Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL): A Methodology of Bilingual Teaching. Bernd Klewitz. Иностранные языки. . Читать онлайн. Литмир. LITMIR.BIZ

Have you ever wondered why bilingual education has become increasingly popular with young families and even influences their choice for later and better schooling? And why the expectations of effective and successful language learning are connected with interest in language programs that allow for more focus on authentic topics and intriguing themes rather than on grammar and vocabulary training? The story of acquiring foreign languages at the same time as studying relevant and real-life events and issues sounds, at least at first sight, like trying to square the circle.

But the story of bilingualism is neither new nor spectacular. It has been around since times immemorable and even the Romans had to learn Greek to usurp their neighbor’s culture and rule the Aegean region. Yet acquiring modern languages nowadays is not a question of dominating another culture or ruling other people, but rather learning about their perspectives and ideas in an inter/transcultural way and meeting in a Third Space—to be discovered later in this narrative. So how can we make sure that students will be able to access the necessary information in a language other than their own? How do we support learners to achieve the aims and objectives set to them and help them move forward in their Zone of Proximal Development, which will be outlined further below? And how will they be empowered to develop their own linguistic and critical thinking skills without reneging on the challenges involved? The solution to this puzzle comes from balancing the two bilingual goals in a Content and Language Integrated Learning process. The acronym CLIL gives direction and priority in the interplay between subject matter and discourse function with “language as the dress of thought”—a well-known saying since Dr. Johnson’s 18th century.

Thus, the methodology of CLIL in question here would best be described as a blueprint of integration itself, namely that of content and languages in a combined teaching strategy. The worldwide growth of bilingual programs inside and outside of school contexts has raised different expectations of students and instructors as far as successful and effective language learning is concerned. These reach from more exposure to the target language (and better marks as a result) to deeper content-based studies (generating higher levels of critical thinking). And this is also why an Integrated Methodology needs to cover content-based issues as well as teaching strategies and learning theories, since for the first time such programs endeavor to deal with two teaching objects at the same time, albeit in a well-defined sequence of which may be called “language follows content”. The way to deal with didactic, content-related questions without neglecting methodological procedures involves different perspectives and comprehensive approaches in selecting appropriate topics and related discourse concepts. In other words, the task at hand requires a dual way of organizing the linguistic dimension of teaching subject matters in another than the native language—in our case for social sciences, history and geography. The assumption is that this approach will work for other content subjects (Sachfächer) as well, because the didactic-methodological issues involved are the two sides of the same coin like in content and language.

At the same time, a theory of practice is needed to enable practitioners to decide at which side of the coin they need to look first and after certain stages in the teaching/learning process, the aforementioned Zone of Proximal Development (according to Vygotsky 1962). In the definition of Do Coyle, a long-standing proponent of CLIL

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Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL): A Methodology of Bilingual Teaching. Bernd Klewitz

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Introduction