THE ROLE OF LANGUAGE ASSISTANTS: A GUIDE FOR SUCCESFUL STRATEGIES

THE ROLE OF LANGUAGE ASSISTANTS: A GUIDE FOR SUCCESFUL STRATEGIES

Víctor Pavón Vázquez victor.pavon@uco.es

Jornada d’Acollida i Orientació

Auxiliars de Convers Curs 2018-2019

DIRECCIÓN GENERAL DE POLÍTICA EDUCATIVA Servicio de Educación Plurilingüe

Valencia, 17 d’octubre de 2018

Road map

1. Contextualization

2. Defining roles and functions

3. Fitting into the programme

4. Performance

5. Additional activities

Structure and organization

3-level coordination: language-content, content-content, language- language

+ language assistants (LAs) All stakeholders

and subjects

involved: attention to subject-specific languages and genres

Proffering effective and homogeneous methodology (and evaluation)

The pedagogical dimension of CLIL

“CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) involves a methodological style that

encourages to use the language as a means of communication, thus promoting language and content development in the process.”

Pavón, V. & Gerdes, T. 2008. “Talking CLIL”, It’s for Teachers Magazine, 110: 14- 17

“CLIL describes a pedagogic approach in which language and subject area content are learnt in combination, where the language is used as a tool to develop new learning from a subject area or theme”

Coyle, D., B. Holmes, L. King. 2009.

Towards an Integrated Curriculum. CLIL National Statements and Guidelines.

London: The Languages Company, p. 6.

Lesson pedagogy

Objectives

 To help develop the foreign language

 Acculturation purposes

 Increasing exposure to the L2

 To enhance learning outcomes

 Improving quality of teaching

 All of them…maybe?

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Defining roles and functions: preliminary questions

• Culture? Language? Both?

• Linguistic assistance or linguistic guidance?

• Foreign language or content lessons?

Background and training

Contextualised training

LAs are informed of the characteristics of

the school bilingual programme and of the

local sociocultural factors

Coordination and supervision

With coordinator/tutor

With language teachers

With content teachers

Mentoring plan

Planning

Building their own space

Performance models

 One teaches, one drifts: one teacher keeps responsibility and the other provides unobtrusive assistance.

 Parallel teaching: teaching

simultaneously to a larger and a smaller group divided on purpose.

 Team teaching: both teachers

delivering instruction at the same time.

 Moving around the class: helping students working individually, in pairs or in groups.

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Activities in the language class

Activities in the content class

Feedback and evaluation

Additional activities

victor.pavon @uco.es

Jornada d’Acollida i Orientació

Auxiliars de Convers Curs 2018-2019

DIRECCIÓN GENERAL DE POLÍTICA EDUCATIVA Servicio de Educación Plurilingüe

Valencia, 17 d’octubre de 2018