CLIL 2009/10

During the school year 2009-2010 under the direction of a colleague of English we prepared a CLIL module on Electronics, to be held during the month of february 2010. As a first tentative we chose the subject of the basic filter topologies and we prepared two documents, both original: a text document and a presentation.

The text document has been printed and given to the students: it contains the basic notions to be transmitted in the most simple language possible, but with extensive use of the technical language of Electronics. The presentation has been used during the lessons: while the students read the text document, they can see the corresponding slide on video.

A teacher, acting as moderator, stops the reading and explains the main concepts with reference to the slides. On students' request the basic terminology is explained too.

IT (Information Technology) is extensively used both to prepare the lesson's material and as a viable way to explain some concepts. For instance, it has been shown how to use an electronic sheet to draw the transfer function plots of a filter; a CAD tool downloadable free from the Internet has been used to simulate some filter circuit topology too. The explanation of the use of these IT instruments available to the students is also useful to break the lessons and make them less difficult.

During the whole lesson both the Electronics and English teachers are present and they speak English language only.

The final test has been automated using an electronic sheet, to assess both the comprehension of the plots and of the main concepts explained during the lessons.

A feedback has been requested too, both to improve and understand the impact of the methodology used.

Here you can find the material of the 2009/10 CLIL class, printed in pdf format. It consists of a text document "CLIL0910doc.pdf", a presentation "CLIL0910presentation.pdf", the final test in two different version: "low pass filter test.pdf" and "high pass filter test.pdf", and the summary of the students feedback: "feedback_en.pdf"

Note the final test is an electronic sheet with multiple selections and should be done on a PC. The score of each question is already inserted as hidden text within the electronic sheet so the teacher can automatically collect all the results immediately after the end of the test.

With regard to the feedback, note that some students provided more than 1 suggestion/comment, while other students provided no feedback on some questions. This is the reason why the number of answers doesn't fit the total number of students participating the survey.

The original material is available on request: Contact.