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CLIL

FOR

SECONDARY

STUDENTS

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CONTENT

PART 1: BEFORE WE START 1.1. SARA

1.2. What qualities make a good teacher?

PART 2: INTRODUCTION TO CLIL 2.1. Brief history of CLIL

2.2. What is CLIL?

2.3. Benefits of CLIL?

2.4. Types of CLIL

PART 3: PRINCIPLES OF CLIL 3.1. The four Cs: CLIL

3.2. Bloom’s Taxonomy

3.3. Cummins’ Quadrant

PART 4: CONTENT LEARNING 4.1. What is meant by Content Learning?

4.2. Scaffolding Learning

4.3. More about scaffolding learning

PART 5: COGNITIVE ENGAGEMENT 5.1. What are cognitive skills?

5.2. Developing Cognitive Skills

5.3. Examples of cognitive skills

PART 6: GRAPHIC ORGANISERS 6.1. Types of Graphic Organisers

6.2. Why use Graphic Organisers?

PART 7: LANGUAGE USED IN CLIL 7.1. Types of Language

7.1.1. Language of learning

7.1.2. Language through Learning

7.1.3. Language for learning

7.2. Thunks

PART 8: LESSON PLANNING 8.1. Why do we plan lessons?

8.2. Page 1 of a lesson plan

8.3. Page 2: Procedures Page

8.4. Example of a CLIL Lesson

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PART 1: BEFORE WE START

1.1. SARA

The first a CLIL teacher (or any other ESL teacher) must bear in mind is “to be friends with SARA”. Sara stands for:

Select the material

Adapt the material

Reject what you don’t need or like about the material

Add anything necessary to make your lessons high-valued.

These four clues must come with you all along your career’s life or at least until another more up-to-date strategy appears and it

puts SARA away. But let’s remember we should never put friends away so, we rather not get rid of SARA or any other friends no

matter things happen.

1.2. WHAT QUALITIES MAKE A GOOD TEACHER?

Research showed that, according to teenagers, the top qualities most valued in a teacher are:

1. knowledgeable

2. creativity

3. rapport

4. motivating

5. sense of humour

This should make us think of our students that even though they like having fun in class, they also appreciate the fact that a

teacher masters what is teaching.

As for CLIL teachers exclusively, it is important that they grade their use of language when giving instructions and that they use

different techniques to clarify. Teachers can allow their students to clarify in L1 as all students have their wait time. Wait time is

the time a student of a foreign language need to produce oral output in L2. It is different for every person. In general, it is said

that Chinese people need a longer wait time than other learners because they are more concerned and more cautious than

other L2 learners. This does not mean that they are not learning. It means that they are not producing yet. So, we must

emphasize with our students.

What sometimes happen to me is that if I use L1 in class I feel very guilty but Françoise has told me not to feel such way as long

as I do my best. So, teachers, now I am telling you: as long as you do your best in anything, do not feel guilty!

PART 2: CLIL AND ITS HISTORY 2.1. BRIEF HISTORY OF CLIL

Let’s go on with a bit of a history. Although the word CLIL was coined not a long time ago, in 1994, CLIL is not a brand new

phenomenon at all.

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It is said that a long time ago, around 5,000 years ago, in what is now modern Iraq, the Attakians conquered the Sumerians. They

wanted to learn the local language and so Sumerian was used as the language of instruction to learn content.

Later, in the1890s approximately, bilingualism and multilingualism existed among the most privileged wealthy families. They

were two ways of learning a foreign language. Wealthy families either rented the services of a tutor (male teacher for boys) or a

governess (female teacher for girls) to teach their children or they sent their children abroad to learn the foreign language.

A more recently recorded fact, which can be described as the first example of modern CLIL was in 1965 in Canada. English

speaking parents who were living in the French quarters of Quebec were worried because they saw their children were in

disadvantage with French speakers. So, they asked the Government to produce immersion of programmes in the schools so that

they learned the subjects in French (instead of French). This idea apparently spread all over Canada and the rest of the world.

At last, in the 1970s appeared more bilingual immersion programmes for people of different backgrounds and there was an

increase of awareness that language and content should go hand-in-hand.

This is actually a very brief history of CLIL but it makes us realise that nothing is brand new but it has just been recycled and

brought into fashion again. And I think that in such a global-like world CLIL is key to be able to step out in our society in a firm

permanent way. We need to learn languages, more than one if it is possible and CLIL is definitely a very useful tool.

