WHAT IS CLIL? WHAT IS NOT CLIL?

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 Hi, everyone!

Some weeks ago in Twitter and Instagram, I read some tweets and posts by teachers and parents complaining about bilingual education in Spain. They wondered if it was really worthful to teach the contents of a subject (Arts, Science, Maths...) in English. I could see that those people were really concerned with this issue and that the majority of the opinions were against bilingualism. Their opinions were based on their experience.

 One of my followers in Instagram sent me the link of one of these posts and I couldn't help giving my opinion. I told them about how I thought a subject in a language differen from L1 should be taught. As many of you know, I am a CLIL Science teacher and I consider I have enough experience on this issue. That day I decided I had to write a post on what I consider CLIL is and what CLIL is not.



Let's get on with it!

From my point of view, CLIL is NOT:

-Translating contents from L1 to L2

-Repeating contents which have already been taught in L1

-Simplifying the langage or the content to be taught

-Using a textbook as if you were teaching in L1 

On the other hand, CLIL IS applying the principles of CLIL:

-Planning the 4Cs: Communication, Content, Cognition and Culture. We can not forget that our students are learning both language and content at the same time.

-Scaffolding content and language. At the beginning of the learning process students need support whereas they are learning content or language

-Planning language using the 3 As tool: Language OF Learning, Language FOR Learning and Language THROUGH Learning... Remember that our students are learning the language, so they need this support to allow them to use the language when needed and to learn the content.

-Planning activities bearing in mind Bloom's Taxonomy, so that the activities go from low to high thinking levels. This will avoid simplifying the content our students are going to learn.

-Using the CLIL Matrix (based on Cummin's Matrix) to measure the combination of cognitive and linguistic levels of the different tasks.

I started teaching CLIL in 2009 and I promise that if you plan all these steps, your student will be able to understand the content and they will eventually start using English. It is also very important that you are a good language model for them too. I mean that you should use English as much as possible. You can find strategies to make yourself understood.

I hope this information is useful for you.

Eva💖


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