmente enseñar como suelo hacer cada año, he encontrado este vídeo que me gustaría compartir con mis compañeros docentes del IES Francisco Ayala, Granada, en particular con el equipo bilingüe.

Ttambién con cualquier otro profesional de la educación  que intenta 'desesperadamente' hacer todo lo posible porque su alumnado se implique, crezca personalmente, se emocione y aprenda en profundidad.

Mis mejores deseos 'educativos'  para el nuevo curso.

How We Learn

This short video is a really insightful presentation about how we learn or, better said, how our brain learns. 

Now, at the threshold of a new year, I would like my colleagues of the bilingual team and our bilingual-to-be pupils could watch it and put it into practice in order to trigger their potentials as long-life learners.

Enjoy it!

 how our brain learnsI

Michael Jackson - Thriller (Official Video) Always excellent for Halloween!

A New School Year

A new school year has just started and, as every year for the last four, I would like to welcome those students who have decided to come to our high school, IES Francisco Ayala, to study their secondary education, their baccaleaureate or their vocational education training, particularly, to those who have decided to do it in the bilingual programme.

We, the bilingual team of teachers with the help of our lovely and hard-working American language assistant, Stephanie Saba, will try our best for you to learn the content through the foreign language, in this case English, following the principles of the methodological communicative approach known as CLIL (content and language integrated learning): project-based, process-based and learner-centered. That means we plan and develop our classes taking into consideration our students' needs and interests so that they improve their learning process in a quadruple sense: their key competences, the content of the curricula and beyond, their plurilingual and intercultural capacities.

With those goals in mind, you will have the opportunity to do a great variety of learning tasks, projects and activities in class and beyond it, via extra-curricula activities: English and French workshops in the afternoons, cultural and scientific visits, drama, school trips, immersion programmes, exchanges with schools in France, UK, Italy or Austria via Erasmus+ projects.

We really hope you will have a fruitful school year and feel that, by the end of it, you will have not only learnt a lot about all your subjects as well as improved your Spanish, English and/or French, but also open your ming interculturally.

Eco-friendly routes in the province of Granada (2)

As it was said in the previous entry, below you have the links of more blogs and webs, including infographies or other types of digital posters, to show the eco-friendly routes designed by IES Francisco Ayala's 1º and 2º Bachillerato students via the project "Granada: an Andalusian province to hide and bike", as part of the Erasmus+ KA2 on sustainable tourism "STEP to Europe":

2º Bachillerato
Eva Adrio & Esmeralda Mas: El Albayzín
Miguel Centeno & José Antonio García http: Loja-Riofrío
Raquel Bedmar, Clara Ibáñez & Violeta Jiménez: Monachil-Los Cahorros
Celia Alsaka, María Isabel Olmo & Laura Ruiz: Lorca's route
Clara Cobo,  Claudia Domínguez & Ana Romero: Barranco de Poqueira
Andrés Hernández & José Miguel Martínez: Guadix: the Caves capital
Paula Castellano & María López: National Geographic's Montefrío
Miguel Conde & Alejandro Jiménez La Costa tropical: Almuñécar-Salobreña

1º Bachillerato
Ahmed Bouzidi & Adrián Carrasco: Wallis Abad Allah
Marina Cara & Fernando Rodríguez: Los Cahorros
Domingo Aranda & Martín Torres: Guadix
Carmen and Paula Gómez & Paloma Vera: Water route
Lucía Lerma & Cristina Torregrosa: "La Dehesa del Camarate"

As you can see, they have not only developed their communicative, cultural and digital competences, they have also researched and known their province better as well as discovered possibilities to enjoy their free time in a more environmentally-conscious way.

Eco-friendly routes in the province of Granada (1)

Our high school (@IESFranciscoAya) has been taking part, for these last school years, in an Erasmus+ project about sustainable tourism: "Studying and Travelling for an Environmentally-friendly Promotion of Tourism in Europe", in short: "STEP to Europe" ( 2014-1-IT02-KA201-004184_3). This project is shared with other two scholar institutions, ITE Tambosi Battisti in Trento, Italy, which is the coordinator, and Halesowen College in Birmingham, UK.

This year, in which we are commemorating our school's  XXV anniversary, our bilingual students in 1st and 2nd Bachillerato have gone on with the work initiated two years ago and, in English class, have done the task "Granada: an Andalusian Province to Hike or Bike", whose final product has been a blog or web integrating an infography of an eco-friendly route in the province of Granada.

Some of these routes are quite well-known, but others may be considered unusual. In any case, I can say that most students have achieved two of the main objectives of the task, connected to the ones of the European project:
a) Becoming aware of the relevance of the natural and cultural heritage of their region, in this case, Granada.
b) Developing in an integrated way their communicative, digital and personal initiative competences.

I feel absolutely proud of their work. I'm sure that all the school community and anyone interested in sustainable tourism will enjoy visiting their blogs and, particularly, following their eco-friendly routes. Below just some of them (more in the next entry)

1º bilingual bachillerato
Natalia Cuesta & Cristina Gómez : "La Dobla de Oro"
Fran Barrionuevo, Alfonso Corona  & David Mateos: Poqueira Ravin
Elena Checa, Ángeles Henares & Claudia Lorca: Routes in Sulayr 
Marta Jiménez & Clara Sierra: "F. García Lorca's Route 1"
Manuel Valverde & Daniel Zufri "Valle de Lecrín"

2º bilingual bachillerato
Álvaro Caparrós & Javier Jiménez: "Las Alpujarras GR7"
Adriano Gallego, Carlos Lara & Luis Rodríguez: "Huéscar-Castril"
Adrián Alcázar, Ángeles Castillo, Marta Esteban & Clara García: "Otívar-Río Verde"
Alejandro Fajardo, Alejandro Manzanares, Miguel Muñoz: "Tajos de Alhama" 

Greeting to our 'bilingual-to-be' students

Dear 'bilingual-to-be' students,

A new school year has already started with all its promising learning together, and its doubts and nerves, too, of course, but you will be able to overcome them with these ingredients:

Attention and positive attitude,

Some interest, research and reflection,

Respect to yourself and others,

Daily work, in class and a bit at home,

A lot of emotion and determination.

We want to welcome you and let you know we will be there near you to help you learn. Let us share this opportunity of growing together the life offers us!

All the best!

The bilingual teaching team.

P.S. Here you have a few links for you to learn English or other languages:

http://www.funenglishgames.com/games.html (ESO)

https://www.gamestolearnenglish.com/ (ESO)

http://www.eslgamesplus.com/ (ESO)

http://classroom-aid.com/2012/08/28/25-online-games-for-english-language-learners/

http://isabelperez.com/tesllinks.htm

http://isabelperez.com/french1.htm

http://englishwithjennifer.com/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/websites/11_16/

http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/es/exams/first/

http://www.trinitycollege.com/site/?id=293

https://del.icio.us/inglesayala1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilingualism:_Language_and_Cognition