2.2. WHAT IS CLIL?

CLIL stands to Content and Language Integrated Learning. It is an approach concerning languages or intercultural knowledge and

understanding (Marsh, 2002); it is a meaning-focused learning method (Van de Craen, 2006) and an “umbrella”term used to talk

about bilingual education situations (Gajo, 2007).

According to TKT CLIL handbook (The TKT Course, CLIL module, Kay Bentley, CUP 2010) CLIL is an evolving educational approach

to teaching and learning where subjects are taught through the medium of a non-native language.

It is increasingly important in our global, technological society, where knowledge of another language helps learners to develop

skills which will be able to communicate to people around the worlds.

It is a completely different learning experience compared with most foreign language teaching because content and language

are taught together.

A language teacher has the challenge to learn more about subject content and subject teachers need to learn about the

language needed for their subjects.

It can be taught to very young learners, teenagers, adults, and also in vocational or academic studies.

* See Appendix: What is CLIL?

2.3. THE BENEFITS OF CLIL. CLIL aims to:

1. Introduce learners to new concepts through studying in a TL. 2. Improve learners’ production of TL. 3. Improve learners’ performance in the curricular subject 4. Provide materials which develop thinking skills from the start. 5. Increase learners’ confidence in the TL and L1. 6. Encourage the value of community and citizenship. 7. Make the curricular subject the main focus of classroom materials

2.4. TYPES OF CLIL

Some schools teach topics from the curriculum as part of a language course. This is called soft CLIL.

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Other schools teach partial immersion programmes where almost half the curriculum is taught in the target language. This is

called hard CLIL.

Modular CLIL programme is where a subject is taught for a certain number of hours in the target language.

Type of CLIL Language / Subject

Balance

Time Context

Soft CLIL Language-led 45 minutes once a

week

Some curricular topics are taught during a language

course

Modular CLIL Subject-led 15 hours during a term

(1-hour a week)

Schools or teachers choose parts of the subject

syllabus which they teach in the target language.

Hard CLIL Subject-led (partial

immersion)

About 50% of the

curriculum

About half of the curriculum is taught in the TL. The

content can reflect what is taught in the L1 curriculum

or can be new content.

PART 3: PRINCIPLES OF CONTENT AND LANGUAGE INTEGRATED

LEARNING (CLIL) CLIL principals consist of three main blocks:

- the 4Cs: Content, Communication, Culture and Cognition

- Bloom’s taxonomy

- Cummin’s Quadrant

3.1. THE 4 CS: CLIL PRINCIPLES IN ACTION

Conditions Aims for the classroom

COGNITION To use a range of thinking skills To use the child’s real life experience with a manageable bridge between old and new. To use the child’s own level of articulation To achieve and evaluate the content

CULTURE We can create a sense of community by - getting children to collaborate on activities and share experiences. - Encouraging cooperation, help and respect. - Rewarding risks - Identifying learner’s roles.

CONTENT To give: Natural, real or understandable content Content which is related to the child’s previous experiences. Engaging content that allows for learning to be active Language as a vehicle to do things (role plays/tasks etc.)

COMMUNICATION We can encourage communication by: - setting the classroom up (seating, posters, resources) to support communication - scaffolding tasks which reduces stress and makes explorative tasks more manageable. - Using learning opportunities that don’t always have a right or wrong answer. - Offering choices about how to do things. - Reducing teacher talking time (TTT) and increasing student talking time (STT).

* See Appendix: The four Cs

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3.2. BLOOM’S TAXONOMY.

In 1956, Benjamin Bloom headed a group of educational psychologists who developed a classification of levels of intellectual

behaviour important in learning.

During the 1990s a new group of cognitive psychologists, lead by Lorin Anderson (a former student of Bloom’s), updated the

taxonomy reflecting relevance to 21st

century work. They basically changed the nouns used in Bloom’s taxonomy to verbs.

Creating, Evaluating, Analyzing, Applying, Understanding, Remembering

Levels of intellectual

behaviour

What can students do at each

level?

Strategies

Remembering Students can recall the

information

define, duplicate, list, memorize, recall, repeat, reproduce, state,

etc.

Understanding Students can explain ideas or

concepts. They can classify

Classify, describe, discuss, explain, identify, locate, recognize, report,

select, translate, paraphrase.

