Skills. Portfolio.

“Máster Universitario en Lengua Inglesa para el Aula Bilingüe de Educación Secundaria por la Universidad de
Oviedo. Curso 2013/2014”
Rocío Yuste Mieres
PORTFOLIO
{Language skills}
MÁSTER EN FORMACIÓN DEL PROFESORADO
Curso 2011 - 2012
Autor: Rocío Yuste Mieres
Unidad didáctica: Trigonometría
4º de Educación Secundaria Obligatoria. Opción B

PORTFOLIO. Rocío Yuste Mieres (DNI: 10891225N)
“Máster Universitario en Lengua Inglesa para el Aula Bilingüe de Educación Secundaria por la
Universidad de Oviedo”
 Academic year: 2013/2014
 Subject: “Metodología para el desarrollo de las destrezas lingüísticas en el aula bilingüe”
 Date: 15th
December 2013
 Tutor: Francisco J. Borge López, Titular de Universidad del Departamento de Filología
Anglogermánica y francesa. Área de conocimiento, Filología Inglesa

“The fact is that given the challenges we face, education doesn't need to be reformed, it
needs to be transformed. The key to this transformation is not to standardize education,
but to personalize it, to build achievement on discovering the individual talents of each
child, to put students in an environment where they want to learn and where they can
naturally discover their true passions.”
― Ken Robinson, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything

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Portfolio|Languageskills
Index
1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................3
2. METHODOLOGY IN LANGUAGE TEACHING.....................................................................3
2.1 SPEAKING ...................................................................................................................3
2.2 WRITING .....................................................................................................................5
2.3 READING.....................................................................................................................7
2.4 LISTENING ................................................................................................................10
2.5 GRAMMAR ................................................................................................................10
2.6 VOCABULARY...........................................................................................................11
3. SKILLS ACTIVITIES ......................................................................................................13
5.1 SPEAKING..............................................................................................................13
5.1.1 MY “MATHEMATICAL LIFE”. INFORMAL PRESENTATION IN PUBLIC ..............13
5.1.2 GEOMETRIC SHAPES IN REAL LIFE. FORMAL PRESENTATION IN PUBLIC ........13
5.1.3 TELEPORTATION. DEBATE............................................................................15
5.2 WRITING ................................................................................................................17
5.2.1 MATHS BLOG. WRITING DEFINITIONS...........................................................17
5.2.2 MATHOGRAPHY. INFORMAL WRITING ..........................................................18
5.2.3 DISCOVERING THE PAST. FORMAL WRITING .................................................20
5.3 READING ...............................................................................................................21
5.3.1 MODELLING THE DNA. READING INSTRUCTIONS.........................................21
5.3.2 SEARCHING GRAPHS. READING INFORMATION IN GRAPHS............................21
5.3.3 MOTIVATION SEARCH WORK. READING INFORMATION.................................23
5.4 LISTENING.............................................................................................................23
5.4.1 HOW TO DEFEAT A DRAGON WITH MATH. FILLING THE GAPS........................23
5.4.2 WHAT ARE LOGARITHMS? SUMMARIZING A LISTENING................................25
5.4.3 THE TRAVEL HIVE. LISTENING TO AN ENGLISH GUIDE..................................25
4. TEACHING KNOWLEDGE TEST (TKT).........................................................................26
5. TASK-BASED LEARNING ..............................................................................................27
4.1 WHAT IS MEANT BY TASK?........................................................................................27
4.1 THE PRE-TASK PHASE................................................................................................28
4.2 MANAGING LEARNER TALK.......................................................................................30
4.3 THE TASK CYCLE PHASE............................................................................................31

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Portfolio|RocíoYuste
4.3 THE LANGUAGE FOCUS PHASE...................................................................................33
4.4 FLEXIBILITY WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK.....................................................................33
4.5 KEY CONDITIONS FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING............................................................33
4.6 FROM PPP TO TBL ...................................................................................................33
6. TASK-BASED LEARNING PROJECT ...............................................................................34
6.1 THE EARTH WITHIN THE SOLAR SYSTEM....................................................................34
6.2 REFLECTION ABOUT THE PROJECT.............................................................................34
Annex. THE EARTH WITHIN THE SOLAR SYSTEM

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1. Introduction
The present work is the portfolio related to the subject “Metodología para el desarrollo de las
destrezas lingüísticas en el aula bilingüe” taught in the Master’s degree: “Máster Universitario
en Lengua Inglesa para el Aula Bilingüe de Educación Secundaria por la Universidad de
Oviedo”.
This work is a personal summary of matters which were given by our teacher during the lessons
at University. Matters like how to teach in order to encourage our students and to get an
improvement in pupils’ skills (speaking, writing, reading and listening) as well as in vocabulary
and grammar. What Task-based learning (TBL) is and how to carry through with it. And what
a Teaching Knowledge Test (TKT) is and what is needed to pass it.
This portfolio also contains activities likely to do with our potential students in order to get both
goals, motivation and improvement (three activities for each skill: speaking, writing, reading
and listening). Being conscious that there is a lot of information on Internet, I tried to develop
my own activities, those developed by other educationists are also useful though.
We were also asked to develop a project based in TBL. We had to present it to our teacher and
classmates. This portfolio contains a reflection about this project that we did in groups, in
particular, the tittle of my project was “The earth within the solar system”. This project is
attached at the end of the portfolio.
2. Methodology in language teaching
When we learn a language, there are four skills that we need for complete communication:
speaking, writing, reading and listening.
2.1 Speaking
Speaking is one of the central elements of communication. English as a Foreign Language
(EFL) learners have to learn and to practice speaking like any language skill. Speaking is
especially difficult because effective oral communication requires the ability to use the
language appropriately in social interactions, and it involves verbal communication and other
elements of speech such as pitch, stress and intonation, and other nonlinguistic elements such
as gestures and body language/posture, facial expression and son on.
There are several factors that affect adult EFL learners’ oral communication.
 Age or maturational constraints.
The aging process affects or limits adult learners’ ability to learn a second language and to
pronounce the target language fluently with nativelike pronunciation. The adult learners’
progress seems to level off at a certain stage, a phenomenon which is usually called
“fossilization”, they do not seem to have the same innate language-specific endowment or
propensity as children for acquiring fluency and naturalness in spoken language.

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 Aural Medium.
Listening plays is an extremely important role in the development of speaking abilities. Usually
one person speak and the other responds, but if one cannot understand what is said, one is
certainly unable to respond.
 Sociocultural factors.
Linguistic communication occurs in the context of structured interpersonal exchange. It is
important to avoid misunderstanding and to know how to use the language and the nonverbal
communication system in a social context.
 Affective factors.
The affective side of the learner is probably one of the most important influences on language
learning success or failure. These factors are emotions, self-esteem, empathy, anxiety, attitude
and motivation. The lack of confidence with the age is sometimes an impediment for speaking
because adults are concerned with how they are judged by others.
Language proficiency is not a unidimensional construct but a multifaceted modality, consisting
of various levels of abilities and domains. Communicative competence includes:
 Grammatical competence.
Includes increasing expertise in grammar (morphology, syntax), vocabulary and mechanics.
Students must understand how words are segmented into various sounds, and how sentences
are stressed in particular ways.
 Discourse competence.
The rules of cohesion and coherence aid in communication, both the production and
comprehension of a language require one’s ability to perceive and process stretches of discourse
and to formulate representations of meaning from referents in both previous sentences and
following sentences. Learners have to know structures and discourse markers.
 Sociolinguistic competence.
Learners must acquire the rules and norms governing the appropriate timing and realization of
speech acts. The need to know how to use the second language in different contexts.
 Strategic competence.
This is perhaps the most important communicative competence element. It is the ability to
compensate for imperfect knowledge of linguistic, sociolinguistic and discourse rules.
The functions of spoken language are interactional and transactional. It is important to provide
of relevant topics of using the second language to the students in the classroom. The primary
intention of the teacher is to maintain social relationships, whereas that of the latter is to convey
information and ideas. Therefore, teachers have to teach students how to listen to others, how
to talk with others, and how to negotiate meaning in a shared context.

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 Small talk.
At the beginning, adult EFL learners should develop skills in short and common international
exchanges in order to get along with people in society. As learners get more experience, they
will be able to use some of the simple exchanges and know how to open conversations.
 Interactive activities.
Most EFL learners study the target language in their own culture and practice is only available
in the classroom. Teachers should design effective interactive activities based on authentic or
naturalistic source materials that enable learners to manipulate and practice specific features of
language, allow learners to practice in class communicative skills they need in the real word
and activate psycholinguistic processes of learning.
 Aural: oral activities, as a background or as input for interaction, such as reports on the
radio. Afterwards teachers have to motivate students to speak in different ways, for
example, answering questions about the listening.
 Visual: oral activities, such as films, videotapes and soap operas. Teachers can motivate
students with interesting informative content material, a varied range of authentic
speech, language used in the context of real situations. And, as these materials are visual,
students can notice the nonverbal behavior.
 Material-aided: oral activities. Reading materials, such as storytelling, articles in
newspapers or from textbooks, hotel brochures, menus, and so on, can lead to creative
production in speech.
 Culture awareness: oral activities. There are some situations in which there are cultural
misunderstandings that cause people to become offended, angry and confused. In order
to avoid these kind of situations, teachers should teach the target culture, in addition to
the language.
2.2 Writing
Writing is always something that it is not usually be taught and involves anxiety because many
teachers themselves do not feel entirely comfortable with writing English, even if it is their
native language. There are ten steps that can help teachers in planning writing courses.
 Step 1. Ascertaining goals and institutional constraints.
Institutions, Ministers of education, examining and accreditation agencies, funding sources, and
the like, impose constraints upon teachers such as assigned curricula, approved textbooks, and
designated proficiency examinations. When teachers design a course have asked themselves
what goals they want to reach. If institutions limit these goals teachers can work politically to
change the constraints, can make only a part of the course address the test or the assigned
curriculum or can avoid seeing ends as means finding ways to ensure that they vary their means
of working toward the prescribed ends.
Teachers have to find the balance among the imposed constraints, how their students are and
what they want to teach them.

