In this
entry I introduce to you the last obligatory reading we had in the subject of
Didàctica de la Llengua Anglesa, and this article written by Do Coyle talks, as
you can imagine, about CLIL. Just to put you in situation, last year when I
worked for the first time with the concept of CLIL i assumed by mistake that
CLIL was just doing a subject in a foreign language with the purpose to improve
your skills in the language principally and then in the contents of that
subject, but after reading this article and after all the debate we’ve done in
class allow me to introduce to you what CLIL really is.
In the
article we understand CLIL as a way of integrating a language into the teaching
of a content but with the idea of improving your skills equally in both areas,
meaning that what you’re doing in a foreign language is not content that you
have done before in your own language but it’s a way of working the new content
with the purpose of learning it while you’re learning the foreign language. CLIL
is not about translating the contents but it is about working the contents in a
language with the purpose of becoming this new knowledge more interesting to
the student and the teacher.
As we can
see in the text the purpose of CLIL doesn’t stop just with that, the benefits
of producing a high quality CLIL implies that raises the learner’s linguistic
competence and confidence, raises the teacher’s and learner’s expectations,
develops risk-taking and problem-solving skills in the learners, increase the
vocabulary learning skills and grammatical awareness, motivate and encourage
the student’s independence, takes the students beyond limited foreign language
topics, improve L1 literacy, encourages oral spontaneity if students are
enabled to learn through the language rather than in the language, develops
study skills, concentration, etc. Generates positive attitudes and address
gender issues in motivation and put cultural awareness back on the agenda. Why?
Because a CLIL project is a flexible project that should adapt to any kind of
content but also can adapt to any kind of activity just to make sure that we,
as teachers, can adapt to every child’s necessities (taking into account the
multiple intelligences).
To do all
this we need a perfect coordination of the teachers of the subject and the
language. Therefore not only the students must practice CLIL but teachers must
study how to create and implement CLIL using modern pedagogy tools but also
increasing their foreign language knowledge (content of the language but also
the cultural aspects). In this way, the Generalitat de Catalunya has been doing
in the past few years some courses to teachers just to prepare them to introduce
CLIL in the Catalan classes.
CLIL is integrated
into the 4Cs framework: content, communication, cognition and culture which
means that: learners create their own knowledge, during this process
interaction is essential and therefore language too (language is basic in the
learning process to execute the cognition process) and intercultural awareness
is fundamental to CLIL.
So with
CLIL we use language to learn effectively, because language is not only a basic
tool to communicate but also helps us to make a scheme of the new content.
Nonetheless while applying CLIL in a class we must realise that to learn new
language content we must have some bases that help us understand the new
contents in language that we are receiving because if we pretend to interact
and create our own knowledge, first of all we must understand what is being
said.
So with
that being said I think that this phrase could summarise what CLIL means:
“From this
perspective, CLIL involves learning to use the language appropriately whilst
using language to learn effectively”.
I hope that
as I do now, you understand with my help a little better what CLIL really means
and if you have any doubts, please let me know.
Enjoy your
day! And be careful with you CLIL projects!
