A Visit to CIFP Carlos Oroza

By Emma Vail 

31/5/2017 

Yesterday, the 4th B class of the high school IES A Xunqueira I traveled to the nearby culinary vocational school, CIFP Carlos Oroza, to learn about their recycling efforts. As we stepped off the bus, we were met with an odious stench that nearly knocked us back onto the bus. That stench, we later learned, was the compost made of the remains of the food the school produced, to be used in the future as soil in their vegetable garden. Those vegetables will be used in future dishes, which will in turn become compost. And so the cycle continues. 

The directorial staff greeted us as we entered the building, and they led us to a cafeteria room where we put on plastic gowns and shoe slips to cover our clothes, as well as hairnets. Everyone looked ridiculous, and the students were giggling and taking pictures with each other – probably for Instagram. Our guide, Ricardo Fernandez, explained the school’s mission and told us about the recent recycling initiative they had undertaken. Their efforts centered on an evaluation of different parts of the school and how well students and staff were following the pre-established recycling protocol. The consensus: there was ample room for improvement. We left the cafeteria and went on a guided tour of the school’s cooking classrooms and restaurant.  

Ricardo, a teacher at the school, wore a chef’s white jacket with his name embroidered on the lapel. He spoke in Galician, but I was able to catch most of it. Ricardo explained the recycling protocol everyone was supposed to follow, and lamented that they didn’t. In practically every classroom we entered there was a breach of protocol, though minor. The system was well laid out, the only problems seemed to be noncompliance and misunderstanding. One thing that did seem to be well established, however, was the compost system. We visited the site and learned about how the process works while standing alongside the steaming piles of refuse, which was comical for a few moments, then just turned gross. The poor man who works the compost must have a hard time making friends. 

One of the rooms Ricardo showed to us was a trash room, through which trash and recycled material come down through chutes and are transported out by trucks. The chutes’ openings were located a floor above the trash room in a small room off a kitchen. However, this innovative and efficient system was not used, he explained, because the school’s bureaucracy had to process the change before switching to this system.  

At the close of our visit, the school’s students generously provided us with an array of snacks and smoothies they had made in their kitchens, which we had just toured. Salpicón, croquettes, empanadillas, and Serrano ham are a few examples of the delicious spread we enjoyed. It was a treat to see how a Galician culinary school worked, learn about their recycling efforts, and taste their food at the end. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and give a hearty thanks to the students and staff of CIFP Carlos Oroza! 

Sección bilingüe 3º ESO. Biología en inglés

This year our school started a new project, a bilingual subject in which a group of students of 3^rd ESO studied Biology in English.  The project was carried out by biology teacher Elena Juíz.  I want to congratulate her, the students of the group and a wonderful speaking assistant- not my words, she collaborated very closely with Elena two hours a week and they did a great job - Emma Vail.  We were lucky to work with a reasonable sized group for a language - 16-, a motivated group whose only problem was being too worried about gook marks to risk doing the exams in English.  
Anyway, they had at least one biology lesson a week in English, we dedicated most of the weekly speaking lesson to speak about science topics, especially those related to the human body, health and disease, prevention and, as the final work of the year, the students created four stories about how body organs work and common diseases. That is what you will be able to see in this entry, and I think they are really brilliant and were very wonderfully represented in front of the class and other groups.  If the goal was to get students to speak English, they have reached it.  In addition, they became used to speaking in front of other people – serious problem they had in general-.  Most of them could do it without reading, in a very natural way, and they gained motivation and confidence to go on improving next year.
As coordinator of the project, I must say it has been really rewarding working with both students and Elena and Emma, and see that the students were able to do the exams in English- all of them were written in English- and see them become more and more confident when using this language.  I think the basic question is to create a relaxed environment during lessons and make them understand that making mistakes when speaking is not something to be punished, but a necessary step to improvement.  This way they are not afraid of taking part in conversations or presentations, it is part of the training, the practice, the only way to progress towards proficiency.  They do not feel they are being tested all the time and so they are willing to participate.

Congratulations!!!

Presentaciónes 3º Bilingüe 

Science Stories 

Projects & Works 2016-17

Apart from the official curriculum and all the good materials provided by textbook publishers, the members of our department came to the conclusion, quite a long time ago, that dealing with everyday topics and searching for information about them, elaborating a presentation or work and talking about it to their mates is one of the most complete and motivating learning task fro students, as it includes all four language skills and- according to the present education law-develops all the competences.
The students get used to looking up for information in the net or from their family or environment, organising it in a presentation, talking in front of people, which is something they find difficult to start with, managing their own time to meet the deadlines, working in a team; and they discover that learning is not a question of cramming what they find in a book or their class notes for the exam.  Knowledge is everywhere and ti is very easily accessible today, you only have to take advantage of the possibilities the new technologies offer.
This does not mean that the contents of the textbook are not necessary- they are basic actually- but these contents are all around us, and we will find them useful, motivating and worth the effort of studying them if we use them for our daily tasks or for learning about things.  In fact, learning by practising- for example watching O.V. films or series or reading books, magazines, etc..- and then studying grammar is much more efficient, easier and fun than the other way around.

Here are links to works our students have done all along the year following this learning method:



Final presentations 3C

Works 4th ESO