Task 2 CLIL

A.
1. The backbone or theme is the media and differences in lay-out features. Even
though that is the main topic throughout the unit, and a lot of tasks are
designed to compare how the pieces of news are presented/ delivered
depending on whether they come from a newspaper, a television news report
or a website, there are other contents. It can be seen that the unit offers a
variety of topical issues such as the one about whales to explore the main
content of learning, which for this unit is “The news”.
The article on “Global Warming” is just an article, though it can be turned into
a unit of learning into another language if tasks are developed to make
learning meaningful to integrate content and language. In other words, an
analysis of the content is demanded to enrich skill acquisition and
development.
In my opinion the activities for the unit on “Climate” do not seem to engage
learners in communicating with their classmates , to create new knowledge
or develop new skills scaffolded or mediated by somebody more “expert”. I
feel that the tasks do not encourage active learning, the construction of
knowledge by doing with others.
2. The focus is language since students are expected to gain understanding, to
compare, to contrast, to analyze and explore, and to present information , to
write ,to support choices ( lower-order thinking and higher order thinking) and
in so doing they need to access language from the three angles: language
of, from, and through learning. As regards the question “Is there a clear
context?” it can be said that while the unit of work is the news and its different
lay-outs, the context takes account of curricular requirements of a school
discipline such as language, literature, and/ or biology.
3. Part 1 of the unit. Students are expected to gain understanding of different
forms the news takes, to explore/ analyze formats, to explain, to write and
support choices by exemplifying; to become aware of differences in register;
to identify noun and verb phrases.
Part 2 of the unit: Students are expected to explore/analyze and gain
understanding of the layout of a newspaper headline; to write/ explain and
provide information/ reasons for choices on layout rules (figures of speech);
to design a newspaper front page.
Part 3 of the unit: Students are expected to gain understanding of a
newspaper article; to analyze its style/ structure and language; to write
instructions on a newspaper article format; to revise modal verb should, the
present simple tense and frequency adverbs; to prepare a role-play; to write
a description of a character; to revise/ learn new personality adjectives; to
make questions; to revise/practise the tense past continuous; to plan and write
a story for the front page of a newspaper.
 Part 4 of the unit: Students are expected to analyze and compare ways of
presenting news/ stories depending on target audiences; to read, to explore,
explain and write (giving account of choices); to write a summary; to work with
and practice sentence types.
Part 5 of the unit: Students are expected to scan information; to identify and
compare facts and opinions. To gain understanding and to raise awareness
of how words used by writers have certain connotations (implied information/
writer´s attitude towards a piece of news or story); to explore/ analyze a
television news report; to become aware of types of register, to compare ways
of presenting and delivering news in a newspaper article and a television news
item. To make up story based on headlines; to work in groups; to be aware
and provide opinions about strengths and weaknesses of working in groups.
Part 5 / Assessment task; Students are expected to work in groups to put into
practice/ consolidate the content and the language that has been developed
throughout the unit. They have to read a story; to scan information; to plan
/organize a news item; to write a set of questions to carry out an interview; to
delineate characters to sustain roles; to create an entertaining news item for
the audience
4. It can be seen that the whole unit aims at exploring how information is
presented depending on the media. The activities are gradually interwoven to
integrate content and language and to enhance learners’ cognitive and
metacognitive skills. Even so I would develop further tasks to work with
vocabulary / key language and the grammar presented in this unit. For
example I would make students design and generate a vocabulary bank / or
a puzzle with topic - area activities /a game to recall and revise grammar
/structures. As regards life skills I would have students work in groups to bring
to classes pieces of news about the sources explored (authentic newspaper
news, recordings from television news) to have a presentation in which they
have to show and explain what has been analyzed. I would extend the
assessment task further: they could video tape their role play and show it to
the class.

B.

LANGUAGE -Key vocabulary/ phrases

OF -Key vocabulary/ phrases for differences in register/ formats/
LEARNING figures of speech
-language of analyzing/ comparing/ describing/ explaining and
supporting choices or reasons/ talking about advantages and
disadvantages/ creating effects on the reader/ including
carefully crafted information
-effective use of simple present and past tense/ adverbs of
frequency/ modal verbs CAN / SHOULD/ question forms
 -Grammatical progression in using adjectives to describe
characters/ in talking and writing about facts and opinions/ in
using different sentence types/ past tenses/ passive voice/
noun and verb phrases

LANGUAGE -Language to compare/describe/explain/plan a newspaper

FOR article and an interview/ to talk about advantages and
LEARNING disadvantages
-language to write and develop a written argument/ to report
facts/ to present a talk/ to become aware of differences in
register/ to gain understanding of how facts and opinions are
presented to audiences
-language to understand information
-Group work: language to make and answer questions/to
discuss and plan tasks/ to make up details of a story/ to
organize research/ to carry out project work/ to recycle/
consolidate grammar and language

LANGUAGE -Dictionary skills/ vocabulary skills

THROUGH -capturing topics and language that emerge for further
LEARNING development
Recycling reading skills
Extending reporting/ summing up skills
-Recycling and extending knowledge of genre