CLIL Magazine Spring 2014

8/17/2019 CLIL Magazine Spring 2014

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Spring 2014

Book Review:

CLIL Activities

Teaching in English

Handy Handouts

Metacognitionin CLIL

Thinking through vocabulary in CLIL

Pimp your questions: ten tips for CLIL

Experiencing Clill’s effectiveness

through teaching aspects

of a non-lengua franca

Enhancing Reading Levels the CLIL Way

Fostering students’ autonomy in a CLIL

class

Students’ perceptions of code-switching

Jason Skeet Rosie Tanner Brian Dixon Tanya Schadee Janet Streeter Mandi Berry Ezana Habte-Gabr


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CLIL Magazine

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CLIL Magazine

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From the editorLittle did I know that when I started CLILmagazine I would someday write this edi-torial. For the fourth time in two years I canproudly write about all of the articles pub-lished in this magazine, something which I

am very proud of! Contributors, advertisers,and readers, thank you!

The overall theme in this issue is ‘thinkingskills’, so you will find many pieces relatedto CLIL related articles on Gardner, Bloom,learning strategies and much more. Bothregular contributors as well as new authorshave contributed to this issue, allowing fora wide variety of opinions, ideas, and ex-periences. Take a report, for example, oncomparing a Spanish text with an unknownlanguage (to the students). Not to mentionreading strategies, code-switching, effec-

tive questioning and the use of metacog-nition. I am very proud of the articles pub-lished in this magazine and want to thankall of the authors for their efforts.

You might have noticed the new logo onthe cover. This is not just a fancy change,it is also the next step in the professionaldevelopment of the magazine. With its pub-lication becoming more regular, as opposedto its current sporadic nature. I’ve createda separate enterprise for the publication ofthe magazine, CLIL Media. This will allowfor other CLIL related activities as well, like

online courses. You can read more on this inthe article below.

I hope you will enjoy this edition as muchas I do, and remember: all feedback is wel-come! You can reach me by going to thewebsite and submitting a contact form or bysigning up for the newsletter and sendingme a mail through that system.

Have fun!

Patrick de BoerEditor-in-Chief CLIL Courses Online

By the time this magazine is published, theonline (free) webinar on the four C’s of CLILand the application of this to your lessonwill already have been broadcasted. Howev-er, if you are still interested to find out more,go to www.clilcoursesonline.com and have alook at this new website, of which I am veryproud!

CLIL Magazine was something completelynew when it started out and nothing like ithas been published since, making it the onlyCLIL relatedmagazine in the world. After twoyears of working with many CLIL expertsworldwide, I thought about ways to connectCLIL teachers around the globe in a differentway. The Internet seemed like a logical placeto start, and soon I came up with the idea tostart online courses.

Please visit www.clilcoursesonline.com andsee for yourself if this is a fit for you!

Colophon CLIL Magazine Spring

Edition 2014ISBN 978-90-820297-2-7

Printed: 1000 magazines Design: Design Xpressions

Publisher: Paragon Multimedia

Logo design by René Kouwer

Subscriptions:A subscription costs €40,- excl. BTWper year per school. Your school will

receive two magazines per year, and amaximum of 30 magazines per schoolper magazine. Postage costs are inclu-ded in the subscription.Go to www.clilmagazine.com/subscribeto order a subscription.More info: www.clilmagazine.com

Table of Content Pimp your questions: ten tips for CLIL page 4&5 Jason Skeet talks about his top ten tips on effective

questioning, an important aspect of every CLIL lesson.

Book Review: CLIL Activities page 5 In this first book review ever in CLIL Magazine,

CLIL Activities by Rosie Tanner and Liz Dale is discussed.

Students’ perceptions of code-switching page 6&7 Janet Streeter elaborates on her research into

code-switching and draws intriguing conclusions.

Teaching in English page 9 Marjorie Castermans and Jennifer Valcke from the Université

libre de Bruxelles talk about the change in education that isneeded when programmes are being taught in a different language.

Handy Handouts page 10&11

Brian Dixon explains how he uses varies ways to engagestudents and help them to learn on their own.

Metacognition in CLIL page 13 Mandi Berry explains meta cognition and its application

in a CLIL classroom.

Experiencing Clill’s effectiveness through teaching aspectsof a non-lengua franca page 15

Ezana Habte-Gabr describes his findings after teaching a lessonon the importance of specific language and content strategies.

Enhancing Reading Levels the CLIL Way page 16 Tanya Schadee and Janie McCloughin evaluate a lesson

series in which they researched reading levels. Fostering students’ autonomy in a CLIL class page 17&18 Pablo Marcelo Oliva Parera and Maria Pilar Nuñez Delgado

share their research on the students’ meta cognitive knowledge when analysing their own work.

Thinking through vocabulary in CLIL page 18&19 In this article, Rosie Tanner describes three CLIL activities

which combine vocabulary and thinking skills.


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By Jason Skeet, Utrecht University

If you can Google the answer you are notasking the right question

Keith Trigwell

Here’s a bold statement for you: learningis entirely dependent on the quality of thequestions that teachers ask their students!Of course, asking questions is somethingthat every teacher does every day of theschool year, but how often do teachers ques-tion their own use of questions? Questionscan fulfill a variety of functions: from man-aging the classroom to keeping learners en-gaged in a lesson; from assessing learners’progress to deepening their understand-ing; from focusing attention to helping andencouraging further learning. But are you

always aware of the specific purpose of aquestion you pose?

Experienced CLIL teachers will be familiarwith the ‘four Cs’ of CLIL (content, commu-nication, culture, and cognition).1 Askingquestions (and being aware of the functionof a particular question) relates to the C forcognition in this model. So why is cognition(or thinking) so especially significant forCLIL, and what part does it play in terms ofintegrating content and language learning?Put simply, getting learners to think moreand to express their ideas more helps them

to develop their language proficiency. Morethinking equals more language production.

Top ten tips for effective questioningHere, then, are my top ten tips for effectivequestioning in CLIL.

1. Plan the questions you are going to askin advance.Plan and sequence your questions, interms of their difficulty and the kind ofthinking required from your students.For example, if we use Bloom’s taxono-my as a guide (see the illustration) ask

an analyzing question after you ask re-membering or understanding questions.On the other hand, you might like to askan evaluating question to motivate yourstudents to think about a topic whenyou introduce it: for example, “What doyou think about genetic engineering?“to activate interest in Biology.

During a lesson, questions can beplanned to move from LOTS (lower orderthinking skills) to questions requiringHOTS (higher order thinking skills). Us-ing questions so that a clear progression

from lower to higher order thinking issupported will help learners to get deep-er into a topic. This means that probingor follow-up questions are also prepared.Use “how, who, what, when, why, where”questions for this probing, or verbs suchas “describe” and “explain”.

Ensure too that questions are clearlyphrased and plan for the possible an-swers that might be given (and how youas the teacher could respond). And ofcourse, always expect the unexpected!

2. Ensure that open, or so-called ‘fat’questions predominate in the CLILclassroom.‘Skinny’ questions are closed questionsthat usually only require one to five wordanswers (“What’s the unit of force?”).Asking closed questions does not en-courage learners to talk themselves. Ifyou ask more open questions, (such as“Some people think we are not alone inthe universe. What’s your opinion?”)then discussion becomes more equallyshared between teacher and learners,

and multiple ideas and viewpoints canbe given equal status. This then contrib-utes to another C from the ‘Four Cs’ ofCLIL — culture — thus fostering a class-room culture in which differences arerespected.

3. Avoid asking ‘Guess what’s in my head’questions.‘Guess what’s in my head’ questionsare questions phrased in a way thatthe student thinks that the teacher hasa specific answer they are looking for:students may even think this is what

you’re after even if it isn’t. This then lim-its the students’ willingness to exploretheir own ideas and to produce morelanguage in the process. Try to make itclear that it is their ideas that you want.

4. Give plenty of ‘wait time’ between ask-ing questions and collecting responses.’Wait time’ is the time given betweenasking and then collecting a responseto a question. On average, teacherswait less than a second for an answer

to a question: that doesn’t give learnersmuch time to think!2 No one can reallythink in such a short amount of time —you either know the answer or you don’t!So increasing wait time (to at leastthree seconds) can feel uncomfortableat first, but you and your learners willquickly get used to it. More importantly,

the quality and length of answers willrapidly increase the more wait time isused. To save you feeling too uncomfort-able with the silence in the classroom,you can use wait time to repeat andrephrase the question, which helps toensure that everyone understands thequestion.