Applying Students can use the

information in a new way

Choose, demonstrate, dramatize, employ, illustrate, interpret,

operate, schedule, sketch, solve, use, write.

Analyzing Students can distinguish

between the different parts

Appraise, compare, contrast, criticize, differentiate, discriminate,

distinguish, examine, experiment, question, test.

Evaluating Students can justify a stand or

decision.

Appraise, argue, defend, judge, select, support, value, evaluate.

Creating Students can create new

product or point of view

Assemble, construct, create, design, develop, formulate, write.

* See Appendix: Bloom’s Taxonomy

3.2.1. HOTS AND LOTS

Remembering, understanding and applying are HOTS. That is, they are higher-order thinking skills. Analyzing, evaluating and

creating are LOTS, which means, they are lower-order thinking skills.

When teaching we have to combine HOTS and LOTS activities in order not to tire our students but be careful! You can’t go from

remembering to creating straight away as the two levels are very different demanding tasks and students would get lost!

My advice is to start from the bottom and climb up the levels step by step but keep going backwards by climbing. The graphic

that would best show this concept is the one of a spring.

* See Appendix: HOTS Question Templates

3.3. CUMMINS’ QUADRANT FOR COGNITIVE PROCESSES

Cummins’ quadrant is a useful tool for designing content lessons. Lessons should first work on BICS (Basic Interpersonal

Communication Skills) and move on to complete CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency). In order to do that, Cummins’

Quadrant advices us to move from A to C to B to D.

Cummins advices us to start with a task that is cognitively simple and context-embedded. That is a BICS task. This is found in

quadrant A and it is called VIEWING. It involves everyday conversational and transactional language.

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Examples: watching a video, students repeat information/utterances of adult or peer, students remember prior knowledge.

Then you should follow with activities that are cognitively complex and context-embedded. This is quadrant C and it is called

DOING. It involves challenging ideas, richer in terms of representation and it is an opportunity to scaffold language from

descriptive to more abstract.

Examples: to create a map, a timeline, students compare and contrast, students summarise, students transform, personalise

given information.

The following activity should be cognitively simple again but this time context-reduced. This is quadrant B and it is called

TALKING. It involves abstract but cognitively simple activities.

Examples: to talk in pairs or groups (cooperatively) about the topic, matching information, describing observations, sequencing.

Finally, the last step is the most challenging one: It is cognitively complex and context-reduced. This is quadrant D and it is called

TRANSFORMING. The aim is using academic language of school learning. It is the ability to transform one’s understanding of

content into the technical CALP language.

Examples: writing an essay, listening to a lecture or taking a standardised written test, justifying an opinion or judgement,

predicting results.

In every step, we bring our students to a Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD).

* See Appendix: Cummins’ Quadrant

PART 4: CONTENT LEARNING 4.1. WHAT IS MEANT BY CONTENT LEARNING? (from CLIL, Do Coyle, Philip Hood, David Marsh, CUP, 2010).

Syllabuses and programmes always address the WHAT of content learning. The studies of eminent theorists such as Bruner,

Vygotsky and Wood does not always influence classroom practice.

CLIL, which is built on potential synergos, demands an analysis of what is meant by effective pedagogies in different contexts.

In recent years, many Western societies uses a pedagogic model called “banking model” (Freire, 1972), where the teacher

deposits information and skills into the memory of the learner. This is teacher-controlled and teacher-led.

Alternatively, social-constructivist approaches emphasize on a more student-centred experience, encouraging a more active

learning. It is interactive, mediated and student-led. Learners interact with teachers and their learning is scaffolded by someone

or something more “expert” that does not necessarily mean that is the teacher. It can be other learners or resources. When

learners accommodate cognitive challenge, they are more likely to become engaged in interacting with “expert” others to

develop their individual thinking. The learners are in the ZPD type of learning: it is challenging but yet potentially within reach of

individual learners as long as support, scaffolding and guidance are provided (this term was introduced by Vygotsky in 1978).

Let’s have a look at what we understand by ´scaffolding´. Scaffolding is the steps teachers take to support learners so that they

can understand new content and develop new skills. Vygotsky wrote that what learners can do today with support, they can do

alone tomorrow (quoted in Gibbons, 2008). Some learners need more support than others or they need to be supported for

longer. Other learners may need support on one subject but not on the other.