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 Step 2. Deciding on theoretical principles
All writing is ideological, whether or not teachers are conscious of the political implications of
their instructional choices. So teachers first need to confront their ideological position and
recognize their perceptions of the relationship between the type of writing they teach and the
roles they are preparing students for in academia and the wider world work. It is important to
ask themselves what English and what types of writing they teach, what content students are
exposed to and what students expect to do with what they learn, before designing a writing
course.
There are some useful “why” questions to answer before choosing activities for students to do:
 Why am I doing this activity in my class?
 How does it fit into what I know about language and language learning?
 What will my students learn from it?
 What is worth learning for?
 Step 3. Planning content
Writing is for discovery of learning, not just demonstration of learning. It is important to think
about what we want students to write, and not only, how we want students to write, that is,
which rhetorical model they have to follow.
Students need topics that allow them to generate ideas, find the forms to fit the ideas, and invite
risk taking. In addition, writing provides not only a way to generate ideas, but also to scrutinize
the ideas and language students produce, this revision lets receive feedback from ourselves and
others, and learning as we go, make changes and corrections.
 Step 4. Weighing the elements
Writing consists of many constituent (content, organization, originality, style, fluency,
accuracy, using appropriate rhetorical forms of discourse) and teachers have to form priorities,
according to students’ needs, because it is very difficult to develop all of them.
Assuming that writing has a chaotic and messy nature, it is helpful to do a needs analysis on the
first day and weight the elements so that the chaos of composing is somewhat reduced for the
students since they can focus on one or two things at a time.
 Step 5. Drawing up a Syllabus
After deciding content and weighting it is necessary to organize that content and the learning
experiences in the classroom. There are different kinds of syllabi:
 Structural: in the past they were organized around grammar and sentences patterns, but
nowadays are often organized by patterns of writing forms or genres (paragraphs with
topic sentences, descriptions, analyses, and so on)
 Functional: organized around rhetorical activities (describing, telling a story, an son on)
 Topical: organized around themes (housing, health, and so on)
 Situational: organized around situational transactions (applying for a job, complaining
to a landlord, and so on)

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 Skills and processes: organized around both things (generating ideas, revising, writing
fluently, and so on)
 Tasks: organized around problem-solving activities (producing a class magazine,
comparing the structure of texts, and so on)
The easy way out of syllabus design is to simply choose a book and build day-by-day syllabus
around it, but this is not a good choose.
 Step 6. Selecting materials
Materials have to fit as far as possible with the goals, principles, content, and weighting that
teachers have already decided on. Teachers can use books and articles written for authentic
purposes, or a writing textbook. For the last choice is helpful looking for the following seven
features: topics, types of writing, opportunities for and instruction in methods of generating
ideas, instruction on principles of rhetorical organization, opportunities for collaboration,
opportunities for revision and instruction in editing and proofreading.
 Step 7. Preparing activities and roles
It is important that teachers make sure they do not try to bank too much in their students’ brains
all at once. It helps if they think about what students will be doing and learning in the classroom
rather than the comprehensiveness of the information we will be imparting.
 Step 8. Choosing types and methods of feedback
In this step, teachers have a lot of decision to make. For instance, in the case of large classes,
not every piece of writing has to be corrected or even seen by the teacher. Students have a
variety of physical methods of responding and teachers have to choose a written respond that
students have to understand. Third, teachers have to select the type of response they prefer to
give and finally, teachers and students need to agree on the purpose of the response, what are
the students supposed to do next? and, does the feedback help them do that?
 Step 9. Evaluating the course
There are different ways to assess students, one form that is becoming popular in writing
courses is the use of portfolios, because it is a good way for students to check their evolution.
So the original instructor is coach, not evaluator.
 Step 10. Reflecting the teacher’s experience.
The nine before steps need to have relation with teachers’ experience. Teachers need to have
confidence in what is called “the wisdom of practice”. A key component of any teacher-training
course should be a massive amount of writing such as, reflective teaching logs, reports, essays,
and so on.
2.3 Reading
The findings that are necessary to develop in order to acquire the reading skill in the first
language (L1) it is demonstrated that are successfully put into practice but it doesn’t happen
with the second language (L2), that’s why we have nine dilemmas or problems to solve.

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DILEMMA 1. MANY DIFFERENT CONTEXTS
(Also represents an underlying cause for many other dilemmas):
L2reading instruction has…
 to be relevant to all different L2 reading acquisition contexts (second language students
can be classified into dozens of instructional contexts)
 to adjust in line with the rapidly changing proficiencies of L2 reading students
Research about reading instruction has…
 to be carried out with sufficiently large groups of students over a long enough period of
time that the results instil confidence in terms of reliability and validity.
The fact is that L1 reading research contexts have more results and give more reading
instructions in different areas than L2 research, because L2 contexts include all the contexts for
L1 and the L2 learning dimension, such as, diversity in terms of ethnic and cultural variation.
One resolution to this dilemma would be to ask researchers and relevant journals to promote
replications, near replications (but in distinct contexts), and overlapping research studies.
DILEMMA 2. L2 VS SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION (SLA)
There are two different reading research with two different perspectives that are very difficult
to be reconcilable.
 L2: is founded in a functional linguistics approach and learning theories from cognitive
psychology and educational psychology.
 SLA: second language acquisition, language is acquired rather than learned. Chomsky:
creative algorithmic rule learning is central to second language learning.
DILEMMA 3. FORMAL AND TEXT STRUCTURE VS SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION
THEORY
There are two different points of view about the main aspect of reading comprehension:
 Awareness of text structure is the critical aspect and with this knowledge learners have
better comprehension abilities.
 The coherence of a text resides within the reader, which is somewhat an intuitive and
mystical level of natural language acquisition.
DILEMMA 4. VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT
Vocabulary in L2 can’t compete with L1, in which students learn an average of 40,000 words
by the end of secondary school. It is recognized that the best way to acquire a large vocabulary
is to read extensively but in L2 contexts it is rarely done, neither in class, or at home.
DILEMMA 5. THE SOCIAL CONTEXT
Social class differences have an indirect effect on reading development. When students arrive
at school, they have different levels as some of them have already been reading at home but
others don’t. One response could be to provide an intensive tutoring program such as reading
recovering although the basic one is to encourage students to read extensively.

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DILEMMA 6. LACK OF MOTIVATION
The best way to learn to read is by extensive reading, but there is not enough emphasis in
reading much. School administrators, teachers and students are not motivated to spend time in
reading. One solution could be to educate administrators and teachers about the importance of
extensive reading. Additionally, time must be spent to develop student’s motivation.
DILEMMA 7. STRATEGIC READERS
A large recognition vocabulary and engage in extensive reading are not sufficient for reading
comprehension, it is also necessary the ability to use appropriate reading strategies and to know
when to use them and in what combinations.
It is more important to make students into strategic readers rather than teach them reading
strategies, how you can activate the previous knowledge before reading. In order to get this
goal, teachers have to raise student awareness of strategies at the same time they teach the
subject. Some training strategic teachers programs have been development for L1 teachers
which should have influence on L2 teacher training and reading instruction as well.
DILEMMA 8. THE SCHEMA THEORY
According to the schema theory, reading comprehension is an interactive process between the
text and the reader’s prior background knowledge. But this is hardly a theory with a very little
research about it.
There are several problems with this theory. If the teacher talk with the students about a reading
before reading it, students would be likely to activate the wrong or only partial information.
Teachers consider this theory only a theory, so teachers are don’t believe too much in it and, in
addition, there are viable alternative interpretations of the theory.
But, the positive point of view of this theory is that maybe the discussion about it will contribute
to a more flexible understanding of the role of the background knowledge for a second language
reading.
DILEMMA 9. THE TRANSITION FROM LEARNING TO READ TO READING TO
LEARN
There are many differences between reading instruction and Content-Based Instruction (CBI).
CBI use a subject matter as a vehicle for second or foreign language teaching/learning. CBI
motivates students, develops strategic readers, provides contexts for reading extensively and
promote larger and more useful vocabularies. CBI demonstrates how languages serves useful
functions for communicating and achieving goals.
But this approach is not the main discussion in reading instruction, it is hoped that a future line
of research about it would be develop.