You can also give your learners the op-portunity to rehearse the language fortheir answers. For example, ask themto write down their responses on a miniwhiteboard or talk through their ideas

with a partner or in a small group, beforethey respond. If learners have been giv-en time to think and also time to discusstheir ideas with a partner or in a smallgroup the teacher can assume that ev-eryone in the class is ready to providean answer. Posing the question beforeidentifying someone for a response alsocreates a classroom culture in which ev-eryone knows they need to be preparedto answer every question, and thus en-gaged at all times in the lesson.

5. Ask one question at a time

Another pitfall to be aware of in a CLILsetting is asking several questions atonce, and therefore not giving learnersthe opportunity to focus on a partic-ular question and on developing thelanguage they need for answering thatquestion. For example, and to returnto Bloom’s model above, the languageneeded to answer an understandingquestion is different from the languageneeded to tackle analytical thinkingsuch as a compare and contrast prob-lem. So allowing learners to focus on onequestion at a time also gives you as the

teacher the chance to offer the specificlanguage support needed: for example,speaking frames that help learners tosequence an explanation in the case ofan understanding question or a framewith examples of how to make compar-isons in the case of a compare and con-trast question.

6. Use a ‘no hands-up’ approach. Ask students to keep hands down and

select the student to give an answer

Pimp your questions: ten tips for CLIL

1For a description of the 4 Cs model see:

http://clilingmesoftly.wordpress.com/clil-models-3/the-4-cs-model-docoyle/2Read about Mary Budd Rowe’s research on wait time:http://www.sagepub.com/eis2study/articles/Budd%20Rowe.pdf

3For an overview of Krashen’s work see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input_hypothesis


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or use mini whiteboards so that everylearner has to offer a response. Aim toestablish a climate in the classroomin which not knowing an answer is notacceptable: having this as a classroom‘rule’ will encourage everyone to be in-volved in the lesson. So if someone can-not come up with a response offer them

additional thinking time and then comeback to them for a response later, or asa last resort offer suggestions and allowthe student to select their answer (andthen with prompts encourage them to

justify that selection).

7. Don’t answer your own questions!Only the learners answer the questions(and not the teacher). If learners knowthat a teacher typically always givesthem the right answer eventually, thenwhat is their incentive to think for them-selves? Offer hints or prompts (and plan

these) to guide students in their think-ing.

8. Create a climate in which learners feelsafe and become willing to take risks.So encourage learners to give answersthat still need more work (by emphasiz-ing that it is not wrong, since that is notthe point here). A safe atmosphere isalso vital for language learning: Krashenhas argued that when learners’ anxietylevels are high, or their ‘affective filter’is raised, language learning simply doesnot happen.3

9. Acknowledge ‘off beam’ answers by al-ways finding something positive...

...and not merely dismissing them. Whenstudents come up with something thatis not quite there yet, a teacher can buildconfidence with prompts that help learn-ers to self-correct and find a better an-swer. A teacher can aid this process byproviding ‘thinking out loud’ examples ofa reflection process that demonstratesincreased awareness, clarification andcritical thinking.

Putting into practice thesetips for effective questioningin CLIL enables an approachto learning that foregroundsproblem formation over prob-

lem solving, critical thinking over the repro-duction of knowledge, and learners’ abilityto think for themselves rather than merelyperforming for the teacher’s benefit. As theKeith Trigwell quote at the top of this articlesuggests, we need to think of learning, andlearning in a CLIL classroom, as the promo-tion of effective questioning. After all, whatis the point of a question in a school class-room if the answer can be found with a quickInternet search?So my tenth and final tip:give learners opportunities to formulatetheir own questions!

With thanks to Rosie Tanner for feedback onan earlier version of this article.

Book Review: CLIL Activitiesby Liz Dale and Rosie TannerThe goal of CLIL Magazine is to provide its readers with tools for lesson development.Reviews on books about CLIL are therefore an addition to the magazine which perfectlyadhere to this aim. Although CLIL Activities was last published by Cambridge UniversityPress in 2012, it is still well worth being reviewed as the content can be used for manyyears to come.

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. Ibought the book as soon as it was published, as I was sure it would live up to my expec-tations. Needless to say I was not disappointed.

The book is divided into three different parts: Background to CLIL, Subject pages andPractical activities. The lion’s share of the book consists of over 180 pages of activitiesthat can be applied to any lesson. The different parts of the book are conveniently sepa-

rated and allow for fast and accurate searches.

Part 1: Background to CLILAlthough the vast majority of the readers probably buy this book for the activities, infor-mation about CLIL itself is not something that should be disregarded. Written in easy-to-read, short paragraphs, the authors explain some basic concepts of CLIL and provideanswers to common questions about CLIL. With practical tips and even a “how CLIL areyou” test to check your own CLIL level, the authors try very hard to help out teachersthat encounter challenges in their working with CLIL. Key terms such as scaffolding, as-sessment, BICS and CALP, and many others are explained and accompanied by practicallesson ideas.

Part 2: Subject pagesAs CLIL is not subject specific, each subject teacher needs to understand how to workwith CLIL in their own field of study, which can be challenging. Rosie Tanner is particu-larly proud of the subject pages, which discuss the most common speaking and writinggoals as well as the learners CEFR level for language use for that specific subject. Fourpages for all fields of study are provided, to make sure every teacher will be able to findsomething useful.

Part 3: Practical ActivitiesThe main part of the book has over eighty activities categorized into different skill orien-tations like activating, writing, reading and assessment. Some of these can be found inother publications as well but the details provided for each activity make the activities inthis book to be an easy-to-use recipe for every lesson. Each activity is accompanied by

a short introduction which describes the CEFR level of the activity as well as the time ittakes to do the activity in class. Variations are also provided, allowing for a more creativeapproach to applying the activities in class. Not only do the categories explain the corefocus of the activity, they can also be quickly found and applied effectively

ConclusionCLIL Activities is a book written for every CLIL teacher and wants to provide them withpractical ideas and background on CLIL. The authors succeeded in writing a book thatnot only reaches their own goals, but also functions as botha reference and a source of inspiration. Where other books onCLIL focus either on background information or certain ideas,CLIL Activities allows for professional development for every

subject teacher through a practical approach and inspirationalsubject pages. A must read for every CLIL teacher!

Would you like to win a copy of “CLIL Activities” by Liz Dale andRosie Tanner?Go to www.clilmagazine.com and click on “win a book.”


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By Janet StreeterAt CLIL 2013 at Ustròn, in the snowy moun-tains of Poland, there were three workshops

devoted to the phenomenon of code-switch-ing and L1/L2 translanguaging. I was de-lighted that I was not alone in choosingthis topic. I felt it was high time that suchan important and inevitable aspect of CLILwas given closer attention, particularly withregard to practice in mainstream schoolsthroughout Europe and in related academicliterature.

DefinitionsFirst of all it would be helpful to consid-er a couple of definitions. Linares, Mor-ton and Whittaker (2012, p. 331) refer to

code-switching as:“The use of more than one language,or language variety, in conversation.It usually refers to the ability to switchlanguages or dialects depending on thecontext or conversational partner.

Many academics now seem to prefer theterm translanguaging and Coyle, Hood andMarsh (2010) develop the definition indirect relation to CLIL, when they refer to“partial instruction through the vehicularlanguage”

“Translanguaging refers to a systemat-ic shift from one language to anotherfor specific reasons.” (Coyle, Hood andMarsh, 2010, p.16)

L1 and/or L2As a Dutch TTO teacher, you could ask –“What’s all the fuss about? The students

are meant to speak English (i.e. the targetlanguage or L2) all the time.” I agree, butwe all know that it is not always as easy

as that and many academics in the field ofBilingual Education and Modern Languagesteaching are vehemently opposed to theexclusion of the mother tongue (L1) fromthe classroom (Cummins, 2007). At therisk of undermining the whole TTO languagepolicy (!) it is probably wise in this articleif I adhere to the “one size does not fit all”approach to CLIL methodology (Coyle, Hoodand Marsh, 2010, p.14). Indeed, Europeanteachers’ attitudes to switching languagesin the CLIL classroom seem usually to bebased on factors such as local perceptionsof best practice, their own language ability

and that of their students, local languageteaching traditions, school policy and an-ecdotal evidence. On our travels through-out the Netherlands, my colleagues and Ihave worked in many schools where targetlanguage use is embedded in TTO depart-ments and the students are achieving veryhigh levels of fluency and academic work.We have also visited other schools whereteachers find it more difficult to keep thestudents in English, particularly in pair andgroup work. As language use and support ispart and parcel of our CLIL training courses,I decided to examine code-switching a little

more closely and my starting point was thestudents themselves…

The studyI embarked upon a very small-scale prelimi-nary study of data collected from teenagersin two bilingual Secondary schools – onein Hungary and one in the Netherlands.

When observing lessons in these schoolsI had begun to question whether some ofthe code-switching that I was witnessing

in class was actually enhancing students’learning.

