I.E.S.

EL FONTANAL

ACROSS CLIL:
PRACTICAL METHODOLOGY
ON CONTENT AND LANGUAGE
INTEGRATED LEARNING
FOR TEACHERS OF ENGLISH
IN SECONDARY &
VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS
AND FOR CLIL TEACHERS
WHO TEACH SUBJECTS
BILINGUALLY
International Study Programmes

Dr. Diana Hicks

dianahicks@campuserve.com

CLIL: What and Why?

Mother Tongue
CALP and BICS
Evidenced-Based Learning and Teaching
Competences
Necessary Changes
CLIL Lesson Planning and Structure
Teaching vs Testing
Vocabulary
Chunks
Successful Readers
Collaborative Tasks
Reflection
Collegiality
Shared Observation
A Unit of Work Collegially
English Teachers

CLIL: What and Why?

Content (we start with our subject)

Language(s)
Integrated
Learning

- What the students learn and how they

do it is equally important.
- The focus is not on what, but on
how.
- How can I help my pupils understand?
- The aim is the subject, learning English
just happens.
- If we only have content and L2, it is
immersion (not integration), usually for

Mother Tongue
It must be used, especially in higher
order thinking (HOTS).
It is not a band aid or emergency.
When using L1 and L2 must be planned
beforehand.
Speaking in English all the time (even
in English classes) is pointless.
L2 in CLIL: 25% of the teaching (EU
figures).
Success in learning an L2 depends on
your maturity of L1.

CALP and BICS

Cognitive
Academic
Language
Proficiency
Accuracy in CLIL
Written
Prescriptive

Basic
Interpersonal
Communicatio
n
Skills
- Fluency in
CLIL
- Spoken
need
CALP,
- Descriptive

In CLIL we
so we have to focus on CALP.

Evidence-Based Learning
and Teaching

What kind of thinking do my pupils do?

- Make your list.
- Contrast and compare your list as a
collegiality team.
- We should cover all the list.

Competences

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Knowledge
They forget
Comprehension this.
Application
Analysis
Synthesis
This remains.
Evaluation

Necessary Changes

Teacher language awareness (L1 and L2).

Student language awareness.
Tasks (much more open and cognitive).
Assessment strategies.
Collegiality
Relationship with parents.
View of language success.
View of learning success.
How learning happens.
Lesson planning and structure.

CLIL Lesson Planning and

Inclusivity Structure
Bottom-up
4 stages:
1. Cognitive or creative activity in L1 to
find out previous knowledge.(Avoid exclusive
questions (What do you know . . . ?). Ideas
are supported with chunks. The result will be
put on a poster, whiteboard, etc. in L2.
2. Finding out. Curricular requirements.
L1 and L2. (Avoid read the text and answer
the questions). Think about the purpose and
give them a scaffolded task to help them.
3. Sorting out. Digesting stage 2 with a
different activity. L1 and L2.
4. Reflection on how and what in L1.

Teaching vs Testing
Testing: Right answers, closed tasks.
Teaching: Open tasks, different possible
answers.

Vocabulary
Pre-teaching vocabulary decontextualised is useless.

Chunks
Two or more words frequently used
together, with meaning (collocations,
clichs, phrasal verbs, idioms, bi and
trinomials, fixed phrases).
Types: - General chunks
- Topic specific chunks

Successful Readers
They read in chunks.
They know the category of the word
(n., v., adj., adv.) (Importance of L1).
They use world knowledge.
They guess unknown words by
context.
They distinguish between what is
necessary and not necessary.

Collaborative Tasks
Change individual tasks into pair tasks.
Collaborative tasks should be short and simple.

Reflection
Give your students a task that
implies a choice and make them
reflect why they chose so and
whether it was helpful.

Collegiality
Planning (before) and reflection (after) are
equally important.
The headmaster must allocate the time of
the teachers (regularly).
Meetings (total must, for subject and English
teachers). If impossible by groups, have
meetings across school years:
1. Slam: 2 minutes to share with the rest,
showing sth., querries and concerns, no
turns.
2. Activity about action-research.
3. Action-research activity discussion.
4. How was the planning last week?
Working together well be better
professionals.

Shared Observation
One of the first things necessary for
collegiality.
Things to observe:
1. Classroom (without students).
2. Classroom lesson (10-20 minutes
maximum), looking for something
specific, previously discussed.

A Unit of Work
Collegially

CLIL subject teachers have to predict

the students needs and the English
teacher has to support these needs.
Both have to diagnose the L1 things
they dont know.
Common agreement on penalization for
L2, according to MCERL.
Dont lose the priority of the lesson.
Time for the English teacher to prepare:
2 weeks a month.

English Teachers
They should throw away the clutter and
just do what helps CLIL.
Teaching anaphoric reference is a must.
Importance of chunks.
Importance of using L1 in English lessons.
Having students reflect on CALP vs BICS.
Activities:
Role
plays,
simulations,
debates, graphic organizers for texts they
read.
They should introduce the topic before
the CLIL teachers, usually with texts.

Dr. Graham Workman

www.grahamworkman.com
grahamworkman@aol.com

Talk in the CLIL Classroom

Classroom Language
Task-Based Learning
Communicative Activities:
- Information Gap Materials
- Jigsaw Reading Tasks
- Dictogloss Activities
Revision Activities
Scaffolding Language
Collocations and Computer Language
Websites and Tools for Teaching and
Learning CLIL

Information Gap Activities