INTERVIEW

1.    What is your name? Dita Adzivor

2.    When did you decide to become a teacher? When I was a teenager.

3. Why  an English teacher? Because English is my second language.

4. In addition to being an English Teacher. Do you have any other specialty?

No.

5.  How long ago did you finish your studies? It was in the year 2005.

6. How long have you been teaching education? Practically ever since then.

7. Which courses do you teach? Mostly primary and pre-school.

8. How many students do you have in your classroom? Do you think that a good learning can be performed with that number of students? Around 20. Ideal number is below 15.

9.   What your view on the Spanish educational system?  It is demanding in theoretical contents, lacks practical experience.

10. Can you tell what  the ideal education system would be? I don´t know. It is a difficult question.

11. What is the learning environment like in your classroom? I teach a big variety of lessons in different age groups.I work in the nursery with babies of 1-2 years upwards. So the environment there is based on game, easy nursery rhymes and songs and art.

In pre-school I work with 5 years old kids. We do the morning assemble.

In primary I teach extracurricular classes and Formativa where we prepare the pupils for 4LT- MOVERS exams.

12. How do you know if your students have understood the concepts and content worked? By feed back testing and questioning.

13. How do you change teaching methods if they have difficulty understanding or keeping up with the pace set? I try to visualise and keep repeating the concepts.

14. What do you value more, the process or the result of your students?

The process is the way to the result.

15. How do you create an environment that promotes learning in the classroom? I try to keep things simple, visual and attractive for the particular age-group.

16. Do you work  as part of a team? Yes.

17. Do you use new technologies? How? Yes. On daily basis (digital board).

18. Do you use other resources in addition to the textbook? Audio, video, interactive resources.

19. Do you work the CLIL methodology? Partly in extracurricular lessons.

20. Do you encourage imagination and creativity in the classroom? Yes. I like to            teach English and Art+Craft.

21. How do you communicate with the families of your students? In Spanish. Via            emails.

22. Do you  learn from your students? Yes.

23. Do you feel happy when you teach? Absolutly.

24. How would you like to be remembered by your students in the future? That              Dita taught us authentic English.

            25. What is the hardest  aspect of being a teacher?

It is very tiring. 25 lessons a week is not an easy job.

David Marsh on CLIL

After  watching the video of David Marsh on CLIL, I will discuss the following aspects:

I think it is very positive that David Marsh  got involved  in CLIL methodology, since in this way he could change what didn't work in the classroom  of South-East Asia,  so he went to Northern Europe to check how that was done there. This often happens in our classrooms, there are mistakes that  teachers  often repeat year after year but... do we look for solutions?

David Marsh tells us that he found suitable books  for language learning and above all he emphasises that a child must be happy at school.

I think this aspect should concern all of us in the educational community, what does a child go to school for? I have the same opinion that David Marsh, at least I would like it to happen in my classroom: ¨Learning being the happiest possible¨.

While it is true that it would be easier if the Government, administrations and the education community row in the same direction on the issue of education and interests and objectives were the same. However,   the reality is that  this does not usually happen, because from the classroom, teachers must do everything to  change or modify what does not work.

David Marsh says that Spain has the best primary education because it is  well funded education and in addition, there is a diversity of teachers working together.

I disagree a little with  his opinion. I think that education should be funded with more money  in our country and reduce the number of students per classroom, among other things, this is perhaps the most important to highlight: train teachers to provide a quality education.

I totally agree with David Marsh on what is done in some classrooms is not teaching CLIL, but teaching of a language through language, in this case, teaching English through Spanish.

Teachers have a lot of resources at our disposal to use in the classroom, one of many, is the CLIL methodology. I do believe it is intended to use this type of methodology in the classroom but I think that teachers are not trained in this methodology and they don't know how to use it in the classroom.

The educational community must join forces to work for a better future of education, either introducing CLIL methodology or other types of innovative and up-to-date methodologies and break with traditional teaching. It is also necessary to review the methodologies used previously because if they do not work you have to think about it and implement the necessary measures.

Finally I wish to conclude with a phrase on education which summarizes everything written above:

¨ Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world¨ 

Nelson Mandela