Phone Nr.: +371 28643874 Krimuldas 2, Riga, Latvia, LV-1039

 

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"Teaching Math and Science through English - CLIL in STEM"

CLIL is "…an approach to bilingual education in which both curriculum content (such as science or geography) and English are taught together. It differs from simple English-medium education in that the learner is not necessarily expected to have the English proficiency required to cope with the subject before beginning study".

(Graddol D. English Next, British Council Publications, 2006)

Hello!

My name is Anastasia Solea, I come from the beautiful island of Cyprus and I am a teacher of Mathematics.

Since I got my degree from the University of Cambridge, UK, I have been teaching Mathematics in English at a Russian school in my hometown, Limassol, called ‘The Pupils of Pythagoras’.

During the past week (28.02.2016-05.03.2016) I had the unique opportunity to come to Riga and give a few lessons to the students of your school, ‘Klasika’. The students were very happy and keen to learn the new terms and solve problems in Mathematics thinking and talking entirely in English.

The topic of our lessons was ‘Triangles and Quadrilaterals’.

The first day we got ourselves familiar with basic terms in English Maths (Operations Words – plus, minus etc, Powers and Roots, Shapes etc.), then we focused on the different types of triangles and quadrilaterals, their properties and the formulae for their Area and Perimeter.

The second day we talked about Pythagoras Theorem and used it to solve not only ‘standard mathematical’ but also real life problems (for example, ‘Did the carpenter manage to build a door with square corners?’).

The third day we worked on Trigonometry in a right-angled triangles, we defined the trigonometric ratios sine, cosine and tangent and we used them to solve different types of problems.

The fourth day we went deeper into Trigonometry – we worked on sine rule, cosine rule and area of a triangle.

The fifth and final day we worked for one lesson on congruent triangles and the relevant criteria and then we had a Test on the material we learned.

During all five days we also had the chance to use a scientific calculator to calculate the required quantities, as the problems where mostly based on real-life set-ups and thus did not involve ‘nice answers’.

I find the idea of teaching Mathematics to students not only in their native language but also in English using CLIL methodology an excellent one, as it gives them the possibility to communicate and share their knowledge with people from all around the world! I think that the students had a chance to experience that this past week and I encourage them to keep learning more and more!

This was a great experience! I would like to thank the Headmaster of the school, Svetlana Nikolaevna for inviting me here and giving me the opportunity to teach the students of the school and the teacher of Mathematics, Tatjana Petrovna for being very hospitable and keen to help me with my lessons and give me useful feedback. I would also like to thank them both for their willingness to show me around the school and the town and explain everything to me. Last but not least, I would like to thank the Headmaster of my school, Elena Papademetriou for suggesting this unforgettable experience to me!

I really had a great time here, I hope I will get a chance to visit you again!

Thank you,

Anastasia Solea