The+Bridge+ (7)

The Bridge Project

CLIL in the
Classroom

User
Manual

Information for Colleagues
at Multiplier Event

Special thanks to Paulius Seras

Spanish Dutch Multiplier Event

Table
of Contents

3 INTRODUCTION

4 CHAPTER 1: Principles
why
Aims

10 CHAPTER 2: Ideal Features
Aims
Outcomes

8 CHAPTER 3 Methods
Advantages
Obstacles

9 classroom practice

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Spanish Dutch Multiplier Event

About
Our Project

The Bridge

Te Bridge Project is a partnership of schools from 9
countries. It emerged from an earlier project called
Spirit of Hope which was a Comenius project. .The main
aim of our project is to create teaching resources for
use in schools across Europe.

The Dutch and Spanish partners have long been experts in the delivery of CLIL in
their schools and a multiplier event was organised by these schools ...and indeed
shared during the building Bridges conference in Newcastle .

The project aims to improve teaching and learning in particular subject areas,
subject teachers will assess whether the academic aims have been met. These
results will be discussed during staff and departmental meetings and used to
improve the effectiveness of their teaching methods.
The academic content needs to be stimulating and exciting and relevant to
contemporary needs. Monitoring and evaluation of content will depend on goal
clarity. We have identified CLIL as an important feature and intend to compare
student attainment for those participating in CLIL programmes with students not
involved in CLIL.
The learning outcomes were described during the planning process with a clear
timeframe for completion. The timeline is found in the twin space project diary,
time management is the responsibility of each coordinator and quality control
relies on publication of results which are open to public scrutiny.

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CLIL

Content and Language
Integrated Learning

CLIL - Classroom principles

 Language is used to learn as
well as to communicate

 It is the subject matter which
determines the language
needed to learn

CLIL

 Subject – in simple, easily
comprehensible ways, using
diagrams, illustrations, graphs,
practice and highlighting terms.

 Language – subject based
vocabulary, texts and
discussions.

WHY?

 The ability to use a language is
much more than knowing its
words and grammar, and
speaking in perfectly formed
sentences.

 Language learning is
surrounded by myths.

 We could usefully re-consider
some of these beliefs and
views.

Main aims

 Acquire knowledge using target language
 Acquire necessary skills in the target

language
 Acquire necessary skills in the mother tongue
 Understand and value both cultures
 Develop cognitive and social skills

A successful CLIL lesson should
combine elements of the following:

 Content - Progression in knowledge, skills
and understanding related to specific
elements of a defined curriculum

 Communication - Using language to learn
whilst learning to use language

A successful CLIL lesson should
combine elements of the following:

 Cognition - Developing thinking skills which
link concept formation (abstract and
concrete), understanding and language

 Culture - Exposure to alternative
perspectives and shared understandings,
which deepen awareness of otherness and
self.

Can do

 In CLIL, we provide a situation in which the
attention of the child is on a form of learning
activity which is not the language itself.

 It can be very successful in enhancing the
learning of languages and subjects, and
developing in the youngsters a positive ‘can
do’ attitude towards themselves as language
learners.

Outcome

 The language classroom is essential for the
learner to understand the ‘nuts and bolts’ of
language – the architectural plans.

 Learners need time to build things with the
‘nuts and bolts’ – to build the house which
they see in theory on paper.

CLIL - methods

 Can learn to play football or the piano without
kicking a ball or touching the keys?

 Kids learn mother tongue using the resources
surrounding them (deaf children in Nicaragua,
reading the lips, sign language)

CLIL - methods

 Changing the perspective (Robin William,
Dead Poets’ Society)

 Talk and discuss, write and express, explore
and share

 Support – mind maps, word clouds, graphs

CLIL - obstacles

 New concepts always difficult to accept
 Lack of qualified teachers
 Heavy load and shortage of materials
 Lack of support

CLIL - best practices

 Subject or language teacher?
 Groups or whole class?
 Materials?
 Benefits and prospects for the future
NB! the learning of language and subjects is

mixed: there are two main aims, one related
to the subject, topic, or theme, and one linked
to the language

CLIL model

Thinking
(outcomes,

analysis,
assessment)

Belonging Subject Communication
(interests, (integration, (involvement,
partners, implementation, support mat,
local/global) skills and culture) discussions)

CLIL – main aspects

 Multiple focus – integration of subject and
language teching, blending subjects and
topics, out-of-class projects, analysis

 Learning environment – typical tasks, lots of
aids, overcoming fear, authentic materials

CLIL – main aspects

 Authenticity – student is the speaker, topics
related to their needs, everyday life and
interest; contacts with target language users;
use of authentic materials

 Active learning – students talk more, help to
rephrase the outcomes, assess progress, co-
operate, discuss. Teacher is a guide and
provider.

CLIL – main aspects

 Support structure – learning is based on
prior knowledge, skills, attitudes, interests
and experience; information is provided in
student-friendly forms paying attention to
different learning styles; critical and creative
thinking is supported; new challenging tasks

CLIL – main aspects

 Co-operation – courses / classes / topics are
planned in co-operation with subject and
language teachers; parents are informed and
invited to support students; learning reaches
outside the common classroom

How – a dozen ways

 Language camps
 Student exchange
 Project work
 Language practice abroad
 Immersion (keelekümblus)
 Language showers
 One or several subjects
 CLIL modules

In a CLIL lesson, all language skills
should be combined and seen as:

 Listening is a normal input activity, vital for
language learning

 Reading, using meaningful material, is the
major source of input

 Speaking focuses on fluency. Accuracy is
seen as subordinate

 Writing is a series of lexical activities through
which grammar is recycled.

