Thursday, 24. October 2019

In the morning we made a factory tour at the "Malta Dairy Products Ltd.". The company processes, packs and distributes fresh liquid milk originating only from the Maltese islands. Milk is collected daily from around 63 dairy farms in Malta and another 32 in Gozo. The milk is not sterilised but simply pasteurised to retain its fresh taste and quality. The brand name “Benna” originates from the Maltese word “bnin” (meaning wholesome) and refers to the high nutrient value of fresh milk products. (Homepage Benna) 

As our last activity in Malta we did a treasure hunt in Valletta. We had to search different places around the city and so we got to know it very well. After that we went to "Malta Experience". There the winner from the treasure hunt were anounced and we watched an informative video about the long history of Malta.

Conclusion: 

During the last ten days I could learn a lot about teaching in general and also get an idea how to implement CLIL in my everyday teachings. I also got a knowledge of how to activate and motivate students in a better way. I think after this course my teaching will be more variet. 

Because of the language course I gained more confidence in speaking English. I learned some methods to improve my English back home. I have also acquired many social skills like small talk, dealing with cultural and language differences and getting to know new people. 

Wednesday, 23. October 2019

This day we visited the "St. Catherine's High School". It´s an indepent school so the parents have to pay around 400€ per month to send their children there. 

At first we had some CLIL-training with Catherine. She showed us some "breaking the ice"-activities (e.g.: Who am I? etc.). After that we discussed in pairs what CLIL is and the whole group togehter summarised the knolwedged what we learned already in the past eight days about CLIL. Here are some key points that I will take from the discussion: 

• focus on the four C´s
• pronounciation is very important
• scaffolding
• Blooms taxonomie
• difference between hard and soft CLIL
• CLIL is not a language lesson, the content is important.     
• It´s not necessary to be perfect - we learn a language to communicate! 

 She also showed us to short videos which explain again what CLIL exactly is:

What is CLIL

CLIL: a brief introduction 

After the lesson with Cathrine we met the Headmaster Ms. Sue Midolo and made a tour through the school. The school was founded 1909 and is open to local and foreign students, boys and girls, ranging from the Flutterby Child Care Centre (2 year olds) through the Junior and Senior School (16 year olds), up to the standard required for the Secondary Education Certificate (SEC). 

I was amazed by the atmosphere in the school. The teachers are very heartly to their students and also the building itself with all his decorations gave me the feeling that this is a good place to learn. Here you can see some impressions: 

Very interesting was also a new concept from the school with wich they experiment at the moment: The students at the age of 13 have only some basic subjects (Maths, English, Maltese etc.). In addition to this they have to choose four other subjects, either academic (like geography, physics etc.) or more vocational. When they came to the conclusion that they may have picked the wrong subjects they are even allowed to change them. I think that is the way how it should be so that every student can follow his or her interests.  

After the visit of the school we were driven to the temples of Ħaġar Qim. It´s a megalithic temple complex dating between 3600 to 3200 BC. The megalithic temples are among the most ancient religious sites on earth. 

Tuesday, 22. October 2019

Today we visited the "St. Thomas More College" for job-shadowing. At first the principal gave us some informations about the education system in Malta. He pointed the differences between the state, church and independent schools out. 

In Malta most of the students visit a state school (about 35.000). The state employ the teachers and everything is fully state funded so that the parents don´t have to pay anything. Which school the students visit is decided geographical. 

About 17.000 learners are going to church schools like the "Archbishop´s Seminary School" (see post yesterday). This schools employ their teachers themselves but the state reimburse the money for the teachers. The parents don´t have to pay but they are asked for donations. To apply for this school you have to undergo a ballot. 

8.000 learners visit indepedent schools. As in the church schools they employ their teachers themselves and pay them also. The parents have to pay a fee so the choice of the school is often also a financal consideration. 

Very different from Austria is that they hava a big supporting team. There are professionals of the following services: 

• School Psychological Services
• Prefect for Discipline
• Counselling Services
• Career Guidance Services
• Youth Work Services
• Social Work Departure
• Early Intervention Service

And at the moment the scholl tries a new project. Students can choose one of three different ways: 

1. Academic: Students choose three different subjects (e.g.: mathematics, geography etc.). This is purposed for people which want to study at university. 
2. Vocational/Applied: The scholl has equipped seven different rooms where students can try out different professions (e.g.: hospitality, retail, engineering technology etc.)
3. Academic/Applied: The students choose different subjects from one and two. 

