Bulgaria - Vocabulary Seminar
School visit and Macmillan vocabulary workshop, Sofia.
March 14th, 2008
I received a warm invitation to visit the Ivan Zlatarski IB school in Sofia (
http://www.zlatarskischool.org).
This is a very interesting school from a CLIL perspective in that it offers English-medium subject teaching on the road to IB exam qualifications.
![/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf1.jpg [/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf1.jpg]](/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf1.jpg)
One of the two buildings on the campus
![/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf2.jpg [/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf2.jpg]](/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf2.jpg)
Year 10 Biology / English
I co-taught with colleague Dobri for two lessons while at the school with a year 10 group which has their Biology through the medium of English.
We spent the two lessons working on the topic of Acid rain.
![/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf3.jpg [/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf3.jpg]](/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf3.jpg)
Reading and discussing coal as a fuel
Many thanks to the school for hosting me. I'm sure I'll be back there soon. This is something to watch out for. I think more and more schools will set up shop like this as more students and parents request English-medium education. At the moment though Ivan Zlatarski School is one of a kind in Bulgaria.
We continued the Macmillan tour to The Department of Information and In-service Training of Teachers, Sofia
March 14th, 2008
![/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf4.jpg [/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf4.jpg]](/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf4.jpg)
It was a pleasure to come back to the In-service Training Institute in Kniazhevo in the shadow of Vitosha mountain.
I had started working in CLIL training at this very institute with an in-service training course for teachers many years ago.
![/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf6%281%29.jpg [/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf6%281%29.jpg]](/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf6%281%29.jpg)
Yordan gets the show on the road...
![/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf7.jpg [/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf7.jpg]](/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf7.jpg)
It was a tremendous turnout with over 50 teachers squashed into the boardroom at the institute.
The colleagues were very interested in the catalogue of resources provided by Macmillan.
![/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf8.jpg [/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf8.jpg]](/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf8.jpg)
I delivered similar content to the workshop in Plovdiv a few weeks ago.
![/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf9.jpg [/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf9.jpg]](/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf9.jpg)
But this time I focused more on the Science Vocabulary Practice Series resource. One of the instruments on the CD is a total cloze activity.
![/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf10.jpg [/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf10.jpg]](/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf10.jpg)
Which students use to fill in text on a given topic.
students can use the task on the CD alongside the topic word list and look up words while doing the task.
![/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf11.jpg [/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf11.jpg]](/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf11.jpg)
... or, they can ask for words to be given...
... or the rest of the text can be made to appear if they get completely stuck.
![/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf12.jpg [/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf12.jpg]](/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf12.jpg)
You may remember this from the 'Hidden Text' software which is still available from the materials section of this site, under 'computers'.
![/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf14.jpg [/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf14.jpg]](/userfiles/files/BG-Mac1-Sf14.jpg)
We also looked at the tool for creating word maps on the CD. This enables students to create their own maps for a specific topic area and save it and export it to an external programme to edit.
Yordan even had a free copy of the book and CD to give away to a lucky winner in a tombola at the end of the workshop.