CLIL: Integrating Content and Language Learning in Education
CLIL: Content and Language Integrated Learning
CLIL: Content and Language Integrated Learning. This essay deals with CLIL methodology and how it can be implemented and supported in my plurilingual school. Before explaining how CLIL can be implemented in my school and particularly in my class, I will present the relation of this topic with the current legislation. After that, I will present a definition of the methodology and some theoretical ideas we have to take into account to know what it means. Finally, I will propose how I will support this methodology in my school and particularly in my English class.
Current Legislation and CLIL
In relation to the current legislation, we can find some references about this topic and its importance. The Order EDU/519/2014, which regulates multilingualism in Castilla y Leon, enhances the importance of learning new languages for the personal and professional development of citizens who take part in a plural society like ours, paying attention to their interests, desires, and aspirations. Besides, the Organic Law of Education 2/2006 and the Organic Law for the Improvement of the Educational Quality 8/2013 establish as one of their goals an agreement with the European objectives of improving the quality and effectiveness of education and training within a framework of European citizenship, where language learning plays a key role. Likewise, following section XII of the preamble of the Organic Law for the Improvement of the Educational Quality, it states that “The Law strongly supports multilingualism, redoubling efforts to ensure that students are fluent in at least one first foreign language, whose level of listening and reading comprehension and oral and written expression is decisive to promote employability and career ambitions.”
Defining CLIL: A Dual-Focused Approach
Once having presented the legislation related to this topic, I will start by defining CLIL. The term Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) describes educational methods where ‘subjects are taught through a foreign language with dual-focussed aims, namely the learning of content, and the simultaneous learning of a foreign language.’ CLIL offers opportunities to allow students to use another language naturally, in such a way that they soon forget about the language and only focus on the learning topic. CLIL is not related to one specific methodology. However, CLIL requires active methods, co-operative classroom management, and emphasis on all types of communication (linguistic, visual, and kinaesthetic). CLIL may be implemented in a variety of ways and in very different situations as it encompasses many different forms of teaching. CLIL can refer to the whole year instruction of one or more subjects – such as science, history or maths – or the teaching of a module on a specific topic (e.g., the French Revolution or air pollution). Bearing in mind that, we must propose activities according to the level of our students and which motivate them to learn the contents. We, as English teachers, have to think the greatest way to work and support this methodology in our English class.
Implementing CLIL in the Classroom
For that reason, I consider that the best option is the collaboration with other teachers which work their subject in L2 and try to complement in my class the contents they teach in their subjects, or even collaborate to make projects jointly. We, as English teachers, will have to propose activities which work the same topic and in this way students will reinforce the learning of these contents. We aren’t going to work all the subjects but we can work some modules or topics we find interesting and which can be beneficial for our students.
Example Activity: Wild Animals in the 3rd Grade
In the first learning year, children will be introduced to the foreign language via topics such as pets, wild animals, fruits and vegetables, spring flowers and summer sports. Later on in the CLIL programme the topics can be expanded to include experiments with water and magnets, observations of weather and the biological development of the frog or butterfly. Here, I will propose an activity we can use in our English classroom using one of the modules or topics in the CLIL subjects. The topic is Wild Animals and can be worked in the 3rd grade.
Activity: Wild Animals
In this activity the aim is to revise the names and parts of the body of wild animals. The materials we will use are coloured pencils, scissors, glue, pictures of wild animals. To start the lesson I will propose a mime game where the teacher and the student will have to mime different wild animals and the rest will have to guess. Examples: “elephant”: stretch and move one arm in front of your head like a trunk or “crocodile”: stretch both arms together one above the other like a crocodile’s big, long mouth (bend your fingers for tooth). After that, I will show pictures about different wild animals, pupils will be grouped into 4 or 5, will have to choose one picture, and then they will prepare cards writing the name of the animal as well as the parts of the body. E.g. Elephant: ears, trunk, tail, body. As a final activity, we will do a mural sticking all the animals with their different parts. We can even create a CLIL corner where we can find different projects worked in the English class connected to the CLIL classes.
Positive Aspects of CLIL Activities
The positive aspects of these activities are that students will acquire a communicative competence through reading and through the dialogue, using a cooperative learning to reinforce a significant way of learning. That means that students must work by themselves the information and then, they must adapt this information to the required context.
Conclusion: Embracing CLIL for Enhanced Language Learning
To sum up, I believe CLIL has a lot to offer us as EFL teachers. It’s a methodology which presents student-centered lessons, recognizes that the students are worthwhile individuals and allows students to really communicate in a classroom environment. It is a move away from how things are presently done but, I believe, it’s a positive shift. As language teachers, we should always be looking forward, always be looking for ways to better our teaching and for ways to make the language learning process easier and more enjoyable for students.