After the informations from the headmaster we were showed around in school and were able to watch a lesson in school. There I noticed that the school is very well equipped (whiteboards, 3D-printers etc.).

Our next activity were at the Marsovin Cellars. In these cellars over 100.000 bottles and 220 oak barrels are aged. The company has five estates around Malta and Gozo were they grew their grapes. After a tour through this old cellar, which was built by the Knights of St. John, we could taste three different wines and were offerd some snacks.

Monday, 21. October 2019

Today we had our first job shadowing activity. Therefore we visited the "Archbishops Seminary School" in Rabat. After a two hour bus ride we were heartly welcomed from the Deputy Head Secondary Mr. Gordon Baldacchino. He told us some informations about the school and we could ask him questions about the education system in Malta. 

The school was founded in the year 1703 and since then the teachers promoting a catholic, committed lifestyle to their students. "It aims at encouraging its students to form a community whose values are communicated through the interpersonal and sincere relationships of its members. This is done by sharing a common outlook on life based on the good news of the gospel." 

It´s a school only for boys and there were more things different to Austria. E.g.: 

• 40 minutes lessons
• obligatory school uniforms
• One of the teachers visit the families at home, before the students are allowed to the school. 
• There is a lottery for the schools in Malta. The farther you are in the front of the lottery the greater choices you have of different schools.

After Mr. Baldacchino told us about the school and the maltese educational system we were invited to join some lessons. In general the teaching is very similar to the teaching in Austria.  But it´s always good to see how other teachers design their lessons. Either to get some inspiration how to do it or to know how not to do it. ;)

At the end of our visit to the "Archbishops Seminary" we were picked up from the bus which brought us to Bugibba. There we visited the "Malta Classic Car Museum". This museum really takes you back in time. They have a collection of old cars and motorbikes from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.

 

After that we strolled around Bugibba and our new guide for the next days, Mr. Ernest Spiteri, told us some things about the city. He showed us for example the place were Saint Paulus was shipwrecked. So the legend says that Apostle Paulus himself brought Christianity to Malta.

Saturday/Sunday, 19./20. October 2019

At the weekend we had some time off and could explore Malta. At first we went to Bugibba. It´s in the north from Malta and a popular place for tourists with a lot of bars, restaurants and hotels.

In the evening we had again a tour with our guide Tracy. This time we visited the "Three Cities of Malta", which the Maltese also call "Cottonera". The cities were founded by the Knights of the Order of Saint John in the 16th and 17th century and are called Birgu, Senglea and Bormia They are well known for their historical and cultural wealth. Tracy told us some stories and informative facts. We even visited a workshop for the famous boats which are used for the "Maltese National Regatta". This is a rowing regatta hold bi-annualy and draws thousands of spectators year after year. 

On Sundy we visited the island Gozo. The Republic of Malta comprise in total seven islands. Only three of them are inhabited. Gozo is the second largest islands of the archipelago. At first we encountered that the public transportation system is not very reliable. After one hour of waiting for the bus we called a cab. I think that´s part of the southern snugness. ;) We ferried over the Gozo channel and were also able to have a look at the famous "Blue Lagoon" at the island Comino. 

At Gozo we took a Hop-on-Hop-off bus to see most of the islands. In comparison to Malta it´s much greener, less populated and it felt much calmer. We stopped here and there, took a walk through the city Victoria (Rabat) and had some delicious food.

Friday, 18. October 2019

Today were our last lessons at the EC Malta. At first we talked with Sam about very differnt topics relating to teaching. For example about "motivation". How motivated the students (or the teachers) are depends on different elements as the teacher himself, the subject, the topic or on one's mood and state of mind on the specific day. We brainstormed some ideas how we could keep ourselves and our students motivated. 

We also talked about the goals of our teaching. Is it to make the students happy or should they be well prepared for their working life? I think that we as teachers can provide them different materials, give them support and create a good enviroment but the students themselves have to choose what they need to achieve their own, personal goals. Sam had a nice adage for that which brings it on the point: 

"You can take a horse to water, but you can´t make it drink."

