Cross Curricular Learning Through a Global Issue Climate Change through MFL and Geography

Slough Grammar School We have been working on increasing cross curricular planning, learning and teaching opportunities for the past two years We mainly do it through ‘collapse’ days, in the hope that it will eventually become part of normal classroom practice. Each ‘collapse’ day has a theme; this time it was ‘Environments’.

We are an international school Our students are multi-cultural and many are bi-lingual. We have links with many schools around the world and we are keen to develop further links with new schools to give our students an insight into life in other countries. We are keen to share what we do with others and enjoy hosting partner schools when they visit us in Slough.

We are an I.B. school We follow the British national curriculum but we also offer International Baccalaureate programmes. Students in the Sixth Form (16-18) have the opportunity to study the IB Diploma programme. Students in the lower school (11-16) follow the IB Middle Years programme.

MFL and Geography We planned a double lesson where Geography and MFL content would be taught. The Geography content was climate change and the MFL content was Environment vocabulary. Pupils worked in groups with a mix of Y7 Y8 andY9 all learning the same MFL The outcome was a poster raising awareness of climate change in the MFL of that group.

How did it go? What went well? Pupils enjoyed it. Pupils learnt to put vocabulary into context The vocabulary was used for revision Pupils were more aware of the consequences of climate change Even better if? We had been given specific time for cross curricular planning We had a budget for resources

Parallel lessons in MFL & Geography Session One (Geography) Brain storm ‘what is climate change’, to find out what students already know. (10 minutes) Organise students into groups, then use resources (newspaper articles) to find out more about climate change. (20 minutes) Ask groups to present their findings to the class. (20 minutes) Get groups to do a brief outline of what they will include in a poster to bring awareness to global warming. (10 minutes)

Session One (MFL) Dictionaries and other lists of words in target languages available. Watch National Geographic video on climate change (for links see below) followed by a whole class discussion. (10 minutes) Get groups to do a brief outline of what they will include in a poster to bring awareness to global warming. (10 minutes) Make a list of words in English that will be used and then find the translation in the MFL relevant to that group. (20 minutes) Present the ideas to the class including sharing the vocabulary in the MFL. (20 minutes) warming-environment/global-warming-101.html OR warming-environment/global-warming-101.html warming-environment/way-forward-climate.html OR warming-environment/way-forward-climate.html search for ‘global warming 101’.

Session Two (MFL) Each group shares their ideas for a poster with the class. (10 minutes) Make a list of words in English that will be used and then find the translation in the MFL relevant to that group. (20 minutes) Make the posters using the MFL vocabulary. (30 minutes)

Session Two (Geography) Get students into their groups then use resources (newspaper articles) to find out more about climate change. (20 minutes) Add any new ideas to plan for the poster. (10 minutes) Make the posters using the MFL vocabulary. (30 minutes)