Aleksandra Zaparucha
It was quite interesting to listen to Aleksandra
Zaparucha's plenary speech on CLIL at Iatefl Liverpool 2019. Iatefl is still in
the air. I can still remember roaming through the interesting streets of
Liverpool although the weather was rainy most of the time. I can still breathe
the pure air of the early morning greeting me as I approached the Conference
Arena where the Iatefl took place. I hope I will have enough time to tell you
about the unusual things that happened along the way to and fro and show you
the exciting photos I took around. Now let's turn to Aleksandra and see what
she has in store for us.
Aleksandra started her talk by asking the audience to exchange one info about CLIL together. Then she introduced a slide with the three words she is going to concentrate on: Connection, Extensions and Challenges. Connection between what you know and what she will speak about. Extension of your knowledge of CLIL and Challenges to some of your perceptions.
She started
by answering the question “What is CLIL?” stating that CLIL can be seen as an
umbrella term including EMI, Bilingual Education, Immersion and English
across the Curriculum. It deals with language integration, a real challenge,
methodology support. “Method to be used in any situation where non-linguistic
content (i.e. school subjects) is merged with a foreign language in and outside
the classroom.”
According to
Aleksandra subjects and language can’t be treated equally, but to enable
students to use the language effectively to express those subjects.
CLIL is
divided into two types Hard CLIL: is delivered in a subject class by a subject
teacher. It is subject driven (i.e. has a curriculum). While Soft CLIL: is
found in a language class by a language teacher. It is also subject driven.
WHY has CLIL
then become ‘a buzz term' recently? CLIL is knowledge unity with a discipline to
close gaps between curricula by cross-curricular modules. CLIL shifts language
from grammar and vocabulary to speak about other topics, thus we show our
students that language is a ‘tool’ rather than a goal in itself. This provides
us with instant results and motivates students by asking them to present on
different topics using the language learnt. This can be called ‘content and
language unity’.
Here
Aleksandra moves to the HOW and mentions the 4Cs used when conducting a CLIL
lesson. Here the Content refers to the subjects used, Communication is the
language of instructions, Cognition refers to the thinking skills, while
Culture, on the other hand, refers to the topics included in the curriculum.
“Here all 4Cs are given equal importance. Yet as a subject teacher, she
remembered struggling with this approach specifically with the last C
‘Culture’. As a result she suggested a different approach.
She put the
first 3Cs together divided into equal parts in a circle and surrounded them
with a bigger circle of ‘Culture’ because she believed that “the way we
communicate whether in a native or foreign language, the content we teach and
the way we think depend on CULTURE.
Quite a
number of books have been written about CLIL since the ideas has been
introduced, one of which is “Putting CLIL into Practice” by Phil Ball, John
Clegg and Keith Kelly (2015). The book addresses both soft and hard CLIL for
teachers where it offers 10 detailed CLIL parameters rather than 4Cs. These shouldn’t be dealt with separately “on
the contrary they can be merged into one CLIL wheel.”
These
parameters are:
1.
Content Sequence
“Teaching a content subject is based
on a sequence of info……… In geography before students are asked to use a map,
they need to be taught what a map is. Such a sequence is desirable in Soft
CLIL, a series of lessons rather than just one.”
2.
Concept Language
We shouldn’t compromise the content
for the sake of the language.
3.
Task Language
The concept we use dictates the
language we should use. E.g. a history lesson needs to be based on past tense
whether studied by the students or not.
4.
Guided Multimedia Input
It should be guided, planned and
staged to avoid student confusion
5.
3 Dimensions: Content, Language,
Procedure
If a teacher asks the students to use
a text to construct a mind map or Venn diagram; if this is new to the students,
so the procedure needs a lot of attention. If the lesson has new heavy
vocabulary, so it needs extra language support and attention on the part of the
teacher. If there is extra challenge, the teacher should use simple procedure,
no new ones. “Every CLIL lesson needs to fill in these three dimensions”.
6.
Key Language
Notice here that “we moved swiftly
from content to communication (key language). This is no challenge for language
teachers, but for content teachers. It needs extra attention. Key language is
not limited to technical terms, but general academic terms like: observe,
hypothesise or the usage of the past tense with history or passive voice when
used in science.”
7.
Language of instructions
These need teachers to be more
careful with short, clear written ones.
8.
Need for student-student interaction
Students should be given the chance
to use the academic language studied through pair work, group work,……..etc.
9.
Supported student output
Producing
both oral and written language requires a CLIL teacher to give a lot of support
through sentence starters, substitution table, graphic organizers……………etc.
10.
Cognition --------- Thinking
All these need student engagement
both physical and mental.
Then, Aleksandra finally moves to
“The What to Teach” after covering the ‘What, Why and How’. She believes that
we should speak to subject teachers who can suggest topics to close curricula
gaps. She then suggests including Global Issues to inform the students, develop
their skills, change attitudes and help them take action. “Science is changing
around us greatly with lots of problems.” “The costs of changes and dangers are
increasing and that needs more attention.” “We have every reason to include CLIL
not only in teaching language (EFL), but throughout the entire education
systems.”
She then, discussed a number of
topics: Food, Clothes and Waste in details proposing ideas to be used in
classes to fulfill the reasons mentioned above. She also suggested these three
topics along the lines of SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) of the United
Nations and the book compiled by the British Council on ‘The Creative Approach
to SDG in an EFL Classroom’.
Eventually, she ended up with a
Poetic Conclusion using the poem ‘Teachers’ written by Alan Maley. She asked
the audience to read the words in black and she read the blue ones.
To close, she asked the audience to
mention one reflection on the Connections, Extensions and Challenges she
discussed and asked those who are interested to join her for more discussions
in room 3b at 11:05.
How far do you think you can apply CLIL in your class? Would these ideas give a lot of of food
for thought !!
You can find the recording of the session on https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/under-one-roof-considerations-integrating-content-language
You can find the recording of the session on https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/under-one-roof-considerations-integrating-content-language
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