CHAPTER 1 Introduction

Jesus spoke all this things to the crowd in parables;

he did not say anything to them without using a parable

(Matthew 13, 34).

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

The theme for this project derives from my personal interest in teaching Religious Education (RE) in English. The first time I attended a Catholic mass in Ireland in the 90’s I found myself being able to communicate with people outside liturgy but completely lost in the Assembly. With no little effort, I learnt by heart all the answers of the mass. This has been a life-long gain, since those expressions containing lexis and grammar points come to my mind so easily any time I need a specific structure. Back in Spain, in collaboration with a colleague, I offered an extracurricular activity for Secondary Students: Liturgy Workshop.

Since bilingual education begun gaining popularity in Madrid I’ve been considering that teaching Religion in English would render more benefits than choosing other subjects like Music or Arts & Crafts. Also, Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) methodology is commonly applied for teaching content subjects in English, and RE could follow this methodology. Anytime I commented this with colleagues and other school administrators a positive reaction was provoked. Some downsides were also presented to me: practice of Religion will be in Spanish, not English, and lack of qualified teachers. These, I was told, were the main barriers. Some other argued that it should be allowed by bishops. Regarding this, not asking permission would be enough to avoid a denial. As for the two first drawbacks, is it not the same with other subjects? So I’ve kept considering it plausible and waiting for the occasion to teach RE in English. Time has come.

The present project pretends to justify such an innovation and make a concrete, real proposal to implement RE in English in a School in Madrid. The school I have chosen is Colegio Alfonso XII in S. L. de El Escorial. The year we want to introduce this innovation is the sixth of the Primary stage. This school has gained approval for an Own Pedagogic Project to be implemented in the following years. Part of this project includes an increase in the number of hours per week dedicated to teaching English teaching as a foreign language (EFL), from 3 to 5. At the same time, Arts & Crafts and Music will be taught in English from a CLIL perspective. Also, one out of four hours of Ciencias Sociales will be taught as Science: a part of the syllabus of the subject also taught in CLIL. Finally, the administrators of the school have decided to use one of the two hours of RE to be taught in the same way. This project emerges as a response to this initiative.

In the case of RE, one out of two hours that this subject had so far will be deducted and passed on to English. Why? Because of the requirements that a RE teacher needs to which we must add the qualification to teach in a foreign language, as we shall show latter. This organization of a Bilingual

Education Program (BEP) in this school is following actually two different subject-led models of CLIL (see chapter further below). Due to this peculiar way of organizing this teaching of RE in the 6th year, our project could be considered other than a CLIL approach. But we have to say that no matter the official organization, a CLIL approach will be used.

As it will be only one hour per week, at the end of the year this will amount to 33-37 hours of teaching for year 2014-2015. We have calculated a margin of error due to celebrations during the year in the school as well as days off for reason of long weekends and feast days that are unknown in September. We are bound to the syllabus of the Spanish Conference of Bishops (SBC). To fulfill it we will use one of the RE hours: the one taught in Spanish; the hour transferred to English will be a bit more freely used to teach values related to the Kingdom of Heaven preached by Jesus Christ in parables and other short stories. This will introduce pupils into real texts of the Bible (so far they have been using abridged versions, videos and some other adapted materials).

In this paper we will begin with a justification of our pretension of teaching RE in English. As it is not customary to do so, we will try to show benefits that support our election of this subject. Then, we will continue to outline main features of CLIL approach to languages and content as a theoretical basis from which we will draw some indications and ideas for our project. Later, an analysis of content and target levels will be detailed in order to determine learning outcomes. Together with it, we shall establish simple and easy-to-use criteria for text selection.

Once we have texts and objectives, we will find some characteristics of the activities to develop with children in the classroom when working with the parables from a CLIL approach, searching for a new methodology in the teaching – learning process and assessment. When doing this and if examples given, we will introduce activities with parables, most of the times the Good Samaritan; this will serve to get an idea of how real work in the classroom should run. Finally, a brief scheme of work with a parable will give as an idea of the way we would like the project to be deployed.

The objective of the present project is to probe that RE is eligible to be taught in English in bilingual schools and we will make a proposal for its implementation in the Primary stage, showing its benefits and outlining the activities involved.

In order to do so, we will follow next steps:

- In the first place, we will justify the pretension of teaching RE in English and evaluate the appropriateness of RE taught in English when a Bilingual Education Project has been deployed in a school.

- A revision of the main features of CLIL approach to languages will follow and appropriate relation to RE taught in English will be showed.

- Then, we will determine the best moment to begin with RE in English, considering only the

Primary stage.

- Once we know what, how and when to teach RE in English, we will analyze RE and English syllabuses in Madrid for our target years to test if they are compatible.

- From the previous point we will determine criteria for selecting religious materials and language areas to be taught simultaneously. A list of parables and stories from the Gospel will emerge as well as three grammar areas to focus on.

- Finally, we will outline the type of activities for the classroom that will be used to cover content and language objectives at a time from a CLIL approach improving all skills in children. Assessment will also be briefly described and we will select a methodology for it.

Now, let’s begin with our pretension of RE taught in English within bilingual projects.