Sparklebox

Sparklebox is a teaching resource website, meant as a means of sharing useful downloadable resources with other teachers. Although it is aimed at UK young school children, many of the resources collected there can be really helpful in the EFL primary classroom.

Sharing teaching tips and ideas

What does work in the Primary EFL classroom? You can share your ideas by recording or typing comments around this Voicethread screen:

Assessing CLIL

We can find some interesting contributions on what and how to assess in CLIL approaches in Café CLIL 06: Assessment in CLIL web page discussion.

ELT Conference in Bilbao

I copy the text I've just received giving information about a conference organised by the British Council in Bilbao:

Approaches to Teaching
“There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm”. ~Willa Cather
The British Council invites you to attend our third annual ELT conference. Once again, we will be setting sail with a group of teachers of English on a voyage of discovery and renewal.
There will be a prize draw, publishers’ stands, a swap shop and morning coffee. We will also give you an attendance certificate
Enrol now! Places are free but limited. Send your name and the name of your school to ELToutreach.bilbao@britishcouncil.es
Date: Saturday 26th September 2008
Time: 10:00 – 18:00
Venue: British Council, Avda. Lehendakari Aguirre, 29, 2º 48014 Bilbao Please check our website for a full programme and conference timetable: http://www.britishcouncil.org/es/spain-bilbao-elt-conference.htm

Subtitled videos

dotSUB is a tool that allows anyone to translate and subtitle video content into multiple languages. Although at the moment there are not many suitable videos to be used in the Primary English classroom, it is worth browsing through the clip collection and try to find something useful.

See an example below. You can change the language of the subtitles from the options bar.

Getting sound files to enhance oral productions

These are a couple of links to collections of sound effects that can be downloaded from the Web:

Sounddogs
Banco de imágenes y sonidos

A congress about CLIL in Barcelona

It is difficult for most of us to have the opportunity to attend many of the events about topics related to the teaching of languages which could be interesting, especially when they are held far away from our home town. Fortunately, we can get some information, feedback or abstracts from the Internet. This is the case of the 'Trobada CLIL' held on 28th and 29th April in Barcelona.

Feeback on some of the lectures can be read on the following two entries in 'De estranjis' blog:

Lecciones de Barcelona: en enseñanza de idiomas, ¿hacia dónde vamos?

Lecciones de Barcelona: se puede aprender de Madrid

Further information about the contents of the lectures can be read in this book of abstracts.

Some ideas for short projects when working in a CLIL approach

Looking for some ideas and resources related to CLIL in Primary, I've come across the following presentation by Nina Lauder. I find some suggestions inspirational to introduce project work related to other curricular subjects in the English classroom.

Project Work and CLIL

View more presentations from Nina Lauder.

I see that several ideas are taken from the JET series of books published by Scholastic. Some sample pages on that site can give ideas of the contents in the books, such as this mini book on Sports.

Some events for language teachers in the Basque Country

Gipuzkoako Berriztapen proiektuen VIII. Jardunaldiak / VIII. Jornadas de experiencias de innovación educativa de Gipuzkoa.
7th and 8th May
Information

An Introduction to CLIL (8 to 12-year-olds) by Gail Butler
Organised by MacMillan Publishers.
Aquarium Donostia
29th April, 18:00
Information: bilbao@macmillan.es Tel. 944271314

Getxolinguae
13th and 14th May
Information

Symposium on Content and Language Integrated Learning
Vitoria / Gasteiz
8th and 9th May
Information

Funny English

Funny English website contains many worksheets with crosswords, minibooks, cards... that can be really useful in the English classroom.