What is CLIL?
By Phil Ball
Despite the self-explanatory nature of the phrase 'Content and Language
Integrated Learning', the true nature of CLIL still remains elusive. This
introductory article (of four) briefly analyses a series of broadly-accepted
definitions of CLIL as a way of highlighting its most significant
characteristics.
What is CLIL?
Well, that's a good question. CLIL is an acronym, and as such it tends to attract
people's attention. If we were to ask the question 'What is subject teaching?' or 'What is
language teaching?' we would probably be expecting more than four short articles in
response. But CLIL has been bold enough to encapsulate itself within an acronym,
implying that it is an approach, a philosophy - an educational paradigm with frontiers
that can be defined.
If you teach EMI (English as a Medium of Instruction), LAC (Language Across the
Curriculum), CBI (Content-based Instruction) or CBLT (Content-based Language
Teaching; if you work in Bilingual Education; if you're a subject teacher working through
the medium of a foreign language, or a language teacher bringing in content into your
English lesson, you work within the area of Content and Language Integrated Learning.
From Ancient Rome to the Internet
The acronym itself is a good one, because it is largely self-explanatory. Invented back
in the mid-1990's, it seems to be passing the test of time. CLIL itself has been around
for a long time - and was put into practice by ancient Roman upper-middle classes, who
preferred to have their children educated in Greek. However, should you want to find
definitions of modern CLIL, it is relatively easy to find them. Just Google the title of this
article, on a restricted search, and you'll find 180 sites to choose from, all of which
attempt to answer your question.
From abstract to concrete
However, the problem with definitions, particularly when it comes to educational
approaches, is that they tend to remain rather abstract. In this series of articles, I
attempt to make the abstract nature of CLIL-speak more concrete and
comprehensible. But before that, let's take a look at some of the most common
definitions on the web. In each definition there is a part underlined, which I think is
particularly useful. Each of those underlined sections will represent a distinct but
significant aspect of CLIL that needs highlighting, at least at this stage of the
discussion.
Five definitions of CLIL
1. CLIL is a member of the Curriculum Club.
Here's the simplest of all, from the European Commission itself:
"Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), in which pupils learn a subject
through the medium of a foreign language……"
On this purely descriptive level, this quotation endorses CLIL as a construct - as a
member of the Curricular Club. It seems uncontroversial because we do not know to
what extent or to what level pupils 'learn a subject' through the foreign language, and
we are left unaware of any reasons for doing CLIL.
2. CLIL has a dual focus.
The next one offers a more detailed description:
"CLIL refers to situations where subjects, or parts of subjects, are taught through a
foreign language with dual-focused aims, namely the learning of content, and the
simultaneous learning of a foreign language".
(Marsh, D. 2002. Content and Language Integrated Learning: The European Dimension
- Actions, Trends and Foresight Potential).
This quote is useful because it highlights some of the educational intention inherent to
the CLIL paradigm. Through CLIL-type practice, one learns [subject] content whilst at
the same time learning a foreign language. What could be better than this? The 'dual-
focused' objective would seem to be implying that CLIL kills two birds with one stone.
3. CLIL buys us time.
Indeed, if we return to the European Commission's quotation, and read a little further,
we encounter the following phrase:
"It [CLIL] provides exposure to the language without requiring extra time in the
curriculum".
This would seem a good reason as any to promote an approach with a twin set of
objectives. One of these objectives is clearly educational (to learn subject content and a
foreign language) and the other is administrative. Since educational and administrative
needs often fight for space, this seems a good way to promote peace between
them. We were told in the European Council Resolution in 1995 that,
"…..all EU citizens, by the time they leave compulsory schooling, should be able to
speak two languages other than the mother tongue".
Curricula attempting to achieve this aim have been getting more and more desperate in
their attempts to find timetabling space. What is the possible answer to this
problem? Why CLIL, of course. Instead of studying Geography in the majority
language, do it in a foreign language. As long as it works, the pupils learn the same
subject concepts and skills, but increase contact time with the foreign language - crucial
consideration in the improvement of attainment levels.
