CLIL in Education: A Comprehensive Approach

Posted on Feb 27, 2025 in Early Childhood Education

What is Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)?

CLIL is a dual-focused educational approach in which a second language is used for learning subject content from the curriculum. In CLIL, content and language learning occur simultaneously with an emphasis on their integration.

David Marsh defined CLIL as a situation where subjects are taught through a foreign language with dual-focused aims: learning content and a foreign language at the same time.

The 4Cs Framework of CLIL

Do Coyle established the 4Cs framework as the four basic pillars of CLIL:

  • Content: This refers to the progression in knowledge (subject aims). It is about constructing the learner’s own knowledge and developing their skills. The learning process combines content learning and the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and understanding.
  • Communication: This refers to the interaction process where language is used to learn. Communication implies the development of appropriate language knowledge and skills. In CLIL, language is seen as a vehicle for communication and for learning too. CLIL aims to increase Student Talking Time (STT) and reduce Teacher Talking Time (TTT) because when students produce the target language (TL), they show subject knowledge and language skills too. The type of language that is used in the communication process is represented in the language triptych, in which Coyle, Marsh, and Hood differentiate between three types of language as a tool to help teachers and learners identify and sequence language and content objectives in their lessons:
    • Language OF learning refers to the understanding of the subject (vocabulary).
    • Language FOR learning refers to the functional language needed to carry out the learning tasks.
    • Language THROUGH learning is the new language that students develop during the learning process and is not prepared.
  • Cognition: Cognition is the analysis of the thinking process. CLIL promotes thinking skills which are challenging for learners. CLIL allows students to construct their knowledge and their own understanding. Bloom’s Taxonomy is used as a guide of thinking skills and it serves as a checklist for teachers to develop questions and activities which aim to develop HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills) and LOTS (Lower Order Thinking Skills). In Bloom’s Taxonomy, there are two types of thinking skills:
    • HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills) include analyzing, evaluating, and creating.
    • LOTS (Lower Order Thinking Skills) include remembering, understanding, and applying.
  • Culture: This refers to multiculturalism (self and other’s awareness), developing positive attitudes and responsibilities of global citizenship. A global citizen is someone who is aware of and understands the wider world – and their place in it. They are citizens of the world. They take an active role in their community and work with others to make our planet more peaceful, sustainable, and fairer. It also includes digital culture.

Key Features of CLIL

  • Emphasis on content
  • Emphasis on communication
  • Language/grammar not taught following a ‘logical’ sequence
  • Language support
  • Importance of cognitive development, from LOTS to HOTS
  • Metacognition
  • (Inter)cultural awareness
  • Teacher as facilitator
  • Interaction (Student-Student/Student-Teacher)
  • Student Talking Time
  • Positive and safe atmosphere, confidence
  • Authentic materials/tasks, real purpose for communication, motivation
  • Visual aids
  • Variety of activities to suit different learning styles
  • Visual organizers, multimedia, ICTs
  • Collaborative learning
  • Self-assessment, peer feedback

Benefits of CLIL

  • Improves language competence and oral communication skills
  • Provides authentic and motivating use of language
  • Promotes cognitive flexibility
  • Introduces a wider cultural context
  • Prepares for future working life
  • Increases motivation and confidence in the TL and subject

CLIL Methodology

Multiple focus approach; safe and enriching learning environment; authenticity; active learning; scaffolding; cooperation.

CLIL Toolkit

  1. Shared vision for CLIL (Diamond 9 activity)
  2. Analyzing and personalizing the CLIL context
  3. Planning a unit (4Cs): Global goal; content; cognition (HOTS & LOTS); communication (language of/for/through learning); culture
  4. Preparing the unit
  5. Monitoring and evaluating (CLIL Matrix: to monitor, sequence, and scaffold learning. Dividing tasks into high or low cognitive demands/linguistic demands): Task A (low-low), Task B (high-low), Task C (high-high), Task D (low-high)
  6. Reflection and evaluation considering the best way to ensure future success & sustainability. LOCIT (Lesson Observation and Critical Incident Techniques) bottom-up practical perspective.

Important CLIL Concepts

  • Comprehensible Input: Teachers have to use language which is understandable for the learners. It has to be adjusted to the proficiency level of the learners.
  • Scaffolding: It is a strategy of teachers to help students to build their own knowledge, to support students so that they can understand new content and develop new skills. Teachers provide support to students to lead them through the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). It aims to support students to become self-directed learners who solve their own problems and are able to organize their mental processes during the performance of cognitively complex tasks. Some scaffolding strategies are: contextualizing (with previous knowledge), representing text, visual supports, giving clear instructions, giving examples, pre-teaching new content, adapting teacher’s language, fragmenting tasks, creating interest in the topic, etc.
  • Input: Language to which learners are exposed when listening and reading.
  • Output: Language learners produce when they speak and write.
  • Cognitive Skills: Thinking skills. Core processes our brain uses to think, read, learn, remember, reason, and pay attention. Working together, they take incoming information and move it into the bank of knowledge you use every day at school, at work, and in life. Learners progress from concrete thinking skills (LOTS) to abstract thinking (HOTS).
  • BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills): The skills needed for social, conversational situations. CLIL teachers need to give opportunities to students for developing BICS in the foreign language, for example, by conversations before moving into the content at the beginning of the day.
  • CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency): Refers to the language level required for academic school study. It takes learners at least five years to achieve CALP.
  • Assessment:
    • Summative (Assessment of Learning): Purpose is to review learning of subject content and to help us know what the learner has achieved in a specific time.
    • Formative (Assessment for Learning): It is on-going. Continuous assessment. It helps us to understand how much and how well our learners are learning about subject content.
    • Self-assessment, peer-assessment, and portfolio.
  • Subject-led CLIL (Soft CLIL): Teaching topics of the curriculum as part of a language course. It is planned around the curriculum of the school subjects.
  • Language-led CLIL (Hard CLIL): Partial immersion programs where almost half of the curriculum is taught in the TL. It is planned around an English language course.

