This CLIL didactic unit designed by Roberto San Juan García focuses on Berlioz's Harold in Italy. The unit aims to help students differentiate between instrument families, understand how instruments produce sound, develop active listening skills, and understand programmatic music. Students will review string, woodwind, brass, and percussion instruments. They will also learn about programmatic music and active listening. The unit incorporates vocabulary learning and activities like musical analysis and creative listening. It is organized over five 50-minute classes involving individual work, small groups, and presentations.

1. Design a CLIL didactic unit
Subject: Music Teacher: Roberto San Juan García
Title of the Unit: Travelling music. Listening to Berlioz’s Harold in Italy
Course / Level: 3rd
ESO
1. Learning outcomes
/ Evaluation criteria
To differentiate between timbres and instrument families.
To understand how sound is produced in different instrument families.
To develop students’ active listening skills.
To understand what programmatic music is.
2. Subject Content Instrument families (review): string, woodwind, brass, percussion
Programmatic music.
Active listening.
How to describe, relate a story using music.
3. Language Content / Communication
Vocabulary Nouns: string, woodwind, brass, percussion, keyboard, pitch, plot,
character, setting, nature, solo, moto theme, accompaniment,
movement, pilgrim, section, instrumentation, ….
Adjectives: high, low, loud, soft, melancholic, happy, wild, slow, fast,
restless,….
Verbs: feel, travel, hear, think, rush, reply, wish, …..
Structures (Verb+preposition): This instrument is made of….
(Passive voice): The sound is produce by vibration of…
(Retell a story): Once upon a time…./This story is about…./The main
character is…./Everything happened in….
Discourse type Narration and description
Language skills Listening (both music and English language), reading, speaking and
writing (at the end of the unit students will be asked to write their own
story).

2. 4. Contextual (cultural)
element
The violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini asked Berlioz to write a piece of
music so that he could play a Stradivarius viola that he had and wanted
to show off. Berlioz wrote not a concerto but a symphony with an
understated solo line for viola. Finding his part "too full of rests",
Paganini begged off. Later, he heard the piece and was very impressed,
but he never played it.
Not only Paganini but Lord Byron too inspired this work thanks to the
fascination of the romantic hero Childe Harold.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is a lengthy narrative poem written by the
poet George Gordon, Lord Byron. It was published between 1812 and
1818 and is dedicated to "Ianthe", the term of endearment he used for
Charlotte Harley (the artist Francis Bacon's great-great-grandmother).
The poem describes the travels and reflections of a world-weary young
man who, disillusioned with a life of pleasure and revelry, looks for
distraction in foreign lands; in a wider sense, it is an expression of the
melancholy and disillusionment felt by a generation weary of the wars
of the post-Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras. The title comes from the
term childe, a medieval title for a young man who was a candidate for
knighthood.
Once the students are aware of the program that is behind of this
music, they will be asked to share with their partner their experiences
about feeling melancholy and disillusionment, so that they will feel
closer to the music and will be able to make connections about Harold´s
mood and their own´s.
5. Cognitive (thinking)
processes
Perception
Memory
Active practice in L2.
6. (a) Task(s) Instrument families (review)
Describing sounds
Active listening
6. (b) Activities Musical analysis
Creative listening
7. Methodology
Organization and class
distribution / timing
Individual work
Work in small groups of 2-3 students
Presentations for the whole class.
Timing: five 50-minute classes
Resources / Materials Computer with internet connection

3. 4. Contextual (cultural)
element
The violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini asked Berlioz to write a piece of
music so that he could play a Stradivarius viola that he had and wanted
to show off. Berlioz wrote not a concerto but a symphony with an
understated solo line for viola. Finding his part "too full of rests",
Paganini begged off. Later, he heard the piece and was very impressed,
but he never played it.
Not only Paganini but Lord Byron too inspired this work thanks to the
fascination of the romantic hero Childe Harold.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is a lengthy narrative poem written by the
poet George Gordon, Lord Byron. It was published between 1812 and
1818 and is dedicated to "Ianthe", the term of endearment he used for
Charlotte Harley (the artist Francis Bacon's great-great-grandmother).
The poem describes the travels and reflections of a world-weary young
man who, disillusioned with a life of pleasure and revelry, looks for
distraction in foreign lands; in a wider sense, it is an expression of the
melancholy and disillusionment felt by a generation weary of the wars
of the post-Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras. The title comes from the
term childe, a medieval title for a young man who was a candidate for
knighthood.
Once the students are aware of the program that is behind of this
music, they will be asked to share with their partner their experiences
about feeling melancholy and disillusionment, so that they will feel
closer to the music and will be able to make connections about Harold´s
mood and their own´s.
5. Cognitive (thinking)
processes
Perception
Memory
Active practice in L2.
6. (a) Task(s) Instrument families (review)
Describing sounds
Active listening
6. (b) Activities Musical analysis
Creative listening
7. Methodology
Organization and class
distribution / timing
Individual work
Work in small groups of 2-3 students
Presentations for the whole class.
Timing: five 50-minute classes
Resources / Materials Computer with internet connection

4. Feel free to use this template. Thanks for attributing the source.
A first sample of this template has been published at:
Pérez Torres, I. 2009. "Apuntes sobre los principios y características de la metodología AICLE" en V.
Pavón, J. Ávila (eds.), Aplicaciones didácticas para la enseñanza integrada de lengua y contenidos.
Sevilla: Consejería de Educación de la Junta de Andalucía-Universidad de Córdoba.171-180.
It is mainly based on the hands-on experience at designing units and on conversations with
experts and peers. The theory of the 4Cs by Do Coyle has also been taken into account. This
theory has been shown in various publications, such as: Coyle, D., Hood, P. and Marsh, D.,
2010. Content and Language Integrated Learning. Cambridge University Press.