Proud to be tvmbo - Kortlopend Onderwijsonderzoek

http://maryglasgowplus.com/scholastic
http://www.teach-nology.com/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks3bitesize/
http://justiceinamerica.webklik.nl/page/introduction
5.2.8 Collaboration and the role of English teachers
It emerged from the literature search in Chapter 2 that collaboration between language
and subject teachers a key is to success in bilingual education. A question in the interviews
- What is the role of the English department in making tvmbo a success? – provided
some interesting answers about collaboration.
Classroom English
As mentioned earlier, at some schools, the English teacher plays a pivotal role in helping
subject teachers to improve their English, for example providing a two-hour, fortnightly
lesson which is facilitated by school. At one school, the English teacher is allocated
some of her hours to teach her colleagues English, through CLIL activities
which they might, in turn, then use in their own subject lessons. These classes include
very activating tasks so that teachers communicate a lot in English, also in the hope
that teachers can apply these ideas for activities in their subject lessons. These are
short, fun and inspiring exercises. At another school, the English teacher works with
his colleagues to prepare for the Cambridge Advanced Certificate in English (CAE).
Other schools employ an external coach. One school asks teachers to prepare for the
CAE examination at their own pace; another organizes formal lessons in preparation
for the examination. At one school, the English teachers are expected to facilitate the
development of projects with groups of subject teachers. However, unfortunately not
all of the English teachers feel capable of doing this and this way of organizing the development
of projects is not strongly recommended.
At other schools, the English teacher works with subject colleagues on making materials.
For example, during a series of biology lessons on the human body, the English
teacher helped her students to create a matching question and answer game on cards
relating to the topic of the human body. The biology teacher then used the game in the
biology lesson. For a complete description of this biology lesson, see Figure 5.1: Example
of good practice: a biology lesson in year 1.
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