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2.4 Listening
For most people, being able to claim knowledge of a second language means being able to
speak and write in that language, listening and reading are secondary skills. In addition, it was
considered that it is not necessary to teach how to listen and speak because these skills were
automatically acquired as native speakers, but that is not the case.
Listening is growing in popularity because is fundamental to speaking. There are two
interpretation about learning processes of listening. One is the bottom-up processing model that
consider listening as a process of decoding the sounds from the meaningful units (phonemes)
to complete texts. On the other hand, the top-down interpretation suggest that the listener uses
prior knowledge of the context and situation within which the listening takes place to make
sense of what her or she hears. These days, both strategies are considered important to develop
the listening skill.
There are also different types of listening according to a different variables such as listening
purpose, the role of the listener, that is if the listener is required to take part in the interaction
or not, and the type of text being listened to. These variables are mixed in many different
configurations, each of which require a particular strategy on the part of the listener.
The teacher has the challenge of giving learners some degree of control over the content of the
lesson, there are numerous ways in which listening can be personalized. Tasks can be devised
in which the classroom action is centered on the learner and not on the teacher, and teaching
materials can be given a learner-centred dimension by getting learners involved in the processes
underlying their learning and in making active contributions to the learning.
Students should know what are they listening for and why. For instance, students can listen to
one side of a conversation and react with written responses, in order to stimulate the interactive
nature of listening.
Listening was the Cinderella skill in second language learning, but know this is changing with
time.
2.5 Grammar
Students usually study a lot of grammar, because teachers teach grammar. After the learning
process, students know many rules and have the illusion that they know the language, but when
they try to practice the language, they discover that they lack vital elements, typically
vocabulary and fluency.
Then, why do teachers use to teach so much grammar?
1. Because it’s there. Teachers use to teach grammar that they find in books, but sometimes
these books have been written by a grammar fanatic. It is very important to choose
grammar points relevant to students’ needs.
2. It’s tidy. Teachers use to teach grammar because can be presented as a limited series of
tidy things which students can learn, apply in exercises, and tick off one by one.
Learning grammar is a lot simpler than learning a language, that is, learning vocabulary
and pronunciation.

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3. It’s testable. Teachers use to teach grammar because grammar tests are relatively simple
and they can tell them how students are doing and if they are teaching properly. But it
is easily end up just teaching what can be tested, and testing what we have taught,
instead of measure overall progress and attainment in a foreign language.
4. Grammar is a security blanket. Teachers use to teach grammar because grammar rules
give students the feeling that they can understand and control what is going on, although
this feeling is partly illusory.
5. It made me who I am. Teachers use to teach grammar because they spent good deal of
time when younger learning about this matter, and they naturally feel that these things
must be incorporated in their own teaching.
6. You have to teach the whole system. Teachers use to teach grammar because they think
that if students do not learn the whole system they are not going to be able to learn the
language. But, grammar is not a single interconnected system.
7. Power. Teachers use to teach grammar, fortunately a minority, because they like to be
right always and to show that they know more than students. Grammar is the area where
this mechanism operates most successfully.
Those seven reasons are bad reasons for teaching grammar, but doing little grammar is of course
as damaging as doing too much. There are two good reasons for teaching carefully selected
points of grammar.
1. Comprehensibility. It is necessary to know how to build and use certain structures to
make comprehensible sentences, such as basic verbs forms, interrogative and negative
structures, the use of the main tenses, and modal auxiliaries.
2. Acceptability. Students may want or need higher level of grammatical correctness than
is required for mere comprehensibility in order to be taken seriously, or not to be
considered uneducated or stupid.
It is important to choose properly the points of grammar to teach depending on the
circumstances and the learners’ aims.
2.6 Vocabulary
There is a framework for vocabulary development that combines three approaches: incidental
learning, explicit instruction and independent strategy development, which requires teachers to
plan a wide variety of activities and exercises.
Before explaining each of them is necessary to clarify that a word is defined as including the
base form and its inflections and derivatives, and vocabulary learning is more than study
individual words because a significant amount of the English language is made up of lexical
phrases.
 Incidental Learning
PRINCIPLE 1. Provide opportunities for the incidental learning of vocabulary, through
extensive reading and listening. Learning vocabulary from context is a gradual process, it is not
enough a single exposure to an unfamiliar word, learners require many exposures to a word
context before understanding its meaning.

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 Explicit Instruction
PRINCIPLE 2. Diagnose which of the 3.000 most common words learners need to study,
because this amount covers a high percentage of the words on an average page.
PRINCIPLE 3. Provide opportunities for the intentional learning vocabulary, through
instruction in order to contribute to vocabulary development. Explicit instruction is essential
for beginning students and, as the lack of vocabulary limits their reading ability it is necessary
translations but with other exercises and learning strategies up to know the 3.000 most common
words.
It is necessary to take into account that learners need to hear the pronunciation and practice
saying the word, not only just to see the form. It is also a bit confusing to start by teaching
semantically related words. It is more effective to study words regularly over several short
sessions than to study them for one or two longer sessions and to study five to seven words at
a time, dividing larger number of words into smaller groups. Associating a visual image with a
word helps learners remember the word, sentence examples, parts of speech, definitions and
keyword images can also be added to the cards for further elaboration.
PRINCIPLE 4. Provide opportunities for elaborating word knowledge, because knowing a word
means knowing more than just its translated meaning. Receptive knowledge means being able
to recognize one of the aspects of knowledge through reading and listening, and productive
knowledge means being able to use it in speaking and writing.
PRINCIPLE 5. Provide opportunities for developing fluency with known vocabulary, to recycle
already known words in familiar grammatical and organizational patterns so that students can
focus on recognizing or using words without hesitation.
 Independent Strategy Development
PRINCIPLE 6. Experiment with guessing from context, which is a difficult strategy to carry
out successfully because learners need to know about 95% words of a text, which requires to
know the 3.000 most common words, but guessing from context may still contribute to
vocabulary learning. Finally, a dictionary may be consulted to confirm the guess.
PRINCIPLE 7. Examine different types of dictionaries and teach students how to use them,
repeated exposure to words combined with dictionary use leads to increase learning for
advanced learners and help lower-proficiency learners in reading comprehension because their
lack of vocabulary can be a significant factor in their inability to read. Bilingualized dictionaries
have advantages over traditional bilingual or monolingual dictionary, but nowadays, electronic
dictionaries with multimedia annotations offer further option for teachers and learners, taking
into account that training in the use of dictionaries is essential.

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3. Skills activities
5.1 SPEAKING
5.1.1 My “mathematical life”. Informal presentation in public
Students have to use their imagination in order to tell a short story about a mathematician,
instrument, operation, process, and so on, in relation to Mathematics. This story have to be
about a day that the character, they had chosen, could expend in this time. They have to tell
those stories to their classmates and classmates have to guess who or what they are.
In this activity students are going to train how to speak in public with an informal discourse and
without too much time to prepare it beforehand.
 Subject: Mathematics
 Skill: Speaking
 Kind of work: Individual work – The whole class
Instructions:
 Firstly, individually, students have to think about what or who are they going to talk
about.
 Secondly, each student has to tell their stories to their classmates.
 Thirdly, classmates have to guess who or what they are. They can make questions to
find the lead of the story.
Assessment:
 Student speaks fluently and the story can be followed and makes sense.
 Classmates are also assessed with their participation, asking questions or trying to guess
the lead of each story.
For example, one student could tell the following story about a calculator:
I am a sort of machine. My owner is a very lazy little girl. This morning I had to wake her up
because I am also an alarm. I have been figuring out a lot of things for her all the day. At
breakfast time, for instance, she asked me how many biscuits were two plus twelve, because
there were two kinds of biscuits and she wanted to know the amount she had eaten.
At school she was using me in all the lessons and as it is forbidden, I ended up being locked in
the Director’s desk.
5.1.2 Geometric shapes in real life. Formal presentation in public
After studying geometric shapes in Mathematics, students are going to discover this figures in
real life. In this activity, they are asked to take photographs about geometric figures that they
can find in the nature, in their school, in their houses, in their city, and so on. They are going to

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work in groups and they will have to show and explain the shapes, which they had founded, to
their classmates.
 Skill: Speaking
 Kind of work: Group work
Instructions:
 Firstly, students have to form groups of three or four members.
 Secondly, students have to take photos, at least two photos each member of the group,
of geometrical shapes that were explained in class. It is important that pictures have to
be taken by them, it is not allowed to present pictures searched on the Internet. All
photos should have clear examples of a shape or shapes (circle, ellipse, pentagon, etc.)
 Thirdly, students have to do a presentation (with power point, for instance) to show their
pictures to their classmates and explain the shapes, that they have found, talking about
the following matters:
1. Where and when did they take the picture?
2. What is the picture about?
3. Which is the geometrical shape that appears in the picture?
4. Which are the characteristics of the geometrical shape?
5. Why do you think this thing, animal, person, and so on, has this shape?
Assessment:
 Students speak fluently and use vocabulary in reference to the geometrical shape that
are explaining.
 Students understand why geometrical shapes are chosen by animals in the nature, by
humans in their designs, and so on.
For example, one of the shapes that students could found in the nature is the hexagon in
beehives:
1. Sunday 1st
December 2013. Botánico Atlántico (Gijón)
2. The picture shows a beehive.
3. The geometrical shape that appears in the picture is the
hexagon.
4. The hexagon is a six-sided polygon (a flat shape with
straight sides). The shape must also be closed (all the
lines connect up). If all angles are equal and all sides
are equal, then it is regular, otherwise is irregular. A
regular hexagon has interior angles of 120º.
5. Bees choose the hexagon to make their hives because
the hexagon makes the most of surfaces. The hexagon
occupies the space that, for instance, circles can’t
occupy.
Picture 1. Detail of a beehive

