CLIL and other projects
* On June 15, 2021, the final online presentation took place, which was the official summary of the sixth edition of the CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) project. During the project, as part of the language course, a group of second-year students of the Faculty of Civil Engineering developed their English language skills (C1 level) for two semesters, while deepening their knowledge of concrete technology and building structures. It is worth noting that the students used didactic materials prepared especially for them by the language coordinators of the project, Iwona Seta-Dąbrowska, MA, and Janusz Sroka, MA, from the Foreign Language Canter. The content of the entire project was supervised by Dr Małgorzata Gołaszewska from the Faculty of Civil Engineering at the Silesian University of Technology.
Unfortunately, the pandemic situation made it impossible to carry out the practical part of the project in the laboratory of the Faculty of Civil Engineering, which had been a tradition until 2019. This time, however, most of the design teams managed to make the previously planned small concrete forms on their own. The implementation of the project was possible thanks to the great determination and ingenuity of the students who used their private spaces for this purpose - garages, basements, gardens, etc. In this way, a lot of beautiful and original concrete objects were created: flower pots, a table with an engraved countertop, candlesticks, a lamp connecting wooden elements with concrete, and – last but not least – epoxy resin coasters.
All the work was carried out in compliance with safety rules (related both to the pandemic situation and to the general guidelines for concrete processing, which were mentioned in the class), and the students went to a lot of trouble to obtain the necessary materials and organize work at a time and place convenient for everyone in the group.
Some teams even managed to get in touch with construction companies and get some of the materials needed to complete the project, which is an integral and very important part of our CLIL program. Thanks to the pigments obtained from Primacol Professional, for the first time in many years, coloured concrete (red flower pots in the shape of rubber boots) was created, and thanks to the epoxy resin from Ciech Resins, fancy coasters with the addition of glitter were made.
Only two of the seven project teams did not have the opportunity to organize joint work, but their members decided to individually make extremely interesting concrete forms: hand-shaped stands, dumbbells, and even a huge garden hearth.
In a survey conducted at the end of the class, the project received very high marks and extremely favourable opinions from our students. The students and project coordinators also received congratulations and appreciation from the authorities of the Foreign Languages centre, the Faculty of Civil Engineering and invited guests.
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