In the second part of Aiming high with CLIL, Rosie Tanner and Liz Dale, authors of CLIL Activities, discuss a variety of ways to write language aims for the CLIL classroom.
Content aims
Most CLIL subject teachers are probably familiar with and skilled in formulating content aims for their students. But how do you write language aims?
Write aims at your students’ level
Write aims at the level of your learners so that they understand them. If your students are beginners (at level A2 on the CEFR), an appropriate aim would be You can pronounce these words: triangle, square, rectangle and pyramid. Students at a higher level (B2) would understand an aim like this: You can write a report for a safety committee, including visuals on an investigation into the average distance learners in their year travel to school every day. (Dale and Tanner, 2012: 71). The English Profile shows you which words learners use at each of the CEFR levels.
In this post, we’re talking about four ways of writing language aims – at word, sentence and text level, and in terms of language skills.
Word level
CLIL students are continually learning new vocabulary, so you will easily think of vocabulary aims like We are learning to identify and name the different processes of erosion or We are learning to recognise words relating to the structure of organisms, e.g. organ, tissue, cell. It’s a good idea to choose words which
– are very common (see the 2000 most frequent words)
– can have different meanings in different settings (e.g. cell in biology and maths)
– are in the academic word list
– are important for understanding a text (check by covering the word to see if you can ignore it)
Think, too, about whether you want your students to recognize or actually use the words, and share that information with them. However, have you thought about language beyond vocabulary? Read on.
Sentence level
Every piece of written or spoken input demonstrates the use of grammar (such as the past tense, the imperative, comparatives), or a language function (such as comparing, expressing possibility or persuading). When writing sentence level aims, think about how students will put words or phrases together or the type of sentence that they need to use, as well as the grammar. For example, We are learning to understand how comparatives are used in a text comparing two Modernist paintings or We are learning to use the present tense to explain possible solutions to global warming. Ask English teacher colleagues for support in identifying the grammar or functions in your materials. If you’re not sure which grammar to choose, pick a structure which:
– is similar to one in your students’ first language, but used differently in English
– may cause confusion with native speakers if used incorrectly
– students often make mistakes with
– students avoid using and is very common in your subject
Text level
At the text level, providing a purpose (e.g. persuading, giving an opinion, comparing), a text type (e.g. a brochure, a magazine article, an advertisement) and an audience (for example, magazine readers, patients in a doctor’s waiting room) helps. For example, Students can write a flyer of 500 words for a music or drama performance or Students can write instructions for a short sports exercise for a class of 12-year olds warming up for their street dance lesson. Your students know what they are writing, who for and why!
Language Skills
Formulate your language aims around the language skills of reading, listening, watching, speaking and writing. When we work with CLIL subject teachers, they often come up with aims like We are learning to write or We are learning to speak. These aims are extremely vague and do not help your students to understand what they are learning. Try to be more specific, for example:
- We are learning to recognise topic specific vocabulary about the Renaissance (reading or listening)
- We are learning to talk about and name key people, concepts and places related to the Renaissance (speaking)
- We are learning how to extract specific information about energy from a text (reading)
- We are learning to speak fluently and to pronounce the sound ‘th’ for presentations (speaking).
Good luck with writing complete and specific CLIL aims for your students!
If you missed it, here’s the first article in Liz’s 2 part series.
A version of this blog was published in article form by Rosie Tanner and Jason Skeet in CLILmagazine.nl Fall 2014, pp. 18-19. You can find out more about Rosie and Liz’s book CLIL Activities on our website.