Content and Language Integrated Learning, An Overview

Content and Language Integrated Learning, An Overview

 Dr. Mushtaque Barq

Mentor English

Foundation World School Budgam J & K India

Cambridge International Education , Centre IN094.

CLIL is an evolving educational approach that promotes intercultural knowledge, understanding, and skills in non-native languages. It is an umbrella term that encourages bilingual education. The objective of CLIL is to learn subject matter while also learning a language. It is a methodology that promotes bilingual education while blending language and content.  CLIL is a module of learning that covers a range of contexts and models. It has been observed after rigorous research that most schools teach topics from the curriculum as a part of a language course, which is termed soft CLIL, while other schools teach partial immersion programs where half the curriculum is taught in the target language, which is termed hard CLIL. 

Soft CLIL: Soft CLIL refers to a CLIL approach where schools teach topics from the curriculum as a part of a language course. In this method, language learning is integrated with subject matter learning, but it typically involves less intensive language immersion compared to hard CLIL.

Hard CLIL: Hard CLIL involves a more immersive approach to language learning within the CLIL framework. In hard CLIL programs, approximately half of the curriculum is taught in the target language (usually a non-native language), requiring students to engage extensively with both content and language in a bilingual environment.

Modular CLIL: Modular CLIL is a variation of CLIL where a subject is taught for a certain number of hours in the target language. This approach allows for flexibility in integrating language and content learning by dedicating specific time slots or modules to CLIL instruction within the overall curriculum.

The term “content and language integrated learning” was developed in the mid-1990s by professors David Marsh and Do Coyle of the University of Jyväskylä in Finland. 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. The idea of CLIL came at a time when schools and governments were realizing the benefits that came with understanding more than one language. At first, this educational movement was particularly strong in Europe, but it has since gained popularity worldwide in response to the rapid globalization taking place over the past 20 years. 

Another concept that has been employed by some other schools is modular CLIL, which encourages a subject to be taught for a certain number of hours in the target language. CLIL teachers and learners need to know the curricular subject language. Learners especially must know the COB (Content- Obligatory Language). In CLIL, the learner produce, listen to and read a wide range of language. Learning subjects in a non-native language is not the same as learning a foreign language and it is not the same as learning subjects in the first language.

A study by Brain Research reveals that CLIL learners are more cognitively active during the learning process. CLIL is also referred to as the 4C’s:

Content: Some CLIL programs develop cross-curricular links among the given set of subjects. This model demands that the content be presented in an understandable way.

Communication: The objective of CLIL is to enhance STT (student talking time) and reduce TTT (teacher talking time). It must be kept in mind that thinking processes demand the language aspirants need to express their thoughts and ideas.

Cognition:  CLIL promotes thinking skills that include reasoning, creative thinking, and evaluation. Cognitive skills encourages learners progress from Information Processing or Concrete thinking skills such as ( the what, where, which, who and how many questions) and abstract thinking such as ( the Why and What if ).

Culture: It is the core of CLIL, as learners sometimes need to communicate in a non-native language. CLIL promotes the introduction of a wide range of cultural texts. Within the classroom culture, a teacher teaches the value of different home languages as well. 

Through a dynamic educational method that goes beyond the constraints of traditional language learning, CLIL provides students with a means of mastering academic material as well as developing language proficiency in a language other than their mother tongue. The fact that CLIL is still developing and gaining popularity throughout the globe is evidence of the rising understanding of the value of bilingualism and intercultural competency in an increasingly linked society. CLIL equips students to flourish in the complexity of the twenty-first century by encouraging critical thinking, communication skills, and cultural awareness. This allows students to negotiate varied environments with confidence and adaptation. We are getting closer to a more diverse and rich educational environment where language variety is valued and used as a stimulus for lifelong learning and global citizenship as educators and legislators adopt CLIL’s tenets.