The CLIL- Teacher

non-language subject through the medium of a foreign language equilibrium between language and content balance between medium and message-oriented communication
International conference 'The CLIL-teacher' Amsterdam Faculty of Education, March 25-26, 2004

Subjects taught through a FL

Subjects that mainly Subjects in which rely on verbal non-verbal communication communication is used to clarify and History, philosophy, integrate content political science Reasonable high level PE, biology, geography of the FL Any level of linguistic Message embedded competence in a meaningful context
International conference 'The CLIL-teacher' Amsterdam Faculty of Education, March 25-26, 2004

Verbal and non-verbal input

Exploring text types (from description to argumentation) Means to teach students to discuss, give opinions and defend positions Very basic language taught by realia, visual aids, animal and human models With linguistically complex descriptions

International conference 'The CLIL-teacher'

Amsterdam Faculty of Education, March 25-26, 2004

Processing of the input

adaptation of teacher input to enhance comprehension balance between language and content
slightly beyond learner's present linguistic competence too elaborated simplification

language input - at or just above the proficiency of the learner and focus on meaning
International conference 'The CLIL-teacher' Amsterdam Faculty of Education, March 25-26, 2004

The CLIL-teacher
Structured tasks (prediction, glossary, visuals) Written work tasks (framework of writing) Frequently used structures Background knowledge Comprehension checks and paraphrasing Receptive skills before productive skills (input and output) Conceptualization (resources and semantic nests)
International conference 'The CLIL-teacher' Amsterdam Faculty of Education, March 25-26, 2004

General and special languages

Human sciences Type of discourse closer to the general language (read in newspapers, used in conversation, heard on TV) Improvement of the ability to use the language
International conference 'The CLIL-teacher'

Technical and scientific subjects Rich in words found only in the specific field and typical grammatical structures (need to be learnt) Easily recognizable words, transferred from L1

Amsterdam Faculty of Education, March 25-26, 2004

Similarity
Degree of similarity Related languages Non-related languages Database on the project web-site

International conference 'The CLIL-teacher'

Amsterdam Faculty of Education, March 25-26, 2004

Specialized vocabulary
Acquired depending on the subject matter taught History, social sciences, Geography: greater share of general vocabulary Maths, physics, biology: specialized vocabulary + core, basic vocabulary items

International conference 'The CLIL-teacher'

Amsterdam Faculty of Education, March 25-26, 2004

Lexical knowledge
Whole words How to make up and analyze words in their components Training on segmentation of unknown words (examples) Displacement: dis- + -place- + -ment (negative prefix + root + noun suffix)
International conference 'The CLIL-teacher' Amsterdam Faculty of Education, March 25-26, 2004

Discoursal or textual competence

How words are put together to form paragraphs, whole texts and coherent speech Subcomponents (e.g. ability to use pronouns to refer back, predictions about what comes next, understanding the conceptual structure of a text) Knowledge usually transferred from L1
International conference 'The CLIL-teacher' Amsterdam Faculty of Education, March 25-26, 2004

Specific language work

Analysis of the language of the textbook and other teaching materials (awareness of the specificity of
the subject matter)

Mastering subject terminology (textbook context,

enlargement of lexical items in classroom teacher talk)

Focus on lexis (identify typical and recurrent words, definitions

are important)

Subject specific exercises (deriving and compounding

words, tense use, appropriate syntactic forms)

International conference 'The CLIL-teacher'

Amsterdam Faculty of Education, March 25-26, 2004

Subject-linked language competences

Many of the language needs in the lexical field Authentic documents contain most of the vocabulary needed Preparatory work on the document: vocabulary lists Parallel texts treating the same subject Personal file of semantic fields
International conference 'The CLIL-teacher' Amsterdam Faculty of Education, March 25-26, 2004

Communication techniques
Compensatory strategies
Approximation Circumlocution L1 transfer Word coinage

Overcome communication breakdown Take up learning strategies more seriously

International conference 'The CLIL-teacher'

Amsterdam Faculty of Education, March 25-26, 2004