distinguishing between argument and opinion
b. Listening
thinking about what you already know about the subject
thinking about the context: Who is speaking? Where? Why?
using the context to guess the meaning of unknown
words
understanding the main ideas rather than every word.
identifying specific information
differentiating main ideas from supporting details
recognising signalling, which organises the speaker’s talk
recognising intonation, wordstress and pausing
listening for “chunks of meaning” rather than separate words
identifying the speaker’s opinion or attitude
Once learners have gained confidence in the L2 they should be encouraged
to respond by using productive skills (speaking and writing). Here are
some strategies learners can use in these areas:
c. Speaking
giving yourself time to plan what you will say
thinking about how to organise your ideas
being positive about your abilities
trying not to avoid difficult or unfamiliar topics
paraphrasing or summarizing ideas you want to emphasize
using conversational expressions you remember
monitoring how people are responding to what you say
using synonyms, paraphrase or gesture if you can’t think of a word
focusing more on communicating your ideas and less
on your defects
saying that you don’t understand
asking for repetition, clarification, rephrasing
asking the speaker to speak slower
repeating the phrase in your own way to make sure
that you have understood
d. Writing
describing facts and figures
selecting and ordering ideas
stating your purpose for writing
planning structure: introduction, main paragraphs
and conclusion
organising internal paragraph structure.
2.4. Teacher-learner relationship
in CLIL.
Social constructivism and cognitive psychology have
been established at the heart of CLIL instruction and, therefore, students
are seen as active constructors, who resort to their world experiences
and schemata so that they can examine carefully new topics of study
in the classes of the various disciplines taught at school. Instruction
and activities are built on students’ interests and experiences, respond
to different learning styles and intelligences (Gardner, 1983) and challenge
children to take another step forward, evaluating their progress in
specific learning outcomes.
Connections between learning and students’ lives
should be made regularly in CLIL activities as well as connections with
other speakers of the CLIL language. Current materials from media or
other sources should be used as often as possible.
Students have a central role in CLIL lessons: their
activities should be based on a peer cooperative work and they should
help set content, language and learning skills outcomes. Finally they
should communicate more than the teacher who acts as a facilitator.
The teachers act as "facilitators" and
"mediators": they guide students, exploit past experiences
to build new knowledge and help children set goals in learning; they
let learners take initiatives, repackage information and encourage collaboration;
they "mediate" between the world outside the classroom and
the students, and support them in their inquiry by providing authentic
input, feedback and incentives for thinking and reflecting. ICT provide
the media and the applications that facilitate CLIL students in their
inquiry for linguistic and non linguistic knowledge and experiences,
and cater for opportunities for active learning, for experimentation
with the target language, for collaboration and for the development
of competences and strategies.
Mostly established role of teacher:
-CLIL teacher as planner: Awareness and competence
of :
-Issue of aims and objectives
-Awareness of time issues
-Awareness of time issues -Choice of content
-CLIL teacher as language user: Awareness
and competence:
-Monologues
-Dialogues (interaction)
-Explanation
- Description
-Narrative
-Classroom management
-CLIL teacher as language promoter : Awareness and
competence:
-Objectives
-Strategies
-Materiali
-CLI teacher as discipline protector: -Epistemology
-Objectives
-Methodology
-CLIL teacher as materials designer: -Identify
-Adapt
-Integrate
-CLIL teacher as evaluator: -Foreign language issue
and the discipline
-Role of foreign language teacher / programme
-CLIL teacher as team partner: -Synergy with foreign
language teacher
-CLIL teacher as methodological innovator: -A consequence
of the existence of the
previous demands and conditions.
Part 3. Practical implementation
of CLIL.
A typical lesson plan for CLIL consists of stages
specifically designed to perform the following activities:
- checking previous knowledge
- practicing content language;
- expanding vocabulary;
- consolidating knowledge;
- summarizing skills;
- applying the new knowledge;
- checking and correcting errors.
To practice content language, it’s
necessary to design stages focused on speaking interaction and/or on
developing receptive skills like listening and reading. Depending on
the topic, it might be important to develop the production of language
even in written form.
