Page 25 - ELG1707 Jul Issue 449

REVIEWS & RESOURCES
Tig-tagging along

Teacher Kristin de Geus from Basisschool de Wilge in Hilversum, Netherlands talks
about how teachers there have been using Tigtag Clil, an ELTon-winning package of
800 films and resources to support teaching science and geography using English

ell us a bit about where you
teach, what the school is like and
Twho your students are.
We have 500 children ranging in age
from four to twelve. We do English in the
class with children from Reception onwards
and have been developing our bilingual
programme since 2009. Nearly all of our
children are native Dutch speakers.
Since 2014 we’ve been part of a pilot
programme in which one group from each
grade level gets 30 per cent of their lessons in
English (the rest of the school does about 10
per cent in English).
How long have you been using
Tigtag?
We had a trial of (the non-Clil) Tigtag in
2015–16. A few teachers tried it and thought
the videos and content were impressive, but
most found the language too difficult for their
children. When Tigtag Clil was released, we
were given another trial in 2016, purchased a
few licenses in February 2017 and have been
using it since.
How does it work – describe a typical
lesson? These resources for an appropriate two-minute-long video,
You go onto the Tigtag website and search and then you have to make up lessons and
the topics to see if there are lessons that provide the necessary activities to support the video. For non-
correspond to a theme you need to teach. You language specialists, it can be difficult to
decide which of the many tools you would language support and come up with ideas to promote speaking
like to use. It can be as simple as showing one practice for second about a topic in English. All the activities
of the videos and talking about new words connect to each other and relate back to the
students have heard, or more in-depth by language learners learning objectives. Often with a video from
doing a few of the accompanying interactive YouTube, teachers will find something and do
activities to support the learning objective. an activity related to the video, but not make
You can choose your focus depending on how we choose one of the interactive activities or connections to the actual content or language
much support the children need with the experiments provided by Tigtag. learning objectives.
content or language goals. What are the main advantages? Are there any downsides to the
We usually begin by picking important There is a wealth of really great interactive resources?
words or phrases from the glossary or phrase material for each lesson. All of these resources There are a lot of resources. If you want
bank and making them the target language. provide the necessary language support and to make sure you’re getting the most out of
We tell the children they are responsible for practice for second-language learners. This it, it takes a little time initially to explore the
discovering the meaning of these words. We language support is invaluable because it lessons and determine exactly how you’d like
show the video twice, asking them to focus enables older students to be able to focus on to use the materials.
on the target language to try to determine the their science (and some geography) learning Would you recommend it?
meanings. objectives, with the appropriate content, in I would certainly recommend Tigtag Clil to
After watching the video, we have a class English. Tigtag provides enough visual and any school that teaches English as a second
discussion about what we heard and saw in language support to allow kids to learn the language. It’s great for upper elementary
the video, coming up with our own definitions material in English. The lessons allow for a students who are learning English. There are
and then checking them against the glossary great deal of flexibility. so many resources for young children to learn
or phrase bank. If we are working on reading What sets it apart from a teacher English but it can be hard to find stimulating
skills, or want to offer extra support, we simply finding their own videos on age-appropriate ESL material for children
often provide the transcript of the film for Youtube and creating their own between the ages of nine to twelve.
the children to read in addition to hearing activities?
and seeing the video. After that, the children The videos are high quality, age appropriate nTigtag Clil – suitable for learners aged 7 to 11
discuss other things they liked or learned and focus on a specific learning goal. You can – is produced by digital education company Twig
from the video using guided questions. Next, literally spend hours on YouTube searching World, with education consultant Keith Kelly.
editorial@elgazette.com 25

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