CONTENT AND LANGUAGE INTEGRATED LEARNING

The way forward?

Mercedes Viola, 2011 INTRODCUTION: English as an International Language, English as a Lingua Franca. Not only has English become international in the last half century, but scholarship about English has also become international: the ownership of an interest in English has become international. We are not longer a language community which is associated with a national community or even with a family of nations such as the Commonwealth aspired to be. We are an international community. (Brumfit 1995: pg 16) Due to the fact that English is being taught to younger learners and to the growing exposure to English through internet, tourism, television and different written texts, its relevance has increased in many countries. Since roughly only one out of every four users of English in the world is a native speaker of the language (Crystal 2003), most interactions in English are conducted by non-native speakers of English, so English is used as the common language, or lingua franca. English as a Lingua Franca could be described English as it is used as a contact language among speakers from different first languages (Jenkins, 2009 p.143). For the past several decades, English has grown into the primary language for international communication. Nowadays, people not only need to know English, but they need to develop a range of communicative language competences in order to be able to perform their student and job related tasks properly. They usually link their English studies to their area of expertise and the attention becomes more focused on language as a tool for communication rather than on language knowledge as an end in itself. Nowadays, declarative knowledge is not enough; people need to be able to use different resources and knowledge declarative knowledge; skills and know-how and existential competence to solve different problems and situations. Declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge and attitudinal knowledge are essential components of any sound educational programme. When we talk about languages, the same concept applies: Put simply, knowledge of a language has given way to pragmatic competence whereby a person has both knowledge and skills for actively using the given language. (Marsh, 2003)
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1. Content and Language Integrated Learning.

Marsh states that there is educational rethinking about the value of integrated curricula approaches in an increasingly integrated world, and CLIL is one form of integrated learning. Teaching through English is a way of killing two birds with one stone; the focus is on both, the topic and language. Most of us believe that when students have the chance of receiving language instruction and at the same time experiencing real-life situations in which they have to use this language, successful language learning takes place. Language is learned as part of the process of learning something else content or skill. Many studies in different parts of the world have shown that many students reaching tertiary education lack the necessary language knowledge to understand instructions and show difficulties when expressing themselves either orally or in written. Literacy, in the students native language first and in a second language next, has become a critical issue in education. Subject teachers should also be teaching language in general and the particular codes of their subjects. There is a closer relationship between a students performance in a specific subject and his/her mastery of the particular codes of that subject. The slogan All teachers are language teachers is a concept that many educational systems worldwide are trying to put into practice. Subject teaching benefits from understanding how language is central to a students assimilation of conceptual and procedural knowledge. And with CLIL, language teaching benefits from replacing talking about language with using language to talk about real subject matter. When CLIL is incorporated into the curriculum, language takes its position at the centre of the whole educational enterprise. All teachers take responsibility for nurturing its development in the classroom. (Marsh, 2004) 2. The language teacher.

Some people believe that with the implementation of CLIL, language teachers will become obsolete, something of the past. Finland, where CLIL could be said to have been invented, is now also at the leading edge of another phenomenon: the disappearing English teacher. There is an inevitable logic that as the project succeeds, so specialist English teachers are made redundant. (Graddol, D. 2005). However, the University of Jyvskyl in Finland states that CLIL is a dual-focused educational approach in which an additional language is used for the learning and

teaching of both content and language. In order to be able to teach a language, being a competent user of that language is not enough, you also need to know about the language. Scott Thornbury (1997) explains this is what language awareness is: explicit knowledge about the language. Language awareness is a persons sensitivity to and conscious awareness of the nature of language and its role in human life (Donmal 1985). ... Put simply, language awareness is the knowledge that teachers have of the underlying systems of the language that enables them to teach effectively. Consequently, if we defend the position that all teachers are language teachers and that by implementing CLIL, content and language are being taught, then two scenarios are possible: subject teachers learn about language and become language teachers as well, and/or language teachers learn about subjects and become subject teachers as well. Depending on the teaching context, age of students and the pedagogic decision of the educational organization, English teachers have different possibilities: primary school English teachers can coordinate with classroom teachers topics and skills that can be taught through English they can seek subject specialists as allies they can develop professionally by specializing in another specific subject they can teach language to teachers of other subjects

Formal language teaching is part of the CLIL approach, so language teachers who reposition their teaching philosophy according to the new demands could, in fact, become conductors of the orchestra within the new language learning framework. There is potential here for ELT practitioners to regenerate their profession. (Marsh, 2004) 3. CLIL materials and resources.

