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The WHAT and WHY of CLIL | Aleksandra Zaparucha | CLIL Matters

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Unlocking Language Learning in Primary Schools Using CLIL

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Six videos demonstrating CLIL used in classes from primary schools and vocational colleges

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Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)

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What is Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)? [webinar recording]

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Bridge Education Group TEFL TESOL Certifications

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What Is CLIL and What Is Not? Introduction to CLIL - Content and Language Integrated Learning

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CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning)

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BridgeUniverse - TEFL Blog, News, Tips & Resources

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By Dorothy Zemach
July 6, 2021

Bilingual education isn't just for bilingual communities. Thanks to research that shows learning a second language has benefits for just about everyone, schools all over the world are looking for ways to bring these benefits to their students. One growing teaching trend within bilingual education is CLIL methodology. What is CLIL exactly? To take advantage of this integrative approach, teachers and school administrations need a thorough understanding of the theories behind it as well as proper training on how to apply those theories in concrete ways within their institution.
If you're new to teaching, you'll want to get initial training and qualification with a TEFL certificate. You can explore our online TEFL courses to get started!
CLIL stands for Content and Language Integrated Learning. This means studying another subject (for example, science, history, or literature) and learning a language, such as English, at the same time - integrating the two subjects. The definition is broad because the integration can happen in many different ways.

Professor Do Coyle, who together with education researcher and author Dr. David Marsh coined the term CLIL, explains, "[T]here isn't just one model. ... It can be a theme. It can be principles. You can spend a lot of time on this or a short time on this. But the fundamental principle of CLIL is that there is an integration between using language to learn and learning to use language through the development of content." In this article, we'll explore what exactly that means and, in particular, how it's used in English language teaching.

Although the term "CLIL" is modern, the technique is as old as learning itself. Any time someone learned about something else - engineering, art, cooking - while they learned and practiced a foreign language, they were using CLIL, even if they didn't realize it!

The approach became more formalized in the 1960s, in language immersion programs in Canada and with Languages Across the Curriculum (LAC) programs and Foreign Languages Across the Curriculum (FLAC) programs in the UK and the US. Many of these classes involved native English speakers studying a subject in a foreign language and included study-abroad programs.

David Marsh and Do Coyle came up with the term CLIL in the mid-1990s, at a time when governments, schools, and individuals were all starting to realize the importance of knowing more than one language. The movement was especially strong in Europe, and it's growing around the world in response to globalization.

What are the core features of CLIL methodology?

A successful CLIL program depends on the cooperation between language teachers and content teachers. Each is an expert in his or her own field, so they need to share both their respective principles and information.

The content teacher

A content teacher is someone who teaches a subject - for example, music, architecture, or biology. However, using CLIL as an approach is more than just switching to English to teach another subject. Content teachers are not normally experts in language acquisition or pedagogy. Therefore, to teach their subjects, content teachers usually require some amount of training and might also use both their students' native language and English, a technique known as translanguaging. They'll also depend on the support of the language teacher.

The language teacher

The language teacher is primarily responsible for teaching English (or another language), but in CLIL methodology, he or she also supports the content teacher by introducing relevant vocabulary and functional language related to a given subject (history or biology, for example) and by emphasizing critical thinking.

As an example, think of an earth science class. The content teacher explains the water cycle through pictures, demonstrations, English, and if necessary, the students' first language (or L1). In tandem, the English teacher might cover language for explaining sequences and processes (first, next, then, after that), language for cause and effect (because of, due to, results in), and word forms (vapor, evaporate, evaporation).

Coordination of the two

On the institutional level, a successful CLIL program needs a cooperative organizational structure, which means there has to be a way for the content teacher and the language teacher to work with each other, such as a set place and time to meet and coordinate lessons.

This is helped by a supportive school administration that is willing to provide comprehensive CLIL training, appropriate materials, adequate funding, and time.

Finally, the program will depend on willing students and parents who understand the program's methods and goals. Students might need to work in new and unfamiliar ways, so it's important that they and their families trust the teachers and the program.