4. CLIL causes change - and you don't need to be a genius to benefit from it.
So far so good. Now let's look at a different type of observation on CLIL. David Graddol
wrote that CLIL is
"…an approach to bilingual education in which both curriculum content (such as science
or geography) and English are taught together. It differs from simple English-medium
education in that the learner is not necessarily expected to have the English proficiency
required to cope with the subject before beginning study".
(Graddol D. English Next, British Council Publications, 2006)
This suggests that CLIL is far from the innocent creature that we read about in the first
quotation from the European Commission. Graddol suggests that a powerful element of
CLIL is its role in the improvement of language skills, and that pupils do not necessarily
need a particularly high level of foreign language attainment to do their 'CLIL-ing'. Now
this sounds quite radical. Why?
• Because the teachers would have to adjust their methodology to ensure that the
students were understanding the content.
• Teachers would not be able to simply 'transmit' the content, assuming that their
audience understood. They would have to think of other means (group work,
tasks, etc) which would result in an increase of the skill-based focus of the
learning.
• The educational materials (textbooks) would also have to reflect this approach.
• The pupils would be learning language that was more clearly focused on, and
related to, the subject matter that they needed to learn.
• CLIL is not confined to higher-achieving students. It is not an approach for the
elite. It fits in perfectly with a mixed-ability philosophy.
Without going much further in this introductory article, we might say that the five or six
phenomena described in the above bullet-points are all desirable, in educational
terms. Ensuring that students understand the content, reducing teacher-talk, increasing
the focus on skills, influencing publishers to do likewise and getting students to learn
language items that are always contextualised, always functionally necessary in the
classroom - sound good at any level of curricular discourse. What is CLIL? Well
already it looks as if it is something like 'good practice', and if we take Graddol at his
word, it can be applied across the ability range.
5. CLIL motivates
Finally, another quote that extends the scope of CLIL still further;
"CLIL is about using languages to learn………..It is about installing a 'hunger to learn' in
the student. It gives opportunity for him/her to think about and develop how s/he
communicates in general, even in the first language".
(Marsh, Marsland & Stenberg, 2001)
We can see from the first part of the underlined sections that CLIL views language as a
'vehicle', not simply as an entity in itself. This is a central component of the CLIL
package. David Graddol said something similar too in his book English Next, when he
talked about the world now viewing English not so much as a language but as a core
skill. This is a crucial observation, and it lies at the heart of the educational and social
change that has taken place since the development of the Internet and the parallel
growth in globalisation. As English becomes an essential add-on to any curricular
programme around the world, it is moving into a position where it becomes a subject
that pupils learn in order to do something else.
CLIL, with its 'dual-focused' aims, encapsulates perfectly this post-modern, utilitarian
view of the English language. Liberal educationalists may not agree with it, but for the
time being it is here to stay. In its defence, CLIL also seems to contribute to the buzz-
concept of our times - namely 'motivation'. Teachers' forums talk about it endlessly, as
do the blurbs on the back of scholastic textbooks and the opening lines of ministerial
declarations. Does CLIL install a 'hunger to learn' as Marsh et al claim? If this is true,
then we need to know exactly why. We can examine this in subsequent articles, but for
now, why should CLIL motivate more than other conventional approaches? Could it be
because:
• It provides reasons for learning and improving the foreign language level,
because the understanding of the subject content is compulsory.
• It focuses on and assesses the subject content, so the learner is not being
assessed on his/her mastery of the Past Simple (for example) but rather his/her
ability to use it in the appropriate places.
• It gives students a feeling of real achievement. They are coping with, and talking
and writing about, complex material in the foreign language.
• They are not being asked to discuss 'vox-pop' content as in standard language
learning textbooks (Pop Stars, Global Warming, My Favourite Auntie) - where the
content is used as a slave to illustrate a certain language structure - but because
the content is important in itself. In CLIL there is a chance that they are being
asked their opinions because the expression of opinions (for example) is a key
competence in the syllabus content.
