More and more teachers are introducing CLIL into their language teaching. In some countries language teachers are being trained to teach content through the medium of the foreign language. The Basque country is one such place. In other countries CLIL is being introduced in other ‘experimental’ ways. In Northern Italy, for example, language teachers are working in tandem with their content teaching colleagues and preparing, teaching and developing CLIL lessons together with this colleague. Still other language teachers such as colleagues in Bulgaria are introducing ‘content topics’ into their language curriculum through innovative project work.

You can find a database of materials for different age groups at the Basque multiple language project website -http://www.gipuztik.net/ingelesa/

For those teachers who have perhaps heard a little about CLIL and were wondering how to begin, or for those colleagues who have suddenly found themselves with little choice, what follows are key guidelines on how to get started and what to think about. There is certainly a vast amount of experience to call on, but there are also potential problems colleagues might come up against which, to a certain extent are predictable and so manageable.

A place to look for discussion of issues is the FACTWorld yahoogroups list www.yahoogroups.com with 1500 CLIL colleagues from all over the world.

A CLIL approach is not necessarily a new one. A CLIL approach ‘guides language processing’ and ‘supports language production’ in the same way a FL course would by offering frames for note taking from reading or listening to text and structures for supporting spoken or written language. A main difference is that CLIL takes content curriculum guidelines as the focus for learning and places these guidelines alongside an investigation of learner language level achievement.

An ideal place to look for manageable chunks of CLIL is Science Across the World www.scienceacross.org. The newest materials packs in the ‘topics’ section include sections of notes for language teachers (all freely downloadable).

It’s important to try to get School management support for CLIL initiatives and also to ensure the staff as a whole are supportive and interested in CLIL initiatives. Identify school space to be dedicated to CLIL materials provision and storage to create a solid base for CLIL teaching in the school and on a classroom level make sure that walls can be used for posting CLIL materials.

If institutions are forcing CLIL upon teachers, make sure you know what you should be asking for to help you teach (from experienced colleagues who have already gone through the learning themselves) and then make sure these needs are clearly expressed to school and local authority management.

http://www.toad.cor.eu.int/CORIndex.aspx There is a lot of documentation presenting the benefits of CLIL. The Council of Europe requires that children graduate school with at least two languages of the Union in addition to their MT. You can also find a lot odf useful ‘argumentation’ at the EuroCLIC website given below.

In an effective CLIL environment the teacher is willing to try his/her hand at something new. This doesn’t mean that the teacher will take on a content curriculum, rather will the teacher be ready to try out a ‘new’ content topic. It’s a good idea to start small and manageable.

It’s important that the teacher has a language level appropriate to the demands of the content. There is little point in taking on a CLIL approach if the classes are largely mother tongue with lists of FL vocabulary. My advice to colleagues who are not sure about their language level for coping with content material is don’t start until you feel comfortable with the language.

An effective CLIL teacher is able to identify appropriate materials easily and quickly. There is a lot of help, support and advice out there. Take it!

One advantage the FL CLIL teachers have over content teachers is the skills in adapting material to develop language skills. Often these materials are ‘dreamt up’ by textbook writers. Content subjects offer a wealth of source materials from which to construct a language curriculum. In CLIL, this need to focus on the content to develop the language applies equally to the content CLIL teacher as to the FL CLIL teacher. Together they can work learning miracles.

In order for this miracle working to happen, teachers from the different subjects need to talk to each other, to share ideas, ask for and give help and support, as well as be ready to be influence on teaching from other colleagues. A way for this to begin to work is to invite a colleague in to watch a lesson to help you explore CLIL in your classroom. Pick up the textbooks your colleagues use, take a look at what your learners are learning in other lessons. Is there some way you could offer an integrated approach to support this learning in your language classroom?

UK resource book writers have produced good materials for non-native speaker groups and these materials often share characteristics with good CLIL materials. K Philips ‘Supporting Secondary Science’ is a wonderful series to start with but may still need adapting for speaking and writing http://www.ase.org.uk/htm/book_store/list.php. Also, check out local authority language support sections such as that in Hounslow Language Service, London. They write a lot of subject specific support materials for language in History, for example.

Learners need to have a language level appropriate to the demands of the content and at the same time feel challenged enough by the content, not at the expense of the language. Don’t choose easy content simply because the language level is right. We often forget to ask what learners think and for CLIL to be effective it’s important for learners to be in favour of learning the content in the language lesson. So, try to gauge learner opinion on CLIL and work on developing a positive environment. A negative mood to start with is likely to be difficult to overcome later. If you believe in it, you are likely to pass on your enthusiasm in the classroom.

Ideally, a wide variety of good CLIL materials is available. These materials will offer guidance – for processing language; and support – frames and phrases for producing language. Where no materials are available, adaptation of available materials will need to take place according to CLIL principles. This means that materials will be written with the language level and content level of the learners in mind and in doing so the content doesn’t need to suffer in favour of the language, rather is language development married with appropriate content areas.

As well as the Basque programme materials, another place for to look for useful resources is: www.sycd.co.uk a series of 6 CDs of free ASE science resources.

Teachers have the opportunity to share and discuss with peers. At the same time, language teachers and content teachers have opportunities to receive training together and training is based on good practise from experienced practising teachers. If you don’t have access to training opportunities run your own peer group meetings for you and your colleagues to share and discuss.

A number of countries have documented training for CLIL. Stefka Kitanova in Bulgaria (butsa13@hotmail.com) is coordinating a regional group of trainers which has just completed a pre- and in-service training course for teachers in collaboration with the British Council and the Ministry of Education.

http://www.euroclic.net/ has a ‘professional development’ link to course providers in Europe. Some of these providers are happy to send out free copies of their materials.

Some uk institutions like NILE (Norwich Institute for Language Education) offer courses on ‘language across the curriculum’ www.nile-elt.com

In assessing learners, they should only be assessed on what they’ve been taught. I often see FL CLIL learners examined using the same materials given to MT learners of content. Enormous assumptions are made on the language abilities of these learners in this case. They simply haven’t been taught in many cases to ‘produce’ the language in the exam. This leads us to the maxim - when content is learnt in a foreign language the outcomes are likely to be different from MT content learning.

Finally, learners are bound to ask ‘why’, make sure you have an answer to this question.

One answer lies in the fact that more and more Universities are looking to offer courses through the medium of a foreign language, more often than not English, others argue that the common language of world industry is now English. Some countries like Malaysia are now preparing for this mobility by teaching children as young as 5 parts of the curriuclum through the medium of a foreign language.

Keith Kelly
keithpkelly@yahoo.co.uk