Bilingualism

Bilingualism is the ability to speak two languages fluently; it is the use of two languages for curricular instruction in non-language subjects. There are balanced bilinguals, who use two languages more or less the same, and semilinguals, who have one language above the other.

Benefits of Bilingual Education

  • Higher intelligence quotient
  • Better mental agility and formation of abstract concepts
  • Better thought processes, organization skills, reasoning, and visual-spatial skills
  • Cognitive advantages
  • Better intercultural education
  • Helps the learning of an L3
  • Greater metalinguistic capacity

Cognitive Theories of Bilingualism

  • Balance Bilinguals: Bilinguals have two languages operating in isolation. Two separated language systems.
  • Iceberg Analogy: Bilinguals have a central operative system which is a bank of skills and metalinguistic knowledge that can be drawn upon when needed in any language.
  • Threshold Theory: Bilingualism is divided into 3 levels:
    • The 1st is the lower level of competence in both languages and it has negative effects (limited bilinguals).
    • The 2nd threshold is for those who are competitive in one language but they haven’t got a transfer of skills to the L2.
    • Balanced bilinguals are those with positive cognitive effects who have age-appropriate levels of competence in both languages.
  • Linguistic Interdependence Hypothesis: Competence of L2 depends on the L1 competence. ‘The more developed the L1 level, the easier it is to develop an L2’.

CLIL Parameters

Sequence simple things before complex ones; concept/language (language use in content-lessons) Tasks (dictate the language to be used) guided multimedia input; 3 dimensions (content, language, and procedures adapted to the learner); key language; clear instructions; interaction; supported output and thinking (physical and mental involvement in the learning process).

Communication Strategies in CLIL

  • Repetition
  • Recasting (Student: “I finished”; Teacher: “The story has finished”; “I finished reading the story.”) Giving feedback, providing positive evidence, and maintaining the flow.
  • Explicit correction
  • Questioning (closed questions – LOTS; open questions – HOTS)
  • Language mixing
  • Metalinguistic feedback (Without explicitly providing the correct form. Teacher: “The plants are for…”; Student: “For eat the fish”; Teacher: “To eat the fish?”)
  • Expansion (‘Fill the blank’ adding extra information)
  • Clarification request
  • Elicitation (Teacher: “Today is….”)
  • Formulaic expressions and cognates (A doctor works in the hospital. Vocabularies similar in L1 and L2)

CLIL Materials

Feedback reflection, visualization; use of visuals and resources (flashcards/visual organizers – mind maps/posters/multimedia/realia), collaborative learning, meaningful topic, based on previous knowledge, scaffolding, relevant materials and tasks, cognitively challenging, respectful and inclusive for the environment, authentic, including culture, offer a progression, skills related to the subject, focused on communication, motivating, accessible for all learners, linked with CLIL aims, appropriate for the age of the learner.

Scientific Routine

  1. Make initial observation.
  2. Ask questions based on the observation.
  3. Make hypotheses or predictions.
  4. Do the experiment.
  5. Draw conclusions.
  6. Share results and conclusions.

Assessing Content

  • True/False questions
  • Yes/No questions
  • Find the odd one out (Jungle animals: monkey, lion, cat)
  • Matching activities
  • Complete visual organizers

Assessing Language

  • True/False questions
  • Matching word-picture
  • Pronunciation of key words
  • Following instructions (Simon Says)
  • Listening to specific information

Parts of a CLIL Lesson Plan

  • Learning Outcomes (4Cs)
  • Procedure:
    • Warm-up (Activation, Motivation, Pre-teaching of key content & language, LOTS)
    • Main task
    • Post-task (Revision of main content/language; Reflection; LOTS/more HOTS)
  • Instruments for Assessment: (Direct observation: checklists/rubrics; games; true/false activities; yes/no questions…)
  • Assessment Criteria: (Can-do statements: children can observe/draw/identify/use/describe/explain…) – Learning outcomes (to know how to look at/be able to… explain work done for a picture)

Materials

Visual Organizers

They help learners to: Connect knowledge and ideas; Understand and recall information; Select, transfer, and categorize information; Produce oral and written language; Think creatively.

Types: tree diagram, T-chart, timeline, flow diagram (order steps), mind map, binary key (yes/no questions).