Walking and Talking in English in Alboraya

APAVAC, the Valencian Community association of English teachers, organised a group of members to try out Valencia International’s Walking Talking Tour of Alboraya on Saturday 15th November 2014.

Braving fierce winds the group followed the route especially prepared to exploit all the pedagogical possibilities that the Valencian Huerta has to offer in a multi-disciplinary activity that is now available to teachers who would like to spend a morning discovering monuments, mysteries, legends, etymology, religion, millennia, gastronomy, nutrition, ecology, ghosts, water, earth, fire, birds, invasion, migration, trade, mathematics, sustainability, threats, industry, resentment, reverence and disputes, to name a few.

On this, the second experimental visit, teachers from CIPFP FAITANAR, IES ALC ORES, IES Molì del Sol, Mislata., IES REQUENA, IES ALBERIC, IES EL SALER IES Malilla , IES LA MORERIA, MISLATA) , IES BARI DEL CARME, VALENCIA, IES lUIS VIVES and IES Turis participated.

Next it was the turn of the students. The first secondary school, IES Serpis was followed by IES Malilla and EOI Sagunto, including a visit to an Horchateria in the middle of the Huerta, where peacocks and turkeys provide background noise and the owners sell fresh vegetables grown in view.

Our thanks to Vicente for this photograph.

On Saturday 8th November the first walk took place:

Teachers from CPMiguel Cervantes, Chirivella, IES Benlliure, IES Enric Valor Picanya, EOI Valencia, EOI Sagunto, IES Enric Soler i Godes in Benifaio, San Jose & San Andres, Massanassa, FP Misericordia, IES Salvador Gadea, Aldaia, IES Serpis and IES El Puig discovered that the Huerta of Alboraya can also be a classroom without a ceiling and without limits when Valencia International organised a walkabout for teachers to promote our new project; a wander through the huerta of Alboraya into the past and present of this unique place; drenched in history, endangered by progress, where looking is not the same as seeing, and where in order to understand, layers need to be peeled away as with one of the excellent local onions.

On our first walk we were accompanied by a reporter and a photographer from the EMV Levante newspaper, and the participants explained why they thought it would be a good idea to bring their students on the same walk.

http://www.levante-emv.com/valencia/2014/11/09/huerta-ensena-ingles/1185745.html?utm_medium=rss

The walk is essentially a CLIL activity, in that it includes elements of Languages, History, Geography, Natural Sciences, Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, religion and, obviously, Physical Education!

Mind you, not everybody on the walk was a teacher; we were joined by a Polish couple, computer engineer Peter Nowak and photographer Joanna Ruszczyk, who saw the activity announced in VI and wanted to know a bit more about the place they recently moved to.