Multilingualism is an extremely respected competence in today’s multicultural society. It allows us to coexist and communicate with people of various cultural backgrounds, offers better employment opportunities and much more. Foreign language courses start at a very young age as languages are becoming a key part of our future. However, there is still fairly little time committed to teaching languages in elementary schools and the potential for learning remains untapped with pupils not being exposed enough to the target language. In order to provide pupils with the chance to be exposed and learn a foreign language outside of its school subject, experts have devised many different approaches to include a foreign language in other school subjects and everyday social interactions. One of this approaches is CLIL (Content and language integrated learning). The idea behind CLIL is to link the language and non-language content (ie. mathematics) to allow for a more authentic approach to language learning and to gain an extensive knowledge of different cultures while offering a view of various problems from a new perspective. In addition, mathematics in elementary education needs to be taught with concrete examples and provide challenge to the pupils.
In my master’s dissertation I designed an educational model of selected mathematical content in a foreign language and tested it in a real classroom. The starting point of the model are the goals of the 2nd grade mathematics and foreign language curriculum. When planning a lesson, teacher has to take into account the element of cross-curricular integration and connect different knowledge and contents of the selected subjects. It should also include the cultural dimension of cross-curricular integration. Other key elements of the model that are interconnected with cross-curricular integration are different representations, communication and problem. These elements insure that when you use this model the teaching is better. I complied with all the modern approaches of teaching mathematics and foreign languages while designing my model.
In the empiric part of my dissertation the educational model linking foreign language and mathematics was applied to the third-grade elementary school lessons, consisting of 15 pupils and spanning 9 periods. Content included natural numbers, orientation, multiplying, geometry and money. Evaluation was held after each period based on observation categories defined in advance. Furthermore, it included possible improvements and changes for the future periods. Pupils met the strategic goal of foreign language learning and mathematics while evolving their cognitive capabilities and teamwork. Research confirmed that the model allows for simultaneous reaching the strategic goals of different subjects and offers teachers an option to plan their periods in a way to be more inviting and motivating for their students.
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