ELC: Accountancy

ENGLISH TEACHER TRAINING PROJECT (TVET)

Session          : Accountancy

Group             : 1

Time               : 9.00-10.30

Date               : 13 October 2014

Tutor              : Bill 

REPORT

Lesson showed a lot of collaborations between content and language. Students are able to learn special list of vocabularies and phrases such as invoices, consistency, substantive test, management letter and sign off. 

Lesson started off with the “Word Rose” activity which threw students into the deep end of the topic. With limited background knowledge, this activity was able to ignite curiosity to find meaning of phrases and words.

This process enabled CLIL in the learning process. First, the communication was among members in pairs and groups and the content was the terminologies used in accountancy. As for the cognition, it’s the ability for students to understand the differences between accountancy and auditing. Lastly, the culture aspect of this lesson surrounds the moral values in running a company, being ethical and transparent.

Next activity was the jigsaw reading where the students were able to elaborate more on the differences of accountants and auditors. This activity is extremely informative and maps things out very clearly. It was able to reinforce the word rose task hence students were able to see the words in context.

Peer checking or peer activity which was carried out in this lesson had enabled students’ interest and share knowledge that they had learnt.

On the whole, this lesson was a very practical lesson to be carried out. It differs from content-based language teaching, as well as examining the role that the CLIL teacher plays in the classroom. It has clear explanations and examples on the difference of an accountant and an auditor.  This should work out to be a successful lesson.

REFLECTION

It would seem logical that anyone using CLIL Activities might ask the question “How exactly is CLIL going to work for my particular subject?” This lesson will be able to enhance the prior knowledge of students pertaining the course. Vocabulary in “Word Rose” activity are not new words to them but students may only know it at a surface level.

The “Word Rose” activity is an activity applicable to all fields taught in the English Language. It enables students to search for information, to discuss and this helps in retaining information. This lesson can be given a local setting, whereby students’ google for local prominent accounting and auditing firms. For the advanced students, they may search a sample of auditor’s report to see the format, vocabulary and language used in it.

CLIL offers language teacher who is also the subject teacher, or that the subject teacher is able to exploit opportunities for developing language skills. While experienced language teachers might feel that they have probably done most of these activities in one form or another during their teaching careers, what shouldn’t be overlooked is the value of being able to apply them to a range of situations and subjects. In a profession such as ours which has a tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater, it is genuinely nice to see that classic, worthwhile activities are presented well and explained thoroughly.

RECOMMENDATION

In applying the Word Rose activity, it is recommended if the teacher could start off by introducing simple vocabularies and gradually introduce more difficult vocabularies or phrases. This is to help struggling students improve their vocabularies phase by phase.