INTRODUCTION
Imagine going
on a sightseeing tour of the Solar System. There would be lots of exciting
sights to see. If you went on a space holiday, where could you go and what
could you do? Try to find the answers throughout this project, The Solar System, which invites you to
enter a new dimension and explore the Universe, the planets, galaxies and other
features related to space.
Directed at the Third Grade of Primary Education, year
6, The Solar System was born as a CLIL project aimed at presenting
curricular contents about the Universe, the planets and the Earth, in this
order. There are three different blocks of content starting with a general
overview of the Solar System and continuing with concrete parts of it, shown
below:
Using CLIL methodology, this project encourages
students not to ’do’; rather they ‘make’. Activities are designed using CLIL
pedagogy and providing language and cognitive support. They develop students’
creativity and imagination and consider students’ different learning styles. As
a result of this, The Solar System
offers a wide variety of materials for developing thinking and learning skills
and many demand high order thinking skills from the students. In addition,
these activities have cross-curricular links with Maths, Music, Art, Drama and
ICT.
The Primary school years are extremely important in
children’s intellectual, physical, emotional and social development. What’s
more, the multicultural society we
live in demands introducing English learning in the early stages. Considering
these factors, it is easy to understand why teaching curricular content in
English led to the gestation of this project.
But, before stepping
through the door into space, find out what is in this project. It contains activities
for both assessment for learning and assessment of learning. Those for learning are formative and are marked in the
Teaching Notes as AFL; the latter are
summative and are marked as AOL. In order to assess the students, some
assessment grids can be found at the end of each unit in Support Teaching Resources.
Most lessons contain one extra activity designed for
the diversity of students in class, for the context and for both the pace of
the lesson. The selection of these activities is left to the teacher. For
example, they can be used with either fast-finishers or with newcomers who have
educational needs. Throughout the project, teachers can use a portfolio to collect students’ work done
in the 15 lessons. See bibliography
for all the materials and resources used in this project.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my gratitude to the following
persons and institutions for their insightful comments, help and useful
suggestions throughout the preparation of this project:
o
Departament d’Educació de Catalunya for offering me the opportunity to learn and
grow
with this profitable experience in
o
Norwich Institute
for Language Education (NILE) and all its staff, with special attention to
Kay
Bentley, Carole Robinson and Jo Stirling.
o
My beloved wife,
Miriam, for her patience and support during my staying in