CONTENT AND LANGUAGE INTEGRATED LEARNING

Martha Adriana Maza Calviño (CV)
mmaza@uaslp.mx
Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí

Resumen

Después de definir lo que es el Aprendizaje Integrado de Contenidos y Lenguas Extranjeras (CLIL, por sus siglas en inglés), se mencionarán algunas ventajas y desventajas de él y la autora dará su opinión personal acerca de cada una de ellas. Se tratará de encontrar una respuesta a la pregunta: ¿Es realmente "CLIL" el enfoque del futuro? Lo anterior se tratará de hacer presentando un juicio justo donde tanto las posturas locales como las internacionales sean tomadas en cuenta y la autora relacionará éstas a su experiencia actual vinculándolas con el lugar donde trabaja en México.

Palabras clave: Enfoque, Contenido, Ventajas, Desventajas, Enseñanza

Abstract

After having defined what CLIL is, some of the advantages and disadvantages will be mentioned and the author will give her personal opinion about each of them. An answer to the question: Is CLIL really the approach for the future? will try to be found. The above will try to be done by presenting a fair trial where both local and international settings are taken into consideration and relating them to her current experience where she works in Mexico.

Key words: Approach, Content, Advantages, Disadvantages, Teaching

• INTRODUCTION

CLIL, or Content and Language Integrated Learning, “is an umbrella term covering teaching contexts in which subject content is taught through another language.” (Kay Bentley, 2009:9). It has a lot to do with language immersion. The term was created by David Marsh in 1994 and consists in learning a foreign language through learning a subject in that language, for example, learning History in English in a Spanish-speaking country.
It is a very effective way of developing communicative competence. Which is why this approach is growing so fast in so many European countries, but the question is if it is appropriate to use it in Mexico. In the following text, I will try to answer that question.

There are many different types of CLIL programs, ranging from full immersion (Canada) through partial immersion, about 50% of the curriculum (parts of Spain), to language showers and regular 20-30 minute subject lessons in the target language (parts of Germany). In Secondary schools, subjects are usually taught in the target language by non-native speaker subject or language teachers. In Primary context, CLIL programs are commonly delivered by non-native subject specialists or by English language teachers. In some countries native speaker classroom assistants support the learners too. There are also contexts where native speakers teach English to non-native learners (often from minority language groups) to enable them to integrate into mainstream classes. Examples of these programs are EAL (English as an Additional Language in Britain) and CBI (Content Based Instruction in the US).  Taken from: Teaching Knowledge Test – Content and Language Integrated Learning.

         Teachers’ Advantages of adopting a CLIL approach may include:

So, CLIL can be applied taking into account a local reality and it will fit into a particular school context, which is surely an advantage. The possibilities of building an exclusive material are enormous, even the possibility of choosing a weak or strong version of it, according to each needs.
As you can see here, I disagree with “exportability” being a disadvantage.

In my own experience, at the University where I work, there is a high rate of students who fail subjects related to their own Major. The reason for this is unknown to me, it can be the curricular design, it could be the teachers, it could be many things. But if this happens in the learners’ mother tongue, I am not so sure how prepared they are to do this in an L2.
Culturally speaking, I think in Mexico we are not prepared to have a curricular subject in a second language because the system is so badly designed, it would be in detriment of the students.

Thus, from my point of view, the “Trojan Horse” argument isn´t totally valid once CLIL does not intend to take out any “unwanted” language but to offer the chance to teach relevant content through the use of a relevant language, sometimes the main one spoken in that country,  expanding students’ knowledge.

Having exposed the advantages and disadvantages of CLIL I came up to the conclusion that CLIL is still not the approach for the future, at least not for Mexico. We still need to patch all these problems mentioned above and to see if the advantages overcome the drawbacks in our setting.
Currently, I would not use it in my working environment since the University where I work would need to change the whole curricula.
This will take time and money and huge efforts that maybe are worth it but we and our students are not culturally prepared.
The lack of teachers and trainers and materials would be a big drawback.
CLIL has very good points but it is not appropriate for every country or system. Efforts and studies should continue to be made in order for it to be successful.

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