Last week I received an email with the question: How can I balance content and language in a CLIL lesson?A question I receive more often, and a logical question to ask at that. After all, we have to teach both language and content in a CLIL lesson, right?Or don’t we…?Estimated time…
This weekend we experienced a lot of snowfall in The Netherlands. Unlike many other countries with more regular snowfall, the entire infrastructure failed.No more public transport, advice not to drive to work and cancelled activities.The question that jumped to mind: How do other countries deal with these challenges?And what can…
Running is both healthy and fun to do. At least, that is what I think. But finding motivation to run can be a challenge. And your students might find motivation a challenge as well, especially in these challenging times.Estimated time to read this article: minutes Quick Navigation Getting ready to…
Last week I was surprised by a group of teachers I coach: instead of thinking of excuses or blaming others they were really critical of their own work and made me realize an important lesson I had forgotten myself.Estimated time to read this article: minutes Quick Navigation HomeworkNot a teacher,…
Whenever I allow teachers and other educators in the Facebook Group, I ask for their current CLIL challenges.Many times, something related to motivating speaking is mentioned.Last week this happened again. One question was: “How do I motivate my students to speak?”This all has to do with planning for student speaking…
Last week I shared the statement: “Scaffolding is more important in CLIL lessons compared to non-CLIL lessons Agree/Disagree and why?” The result? More than 40 people responded! A little overwhelming I have to say! At first I tried to keep up with responding to everyone in person, but I could not keep…
With schools worldwide offering online or hybrid teaching, the need for online tools increases. In this post you can find 5 of the best ICT tools for both your online and offline CLIL lessons.Want to find even more ICT tools? Have a look at “CLIL in Corona times”Estimated time to…
A simple question. Like many others. Yet, the response was overwhleming.Estimated time to read this article: minutes Quick Navigation Just a simple questionKey take awayMaking questions less simpleKey take awayTalking too muchKey take awayAlmost holiday! Just a simple questionLast week I asked in the CLIL Community what way teachers worldwide…
During a recent coaching session a teacher shared an activity she tried in her class. A simple yet very effective activity. These kind of responses are the reason I became a coach. It is simply so inspiring to see teachers learn from each other! Estimated time to read this article: minutes…
For those of you who attended the online CLIL summit, you are probably well aware of the things we discussed during the interview with Jill Surmont. During this interview, and the Expert Panel earlier that week, Jill Surmont mentioned she thinks CLIL is for a large part just ‘good education’. In this…
As a teacher it can be a challenge to keep up with all of the work you have to do. Deadlines for checking papers, lessons to prepare, students to discuss, parents to meet and so on.You might even find yourself doing something you were not actually supposed to be doing. This…
Curriculum vs Language: what should you focus on?I have written about this topic before. The older blog post is called: Language and subject: a balancing actYesterday I hosted a workshop at a school and one of the teachers mentioned he thought it was challenging to ask his students to learn…
by Mary Spratt and Helen Baker CLIL teachers have often told us how frustrated and concerned they can feel when they try to apply CLIL methodology to their work. Theory is one thing, but applying it is another! How, for example, can you translate the 4C’s or Cummins’ quadrant into a…
Sharing this is both exciting and a little scary..As many of you know, I am no longer a teacher. I have decided to stop teaching and become a fulltime teacher trainer, focusing on CLIL. Obviously I had to come up with activities I thought were interesting for CLIL teachers around the…
What I did to make my lessons work, even onlineJust like every teacher around the globe, I was thrown into the ‘interesting’ world of online CLIL teaching without a lot of time to prepare. And just like you, I struggled at first and to be honest, I still feel online CLIL…
The nr. 1 challenge of CLIL teachers: motivating language outputWhen asked what topic I needed to write an article about in the Facebook CLIL Community, the number one topic was ‘secret student’.Which is not unexpected: motivating CLIL students to produce spoken output is a challenge for many. In this post…
How to practice the skill of active listeningListening is, in my humble opinion, an often neglected language skill compared to the other three. Unless you are a language teacher of course. The reason? Simple: students do not have to ‘be active’ to listen. Yet, active listening is still something that is required of…
Differentiation in your CLIL lesson…balancing the oddsPersonal approaches, individual learning trajectories, student focused tasks.. If you did not know any better you’d think all of these things (with new names every couple of years) are new things to education. Luckily one can find one common theme in all of these approaches:…
CLIL 101: How to start..If you are an expert on CLIL, you can stop reading. This post is not for you, I am sorry. This article is for all of those people who are just starting out with CLIL and have no idea where to start.Estimated time to read this…
The activity I start (almost) every lesson withThe opening of a lesson is just one of many lesson stages, but if not done well can be a problem for the rest of your lesson. A lot of things need to happen at the start: set expectations, activate prior knowledge, engagement so…
A CLIL activity to start a new chapterI already mentioned this specific activity called ‘scanning the chapter’ in my post on the use of word lists, but I wanted to reproach this activity specifically in another way. Everyone learns in a different way, right? Some people need general information, others need examples.…
So much to keep an eye on…Inspired by the enthusiasm during the Crash Course, I thought about how different teachers (worldwide!) work with CLIL. In my opinion, this has everything to do with your current knowledge, experience and skills concerning CLIL. In other words: your level. In this article I explore the…
Word lists: a necessary evil or a great tool?As students encounter new phrases and words they have not heard before, it might be a good idea to motivate the use of word lists. Yet, we do not want students to constantly translate or keep searching for words. In this post I…
Why do we focus on second language only?The publications and books on CLIL always focus on second language acquisition. But one might argue that the CLIL methodology can also be applied to a first language lesson. When this was discussed in the CLIL Community Facebook group, an interesting discussion ensued. In…
What are the criteria for a ‘good’ CLIL teacher?We can all agree on the fact that a CLIL teacher needs to have an acceptable language level to be able to teach in a second language. But does asking for an English qualification of a certain level say anything about the…
Why a student who speaks English fluently still scores low gradesIf you start out with CLIL, your main concern is probably mastering the second language you have to teach in. Soon after though, if you start to learn a little bit more about CLIL, you will hear about BICS and…
Finishing the chapter in a CLIL wayDuring many lessons the structure makes sense: You do a short recap, give an instruction somewhere, students do some work etc. But that is not what you during the final lesson for a test right? At the end of the chapter you simply want to…
A CLIL book full of ideas!The first time I heard of CLIL Activities was during a conversation I had with Rosie Tanner, one of the authors, as she talked about the book with a lot of enthusiasm and energy. I bought the book as soon as it was published, as…
Three steps to develop effective word listsStudents have to practice and learn a second language. To make sure they study new phrases, word lists can be used. However, just ‘using a word list’ is not going to be of much help. Let me share some ideas on how to word lists…
Reflection activities to increase learning awarenessDo you recognize that moment at the end of a lesson: you want to make sure everyone knows what you did by doing reflection activities, but you simply forget the time and the bell tells you you’re too late. Again? With the reflection activities mentioned in this…