Our teacher presented us then "The 4 C´s model" of CLIL, which is a framework for teaching a foreign language. It consists of the following: 

For further information you can visit the following website: https://clilingmesoftly.wordpress.com/clil-models-3/the-4-cs-model-docoyle/

In the second lesson the focus was on learning vocabalury. There are three different ways and all have there pros and cons. So again, it would be good to vary these strategies.

1. high repetition, low focus: read a lot, extensive reading, high frequency vocab is often repeated
2. medium repetition, medium focus: Leitner-Syste
3. low repetition, high focus: write a conversation, story or essay; use the words that you have chosen in a new context

 At the end of our last lesson, Sam summarised the last few days. He showed us on what it depends when it comes to teaching a foreign language/CLIL. 

With Therese we had a very practical lesson. She tried to give us an impression of how a good CLIL-Lesson could look like. Also she (and also Sam) showed us some helpful websites to work with:

• https://www.sketchengine.eu/skell/
• https://www.britishcouncil.org/english/business/apps/sounds-right 
• http://danariely.com/
• https://www.wordandphrase.info/

At the end of our three-days at EC Malta we were invited to drinks and food. We got our certificates and had some good talks about the last few days. The time at EC Malta gave me a good impression of how a CLIL-lesson could look like and how I can implement CLIL in my everyday work.

At 6:30pm we were picked up from Tracy, our guide, at the hotel for our guided tour of Mdina by night. Mdina is a fortified city which served as the capital of Malta from antiquity to the medieval period. It´s a very beautiful city but make yourself an own opinion: 

Thursday, 17. October 2019

Our second day in Malta started again with english lessons at the EC Malta. At first we watched a short video. It showed a way how a CLIL-lesson could look in practice.

After that Sam showed us a really helpful website: breakingnewsenglish.com There you can find prepared lessons based on news articles. There are seven levels, from elementary to advanced, where you can choose the right one based on the level of your students. Beside the articles in different difficulties the lessons have up to 26 pages of printable activities and handouts. And the best: The lessons are free.

Further on Sam showed us some activities which we also tested in our groups.

• Translating an english text to german and back.
• Two students: One can see a picture for 30 seconds. He/She then has to explain the picture to his/her partner. This one has to draw it. 
• Give the students a headline. They have to guess what the article could be about. 
• "Just a minute" - Talk a minute about an specific topic. 
• Taboo - Explain a word to another person without using it.  

At the end Sam showed us also the website https://books.google.com/ngrams There you can type in a word or phrase and out pops a chart tracking its popularity in books. So if you are unsure which word you should use you can check which one is usual. It´s also interesting to see at which time specific words popped up in books or were used more frequently (e.g.: Smartphone, Sustainability).

Our last lesson at EC Malta was with Therese. It was all about the use of idiomatics, especially idioms "using the body" (e.g.: see eye to eye with, break a heart, be cheeky...)

In the afternoon the management of Internships Professionals Ltd. (Mr. Joseph Marquette & Ms. Emanuela Marianecci) invited us to Birkikara. There they told us about Malta in general, their business and we also got some informations about the job shadowing in maltese schools which we will do next week. At the end of the meeting we got some delicious finger food and drinks.

Wednesday, 16. October 2019

Today we were picked up in the morning from the hotel "Salini" and were driven to EC Malta in St. Julians. After a brief placement test we were divided into two groups. Our teacher Sam started with a short video from Heather Hensen. Her conclusion at a TED Talk was that it´s not necessary to speak english perfectly. Instead it´s more important to speak the language in a way that allows you to communicate appropriate with other people. Luckily that was also the opinion of our teacher Sam, so that was a bit of a relieve. ;)

After a short definition of CLIL the teacher presented us an overall structure for CLIL-lessons:

1. processing the text
2. identify and organise knowledge
3. language identification
4. tasks for the students

Also he told us that there are to ways to understand a text and he would recommend both:

1. bottom up: It means, that someone tries to understand language by looking at the individual words or the grammatics and moves then from these to trying to understand the whole text.

2. top down: It means, that someone is not concerned with the details of a text but rather tries to uses background information to predict the meaning of the language.

After the theory we planned and presented our own CLIL-lesson using the overall structure mentioned above. Beside this topics we also talked about "syllable and word stress" which is very useful to know if you want to pronounce the words in a proper way.

In the afternoon we had a great guided tour through the capital city of Malta. Valletta with his long history and changing rulers (Phoenician, Romanes, Goths, Ottomans, Hospitaller Order, the British) is a really unique place with interesting details.