Module 8 - CLIL in  the Classroom

Module 8 – CLIL in the Classroom

This module asks you to consider three important parts of the CLIL approach to teaching:

• Scaffolding

• Interaction

• Learner Autonomy

Just as learners learn in different ways, so teachers teach in different ways. However, probably all teachers would agree with the simple definition of their role as ‘helping learners to learn’. Different teaching techniques are the specific behaviours that teachers adopt in order to achieve this. 

A. Scaffolding 

Learning Stages:

1. Go to your Learning Diary and do Task 1 – How you support learning.

2. In the CLIL approach, we describe ways that teachers support learning as ‘scaffolding’. To understand this metaphor, look at the picture below.

1. In the real world, scaffolding is a framework builders use to help them reach higher.

   1. ‘In education, scaffolding refers to a variety of instructional techniques used to move students progressively toward stronger understanding and, ultimately, greater independence in the learning process... ‘

   2. (taken from http://edglossary.org/scaffolding/)

   3. Listen to a description of scaffolding.

2. Go to your Learning Diary and do:

3. Task 2 -  Reading about scaffolding

4. Task 3 – Is scaffolding new to you?

5. Scaffolding is particularly important in the CLIL approach. Both teachers and students are unable to rely on communicating as easily as they can in a non-CLIL classroom.

• 1. In each module of this course, your attention has been directed towards other examples of simple techniques to support learning.

  2. Here is a table showing some of the Scaffolding Techniques used in the CLIL approach. Click on it to enlarge:

• 1. When teachers scaffold instruction, they typically break up a learning experience, concept, or skill into discrete parts, and then give students the assistance they need to deal with each part. For example, teachers may

     • give students an excerpt of a longer text to read

     • engage them in a discussion of the excerpt to improve their understanding of its purpose

     • teach them the vocabulary they need to comprehend the text before assigning them the full reading

     • (taken from http://edglossary.org/scaffolding/)

  2. Steps a CLIL teacher can take to scaffold understanding of a written text:

     • Highlight the important content words which you would like your students to know, and decide how you are going to help your students learn them

     • Underline ‘difficult’ vocabulary and grammar structures. Replace these with simpler words and grammar

     • Notice the length of the sentences. Where possible, replace one long sentence with two or three shorter ones.

     • Split the text into short sections, each with a side heading

     • Put the text into bullet points

     • Find or create illustrations, diagrams or maps to help students understand better

     • Choose a graphic organiser to enable students to extract information from the text more easily (You can read more about Graphic Organisers below)

1. Go to the your Learning Diary to do Task 4 – Making a text more accessible.

2. Graphic Organisers are a valuable tool for scaffolding understanding. Teachers will already be familiar with using representations of information such as timelines and mind maps. Graphic Organisers are particularly useful in developing organisational and thinking skills, and in allowing transfer and collection of information and ideas with little reliance on the written or spoken word.

3. There is a huge variety of Graphic Organisers available on the Internet, at sites such as: http://my.hrw.com/nsmedia/intgos/html/igo.htm or http://www.studenthandouts.com/graphicorganizers.htm

4. There is a selection of graphic organisers in ‘The TKT Course – CLIL Module’ by Kay Bently (CUP). Click here and click again on Page 43 >> on the webpage. Then scroll down to Pages 44-46 to see the graphic organisers.

5. Now go to your Learning Diary and do Task 5 – Choosing a graphic organiser.

6. Here are two spider diagrams showing the different ways in which teachers and students utilise Graphic Organisers. Click on them to enlarge them:

This Venn Diagram shows some of the advantages of Graphic Organisers to both teachers and students. Once again, you can click on the image to enlarge it.

B. Interaction 

Learning Stages:

1. The CLIL Approach stresses the importance of interaction between students. Interaction is an opportunity to bring together students’ existing ideas and language with new ideas and language, in the meaningful context of subject development. It provides an opportunity for students to think about what they are learning, and make sense of it. Interacting with other students results in the creation of joint understanding and new knowledge. With the CLIL approach, this is done in a different language. The students have to work and think harder, and so their learning is deeper than that of students who learn in their first language.

Go to the diary to do: 

Task 6 – Reading about interaction

Task 7 – Adding interactive opportunities to your planning outline 

C. Learner Autonomy 

Learning Stages:

1. Teaching and learning through CLIL mean there is more focus on what students do to learn, and less on the active role of the teacher. Learners have to become more independent and to take responsibility for their work. To achieve this, of course, they need support and encouragement from their teacher.

2. Go to your Learning Diary to do Task 8 – Reading about learner autonomy.

3. There are several ways that CLIL teachers can help students to become autonomous. Increasing pair and group interaction and co-operation is a good starting point. It is also important to train students in how to learn for themselves.

   • For language learning, for example, a personal vocabulary notebook or computer file, where students write down the words they want to learn, should be the student’s responsibility, and not the teacher’s. However, the teacher can train learners how to store their chosen vocabulary, with meaning, use and associated words and phrases noted, all in the targeted language.

   • Students can also be encouraged to keep records of Can Do achievements at the end of each lesson, so that they are made aware of their own progress and needs.

   • Students can think about and plan their own learning. Raise students’ awareness of the relative amounts of time they spend outside school on health and fitness, hobbies, socialising, ‘down time’ – and studying. Encourage them to commit to useful patterns of homework and study.

4. Go to your Learning Diary and do Task 9 - Self-assessment through Can Do statements.

5. In the CLIL approach, it is important for students to realise that they are responsible for their own learning, and to move away from reliance on the teacher towards making their own decisions about how, when and where to learn.

6. Go to your learning diary and do Task 10 – Planning a classroom discussion.