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5.1.3 Teleportation. Debate
In this activity students listen to a conversation between Sheldom and Leonard, characters of
the television series The Big Bang Theory. Sheldom explains Teleportation to Leonard.
Teleportation is the theoretical transfer of matter from one point to another without traversing
the physical space between them (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleportation)
Picture 2. Big Bang Theory
Students are going to debate about Teleportation and discover how it works. After that, they
have to solve a problem searching some information on the Internet. By means of this activity,
students are going to figure out the great and quickly evolution of portable hard drives, and
have to demonstrate their ability searching on Internet and working in groups to find a solution.
 Subject: Information Technology
 Skill: Speaking
 Other skills: Listening – Reading - Writing
 Kind of work: Individual – The whole class - In pairs or groups up to three students
 Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frLk4Z5oGcs
Instructions:
 Firstly, individually, students have to listen carefully to the scene.
 Secondly, teacher guides a debate in which the whole class talk about:
1. What is teleportation?
2. Do you think it will be able in the future?
3. Would you like to be teleportation?
 Thirdly, students work in pairs, or in groups up to three, to search information to solve
the problem asked.
Answer the following questions about Teleportation and Portable Hard Disc Drives:
1. How many Portable Hard Drives would be necessary to teleportation a person?
2. What was the beginning capacity of a Hard Disc Drive, and what is the one nowadays?
Clue: Search on internet “Constituents of the human body”. Use the following equivalences:

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1u = 1.660538921(73)×10−27
kg
1 atom ≈ 1 kilobyte
Where u is the unified atomic mass unit (symbol: u) or dalton (symbol: Da) which is the
standard unit that is used for indicating mass on an atomic or molecular scale (atomic mass)
(source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_mass_unit)
Assessment:
 Students are polite and use a right vocabulary to express their opinions and to say if they
agree or disagree.
 Students speak fluently and take part on the debate.
 Students hand in a report to the teacher to be assessed.
Students can find on Internet the constituents of the human body (source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_body ) and fill in the following chart:
Constituents of the human body (in a normal man weighing 60 kg)
Constituent Percent of atoms Weight u Number of atoms
Hydrogen
(1,00795 u)
63,0 % 6,0 kg 3,6134×1027
3,5848×1027
Oxygen
(15,9994 u)
25,5 % 38,8 kg 10,7382×1027
0,6712×1027
Carbon
(12,0108 u)
9,5 % 10,9 kg 1,0151×1027
0,0845×1027
Nitrogen
(14,0067 u)
1,4 % 1,9 kg 1,8718×1027
0,1334×1027
Calcium
(40,0784 u)
2,0 % 1,2 kg 0,6412×1027
0,0159×1027
Phosphorous
(30,9738 u)
0,2 % 0,6 kg 0,9359×1027
0,0302×1027
Potassium
(39,0983 u)
0,07 % 0,2 kg 0,2137×1027
0,0055×1027
(source: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elemento_qu%C3%ADmico)

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The human body has about 4,5258×1027
atoms. Taking into account that one atom has about
one kilobyte of information, and using a portable hard disk with the capacity of 2 TB (2×109
KB), we would need 2,25×1018
portable hard discs of 2TB.
2,25 trillion (quintillion in USA) of 2TB portable hard drive discs
HDDs were introduced in 1956 as data storage for an IBM real-time transaction processing
computer and were developed for use with general purpose mainframe and minicomputers. The
first IBM drive, the 350 RAMAC, was approximately the size of two refrigerators and stored 5
million 6-bit characters (the equivalent of 3.75 million 8-bit bytes or 3.75 MB or megabytes)
on a stack of 50 disks (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive#History)
Nowadays, a 2TB portable hard disc contain the information of, about, half a million of the
first HDD from 1956, and it size is: Width: 82.4 mm - Length: 111 mm - Height: 21 mm -
Weight: 234 g
(source:
https://www.google.es/shopping/product/17613642559280710110/specs?client=firefox-
a&q=portable+hard+disk&sa=X&ei=W4SUUofANe6X0AWK8oHYCA&ved=0CC8Q6iQ)
5.2 WRITING
5.2.1 Maths blog. Writing definitions
The whole year, students are going to write definitions of different mathematical matters.
Thanks to this activity, they are going to develop their writing skill, and they are going to have
a tool where to look up English vocabulary in relation to Mathematics.
 Skill: Writing
 Kind of work: Individual – The whole class
Instructions:
 At the beginning of the year, the teacher begins a Mathematical blog with a glossary.
 Each lesson, the teacher can realise that students find English words difficult to
understand. Other times, some specific new Mathematical concepts appear during the
explanation and books don’t explain the idea clarity. The teacher decides which words
can be uploaded to the blog and Students can also suggest words to be uploaded.
 Following the register, students write the definitions and upload them to the blog. It is
very important that definitions must be easy to understand. Students can also upload
pictures, if they help to the explication.
 Finally, the teacher always revises the blog and gives instructions to the authors if they
have to change or improve the definitions.
Assessment:
 The teacher assesses each definition after being uploaded to the blog. At the end of the
year, each student will get an extra grade in relation to their contribution to the blog.

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For example, one of the definition uploaded to the blog by a
student could be:
Square centimeter
The area equal to a square that is 1 centimeter on each side.
Used for measuring small areas such as on drawings.
The symbol is cm2
5.2.2 Mathography. Informal writing
Students have to write a paragraph or so in which they describe their feelings about and
experiences in Mathematics, both in and out of school.
This is a good tool to get to know students early in the year, and to make comparisons later
when looking for signs of progress.
 Skill: Writing
 Kind of work: Individual
Instructions:
 At the beginning of the year the teacher asked to the students to write their own
Mathography, a sort of autobiography of their history with Mathematics.
 Some ideas for prompts to get students to write a Mathography are (source:
http://www2.ups.edu/community/tofu/lev2/journaling/writemath.htm):
1. Write down some of the early math accomplishments that you remember from
when you were little. For instance, when and how did you learn to count? How
old were you when you could first count to one hundred? Who taught you? How
did they teach you? Did you "show off" this new talent to others?
2. When you were in first, second, or third grade what did you like about math?
What didn't you like about math at that time?
3. What do you remember about learning to add and to subtract? Which did you
think was more fun? Why did you like that one better?
4. What was your teacher's name in first, second, or third grade? What kind of
teacher was he or she in regard to teaching mathematics?
5. Did you have any "tricks" you used to remember adding or subtracting?
6. In what ways is adding and subtracting important?
7. Was math ever your favorite subject? If so, when was it? What about math made
it your favorite? If math has never been your favorite subject, what about it do
you not like?
8. From your experience, do you think boys or girls tend to like math better? What
makes you think this?
Picture 3. Square centimeter

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9. Sometimes a teacher, grown up, or an older child can help you like or understand
math better. Did that ever happen to you? If so, tell about it. If not, tell about
how that would have made a difference for you.
10. Sometimes people can recognize a time when their opinion of math dramatically
changed either for the better or the worse. If such a time happened for you or for
a friend of yours, tell about it. If you did not experience such a thing, tell about
your steady feelings about mathematics.
11. Lots of times students think what they learn in math is only for the classroom
and is really not of much use outside math class. Think about times you have
used something you learned in math in your life outside math class. List some of
those times when you used math outside of school.
12. What year in school was math the best for you? What made it a good year in
terms of math?
13. What year in school was math one of the worst for you? What made it a bad year
in terms of math?
14. If you were in a lengthy conversation about math or math class with friends of
yours, what would be some of the things you would say? What would be some
of the things they would say?
15. Draw a picture of you and the idea of mathematics.
16. Draw a picture of all you know about mathematics.
Assessment:
 The teacher assesses each Mathography. The vocabulary that each student use, and the
grammar.
 Thanks to this activity, the teacher can realise if students are going to be receptive, of if
the teacher will have to do a big effort to encourage students to study and enjoy
Mathematics.
For instance, one Mathography could be (source:
http://slgm08.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/my-mathography/):
Math has always been my favorite subject in school. I think because it always came easy to me
and I did well in class. I’ve always been a visual learner. When teachers did examples on the
board I could see exactly what was going on. It makes it simple and straightforward for me.
Even from the young age I was encouraged to play with numbers, exploring how they work in
a variety of situations, and developing fluency and flexibility in their use. I used to love when
my teacher would hand out the worksheet that allowed us to color in rectangles when learning
fractions. I learned that math can be fun and can be really easy to learn. I can only remember
one time where I struggled with Math and didn’t enjoy it. In the 2nd
grade, I had a lot of
difficulty learning to count money. I expected that larger coins will have greater value and had
a difficult time understanding why two or more coins of a lesser value can be exchanged for