Apart from beginning with the same letterof the alphabet, Hungary and Holland havequite a lot in common when it comes to CLIL.They are both countries where competenceand fluency in English has high social andeconomic status. Consequently, parents arekey stakeholders. English is a way of stu-dents not only broadening their minds, butalso securing a better future for themselveswith more opportunities in an increasinglyglobalised world. The languages of these two

countries are not widely spoken elsewhere.CLIL is embedded in both mainstream edu-cation systems.

I conducted interviews with 12 studentsin total, but for more accurate comparisonI looked at the perceptions of 8 studentsof the same age (14 years old) and in topset classes. The four Hungarian studentswere in their 7th year of learning all theirsubjects in two languages. In this privateinstitution, with Hungarian and English na-tive speakers teaching in tandem, ad hoc,unmarked code-switching is allowed in

every year group. Translanguaging occursautomatically when the two teachers swapover during the lesson. The only rule is thatthe students must speak English with theEnglish teacher. However, in English class-es they are expected to use English all thetime. The 4 Dutch students were in their 3rdyear of learning all their subjects in English.Speaking Dutch in CLIL classes is officiallynot allowed as part of national TTO policy.Both sets of interviewees were high calibrestudents with very good levels of English,although their spoken fluency varied.

All students were interviewed face to faceand responded to the following key ques-tions: 1. When do you speak Dutch/Hungari-an (L1) in class? 2. When do you speak En-glish (L2)? 3. What are the rules about useof English in your lessons?

Student perceptionsof their own L1/L2 useIt is interesting to explore what the studentshad in common:

Firstly, they all said that they generally usedthe L1 to a greater or lesser extent in groupwork. This corresponds to several researchfindings in the literature (Dalton-Puffer,2007, p.203; Gil, Garau and Noguera, 2012,p.141). They also said that they wouldswitch to the L2 if a teacher approached,particularly if they were to receive a gradefor using the language. Both sets of stu-dents spoke of using the L1 in order to

Students’ perceptionsof code-switching in Hungary and the Netherlands


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seek explanations from their peers and onestudent said that she strategically placedherself in the classroom to do this. In bothcountries, the boys were perceived by thegirls as using the L1 when bored or misbe-having in class.

Some students referred to the L1 as being

“more natural”, “easier” and less “weird”when used in peer conversations. This cor-relates with the view of Chavez (2003,p.194-195) cited in Gil et al (2012) that theL2 needs to be used naturally, in genuinesituations. The study group was clearly nota group of English as a Second language, im-migrant students in danger of being margin-alised by society (Cummins 2007, p.15),where allowing or encouraging use of the L1is a way of valuing their input and ethnicity.However, this finding does raise questionsabout teenage peer pressure and the needto maintain a safe, but at the same time mo-

tivating learning environment with genuineopportunities for purposeful L2 use. Cer-tainly there was no sign of anxiety (Levine,2003) because both sets of students spokeof the ease with which they now use the L2after their respective periods of CLIL study.This was perhaps so much the case thatthey seemed unaware of the purpose ofincreasing their use of the L2 at this stage.They were clearly able to communicate atwill and seemed to have reached a linguis-tic plateau, at least in terms of their BasicInterpersonal Communication Skills (BICS)(Cummins, 2008). This does, however, raise

the question as to whether they could bechallenged further to develop their Cogni-tive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP)(Cummins, 2008), thereby giving them apurpose to use the L2 more effectively. Thislack of language awareness certainly meantthat in some cases, their perceived L1/L2choices had less to do with the linguisticand cognitive reasons for code-switchingfavoured by researchers (Kouti, 2012), andmore to do with the social environment ofthe classroom.Notwithstanding, the girls in both countriesexpressed the need to know vocabulary in

both the L1 and the L2 and talked aboutstrategies they had developed for doingthis. All the girls felt that speaking the L2was a good way to improve their languageskills, but did not necessarily see the class-room as the place to do this – several re-ferred to native speaker friends with whomthey spoke English regularly. However, theHungarians wanted to speak more L2 in thebilingual classroom (Gil, Garau, Noguera,2012, p.141). When asked about L1/L2“rules” the Dutch students implied that theyused the L1 as much as they could get awaywith i.e. L1/L2 use depended on the teacherand his/her classroom management.

Questions raisedIn summary, the students’ answers to thethree questions were mostly related to thesocial environment of the classroom andthe way it is managed.This is to be expected – after all, these four-

teen year olds are not experts in socio-lin-guistics – and one of the questions focusedon “rules” . Yet the findings raise severalinteresting questions about L1/L2 alterna-tion:

• What research ndings and “essentialbest practice” (Coyle, Hood and Marsh,

2010, p.1) with regard to code-switchingand translanguaging are applicable anduseful to CLIL in European mainstreamclassrooms?

• By allowing ad hoc code-switchingamong our CLIL students, either inten-tionally or due to lack of teacher aware-ness, do we run the risk of some of themusing the L1 for the wrong reasons, notbeing sufficiently challenged linguisti-cally, and not achieving their full poten-tial?

• What are the exact implications of this forclassroom practice? Should we, as CLILteachers, be more strategic with respectto code-switching and translanguaging?If so, how?

The aim of my workshop at Ustròn was topresent the above findings to CLIL academ-ics and practitioners and also launch a dis-cussion about L1/L2 use in the CLIL class-room. This certainly happened. The reactionsof workshop attendees, an analysis of rele-vant scholarly works and my conclusions

with regard to the three questions above arepresented in a more formal, academic paper(for more information please contact: [email protected]). In the meantime, I hopethis article will provide a springboard fordiscussion about L1/L2 use and the practi-cal implications for classroom practice andschool policy. I would like to thank all those

who attended my workshop and helped meto further my thinking on code-switching.I would also encourage you to attend CLIL2014 in Venice 28- 30 August, where it willcertainly be hotter than Poland last year(and that could be just the debates!)

1 Please excuse this lack of political correct-ness for the purpose of alliteration.

Janet Streeter, Director, Cumbria CLIL Ltd, Carlisle, Cumbria, UKwww.cumbriaclil.com [email protected]

ReferencesChavez, M. (2003). “The Diglossic For-eign-Language Classroom: Learners’ Viewson L1 and L2 Functions”, in C. S. Blyth (ed.)

The Sociolinguistics of Foreign-LanguageClassrooms. Heinle: Thomson.

Coyle, D., Hood, P., and Marsh, D. (2010)Content and Language Integrated Learning.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Cummins, J. (2007) ‘Rethinking monolin-gual instructional strategies in multilingualclassrooms’, Canadian Journal of AppliedLinguistics, 10, pp. 221-240.

Cummins, J. (2008) “BICS and CALP: Empir-ical and Theoretical Status of Distinction”.In Street, B. and Homberger, N.H. (Eds.),(2008). Encyclopedia of Language and Ed-

ucation 2nd Edition, Vol. 2, New York: Spring-er Science & Business Media LLC.

Dalton-Puffer, C. (2007) Discourse in con-tent and language integrated learning(CLIL) classrooms, Amsterdam; Philadel-phia: John Benjamin.

Gill, M., Garau, M. and Noguera, J. (2012) ‘ACase Study Exploring Oral Language Choicebetween the Target Language and the L1sin Mainstream CLIL and EFL Secondary Ed-ucation’, Revista de Lingüística y LenguasAplicadas, Volumen 7, p.143.

Kouti, A., (2012) Bilingual Events in CLIL Ge-ography and Home Economics Sixth Grade

Classrooms in Two Cypriot Primary Schools.PhD Thesis. University of Birmingham. Avail-able at: http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/3524(accessed July 2013).Levine, G. (2003) ‘Student and InstructorBeliefs and Attitudes about Target LanguageUse, First Language Use and Anxiety: Reporton a Questionnaire Study’, The Modern Lan-guage Journal, 87, pp. 343-364.Llinares, A., Morton, T. and Whittaker, R.(2012) The Roles of Language in CLIL. Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press.


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Teaching in English: Lost on a MissionBy Marjorie Castermans and Jennifer Valcke, Université libre de Bruxelles (Belgium)

Teaching through a foreign language hasbeen described as a new paradigm shift in(language) education – centered on foster-ing student competence in a second or for-

eign language, while developing knowledgeof a particular subject matter. This approachis widely used in a large number of contextsand educational settings all over Europeand the world. Implementing programmesthrough a foreign language requires muchmore than simply promoting a foreign lan-guage education policy or counting on thegoodwill of the teaching staff. How shouldinstitutions deal with this change in edu-cational context? What should teachers ex-pect? What type of support should be putin place to support students and teachers?Let’s take a look at what is going on in Eu-

rope, and more particularly, the pedagogicaland linguistic support programme set up atthe Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) in Bel-gium.

