Designing a
CLIL Teaching Unit
The main objective of this Practicum IV is to design and implement a CLIL teaching sequence, lasting from 5 to 8 sessions.
In the school Purificació Salas CLIL is only taught in Year 5 and Year 6 in Arts and Crafts. So my CLIL unit will be taught in Arts and Crafts, and in Year 6, precisely in 6B.
​
In this section you will find the CLIL unit that I designed. Even that the template that you will find below says 6B, all the classes (5A, 5B and 6A) do the same unit, but I am based on 6B, so the explanations made about the development of the sequence are about this group.
​
My teaching sequence is about graffiti. The whole school is studying this topic due to a project that Sant Quirze carries out, called “Artistes a les escoles”, local artists go to the schools to show their artworks, after that, children work on them. On May, their productions will be exhibited in Can Barra, a local country house.
This year the artist was Samuel Moraño “Silex”, a graffiti artist. After his visit they started working about graffiti, and my teaching unit is the last part of this project.
​
The driving question of my TU is the following:
Is graffiti Art or Vandalism?
​
And the final product will be a stencil and chalk. Each child will create a stencil, that they will paint later with their own handmade chalk.
​
Next, you can find the template of my planning, with all the materials used:
​
Even that it was the planning, the TU came up really different. Because of some changes at last time for different reasons, such as, because after starting implementing we realised that we needed to add a recap session in order to do the follow up of the contents or because some activities took longer than expected and we had to continue them on the next session. These changes also influenced the creation of new materials, that you can find below, along the explanation. But, one of the main reasons of this change on the planning was the English Day (which requires previous preparation during English and Arts&Crafts lessons).
​
Because of that, I started implementing later, and I had to use some of the English lessons in order to finish earlier, for this reason the times of the template don’t always coincide with the real ones.
Following, I will explain session per session, how it was developed and the results obtained. I also add a brief explanation of how I attended the diversity in some sessions.
​
SESSION 1
​
The first minutes of the session were to do a little bit of review about the graffiti aspects done in the previous teaching units.
After that, I presented the TU. Explaining the tasks, the assessment criteria and the final product, focusing more on the Expert Reading because it was the first activity and it was essential to understand the final product. I used the support of a PowerPoint presentation to explain the jigsaw methodology used on the Expert Reading; and showing them the different roles that they could have (spokesperson, supervisor, reader, etc.). Using a lot of repetition and checking understanding, because it was a complex activity, that they had never done before.
After that I showed them the group work rubric that they had to answer afterwards, going through the different aspects to make them clear.
​
Results: The development of this session was really good. Children were in silence all the time and listen carefully to the explanations, asking questions and expressing their feelings afterwards.
They are not this silent normally, it was probably because having me teaching was the novelty and they were expecting of how I would do it.
​
​
​
SESSION 2
​
This second session took place on an English lesson (1h) instead of an Arts&Crafts lesson (1:30h), because of that the last part that was for the feedback and the correction of the expert reading was moved to the next session.
The Expert Reading had to be done in an hour, so to have time and take the most advantage of it, on Friday afternoon I asked the children to leave the tables in groups and be on time on Monday morning (English is the first lesson of the week), so we can start the activity early. They did so.
When they entered the class the original groups were projected on the digital board, so they could already seat together. On the blackboard were written the steps of the session.
I explained briefly the development of the session, which they already knew, after that, I changed the slide, next to each child’s name appeared a number, corresponding to the expert group that they belonged to. Projecting it was faster than having to say a number to each child.
When they were on their expert groups I projected a slide with the roles that each of them would have. When delivering the cards and the necklaces I called one by one the members of a group in order to refresh the roles and giving examples of the language support and the phrases that they can use. I didn’t do that to the rest of the groups, it was just the first one in order to give the example.
They had 25 minutes to read, understand and kept the main points of the text that I gave them working in groups, helping each other. Each of the four groups had a text about different graffiti’s aspects. After that time, they went back to the original group and filled in the gaps of different texts about the four topics with the information that all of them had, to do that they had 20 minutes, until the end of the lesson.
I used a stopwatch (that can be found in the following link: https://www.online-stopwatch.com/full-screen-stopwatch/), it was projected on the digital board, so children could also see it.
​
Results: I was really happy about the development of the session, children understood really good the instructions of the tasks, they also fulfilled the times, finishing the tasks during the time given.
Going around the groups I could observe that some of them didn’t do their role all the time, and also that they spoke a little bit much in Catalan to explain to each other the text content.