Although different programs and classes will of course have their own individual goals, broadly speaking, all CLIL programs aim to increase students' subject-area knowledge while at the same time improving their knowledge of and skills in the target language. In addition, students should improve their own ability to learn and come to understand and appreciate a new culture. Finally, students should not lose ground in their native language. They're adding a new language, not replacing the one they already know.

Think of bilingual education - education involving two languages - as a broad field that can encompass different programs and approaches. Some of the other main approaches share some features with CLIL, although they have differences as well. Here are some of the most common approaches that you might hear about and how they are similar to and different from CLIL.

CBI

CBI, which stands for Content-Based Instruction, refers to learning about a subject using the target language. Some people say that CLIL is a type of CBI, although in a true CLIL program, there is a stronger emphasis on the content. In a CBI course, students might use a textbook with a unit about history, then a unit about communication, then a unit about economics, and so on. But the history teacher would not be teaching in English at the same time.

ESP

ESP, which stands for English for Specific Purposes, teaches students the vocabulary and functions they need for certain fields. Often it is job- or career-focused. Example courses include English for Hospitality Workers or English for Air Traffic Controllers.

EMI

EMI, which stands for English as the Medium of Instruction, refers to language immersion courses where all instruction occurs in the target language. This covers everything from language immersion summer camps to international schools that conduct all of their classes in the target language, where students either must demonstrate proficiency in the target language to be admitted or, if their level is low, seek out additional instruction or tutoring. Unlike a CLIL approach, EMI programs discourage the use of students' native language.
Watch a video featuring CLIL expert, Peeter Mehisto, about what this method is - and is not - from Bridge's Content and Language Integrated Learning Specialized Certification Courses:
Students

Just about any type of student can benefit from a CLIL approach. It has been used with all ages and ability levels. However, that doesn't mean that every student will be successful in a CLIL class, any more than every student is successful in any class. But the factors limiting a student's success are not tied to the CLIL approach.

Teachers

CLIL courses can take time and energy to prepare and carry out. A good CLIL teacher is someone who is committed to the approach and is hard-working, dedicated, and passionate about his or her students. In addition, a CLIL teacher should be skilled at communication and flexible because cooperating with the subject-area teacher is essential.

Subjects

While almost any subject can be taught through a CLIL approach, the most suited are ones that involve student cooperation and have a cultural aspect to them. Some examples are the social sciences, the arts, many trades, and some sciences such as biology and chemistry. One study found that math and physics were less suited to a CLIL approach because of their technical nature. A CLIL approach in these classes would probably rely more heavily on L1 use.

Many types of schools and programs can benefit from CLIL. Because CLIL is particularly well-suited to groups of students working together, it's ideal for K-12 classes, universities, and vocational schools - which of course are all places where students learn subjects in addition to language. But CLIL can also be used in sports and clubs, with private students (if the language teacher also has content knowledge), and in online classes.

If CLIL takes extra training and effort on the part of the teacher, why should they adopt this approach? The short answer is because it provides so many benefits to the students.

As students become proficient in two languages, they gain social and cognitive advantages. Studies have shown that bilingual people are, on the whole, more flexible, better problem solvers, and better communicators. In addition, learning a second language can improve a person's memory and even protect against the effects of aging on the brain.

Other benefits include a deeper understanding of the target language, mastery of a subject, improved social and critical thinking skills, and even a stronger, more flexible brain. With all of these advantages to students, why not see if you can incorporate some CLIL principles and practices into your own teaching?

Harness the benefits of this method with Bridge's new CLIL Certification Courses, developed to help teachers and administrators successfully adopt the CLIL approach to bilingual education institute-wide.

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What Is CLIL? The Global Trend in Bilingual Education Explained

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What is CLIL in language learning, and who is this method best suited for? Take a look at the features and benefits of using CLIL in the classroom, and see how this instructional method differs from others.

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What Is Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)? | NYTLicensing

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Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) is an approach to education in which a subject and a language are taught simultaneously. Learn more in our comprehensive guide.