1) English-Medium Instruction in EuropeFor decades now, English has been used asthe language of international professionallife in virtually all fields; however, only re-cently has it become the most widespreadinstructional language in higher education(Wilkinson 2004). The rapid implementationof English-medium instruction programmesacross Europe responds to universities’

pressing need to attract international stu-dents, foster teacher and student mobilityand adapt Higher Education Institutions(HEIs) to the new demands of the labourmarket. It is clear that if European citizensare to reap the benefits of an integrated Eu-rope and be more competitive in the globalarena, the EU’s goal of multilingualism is anecessity. According to the study carriedout by the Institute of International Educa-tion in 2012, countries such as the Nether-lands, Germany and Nordic countries offerthe most English-language taught Master’sprogrammes in Europe, mostly in the fields

of science, engineering, business and eco-nomics. In the specific case of the ULB in Bel-gium, faculties are gradually incorporatingEnglish as the vehicular language mainly inMaster’s programmes, with some Master’sbeing taught fully in English, and one case ofa multilingual programme in French, Span-ish and English.

2) Content and Language Integrated Learn-ing vs. English-Medium InstructionContent and Language Integrating Learn-ing (CLIL) differs from English-Medium In-struction (EMI) in that it aims at developingcompetence in the content, as well as in thelanguage. The principles underlying CLILexpound that language is used to learn andcommunicate and thus plays an essentialrole in content learning. This basic assump-tion impacts the teaching methodology ad-opted in the classroom since the objectiveis not solely to teach in another language,

but also to draw attention to the languageitself (Coyle, Hood & Marsh 2010). In orderto implement this new perspective on con-tent and language learning, methodological

changes must be operated. These new prac-tices consist mainly in a communicativeapproach to teaching and learning, offeringstudents every opportunity to practise andimprove their language skills. This approachshould therefore favour student-centeredand task-based approaches in order to allowlearners to be actively engaged in learning.

3) Challenges for StudentsWith CLIL and its dual focus on language andcontent, students can put the language theyare learning into practice instantaneously– a powerful motivational factor – and in-

stitutions can avoid overloading an alreadycrowded curriculum; provided, of course,students have already attained a certainthreshold in the foreign language. This iswhy the language centre of the ULB offerslanguage courses to all students at the Bach-elor’s level across disciplines. The major goalof the content-linked language courses of-fered over the Bachelor cycle is to equip stu-dents with the necessary academic literacyskills across the curriculum and the genreknowledge necessary for them to succeedacademically, as well as enable them to fol-low Master’s courses in English. From stud-

ies carried out at the ULB at the faculties ofBusiness and Economics, Engineering andLaw, students described that their teachers’pronunciation – enunciation, stress, into-nation – and rate of speech – whether toofast or too slow – had a negative impact onhow well they understood the content. Theyexplained that they were unable to concen-trate both on understanding mispronouncedwords and on understanding new content,while taking notes. They reported that beingexposed to poor pronunciation meant theycould not model their foreign language ade-quately. Students also favoured interactive

activities over more classical teacher-front-ed lectures as they noticed they learnedlanguage and content more effectively. Al-though some students were initially reluc-tant to follow their courses in a languagethey did not master, they rose to the chal-lenge and felt more motivated.

4) Challenges for TeachersIf students are confronted with numerouschallenges, so are teachers and pronuncia-tion seems to be the main issue. The point isnot to speak English like a native speaker, butrather to be intelligible. Articulation, enunci-ation and highlighting information are keyelements when delivering a lecture. A furtherchallenge is to adapt the rate of speech inorder to ensure efficient note-taking on thestudents’ part. Finally, many teachers feelhampered by a low range of expression andadmit having trouble finding the languageof classifying, illustrating, exemplifying, ex-

plaining, defining, describing, evaluating,and reporting. A significant success factor inthe implementation of a CLIL programme inHEIs is therefore the language competenceof academics. It is often assumed by univer-sity decision-makers that all academics areable to teach in a foreign language. None-theless, language competence alone is not

enough, a strong knowledge of CLIL method-ology and interactive classroom techniquesare just as essential to ensure the quality oflearning is maintained.

5) CLIL: A Paradigm Shift in Education?There are a number of risks reported in im-plementing CLIL at university, which couldpossibly lead to an impoverishment of thequality of learning unless certain guidelinesare followed. This is in part due to the factthat language specialists in HE have gener-ally not been included in decision-making,planning and implementation of CLIL pro-

grammes. CLIL is an educational approachwhose success fundamentally depends oncareful methodological planning, shouldthis not be taken into account the qualityof teaching and learning may suffer. In linewith this, HEIs have the responsibility totrain their content teachers in methodologyalongside language. Furthermore, there is aclear role for collaboration between contentand language teachers in order to maximisethe overall quality of English-medium in-struction. It is clear that the risks associatedwith an insufficiently planned applicationof CLIL programmes at university level and

ensuing poor practice will undeniably leadto a decrease in the quality of both teachingand learning. In developing specific institu-tional language policies, HEIs must invest intraining their teaching staff both pedagog-ically and linguistically, as well as ensuretheir students receive adequate and tailoredlanguage support. In turn, this will foster in-novation and best practice in the field of for-eign-language instruction and enhance yourinstitution’s profile.

For more information about the pedagogi-cal and linguistic support programme of theUniversité libre de Bruxelles, please go to thewebsite: http://clil.ulb.ac.be.

ReferencesCoyle, D., P. Hood & D. Marsh 2010. CLIL:Content and Language Integrated Learning.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

Wilkinson, R. (ed.) 2004. Integrating Con-tent and Language. Meeting the Challengeof Multilingual Education. Netherlands: Uni-versitaire Pers Maastricht).


10/20

CLIL Magazine

By Brian Dixon“Is mathematics developing its CLIL compo-nent as effectively as other subjects?”. Thisis a question that I have asked myself onoccasions in my role as coordinator of the

mathematics bilingual network here in theNetherlands. If I read this magazine, then Ihave to be much encouraged that the ans-wer is ‘Yes!’ It has been great to find thoughtprovoking maths related articles in everyedition. Keep up the good work!

In the bilingual maths classes at Cals Colle-ge we had a very classically orientated stra-tegy, where ‘teaching’ and ‘teacher output’were pretty dominant . We have been tryingto move towards ‘pupil output’, but in a formthat “de leerlingen aan het denken zet” (ma-kes the students think), as my former head

of maths used to constantly repeat.

Using these two principles, we have madesignificant strides to restructure our les-sons.1) A “question orientated approach” was

the first step: Do I need to answer thequestion posed by a pupil, or should Iask a question that leads the pupil tothe answer? Do I need to explain thenext block of theory, or is there a betterway for the pupils to tackle the work?

2) Use of (semi filled) in hand outs: Initially we gave handouts on a variety

of topics. The objective being to easeunderstanding, focus attention on theessence of the material and give anoverview. As time has gone on we havelearned to leave gaps in these summa-ries, for the pupils to fill in. We find thisa more effective way of providing asummary of the content, yet asking thepupils to apply their (language) skills.In the CLIL textbooks, I gather that theycall this “scaffolding”. Some examples:

a) English: I used to give a fully filled in ver-sion of ‘how to draw the perfect graph’ tomy first year students. Now the pupils

get the same text, but with gaps in it.They fill in the gaps (first on their own,then check it together) as a summaryfor the chapter.

b) Integration of different chapters: Weuse ‘Cut & Paste’ activities so that thepupils create an overview of the princi-ple relationships that they learn in year2 (and again in year 3). Knowledge of allthe relationships is then tested as partof major tests .

c) An overview: For instance, dealing withall the ways of solving quadratic equati-ons. Here we leave out the parts that thepupils most often forget, and then we fillthem in together.

d) New procedures: When dealing withthe ABC formula, the handout we use isclear enough that the pupils can workout together how to calculate the discri-minant. They express their thought pro-cess (output). I give hints and structure.

This system also has two other benefits.Firstly, the format of the hand out makes itquite clear how we want their calculationsalways to be written. Secondly, we ask thepupils to provide a sketch after each cal-

culation, that they can visualise what theyare doing. Once we have checked that thisprocedure is properly understood and writ-ten, then we turn over the page and let themwork on the full ABC formula.

Most of the pupils keep these hand outs in aplastic file. If a pupil is stuck, then I can askthem to find the relevant hand out. This canbe enough to help them on their way.

And do you know, the pupils often use thesummaries to explain to each other! At suchmoments I feel that I am really providing

good CLIL education.. Boy, do I enjoy that!

Handy Hand outs!

