A CLIL educational project: "Namasté!"

Hi inno-teachers!

Today I want to share with you the prototype of my CLIL educational project. Hereafter, I would like to explain to you the whole process that I have followed for creating this project prototype, "Namasté!".

Before starting with the planification of the prototype, I decided to create a handwritten outline in order to organise my ideas. Once I knew that I wanted to focus my project on History for sixth graders, I started to imagine a motivating topic for the students. After thinking on it very carefully, I decided to center my CLIL educational project on the Indian culture. I strongly believe that the different cultures around the world are a very uplifting topic for the pupils since they can learn the main characteristics of any society that they have probably seen before, for instance, in films. 

I decided the title of my project, Namasté! (a respectful form of greeting in India), and I started to plan it: the number of sessions, the students' roles, the aims, the key competences, the evaluation tools... And, the most important decission, the final outcome. Once I had completed my outline, I copied the information in a template provided by my ICT teacher.

Here you can take a look of my outline, and, if you think that there is something that can be improved, just let me know! Although this is just a prototype that can be modified depending on several factors, I am very satisfied with it.

"Namasté!" CLIL Unit template de Ana Márquez

Before submitting the video that I have created in order to present my CLIL educational project, I would like to clarify some aspects in connection to the prototype of my project.

• Students' role: I have decided to foster different groupings in the activities that I have created for the project: individual work, peer work, group work and the whole class. I consider that it is necessary to carry out activities where the pupils can collaborate among them. Moreover, in groups activities, each student will acquiere a role (manager, spokesperson, writer and so on). 

• 4 Cs of CLIL: The 4Cs of CLIL are: content, communication, cognition and culture. It is very important no to forget them when implementing the project.

• Final outcome: The final outcome that the students will do is a video. They will record themselves (in groups) and they will act a role-play situation including some characteristic features of the Indian culture such as the gastronomy, the clothes, the dances and the music...

• Rubric (evaluation): Finally, I want to add that I have created a rubric to evaluate the students. I have uploaded it to Slideshare and you can access to it by clicking here.

Here you have the video that introduces my educational project:

(Video references at the bottom of the entry)

And, as ever, before finishing this post, I would like to reflect on the learning that I have acquired thanks to this activity. By doing this project, I have learnt that ICT are a good resource in order to make a meaningful project for the students. Digital outcomes are a motivating way of keeping children attention and, despite it can be difficult to implement it on a traditional classroom, we should make it more visible.

Moreover, thanks to this challenge, I have used the Movie Maker program to create the video. Firstly, I wanted to try other programs or applications for creating videos, but, as the vast majority of them offer few free templates, I decided to work with Movie Maker. I have used the program many times due to the fact that it is very easy and intuictive to use.

For uploading the project template, I have used Slideshare, because I have decided to keep all my teaching papers in the same platform, in my Slideshare account.

I hope you enjoy my video presentation and the whole educational projet!

See you soon, inno-teachers!

(Video references:
Nitin Das (2016). India in 5 minutes. Recovered from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Okz8kDDCoTA 

ARRamhanVEVO (2009) A.R. Rahman, The Pussycat Dolls- Jai Ho. Recovered from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yc5OyXmHD0w

Junxia Chen (2012) Indian Dance from Movie. Recovered from:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI2nvoHmoTw

BuzzFeedVideo (2016) Iconic Indian Bridal Styles. Recovered from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlB2hJXHP_4&t=9s

The food ranger (2016). Indian Street Food tour in Mumbai. Recovered from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltUDZD1vgxQ)