The British Council in the Ukraine was a great supporter of the Science Across the World programme in the person of Elena Urazova.
Times move on, and countries, institutions, people change!
What I can guarantee for colleagues in the Ukraine though, is that all the Science Across the World resources, and much much more, are still accessible at the original address www.scienceacross.org (though now it's hosted by ASE in the UK).
If you're looking for connections with schools in the Ukraine, join FACTWorld @ yahoogroups.com and seek them out, as there are plenty of colleagues signed up to the network from Ukraine.
We also have a growing number interested in TrashedWorld (www.trashedworld.com), you could collaborate with Ukraine colleagues there too!
Contact Details
Elena Urazova - English
ova@hotmail.com
Nadezhda Bobrova - English
School_3@ukr.net
Uzhgorod CLIL School for Teachers
Lycee no. 3, Uzhgorod, Ukraine
24-28.03.25
After the CLIL Winter School in Lviv, we began talking about a later Spring school inviting yet more colleagues to discover what CLIL can offer to their teaching. This time the invitation went out to upper primary and lower secondary teachers from a range of state and private schools, and a range of subject backgrounds including English, Maths and the Sciences.
We prepared a programme covering basic principles of CLIL and applied these principles in practical activities for the teachers involved. Lastly, after sessions focused on creating resources for implementing CLIL back in their school contexts.
Many thanks to Natalia Liashko (again!) for her meticulous organization, warm hospitality and contributions which kept us on track and having lots of fun! Thanks also to the school for hosting us for the week.
Day 1
After introductions, a gift from Bulgaria for everyone – martenitis for health and success – we began the programme by exploring layers of language in CLIL classes, subject-specific, general academic and peripheral classroom chat.
Gifting martentsi and making wishes!
Colleagues grouped up and began to brainstorm themes and language for the beginnings of a project to work on together throughout the week.
The themes of their projects are: Transcarpathia and Me, Being Online, Dairy and Cheese, Music over Time.
These projects will form the content of a future FACT Journal during our jubilee 25th anniversary year!
Day 2
I touched on investigating ‘structure’ in text and how exploiting generic ‘ideational frameworks’ can help teachers guide their learners through tectual content input.
A full day of activities!
Here, we tasted Bulgarian lyutenitsa (very popular!) and looked at textwork.
By now the groups have a clear idea of their project topic and began to collect and sequence tasks.
We visited Uzhgorod Castle, an amazing visit with a tour telling us about the many changes in the region of Transcarpathia over the years.
Day 3
Rockets workshop
We moved on to look at non-text media but still exploiting conceptual structures to help guide learners through non-text input.
We designed, built and launched rockets! Natalia, our coordinator, had prizes for the best flight time.
Now colleagues adapted their projects further to incorporate other media with the same principle of using concept structure to help their students process their input content.
We visited Uzhgorod’s musem village, a substantial and beautiful collection of historical buildings arranged in a village layout including the working wooden church built with no nails.
Museum village church
Day 4
Here we considered supporting writing in CLIL and I presented a range of techniques for scaffolding shorter and longer written works in class.
One simple idea is incorporating academic language into word games as a warm up to making use of the language in a later task.
Academic language sorting for writing
We made Bulgarian banitsa and the colleagues had to remember the ingredients and write the recipe (while waiting for the delicious Bulgarian dish to be ready!) Many thanks to Lyceum 3’s kitchen staff for their warm welcome, feeding us such great food and letting us use their kitchen!
We also had a group farewell dinner.
Day 5
We moved to speaking skills in CLIL and again I added a collection of activity types to the already filled toolbox of ideas for the teachers to take home and try out in their teaching.
We surveyed the group’s speed reactions.
We looked at tasks with an 'information gap' for creating discussion.
Doing an info search
Doing an info search
We included survey work, as all the topics lend themselves to carrying out different surveys both at home and in the class, the community and beyond.
We took group photos as memories in the Uzhgorod sunshine
Group photo by the River Uzh
Group photo on the school steps
Warm thanks and safe journey home to all the colleagues.
Watch this space, there will be a FACT Journal containing the work of this group to share with you in the coming months!
Keith
29.03.25
I spent three days in Lviv, Ukraine this week for a two-day Winter School event supported by Express Publishing (many thanks to them), and organized by Natalia Liashko and with contribution from Natalia Zachynska.
I'd like to express my heartfelt thanks to both for their organization, commitment and dedication to bringing opportunities like this to the teachers of Ukraine.
Networking, sharing, socializing keep energies high, thanks to you!
Selecting Groups
The background to this Winter School is several years of online collaboration with Ukrainian colleagues with an interest in CLIL. My co-contributors had met me in online trainings for CLIL and step by step this led to a face-to-face meeting in Lviv.
I carried over 60 FACT Journals with me. This is FACT Journal 38. 11 were for Natalia and colleagues who came to Plovdiv in person for CLIL training at my school this past summer (2024). The journal was the product of the work of this group. Now they get their hands on the whole collection in print. Now, that's what I call Putting CLIL into Practice!
The remainder of the journals are for teachers to take in return for a donation to charity work providing for Ukrainian war veterans in hospital.
Facial Features - Primary
CLIL has a clear role in Ukraine’s future education. It’s a clear role because CLIL is about skills first and foremost, where these skills carry the concepts and are facilitated by language. Ukraine will need to be ready with skills in the post-war period. This meeting is a first step to help provide this skills training. Believe me when I say that it is just the start and there will be more. We are discussing a Spring School on CLIL as I write.
The Winter School programme had the dual focus of introducing CLIL and lesson planning to the group of 30 teachers who came together from numerous locations round Ukraine to the beautiful city of Lviv.
Also in the programme were three demo lessons, with time to discuss and unpack the lessons and with a closing plenary on inclusion.
CLIL Lesson on Genetic Heredity
Teaching Writing - Upper Secondary
In the spirit of the Putting CLIL into Practice course we run at Anglia School in Bulgaria, participants were tasked with preparing and presenting their own lessons in smaller focus groups.
Group Discussion on CLIL
The colleagues were given several lesson plan templates to choose from.
Templates For Planning Lessons
Small Group Lesson Planning
Along the way, we tasted Bulgarian lyutenitsa (tomato and pepper pickle), we sniffed Bulgarian chubritsa (herb used in cooking) and rose oil, we danced Horo to Bulgarian music, we juggled as a way of dealing with post-lunch sleepiness, and at night we walked around Lviv guided by the endless knowledge of Volodya (thanks Volodya!)
The teachers went home invigorated with positive energy, which is the best outcome we could hope to achieve and their feedback was excellent!
Winter School Certificate
20.01.25
You can download the ppt on 'CLIL - Guiding Input and Supporting Output' here.