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Written by Sheila Corwin

Teacher Trainer in Florence

Introduction to CLIL

As a CLIL teacher myself, I often use the example of a content course that would interest me and that is taking a course about French cinema (content) in French (language), while on a study abroad holiday in Paris (of course!). Since French is not my mother tongue, this kind of course would expose me to learning about the specific content of interest to me while also learning about (and becoming more fluent) in the French language.

So, what does CLIL mean?

CLIL stands for Content and Language Integrated Learning and it has officially been around since the 1990s. It is an educational approach that originally stems from Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and has been used mostly by language teachers.

The concept is often credited to David Marsh. CLIL incorporates both the learning of content and the learning of a foreign language which is often English, but it could be teaching in any foreign language that is not the mother tongue of the students.

When we think of content, CLIL is often about the teaching of academic subject matter such as science, history, or geography, but it can also be about the teaching of any other kind of content which is less academic and, some may say, more fun subject matter such as photography, fashion, cooking, or cinema.

CLIL refers to situations where subjects, or parts of subjects, are taught through a foreign language with dual-focused aims, namely the learning of content and the simultaneous learning of a foreign language.

David Marsh, University of Jyväskylä, Finland (1994)

Soft CLIL and hard CLIL: what is the difference?

Soft CLIL is often applied in young learner (primary school) classrooms and is mostly about teaching words and vocabulary in a foreign language i.e., getting students familiar with a second language by providing some limited exposure, while still teaching primarily in the mother tongue. Soft CLIL is appropriate for lower proficiency levels such as beginning and elementary.

Hard CLIL means that an entire course is taught in a foreign language and learners need to be at an intermediate or above proficiency level and already be quite autonomous in the second language. In a course where everything is in a foreign language, learners need to be confident in the second language and have some substantial experience studying it already.

The challenges of planning CLIL Lessons

I once attended a conference where the presenter mentioned that CLIL was a good way for primary and secondary schools to get 2 for 1. In other words, an academic subject teacher and a language teacher are represented by one individual i.e., two for the price of one.

As with anything, difficulties can arise when a trained language teacher becomes an academic subject teacher, and when the trained academic subject teacher becomes the language teacher.

What is really needed, but not easily obtained, is for every CLIL course to have access to two teachers; an academic subject teacher expert and a language teacher expert who knows how to teach a foreign language to non-native speakers.

CLIL and language teachers - challenges and the good news

If you are a language teacher, one of the biggest challenges you will face in the teaching of an academic subject is a lack of background knowledge in the teaching of specific academic content.

Furthermore, developing this expertise may not be a realistic expectation because many language teachers have been trained to teach a foreign language and may not have a higher specialized degree in an academic content area.

The Good news: If you are a language teacher, you have expertise in how to teach a foreign language to non-native speakers and you are already sensitive to working with these kinds of learners.

You know how to execute activities for second language learners and are used to checking on learners' comprehension and dealing with error correction in both writing and speaking activities.

CLIL and academic subject teachers - challenges and the good news

If you are an academic subject teacher, you may have an advanced degree in history or geography but no experience in teaching language and you may find that you are unable to make the necessary modifications to make your content knowledge comprehensible to language learners.

You may also find difficulties with teaching their subject matter in a foreign language if you, too, are non-native speakers of the language required to teach.

The Good news: If you are an academic subject teacher, you have content area expertise, which a language teacher might lack. You probably have a very specialized degree and you are an expert in your areas of study which could be anything from history, geography, art, science, or math. Since you might also be native speakers, you will know how to communicate their subject matter effectively if the mother tongue is used.

How to implement CLIL in your classroom

CLIL is driven by academic or other subject-matter content and teachers who are interested in (or required to) incorporate this approach in their classroom need to know and understand how to create and incorporate the teaching of the four skills reading, writing, listening, and speaking to non-native speakers of a language effectively and in a beneficial way for their learners.

The Receptive Skills: Listening and Reading CLIL activities

Anything that students receive in a foreign language is referred to as input. The receptive skills are known as Listening and Reading and require that all teachers check on their learners' comprehension of what has or has not been understood.