CLIL lessons exhibit the following
characteristics:

 Integrate language and skills, and receptive
and productive skills

 Lessons are often based on reading or
listening texts / passages

 The language focus in a lesson does not
consider structural grading

CLIL lessons exhibit the following
characteristics:

 Language is functional and dictated by the
context of the subject

 Language is approached lexically rather than
grammatically

 Learner styles are taken into account in task
types.

How to begin

 Lesson framework
 A CLIL lesson looks at content and language

in equal measure, and often follows a four-
stage framework.

Processing the text

 The best texts are those accompanied by
illustrations.

 When working in a foreign language, learners
need structural markers in texts to help them
find their way through the content.

 Once a 'core knowledge' has been identified,
the organisation of the text can be analysed.

Identification and organisation of
knowledge

 Texts are often represented diagrammatically.

 Diagram types include tree diagrams for
classification, groups, hierarchies, flow
diagrams and timelines for sequenced
thinking such as instructions and historical
information, tabular diagrams describing
people and places, and combinations of
these.

Language identification

 Learners are expected to be able to
reproduce the core of the text in their own
words.

 There is no grading of language
 Highlight useful language in the text and

categorise it according to function.
 Pay attention to collocations, semi-fixed

expressions, set phrases and subject-specific
and academic vocabulary.

Tasks for students

 There is little difference in task-type between
a CLIL lesson and a skills-based ELT lesson.
A variety of tasks should be provided, taking
into account the learning purpose and learner
styles and preferences

 Tasks designed for production need to be
subject-orientated, so that both content and
language are recycled.

Typical listening activities include:

 Listen and label a diagram / picture / map /
graph / chart

 Listen and fill in a table
 Listen and make notes on specific

information (dates, figures, times)
 Listen and reorder information
 Listen and identify location / speakers
 Listen and label the stages of a process /

instructions / sequences Listen and fill in
the gaps in a text

Typical speaking activities include:

 Question loops - questions and answers,
terms and definitions, halves of sentences

 Information gap activities with a question
sheet to support

 Trivia search - 'things you know' and 'things
you want to know'

Typical speaking activities include:

 Word guessing games
 Class surveys using questionnaires
 20 Questions - provide language support

frame for questions
 Students present information from a visual

using a language support handout.

Planning CLIL lessons

 Teaching a subject in the first language of
your learners there are at least two things
which you can count on: basic language
ability and academic language proficiency.

 Learners in CLIL programmes are learning
basic language skills, academic language
skills and new subject concepts all at the
same time.

Planning CLIL lessons

 To overcome the language barrier, CLIL
teachers need to plan their lessons to include
language support as well as content teaching.

Difficulties

Learners have to be able to:

 listen to and understand teachers talking
about subjects – can they do that?

 talk about subjects themselves – to
each other in groups and to the teacher
in the plenary classroom– can they do
that?

 read subject textbooks, and write about
subjects – can they do that?

Language problems

 The language is likely to be an issue at either
the word or text level (grammar is less of an
obstacle to listening or reading).

Support strategies for listening

 To help learners listen, subject teachers
highlight or explicitly teach vocabulary. At the
text level they help learners to follow them by
using visuals and by adjusting their talking
style: they enumerate points, give examples,
explain, summarise, more then they would in
L1.

Support strategies for speaking

 To help students talk in the plenary
classroom, teachers adjust their questions
(asking, perhaps, some cognitively
demanding but short answer questions); they
prompt (for example they start learners’
responses for them); they provide vocabulary,
they may allow some L1 responses.

Support strategies for speaking

 To help them talk in groups, they provide
support at the word level by listing key words
to use; to help with making sentences they
can offer supportive task types such as
talking frames, sentence starters or
substitution tables; or they ask students to
use their L1 when discussing but their L2
when reporting.

Support strategies for reading

 To help students with reading teachers may
check that students understand key
vocabulary before they read; they may
provide them with pre-reading questions to
reduce the reading demands of the text; or
they may offer help at the text level by giving
reading support tasks, such as a chart to fill
in, a diagram to label, etc.

Support strategies for writing

 To students with writing, teachers can offer
support at all three levels by providing a
vocabulary list, sentence starters, or a writing
frame. They can also ensure that the learners
talk through their writing at the word,
sentence and text level, with each other,
probably in L1, before they write.

Conclusion

From a language point of view the CLIL
'approach' contains nothing new to the EL
teacher.

CLIL aims to guide language processing and
'support language production in the same
way as ELT by teaching strategies for reading
and listening and structures and lexis for
spoken or written language.

Conclusion

What is different is that the language teacher is
also the subject teacher, or that the subject
teacher is also able to exploit opportunities
for developing language skills.

This is the essence of the CLIL teacher training
issue.

Sources:

 Uncovering CLIL: Content and Language
Integrated Learning in Bilingual and
Multilingual Education by Peeter Mehisto,
Maria J. F. Martin, David Marsh

 CLIL: A lesson framework by Steve Darn,
Izmir University of Economics, Turkey

 Further reading: CLIL by D. Coyle, P. Hood,
D. Marsh (Cambridge)

THE BRIDGE

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