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<p class="p4"><span class="s1">The second trip of the University of Athens team for in situ observation of the SFL program implementation took place between the 2</span><span class="s2"><sup>nd</sup></span><span class="s1"> and 5</span><span class="s2"><sup>th</sup></span><span class="s1"> of December 2015 in Bulgaria.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>The team included Professor of University of Athens Georgios Kalkanis, Dr. Rania Gkikopoulou and PhD candidate Efstratios Kapotis.</span></p>
<p class="p4"><span class="s1"><img class="size-full wp-image-2691 alignleft" src="http://www.sflabs.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/screen-shot-2016-02-02-at-12.39.32.png" alt="Screen Shot 2016-02-02 at 12.39.32" width="170" height="123" />On December 3rd, Professor Kalkanis and and PhD candidate Efstratios Kapotis visited the school <b>Uwekind</b> (International School Uwekind) in Knyajevo, where the SFL program is being implemented in courses combining the teaching of Chemistry with the German Language. </span></p>
<p class="p4"><span class="s1">At 10 am the course began with teachers Monika Liutova and Radostina Kirina leading eighteen 5</span><span class="s2"><sup>th</sup></span><span class="s1"> grade students. The duration of the course was an hour and the thematic related to mixtures and ways of separating them (in particular the sedimentation and filtration).</span></p>
<p class="p4"><span class="s1">The teachers handed worksheets out to the students. The worksheet was written in both languages </span><span class="s3">​​</span><span class="s1">(Bulgarian - German). The 18 students were divided into groups of four or three. Initially the teachers asked questions in order to hear the students’ hypotheses (eg. how to separate a mixture, do components of the mixture determine the procedure to be followed, which substances can be separated by a magnet, etc.). Then students were presented the separation methods, the vocabulary and the instructions for the experimentation.</span></p>
<p class="p4"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-2692" src="http://www.sflabs.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/screen-shot-2016-02-02-at-12.39.39.png" alt="Screen Shot 2016-02-02 at 12.39.39" width="438" height="336" /></p>
<p class="p4"><span class="s1">At the beginning the students had to name and fill in their worksheets with some examples of homogeneous and heterogeneous mixtures they know. Then they had to complete the ingredients of some mixtures well known, in a table in German. Students then experimented with various mixtures and their separation. For example, they dropped beans and polystyrene into coffee cups, and separated the mixtures by filtration. In the next experiment they created a mixture of salt and iron filings, which was separated with a magnet. In the end they had to find examples of mixture separation from everyday life.</span></p>
<p class="p4"><span class="s1">Throughout the course, students collaborated during the experimentation. Students used the German language during their discussions with the other students or their teachers. The teachers wrote the vocabulary in German on the blackboard (eg. magnet, sieb, filter, filtrieren, absetzen). The students could articulate their hypotheses, conclusions and results of experiments in German without difficulty. </span></p>
<p class="p4"><span class="s1">Upon completion of the course, the University of Athens team had a conversation with the teachers and the owner of the school about the Program.</span></p>
<p class="p5"><span class="s1"><span class="Apple-converted-space">       <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-2693" src="http://www.sflabs.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/screen-shot-2016-02-02-at-12.40.08.png" alt="Screen Shot 2016-02-02 at 12.40.08" width="505" height="533" /></span></span><span class="s1"><span class="Apple-converted-space">       </span></span></p>
<p class="p4"><span class="s1">The next course started at 11:00 with the same teachers and nineteen 6th grade students. The forty minute class covered chemical changes in substances and chemical reactions, specifically what chemical reactions are, the difference between them, and how they are represented visually.</span></p>
<p class="p4"><span class="s1">Students were also divided into groups of four or six. The worksheets given to students contained questions in Bulgarian regarding the materials of experiments and the procedures that they would follow. Then students were given a German glossary with all the words and terminology needed by students. At the end there were diagrams to be filled by the students.</span></p>
<p class="p4"><span class="s1">Teachers asked students to predict the result of the chemical and physical reactions. After a short discussion, they started experimenting. They asked the students to smell the sulfur from a test tube and then a student shuffled the sulfur with iron filings. The teachers asked the students to choose the easiest way of separating the mixture into its components. After a discussion they filled in the stages of the process in their worksheets and a student wrote it on the blackboard. The terminology and the procedures were articulated by the students in both languages.</span></p>