A formula for Listening activity (with handout):

1. Pre-teach difficult or unknown vocabulary words

2. Listen first time for gist - without handout

3. Listen second time for specific details - with questions on handout

4. This step can be skipped if over 50% of questions have been answered: Listen a third time for confirmation and to get missed details.

After the second or third listening, individual students can share and compare with those around them before coming back together as a class to confirm anything else that they are unsure about or that they were unable to discern with their partner or partners.

In the CLIL in Secondary School - Practical Activities for All Teachers course in Florence, Italy, the second day focuses on teaching CLIL through Science. In one of the first listening activities, the 2006 movie trailer An Inconvenient Truth is used in a cloze activity*.

The first listening allows students to listen to and watch the 3-minute trailer. Before the second listening, students are given a handout where 12 words from the transcript are provided in a word bank at the top of the worksheet. During the second listening, students are required to fill in the missing words in the text without the visual of the video to allow them to focus solely on listening.

As mentioned in the above formula, students can skip the third listening if they were able to fill in at least 50% of the missing words.

*Cloze Activity - an activity in which words are removed from a passage for a learner to fill in as an exercise in reading comprehension. The missing words may or may not be provided in a word bank.

A formula for Reading Activity (with handout):

1. Pre-teach difficult or unknown vocabulary words and highlight them in the text

2. Students Read first time aloud (dividing up reading equally by sentences or paragraphs) to practice pronunciation

3. Students read second time silently for comprehension

At this point, students can complete comprehension questions with or without the text, individually, or with a partner or partners. If comprehension questions are answered without the text, they can be answered with a partner through speaking and relying on memory of what was read together.

In another example from the course CLIL in Secondary School - Practical Activities for All Teachers, the third day focuses on teaching CLIL through History. In one of the reading activities, a short reading passage about the life of Henry VIII, a former King of England, is passed out. For the first reading, each student is allowed to read at least one sentence aloud.

During the second reading, students read silently (on their own) and are asked to write their names at the top of the handout when they have finished. Teachers can collect the reading passage from all students when they have finished reading.

As mentioned in the above formula, individual students or pairs are given one handout with 12 comprehension questions to answer without the ability to refer to the reading passage for answers.

The Productive Skills: 5 ways to do Writing and Speaking activities

Anything that students produce in a foreign language is referred to as output. The productive skills are known as Writing and Speaking and require that teachers engage in error correction which can be done by the teacher, the student, or a peer depending on what needs to be corrected, student level, and or the activity.

Students can work on productive activities (where writing and speaking are required) in any of the following ways:

On the fourth day of the course CLIL in Secondary School - Practical Activities for All Teachers, the focus is on teaching Geography through CLIL. Students are required to produce a roleplay, using speaking, based on the travels of Marco Polo. On this day, a two-minute film clip from the 2014 film Marco Polo is used.

First students choose the role they would like to play. Then they are provided with the transcript from the film. After highlighting their role(s) and what they need to say, they Listen and watch - paying attention to the character they are playing and how they sound. The next step (depending on how many students there are in class) is to put students in small groups, two teams, or as a whole class to practice the script.

When each group is ready, students perform. There can be more than one performance and everyone else who participates as the audience can provide oral or written feedback. If students are studying the part of the world where Marco Polo explored, they can also research and write about different cities along his route.

Using authentic CLIL resources

Since CLIL is all about knowing how to prepare and implement reading, writing, listening, and speaking activities to non-native speakers of a language, teachers who are particularly creative and dedicated to their craft, can seek out Authentic Materials from the real world to develop their courses.

If I use the same example of learning more about French cinema in the French language while enjoying a holiday in France, I could, for example, think about incorporating movie trailers (listening); short interviews (in French) found on YouTube with film directors or French actors (listening); include movie reviews of films in French (reading); anything about the places, people, or events that take place in any film (reading).

I could also engage my learners in speaking and writing activities that get students to express their opinions or thoughts about certain films, French actors and actresses, film topics, locations depicted in French films, timelines, genres, or songs used in French movies. Students could be asked to create movie posters or a short guide to French films perhaps from different time periods as a fun project.

Conclusion and resources

Many countries and educational institutions around the world are promoting the teaching and learning of both content and language through CLIL. For example, the European Union (EU) also embraces it.