One of the disadvantages usually mentioned is the lack of ready materials that are easily accessible to teachers. If we adhere to the concept that education should seek to provide students not only with discrete knowledge and skills, but also with the capacity to operate in an informed and self-directive manner in the skill area in question, within the wider context of their chosen life goals. (Tudor, 1996 p. XI), our students are the first reference point when making decisions on the content. That means, we shift our focus away from textbooks and toward the learner, so decisions about course content are based on these beliefs

rather than on the materials that are available in the market. The thinking behind it is that students learn when they feel involved and interested in the subject. From that point of view, the concerns raised by some practitioners regarding the lack of ready-made materials do not present a conclusive argument. As Kathleen Graves (2000) points out: Materials development takes place on a continuum of decision-making and creativity which ranges from being given a textbook and a timetable in which to cover it least responsibility and decision-making - to developing all the material you will use in class from scratch most responsibility and creativity. Some regions or countries are lucky to have locally published CLIL materials written with specific local curriculum demands in mind and focusing on local students needs. Since the implementation of CLIL especially in many European countries, publishers have been including CLIL units in their textbooks and many authors and teacher have been developing CLIL materials that are being shared in many different internet sites. Anyway, teachers who want to implement a CLIL approach have to design materials to satisfy the needs of their specific teaching contexts. This process of materials development involves deciding how to put your teaching beliefs and principles into practice. However, this is something we, English teachers, are always doing either if we are using CLIL or not. 4. Subject learning & language learning.

Research in certain contexts where content was taught through English has shown that these students are behind those other students who were learning content using their mother tongue. The latter got much higher grades in their school-leaving examinations. Some specialists think that if students learn subjects in their native language, the level of language competence would be much higher and the students are more likely to produce knowledge in the further steps of their academic lives. If the content is taught in English, student would try to cope with both the subject area content and the linguistic content which will make it difficult to master even one of them. If we are working with students who are proficient users of the language, we can, in many of the cases, think that they will benefit from content and language integrated courses, since they will learn new subjects and enhance their English repertoire of vocabulary and improve their general linguistic competence. However, when working with basic or independent users of English a soft CLIL approach could be more appropriate. By choosing topics that students are familiar with

or are currently studying with other subject teachers or that they are interested in, they will be more motivated to learn the language than when the focus is just on language in terms of grammar, functions, or structures. Didactic units based on subject-based content can be the underlying principle of the curriculum. This means a coherent sequence of lessons based on real conceptual materials that are more task-based and more learner centred. These materials focus more on the role that language plays in the students' assimilation of the concepts. Gajo (2007) raises the challenge of maintaining a balanced approached between content and language learning. He refers to a shift away from subject to a more integration-centred perspective mostly in order to improve language proficiency and second language pedagogy.

5. Assessment

As was mentioned in the introduction, being competent means being able to use a cluster of related knowledge, skills and procedures to act effectively and solve problems.

So, by focusing more on procedural skills to get across the conceptual content, the teacher becomes more aware of the processes that the students need to pass through in order to assimilate the content. Language is the necessary vehicle to be able to perform the tasks and process and create knowledge. Phil Ball says that when CLIL is well implemented the content (conceptual) is learned through a procedure (skills) which requires a certain type of framework (language). The objectives of the course are based on these three pillars: content, skills and language. These objectives will condition the assessment procedures. Assessment in CLIL is a complex. A crucial issue is the extent to which language and content are integrated, if they are assessed at the same time and through the same tasks and activities. Teaching involves assessment. In order to make decisions about lesson content and sequencing, about materials and learning tasks teachers have to assess the pros and