How do you know if you're practising CLIL?
Perhaps due to its relatively recent birth as an approach with a label, CLIL
shelters a broad range of practice under its pedagogic roof. But if it is to be
taken seriously as an approach, and then adopted by the world of
pedagogy, it needs to have identifiable limits. We need to be able to say
what it is, but also what it isn't. In what ways does CLIL manifest itself in
terms of curricular types, and perhaps more simply - how do you know if
you're 'CLIL-ing', to quote a new verb?
The broadest division
Those who promulgate CLIL and those who write about it seem to have agreed on a
basic division of the approach into two camps: one in which the teaching and learning is
focused primarily on the subject content, and the other in which the teaching and
learning is focused primarily on language. The former is referred to as content-driven,
and the latter as language-driven. It's an easy enough division to understand, but both
approaches are perfectly valid and often work in a close and mutual cooperation. There
is no civil war implied by the division.
Strong and Weak
These two approaches are often referred to as 'strong' (content-driven) and 'weak'
(language-driven). Again, no qualitative distinction is intended, and the two approaches
are also sometimes labelled under 'hard' and 'soft'. What do these adjectives mean, in
this particular context?
The content-driven approach means that the subject content is given primary
focus. This applies to both the content and the administrative implications. So, for
example, a school that favoured total immersion – where the academic (and possibly
social) medium is a foreign language – would be operating under a strong version of
CLIL.
A language-driven approach would envisage foreign language classes (for example)
using more content than is typical of such programmes, or using didactic units which
made greater use of subject-based content. Nevertheless, the language-driven
approach has as its basic objective language learning, whereas the former
has subject concepts and skills as its learning objective. These objectives will condition
the assessment procedures – a topic we will explore in more detail in the next article.
But is it CLIL?
Good question. Just because a school decides to practise 'immersion', it doesn't mean
that it is CLIL-ing. For example, the teachers in the school may simply decide, as a
matter of policy, to treat the children as if they were native speakers, and to 'immerse'
them in an academic and social context that attempts to simulate, as far as possible, the
type of educational conditions and experiences that a native-speaker pupil would expect
to undergo. This would extend to the didactic materials, which are likely to have been
designed for L1 (native) speakers.
Undoubtedly, this approach can work in both its linguistic and subject-content
aims. There are many examples of this in the past and the present of world
education. But it probably works because of the enormously extended contact time that
the pupils experience in the target language. Immersion situations do not force the
teachers to change their whole methodological approach, or force them to design their
own materials, or force the subject teachers to think more carefully about the crucial role
of language in their specialist fields. CLIL teachers, on the other hand, do have to make
these changes because most of them are not afforded the luxuries that immersion
education confers, in terms of contact time.
Is that what CLIL teachers really do?
Yes. Let's take those three 'forced' situations from above, and turn them into a positive
and conscious approach to education. Nobody wants to be 'forced'! So in CLIL, both
language and subject teachers….
• Change their methodological approach
• Adapt existing materials or design their own to fit their particular contexts
• Work within a more language-enhanced paradigm
Is that all?
No – but let me explain. Let's take the first one about changing their methodological
approach. We mentioned this briefly in the previous article when we said that teachers
who deliver their material in the L2 cannot assume that they are being understood. The
implications are obvious.
1. The teachers would have to adjust their methodology to ensure that the students
were understanding the content.
2. That adjustment almost always entails a reduction in teacher-talk.
3. A reduction in teacher-talk often produces an increase in student talk (or at least
it should!)
4. These adjustments gradually find their way into the materials.
5. These materials are by default more task-based, and therefore more learner-
centred.
6. These materials focus more clearly on the role that language plays in the
students' assimilation of the concepts.
But how does all this equal CLIL?
It's obvious. If the above things happen, content teachers begin to think about language,
and language teachers begin to think about content. It's a meeting of minds across what
has traditionally been the 'Great Divide'. It's what the famous CLIL slogan means:
Using languages to learn, and learning to use languages
It's a powerful equation, because it also brings school departments together, and it often
results in a potent exchange of skills. Why is the non-CLIL world not so potent?
