Skola workshop on CLIL:
These videos have been very clarifying and have helped me to understand much better the meaning and the way to work with Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), which up to now was almost unknown to me.
CLIL is a response to the modern, globalised world we live in, in which English has a clear dominance in higher education, although, as they point out in the video, the CLIL methodology can also be practised in other languages.
This approach appeals mainly to the generation born after 1990, who, as Stuart Pola in the SKOLA workshop says, “learn as they use, and use as they learn”. This may also be the reason why older students, those born before 1990, tend to struggle when working through this new way of learning; CLIL represents an approach to language learning very different to the traditional one.
Another characteristic aspect of CLIL is its interdisciplinarity; it crosses the traditional boundaries between academic disciplines, so that teachers must work to develop not only the learners’ language skills, but also their subject knowledge. In this sense, the ideal CLIL practitioner should reunite the characteristics of a language teacher as well as those of a language specialist. To achieve this, the CLIL teacher must, among other strategies, try and create links between language and content, using techniques employed in other subjects to promote language work, as well as increase the levels of scaffolding of the contents and concepts worked on in class, employing a logical progression of learning and often checking the understanding of learners.
This approach offers an authentic framework to the target language, providing contexts so that learners learn the language in a more natural way. However, it is also true that we have not yet arrived to the stage in which we have enough well trained CLIL teachers nor are there enough resources, since this area of language teaching is developing faster than teacher training. Finally, another problem CLIL practitioners have to face is the question of the assessment: what do we evaluate, language or content? How? Personally, I think this approach can be very successful in enhancing language learning. It can develop a positive attitude towards the learning process, but I consider that we should not make use of it until all of these questions are solved. Only when every aspect of it is clear, a real success can be achieved.
CLIL is a response to the modern, globalised world we live in, in which English has a clear dominance in higher education, although, as they point out in the video, the CLIL methodology can also be practised in other languages.
This approach appeals mainly to the generation born after 1990, who, as Stuart Pola in the SKOLA workshop says, “learn as they use, and use as they learn”. This may also be the reason why older students, those born before 1990, tend to struggle when working through this new way of learning; CLIL represents an approach to language learning very different to the traditional one.
Another characteristic aspect of CLIL is its interdisciplinarity; it crosses the traditional boundaries between academic disciplines, so that teachers must work to develop not only the learners’ language skills, but also their subject knowledge. In this sense, the ideal CLIL practitioner should reunite the characteristics of a language teacher as well as those of a language specialist. To achieve this, the CLIL teacher must, among other strategies, try and create links between language and content, using techniques employed in other subjects to promote language work, as well as increase the levels of scaffolding of the contents and concepts worked on in class, employing a logical progression of learning and often checking the understanding of learners.
This approach offers an authentic framework to the target language, providing contexts so that learners learn the language in a more natural way. However, it is also true that we have not yet arrived to the stage in which we have enough well trained CLIL teachers nor are there enough resources, since this area of language teaching is developing faster than teacher training. Finally, another problem CLIL practitioners have to face is the question of the assessment: what do we evaluate, language or content? How? Personally, I think this approach can be very successful in enhancing language learning. It can develop a positive attitude towards the learning process, but I consider that we should not make use of it until all of these questions are solved. Only when every aspect of it is clear, a real success can be achieved.
Marian Hidalgo
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