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only one coin of an equivalent value to the other coins. I don’t really remember why I couldn’t
understand this concept, but I just remember how frustrating it was and how upset it made me.
One of my first memories of math in the classroom is in kindergarten. My favorite time was
when we all joined in the back of the room for calendar. Many teachers use the calendar as a
source of mathematics activities. I learned how to work with counting, patterns, number
sequence, odd and even numbers, and multiples of a number. A hundreds chart helped me count
the number of days in school, and the current day’s number can be the “number of the day.” I
was given the opportunity to suggest various ways to make or describe that number. For
example, on the 37th day of school, I might describe that number as 30 plus 7, 40 minus 3, an
odd number, 15 plus 15 plus 7, my mother’s age, or 1 more than 3 dozen.
My favorite Math teacher was my Algebra teacher in high school. He was a great teacher and
I did learn a lot from his class; however, that’s not what made him stand out from my previous
Math teachers. I loved his class because he was genuinely a nice person and respected all the
students in the class. He was always kind, thoughtful, and generous. His confidence and
enthusiasm in doing what he loved made the material easy to understand and learn. I hope that
I can pass the same qualities on to my students when teaching. I think he just wanted to make
us happy to be in his class. Happier students learn more than unhappy students, don’t you
think?
5.2.3 Discovering the past. Formal writing
Students are going to visit the Railway Museum, and an English guide is going to explain them
different matters about the railway and the machines that the Museum owns. Thanks to this
activity, students are going to discover the past, the present and the future of the railway. And
how, by means of this means of transport, we can study our history.
 Subject: Technology
 Goal skill: Writing
 Other skills: Listening - Reading
 Kind of work: The whole class - In groups up to three students
 Source:
http://cultura.gijon.es/multimedia_objects/download?object_id=102390&object_type=
document
Instructions:
 Firstly, students listen carefully to the guide of the Railway Museum.
 Secondly, students work in group up to three members and write a report about the visit
and the following three themes:
Railway as a means of transport
The railway in Asturias
The railway system
Assessment:
 The teacher assesses the behavior of each student during the visit
 Students hand in a report to the teacher to be assessed.

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5.3 READING
5.3.1 Modelling the DNA. Reading instructions
This Project to construct a 3D model of a DNA molecule, using everyday materials, stimulated
the students’ interest, encouraged teamwork, dexterity and the investigation of the properties of
materials, and allowed the students to express their own opinions and solve problems. More
specifically, students learned the basic structural elements of DNA and their 3D molecular
organization.
 Subject: Science (alternatively, the model could be made in a design-technology class
and then used in biology lessons)
 Goal skill: Reading
 Other skills: Speaking
 Kind of work: Group work
 Source: http://www.scienceinschool.org/repository/docs/issue2_dna.pdf
Instructions:
 Firstly, the teacher has to give the instructions to the
students and divide them into groups up to ten
students (if there are thirty students, three models)
 Secondly, students have to read carefully the
instructions, organize the group and divide
responsibilities.
 Thirdly, each group has to build a 3D model of a
DNA molecule, following the instructions.
 Finally, models will be shown in the school.
Assessment:
 Students have to present a 3D model of a DNA
molecule made as it is read in the instructions.
 The teacher assesses the behavior of each student
working in their teamwork.
 The teacher assesses the 3D model of a DNA
molecule made from each group.
5.3.2 Searching graphs. Reading information in graphs
By means of this activity, students are going to confirm that the language taught in class,
regarding graphs, charts and statistics, is usually use in real information searching on the
Internet.
 Subject: Mathematics (Statistics)
Picture 4. Students modelling the
DNA

22
Instructions:
 Students have to search on Internet information given by means of a graph, chart or
statistics. BBC News and National Geographic have many sources of this kind
information.
 Students have to underline the specific vocabulary used talking about this kind of
information and that was learned at the school or even though, new vocabulary used to
describe the piece of information that they had chosen.
Assessment:
 Students have to hand in the piece of information to the teacher, with the vocabulary
underlined to be assessed.
For instance, one information found in Internet could be (source:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10604117)
Latest news:
The number of people out of work fell
by 48,000 to 2.47 million in the three
months to September, according to the
Office for National Statistics.
The unemployment rate of the
economically active population fell to
7.6%, its lowest rate in more than three
years.
The number of people in work is 29.95
million.
The claimant count - the number of
people claiming Jobseeker's Allowance
- fell by 41,700 to 1.31 million in
October.
Picture 5. BBC News

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5.3.3 Motivation search work. Reading information
On the one hand, students are going to discover that Mathematics is one of the most useful
science and it is studied in many careers. On the other hand, the teacher can encourage their
students to study Mathematics by means of this activity, because is a good way to show their
students that they are studying Mathematics for a very good purpose and not only because is
compulsory.
 Subject: Mathematics (Statistics)
 Other skill: Formal writing (Report)
 Kind of work: Group work (up to four students each group)
Instructions:
 Students have to be divided in groups up to four students.
 Students have to research one career and write a report that they will present to class.
Students have to include specific examples of mathematics used in the career they
research. Possible careers include: architect, chemist, physicist, engineer, statistician,
chef, engineer, landscape designer, fashion designer, graphic designer, and football
coach. Students can read, for instance, magazines, newspaper articles and traditional
reference books on each career.
Assessment:
 Students have to hand in the report to the teacher to be assessed.
 The presentation to class is also assessed by the teacher.
5.4 LISTENING
5.4.1 How to defeat a dragon with math. Filling the gaps.
This activity is about the order of operations. By means of a tale, this listening give to the
students a mnemonic to help them to remind easily which is the right order to operate: the
PEMDAS order.
 Goal skill: Listening
 Other skills: Reading – Writing – Speaking
 Kind of work: Individual – In pairs – The whole class
 Source: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-to-defeat-a-dragon-with-math-garth-sundem
Instructions:
 Firstly, individually, students have to listen carefully to the tale.
 Secondly, teacher gives to students the tale written with some gaps. Students,
individually, have to fill in while they listen to the tale again.
 Thirdly, students work in pairs and check if they have same answers.
 Finally, the whole class, guided by the teacher, shares answers and complete the tale.
 Assessment: participation during the activity.

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Picture 6. How to defeat a gragon with math
Once upon a time, in the magical and very round Land of Pi, there lived six swashbuckling
musketeers.
Their names were Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition and Subtraction.
But each was known best by his or her mark: the two hands ready to catch a fly of Parentheses,
the small and raised digits of Exponents, the mighty X of Multiplication, slash of Division, plus
of Addition, and, well, you can guess the symbol by which little Subtraction was best known.
The Land of Pi was not necessarily the most peaceful place, and that`s why the numbers of the
kingdom needed the musketeers. The Land of Pi had been ruled by the numbers as anarcho-
syndicalist commune, each number with a vote, but, one powerful number from what we’ll call
the Imperial Senate engineered a war between some robot things and the knights of the
kingdom, and then installed himself as Supreme Emperor, and them Puff the Magic Digit
Dragon ate him, and a princess or two, and, well, all the other numbers in the Land of Pi
actually. It was kind of a big day.
Anyway, the musketeers were called to action to save the Land of Pi from the voracious dragon.
They road towards him on their valiant steeds and attacked. First Multiplication, then
Parentheses, but that didn’t work. The dragon continued eating people. So Addition tried, but
was throw aside. Exponents leaped at the beast and was quickly squashed. Nothing was
working.
The musketeers huddled and formulated a plan. They would attack in sequence, but who should
go first? They bickered for a while, the dragon ate a few more princesses, and then they finally
agreed.
They jump into the first, smallest Parentheses inside the great Puff the Digit Dragon.
Parentheses pointed out where to work first and protected Exponents, Multiplication, Division,
Addition and Subtraction while they diced and sliced. First here, then, move over there, then
there. Look out! There’s another set! Parentheses pointed and Exponents took the lead. Then,
it was Multiplication, Division, Addition, and Subtraction, each in turn, always the same order.
P-E-M-D-A-S. When they finished that set, they went to another, and another, always working
inside the Parentheses in PEMDAS order. Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! PEMDAS, there is

25
another spot! Don’t forget, there can be Parentheses inside Parentheses. There’s one! And that
tricky exponent. There we go!
Finally, the PEMDAS Musketeers had whittled Puff down to his last fearsome roar. But, having
vanquished Puff the Magic Digit Dragon, all the empire’s numbers sprang again from this tiny
little number one, and they all lived happily ever after.
Except for the Emperor Number, which they threw into the mouth of an ancient nesting creature
in the desert. The End.
5.4.2 What are logarithms? Summarizing a listening
Students have to understand a listening about Logarithms, what they are and why they are so
useful. The speaker explain logarithms speaking very quickly but, at the same time, the content
is presented very clearly and in a fun way.
 Other skill: Writing
 Source: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/steve-kelly-logarithms-explained
Instructions:
 Teacher introduce the concept and show the listening to the students twice at least.
 Students have to write, with their own words, a summary of the listening. They have to
show that they have understood the concept.
Assessment:
 Students have to hand in the summary to the teacher.
 The teacher assesses more the understanding of the concept than the accuracy in the use
of English.
5.4.3 The travel hive. Listening to an English guide
Thanks to this activity, students are going to figure out the daily life of bees by means of a visit
to the Botanic Park, in Gijón.
There is an activity in this park, which is called “The travel hive” that can be guided in English.
The importance of the process called Pollination and the causes that are disturbing this process
are explained during the visit.
 Subject: Science
 Other skills: Speaking – Reading - Writing
 Kind of work: The whole class - In groups up to four students
 Source: http://botanico.gijon.es/page/11399-la-colmena-viajera
Instructions:
 Firstly, students listen carefully to the guide of the Botanic Park.

