Spain - Basque Plurilingual Education

Basque Plurilingual Education
Dec 13-15th 2004

As part of the Basque government initiatives in developing a plurilingual approach to education, three days of workshops were organised for teachers from the INEBI and BHINEBI programmes from Dec 13-15th, 2004.
25 English teachers came from Gipuzkoa to meet in Lasarte on day 1 where the focus was on content development through language.   
     

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Lasarte Training Centre

 


In Bilbao at the Luis Briñas Secondary High School on day 2, 26 subject teachers working through the medium of English worked on the theme of language skills development through content.


Finally, in Durango, day 3 repeated the first day’s programme for over 60 language teachers from Alava and Bizkaia.    





Durango Language School



Colleagues may remember that the INEBI/BHINEBI project has been running for a number of years now, and that there are considerable materials available from the project at the website set up to aid dissemination.

Primary
http://nagusia.berritzeguneak.net/hizkuntzak/inebi-1-1.php
Secondary
http://nagusia.berritzeguneak.net/hizkuntzak/bhinebi-2.php

More specifically, these are materials written for each of the years of the project through primary into secondary school. Primary 4 materials have recently been edited and uploaded as part of a move to update the resource base.The secondary subject teachers in the group are relatively new to the project and are working with a mixture of enthusiasm and caution. There was particular interest in the question of how to best develop techniques for ‘guiding’ reading and listening, and ‘supporting’ speaking and writing in content materials. Lui the secondary coordinator has been working hard recently on the latest materials which are now in the secondary section of the programme website. This topic is entitled ‘Taking Care of the Earth’ and looks at the planets, characteristics of planets, the Earth, and environmental problems facing us today. You’ll recognise evidence of the efforts put into this ‘guidance’ and ‘support’ in this latest batch of materials.


An example of a frame for guiding learners listening to their peers presenting on the topic of ‘planets’ from the latest pack of materials from the Basque content and language integration project…
  

Basque children are presented with a certificate in recognition of their attempts to alter their lifestyle in favour of the environment…   … and they sign a ‘contract’ explaining their personal plan of action. 

Participants in the three days were also presented with the Science Across the World programme (www.scienceacross.org), with particular reference to the materials related to ‘Taking Care of the Earth’. Topics related to climate change, global warming, alternative energy, pollution in the Science Across programme are useful for the colleagues preparing for the masses of ‘contracts’ they will receive from their learners in that the materials all involve learners investigating their environmental behaviour and exchanging this information with partners in other countries. 

… students investigate use of energy in the home in the Science Across the World programme…

The INEBI/BHINEBI programme is at a significant stage in its development as Rosa and the advisors will soon have to make decisions about which direction to take in the future. Ideas are, among many others, to begin the process of documenting and recording good practice; to attempt to expand the programme by reaching out to new generations of teachers coming into the system; updating the materials database.It’s bound to be interesting - watch this space!!!