* See Appendix: The learning of content

4.2. SCAFFOLDING LEARNING

The key question is: “How can we scaffold learning”?

- considering the language we use

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- creating interest

- breaking down tasks into small steps

- providing before, during and after task support

- using visuals and realia

- demonstrating tasks

- using word banks, glossaries, sentence substitution tables, writing frames

- using model texts for production of language

- providing constructive feedback.

Scaffolding listening and reading Scaffolding speaking and writing

- pre-listening and pre-reading activities to

contextualise.

- predicting

- pre-teach or elicit new vocabulary.

- Underline key language (words or sentences).

- Discussing the use of certain language.

- Using visual organisers to use while reading or

listening.

- Providing a wide range of listenings and reading

texts.

- talking about what will be said or written

- provide listening and reading models before

speaking or writing.

- Help notice the language to be used.

- Use visual organisers to brainstorm

- Encourage collaborative work

- Focus on the audience and the motive.

It is important to always build on the content and the language learners already know.

* See Appendix: Scaffolding content and language learning

4.3. MORE ABOUT SCAFFOLDING

With listening tasks, it is helpful to provide tables, grids, schedules or diagrams to be completed so that the students are guided

towards what precisely to listen out for. And this works with songs too!

With speaking tasks, students can usefully be given role-play cards or cue cards so that they are not lost for words when

required to participate in interactive tasks with classmates. These props can be removed, of course, once the students have

rehearsed their dialogues and have the confidence to speak unaided.

Proficient readers access the meaning of text by building up a global understanding of what they are reading as they go along –

rather than by decoding the meaning of each individual word in turn. In order to give our students practice in reading skills

development, we should work a lot on the pre-reading stage. We can ask our students to:

- Examine the title of the reading or a picture related to it and predict what the text will be about.

- Focus on the meaning of key words that will appear in the text,

- Examine the overall organisation of a factual or argumentative piece of writing by identifying the topic sentence and

controlling idea of each paragraph before reading it right through.

- Guess how a story will end, etc.

Writing requires the most extensive scaffolding. This is not surprising as it is a task in quadrant D of Cummins’ quadrant.

If students are required to describe what happens in a series of pictures, the teacher can elicit what is happening and can write

key words and expressions on the board. Then students can repeat the story orally before retelling it in written form. For more

creative writing, you can use pictures or drawings to set a mood on the students and they can brainstorm words they would like

to use in their own stories. For essays following a specific format, students can brainstorm ideas relevant to the given topic in

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small groups. Then, in discussing it with the whole class, the teacher can group the ideas in a logical format by using headings,

columns, boxes, arrows, and so on.

* See Appendix: Scaffolding according to Rose Senior

With appropriate scaffolding, students are likely to complete challenging tasks successfully and to a higher standard. And what is

more important is that students will eventually be able to work on their own without having to use the scaffolding.

PART 5: COGNITIVE ENGAGEMENT (FROM CLIL, DO

COYLE, PHILIP HOOD, DAVID MARSH, CUP, 2010). For content learning to be effective learning, students must be cognitively engaged. Teachers must involve learners in their own

learning and this implies that they must be aware of their own learning.

In a CLIL classroom students will be required to cooperate with each other and work effectively in groups in order to use their

strengths and compensate for their weaknesses. These life skills cannot be left to develop by chance. Instead, they must be

supported. Learners must learn to deal with the unexpected, observational skills and constructing knowledge.

Besides, evidence shows that, to raise achievement levels, learners have to be intellectually challenged in order to transform

information and ideas, to solve problems, to gain understanding and to discover new meaning. In other words, they must be

challenged with HOT (Higher-order thinking) activities.

5.1. WHAT ARE COGNITIVE SKILLS?

Cognitive skills or thinking skills are the processes our brains use when we think and learn. They develop from a very young age.

Learners progress from information processing or concrete thinking skills such as identifying and organising information (the

what, when, where, which, who and how many questions) to abstract thinking such as reasoning and hypothesising (the why

and what if questions).

Learners need to develop a range of cognitive skills as well as language for thinking.

They also need to develop CALP (cognitive academic language proficiency) so that they can study curriculum subjects in L2.