The language policy of the EU, drawn up by the European Parliament at the Social Summit held in Gothenburg, Sweden in 2017, declares that by 2025, young citizens of the EU should be learning and able to speak at least two additional European languages along with their native tongue by the time they complete school.

As we all know, competence in more than one foreign language plays an important role in improving educational and employment opportunities. The argument then is that through CLIL students can simultaneously study academic or other subject matter through a foreign language at school which will help them reach a good level of multilingualism by the time they become an adult.

Teachers should therefore have an integrated and well-prepared education themselves to help them properly prepare their own students to be open-minded European citizens who speak more than one language.

Since CLIL is about teaching content through a foreign language. It can serve as an approach to provide meaningful language use driven by specific content, CLIL is not only an important instrument for fostering European citizens' language learning goals; it is a way to embrace language diversity and a deeper understanding of other EU countries and ways of life.

If you would like to know more about CLIL, I have an exiting news to share!

After 10 years of teaching CLIL to more than 1'000 European teachers, I recently had the opportunity to create an online course on it. The best part?

Thanks to the Erasmus+ project EUTEAM, the course is 100% free!

The MOOC clarifies the CLIL methodology and introduces several examples of CLIL activities focusing on EU content and the original EU members-with authentic (real world) materials in English.

It offers several activity handouts ready to be used in the classroom, along with questions for reflection for the students.

Click on the following link to register:

Furthemore, within our catalogue of Erasmus courses for teachers, we have an entire selection of more than 20 courses focused on CLIL!

They are all week-long courses that focuses on how to create reading, writing, listening, and speaking activities in academic subject matter such as science, history, geography, and art.

English is the language for which this specific content is taught. All these courses are filled with a multitude of activities to help both the language and academic subject teacher gain a better understanding of managing an effective CLIL classroom experience for both learners and teachers.

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CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) is an educational approach credited to David Marsh (Finland) that is around since the 90s

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5 ideas for engaging CLIL activities in class - CLIL Media

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Want to implement CLIL activities in your lesson, without any preparation time? These five activities might just be what you are looking for! Estimated time to read this article: 7 minutes One of the questions I always ask after a workshop is ' what is the most important thing you learned during this workshop?

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9 Fantastic CLIL Activities for Any Foreign Language Classroom | FluentU General Educator Blog

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CLIL activities are meant to teach students a foreign language through other topics, like math, history and drama. These 9 fascinating activities will get your students engaged and excited, from classic games with a twist to map races and art exercises. You can easily adapt them for different proficiency levels!

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BridgeUniverse - TEFL Blog, News, Tips & Resources

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The good news about formulating a strong lesson plan for a Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) class is that it will contain many of the same features of a good lesson plan for any class. That is, it will include transitions from and to the previous class and the next one, it will warm students up to the day's lesson in an engaging way, it will present new material and recycle familiar material, it will include some ways to assess progress during the class, and it will be flexible enough to account for classes that move slower or more quickly than you had anticipated.

What's important about CLIL lesson plans, though, is that you take care to include both subject area content and language points so that you derive the full benefits of a CLIL approach. If you try to wing it, you might wind up concentrating on one area to the detriment of the other. Over time, you'll develop your own CLIL lesson plan template, but if you need some inspiration, check out the CLIL lesson plan examples below!
Prepare yourself and your institute to join the global education movement with Specialized Certification in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL).
What are the key elements of CLIL lesson plans?

Content

Most teachers find it easiest to start by considering the content. What knowledge - that is, what subject area material - do you want to transmit? How are you going to present it - through an article, a video, a demonstration, a discussion, an experiment?

It can be helpful when planning to finish sentences such as I want my students to be able to/At the end of the class, they should know... If you have a cooperating content area teacher at your institution, meet with that person in advance to go over your goals and see how they interact with theirs.
Want to learn more? Take a look at the following video, from the Bridge Specialized Certification course in CLIL to see what CLIL is all about:
Language

Once you have the content pinned down, you can pick out the necessary language and communication skills that students will need to engage with the material. For example, these could include:

Specialized vocabulary

Functional phrases and collocations

Pronunciation or intonation practice

Grammatical structures

Features of text organization

You'll find these linguistic features in the texts that you present, but also in the language that students need in order to complete tasks. Imagine yourself as a student carrying out a task. What will you say? What will you write? Then, determine if you'll need to teach any of this language to your class before presenting students with the task.