The problem of language teaching
Consider, for example, the principal problem of language teaching. What is the content
of a language syllabus?Who decides on it, and what is the logic behind it? Well –
without getting lost in the tricky world of educational philosophy, let's just say that there
is no logic whatsoever behind it, above and beyond the structure that applied linguists
and publishers have attempted to impose upon it over the years. This is because the
nature of language is horribly complex, and the nature of its acquisition even more so.
Quite apart from the above, the basic flaw in language teaching seems to reside in the
fact that its conceptual content – topics, themes, stories – all of which can occur in a
wide range of media, are subordinated to the underlying linguistic objective. We might
use Global Warming as a topic, but it's the 2nd Conditional we're really interested in
assessing. So – 'What would you do if you were writing the agenda of the next Global
Warming Summit?'
The students may well respond – who cares about saving the world? As long as I get
the 2nd Conditional right, I'll pass the exam. And they would be right.
So why does CLIL do it better?
I didn't say that. You did! But if you want the answer, you need to think about conceptual
sequencing. This is what distinguishes CLIL from language teaching.
Conceptual sequencing
Without this, it's difficult to accept that a teacher or learner is CLIL-ing. In a language-
learning textbook, the content is usually divided up into short chapters.
Chapter One: 'My family and friends'
Chapter Two: 'My School'.
Chapter Three: 'Famous People'.
There may be a thematic connection between the three, but when we reach Chapter
Four and 'Saving the Rain Forests' we struggle to see the connection. Of course, a
glance at the contents page and the teacher's guide will reveal the
underlying linguistic links, but the student may not be aware of them.
In the world of subject teaching, concepts are generally presented in horizontal (or
vertical) sequences of chronology, complexity or topical relationships. So if you
study The Romans in Britain in History what might you expect on the course menu?
First Class: Romans land in Britain in 56 BC.
Second Class: Early conflicts with local tribes.
Third Class: The early years of the Roman conquest.
And so on. People seem to learn rather well in this way, with one thing following another
in a logical sequence. CLIL is much closer to this paradigm. In its stronger versions, it
simulates this type of sequencing, and in its weaker versions it lends 'sequential
coherence' to language lessons by basing them on real conceptual material and
extending the time that is devoted to this practice. A didactic unit on Global Warming in
a 'weak' language-driven CLIL context may last as long as two months in the school
year. In a language textbook it probably lasts two days.
Anything else?
Oh yes. Lots more. But for the purposes of this second article, let's conclude by looking
at the really powerful three-way combination of elements that CLIL enables. This 'trinity'
is based on three classroom considerations:
• Concepts
• Procedures (skills)
• Language
The following example sentence (see diagram) is from a CLIL project for 11-12 year old
Basque students. It is from an English lesson, and is part of the language syllabus, but
the didactic unit uses subject material from Environmental Science, and the objective of
the lesson was to teach the basic features of the planets in our solar system.
The students work in groups of four and do a 'running dictation', where one student from
each group runs to the classroom wall and reads a description of a planet – or of as
many as he can remember. He does not know the names of the planet(s) he is reading
about. He runs back to his group (as many times as he needs), and dictates the
description(s). The group listens, then looks at the pictures of the planets they have
been provided with. They must decide which planets are being referred to. The
objective could be written out thus:
This is ‘Content & Language Integrated Learning', where all the three crucial elements
of education are working in harmony. The content (conceptual) is learned through a
procedure (skills) which requires a certain type of framework (language). You cannot
differentiate between the planets unless you can say that Jupiter is bigger than Mars –
to quote an obvious example.
How do you know if you're CLIL-ing? Well you'll need to be doing something like this.
You'll need to be taking all these elements into consideration. Sounds good? It is!
In the next article, we'll look more carefully at the marriage between language and
content in CLIL, at how the teacher can use the 'trinity' to his or her advantage, as well
as considering some related assessment issues.
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