We have already learned that for the students to develop thinking skills, they need progressively challenging tasks. With CLIL,

they also benefit from a language-rich classroom which helps them to think and learn well. They need their time to take things

in. This is called the Wait time (they need the opportunity to stop, think and process) and finally, teachers need to see if the

tasks ask for the right level of cognitive demands.

* See Appendix: Cognitive Skills

5.2. DEVELOPING COGNITIVE SKILLS

But the question is HOW CAN DEVELOP COGNITIVE SKILLS IN THE CLASSROOM?

Through tasks and challenges appropriate to the subject and through effective questioning that will help learners make

associations and to think more deeply.

But WHAT KIND OF QUESTIONS CAN WE ASK IN THE CLIL CLASSROOM?

Types of thinking Types of questions

For concrete thinking: - Defining: - Recalling facts:

what is a shark? where do they live? / name parts of a fish

For reasoning thinking:

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- Examining parts and how they relate Why can’t fish live on land?

For creative thinking: - Imagining

For Abstract thinking: - Finding patterns and connections.

What are the similarities and differences between fish and amphibians?

For evaluative thinking: - Judging

3 things you learned in the classroom.

5.3. EXAMPLES OF COGNITIVE SKILLS (from the TKT Course CLIL Module)

COGNITIVE SKILLS CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES EXAMPLE ACTIVITY

Remembering (thinking about

things you know)

Recall, recite, recognise, relate, spell,

tell

Take turns to recite a verse from the poem

about autumn (literacy).

Identifying (showing a

relationship between things)

Identify, label, list, locate, match,

name

Name three different types of musical

instrument you can see in the picture

(music).

Ordering (putting things in

particular places)

Order, organise, sequence Write the dates on the time-line in the

order of when they happened (history).

Rank ordering (putting in order

of size, importance, success,

etc.)

Order, put, place Put the statements in order of importance

to describe what makes an ideal farmer

(geography).

Defining (saying what

something or someone is).

Define, explain, outline, show,

translate

What kind of colours did you use to paint

the landscape? (art)

Comparing and contrasting

(finding similarities and

differences)

Compare, contrast, distinguish,

investigate the similarities and

differences

Find three similarities and differences

between your capital city and one in

another continent (geography).

Dividing (separating into smaller

groups)

Divide, separate, share I’m going to divide the class into teams of

six to play volleyball. (PE).

Classifying (putting things into

groups according to their

features)

Classify, categorise, decide which

group, put into

Classify the rocks into different groups.

(science)

Predicting (saying what you

think will happen)

Predict, think about, guess Predict what will happen when more water

is added to the solution. (science)

Hypothesising (suggesting what

could happen or have happened

without knowing if it is true)

Suggest, decide, imagine, suppose If global electronic systems broke down,

suggest what could happen (ICT)

Reasoning (thinking why, what

causes and what results in

something)

Choose, conclude, decide, explain,

justify, recommend, solve

Justify the increase in spending on wages

last year (economics).

Creative thinking / synthesis

(producing imaginative ideas or

thoughts from previous

Imagine, build, change, compose,

create, describe, design, invent, make

Invent a new symbol for saving water

(citizenship)

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knowledge) up, plan, produce, suppose

Evaluating (saying is something

is good, useful, effective or not)

Assess, comment on, give an opinion,

judge, rate

Read your partner’s report on wind farms

and comment on how clearly it was written

(environment)

PART 6: GRAPHIC ORGANISERS

6.1. TYPES OF GRAPHIC ORGANISERS

Graphic organizers can be selected according to the type of task which learners need to do. Learners might need examples

of language which can be used with different organizers. There are several common patterns. If you browse the internet for

the following names you will see how to use them and what they look like:

- bar chart

- binary key

- Carroll diagram

- Cycle

- Mind map

- Flow diagram or flow chart

- Grid

- Line graph

- Pie chart

- Process / cause-effect diagram

- Quadrants

- Storyboard

- T-chart

- Table

- Time-line

- Tree diagram

- Venn diagram 1

- Venn diagram 2

We need to decide which organiser is the most effective for the task. What is the purpose of the organiser? Is it to classify, to

describe, to give examples, to explain a process, to identify, to show the order of events, to show cause-effect relationships or to

show similarities and differences?

For example, if learners have to show the similarities and differences between for two deserts in different countries, what would

the best graphic organiser be? Do you know? Not yet? Well, I will help you: Venn diagram 1!

To do a Venn diagram you can use hula-hoops or you can also do them on the walls. You can be creative! You must be creative!

