Abstract:

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) refers to any dual-focused educational context in which a foreign language is used as a medium in the teaching and learning of non-language content [1, 2]. Unfortunately, CLIL teaching uses to be adapted to local conditions like the educational system, organizational and personnel resources, the specific aims of CLIL education and their implementation, the learner profile, the learners’ needs, in addition to social and political considerations [4]. This implies the existence of a great amount of different varieties of CLIL teaching that are mainly applied to primary and secondary school levels.

At the Almeria University, a Plurilingualism Promotion Plan is being developed in order to integrate a foreign language (mainly English) into different university subjects. Also at the Almeria University an innovative educational group has been created in order to develop materials and to design activities for successfully apply the CLIL teaching into some subjects from the Informatics Advances Techniques Master degree [3].

The aim of this work is to describe the designed activities and our educational experience. The activities can be classified into the tasks to be developed to cover with the contents of the subjects, pre-tasks that help to introduce the students into the subjects and the post-tasks that are used to confirm or test that the students have understood the contents. [5] Next, we describe any examples of activities that could be proposed as pre-tasks and post-tasks to students in this context:

- Pre-tasks:
• Brainstorming
• Key vocabulary or Glossary
• Mental maps
• Gap filling
• Matching
• Watching videos
• Etc.

- Post-tasks:
• Multiple choice test
• Sequencing paragraphs
• Sentence-making
• Summarizing
• Find the wrong bits and rewrite
• Finding errors about learned contents
• Writing a report
• Oral production
• Etc.

The goal of these activities is to help students to develop simultaneously: (1) the competences related to the before mentioned subjects, and (2) the English language skills.

References:
[1] CLIL Cascade Network
http://www.ccn-clil.eu/index.php?name=Content&nodeIDX=3454
[2] Marsh, Langé (eds) Using Languages to Learn and Learning to Use Languages. http://www.clilcompendium.com/1uk.pdf
[3] M Hofmannová, J Novotná, R Pípalová, Assessment Approaches to Teaching Mathematics in English as a Foreign Language (Czech Experience). International CLIL Research Journal, Vol 1 (1) 2008.
[4] Netletter n°2. E-based Content and Language Integrated Learning Training. http://www.eclilt.net/newsletters/netletter2.PDF
[5] Lorenzo, F. (2008) Instructional discourse in bilingual settings. An empirical study of linguistic adjustments in Content and Language Integrated Learning. Language Learning Journal. 36 (1) 21-33.

Keywords:

Clil.