cons of the different alternatives and this is done based on their beliefs about teaching and learning, language development and education, together with what they consider to be most appropriate and in the best interests of those they teach. Assessment is an integral part of the teaching-learning process. This type of assessment -formative assessment or assessment for learning- provides information to be used as feedback to make the necessary changes and improve this process. Teachers should always be involved in the observation of their learners, which leads to the development of insights about their learner progress and judgements about specific learning outcomes and overall performance. By doing so, teachers are assessing not only content (declarative knowledge), but skills (procedural knowledge), existential competence (attitudinal knowledge) and language. Much of what it is done in

classrooms can be described as assessment. Leung and Mohan d that this assessment process is a key part of everyday classroom practice and it involves both teachers and learners in reflection, dialogue and decision-making.

When we think about assessment as measurement of learning achievements, summative assessment or judgements to be located in matrix of standards, things turned more complex. What do we have to test? Language, content or both? This go back to the issue discussed in the previous section. For proficient users of the language, content testing is viable, but for either basic or independent users some subject knowledge and skills could be much more challenging to test in a foreign language.

6. Conclusion

Phil Ball thinks that by fusing the worlds of language and subject teaching, CLIL is helping everyone to focus on the importance of language as the key not just to academic success but as the key to normal educational practice. Before making this decision the following issues should be weighted: stakeholder networks that are focused on learning; CLIL methodology and good pedagogy in general; best practice in management of educational change; schools existing knowledge base; mentorship programmes information for administrators, inspectors, parents, and government officials; teaching and learning materials for students; independent research on student achievement and programme management;
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Besides that, there are some other important factors. competence in the foreign language by the teachers teachers trained in language teaching methodology teachers trained in the specific contents methodology

Implementing a whole CLIL initiative requires carefully planning. If this decision is originated at the level of national ministry of education, or local authorities; teachers, who are essentially bound to implement it, have very little say in this decision. Their lack of participation in the decision making process leads to resistance to imposed changes. Whether to implement a strong or weak approach to CLIL depends not only on the local context but also on each specific case. The adoption of a weak-approach to CLIL can be more feasible and bottom up initiatives are being carried out worldwide. The results are, in general, impressive in terms of student motivation, vocabulary uptake, and fluency. In many different parts of the world English is not a foreign language any more. University students have lectures in English. They are starting to have the possibility of even doing their whole university studies in English. Students are getting together with students from other countries to do projects together, and mostly, in English since this is the common language they have for their communication. Professionals work more and more with international teams, they attend training session and participate in conferences in English. Companies go global and open subsidiaries in new markets. And English is used in contexts in which speakers with different first languages need it as their mean to communicate with each other. This makes it clear that both, social and academic language skills are necessary to be able to interact in this global world successfully. If CLIL is the way forward to achieve this is something that we still cannot forecast.

Bibliography Brumfit, C. (1995) Individual Freedom in Language Teaching, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Crystal, D. (2003). English as a Global Language (Second edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gajo, L. (2007). Linguistic Knowledge and Subject Knowledge: How Does Bilingualism Contribute to Subject Development? International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 10 (5), 563-581 Graddol, D (2005). Spoken everywhere but at what cost? The Guardian Weekly. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2005/apr/20/guardianweekly.guardianweekl y11 ) Graves, K. (2000). Designing Language Courses, a guide for teachers. Boston: Heinle & Heinle Publishers Jenkins, J. (2009). World Englishes: A resource book for students (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. Leung, C. & Mohan, B. (2004). Teacher formative assessment and talk in classroom contexts: assessment as discourse and assessment of discourse. Language Testing 21 (3): 360-389 Marsh, D. (2003). The relevance and potential of content and language integrated learning (CLIL) for achieving MT+2 in Europe. Information Bulletin 9. European Language Council. Marsh, D. (2004). Adding language without taking away. The Guardian Weekly. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianweekly/story/0,12674,1464367,00.html) Thornbury, S.(1997). About Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Tudor, I. (1996). Learner-centredness as Language Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.