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…
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…
When a student does not want to…Student motivation: an interesting topic indeed. Last week a student did not want to do an activity and asked: “why do we have to do this?” I was a bit surprised, I really thought the activity was interesting and useful.. Estimated time to read this…
Teacher talking time: necessary or overrated?Teachers like talking. A lot. In my experience that does not have to be a bad thing. History teachers can be great story tellers and physics teachers might at their best when they explain what makes their subject so important for real life situations. However, one…
Do your students talk a lot? Good! CLIL is all about maximizing language output for students. But that is not easily achieved when a teacher explains most of the time, leaving little room for students to actually practice their speaking skills, is it? That is were student speaking time comes…
Why are language expectations important? Guest post by Janet Streeter “Do you know One Direction?” “Have you met Justin Biber?” I was reminded that teenagers are the same the world over. I smiled, said “No, sorry, I’m afraid not” in my best British English and looked hopefully at my colleague…
Pronunciation as a vital element of CLIL A couple of months ago I received a mail asking me about the role of pronunciation in CLIL. Or, to be more specific, phonetics. The write mentioned he could not find any specific content about this topic in relation to CLIL. I have…
Images as a source for language Guest post by Peter Sansom, Part I of the “Practical CLIL ideas” series As an art teacher in my lessons I make use of a great deal of images. Paintings and sculpture from art history, films, drawings and photographs all have a part to play.…
I like running. Twice a week I’ll run a distance somewhere between 5K and 10K. Or at least I try to. Yet I find that I don’t do it when it’s raining it’s cold outside I feel tired Motivation is a thing here. I recently signed up for a run in…
If I would have to name the single biggest question most (new) CLIL teachers have with CLIL it would be: How do you balance language and subject in a CLIL lesson? They might even think the subject content of their lesson would become less important. That is simply NOT true. Let…
Some phrases are used by teachers all over the world. Sentences that have nothing to do with the subject but are vital for classroom. Thousands of teachers say the same things … and make the same mistakes in classroom English. Obviously, this is not the case for native speakers. But if…
They enter your classroom, looking around. Some might be noisy, most of them are silently waiting for the new experiences that await them at the new school. A select few has already read through the books and think they know what to expect. The students sit down, you start the first…
During a recent workshop I received the question regarding the difference between CLIL and immersion. Also, some other people used CLBT and CLIL as different phrases for the same type of language learning. To make matters worse, some teachers argued EFL is a lot like CLIL. EFL, immersion, CLBT and CLIL.…
The number one priority of every CLIL teacher is to activate language. To do that, teachers themselves speak English all the time, but teach a subject of their own. Nothing new so far However, with the focus primarily on the subject, language can fall behind. Or worse, you might revert…
In my previous post regarding effective feedback I introduced the definition of feedback as well as the six types of effective feedback. Elicitation Repetition Recast Explicit correction Clarification request Meta-linguistic feedback I also explained in a bit more detail how the first three of these types of feedback can work…
Providing feedback is something every teacher does. Correcting your students’ answer is natural to almost every teacher and helps students to grow and develop. In a CLIL lesson, teachers are expected to not just provide feedback on the content but also on the language. What different ways can you provide…
Do me a favor will you? Click the picture below and try to read the text. Keep track of the time while reading. Don’t give up too soon and don’t scroll down to the answer, give it a try first. Dyslexia in a CLIL environment “Dyslexia is defined by an…