<p class="p4"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-2694" src="http://www.sflabs.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/screen-shot-2016-02-02-at-12.40.17.png" alt="Screen Shot 2016-02-02 at 12.40.17" width="498" height="510" /></p>
<p class="p4"><span class="s1">Afterwards there was a demonstration of an endothermic chemical reaction in a test tube and the students felt the temperature change gripping the tube. In the next experiment there was a discussion about what would happen if phenolphthalein was added to a solution of sodium. The teachers added it and students observed and schematically designed the reaction in their worksheets. Students wrote</span> <span class="s1">their conclusions in German regarding physical and chemical reactions. They were asked to choose between reactions which are possible and which are not. Then they wrote in German a small suggestion on how one can describe a chemical reaction and read it to the others. </span></p>
<p class="p4"><span class="s1">For the next experiment, they threw baking soda in a balloon, and vinegar in a bottle and placed the balloon at the mouth of the bottle, so as to drop the soda inside. Students were asked to predict, experiment and record their findings in Bulgarian. The last activity of the course was the classification of phenomena of everyday life based on the reactions they represent.</span></p>
<p class="p5"><span class="s1"><span class="Apple-converted-space">     <img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-2695" src="http://www.sflabs.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/screen-shot-2016-02-02-at-12.40.08-1.png" alt="Screen Shot 2016-02-02 at 12.40.08" width="505" height="533" /></span></span></p>
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<p class="p4"><span class="s1">In both classes the students were engaged, involved, and responded easily to requests by the teacher, using German vocabulary.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Also, it was evident that both teachers had successfully prepared their lesson with worksheets and experimental materials. The course in both classes was very successful, not only because of the very good preparation of the teachers and the useful worksheets, but also because of the impressive response of students.</span></p>
<p class="p4"><span class="s1">Upon completion of the second course, the University of Athens team held a discussion with the teachers implementing the SFL Program. The teachers said that they consider their activities very important, and affirmed that the course is both enjoyable for their students and interesting for the teachers. They also noted an increased interest of students in science after the implementation of the program, which impacts foreign language study very positively as well. They said that in some cases students with previously lower performance in the language, began to speak and express successfully to an impressive degree after taking the course.</span></p>
<p class="p4"><span class="s1">The next day, on December 4th the University of Athens team visited the other SFL school program in Sofia, <b>Benito Juarez</b>, which applies the SLF program combining the teaching of Chemistry and the Spanish Language. There, the school teachers welcomed the team very warmly. In the brief discussion that preceded the course the school briefed the team regarding program implementation this year, the classes, the methodology and how their students have been responding. Afterwards the team visited the premises and classrooms of the school.</span></p>
<p class="p4"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-2696" src="http://www.sflabs.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/screen-shot-2016-02-02-at-12.39.58.png" alt="Screen Shot 2016-02-02 at 12.39.58" width="256" height="103" /></p>
<p class="p4"><span class="s1">Teachers Radost Mazganova and Yordanka Yordanova led a 6</span><span class="s2"><sup>th</sup></span><span class="s1"> grade class of 12 students in the morning. The forty minute course covered chemical elements and pure substances.</span></p>
<p class="p4"><span class="s1">The students participating in the program were participants from last year who were interested in taking part again in the program. Classes for these students are normally in the afternoon, but they had come in the morning to allow us to observe their lesson.</span></p>
<p class="p4"><span class="s1">At the beginning teachers handed out worksheets to the students and watched a YouTube video in Spanish about chemical elements. Students answered questions concerning the content of the video and held a discussion in Spanish. Then each student randomly choose two different cards, where one wrote a chemical element or compound in the Bulgarian language and the other in Spanish another chemical element or chemical compound. Students had to pair their cards. After that, students practiced terminology of the unity and revised the previous concepts in Spanish: The teacher presented the Bulgarian words (eg atoms, molecules, ions) and asked students to name them in Spanish. Students responded in Spanish without difficulty. The educational procedure continued with a video projection that included the periodic table and the students were asked to respond (in Spanish) to questions mentioned in the video. At the end of the video they read a short relevant text in Spanish.</span></p>
