Children learn best through discovery and understanding concepts with each other, not just from the teacher. Lessons should engage multiple senses and connect the mind and body while considering emotions. Learning takes different forms and uses various styles to express creativity and ingenuity. Both children and teachers are ambitious in what they can achieve together. Primary CLIL lessons should be engaging, have a valuable productive outcome, allow social exploration and discovery, and explore universally important human topics.

1. Principles for CLIL planning
1. Understanding and discovery is actively created by children. It is not learning passively
accepted by children.
2. Understandingand discovery happens between children rather than between teacher and
child.
3. An effective lesson encourages the child to use as many senses as possible and connects
mindand body.Itrecognisesthe importance of the emotionsof learningandunderstanding.
4. Learning,understanding,ingenuity and creativity are expressed in a wide variety of forms.
These draw on as many learning styles as possible in a lesson.
5. Children and teachers are ambitious for what they can achieve together
Primary CLIL should be
A. Engaging: children are fascinated, intrigued, enthused by what they make and do
B. Productive: the outcome of our work is of value to us and gives us pride
C. Sociable: children explore, discover and create together
D. Human : the curriculum explores matters of universal human importance relevant to all
children in the class
…everything we ask a child to do in school should be something that’s intrinsically worth
doing, something we ourselves would be proud to do well.
PhilipPullman:The Guardian5 June 2003
By Diana Hicks