The ABC formula (the quadratic formula)

– when factorising does not work!!!!!

a) Always a trinomial in the form: 2 0ax bx c+ + =

b) Two calculations:

1)

The discriminant: Tells us if the function intersects/touches/misses the

horizontal axis. Intersect :D>0, Touch: D=0, Misses: D


11/2011

CLIL Magazine

The steps for drawing

a perfect graph1) Pencil, ruler, rubber.2) Lots of space in your book.3) Horizontal and vertical axes about 10

cm long.4) Beha!!!!!! – (BovenstE rij in de tabel is

de Horizontale A s): so the top row of the table goes on the

horizontal axis.

5) Name the axes.6) Number the axes using regular steps,

buta. Horizontal axis: start with the lowest

number in the table(ie the top left num-ber) .

b. Vertical axis: start from zero using incre-asing numbers.

c. Always: Write on the lines.Now you have your “coordinate system”,then:

7) Plot the points shown in the table (re-member Beha!!!!!)

8) Connect the points with a smooth line.Now you have your “graph”.

When the axes are named “x”and “y”:Then the intersection point of the two axesis called the origin. This is marked with a

big “0” in the bottom left of the intersectionpoint. Never a zigzag.

Zig-zagThis can only be used on the vertical axis.Why? The vertical axis must always start atzero. If there are only large numbers in thegraph, then the zig-zag shows that the jumpfrom zero to the new scale.

The steps for drawing

a perfect graph1) P......... .., r.........., r...........

2) Lots of space in your book.3) H................. and v.......... a............ about10 cm long.

4) Beha!!!!!! – (BovenstE rij in de tabel isde Horizontale A s):

so the t....... row of the table goes on theh............... axis.

5) N......... (with the v.............) the axes6) Number the axes using regular s..........,

buta. Horizontal axis: start with the lowest

number in the table(ie the top left num-ber) .

b. Vertical axis: start from z....... . using in-

creasing numbers.c. Always: Write on the l.......... ...Now you have your “c................. s..............”,then:7) P........ the c......... .........shown in the

t.......... (remember Beha!!!!!)8) Connect the points with a s.......... .......... ...

line.Now you have your “g..............”.

When the axes are named “x”and “y”:Then the i................. point of the two a....... iscalled the o....... This is marked with a big “0”in the bottom left of the intersection point.

Never use a zigzag when you have x & y.Zig-zagThis can only be used on the v............ axis.Why? The vertical axis must always start atzero. If there are only large numbers in thegraph, then the zig-zag shows that the jumpfrom zero to the new scale.

Function 22 5 2 0 x x + + = 2

4 12 0 x x − − + = 2 1

26 3 0 x x + + =

a =…., b = ….., c = …..

24 D b ac= −

D =

1

2

b D x

a

− +

=

1

2

b D x

a

− −

=

Conclusion

x = ..........., or

x = ...........

Sketch:

Table completed?...................then complete question 11 in exactly the same way. When this is

done you will have a good knowledge of the ABC formula. Good work!

Brian Dixon is a bilin-gual maths teacher andchairman of the lowerschool bilingual teamat Cals College, Nieuwe-

gein. He is also subjectleader for mathematicsfor the (Europees Plat-

form) bilingual network and is respon-sible for their bilingual mathematicsseminars.


12/20

CLIL Magazine

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Join this initiative and watch the free webinar at

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13/2013

CLIL Magazine

By dr. Mandi BerryYou are about to read this article aboutmetacognition in CLIL. How are you goingto read it? Will you skim the subtitles anddecide if it’s interesting enough to read?

Or are you drawn to the main title for somereason? Are you someone who reads everyword in an article to improve your English?Or do you go straight to something in par-ticular? Maybe you looked for a diagram orsummary to quickly get the main points?

Three types of metacognitionEach of the above questions is concernedwith your metacognition, that is your thin-king skills and processes and how you areable to regulate them. Metacognition inclu-des the extent to which you are aware ofyour own thinking, how much control you

have over your thinking and your capacityto evaluate your own thinking. For example,stopping to ask yourself before you read,‘what am I about to read? Why am I readingthis?’ shows your awareness about yourthinking. Deciding whether you need to readall of the text or just some parts of it, showsyour ability to control your thinking. Wor-king out which strategy will be most usefulfor you as a reader shows how you evaluateyour thinking. There are many different ty-pes of metacognitive skills and strategies,but in this article I will deal with three broadcategories and relate them to the CLIL class-

room: awareness, control, and evaluation.Effective learnersEffective learners know about and are awa-re of how they think. They are able to recog-nise which kinds of thinking strategies aremost helpful for finding out and organisingwhat they need to know and remember touse them in particular situations. Interes-tingly, even though we know that improvingmetacognition helps improve learning, wedon’t seem to give it much explicit attentionin schools. At the same time, we know thatmany learners do not understand or control

their thinking processes very well. In CLILclassrooms the importance of cognition isalready well recognised as one of the 4C’s,together with content, communication andculture. Metacognition adds another layerthat asks us to focus not only on cogniti-on but our ‘cognition about cognition’. Thismeans that learners should be able to recog-nise how different kinds of learning approa-ches can be more or less helpful for them togain the language they need to understandthe content well.

Planning, monitoring and evaluating.Let’s look a bit more at the three broad cate-gories of metacognition.

Planning involves such strategies as analy-sing the task and the task requirements be-fore starting. For example, asking questionssuch as: What is the purpose of this task?What sort of language do I need to com-

plete the task? What do I want to achievefrom this task? How much time and energyshould I spend on it? What do I already knowthat can help me with this task?

Monitoring involves keeping track of thin-king while doing the task. For example, as-king questions such as: How do I feel thistask is going? What is working well and whatis not working so well? Am I making goodprogress? Are there any changes I need tomake to what I am doing? Am I meeting mygoals?

Evaluating involves analysing the final pro-duct of the task, how efficiently the taskwas performed and the effectiveness ofthe strategies used. For example, questionssuch as, how well did I complete this task?

What parts did I do well? Which parts canbe improved? What will I do differently nexttime, and why?

In the CLIL classroomSo what would this look like in a CLIL class-room? Imagine a group presentation in abiology lesson about the ethics of organdonation. Students will investigate and pre-sent their ideas about the ethics of organdonation from the point of view of: a medicaldoctor, a medical lawyer, a research scien-tist, a member of a biomedical companythat harvests pig organs for transplant, a

member of the public and a minister of re-ligion.

Planning: Students discuss in groups theirideas about the purpose of the task, thekinds of skills, knowledge and languagethey will need to complete it and what theyexpect to achieve from doing the task. Theymake a time line that shows the differenttasks they each need to do and when theywill do them. They make a group list of whatthey already know about this topic and whatthey need to know.

Monitoring: Students take time to discusstheir progress at different points before thepresentation. They ask each other whetherthey are on track with their time line, whatis going well, and what sort of help theyneed to successfully complete the task. Forexample, knowing how to prepare for an oralpresentation, or finding out the meaning ofspecialist scientific words.

Evaluating: Students can submit a learn-ing report that documents their progress

through the task– Did they achieve theirgoal? What would they change if they hadto do this task again? What did they mostenjoy? Find most difficult? Students couldmake a list of the different kinds of strate-gies they used and what that strategy wasuseful for, e.g., making a KWL chart (whatyou know, what you want to know and what

you learned) was useful for getting orga-nised, using a cue card was a good way toremember the main language points for apresentation.

Talking about learning maybe a new andstrange experience for your students, soproviding regular encouragement and sup-port will be important, as well as showingyou value this part of their work by inclu-ding marks for good learning! Providingscaffolding is also necessary, for example,by showing students examples of graphicorganisers and talking about how they are

useful for planning, or how to make a timeline, or recognising your own learning styleand how that can help you know about yourstrengths and limitations as a learner. Final-ly, just like learning anything new, becomingmore metacognitive requires effort andpractice. Helping students to recognise thatyou can become a more successful learnerif you are able to control your own learningmore effectively is a great incentive!

So, what strategies did you use to help youin reading this article? Were they effectivefor you?

Metacognition in CLIL

Dr. Mandi Berry is a teacher educator and researcher at ICLON,Leiden University.She co ordinates the World Teacher Programme at ICLON, for edu-cating new teachers in bilingual and international education. Man-di taught high school biology and English for 15 years before shebegan her academic career.


