REFLECTION AFTER IMPLEMENTATION

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My students had a nice time working on the project. They had insisted, before we started this project, that they didn’t have a good English level to study Contemporary History in English. However, they accepted the use of English because they thought it was an opportunity to improve. Besides, in Batxillerat, students usually have too much work and many exams. Therefore, they enjoyed our project when they discovered they could work without so much pressure. They appreciated a lot to work collaboratively and cooperatively because they realised they could learn together and they helped each other. In the end, they felt really good colleagues and they got closer between them and with their teacher. They enjoyed this project, it was a different way to study the Second World War and they got accustomed to use English in Contemporary History. They learnt and understood the contents proposed and English had its place with Catalan and Spanish. They liked much to discover that genocide can be stopped and they learned how. Also they could see that this depends on their behaviour. They realised how important is to hear the victims.

In the end, the complete implementation of the project took longer than expected especially because the students got really involved and they wanted to create a very good final product. Moreover they were not used to work as CLIL requires and it was also difficult for them to communicate in English when working in groups.

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I, their teacher, would have needed English support to be sure of my knowledge of English: grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and someone to ask when I was unsure.

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It has been difficult to get the pedagogic dynamics of GEP for the first time and in English.

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Students asked me questions I couldn’t answer: They asked about this project and about the future of Catalan language since they were learning in English, which is not their mother tongue, and not using Catalan. They were worried about the usage of Catalan in a world where English is imposing.

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Finally, I consider that it is necessary to add much more time to teachers’ GEP course. Both instructors worked very well and they were really charming, but they had to teach too much content for the time we had.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following for their contribution to the presentation of my project: I am grateful to a number of friends and colleagues for their ideas, insights, and assistance. Within the Institut Matadepera I should like to thank all the members of the Management Team for their support throughout. In the Social Sciences Department, I am very appreciative of the advice and comments my colleagues have given.  Professors of Foreign Languages Department have given their support for the project and I would like to thank them for their assistance. I am indebted to Marta, Mercè, Marta and Sara who helped me and my students organizing the materials for our expositions, always smiling, always patient. I am also very grateful for her excellent video recordings provided by Lídia Sànchez. Alejandro Calahorro could not have been more helpful: he has contributed to the technical part of this project. Finally, it is with profound gratitude that I thank my husband and my son.