14. CLIL model Thinking (outcomes, analysis, assessment) Belonging (interests, partners, local/global) Subject (integration, implementation, skills and culture) Communication (involvement, support mat, discussions)
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Editor's Notes
The ability to use a language is much more than knowing its words and grammar, and speaking in perfectly formed sentences . Language learning is surrounded by myths, many of which give a very false impression of what best helps achieve success. If we are to think about the best interests of our youngsters, we could usefully re-consider some of these beliefs and views.
Acquire knowledge using target language Acquire necessary listening, speaking, reading and writing skills in the target language Acquire necessary listening, speaking, reading and writing skills in the mother tongue Understand and value cultures of both the target language and mother tongue Develop cognitive and social skills needed in the fast developing world
In CLIL, we provide a situation in which the attention of the child is on some form of learning activity which is not the language itself. So what we are doing is providing the opportunity to learn to ‘think’ in the language, not just learn about the language itself as the major learning focus. It can be very successful in enhancing the learning of languages and other subjects, and developing in the youngsters a positive ‘can do’ attitude towards themselves as language learners.
The language classroom is essential for the learner to understand the ‘nuts and bolts’ of language – the architectural plans. But there is rarely enough time in the classroom for the language teacher to go beyond this essential part of the learning process. Learners need time to build things with the ‘nuts and bolts’ – to build the house which they see in theory on paper. Too many people leave school being able to use very little of the languages which they spent so many hours learning.
New concepts always difficult to accept: Poor results Bad mother tongue skills (metalinguistic awareness) Only for the bright ones Motivation (learning styles) Lack of qualified teachers Heavy load and shortage of materials Support
Processing the text The best texts are those accompanied by illustrations so that learners can visualise what they are reading. When working in a foreign language, learners need structural markers in texts to help them find their way through the content. These markers may be linguistic (headings, sub-headings) and/or diagrammatic. Once a 'core knowledge' has been identified, the organisation of the text can be analysed.
Texts are often represented diagrammatically. These structures are known as 'ideational frameworks' or 'diagrams of thinking', and are used to help learners categorise the ideas and information in a text. Diagram types include tree diagrams for classification, groups, hierarchies, flow diagrams and timelines for sequenced thinking such as instructions and historical information, tabular diagrams describing people and places, and combinations of these. The structure of the text is used to facilitate learning and the creation of activities which focus on both language development and core content knowledge.
Learners are expected to be able to reproduce the core of the text in their own words. Since learners will need to use both simple and more complex language, there is no grading of language involved, but it is a good idea for the teacher to highlight useful language in the text and to categorise it according to function. Learners may need the language of comparison and contrast, location or describing a process, but may also need certain discourse markers, adverb phrases or prepositional phrases. Collocations, semi-fixed expressions and set phrases may also be given attention as well as subject-specific and academic vocabulary.
The language is likely to be an issue at either the word or text level (grammar is less of an obstacle to listening or reading). At the word level there may be a lot of new vocabulary which is specific to the topic. At the text level, learners may find it difficult to follow the logical organisation of teacher’s presentation of a fairly complex set of ideas.
From a language point of view the CLIL 'approach' contains nothing new to the EL teacher. CLIL aims to guide language processing and 'support language production in the same way as ELT by teaching strategies for reading and listening and structures and lexis for spoken or written language. What is different is that the language teacher is also the subject teacher, or that the subject teacher is also able to exploit opportunities for developing language skills. This is the essence of the CLIL teacher training issue.