Watching them and with the feedback that they gave I could see that they acquired the content but some of them said that was boring having to read the text, remember the important information and fill new texts, comparing it to an English lesson. But others said that was interesting, and that was nice to have different roles from their peers. Maybe they had too much time, because some groups went over the text several times.
​
Attetion to the diversity: During this activity I put the boy with autism in the same groups (both, the original and the expert) of one boy that is very good at English, in order to be helped by him. This boy knew in advanced that he would be the responsible to help the boy with autism. He helped him by repeating the text with him and checking for his understanding.
​
​
If you want to know more about the English Day click here!
SESSION 3
​
This session was not the planned. Instead of doing the Kahoot and starting the final product at it had to be done, we introduce a recap session, by Mònica’s recommendation, in order to ensure that the knowledge is acquired and understood. This session took place also during an English lesson, we had 1 hour.
We did different activities in order to recap. The first one was a Think, Pair and Share. First of all, children had to think individually in silence during a minute about what they remember of the Expert Reading. When the time is up, they had two minutes to share with the pair what they remembered. And finally we talked with the whole group in order to put in common the content learnt, writing the main point on the blackboard.
Next, we corrected aloud the texts that they filled, I projected the template on the digital board and I wrote the answers that one child was saying. Each topic was read by a different student, making them spell the tricky words and the ones where they had more difficulties, I knew which ones were, because I had taken a look to the answers in advanced.
Then, they had some time to answer the group work rubric, because there was no time on the Expert Reading session.
During the last minutes I showed them the artists’ webs.
​
Results: Children remember very well the content done on the expert reading, being able to construct the sentences properly, as were in the texts.
I finished the activities planned earlier than expected, because of that I filled the time showing them the artists’ webs. I think the main reason for that is that I should have done more repetitions in order to paraphrase the content, so they see other ways to say it and in order to remember more the content.
​
Attetion to the diversity: The boy with autism did the same as his peers, but instead of sharing with a pair when doing that they were three.
​
SESSION 4
​
In this session we do what was planned for the third one. It was during an Arts&Crafts session, having an hour and a half. The first thing was doing a Kahoot to see if they had acquired the knowledge, because of that they worked individually, having a laptop per person or an iPad if there were not enough computers. It didn’t take much time to explain the activity because they had used it in advanced. Because the activity was used as an assessment tool, they had to write their real names and not any nickname.
Doing the Expert Reading they discovered what a stencil is and its function. So I refreshed it, explaining how they have to create one, showing one that I created as an example, painting it on the blackboard. I also used the support of a PowerPoint presentation to show them different types of stencils that they can use. I also had printed this images and I stuck them on the blackboard so they could see them.
After that they started to create their own stencil, first drawing it on a draft paper, then of the cardboard, and after that they had to cut them using awls.
Results: The Kahoot was planned to be done in 20 minutes, but it took longer because there were some technical problems with some computers that were slower or that didn’t receive signal properly. When everybody entered the Kahoot some children wrote nicknames instead of their real name. So I stopped the class and I made them log out and log in again with the valid name. This made that the activity started later.
About the stencil creation, finally I didn’t link it to cinema topic, because we thought that it was too narrow, and they could develop more imagination if they can do whatever they want. By this, they could also do letters and phrases which is one of the graffiti characteristics that they have studied.
Attetion to the diversity: He did the Kahoot as the rest of the students. The same with the stencil, moreover he did it very well, and he was the child that was more advanced on the production, but when he was almost finishing of cutting it one of its parts broke, then he got crossed and he crushed all the work done.
​
SESSION 5
​
It was supposed to be the session 4, but it was really different, due to changes made to improve the TU. It was an Arts&Crafts session, planned to create chalk in small groups (one group at a time) while the rest of the class starts preparing the statements. But at the end, it was planned the following way:
At the beginning of the session I explained them how to make chalk, showing them the materials and having the steps projected on the digital board, after that I showed them a Youtube video found in this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZhaDM8N2q0. Where they could see the process.
After that we started working, I called four children to do the chalk, while the rest continued the stencil. After these four, four more and like this until its finish. Creating the chalk with a small group is easier for the material distribution and for the activity management being able to pay more attention on how the children are doing it, if there are 25 children creating chalk at the same time it will be more messy, because not all would go at the same pace, and the ones that were faster were get anxious to continue. While doing this workshop I prepared a table with the material, where the children would work, on the table was a paper with the instructions so the students could follow them autonomously and with my help if needed.
