We're all language teachers at heart. Communication is a common goal across the curriculum. When the whole school keeps this in focus in their policy, the long term payoff will be notable. Language learning will be effectively balanced with the immediate usefulness of communication and this will drive the whole learning community forward.
CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) is a multifaceted, flexibile and adaptable approach which integrates language learning with the bigger picture of individual, group and systemic development. It may have been born out of a need to solve some of the problems which have come hand in hand with globalisation, but it's sound theoretical and ethical underpinning make it potentially much further reaching. It is not simply another step in language teaching, nor a development of content methodology. Instead, it is a sustainable seismic change, in harmony with broader social perspectives.
Four simultaneous proactive forces have helped the exponential uptake of CLIL since the term was coined in 2006.
- governments' push for better language education in the belief this would promote socio-economic advantages.
- families' desire for their children to have some competence in at least one foreign language.
- the realization by language experts of the potential that can come from further integrating language education with that of other subjects and
- at the supranational level, the European Commissions' bid to move towards greater inclusion and economic strength. (Coyle, 2010)
In a world of quick fix solutions, however, it is reasonable to assume that it has been the planned pedagogic integration by conscientious education professionals that has been the biggest factor contributing to the success of CLIL to date, by going beyond this simultaneous grassroots and top down pressure.
Dialogue and professional connectedness are at the heart of the CLIL process and this is undoubtedly one of its key strengths. In this new era, the Knowlege Age, of technology, movement and unlimited resources, teachers are proving themselves worthy models who are actively involved in the same processes which are at the centre of the approach. It is their engagement in enquiry and critical analysis, their connections and own understandings, their sharing good practice and their communication with fellow professionals via partnerships in ways which recognize and value diversity, which is promoting language and content learning. It is their example, using and developing competency as well as confidence, in exactly the same way that the CLIL classroom aspires to, which is, to date, making all the difference.
As Bereiter and Scardamalia, 2005 underline, "In every kind of knowledge-based, progressive organization, new knowledge and new directions are forged through dialogue... the dialogue in Knowledge Age organizations is principally concerned with solving problems and developing new ideas". And this is exactly what is happening among teaching professionals.
In this sense, it is also encouraging teachers to assess their impact. Regardless of policy decisions, it is in classrooms, in actual daily practice where CLIL thrives or falters, and where the successes or failures of the whole community do too. CLIL empowers teachers to recognize their impact and to recognize their ultimate responsability. Like for learners, the language 'problem' is converted in language potential by actively engaging in workable solutions in the classroom which are dual focused, on language and content, for immediate use and longer term effects, underlining authenticity and relevance, by using language to learn and leaning language to use it.
CLIL encourages reflexion and analysis of what is meant by effective pedagogies. If reflection has been pertinent to date, it becomes even moreso through this approach. No perfect model nor methodology can exist and will always depend on individual learning circumstances and settings. However, sustainability too depends directly on conscientious, if flexible planning. Effective planning, which needs to consciously connect What, How and Why in classrooms in ways which provide a more holistic experience for the learner in the short, medium and long term. And the integration of all three by the teacher. After all, I f there's one key area where CLIL breaks new ground, it's in terms of integration. Integration of elements which have been to date fragmented, and which become fused through CLIL into new, alternative ways, and to the benefit of all.
All subjects within the school have something to offer and can and should complement each other in win win ways for students of all ages. On the one hand, the need to express and work with content, promotes fluency in ways that traditional learning, which often revolves around accuracy, hasn't been able to. On the other hand, content in a global age can be redefined in more suitable and innovative ways. Thanks to this opportunity and by making these changes, more effective learning should be a long term consequence.
However, will this dual focus help develop useful skills to allow for more fulfilling lives to develop? For teachers and students alike? CLIL is definitely change, but is it change in any direction, or in the right direction? After all, combining language and content doesn't guarantee anything. And making the same traditional contents more difficult to achieve by adding a language hurdle, as opposed to creating spaces for more longer term changes in educational policy, is always the easy option. I hope not. But I suppose it's in all in our very capable hands.
Aine Donaghy November 2014
