CLIL. What is not a CLIL?

After reading Do Coyle’s article, I want to talk about two topics that appear in the article and that I found interesting.

 

- CLIL is not teaching what students already know but in a foreign language.

The idea of CLIL goes beyond learning new vocabulary in a foreign language. It is learning some contents and skills that are from a particular subject (that is not language) through a language that is not the students’ first language.

- CLIL is not a “backdoor” language teaching or additional subject teaching.

If as teachers think that CLIL is an additional activity or subject, then students will think the same. Children that consider that a subject or a lesson is not so important lose their interest on that learning. As teachers we can evaluate differently each activity or lesson (depending on the objectives and the evaluation criteria) but that doesn’t mean that what has been taught is only complementary. Everything that is included in a lesson plan or in a project has been previously considered and accepted. We should skip that fact because that can affect on the teaching and learning process.