Results: This session was interesting because, it was taking into the practice the learning, creating the final product, that they had been studying; finishing the stencil and starting the chalk. Children were really engaged to it, because as they said lots of times, they are a little bit tired of doing arts and crafts in a theoretical way, as some said it was similar to English lessons, so they were willing to do handworks, crafts.
But, the class was a little bit messy, because I focus more on the children that were doing chalk, so I didn’t pay all the attention needed to the ones that were finishing the stencil, and they were too noisy.
One thing to improve here also, as the teacher said was to put chairs, so the students making the chalk should be seated, in order to could control better the rest of the class, taking into account that it had to be as only one teacher was in the class. I didn’t think about the chairs at all, it didn’t come to my mind, I think that because I considered that the activity was short and for the materials mobility. Even that this day I went out of the school really upset, this situation was also useful to see my mistakes and find the way to improve and learn from it.
Apart from the problems of the management the activity was good and children enjoyed it.
Attetion to the diversity: When doing the chalk the boy worked the same way as they colleagues, what is true is that I paid more attention to him than what I did with the rest, but he worked the same way reading and following the instructions, which he understood without problem.
​
SESSION 6
​
This session was completely different. It lasted an hour and a half, it was an arts and crafts session. According to the TU template, the last session was for watching the videos that children would do at home and to paint the stencils with the chalk. But due to all the changes suffered we wouldn’t do the video, because it would be too much time, and they had to prepare “Competències bàsques”, they go to the trip of the end of the year, and they have to do one topic more before the end of the school year.
So the purpose of this session was also related to the creation of the statements, but instead of doing it in a video format they would do it on a poster. To do that, we did again the Think, Pair and Share activity, but with some variations compared to the first time.
First of all, I took some time to explain them how to make the conclusions, they had to look over the portfolio to find all the work done and to look to their initial predictions, in order to see what they have learnt and which are the important things. I did one example with one boy, in order to show them how a conclusion should be.
After the explanation I gave them 5 minutes to do the think part, I used the stopwatch, so they could see the time left. During this time they had to go over the portfolio and think about what they had learnt, in order to be able to write five conclusions on their own.
Then I gave them 7 minutes to share the conclusions with a pair and came up with the 5 best conclusions between them. Finally we shared with the whole group the conclusions, writing them on the blackboard, covering all the topics done, not only on my TU, but also along the whole graffiti project. These topics were materials, functions, representations, artists and origins.
Finally, we ended up with 10 conclusions, and then in groups they would have to create the poster, having each group one sentence.
Results: At the end, due to the changes and the situations suffered this session was completely different, being a new one from the one on the template related to the conclusions.
The development of the session was good, but sometimes, principally on the whole group sharing, I had the feeling that they found the activity long, and it could be true.
Some children had difficulties when understanding the way to do conclusions, so it had to be explained again. Then after the 5 minutes of individual thinking I gave them two more minutes, because some of them had two or three conclusions only. Then, on the last part, when we shared all the conclusions we spent a lot of time, because someone said a conclusion and with the help and the contributions of the rest we paraphrased and added information in order to improve them, until we had conclusions for all the main topics. This activity took more than what I had thought in advance.
Attetion to the diversity: He did the same, as in the other session where we did the Think, Pair and Share activity when sharing he worked on a group of three. He had difficulties when drawing the conclusions, doing only one and copying the example given.
​
​
SESSION 7
​
This seventh session, was the last one, and was not on the template, it was added afterwards because we need one session to finish all the work planned, due to the timing.
So, the aim of this session was to paint the stencil with the chalk that they created, and after that to finish the conclusions poster in groups. Looking at the conclusions we had three statements that were very similar, so we voted to choose only one of them, having at the end 8 conclusions; this selection was the first thing that we did.
After that they started working on finishing their stencils and painting them on the black cardboard, when they were finishing they were grouped in threes following the order. Each group had to represent a conclusion on a DIN-A3 cardboard.
Results: The development of this session was as planned, and we had time to finish everything, but I have to say that they were really fidgeted and the class had to be stopped sometimes. It was understandable because they had spent all the morning doing “Competències bàsiques”.
As the exhibition on Can Barra has started and their stencil cannot be there we improvised and exhibition at class and we hung all the stencils.
It would have been nice to go out, to the playground, to paint the stencil, but it was raining.
​
Attetion to the diversity: The boy with autism did the same as his peers. The groups to do the poster had to be of three and one group of four, so he was on the group of four.
​
​
​
​
​
​
As said, the distribution of the sessions came up really different, so I have created a simple table to show the final distribution of activities per session:
Some of these sessions were observed by master’s students of the UAB.
​
​
​
​
​
​
