Practical N° 14

1. Practice II – Camila Roldán & Federico Ramonda
Practical N° 14
Deadline: 09/10/2014
I) After Reading www.clilcompendium.com, Chapter 5 “Opening windows for personal
achievement” by David Marsh et al and Chapter 4 on CLIL from “Towards a Didactics of
ELT at Primary School level”. Answer the following questions:
1) Which are the five dimensions of CLIL? Do they act in isolation?
David Marsh mentioned five fundamental dimensions that characterize CLIL as an
instructional approach: culture, environment, language, content and learning. Marsh et al.
(2001) pointed out that the dimensions should not be viewed as standing alone, because
they are usually heavily interrelated in CLIL practice. It is useful to distinguish the
dimensions because it allows to identify the separate, yet inter-locking reasons why CLIL is
implemented in diverse contexts.
2) Explain each of them in detail.
1. Culture dimension : contributes to the growth of intercultural knowledge resulting in
most of the cases in cultural understanding. Likewise, culture dimension helps to
introduce wider cultural context, learning at the same time about specific
neighboring countries, regions and minority groups. It emerges as a means to handle
issues relating to regional-political conditions where even if cross-border contact has
been minimal in the past, the future invites much greater contact. CLIL is used to
promote understanding and awareness through language-enhanced methodologies.
2. Environment dimension : CLIL prepares for internationalization. The programme
curriculum may be influenced by specific environmental needs or opportunities
identified in the institution. In the same way, thanks to this internationalization,
there is an international certification access. Students have preparation for future
studies or work that involves different languages, so they are ready to face any
culture with all the necessary skills to take an exam in which their proficiency is
valued. When integrating content and language, students have the opportunity to
acquire both Basic Interpersonal Communications Skills (BICS) and Cognitive
Academic Language Proficiency (CALPS) with the former being all the social language
skills and the latter the language skills to cope with academic requirements
(Cummins, 2000). Being able to communicate academically and socially opens new
borders and encourages students to explore and travel around the world.

2. Practice II – Camila Roldán & Federico Ramonda
3. Language dimension : CLIL is a significant approach to improve overall target
language competence. This focus stresses language competence in general and
therefore includes reading, writing, speaking and listening skills. In the same way,
this dimension provides opportunities to use the language as a tool to communicate.
This means that methods to be used are the ones that lead to a high degree of
interaction within the class. In such cases, it is not necessary for a teacher to have
native-like competence in the target language; what it matters is the ability to
interact and transmit knowledge by means of the target language.
4. Content dimension : CLIL is seen as helping to provide opportunities to study content
through different perspectives. Marsh et al (2001) claimed that “Languages, and the
cultures associated with them, sometimes reveal differing world-views that can be
seen in the ways in which some content is taught.” One obvious example lies in how
educational curricula in different countries may describe shared historical events.
However, traditions in the different disciplines can lead to significantly diverse ways
of approaching and understanding similar phenomena. CLIL enables learners to study
through these different perspectives that can lead to achieving a deeper
understanding of the subject matter. Tackling a topic from different perspectives
fosters critical thinking and broadens students’ perspectives on different issues. The
Moreover, the content dimension enables students to acquire specific target
language terminology. Students learn new lexicon in order to understand concepts or
express academic language accurately. CLIL is suitable for all levels of education,
from elementary to graduate or vocational to professional education.
5. Learning dimension : CLIL complements individual learning strategies. CLIL is
specifically geared to learner-centered methodologies that attempt to improve
learning by giving attention to individuals’ needs in terms of social and thinking skills.
Likewise, this Learning Dimension suggests that CLIL helps to increase learner
motivation which is at the heart of all education.

3. Practice II – Camila Roldán & Federico Ramonda
3) What are the advantages for acquisition/learning in young children?
CLIL follows basic insights into foreign language acquisition by young children, for
example that children can develop the use of two languages simultaneously until the age
when lateralization occurs. Thus, they have an enormous potential for cognitive and social
development.
Other positive aspects as regards CLIL approach which will make learning easier are
the concepts of comprehensible input and authenticity. Krashen and Biber call
comprehensible input to the fact that students have the background knowledge needed
thanks to their L1 which turns beneficial when working with the same content in English.
Authenticity refers to learning a foreign language that builds on content related to the rest
of the school curriculum. In this way it is authentic as opposed to artificial situations.
4) How do you think the following CLIL key terms interact in a CLIL lesson? Target
language, exposure, ICT, Intercultural knowledge and understanding, language
awareness, learning styles and learning strategies.