The benefits of using graphic diagrams are endless. Tony Buzan is an educator who was the creator of the mind map and it is

said he was able to teach very difficult students! Look for his biography in the Wikipedia!

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* See Appendix: Types of Graphic Organisers.

Provide

students with a

visual link

between

thinking and

information

Promote clearer

thinking about

how to present

information and

ideas.

Support

learners

understanding

of information

they listen to or

read about

Help students

organise ideas

before writing

or making

presentations

and posters

Evaluate

student

progress

Illustrate and

explain abstract

relationships

between ideas

which help

learner’s

comprehension

Provide a visual

link between key

vocab and

sentence

patterns for

understanding /

speaking about

ideas

Review

materials as a

post-reading

activity

teachers use

graphic

organisers to:

Increase

comprensión

and improve

recall of factual

information

Organise and

manage

observations,

research and

opinions

Problem solve

and integrate

their thinking

reading and

writing

processes

Show

understanding

of written

information,

organise ideas

to make

posters.

Practice HOTS

and apply the

skills to real-life

situtations

Support

listening to /

following an

explanation by

the teacher

Understand

how pieces of

information are

related Support their

speaking about

some

information

Students use

graphic

organisers to:

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6.2. WHY USE GRAPHIC ORGANISERS?

Learners need “process skills” to interact successfully with content.

Learners need to develop “thinking skills” (LOTS and HOTS) as well as language skills.

How learners interact with content relies on the development of “process skills”

For example, in science:

- Preparing for task: questioning, predicting

- Carrying out task: gathering and recording evidence by observing and using information sources

- Reviewing/reporting on task: interpreting evidence and drawing conclusions, communicating and reflecting

On the carry out stage: at this stage the recording and interpretation of evidence or data, known as data-handling, is an

important stage.

The ability to put information into categories can be encouraged by using graphic organizers, or visual representation of data.

- They reduce the cognitive and linguistic load for the learner allowing them to focus on the key aspects of the ideas

involved.

- Organizers show learners how information is related, rather than organised as isolated facts.

- Learners are more likely to remember the content when it is presented with clear colours, shapes and/or images

(Glyphs & pictograms for young learners for example / mindmaps, flowchart, or graphs for older learners).

- They provide the necessary scaffolding that is critical to content based learning.

- They engage learners in more active learning and consequently increase learner motivation.

* See Appendix: Why use graphic organisers?

PART 7: LANGUAGE USED IN CLIL 7.1. TYPES OF LANGUAGE

7.1.1. LANGUAGE OF LEARNING - It is content-obligatory language. Subject specific.

* See Appendix: The Language by Subject.

7.1.2. LANGUAGE THROUGH LANGUAGE

It is not content-obligatory. It is not a language to support learning but it is the language they can learn in addition during the

lesson. It is the “cherry on the cake”. It is language students may choose to learn. It is peripheral / cultural-embedded language.

It makes the students’ language richer.

7.1.3. LANGUAGE FOR LEARNING

It is content-compatible language. It is the language the students need outside the classroom. It is functional language to

support learning. It allows students to express learning, to communicate, to follow instructions or to give instructions.

Certain activities require more content-obligatory language than others. We need to be aware of the type of language needed

for each activity and pre-teach some vocabulary if necessary.

For instance, in the pyramid of thinking process, where the HOTS are at the top and the LOTS are at the bottom, we could say

that “three in a row” is a more content-obligatory activity and “thunks” are more functional-language like.

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The language of giving instructions is an example of Language for Learning. The main things to consider when planning/giving

instructions are:

- Grade language

- Remain consistent (use language learners will recognise as “instruction”).

- No overload learners – needs to know basis

- Break instructions down to optimize understanding

- Use clear/slow delivery

- Check instructions repeatedly throughout the process (Y/N questions)

- Use demo/examples

- Use gesture/mime

- Involve learners

- Script instructions when not used to giving them in English

- Stretch the learners by adding “new” language as time goes on.

* See Appendix: Language for Learning

* See Appendix: Talks and Presentations

7.2. THUNKS

What are thunks? Thunks are frown from Independent Thinking’s work in Philosophy for Children and have been used with

thousands of young people to get them thinking deeply and critically.