14/20

CLIL Magazine

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15/2015

CLIL Magazine

By Ezana Habte-GabrA pedagogical methodology is effectivewhen it succeeds in teaching what is com-

pletely unknown to the learner. When bothlanguage and content objectives are clearand synchronized, small-scale results areattainable as has been the case with a basicgeography course taught in Amharic to na-tive Spanish speakers at a Colombian Uni-versity. CLIL’s expectations are often broadas they seek to attain a range of outcomesin both language and content areas, lendingit at times to be questioned in terms of its ef-fectiveness in obtaining these simultaneousresults (Georgio, 2012). When the intentionof a course is the delivery of a specific setof content such as the location and names

of countries along with a set of languageskills such as prepositions and adjectives,CLIL accomplishes these goals. Geographyhas often been selected as a CLIL courseas the learner can readily apply a variety ofintelligences such as visual and spatial, re-quiring simple language structures. (Kouti,2012:69) Creativity and pedagogical op-tions are enhanced through a geographyCLIL course. (Cross, 2012) Daourda (2012)notes that “meaningful and contextualized”activities are fostered through online mapactivities, which was noticed in this lessonas students were presented with content

which was a novelty.The course sought to expose school teach-ers in the town of San Gil and its rural sur-roundings to approaches of curriculum in-tegration in an EFL context; hence CLIL waschosen as a contending approach. Much ofCLIL is undertaken in schools shifting to-wards bilingualism in Colombia (Rodriguez,2011). The teachers who were part of thisdemonstration lesson would be exempt fromthis sphere given their EFL context, natural-ly making this Amharic geography easy toadapt to an English geography lesson which

is a whole lot simpler to do in Colombia.

(A map dating back to the 70s taken from KellyWickham’s website http://www.kellywickham.com/mochamomma/2012/12/30/2012-travel-part-ii.htmlwith permission)

Amharic is very distant from Spanish exceptfor the occasional word both languages mayhave derived from Arabic. Furthermore, stu-

dents know very little about the African con-tinent, setting the stage for course teachingthe rudiments of both, the content area,which in this case is locating countries inAfrica, and language skills such as preposi-tions and adjectives. ProcedureStudents were shown a map of Africa whichwas labeled in Amharic. Next to the mapwas a table with a list of countries writtenin Spanish and Ge’ez script in the first. Thesecond column had phrases stating the lo-cation of one country in relation to another.

For example, “Chad is next to Niger” in bothlanguages. The preposition ‘next to’ wouldbe drilled in Amharic using other countriesin the continent. Subsequently, other coun-tries would be pointed out and the classwould come up with sentences. As the scriptis non-Latin, students begin to associatethe written names with colors and shapesof countries. Once students have mastered‘next to’ other prepositions are drilled.

Writing in Ge’ez script is syllabic and stu-dents eventually begin to grasp the soundsrepresented by each letter as they are ex-

posed to countries whose names have thesame syllables. Libya (ሊበያ) and Algeria(አልጀኤርያ) for instance end with thesound ‘ya’ or ያ.iii Once exposed to the differ-ent letters on the maps, students could beexposed to the general alphabet system,resulting in the preposition lesson havinga spin-off effect on the desire to learn moreabout the language.

ConclusionsBased on the fact that specific languageand content goals can be simultaneouslyachieved in an unknown language shows

that they are attainable in English which ismuch closer to Spanish. Furthermore, thislesson has shown that emphasis must beplaced on synchronizing each content ob-

jective with a language one at beginninglevels of language acquisition. Finally,

teachers should be willing to accept the driftinto broader cultural and linguistic issues asbeing part of this approaches’ success.

AcknowledgementsI am grateful to the Unisangil, BilingualEducational program for providing me theopportunity to incorporate this lesson in ateacher specialization course.

Experiencing CLIL’s EffectivenessThrough Teaching Aspects of a Non-Lingua Franca

Ezana Habte-Gabr was born and raised in Ethiopia and has taughtin Colombia for over a decade. His undergraduate and graduatedegrees are in Geography from the University of Iowa and the Uni-versity of Northern Iowa. He has taught English and Geography at

primary, secondary and university levels.

iA more current map was unavailable online on the day of the class, providing a basis for abrief historical discussion of the continent.iiThis is the Amharic script which is from an ancient language called Ge’ez which today is anecclesiastic language, very much like Latiniiihttp://mylanguages.org/amharic_write.php was used to generate Ge’ez script

References

Cross, Russell. “Creative in finding creativityin the curriculum: the CLIL second languageclassroom.” The Australian Educational Re-searcher 39.4 (2012): 431-445.

Dourda, Kyriaki, et al. “Combining GameBased Learning with Content and LanguageIntegrated Learning Approaches: A ResearchProposal Utilizing QR Codes and Google Earthin a Geography-Based Game.” 6th EuropeanConference on Games Based Learning. Aca-demic Conferences Limited, 2012.

Georgiou, Sophie Ioannou. “Reviewing thepuzzle of CLIL.” ELT journal 66.4 (2012):495-504.

Kouti, Artemis. Bilingual events in CLIL ge-ography and home economics sixth gradeclassrooms in two Cypriot primary schools.Diss. University of Birmingham, 2012.

Rodriguez Bonces, Monica. “CLILL: Colombialeading into content language learning.” Íka-la 16 (2) (2011): 79-89.


16/20

CLIL Magazine

By Tanya Schadee & Janie McCloughinHow can students be helped with their L2reading? Can teaching a particular readingstrategy enhance reading levels? There aremany models of reading based on compo-

nent skills assumptions, any of which couldbe a source of reading problems, such as vo-cabulary knowledge, grammar knowledge,word recognition or motivation to read. Forinstance, the ability to skim and scan ef-fectively is seen as an important part of thereading process, (Nuttall, 2005) and so wedecided to concentrate on this particularactivity, with special reference to teachingusing CLIL techniques. Activation is regar-ded as crucial in CLIL to help learners makeexplicit in the target language both the ide-as and the language they already know, sothat they can make sense of new content

as well as new language (Dale. L., van derEs. W., Tanner. R., 2010). Moreover, Vygots-ky (1978) tells us that scaffolding helpsthe learner move into new areas of develop-ment.

Good readers are skilled at judging whatthey need to get out of a text to accomplishtheir purpose, and can confidently skip orignore parts of the text, whereas an ineffi-cient reader will feel the need to read eve-rything closely (Grellet, 1981). Scanningand skimming are skills which are them-selves composed of a varying number of

techniques which can be explicitly explain-ed to and practised by the learner, such aslocating the topic sentence in a paragraph,looking for main ideas and ignoring detail,locating transition signals, (i.e. firstly, last-ly) and learners can be expedited to under-stand that they need to practise these atspeed. (Muet, 2000). Hitherto, it has beenbelieved that readers acquire a set of skillshierarchically formulated, which then allowthem to decode a text. We now know that areader is not a passive receiver of content,decoded in what Nunen (1991) describedas a bottom-up view of reading. Using a top-

down model, we put the reader more in thecentre of the activity.

We noticed that many of our students didnot read efficiently but set off in an unstruc-tured manner. For instance, in a question-naire, 24% did not read the title of the text,and 52% did not notice italicised or boldfacewords or phrases. We developed a lesson se-ries in which these and other indicators ofinefficient reading could be addressed, byoffering a variety of assignments in whichthere was a clear scaffolded build up both inlevel of activity and length of texts.The lesson series began with games and ac-tivities such as asking students to make uptitles for short passages from newspapers;guessing the titles of books from the blurbs;playing a vocabulary-based card game; andplaying an online murder mystery game.Many of these were timed to keep up thepace and force the skimming and scanning

and to provide a sense of competition. Smallrewards also helped to inject a sense of fun.Gradually longer texts were introduced witha wide variety of activities and approaches;students were encouraged to predict, dis-

cuss, draw pictures, build on their readingwith creative writing, create posters or colla-ges; listen to rap and conduct a mini-debate.The input included authentic material suchas newspaper articles, extracts from novels,a graphic short story, gangster rap and waschosen on the basis of connection or rele-vance to teenagers.

We were able to evaluate the impact of thislesson series using before and after Citoreading tests, and employing test and con-trol groups. While we had hoped to show thatthe test group had improved dramatically,

in fact both groups had similarly improved.Noticeably, however, the test group im-proved in the time it took them to completethe test - by ten minutes. What we take fromthis result is that such a lesson interventi-on can have the desired effect of improvingreading efficiency.

Ideally this type of lesson series would formone part of an integrated reading program-me, covering other aspects of the readingcurriculum in the same style. We concen-trated on skimming and scanning, but thesame type of intervention would also work

when focusing on, for example, vocabu-lary. It was noticed that the use of simpletechniques, such as the use of rewards,and a timing element, gave students somemuch-needed motivation and altered theirperception of their own abilities for the bet-ter. A carefully handled competitive elementcan improve the pace and atmosphere, andvaried and scaffolded tasks can engendera feeling of ‘doing’ rather than ‘reading’ – apursuit many students claim to dislike.One desirable outcome of such a readingprogramme would of course be to enable astudent to become an efficient reader. This

would only take place if a weak reader couldbreak out of the vicious circle of frustration

and enter the virtuous circle of the good rea-der. An efficient reader does not necessarilyread for pleasure, and a weak reader almostcertainly does not. Therefore an even moredesirable goal would be to:• create an interest in reading• provide incentives for reading• promote reading for enjoyment

To do this an integrated programme shouldbe implemented throughout the school, inwhich there is a clearly defined progressi-on from year one. Students could be givenmore autonomy to choose material whichinterests them, and more training in howto do this. Their own choices would be vali-dated and respected, which would improvetheir self-confidence, and would increasetheir motivation to break out of a negativecycle if they are weak readers. An attitudeof self-reflection on their reading and theirown choices would improve their awareness

of how they tackle the reading process, andbring to light what difficulties and problemsthey face. More varied and enjoyable acti-vities would create a different climate ofreading, and would inculcate a positive at-titude.