<p class="p4"><span class="s1">A game was the next activity, during which students had to place cards with the names of elements in a two-column table: chemical elements and compounds. This was followed by a domino game, where the element and compound names were written in both languages, and students had to match the words. Students completed their worksheets with the terminology in both languages. In the last activity, each student stuck a sticker with the name of an element (in Spanish) on the t-shirt and they were asked to form compounds by combining elements of two or more students. The course ended with assigned homework.</span></p>
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<p class="p4"><span class="s1">The same teachers led the next observed class of nineteen 5</span><span class="s2"><sup>th</sup></span><span class="s1"> grade students. We were also observing the process seated in the back of the room. The forty minute class addressed pure substances and mixtures.</span></p>
<p class="p4"><span class="s1">The course began with the teachers handing out worksheets related to this theme to the students.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>The worksheet was written in both languages </span><span class="s3">​​</span><span class="s1">(Bulgarian<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>and Spanish). Initially the students were asked to express their hypotheses based on whether various materials float or not (eg. cork, stone, wood, metal). They then tested their hypotheses by throwing these materials into the water. They recorded their answers in Spanish.</span></p>
<p class="p4"><span class="s1">Then the students made different mixtures and had to answer (in Spanish) whether they are homogeneous or heterogeneous and try to separate them into their components (eg. using a magnet). The next activity called for experimenting with solutions. After that the students completed the activities in their worksheets and made a sketch of the experiment. The next activity was the separation of the terminology into adjectives and nouns. Each student chose cards randomly with terms written in Spanish. They were then asked to distinguish what was a noun and what was an adjective, placing them in the appropriate box. The last activity was a domino game, with words in Spanish which students had to match with the corresponding images. This unit will continue in next lesson with more activities.</span></p>
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<p class="p4"><span class="s1">In both classes the students were engaged, involved, eager to collaborate, and responded easily requests by the teacher. They used the vocabulary of the section in Spanish. Also, it was evident that both teachers had successfully prepared their lesson with worksheets and experimental materials. The course in both classes was considered very successful, not only because of the very good preparation of the teachers and the useful worksheets, but also because of the impressive response of students.</span></p>
<p class="p4"><span class="s1">Upon completion of the second course (also during the break), the University of Athens team discussed the implementation of the SFL Program with the teachers and the director of the school. The teachers said that their students show interest and want to participate in the program, and that students participating for the second year display marked improvements in their performance of foreign language comprehension. They also stressed that the teachers are enthusiastic about the program and want to continue. The teachers explained that it would be very helpful for the implementation of the Program if they receive and start using the Mobile labs.</span></p>
<p class="p4"><span class="s1">The general impression of the University of Athens team is that both Bulgarian schools are implementing the SFL program with great success.</span></p>
<p class="p4"><span class="s1">Students show interest and participate willingly and they respond successfully to the activities of the course. A particularly important aspect of this success is the great enthusiasm of the students throughout their courses. They can cooperate harmoniously in smaller or larger groups and they use the German / Spanish language during the course. They seem to understand the instructions they are given in the German / Spanish language and it is not difficult for them use this language.</span></p>
<p class="p4"><span class="s1">With regard to the teachers, apart from the very careful preparation of the course (with worksheets, the necessary vocabulary and appropriate visual material), they also show considerable enthusiasm for the course and especially love for their work, which contributes decisively to the success of program. The constructive and positive cooperation between the teachers has also contributed to the program’s achievements.</span></p>