Did you know that you could improve your language skills while running through obstacles, which is not a figure of speech?! Teacher Joana Alice Marques Faria from the Primary and Secondary School of Idães brings a great example of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). 

As in the Estonian Clothes Vocabulary scenario, teaching languages combined with content from another subject works great because it contextualizes the language material. Another benefit of physical education is that it keeps students physically active, which can engage students to a greater extent.

Joana combines physical education with English vocabulary and uses a flipped classroom design. The flipped classroom design is a student-centred instructional method, in which students learn material outside of classroom hours and engage in group activities, discussions, practical work and projects in the classroom. It is called “flipped” because what is normally done as homework swaps places with teacher instruction done in the classroom. “The flipped classroom technique promotes students’ autonomy and responsibility.” says Joana. “It also provides practical activities and students become more active. They become more collaborative, interested and motivated.” 

To monitor student learning, there are multiple occasions during which the teacher asks students to do online quizzes. The discussion of the results from Kahoot and Plickers make the students aware of their difficulties and, consequently, they get more engaged (Figure 1). Joana has also two students with disabilities, therefore, she makes sure that the activities are inclusive. She did this by asking these two students to do the quizzes but not the physical exercises.

Plickers is an online quiz tool in which students can give their answer to quiz questions by showing a printed answer card with a QR code. The teacher can then quickly scan these codes with a tablet/smartphone and record the answers. 

Joana set these learning objectives for herself and her students:

• To motivate the students to learn specific vocabulary;
• To develop students’ autonomy and responsibility;
• To familiarise students with digital tools: QR codes, Kahoot, Padlet and Plickers;
• To support peer collaboration and competitive play;
• To provide and enhance practical activities;
• To increase student motivation and engagement in classroom activities;
• To respect students’ learning rates;
• To prepare digital citizens.

Before the class, Joana sent her students an email with the following instructions: 
Task 1. Instruction: “Do you want to discover the next discipline you are going to practise? Read the first task carefully, then open the Powerpoint "Let´s Clil jogo" I have sent you. When you find out the name of our next discipline, email me the answer.”
Students download this app for QR codes. Then with the help of QR codes and clues, they must discover the hidden word.

Task 2. Instruction: “Read the 2nd task carefully. If you want to watch the video, put the mouse on the link and press the right button. Watch the vídeos on the Padlet to understand everything.” Students watch the Padlet videos that show the hurdle moves. 
Task 3. Instruction: “Now you can open worksheet 1. Read the worksheet carefully to understand the specific vocabulary and techniques.” Students read worksheet 1 with the objectives and specific vocabulary.

Task 4. Instruction: “Download worksheet 2. Solve the worksheet and assess if you know the English words about hurdles or if you need to study more.” Finally, they fill in worksheet 2 for an assessment on the specific vocabulary (Hurdles).

In the beginning, Joana starts with a Plickers quiz to check if students were able to identify specific words related to the physical activity or sport and the specific material. The teacher could verify the results immediately, hence got general feedback on what students do or do not know, and what they had learnt so far. These results can be either shown to students or not.

After analysing the results, she made new work groups by putting together more proficient students with less proficient ones. Before moving on, she asked students what tasks they completed, made them visualise the videos calling their attention to the topics they had less knowledge on. 

Students then compete in groups for English-Portuguese vocabulary using these QR Codes and these lists (Portuguese). During the classes, the knowledge of the students was assessed through this group work, while using the QR code reader. This activity is supposed to motivate students to play, compete and be part of the winning team.
At the end of the lesson, the groups were given 5 to 10 minutes to present the discussed concepts. The other groups assessed all presentations giving clues about what was right, what was wrong and what was missing to help everyone could understand the topic. 

Finally, students test their knowledge through a Kahoot quiz (English). This is a general knowledge test about hurdle, running in English. Students can see their scores as well.

Figure 1 A Plickers answer card. The student needs to rotate the card in a way that her answer of choice (A-B-C-D) is on top

If teaching in the classroom is not possible or students need to switch to a hybrid teaching setting, the teacher can adapt the activities in several ways. In case some students are at home, their friends or parents can film their drills. The drills can be sent through a file-sharing platform, a digital classroom management tool or on the same Padlet used by the teacher. The teacher and classmates can watch the videos and assess the drills, and a rubric can be used for teacher and peer assessment of these drills. In a fully online or hybrid setting, quizzes can be done in the classroom with an online quiz tool, as Plickers cards cannot be used in this case.