For example, imagine that you want students to be able to explain how a lever works. You plan to provide a demonstration or a video of a lever being used, and you will ask students to write a few paragraphs about what they see. For vocabulary, they might need to know words like machine, beam, lever, fulcrum or pivot point, effort, resistance, mass, distance, and so on. For grammar, they might need simple conditionals and cause/effect statements, and, of course, expressions of measurement: If you double the distance on one side of the lever, it takes half as much mass to balance./When you double the distance on one side of the lever, you need half as much mass to balance.

As you determine the content and the language, make sure you have a reasonable balance of both - enough content to keep learners engaged and enough language for them to engage with the content.

If you are cooperating with a content teacher, make sure you also share the language that you are teaching. The cooperating teacher will then know what they should expect learners to be able to communicate in their class. They might have ideas for useful language that you did not think of!
Take a look at the following infographic, from the Bridge Specialized Certification in CLIL course, to see a summary of the advantages of using a bilingual education method like CLIL:
What are some tips for CLIL lesson planning?

Connect what CLIL activities students are doing today with what they have done before. Remember, our earlier experiment with putting sugar in the flowers' water? Well, today we're going to add salt and see what happens.

Connect your class to other classes. I know in your art history class you just saw a film about the Egyptian pyramids. Today, we're going to make and label posters that show what's inside a pyramid.

Have some extra content information in reserve. You are the language teacher and are not expected to be a content area specialist. However, you will earn your students' respect if you occasionally demonstrate content knowledge beyond the exact classroom task. Do a little research online, and perhaps learn an interesting fact or two about a famous explorer, a story about a scientific discovery, or a current example of social science theory. You might not find the right situations to bring up this information in every class, but you'll be ready if the opportunity arises.

Be able to explain the importance of the target content. It's natural for students to wonder why they are being asked to learn certain information. However, they may hesitate to ask a content teacher a question like Why are we studying ancient Greek architecture? Who cares what the Parthenon looked like originally? Since you are the language teacher, students may feel safer (and more polite) directing those kinds of questions to you. Be ready with an answer! What does the content in your CLIL curriculum have to do with real life? Before your class, ask yourself Why is this important? Why is this interesting? Make sure you have good answers. If you don't have answers, ask a content area specialist or do a short online query to prepare yourself.

Check out the following clip, from a BridgeUniverse Expert Series webinar, in which speakers discuss how CLIL is the future of education:
What is a CLIL lesson plan for kids?

Lesson: Density

Target content: Understanding what density means and how it can be demonstrated

Target language: Sequencing words (first, next, then); vocabulary (nouns: oil, water, food coloring; verbs: put, add, sink, float, rise, fall; adjectives: heavy, light, dense); grammar (comparatives: heavier/lighter/denser than)

Exposition: Demonstration of density through an experiment. Students will predict, observe, and report.
Procedure:

1. Show students a tank of water and several objects, such as a stone, a feather, a scrap of paper, a coin, a piece of Styrofoam, oil, food coloring.

2. Ask students if objects will float or sink in the water and why (to elicit It is heavy/light, It is heavier/lighter than water).

3. Define density (density = mass/volume). Ask students which objects they think are the densest and the least dense.

4. Ask students which objects they think are denser than water and which are less dense than water. Encourage them to use the correct comparatives: I think oil is less dense than water. I think a stone is denser than water. To reinforce the language, have them speak in pairs and then write their guesses down. Ask them how they can test their theories.

5. Drop the different objects and substances in the water and have students describe what they see. The oil is sinking to the bottom! Oil is denser than water.

6. Have students write a paragraph about which substances are denser and which are less dense than water. They can use sequencing words to describe the experiment. First, Ms. Kim put a stone in the water. The stone sank to the bottom. This means that the stone is denser than water. Next, she...