Enhancing Reading Levels the CLIL way

Janie McCloughin is a class teacher of English and Literature atCarmel College Emmen, with her focus on the development of bi-lingual excellence. Both are native speakers and particularly inter-ested in the culture behind the language.

ReferencesDale, L., van der Es, W., & Tanner, R. (2010).CLIL Skills. Leiden: Expertise Centrum MVT,Universiteit Leiden

Grellet, F (1981) Developing Reading Skills,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Muet (2000) Study Skills for the MalaysianUniversity English Test

Nunan, D. (1991). Language Teaching Meth-odology. New York: Prentice Hall International

Nuttall, C.(2005) Teaching Reading Skillsin a Foreign Language, 2nd edition. Oxford:Heinemann English Language Teaching

Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind and society: Thedevelopment of higher mental processes.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

Tanya Schadee works at Windesheim Teachers’ Training College,Zwolle, as TTO consultant and also provides intensive individualon-site coaching for CLIL teachers in schools throughout the Neth-erlands.


17/2017

CLIL Magazine

By Maria Pilar Nuñez Delgado& Pablo Marcelo Oliva Parera

AbstractAutonomy seems to be inherent to our workin the L2 classroom. It is customary for

course designers and instructors to descri-be objectives and plan activities to fosterautonomy in their classes. Therefore, the-re must be ways to evaluate it. This articleattempts to describe an innovative way tomeasure autonomy through the analysis ofstudents’ metacognitive knowledge whenanalyzing their own work. During this expe-rience, students’ answers were categorizedinto three levels that showed different de-grees of ‘control’. The participants were uni-versity students enrolled in a CLIL Spanishclass. The contributions of this study inclu-de pedagogical implications related to the

content studied in class as well as insighton the instructor’s role in the L2 classroom.

IntroductionWe, as teachers, often look for ways tomotivate and foster autonomy. We oftenrelate to students’ successes by the levelof autonomy that they exhibit. Throughoutour careers, we have often wondered aboutways to maximize our students’ autonomy,especially because as L2 instructors, we areconstantly reminded to purport and developit when writing the syllabus for a new cour-se or to define the objectives for our classes

(Council of Europe 2001, Benson 2010).David Little acknowledges (2009) threeimportant points related to autonomy in theL2 classroom. The first one has to do with in-volving the students by creating meaningfulsituations where they can participate and

justify their own decisions. The second hasto do with students’ reflection on their ownperformance and decisions they make al-ong the way as to what they are learning inclass. The third objective pertains to the pro-per use of the target language as studentslearn to express themselves.In the last decade, we have witnessed how

reflection has made its way into the L2classroom, especially, in activities wherestudents have to self rate their own perfor-mance when reading, speaking, etc. (NuñezDelgado et al. 2011, Sinclair 1999). Theterm reflection has also often been associ-ated with autonomy as well as motivation insecond language acquisition (SLA) (Rome-ro Lopez et al. 2011). Therefore, if we viewautonomy as a capacity that enhances stu-dent learning, it begins to seem worthwhileto see what the students have to say abouttheir own work. Keeping this in mind, in thispaper, we attempt to describe a study car-ried out at a university with students whoseL1was English learning Spanish. The finalobjective was to measure their metacog-nitive awareness by making them reflecton different tasks. In this CLIL class, therewas not a required textbook. We selectedcontent related to the students’ career goalsand used the six T’s approach as a guideline

for the integration of content and language(Grabbe &Stoller 1997). In this approach,each T stands for the following concepts:themes texts, topics, threads, tasks andtransitions. The result of this experience, on

one hand, allowed the instructor to under-stand the weaknesses and strengths of thelearners. On the other hand, it brought aboutchanges in the curriculum at university le-vel.

HistoryThe concept of autonomy reached momen-tum in the SLA field when the Modern Lan-guages Project was created in 1971 throughthe Council of Europe (Benson 2001 citingHolec, 1981). There have been several at-tempts to define autonomy; one that caughtthe attention of researchers in the nineties

was Nunan’s (1997) concept of autonomyas a matter of degree and not as an ‘all-or-nothing concept’. This probably influencedBenson’s idea of it as one of control. He alsosuggested “if we are able to define and des-cribe autonomy in terms of various aspectsof control over learning, we should also inprinciple be able to measure the extent towhich learners are autonomous” (Benson2001: 51). Despite the number of definiti-ons, there seems to be one that is acceptedbecause of its relevance to L2 learning andthat is “capacity for detachment, critical re-flection, decision-making and independent

action” (Little 1991:4). Years later, Bens-on placed the student in the center of thescene when he affirmed “L2 autonomouslearners are in control of important dimensi-ons of their learning” (Benson (2010:79)).The question that researchers have beentrying to answer is whether autonomy canbe measured; since autonomy in the L2 fieldis seen as a construct of capacity or abilityof students to make informed decisionsabout their own learning (Sinclair, 1999).Therefore, if autonomy is seen as a capacityto make informed decisions, as it has beensuggested, the promotion of this develop-

ment of metacognition in the L2 classroomis essential and evaluation necessary topromote it (Sinclair, 1999). In the next sec-tion, we will describe the study that consis-ted of asking the students’ questions everytime they completed a task. We will see thatstudents who could provide more anecdotalexamples to the answers exhibited moremetacognitive conscience.

The studyThis action- research study was meant tofind answers that could help the instructorremedy a problem and improve his teachingperformance (Bailey & Nunan 2009). Inthis CLIL class, there were 13 Americanuniversity students taking levels A1 and A2Spanish class. The concepts studied wereintegrated with the contents of their Mas-ter’s degrees in English. The topics selectedfor the semester were human rights, abori-gines in Latin America, international policy

and education. Every time students finisheda major task, they would complete a ques-tionnaire based on Sinclair (1999). For thisparticular study, we considered and analy-zed the answers of two major tasks: an oral

presentation at the beginning of the semes-ter and another one in the end. The studentscompleted the following questions in bothinstances:

Why did you decide to work on this topic?Did you like it? Why? Why not?How did you go about doing this activity?Why did you do it in this way?How well did you do?What, if any problems did you have?Why did you have them?What things would you have done differently? (Adapted from Sinclair, 1999: 97)

The answers provided were all ranked intothree categories (Sinclair, 1999). If the stu-dent answered questions using superficialrationales, general statements, or incorrectuse of metalanguage, the student’s answerswere ranked under level 1 or ‘largely unawa-re’. One example under this category wouldbe “I chose this topic just because”.Now if the student answered the questionsusing a large amount of anecdotal evidence,metaphor, metalanguage, or questions, thestatements could be categorized under ‘le-vel 2’, which Sinclair calls the transition sta-

ge, or ‘becoming aware’. An example of thiscategory would be: “I noticed that my pron-unciation in this task was great in the begin-ning but not so good towards the end. I wasfeeling tired”. If the answers provided by thelearners contained a competent use of whathas been described before or the studentsdescribed the use of alternative strategies,their responses were categorized as level 3,‘largely aware’. For example: “If I had consul-ted better sources, I would have had a morecomplete outcome. Next time I will do that”.

Conclusion

The answers were all ranked into three dif-ferent levels mentioned, and percentageswere used to quantify the number in eachlevel. 16% of students’ answers were cate-gorized as level 1. 44% qualified as level 2,and 40% pertained to level 3. Several factorscould explain the values categorized mainlyin levels 2 (becoming aware) and 3 (largelyaware). The first is that students’ writing didnot occur in a vacuum. They referred to theirtrips abroad, experiences with the cultureand jobs. This explains the abundance ofmetaphors and anecdotes written. Second,learners, in their presentations, either se-lected familiar topics because they wantedto delve deeper into them, or they chosesomething completely new because theywanted more information. This seems to beconsistent with the fact that university levelstudents bring to class knowledge of theworld that is different from that of youngerstudents (Papai 2000, Cummings 1989).

Fostering Students’ Autonomy in a CLIL Class


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CLIL Magazine

By Rosie Tanner

“She had always wanted words, she lo-ved them; grew up on them. Words gaveher clarity, brought reason, shape.”

Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient

I remember precisely when I learned theDutch word kussen. Someone kissed mewhen I was lying on a pillow. Dutch readerswill immediately understand that, at thatmoment, I learned that kussen meant twothings – a pillow (cushion) and a kiss. Andthe word stuck because it meant two things,because of the situation I was in (!) andbecause we talked and laughed about theword. In other words, relating my experien-ce to theories behind learning vocabularyinput became intake, the word was learned

in a meaningful context and there was someprocessing taking place.How many words can you remember out ofall those lists of French, German or Englishwords that you learned at school? Do yourecall situations, like mine, where you lear-ned a word or a phrase in a particular situa-tion and it stuck forever? And have you everstopped to think about how your studentslearn words?One of the first things that new CLIL subjectteachers realise about teaching P.E. or scien-ce or a humanities subject is that their stu-dents come across lots of new words: sub-

ject terminology such as photosynthesis,allegro or a horse (the large wooden box thatstudents jump over in the gym). And whatdo we ask our students to do with thosenew words? Write a list of them, sometimeswrite a definition in English or their first lan-guage or occasionally write a sentence tocontextualise the words. Our students keepthese words in a PIF (personal idiom file)or glossary, and then, by halfway throughthe year, both they and you – the teacher –have forgotten about them.

So how can we keep learning vocabulary

alive?Some background about thinking andlearning vocabularyHere is a brief summary of some ideasabout how we learn vocabulary.1. We have a short-term memory, a wor-

king memory and a long-term memory.The more we help students to processwords and phrases, the more these arelikely to end up in our long-term memo-ries where we can grab them again touse later. If our students memorize a listof words and their translations for a test,they can faultlessly regurgitate themon the test and promptly forget most ofthem because they stay only in shortterm memory. Similarly, input needs tobecome intake, which means that it is nouse just giving students words to learn(input): they need help in processingvocabulary, so that they use and store it(intake). In other words in moves from

short term to working memory. Finally,the more opportunities for processingthere are, the more connections thatstudents can make in their brains andthe more likely they are to remember vo-

cabulary. This is how long term memoryis formed.2. Good vocabulary activities recycle

words and phrases, so that students areexposed several times to the words orphrases that you want them to learn. Ifstudents are exposed to words at leastthree times, they are more likely to learnthe vocabulary than if they are only ex-posed to them once (Barcroft,2012).

3. Effective vocabulary activities aremeaningful and interactive (Barcroft,2012). This means that we should askour students to learn and practise vo-

cabulary in context and not as single,unrelated words. One way of looking atthis idea is that we can divide vocabu-lary tasks roughly into ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ones. Vocabulary tasks which work onhigher order thinking skills (or HOTS) -applying, analysing, evaluating or cre-ating – are likely to be more effectivethan those working on lower order thin-king skills (or LOTS) - remembering andunderstanding. An example can be seenin Figure 1 (van der Es, Dale and Tanner,2010: 79):

Figure 1: ‘Poor’ and ‘rich’ vocabulary tasksrelated to LOTS and HOTS

Figure 2: Bloom’s Taxonomy (Revised)

Three thinking vocabulary activitiesBelow I describe three easy-to-implementvocabulary activities which work on makingvocabulary more meaningful, personalizevocabulary, are examples of ‘rich’ activitiesand work on HOTS. The first two are basedon activities from Morgan and Rinvolucri(2004) and I watched Henk Dijkgraaf atPieter Zandt College in Kampen teach thethird activity in a havo class.Vocabulary activity 1: My Room1. Ask your students to take a piece of pa-

per or page from their notebook. They

Thinking through vocabulary in CLIL

Poor vocabulary learning task using LOTS:rememberingMemorise these wordsabout metamorphosis.

Some pedagogical implications from this ex-perience: firstly,a practical way to promoteautonomy is by asking students to critiquetheir own work, self assess their produc-tion, and by making them participants intheir learning. Secondly, the information thestudents provided served as data that even-tually came in handy for the instructor to

design language-related activities throughscaffolding (Bruner 1983, Van Lier 2004).Also, due to the level of the group, the classturned out to be challenging because theyhad to struggle with vocabulary and fluen-cy. There seems to be some corresponden-ce with studies towards L2 proficiency withadult learners (Doughty, 2004, Ellis 2005).Also, students seemed to feel more auto-nomous and motivated. However, since weare describing only partial results of a rese-arch project, we would need a control groupto make the necessary comparisons. Thisstudy reaffirms Little’s principles that “lear-

ner engagement, learner reflection and ap-propriate target language use” (2004: 47)seem to be the keys to promoting autonomyin our L2 classrooms.

References of this article can be found atwww.clilmagazine.com/fostering

Pablo Marcelo Oliva PareraPablo teaches Content and LanguageSpanish courses at the Monterey In-stitute of International Studies in Cal-ifornia. He is a “doctorando” PHd can-didate at the University of Granada.

Maria Pilar Nuñez Delgado

Professor at the University of Grana-da. She works for the Department ofDidactics in Spanish Language andLiterature.


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CLIL Magazine

draw the ground plan of their bedroomin their notebooks, as if they are lookingfrom above into their room.

2. Write about twenty words that they needto revise up on the blackboard.

Africa (geography)Great Rift Valley, Nile, peninsula,

Horn of Africa, Gobi desert, Atlasmountains, source, freshwater lake,discover, shore, x kilometres wide,

y metres deep, z kilometres long,inactive volcano, summit, Mount Ki-limanjaro, river system, drain

A ground plan

3. Students write all of the words on to theirbedroom ground plans. They need tohave a reason for putting their word onto their plan, to be able to explain to eachother later.

4. In pairs, they tell each other where theyhave placed their words and why. Thisis the most important stage – by tal-king about the words and associatingthem with a place in their own rooms,students are personalizing the words,making them meaningful to themselves,and processing the vocabulary more

deeply. Vocabulary activity 2: My own set1. Write the words you want your students

to revise up on the board.

States of matter (chemistry)sublime, sublimate, melt, freeze,valency, lead, solidify, condense,condensation, freezing point, boi-ling point, solid, liquid, gas, plasma,compound, particle, flow, density,expand, cool, solidification, fusion,regressive sublimation, sublimation,vaporization

2. Ask students to work individually and tocreate categories of words, or sets. Theymust make at least THREE different ca-tegories – according to the words’ me-aning, or sounds, or the look of words onthe page.

Example of a category:ICEmelt, freezing point, freeze, cool, ex-

pand

3. When they are ready, ask students togive each category they have made atitle.

4. Ask students to work in groups and totell each other about their categories.They will have now processed the wordstwice, once while categorizing and thesecond time while discussing with theirgroup. You could also do this phase withthe class as a whole.

Vocabulary activity 3: Word associationFractions, percentages and deci-mals (mathematics)half, halving, quarter, equal, parts,

fractions, width, length, fraction,

multiply, equivalent fractions, third,three quarters, divide, multiplicati-on, cancel down, convert, decimal,decimal point, numerator, denomi-nator, terminate, recurring decimal

1. Before your students come in to theclassroom, write or type up a table onthe (smart)board which includes somewords that you would like to revise, likethis:

2. Ask your students to write down whatthey associate each of the words with:they can write words or phrases. Theymight need some help with this at thestart, so do a couple of examples withthem first.

3. Ask some of them for their ideas and wri-te them on the board. They might comeup with ideas like this:

4. Rub out the words in the original tablelike this and ask your students to recallthe original words. When they have donethat, write them in the table again. Thisactivity helps students to make theirown connections with words and mightbe a strategy that they could use whenrevising alone.

The main message of my article about thin-king and vocabulary has been to encourageyou to get your students to work activelyand meaningfully with the words they are

learning. And, as an afterthought, you mightlike to test your own vocabulary with thisonline test: http://testyourvocab.com

Rosie Tanner is an independent edu-cation consultant specialising in CLILtraining and train-the trainer [email protected]

+31(-0)6 28745670www.rosietanner.com

ReferencesBarcroft, J. 2012. Input-Based IncrementalVocabulary Instruction. Arlington, VA: TESOLInternational Association.

Morgen, J. and Rinvolucri, M. 2004. Vocabu-lary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Dale, L. and Tanner, R. 2012. CLIL Activities.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Van der Es, W, Dale, L. and Tanner. R.2010.CLIL Skills. Schagen, the Netherlands: Edu-casent.

Rich vocabulary learning taskusing HOTS: applyingUse these words about metamorphosis

to write a story about a butterfly in exactly 50 words.

half fractiondecimal dividerecurring decimal terminatewidth decimal pointthird three quarters

half fractiondecimal dividerecurring decimal terminate

moona tenthmany numbers

little bitdivorcedie

? ?

? ?? ?

moon

a tenthmany numbers

little bit

divorcedeath


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CLIL Magazine Spring 2014

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