IIE Vol. 8 No. 1 (March 2020)

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https://demodspace.chitkara.edu.in/handle/123456789/501

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    Content-Related and Methodological Issues in Bilingual and Plurilingual Programmes
    (Chitkara University Publications, 2020-03-27) Helena Aikin Araluce
    CLIL programmes have been implemented in a large number of Spanish schools in the last decades as a means of promoting foreign language proficiency and fostering multilingualism and language diversity in order to meet the new demands of our globalized societies. Although Spain is considered one of the European leaders in CLIL practice and research, it nevertheless faces many challenges caused by teachers´ insufficient training both in the target language and in CLIL methodology. While the language-related shortcomings have been identified to a certain extent and remedied through language immersion courses and language assistant programmes, the content-related and methodological issues are still being largely neglected in spite of the fact that there exists considerable CLIL literature where these issues have been addressed. Renowned CLIL authors such as Do Coyle, David Marsh and Peeter Mehisto stress the importance of high quality teaching as key to the success of the CLIL approach; they claim that good CLIL practice not only broadens conceptual mapping resources by boosting cognitive development and metacognitive skills, but it also encourages active, meaningful, “deep” learning, critical thinking and creative thought with the help of scaffolding techniques that facilitate both language and content learning. This paper examines the language practices in content classrooms in the bilingual programmes of Castilla la Mancha. With a view to identifying the main difficulties that both teachers and students face. It also explores different ways of approaching these challenges, most of which are bound to be extensive to the Indian context.
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    ICT as Blending Methodology: A Case Study in a Bilingual School in Castilla la Mancha
    (Chitkara University Publications, 2020-03-27) Rafael Cruz González
    The use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is increasingly affecting every aspect of our daily lives, including the educational field where new approaches and methodologies are being developed. CLIL is currently one of the most popular educational approaches in Europe as it combines specifically created online course materials with more traditional teaching strategies. The case study introduced in this paper involves a charter school in Castilla-La Mancha called La Merced where CLIL was introduced in 2013. In the academic year 2018-2019, the school was taken over by an international educational network named Red Educativa Arenales, which decided to modernize the school by introducing highly innovative education teaching strategies related to ICT methodology. The initial stage of the modernization plan consists of equipping every classroom with digital devices such as laptops and tablets, as physical textbooks have been substituted by an online learning platform. Most school stakeholders agree that this first year has proved to be highly satisfactory regarding students’ motivation and academic achievement. Drawing on my experience as an English teacher in La Merced since 2011, in this paper I compare the classroom atmosphere and the academic achievements of my students until 2018, when more traditional methods were in use, to last year’s textbook-free pilot program. I will focus on my own grade, namely 3rd level of secondary education class (age 15-16) whose exam results have remarkably improved since the implementation of ICT blending methodology.
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    Using WebQuest Based Instruction to Enhance Students’ Critical Thinking
    (Chitkara University Publications, 2020-03-27) Richa Bansal; Sunil Dutt
    The study was executed to investigate the effects of teaching via WebQuest Based Instruction on students’ critical thinking in comparison to teaching through traditional mode of instruction. Murthy Critical Thinking Scale (2014) was used to assess students’ critical thinking. The study was carried out with ninth grade science students who were selected from government schools of Chandigarh and were randomly separated into two groups: the control group who received conventional mode of instruction and experimental group exposed to WebQuest based instruction created by the researcher. Both descriptive as well as inferential statistics (t-test) were employed to analyze the data. The findings of the research illustrated a noteworthy variation in critical thinking between two groups where students of experimental group dominated over control group students, hence demonstrating the substantial positive effect of WebQuest based instruction on student’s critical thinking. In view of the acquired results, the researcher recommended the use of WebQuest based instruction during teaching learning process and also proposed to provide proper training to teachers in how to implement the WebQuest in educational practices.