They are questions where there are no rights or wrongs and they are hugely liberating for young people and generate levels of

thinking that you often don’t achieve with traditional “guess what’s in the teacher’s head” type question and answering where

there are right or wrong answers.

Examples of thunks are:

- is there more future or past?

- Is black a colour?

- If I switch the lights off does the wall change colour?

Have fun playing around with these “thought” at http://www.independenthinking.co.uk/Cool+Stuff/Thunks/default.aspx

* See Appendix: Thunks

PART 8: LESSON PLANNING

8.1. WHY DO WE PLAN LESSONS?

- to meet the students needs and cater for different styles - to avoid boredom of students - to be organised - to keep a record of what you have done - to control the time - to assess students performances - to create interesting classes and surprise the students - to fulfil the curriculum syllabuses - to set targets - to develop as a teacher - to take risk and enjoy - to structure your lesson: lead-in, task, revision

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- to collect materials - to plan for scaffolding - to support the lots and hots - to ensure quality - to incorporate different methods and resources - to be prepared to deliver the class.

It is not good not to prepare the class but some risk-taking is ok. However you feel more able to take risks when you have

prepared your class because you feel comfortable.

You must also be prepared to lessen the anxiety but if you are not following the plan because something interesting comes up,

we don’t need to worry. If you are not anxious you can be more creative.

Also, bear in mind that a lesson is not a collection of activities. It needs a lead-in, a task, etc.

When you start preparing a lesson you can do a mind-map.

A good metaphor or a lesson plan is a ROAD MAP. It may change directions but you know where you want to end up. It can also

be seen as a MENU A LA CARTE.

8.2. PAGE 1 OF A LESSON PLAN

Learning outcomes

(expressed in three lines)

- the aim. The students need to know…

- by the end of the lesson the students should be able to…

- the learners should be aware of…

List of different types of

activities

Resources

Language learning (which

lg are they acquiring?)

- In a CLIL plan, you must differentiate between content-obligatory and content-

compatible language

Thinking verbs in bloom’s

taxonomy

Assessment

* See Appendix: Page 1 of a lesson plan

* See Appendix: Page 1 of a lesson plan b

* See Appendix: Planning a Lesson

8.3. PAGE 2: PROCEDURE PAGE

This is the page where you explain the activities. In short, common denominators when planning lessons are:

1. Content

2. Teaching aims

3. learning outcomes:

o learners should know

o learners should be able to

o learners should be aware

4. Assessment: in relation to above (3)

o can the learners

5. Communication

o vocabulary: revisited/activated – new

16

o structures

o functions

6. in relation with above (5)

o examples of communication (interaction/task)

7. Cognition (cognitive skills) and examples

8. Resources

o materials (sources), activities

9. procedure:

o sequence of stages and steps

* See Appendix: Lesson Plan Procedures

8.4. EXAMPLE OF A CLIL LESSON

As an example of a CLIL lesson, let’s take “The History of Money”

Start by engaging the students and establishing the topic with a lead-in activity. It must be quick and effective in establishing the

topic and it can’t be demanding.

For example, show a bank-note or a coin and ask what it is for.

Then, pre-teach vocabulary. It should be student led or S-S. You can play a word-definition game, use realia, elicit the vocabulary

from the students, play the “odd one out” (this is critical thinking because you have to justify. It is also analysing and evaluating

thinking too).

The activity will held around a text with gaps.

Task 1: skimming – get the general idea/gist of the text. 2 minutes to read the text and try to remember 3 or 4 facts about the

text.

Task 2: Fill in the gaps. Understand the text. Detailed / demanding task.

Task 3: Reading comprehension questions. The level of challenging mustn’t be very high. So, questions should not be difficult to

answer. If you’d like to challenge the students a bit more, they could answer the questions in pairs without looking at the text or

you can make the last question a bit more difficult.

Task 4: Follow-up activity with a HOT activity.

- Ask the students to do a survey to find out what teenagers spend their money on and ask them to do a report, a

composition or a presentation on that.

- Lead a discussion on “the danger of credit: is it best cash or credit card?” and follow it with a writing or a presentation.

- Ask the students to do a summary in groups.

- Imagine or hypnotise: Life in the future. Create a new means of payment and do a presentation to explain it.

* See Appendix: Example – Challenging prejudice and discrimination.

* See Appendix: Example – The History of Money Worksheet

* See Appendix: Example – Geography Lesson

* See Appendix: Example - Ecosystems