26
 Secondly, students work in groups (up to four students) and make a poster about one of
these three themes:
Sexual reproduction of plants
Pollination and biodiversity
Endangered pollinators?
 Assessment: behavior during the visit and poster that has to be handed in to the teacher
to be assessed, and the three better posters will be showed hanging them on the walls of
the High School.
Picture 7. Botanic Park, Gijón
4.Teaching Knowledge Test (TKT)
Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) describes and evolving approach to teaching
and learning where subjects are taught and studied through the medium of a non-native
language. It develops confident learners and enhances academic cognitive processes and
communication skills. CLIL encourages intercultural understanding and community values, and
learners reach proficiency levels in all four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing.
Teaching Knowledge Test (TKT) CLIL is designed and produced by University of Cambridge
ESOL Examinations (Cambridge ESOL), a department of the University of Cambridge and part
of the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate. It consists in 80 questions
divided in two parts. First part knowledge of CLIL and Principles of CLIL, and the second part,
lesson preparation, lesson delivery and assessment.
TKT tests knowledge and concepts related to CLIL approach; knowledge about subject teaching
in a target language and the learning, thinking and language skills which are developed across
different curriculum subjects; knowledge of how to plan lessons as well as knowledge of
activities and resources used to support a CLIL approach; and it also tests knowledge of
teaching strategies and how assessment is carried out in CLIL contexts.

27
The aims of TKT are to test candidates’ knowledge of concepts related to a CLIL approach; to
provide an easily accessible test about CLIL to speakers of other language; and to encourage
teachers in their professional development.
TKT is suitable for subject teachers who need to teach in English; English language teachers
who teach in a second, third or fourth language; classroom assistants working in CLIL contexts;
classroom teachers who teach curriculum subjects; and English teachers who work with non-
native speakers learners in mainstream classes.
Teachers need at least an intermediate level of English to access TKT and it would be useful
for candidates to exploit their teaching situation for opportunities to prepare for the test. They
could use every opportunity to become aware of issues arising from the planning, delivery and
assessment of their subjects in English.
5. Task-based learning
Task-based learning (TBL) focuses on the use of authentic language and on asking students to
do meaningful tasks using the target language. Assessment is primarily based on task outcome
(in other words the appropriate completion of real world tasks) rather than on accuracy of
prescribed language forms. This makes TBL especially popular for developing target language
fluency and student confidence. It is not just to do task one after another.
The framework of the TBL has three components: pre-task, task cycle and language focus. This
kind of framework allows students to get a sense of security by giving them a great variety of
activities to carry out. These components provide a naturally flowing sequence, each one
preparing the ground for the next, and they are adapted to suit student’s needs.
The students get the lead role in this kind of learning, most of the emphasis is on learners doing
things, individual, in pairs or groups. Teachers fulfill a “facilitator” role, they guide the students
but, they also have overall control and the power to stop everything if necessary. Teachers
explain to students the objectives of the course and how the tasks help to achieve them. After o
during the lesson, teachers summarizes the targets students have got, motivating the learners.
No new teaching techniques are needed for a TBL approach, although it does demand a different
weighting and sequencing.
4.1 What is meant by task?
It is considered a task as a goal-oriented activity in which learners use language to achieve a
real outcome. Students use whatever target language resources they have in order to solve a
problem, do a puzzle, play a game, or share and compare experiences. One topic can give rise
to a number of different task; and these might be linked in order to provide a thematic unit of
study. It is important that in all these activities there is an identifiable outcome.
While students are doing the tasks, they are meaning what they say, and focusing on meaning.
They are free to use whatever language forms they want.

28
Tasks do not include activities which involve language used for practice or display, where there
is not outcome or purpose other than practice of pre-specified language. Neither would most
roleplay activities count as a tasks, however, certain types of roleplays with outcomes to be
achieved which become games or problem, would count as a task, such as business simulations
and so on.
Thank to tasks, teachers provide students opportunities for interaction, because it is believed
that learners learn better through taking part in meaning-oriented interactions.
4.1 The pre-task phase
This phase introduces the topic and the task to the students, activating words and phrases in
relation to the topic. It is usually the shortest one, depending on the students’ degree of
knowledge about the topic and the type of the task. In this phase there are several important
aspects to consider.
Advance preparation
As a teacher, there are two possibilities when you face the planning of a task. You can use a
task from a book or you can decide to design your own task.
In the first case, you don’t have to do too much work if topic and instructions are clearly
explained in the book. Students have only to read and to follow what is written in the book.
In the second case, it is necessary to do an extra work beforehand, for instance, finding pictures,
working out vocabulary-building ideas, recording some fluent speakers, and so on. It can be a
lot of work, but it can be used again with different classes.
In both cases, during the task cycle the students will do most of the work without much teacher
intervention. And, when the lesson is over, teachers have not too much work to do in assessing
the students, since they were helping them during all the task work and their written report.
Introducing the topic
Topic has to be understood by all the students. Some topics are easily to understand and it is
not necessary to spend too much time explaining them. But others, can be unknown or
ambiguous and it is necessary to spend time discussing with the class the concept and, in some
cases, to change the task focus before continuing.
Identifying topic language
It is often difficult to know, in advance, how much language in relation to the topic individual
learners will know, and for sure, they will not have the same level. This is time to help students
recall and activate words and phrases that will be useful during the task and outside the
classroom. It is also time to introduce vital new words or phrases about the topic that students
are unlikely to know.
Pre-task language activities
It is possible that some of the students know the vocabulary of the topic, and for others, it can
be the first time they face to those new words. This is the reason because it is necessary to make

29
a selection of pre-task activities which rehearse topic language in a stimulating way. Therefore,
the first group of students will not be bored, and the second will learn the new vocabulary.
Some examples of these kind of activities are:
 Classifying words and phrases
 Odd one out
 Matching phrases to pictures
 Memory challenge
 Brainstorming and mind-maps
 Thinking of questions to ask
 Teacher recounting a similar experience
It is usually enough to do one or two pre-task activities but it is important that students know
why they are doing them and how they will help them with the main task.
After these pre-task activities, it is useful to write up other words and phrases the students have
produced.
Giving task instructions
Instruction-giving is a truly communicative use of the target language. Teachers have to be sure
that all students understand what the task involves, what its goals are and what outcome is
required. The students will want to know how they should begin, exactly what each person
should do, how much time they have and what will happen once they have finished.
If the teacher use a task from a book, instructions are usually written clearly on the book, but if
the teacher decide to design the task, instructions have to be write down before the lesson, trying
to make the goal as specific as possible.
There are different alternatives ways to ensure that students know how to do the task, and these
provide different kinds of learning opportunities. For instance:
 Students read the instructions by themselves
 Teacher demonstrate the task with a good student
 Teacher plays audio or video recording of fluent speakers doing the task
 Teacher shows the class what previous students have achieved.
Allowing preparation time
On the one hand, if the teacher wants to give the students the opportunity to practice
spontaneous speaking, as they can have in many real-life situations, it is not necessary a
preparation time.
On the other hand, if the teacher wants to get more complexity and variety of syntax, breadth
vocabulary, and in fluency and naturalness, it is necessary to give a few minutes to the students
to prepare themselves individually for the task. Two minutes can be enough if the task is short
and the topic is familiar. For more complex tax on less familiar topic, students might need up
to ten minutes.