4. Practice II – Camila Roldán & Federico Ramonda
It is maintained that teaching school subject content by using the target foreign
language increases the amount of exposure the learner gets in the foreign language and
provides him with richer L2 input.
In classrooms, the most common scenario is to find various learning style
preferences which need to be taken into account as they can act as bridges that enhance
communication and learning.
5) How do visual organizers help to scaffold students’ learning? Provide graphic
examples.
The use of visual organizers such as webs, diamond frameworks or fishbone graphic
organizers will allow the students to classify, categorize or summarize the information
provided. By dividing long texts into chunks of meaningful information we favor the
understanding of our students.
6) Explain the impact of Bloom’s taxonomy to help students reach higher order
thinking. How can we achieve this at Primary School level?
In education circles, perhaps one of the most widely known models of critical thinking
is Bloom’s taxonomy. He states that all learners need to develop both lower and higher
thinking skills. The six levels of difficulty start with practical lower order thinking (eg,
labelling a diagram) and move upwards to more abstract and complex higher order skills
(eg, critical evaluation). However, not all teachers have found all levels of Bloom’s model
easy to use.
Creativity employs cognitive as well affective skills explained as fluency (ability to
generate ideas), flexibility (ability to change categories), originality (being able to come up
with a unique idea), and elaboration (expanding on one’s idea). Basically, teacher’s
intervention is needed to help students achieve these intellectual processes of observing,
interpreting, comparing, classifying, generalizing, inferring, analyzing, synthesizing, making
predictions and evaluating outcomes. In this way the teacher will be a guide who will
support learner’s critical thinking and who will help them develop their creativity.

5. Practice II – Camila Roldán & Federico Ramonda
II) Design a CLIL lesson plan for Primary School level. Follow this format to design the
class: Aims, content, language (lexis, grammar, functions, macroskills); preparation,
procedure, students’ production, extension.
Animals
Aims - Students will be able to talk about animals’ eating habits and their
appearance.
- They will know how to classify animals according to their structure
and their diet.
Content - Describing animals’ physical appearance and eating habits.
Language -
- Writing
- Reading
- Speaking
- Listening
- Names of animals
- Classification of animals
- Food of animals
- Parts of animals’ body
- Use of the verb to be
- Have got/ haven’t got
Preparation
Teachers will prepare one copy of the worksheet per pupil, so as they can complete the
activities there and then glue the worksheet on their notebooks. Also, teachers will save

6. Practice II – Camila Roldán & Federico Ramonda
the video that the children will watch in a flash drive or they can bring it in one of the
teachers’ computer.
Procedure
Warm –Up:
1) Watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtblQQvT2Nk
2) Teachers ask the students what animals did they see in the video and provide
names they may not know. After the names have been recovered, teachers ask
about student’s previous knowledge as regards animals’ classification. To help
them remember the teacher could ask some questions:
· Do you know the name of the animals who….
o Have got hair and breasts?
o Have got wings?
o Have got fins and gills?
o Eat other animals?
o Eat plants?
o Eat both animals and plants?
Main Activities:
a) Classify the animals under the correct column.
Wolf / camel / buck / baboon / ground-hog / lion / giraffe / rabbit / owl / parrot /
pigeon / ostrich / elephant /
Mammal Amphibian Reptile Fish Bird

7. Practice II – Camila Roldán & Federico Ramonda
b) What do they eat? Are these animals herbivorous, carnivorous or omnivorous?
1. Wolves eat elks, moose and caribou.
2. Camels eat grass.
3. Lions hunt baby elephants, giraffes and hippos.
4. Owls feed on insects.
5. Ostriches eat roots, leaves, insects and frogs and lizards.
c) Teachers will provide students a model of an animal’s description of physical
appearance and eating habits, making use of the structures presented at the beginning of
the lesson, so then they can choose one animal from the video they saw and write a short
description of it.
Students’ production: Teachers will divide the whole class into 5 (five) groups, assigning
each of them a category of animals from activity “a”. They will choose 1 (one) animal from
the category assigned to them, in order to produce a craft of the animal chosen and write
about its physical appearance and eating habits, so they can present their productions to
the rest of the class orally next week.