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Wednesday, May 28

CLIL Unit : The weather

In this article you will find all the main features of the Unit CLIL I have been preparing during a course on CLIL, Although the title of the Unit is "The weather" (see basic information), it is not only about weather, but also about meteorology and shipping forecasts since it is addressed to the students in the Upper Level training cycle on the maritime professional studies. This Unit will be included as a Formative Nucleus in the Professional Module of Technical English.

The main learning outcomes of this Unit are:

To know the terms (in English) related to weather forecasts
To know the terms and phenomena in meteorology such as weather state, warm fronts, isobars, pressures, meteorological stations, etc.
To know the characteristics and develop terms involved in the shipping forecasts (sea state, wind force, tides, etc.)
To inform about weather conditions at sea

The contents will be organised in the different sessions that the Unit will have. At the end of each session, the students must deliver a task related to that session. These are the contents, with the timing, general information of each session and tasks:

Day 1. Weather forecasts. TASK: Writing a weather forecast

A warm up on wikispaces to remember basic terms that they should already know.

Terms to improve weather vocabulary and activities to do in pairs (scaffolding)

Vocabulary acitivities online: reading, writing and listening (working with different skills).

Reading some weather forecasts and answering questions

Day 2: What's the weather like? TASK: Giving advice and warning about weather state (Speaking)

Bad weather or good weather. Watching a video and answering some questions

Giving advice and warning : modal verbs

Extra activities to prepare the task (such as a trivia)

Day 3: Meteorological terms and phenomena. TASK: a listening about conditions and a speaking

Making predictions: will and going to (grammar using slideshare or prezzi)

Conditional sentences and online activities to practise and learn the structures on their own or with the teacher's help (scaffolding).

Extra vocabulary about weather to practise the predictions and conditions.

Day 4: Navigational warnings. TASK: listening to navigational warning and writing some.

Self study activities about navigational warnings and weather at sea, with explanations and glossary. To work individually at class, with the help of the teacher (and giving roles in the class, some students will have the role of assistants and the others students, so the assistants will have to help the others)

Listenings and readings about navigational warnings

Day 5: Shipping forecasts. TASK: listening to a shipping forecast

Reading and listening about shipping forecasts, terms and the importance of understanding them and being able to give information about it.

FINAL TASK: deliver a weather glossary, all the activities on the notebook and doing a WRITTEN TEST and an ORAL TEST about all the contents of the Unit.

You can download the complete Unit here.

Students will be provided with a useful database of sources related to maritime English shared in symbaloo. They will be able to use them during the Unit.

Meritxell Tebar Roca

Sunday, May 25

My CLIL Unit. The weather

After having worked hard on a very interesting course about CLIL methodology, I have created a Unit about weather, meteorology and shipping forecasts to work with my students of the Maritime High Studies (Vocational training).

Although they need to work mainly with shipping forecasts, sea state and winds, as well as meteorological warnings contained in the SMCP (Standard Maritime Communication Phrases) of the IMO, they also have to work with language and grammar to strenghten the basis of their English.

A summary of the Unit can be downloaded from the following link:

As an introduction, they students will receive a contents presentation together with the first class with the introduction terms, as well as a warm up on a wikispace created for this Unit.

(contents and first class instructions)

(Warm up on wikispaces. Students need to have an account and be tagged by the teacher)

In order to write properly and establish grammar basis related to the topic, a slideshare with an initial video explaining the differences between WILL and GOING to, explanations and an activity.

A videoquiz to practise grammar skills (first conditional) as well as listening skills. This activity will be a task to do individually.

There are many other activities and sources that will be used in the Unit. Some of them are online tools that can be used by students and which are specialised on Maritime English. You will find the best source in the Maritime English here. The students will do the Unit of the weather of this program.