My CLIL Science Corner

HIYA! 😊 Today I have a question for you: "What's the perfect age to implement CLIL?". Many times in schools CLIL is thought to be perfect for older students (10-11 year-olds) and implementing CLIL  in the first grades (6-7 year-olds) is not considered appropiate. We tend to think that CLIL is better for the third cycle because students have a better command of the target language. They have been studying the target language for some years so they have learned more vocabulary and grammar if we compare them with younger students. But... is it possible to teach 6-7 year-olds with a CLIL approach? My answer is it is! I have taught Science with a CLIL approach in the first cycle of primary school and I must confess it is highly rewarding 💖 Teaching CLIL in the  first grade (6-7 year-olds) can be challenging, but also very gratifying. At this age, kids get easily involved and if you provide them with the vocabulary and structures they need, they start using the language in a ...

  GOOD AFTERNOON! 💕 Well... or good evening or good morning, depending on when you are reading this post 😊 In this blog, I have already dealt with the following principles of CLIL: ☑ The 4 Cs ☑ Scaffolding ☑ Bloom's Taxonomy Today's post is about " The 3 As tool in CLIL ". Are you ready? 😉 The 3 As tool is used for planning CLIL lessons. Whereas the 4 Cs helps us in the overall planning of the unit, the 3 As tool is of great help when we plan the language our students will need in the activities we have planned. The 3 As stands for A nalyse,  A dd and A pply. Let's have a look at the three stages: 👉 Stage 1 : ANALYSE content for the language OF learning. This means the key phrases and the vocabulary needed. 👉 Stage 2 : ADD to content language FOR learning. This refers to metacognitive or learner's strategies, language for group/pairwork, understanding instructions, how to deal with not understanding... To me, this stage is highly important. If we wa...

  Hi teachers, How are you going? Some months ago I shared on my Instagram how my students do experiments and how they report results in our CLIL Science lessons.  Sometimes English and CLIL teachers complain because their students don't speak English in class. From my point of view, the most important issue we should take into account is that we offer students with motivating and meaningful situations, so that they are eager to use language. However, some of our students may not feel confident yet. In my case, my students are 10-11 year-old and they don't have a good command of English yet.  Here's when SCAFFOLDING should appear. Thanks to CLIL methodology , we can plan Language for Learning and Language of Learning in advance. This is a great opportunity to make sure our students have the language accessible to them. It is a good idea to have the structures and vocabulary they will need in a visible place, so that if a student needs to take a look at it, he/she can do...

  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 ...