TEACHING VOCABULARY AND GRAMMAR IN CLIL

 Hi teachers,

Today I would like to talk to you about teaching VOCABULARY and GRAMMAR in CLIL. Should we teach vocabulary and structures before starting a Science or Arts unit? 

After years of teaching with a CLIL approach, I confess there isn't a specific way to do so. I am going to tell you about my experience as a CLIL Science teacher.

From my point of view, it depends on the age you are teaching and your students' level of English. When I teach 6-9 year-olds, I usually spend the first two sessions to teach and revise the new vocabulary that they are going to need in the new unit. And you may wonder how I do it. At these ages, I like using flashcards or realia and to play games with them. You can find some ideas about how to use flashcards in the post my dear friend and colleague Núria and I prepared:

Let's see it with an example. The CLIL unit "A Healthy Mind into a Healthy Body" was divided into differents parts:

1) Introduction to Food

2) Where does it come from?

3) Food Groups

4) Food Storage

5) Meals in a day

6) Healthy eating

7) Healthy habits

As you can see, they needed different vocabulary for each part. For part 1, I spent the first session teaching vocabulary related to food.

While I am introducing the vocabulary, I like including a structure; for example: It is a banana", "It is an apple", "Is this a banana?" "No, it isn't", "What is it?" If they answer "An apple", I tell them:  "Yes, it is an apple" and I invite them to repeat the sentence: "It is an apple".

When introducing vocabulary, it is a good moment to introduce a structure you want your students to practise.

As you can you see, they are learning grammar without realising and the more you model them the more they will use the structures.

Let's move now to 11-12 year-olds. First of all, I would like to point out that the CLIL Science units I am teaching are about Electricity, Buoyancy and Density, Matter... In these units, students are basically learning about  chemical and physics concepts, which imply a lot of experimenting. So, the language they use is for observing, predicting, reporting results, drawing conclusions...

At these ages, they have a better command of the language and they may have already interiorised some structures. In 5th and 6th, I don't tend to pre-teach -to say it somehow- the vocabulary of the unit. I try the vocabulary to come out as naturally as possible while the sessions are developing. However, I have previously planned  the vocabulary and the structures for each session. 

Let me show an example. When doing experiments about "Soluble and Insoluble substances", this is how the Simple Present was being used to make predictions and to report results. 

When reading the experiments, I made sure students understood the vocabulary using realia. In each column (Prediction / Result / Water colour / Type of mixture), student have a scaffolding to help them talk about each issue. Moreover, I was moving from group to group asking them questions so that they have to put into practise the structures. As you can see at the same time they are applying the Scientific Method, they are using the vocabulary and the structures I have previously planned.

Scaffolding is highly important at this age. Below you have another example of Scaffolding to report the results:

However, if I observe that a lot of students are making the same grammar mistake, sometimes I stop  just a couple of minutes to clarify which the correct structure is. Here's an example: if a lot of students miss the -s in the 3rd person of the singular in the Simple Present, I tell them: "hey remember, if it is singular here we have to add and -s because it is singular" and I give them some examples.

If you work hand in hand with the English teacher of the school, you can foresee the structures they will need in the Science lessons, so that the English teacher makes sure they have learned that structure before the start of the unit. On the other hand, if you detect a lot of students are struggling with a certain structure, you can tell the English teacher so that he/she knows and can revise it.

Finally, I would like to say that if as English and CLIL teachers, we want our students to use the language, we should provide them with meaningful and significative situations in which they need this vocabulary and these structures to communicate for a purpose.

Remember, that what you have just read is my experience. Is this the correct method? In my opinion, if you are a CLIL teacher, you have to try different strategies until you find the ones that work better with your students and your teaching style. As usual, what works in one class sometimes doesn't work in another. 

Would you like to share with me how you do it? I will be very pleased if you leave a comment.

Eva ❤