Understanding CLIL: Content and Language Integrated Learning

CLIL: Content and Language Integrated Learning

What is CLIL?

It is a dual-focused educational approach in which an additional language is used for the learning and teaching of both content and language.

• Flexible
• Inclusive
• Transferable
• Holistic

The term was coined in 1994, but CLIL-type programmes are as old as education itself. They existed in ancient Rome just as they exist today in multilingual societies, created through mobility and education.

By the mid-90s, globalization had an impact on who learns which language, at what stage of their development, and in which way.

Two Aims: To achieve the best possible results in the shortest time and to get better results in content teaching.

Convergence

It is a process which involves pooling skills and knowledge to change existing practice and to activate forms of innovation.

Who is involved?

CLIL Classroom Practice

CLIL makes learners active. They develop their potential to gain knowledge and skills (Education) through a process of enquiry (Research). They use complex cognitive processes and instruments for problem-solving (Innovation).

Students are empowered and actively engaged. They use:

• Perception
• Communication
• Reasoning (as individuals and as a group of peers)

The Many Faces of CLIL

• Language showers
• CLIL camps
• Student exchanges
• Local projects
• International projects
• Family stays
• Modules
• Work-study abroad
• One or more subjects
• Partial immersion
• Total immersion
• Two-way immersion
• Double immersion

International Projects

• Need to lead to concrete accomplishments and enable students to connect with new ideas, sources, and people.
• Schools can either join existing projects or create a project of their own.
• Goals: Help students assume greater responsibility for their learning; motivate students; create opportunities for contact and communication with other speakers of the CLIL language; develop skills in communication, information and communication technologies, teamwork, and problem-solving; develop reasoning, enquiry, critical and creative thinking, and evaluation skills.

CLIL Projects

CLIL implies innovation, new ways of working, and changing the way we do things:

• Contributes to an integrated academic work, replacing fragmentation.
• Creates fusion between subjects that have been apart.
• Invites convergence between the learning of content and language.
• Encourages independent and co-operative learning.
• Contributes to creating a common purpose and forums for lifelong development.
• Adds extra value to language learning.
• Helps students build integrated knowledge and skills for an increasingly integrated world.