In the following pages, three examples
of CLIL lesson plan are presented. The first concerning history, the
second intended for one lesson of geography and the third is for literature
classes.
Lesson framework
A CLIL lesson is based on material
directly related to a content-based subject, it includes exploration
of language and is delivered by a teacher versed in CLIL methodology.
Both content and language are explored
in a CLIL lesson by teaching techniques for exploiting reading or listening
texts and structures for supporting spoken or written language.
A CLIL lesson looks at content and
language in equal measure, and often follows a four-stage framework.
Processing the
text
The best texts are those accompanied
by illustrations so that learners can visualise what they are reading.
When working in a foreign language, learners need structural markers
in texts to help them find their way through the content. These markers
may be linguistic (headings, sub-headings) and/or diagrammatic. Once
a 'core knowledge' has been identified, the organisation of the text
can be analysed.
Identification
and organisation of knowledge
Texts are often represented diagrammatically.
These structures are used to help learners categorise the ideas and
information in a text. Diagram types include tree diagrams for classification,
groups, hierarchies, flow diagrams and timelines for sequenced thinking
such as instructions and historical information, tabular diagrams describing
people and places, and combinations of these. The structure of the text
is used to facilitate learning and the creation of activities which
focus on both language development and core content knowledge.
Language identification
Learners are expected to be able
to reproduce the core of the text in their own words. Since learners
will need to use both simple and more complex language, there is no
grading of language involved, but it is a good idea for the teacher
to highlight useful language in the text and to categorise it according
to function. Learners may need the language of comparison and contrast,
location or describing a process, but may also need certain discourse
markers, adverb phrases or prepositional phrases. Collocations, semi-fixed
expressions and set phrases may also be given attention as well as subject-specific
and academic vocabulary.
Tasks for students
A variety of tasks should be provided,
taking into account the learning purpose and learner styles and preferences.
Receptive skill activities are of the "read/listen and do"
genre. A menu of listening activities might be:
Listen and label a diagram/picture/map/graph/chart
- Listen and fill in a table
- Listen and make notes on specific
information (dates, figures, times)
- Listen and reorder information
- Listen and identify location/speakers/places
- Listen and label the stages of a
process/instructions/sequences of a text
- Listen and fill in the gaps in a
text
Tasks designed for production need
to be subject-orientated, so that both content and language are recycled.
Since content is to be focused on, more language support than usual
in a language lesson may be required.
Typical speaking activities include:
- Question loops - questions and answers,
terms and definitions, halves of sentences
- Information gap activities with a
question sheet to support
- Trivia search - "things you
know" and "things you want to know"
- Word guessing games
- Class surveys using questionnaires
- 20 Questions - provide language support
frame for questions
- Students present information from
a visual using a language support handout.
3.1. CLIL: History
and language.
Grade |
8 |
Level |
Pre-intermediate |
Number of pupils |
13 |
Theme |
Queen Elizabeth I and The Golden
Age |
Lesson aims |
to develop pupils communicative and
cognitive skills |
Learning outcomes |
By the end of the lesson the students
will have background knowledge about the history of country of the target
language. They will be able to use new words in their speech. Students
will know facts about the Virgin Queen and the Golden Age. |
Competences |
ICC (cognitive, communicative, conceptual,
reflexive, lingua-cultural) |
Methods |
learner-centered, interactive |
Technologies |
Project technology, Video technologies,
Computer programs |
Lesson procedure
Stage 1 |
Procedure |
Interaction patterns |
1. Introduction
(Students get some information from
the Family Tree) |
Warming-up: Teacher shows the Tudor Family Tree
in Power Point (Picture 1).
T: Look at the Tudor Family Tree.
Henry VIII had 3 more wives. Can you name them? What do you know about
Queen Elizabeth I?
|
Open class |
Picture 1.
Stage 2 |
Procedure |
Interaction patterns |
Checking knowledge |
After oral answers students make
sentences about Queen Elizabeth's life, matching 1-6 to a-f . The task
is done in pairs (Picture 2).
T: In pairs do ex. 2. You should
match 1-6 to a-f, according to the Tudor Family Tree. |
Pair work |
2. Match 1–6
to a–f to make sentences about Elizabeth’s life.
