Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL): Benefits & Challenges
What is Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)?
What is CLIL? Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) refers to situations where subjects, or parts of subjects, are taught through a foreign language with dual-focused aims: learning content and simultaneously learning a foreign language. This approach involves learning subjects such as history, geography, or others, through an additional language.
CLIL can be very successful in enhancing the learning of languages and other subjects, and developing in youngsters a positive ‘can-do’ attitude towards themselves as language learners. CLIL offers opportunities to allow youngsters to use another language naturally, in such a way that they soon forget about the language and only focus on the learning topic. It is usually done by setting aside some time in the school week for learning subjects or special modules through another language.
In CLIL, the learning of language and other subjects is mixed in one way or another. This means that in the class there are two main aims: one related to the subject, topic, or theme, and one linked to the language. This is why CLIL is sometimes called dual-focused education. It can be done in many ways. For example, it might involve 8-year-olds having 30 minutes of language showers per week, in which they sing songs or play games in the other language. It could involve 13-year-olds learning as much as half or more of all their lessons in the other language.
Benefits of CLIL for Students
CLIL in Germany has had a positive reception. Some language practitioners argue that language acquisition is enhanced when students are exposed not so much to the grammar of the target language, but when they are afforded the opportunity to use the language in practice.
Families generally express satisfaction at CLIL experiences, but some parents of young learners fear that too much exposure to a second language may lead to neglect of the child’s first language. Some others are worried that learning a subject through another language might slow down or impair the learning of the main content.
Challenges Faced by Students in CLIL
As for the difficulties encountered by pupils, some teachers said that their pupils usually experience an initial feeling of awe and fear at not being up to CLIL at the beginning of a project. Luckily, these feelings gradually disappear, and pupils become more and more confident in the new environment. Another problem is the difficulty in using the language spontaneously.
In the opinion of one of the teachers, what seems a lack of learning at the beginning is only an impression. This is because the learning process is slower at the beginning, but it gives surprising results with the passing of time. In the teachers’ opinion, CLIL generally motivates pupils to learn the target language. This is because they feel that the language they are using has a concrete goal and because they have the possibility to contextualize the language in a real and not artificial setting.
From the point of view of one of the teachers, the pupils’ attention is focused on the content, and thanks to the use of ‘all their learning channels, pupils overcome their inhibition in the linguistic output’.
Does CLIL Increase the Gap Between Students?
Does teaching through a foreign language increase the difference between stronger and weaker students? The experience of many teachers working in bilingual projects seems to contradict this. In fact, many teachers say that often those learners who find it difficult to follow the normal rhythm of their classes in Spanish do quite well in subjects taught in English. The reasons for this may be varied, but an important factor could be the methodology employed (Baker and Prys Jones 1998, p. 273).
In CLIL education, teachers need to be especially careful to build an appropriate context for their explanations and scaffold students’ work. Teachers need to use good teaching strategies more extensively and to communicate their purpose and uses to students. Many of the ‘weak’ students may simply need more teacher support and more time to comprehend the new ideas, and these are precisely the advantages of subjects taught through English.
Methodology in CLIL Classrooms
The emphasis on the need for communication in the CLIL classroom is perhaps the most important aspect. From a methodological point of view:
- A CLIL class cannot be based on teacher-fronted methodology.
- Content cannot be effectively taught without interactive communication and oral activities.
In practice, we are dealing with a methodological paradigm consisting of a ‘knowledge framework’ in which:
- Curricular content is related to cognitive processing.
- Cognitive processes are in turn related to linguistic requirements which must be met.
The Additive Bilingualism Enrichment Principle
The results of many recent studies suggest that bilingualism can positively affect both intellectual and linguistic progress. These studies have reported that bilingual children exhibit a greater sensitivity to linguistic meanings and may be more flexible in their thinking than are monolingual children (Cummins and Swain, 1986; Diaz, 1986; Hakuta and Diaz, 1985; Ricciardelli, 1989). Most of these studies have investigated aspects of children’s metalinguistic development; in other words, children’s explicit knowledge about the structure and functions of language itself.
In general, it is not surprising that bilingual children should be more adept at certain aspects of linguistic processing. In gaining control over two language systems, the bilingual child has had to decipher much more language input than the monolingual child who has been exposed to only one language system. Thus, the bilingual child has had considerably more practice in analyzing meanings than the monolingual child.