30
4.2 Managing learner talk
It is important to take into account some aspect of learner talk and problems that may face
teachers managing group and pair work.
a) Regarding patterns of interaction and turn-taking, there are different ways of setting a
task up. Teachers need to decide which way they prefer in the pre-task phase and it
influences the amount and quality of talk generate. There are some typical interaction
patterns, each way will give rise to different patterns of turn-taking:
 Individual students carrying out a task on their own.
 Individual students circulating, talking to different students.
 Students doing a task singly, then exchanging ideas in pairs.
 Students in pairs (as equals, or with one student leading)
 Students in groups (with or without a chairperson)
 Teacher working with groups or pairs in turn
 Teacher working with the whole class.
b) Regarding mixed level classes, it is a good idea that teachers change groups depending
on the age, status, needs and feelings of the students themselves. In a mixed level class
weaker students can benefit by hearing what better students say, and better students too,
improve, through having to paraphrase, and explain.
c) Some students talk more than others, this make that students with more difficulties to
talk become shy or fail to understand the purpose of the task and do not really know
how to contribute. There are different solutions, one of them could be to give the role
of the group chairperson to the talkative student, whose job is to make sure that everyone
else gets equal chances to talk. Another alternative is, if some students hardly talking at
all, use pair rather than group work.
d) Sometimes, big classes may be a problem, how to monitor them depends a lot on age,
motivation and understanding and acceptance of common goals as well as general levels
of discipline. Learning to speak a language involves higher level of noise, so it is useful
to try some short tasks done in whispers. It is also useful to decide signals to low voices,
to stop altogether and to start off again in a whisper. Another possibility is to choose
tasks that make greater use of writing as a form of communication, and give time limit
to finish the task, never wait for everyone to finish.
Do not panic if you feel that you are losing control, you can always stop any task and
ask everyone to write down silently going round and monitoring.
e) In bilingual situations it is important to balance the use of mother tongue and target
language. Students have to realize that doing a task using the target language it is an
opportunity to practice and to learn. The use of the mother tongue have to be negotiated
and controlled in order to use it on occasions in a way which is systematic, supportive
and relevant to the task goals.

31
4.3 The task cycle phase
The Task cycle gives the students the opportunity of using language they know in order to do
the task. It also makes students improve the language guided by the teacher when they are
writing up their reports. The three components of the task cycle are: task, planning and report.
The task stage. The teacher as monitor
It is very important both, exposure to and use of the target language to learn how to
communicate using it. During this phase, students do the task, in pairs or groups. The task help
students to develop fluency in the target language and strategies for communication.
Teachers, in TBL, do not teach during the task, they only monitor and let the students get on
with the task on their own, observing and encouraging them from a slight distance, suggesting
the students to speak in English and not in their mother tongue.
It is also important to give sufficient time to do the task, setting a time limit too short rather
than too long avoiding anyone gets bored. It is useful to give a one minute warning.
Are tasks sufficient on their own?
Leaners talking to each other in pairs and small groups, would get plenty of opportunities to
interact, to express themselves freely and gain confidence in using target language, but they
tend to gain fluency at expense of accuracy. It is important to avoid his risk.
If we have to speak in public, or present a case in business meeting, we often plan beforehand
what we want to say. We tend to speak more carefully and use different tupes of words, we may
even change our accent. The same applies when writing. The variety of language we use, then,
depends on the circumstances of communication.
If students know at the beginning of the task cycle that they will have to present their work to
the whole class at the report stage, they will naturally want to use their best language and avoid
making mistakes that others might notice. The report stage gives students a motivation to
upgrade and improve their language. They may also attempt to use more complex language,
and try to be more accurate.
When the task is finished, it is good that the teachers comment points of interest heard during
the monitoring, and give good commentaries about how students have worked.
The planning stage. The teacher as language adviser
In this stage, students prepare the final report so, it is important that they know the purpose of
the report, what kind of information they have to write, what form the report will take and how
long should be, what resources have at their disposal and what they will have to do with that
information, oral or written presentations. It is important that they know who is to be the
spokesperson or final-draft writer.
During this stage, the teacher’s main role is that of language adviser, helping students to correct,
rephrase, rehearse oral presentation or draft a written report.
At the beginning, teachers have to check that all students know what they are supposed to be
doing, after that, it is better to wait until you are asked than offer help. Also, you can be asked

32
for advice, point out errors selectively and try to get students to correct errors of form by
themselves. It is good to make sure that students know how to use dictionaries. Encourage
students to help each other and make positive commentaries about good points that they have
done. Remind them, occasionally how much time they have left.
The report stage. The teacher as a chairperson
This stage is mainly an incentive to the students to improve the use of the target language. It is
known that students are not native-speakers language, so they are going to do mistakes, but it
is very important to encourage them rather than to devalue their achievements, in order to
increase their motivation, their self-esteem, and spur them on to the greater efforts next time.
Because students are offering them as the best they can achieve at that moment, given the
linguistic resources and time available.
The main role of the teacher during this stage is that of chairperson. In oral presentations,
teachers introduce them to the whole class, write down notes to give feedback after the
presentation, do not interrupt the presentation, stop report stage if it becomes repetitive and give
time to sum up at the end. In written presentations, teachers have to make decisions beforehand
such as, how students are going to read their classmate’s reports, or if the purpose focus on
content but could have linguistic focus too, and make notes to use in their summing up. There
are also an alternative of audio and video presentations, they can be recorded by the teachers or
by the students in their own. They can be all showed or only some of them.
During all kind of presentations it is important that the teacher make notes to sum up the reports,
in order to comment them and give feedback to the students. It is more productive to give
positive feedback to the students than to remark only mistakes, and it is important that students
feel that you are interested in what they have said or written.
Writing in the task cycle
In TBL writing is considered a natural part of the cycle, even though many people learn a
language well without ever having written anything. But writing helps people to clarify ideas
and to create new ones and composing in the target language forces students to examine aspects
of their current grammatical knowledge in order to carry the meanings they wish to express.
There are some stages that most people go through when writing, for instance, think what to
say or what not to say, write down some notes an ideas, think about format, and other stages
which show that writing is a lengthy process. Some of these stages involve writing and others
thinking or talking about it, and many of them are likely to happen naturally in the task cycle if
the purpose of the writing and the audience are made clear.
Usually, a writing report needs more time to be ready than that needed for an oral presentation,
that is, the planning stage for a written report may be longer than for oral presentation. If the
writing is to be read by most of the class at the report stage it must, therefore, be well written.
Thanks to computers and word-processing packages available in many schools and colleges, it
is now easy to produce very professional-looking work. Sometimes, to give students a real
purpose and motivation, it is possible to publish something for other classes to read or listen to,
or even for wider distribution outside the school.

33
4.3 The language focus phase
The Language focus phase goes into detail about the study of the language used during the task
cycle. The aim is to help students to explore language, to develop an awareness of aspects of
syntax, collocation and lexis, to help systematize what they have observed about certain features
of language, to clarify concepts and to notice new things.
Students focus on form and ask questions about language features, and teachers conduct
activities based on the analysis work or examples from the text to transcript
4.4 Flexibility within the framework
Depending on the needs and background of students, the components of the framework can be
weighted differently.
Students who are already quiet fluent or confident using the target language, may need a greater
emphasis on accuracy and analysis work, less task time and more planning and formal report
time, with more tasks requiring written outcomes. Recording their reports on audio or video,
for homework for teachers to listen to, would give them a greater desire for clarity and accuracy.
Students from a grammar-oriented background may need a diet of tasks to give them confidence
in speaking.
There can also be a flexibility in the way students are grouped where students of different levels
can work together and the weaker ones can learn from the others.
It is important to take into account that it is necessary to look at ways of adapting the framework
to different teaching situations where it is used.
4.5 Key conditions for language learning
Although the learning styles of individuals may differ, there are four key conditions to be met:
1- Exposure to a rich but comprehensible input of real language, the kind of language that
learners will be needing or wishing to understand and use themselves.
2- Opportunities for real use of language, chances for learners to experiment and test
hypotheses, to mean what they say and express what they mean in a variety of
circumstances.
3- Motivation to listen and read, to process the exposure for meaning; and also to use the
language, to speak and write.
4- Focus on language in order to prevent fossilization, and to challenge learners to strive
for individual improvement, they need chances to reflect on language and to try to
systematize what they know.
4.6 From PPP to TBL
Task-based learning (TBL) is more flexible and offers students far richer learning opportunities
than just Presentation Practice and Production (PPP). TBL does not require radical new
techniques, is like a sort of PPP upside down, the steps are there but in a different order, but
teachers used to a teacher-led PPP need to have faith and let learners get on with their learning.

34
The main differences are that TBL does not teach isolated chunks of language, it starts with the
whole body of language. Skills are really integrated and there is a real need to communicate
and to listen. TBL distinguish between private (fluency) and public (accuracy + fluency)
communication.
It is possible to make the switch, many schools have succeeded and many learners have
benefited.
6.Task-based learning Project
6.1 The earth within the solar system
There were three people in my group. We worked together in order to develop the teaching of
one topic using the task-based learning philosophy.
The topic is the earth within the solar system, and our potential students could learn this new
knowledge by solving different task guided by their teacher. This project is attached to this
portfolio.
6.2 Reflection about the project
This project was very interesting to do because it was the first time I tried to teach “without
teaching”, that is, without giving new information to the student directly.
I think it is more engaging, enjoyable and gratifying for students to learn in this way, they fulfil
the leading role and the teacher only gives ways of learning by discovering to students.
On the other hand, there is a little problem. I think this way of learning and teaching involves
more work for teachers. They have to find, to create, to revise many activities, and these
activities have to be done with a clear goal and without leaving knowledge on the way.
Nevertheless, I think that there are more advantages than disadvantages, and I would like to
have the opportunity to teach using this methodology.