1 ___ Elizabeth I was born
a) she was 25 years old.
2 ___KingHenry VIII
b) in 1603.
3 ___ She became Queen when
c) married or had children
4 ___ She never
d) in 1533.
5 ___ She died
e) was beheaded for treason.
6 ___Her mother, Anne Boleyn
f) was her father.
Stage 3 |
Procedure |
Interaction patterns |
Expanding knowledge and specific
language
(Students expand their knowledge
about the Queen Elizabeth's life by reading text) |
Reading: Students read a short introduction
to the text in order to check ex.2.
T: We are going to read about Queen
Elizabeth I. Read the introduction and check your answers to ex. 2.
Students look through the text for
general information and discuss getting information in small groups
(Picture 3).
T: Please, look through the text
and discuss it in groups.
Teacher makes students to pay attention
to highlighted words in the text, and guess their meaning.
T: Look at the highlighted words
and try to guess their meaning. |
Pair work |
Picture 3.
Stage 4 |
Procedure |
Interaction patterns |
Practising functional language
and checking the knowledge |
Students read the exact definitions
of highlighted words demonstrated in table.
T: In pairs read the definitions
of new words, and fill the given sentences with appropriate one.
Teacher asks some individuals to
answer to the questions.
T: I'll ask you some questions. If
you know the answer, raise your hand. |
Pair work
Open class
|
remarkable |
to be noticed especially as being
uncommon or extraordinary |
inherit |
to receive (money, property, etc.) from someone when
that person dies |
threatened |
having an uncertain chance of continued
survival |
royal |
relating to a king or queen |
treasury |
the place where the money of a government is kept |
council |
a group of people who are chosen to make rules, laws, or decisions
about something |
defeat |
to win a victory over (someone or something) in a
war |
finance |
the way in which money is used and handled |
colony |
an area that is controlled by or belongs to a country
and is usually far away from it |
achievement |
a result of hard work |
reign |
the period of time during which a king, queen, emperor,
etc., is ruler of a country |
renaissance
|
a period of new growth or activity |
1................... similarity in the
results emerging from both surveys.
2. ................. manuscripts,
and emblem literature, holdings are of world importance.
3. We viewed the breeding ............ on
Tresco from close quarters on 12th.
4. ............ the English throne
in 1603 she headed south with the rest of the family.
5. The sum is expected to raise a further
£ 46 million of private sector ..........
6. ......... this common enemy.
7. We celebrate ................;
we share in the success of our colleagues.
8. They said that it should have
been in the king's ..........., so Abbot Whiting was obviously stealing
it.
9. The costs are to be paid by the
........ treasury.
10. In the two succeeding ............ he
still continued his places of privy counselor.
11. Under 18s will be able to vote
for an overall winner that will be presented to the district ..........
12. The officer .............. the robber
to put down his gun.
Answer the following
questions.
1. How long did Elizabeth’s reign
last?
2. Why was there religious stability
during her reign?
3. How did the Queen dress?
4. Why do you think Elizabeth’s
reign was known as The Golden Age?
5. Why was Elizabeth known as The
Virgin Queen?
6. Where is Queen Elizabeth buried?
Stage 5 |
Procedure |
Interaction patterns |
Expanding knowledge
Developing reading skills |
Reading: Pre-reading: Teacher asks pupils
if they know any Elizabethan explorers.
T: Elizabeth’s reign was an era
of global discovery and exploration. Can you name any famous Elizabethan
explorers? What did they achieve?
While-reading: Pupils read the text
by themselves. Then, in pairs find the words according to given descriptions.
(Picture 4.)
T: Now read the text about the Age
of Exploration. Find the words in the text with the following meanings.
1. a person who works on a ship __________
2. a collection of valuable things
like gold, silver, and jewels __________
3. to sail all around the world __________
4. a group of ships __________
Post-reading: Students read the text
again to do True or False exercise.
They compare answers with partner.
T: Read the text again and find
True or False sentences. Compare your answers with partner. Correct
the false sentences, giving proves from text. |
Open class
Pair work
Individual task
Pair work |