OUR BILINGUAL SCHOOL


“The limits of my language

 Are the limits of my world.”

Ludwig Wittegenstein    

OUR SCHOOL               NUESTRO CENTRO

The Colonial High School in Fuente Palmera, (Córdoba) Spain is settled in a rural area and it gathers students from 9 small villages nearby, about 700 students and about 67 teachers. Most of our teenagers have a medium-low economical level. Our school offers what in Spain it is called ESO, ages 12 to 16 year-olds, which is the minimum compulsory education (and which is gradually becoming bilingual); two courses of BACHILLERATO (sixth form college), 16 to 18 year-olds (preparing students for university studies); and two different BTECs, one in Administration (which is bilingual too) and another one in Fashion and Clothing (since this town is well-known in Spain for the quality and creativity of their wedding clothing industry). Likewise we offer a programme for those students in special needs at all courses of the ESO level.

At IES Colonial we are working hard to improve our students’ lisguistic skills, social compentences and cultural knowledge both in English and Spanish. We are immersed in several projects that foster inter-cultural awareness and language skills. Projects in which most of our staff are involved, are for examlple:

- PLC (School Linguistic Project) It is a big multidisciplinary project which tries to foster our students communicative skills by unifying reading, writing and communicative assessment criteria in all our subjects (linguistic and non linguistic). All teachers are enrolled in it so each year we plan a different school integrated curriculum task in which each department plays its part. Last year we commemorated Shakespeare and Cervantes; This year and the following we will be working on our 250 anniversary of the fundation of our Colony, by Charles III (1717).

- IES Colonial School is in its second implementing year of our bilingualial project and we are working on bilingual integrated curricula of certain non linguistic areas, where non linguistic subjects are taught in English and languages have Science or other area content texts or activities. This is our third year in bilingual teaching at Administration Studies. At secondary level we are teaching three bilingual subjects to our 12 year-olds: Biology and Maths. Our 13 year-olds will be taught Physics & Chemistry as well as History. This will be applied gradually to all courses, though different subjects will be taught in bilingual in each different course level. Our bilingual team is formed by teachers with an official English Certificate of B2 or C1. Most of them take part in our KA1 and linguistic immersion stays. Some other teachers are improving their English to belong to our bilingual teaching team. We count on a native assitant for these lessons too.

Our School Integrated Project this year commemorates our 250 Colonial Anniversary, and this has an European dimension since it involves some of our Erasmus partnership countries, since Charles III was King of Spain, Naples, Sicily and married Princess Maria Amalia of Saxony, who was daughter of the King of Poland. In this project we do some research, then we design integrated tasks in team work, and then we plan ICT activities such as historical tours using QR, and many more things and events in and out our school.

We offer one week linguistic immersion to study English at an English Academy ( e.g. in Broadstairs or Portsmouth). Besides our English Department has applied for an linguistic immersion scholarship for our 13-14 year-olds. We will have a school exchange with an Italian school this year and are working on another exchange with a Dutch school. Several trips and excursions are offered to our students to travel abroad: London, Paris, Rome, Gibraltar are frequent destinations. Additionaly we offer French as a third language as an optional subject.

Our village, Fuente Palmera is tweened with the Italian village Caprino. And our city Córdoba has been tweened Nuremberg for more than 6 years now under the idea of tolerance, defence of Human Rights and citiy friendship: Cordoba supports Nuremberg become European City of Culture.

We are immersed in an Erasmus plus project KA1 called “IES Colonial, opening doors to Europe», aimed at enhancing the implementation of bilingualism as well as learning new tools and devices to make appealing activities by means of ICT knowlege, since we want to use an innovative approach of teaching. Our main goals are:

• Promoting ICT in every different area so that it may be easier to share knowledge, folders, resources etc., with other professional teachers and other countries.

• Making better use of tablets and useful apps to create new appealing activities and resources.

• Practising linguistic skills, especially English.

• Encouraging teachers to cooperate in the EU.

• Acquiring knowledge and strategies on other European school systems, testing, assessment, evaluation aimed to overcome dropout.

• Applying a methodology based on an integrated multidisciplinary cross-curricular curriculum within our linguistic project.

 

In bilingualism we mean to apply different methodologies such as FLIPPED CLASSRROM or CLIL methodology in Maths, Languages, History and Geography, Natural Science and Biology and Physics and Chemistry. We aim to expand this multidisciplinary project to our highest level of teaching; measures to enhance reading, writing, listening linguistic skills are being implemented at present at Secondary level.

Our Erasmus +KA1 «El Colonial Opening Doors to Europe» is aimed at teachers and students. These teachers supply  workshops and presentations to other teachers and/ or in their lesson to share and spread their knowledge and materials to our School community.Three of the mobilities have already been done by now, to Cambridge, Wales and Wochester. Our Erasmus funded teachers may offer a workshop to share knowledge and materials which may be useful for our Erasmus partner teachers.

Our Techonology teachers have implemented an Innovative Project to enhance the students’ interest in their subject and make it easier and more appealing for them to achieve the expected objectives of their curriculum. They have changed their methodology to leave room for new tools such as Lego® Mindstorms® NXT . Our students have been awarded in National Lego Tournaments. In 2011 they won the First Lego League in Cordoba and competed in Bilbao, Pamplona. In 2014 and 2016 they were awarded as the Best Lego Project of their competition. They have adquired some equipment for programming and monitoring systems based on Arduino Programme. These Free Hardware drivers allow them to apply useful real world applications. These challenging activities improve the students’ autonomy, promote learning by doing and favours team work. Therefore most of the desired compenteces get reinforced. This Department offers a workshop or activity during our Erasmus + Week Hosting, a workshop on elementary robotics knowledge with Lego Robots.

Inmaculada Guadix is the Spanish Coordinator of this project and will be our School Contact in this KA2 project. She in an English teacher, the Bilingual Project Coordinator as well as the Linguistic Immersion Coordinator. Inmaculada Guadix has taken active part in our KA1 Erasmus + and has been abroad to enhance her continuous teaching learning.

El IES Colonial de Fuente Palmera, (Córdoba) España se encuentra situado en una zona rural y acoge a alumnado de  9 aldeas cercanas,  unos 700 alumnos y cerca de 70 profesores. La mayoría de nuestro alumnado tiene un nivel adquisitivo medio, o medio-bajo. Nuestro centro ofrece lo que en España se denomina ESO, edades comprendidas entre los 12 y los 16 años, esta es la escolarización mínima obligatoria (gradualmente convirtiéndose en educación bilingüe); dos cursos de Bachillerato, de 16 a 18 años (el alumnado se prepara para los estudios universitarios); y dos Ciclos formativos: uno en Administración de Empresas, y otro en Moda y Confección (dado a que este pueblo es muy conocido en España por su calidad y creatividad en e diseño de vestidos de novia). De igual manera se ofrecen programas de ayuda a alumnado con necesidades especiales, especialmente en los cursos de la ESO.