1

Created by;
Tamara Collar
Verónica González
Rocío Yuste

2

1.INTRODUCTION
This topic is included in the subject of Natural Science and it is adapted to learners of first year,
supposing a group of twenty five students.
We are going to learn how the Solar System is and the characteristics of each planet.
2. OBJECTIVES
The main target is that students learn the planets of the Solar System and they will able to
understand where and how is our planet in the Universe. In order achieve that, we are going to
focus on smaller objectives:
1. Try to remember things they study in their Primary studies.
2. Increase their vocabulary about the topic.
3. Understand the composition of the Solar System.
4. Be conscious about the differences among the planets.
5. Develop their creativity.
6. Develop all the English skills.
3. PRIOR KNOWLEDGE
1. Speaking Skill:
Look at the photo:
Questions to the whole group:
What do you thinkthis is? , what are the lights? , how is
its size?, do you think that the Earth is in this picture or
not?, why?...
We will guide the questions depending on the students’
answers until the conclusion sentence: “In conclusion,
we are in the Earth and the Earth is in the Universe”.
2. Reading skill :
a. Read the text and underline the words you do not know:
The words “solar system” refers to the Sun and all of the objects that travel around it. These
objects include planets, natural satellites such as the Moon, the asteroid belt, comets and
meteoroids (meteorites). Our Solar System has an elliptical shape and is part of a galaxy known
as the Milky Way. The Sun is the centre of the Solar System. It contains 99.8% of all of the mass
in our Solar System. Consequently, it exerts a tremendous gravitational pull on planets, satellites,
asteroids, comets and meteoroids (meteorites). Astronomers believe the Solar System formed
4.5 billion years ago. However, they differ in their beliefs about how the system formed.
b. Then, we put in common all the new words about the topic and discuss about their
meaning.
c. Finally, each student has the responsibility of uploading the definition of one word
to the class’ blog.

3

4.PRE‐TASK ACTIVITIES
1. Listening skill
a. Listen to the audio and then discuss what you have understood.
The tape script is:
The Solar System is an amazing thing. I can’t imagine just how big it is. I don’t think anyone can.
It all centres around our Sun. Our solar system has eight planets in it. When I was a kid I learnt
there were nine planets, but some time ago, scientists decided Pluto wasn’t a planet. All of the
names of the planets in our Solar System are really cool. Everybody knows the names because
they are used every day in advertising or to name cars and things. Pluto was even the name of
a Disney character. I think Saturn is the name of a car and Mercury is the name of a radio station.
I love looking at photos of the solar system. They get more beautiful as our technology gets
better. One day we’ll go on Solar System tours.
b. Listen again and complete the gaps.
The_____________ is an amazing thing. I can’t imagine just how big it is. I don’t think anyone
can. It all centres around our __________. Our solar system has ___________ planets in it. When
I was a kid I learnt there were nine planets, but some time ago, scientists decided
________wasn’t a planet. All of the names of the planets in our ______________ are really cool.
Everybody knows the names because they are used every day in advertising or to name cars and
things. Pluto was even the name of a Disney character. I think ___________is the name of a car
and ____________is the name of a radio station. I love looking at photos of the solar system.
They get more beautiful as our technology gets better. One day we’ll go on ____________ tours.
c. Check with your classmates your answers: one student starts reading the first
sentence and we correct them, another student continues with and go on.

2. Writing and speaking skills:
Look at the picture of the Solar System. In pairs;

a. Answer these questions and write them in your notebook. You do not need to
know the names of the planets, you have only to write the number:
‘Which planet is closest to the Sun?’

4

‘Which planet is farthest from the Sun?’
‘Which planet has a ring?’
b. Try to name all the planets in your notebook. When you finish, you can check
them using your book.

The answer is:

c. Now answer again to the previous questions identifying each planet with the
number.

3. Speaking skill:
a. In groups of 3 or 4 ‐depending on the size of the group‐ students have to search
seven characteristics of one planet. The planet of each group is selected by the
teacher.

5

b. Now, one group says to the rest of the class the characteristics of their planet.
If another group finds out the answer at first seven sweets will be given to that
group, six if they guess the answer at the second and so on. If nobody finds the
answer, the sweets are to the speaker group. Each group has only one try.
In our presentation we modified this activity in order to adapt it to our Master’s class.
They are going to do this activity in pairs and the characteristics of the planets –
Earth, Mars, Saturn and Mercury‐ are given to them.

MERCURY
1. It’s a rocky planet.
2. Its day is very long (more than 59 earth days).
3. There’re no seasons on it.
4. It’s very hot.
5. It’s the second smallest planet, like the Moon.
6. Its name comes from the messenger of Gods.
EARTH
1. It’s a rockyplanet.
2. It’s the densest one.
3. It was thought to be the centre of the Solar System.
4. Its atmosphere is mostly nitrogen.
5. It has an ozone layer.
6. It has lots of water.
VENUS
2. A day takes 243 earth days.
3. Its atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide.
4. It has a very strong greenhouse effect.
5. It spins in the opposite direction.
6. It’s the hottest planet (484 degrees).

6

MARS
2. It was thought to have channels.
3. It has two satellites, Phobos and Deimos.
4. It’s pretty cold.
5. Its colour is red because of the presence of iron.
6. It’s the fourth planet from the Sun.
SATURN
1. It’s a gaseous planet.
2. It spins very fast on its axis.
3. Its largest moon is Titan.
4. Its atmosphere has very strong winds.
5. The least dense planet (it would float on water).
6. Lots of pieces of icy rock are around this planet.
JUPITER
1. It’s made of gas, mainly hydrogen and helium.
2. It has the shortest day.
3. It has the strongest gravitational attraction.
4. Lots of moons are orbiting round this planet.
5. It has the Great Red Spot, a giant storm.
6. It`s the largest planet in the Solar System.
URANUS
1. It’s a cols gas giant.
2. Its atmosphere contains hydrogen, helium and
methane.
3. Methane gas gives this planet a blue‐green colour.
4. It’s the third‐largest planet in our Solar System.
5. It has eleven faint narrow rings.

7

4. TASK ACTIVITY
In groups of 5, learners will prepare a song about de Solar System in which they have to include
all the names of the planets and, at least, the main characteristic of each one.Finally, they will
prepare a video, slide presentation or whatever audiovisual material they want, to do a clip as
in the example which they are going to watch before starting to prepare their songs. The
example links are:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhNPYZ3WcQ0
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRVebw46Ndc
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH1JPG3dS5o
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkWeWfiMhVI
5.LANGUAGE FOCUS
1. a) Find the planets in the Word Search:
Y N D Q T R R J M P S V R T S
T Q J V U I L N E U U S A R B
P I Z P T L K N R R A P A S G
Y A K T O J P J C O O M V A O
O Z U A K S K B U D V R O T U
U N J X L F U C R P A V J T H
E N R U T A S N Y N I R U G T
V E N U S L P P A Y P T B X R
K R V X R J I T L R J S E Q A
T T T F F C T K C P U V K R E
NEPTUNE
1. It’s one of the smaller gaseous planets.
2. Its diameter is nearly four times the Earth’s diameter.
3. The Great Dark Spot is on this planet.
4. Its surface is covered by water and gases.
5. It has two thick and two thin rings.
6. Triton is one of its satellites.

8

The answer is:
Y N D Q T R R J M P S V R T S
T Q J E N U T P E N U S A R B
P I Z P T L K N R R A P A S G
Y A K T O J P J C O O M V A O
N R U T A S K B U D V R O T U
U N J X L F U C R P A V J T H
E N R U T A S N Y N I R U G T
V E N U S L P P A Y P T B X R
K R V X R J I T L R J S E Q A
T T T F F C T K C P U V K R E

b) Compare your answer with your classmate.
2. Complete the text below. Use these words:
Venus gravity planets strongest moons
Sun cold Neptune Mercury
The Solar System is made up of _________ in orbit around the Sun. Most of the planets have
___________ in orbit around them. They are held in orbit by the force of ___________. The
biggest planets have the _____________ gravity.
The planets are at different distances from the _________. The closest one is ___________ and
the furthest away is ____________. Planets which are a long way from the energy of the Sun are
________ and dark. The hottest planet is ___________, the coldest one is Neptune.
The answer is:
The Solar System is made up of planets in orbit around the Sun. Most of the planets have moons
in orbit around them. They are held in orbit by the force of gravity. The biggest planets have the
strongest gravity.
The planets are at different distances from the Sun. The closest one is Mercury and the furthest
away is Neptune. Planets which are a long way from the energy of the Sun are cold and dark.
The hottest planet is Venus, the coldest one is Neptune.

9

3. Write in your notebook five sentences about the Solar System where you have to compare
the Earth with the rest of the planet. You can find the information in your book or on the
Internet.
6. SOURCES
 Woksheets of “Seminario regional de apoyo a la enseñanza bilingüe”. November 2008.
 Essential Natural Science 1. 2008. Santillana.
 Natural Science 1. Oxford for CLIL. 2010. Oxford.
 Images:
o http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs49/i/2009/228/f/f/Solar_System_wallpapers_by_e
nkana.jpg
o http://www.bergoiata.org/fe/space6/jw%20Year%20V%20Space%20Shots%200
43%20‐%20Solar%20System.jpg
o Planet labels: http://www.cookie.com/kids/worksheets/science/solar‐
system/1stgrade/solar‐system8.html

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