Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) requires a teaching based on the awareness of the need to teach, in a foreign or second language, relatively complex contents to people who do not speak that language as their mother tongue. The ideal CLIL teacher is graduated and certified to teach both a subject and a foreign language. Given the difficulty of finding this type of teacher, the solution could be the co-teaching, collaboration between content and language teachers or, in higher education, linguistic and methodological formation of teachers of non-language subjects. The methodological component is a key element since we need to know how to teach that particular subject but also how to pay attention to the foreign language with language support activities.
Methodological principles
This section provides a summary of the methodological guidelines aimed at teachers of subjects that are not language teaching (NLS) who know a foreign language properly, but need to deepen the wide literature on language teaching /learning.
The basic methodological principles are as follows:
use, at various stages, defined and limited lexical forms, structures and functions, at least at the initial levels (selection and gradation) ;
use activities, materials, tools typical of foreign language teaching in content presentation, in practice, in testing and evaluation;
ensure that listening and reading precede and exceed in quantity oral and written production;
make frequent use of non-verbal media such as images, mind maps, photos and posters.
More relevance should be given to the class organization and to the teacher's role. It’s necessary to form groups, working to foster communication and collaboration, remembering that the class is a not natural learning environment and the purpose of the activities is not to inform but to develop the ability to communicate on the content that you are learning. The teacher leads, monitors, guides learning more than informing, and is its motivator.
Oral and written communication
The skills learned in the study of a foreign language are of a receptive (understanding oral language, reading written language) and productive type (producing oral language and writing written language). The student's ability to understand both the written and the oral language must be much larger than the ability to speak and write (as happens in the mother tongue). It is necessary, therefore, to teach how to listen and how to read before stimulating production and to remember that in the production you switch from simple imitation of a model to the use of language to express your personal opinions. We should also allow students to experience a wide variety of spoken and written language models.
As concerns the role of motivation, it should be remembered that being aware of developing the ability to speak is a good motivation for further learning, that is why it is necessary to highlight the progress, alternate guidance with free expression, show students how they can make the best use of the little they know.
Materials and activities
The materials that make up the subject of study can be of different types such as explanatory and argumentative texts, stories, anecdotes, speeches, comments, conversations, songs, videos and films. When asked whether it is necessary to use authentic material we find it difficult to answer, the important thing is that it responds to the needs of pupils to feel comfortable, without pretending that they understand every word, even if the difficulties should not be excessive. However the material should be above the level of production. In general authentic materials are best used when the pupils can appreciate them and accept them despite the difficulties.
The activities are numerous and can be summarized as:
distinguishing sound, pitch, pronunciation;
performing activities during or after listening or reading instructions, completing a table, for example, a map or a drawing;
completing an unfinished story, completing a description;
identifying mistakes and finding the differences;
extracting one, or more, particular information;
making jigsaw listening or reading (associating various pieces like a mosaic);
describing a picture, a drawing;
taking part in a group discussion;
writing a summary, a commentary;
producing a personal text.
Presentation of the material
Both in dialogues (or conversations) and in written passages, the language must be appropriate, the situation realistic, lexical, structural and functional items limited. The text should not be too long but interesting. There may be a period of 'pre-teach' to anticipate the difficult words, without necessarily translating into the mother tongue all the text. We need to start with a simple task for a first listening or a first reading, better avoid one student reading aloud the text to all and favor silent reading or listening to a model. We may instead introduce the topic with a sentence or question in the foreign language to arouse curiosity and interest.
The written texts in prose are the most likely context where the students experience the opportunity to learn something, content, along with the language. The traditional approach with the teacher reading aloud the whole text and then asking questions to the students may be replaced or supplemented by an approach that proceeds from the presentation of the topic, to the reading and explanation of the first part of the text, with questions about the next part of text, alternating silent reading to conversation on the text and explanation of the most complex parts. Later it might be interesting to build class quizzes, or make a contest of questions between groups in the class.
The presentation of content can also be made using other methods, from a poster for example, or from an interactive infographics.
Exercise and practice
The practice of what is being learned can gradually pass from mechanical exercises of oral or written repetition to the most significant exercise up to the production. The student needs to have wide opportunity to use what he/she has learned, possibly without constant reference to a text. It must be first guided with the possibility of making a few mistakes, with substitution tables for example, small one item transformation exercises, and then make the most meaningful activities, guessing, imagining situations, giving open-ended responses, expressing relations, answering questions. The transition to free production may be accompanied by pair practice, small dialogues, language games, decision making activities, questionnaires and quizzes.
Production
The opportunity to use the language for themselves is essential, although with mistakes, pupils have to appreciate the foreign language as a tool to use to talk about the contents studied. Patience and tolerance on the part of the teacher is needed since there may be language, psychological, cognitive problems, preventing proper and free self-expression on a topic. The group work may also be helpful at this stage. Oral discussions, written texts discussions, comments of songs and newspaper articles can be organized. Summaries, commentaries, short compositions can be written. We should not forget the role of games such as guessing, sentence-building, or the role of acting, miming, role-playing, simulating.
Webinar: Why CLIL now? with David Marsh: David Marsh co-launched the European context of CLIL in the 1990s. Watch the recording of this interesting webinar:
Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) requires a teaching based on the awareness of the need to teach, in a foreign or second language, relatively complex contents to people who do not speak that language as their mother tongue. The ideal CLIL teacher is graduated and certified to teach both a subject and a foreign language. Given the difficulty of finding this type of teacher, the solution could be the co-teaching, collaboration between content and language teachers or, in higher education, linguistic and methodological formation of teachers of non-language subjects. The methodological component is a key element since we need to know how to teach that particular subject but also how to pay attention to the foreign language with language support activities.