Follow-up/application
Ask students, "Why is understanding density important?" If students are stuck or lacking ideas, ask, "How do we know if a boat will float or sink?"
Want to see a CLIL lesson plan in action? The following video, from the Bridge Specialized Certification course in CLIL, demonstrates how a CLIL lesson with young learners might look in the classroom:
What is a CLIL lesson plan for teens or adults?

Lesson: The Sun

Target content: The nature and composition of the sun

Target language: Names of elements (i.e., aluminum, carbon, copper, helium, hydrogen, iron, etc; include elements related to the sun and some distractors); vocabulary related to energy (atomic, electricity, energy, fusion, gas, heat, light, nuclear, sunlight, temperature)

Exposition: Explanation of the composition of the sun and how it shines through a song. Presentation and discussion of how and why scientific theories change over time with new information. Students will predict, learn, and practice content vocabulary, listen and check, discuss, and assess one another.
Procedure:

1. Show students a photo of the sun. Ask "What is this? What is it made of? What does it produce?" Accept all answers, even in students' native language (L1).

2. Present the target vocabulary on index cards spread on a table. You could define, classify, discuss, etc.

3. From YouTube, play the song, "Why Does the Sun Shine?" (Tom Glazer). Divide students into two teams, one on each side of the table. As students listen, they grab the appropriate index card when they hear the word.

4. At the end of the song, the teams exchange the words they grabbed. Have students take turns reading the words aloud, and go over any pronunciation or questions about meaning.

5. Play the song again, and have students return each card to the table when they hear the word sung. This reinforces listening comprehension and recognition. (Note that the same song has been covered by the group They Might Be Giants, so on the second listening, you could use a new version of the song.)

6. Pass out a sheet of gapped song lyrics - you could gap certain STEM words, rhyming words, or linguistically significant words (such as past participles or auxiliaries), or even create two different worksheets and put students in pairs to listen for different language and then compare with one another to check answers.

7. For extra credit, let students (alone or in pairs) memorize and perform the song.

8. Tell students, "This song was believed to be correct when it was recorded in the late 1950s. However, it contains one piece of information we now know to be incorrect. What do you think it is?" Let students guess and discuss.

9. Explain the meaning of "retraction." Then, say that the band They Might Be Giants, who recorded a cover of the "Why Does the Sun Shine?" song, later recorded a retraction song when they learned about a scientific update.

10. Play the song "Why Does the Sun Really Shine? (The Sun is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma)", and let students follow the lyrics on a printed sheet.

Follow-up/application

1. Conclude with a discussion of why and how scientific information gets updated and why retractions are important. Offer some useful sentence frames, such as "People used to think X, but now we know Y."

2. Have students work in groups to write quiz questions based on factual information about the sun. Circulate to help with language as necessary. Groups can exchange quiz questions in a subsequent class, or you can collect them, collate the questions, and distribute one quiz to the whole class in a future session.

The big picture

In conclusion, remember that the most important parts of a content lesson and a language lesson actually dovetail. They address the questions, "Why is this information important?" and "How can I talk about it?" Effective CLIL lesson plans focus on fostering learners' curiosity and interest while giving them the tools to share, question, and apply information to their lives.
Earn Specialized Certification in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) to master the methodology behind this global education movement and learn how to put CLIL theory into practice.

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Engaging Sample CLIL Lesson Plans for the ESL/EFL Classroom - BridgeUniverse - TEFL Blog, News, Tips & Resources

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Creating CLIL lesson plans means including enough subject area content and language points to derive the full benefits of this bilingual education method. Learn more.

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CLIL Lesson Plans | Teenagers | Onestopenglish

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In this section, you'll find CLIL lesson plans for a wide range of curriculum subjects as well as guidance on ways to teach CLIL and materials helping you to liven up your lessons.

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Combining two “classic” CLIL activities to create a new one! - CLIL Media

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I try out new CLIL activities every now and then, but you don’t always have to be super creative to come up with new ones. This time, I simply combined a few “golden oldies” and tried something new!