Teaching Other Subjects Through English

reviewed by Judit Fehér, Hungary

Judit Fehér is a teacher, teacher trainer and materials writer based in Hungary. Her main professional interests are creativity in language teaching and task-based, content-based learning. She is co-author of Creative Resources with Bonnie Tsai. She is a Pilgrims trainer, who also runs CLIL courses. E-mail: jfeher@enternet.hu

I don't know how it is with you, but when I take a new teacher's resource book in my hands, I have two conflicting expectations: I'd like the book to make my life easier, and I'd like the book to professionally challenge me. Rare are the books that can do both at the same time. The new book of two long-time Pilgrims trainers, Sheelagh Deller and Chris Price is of this rare kind. Let me tell you why I think so.

Teaching a subject through a foreign language -, which is often referred to as Content-Language Integrated Learning, or CLIL for short - combines the challenges of teaching a content subject with the challenges of teaching a foreign language. The questions we need to answer when preparing for a CLIL lesson will include both language-related and subject-related questions: How can I present the new subject content in a meaningful way through the foreign language? How can I teach my students words that stand for concepts that are new to them and they would not know in their mother tongue either? How much can I use the mother tongue so that it helps my students to learn both the subject content and the language and it does not become an obstacle to learning? What can I do if my class has language level differences as well as differences in subject-related skills and knowledge? How can I help my students to tackle complex texts? How can I help them to remember the content, and make the information their own so that they can use it to solve problems? How can I help my students to express their content-related knowledge and ideas both in speaking and in writing during the lessons and in testing situations, too? Because of the added difficulty of using a foreign language in a content subject, learners will need more repetitions and revisions. What can I do not to bore them so that they remain interested and motivated? And finally but most importantly, what can I do to make sure that their self-esteem is boosted and that they enjoy the doubled difficulty of learning a subject through a foreign language?

The above list of questions is far from being complete, which shows how great the challenge is that CLIL teachers and trainers need to face. Chris and Sheelagh's book makes our life easier as it gives us very practical, classroom-tested and adaptable activities we can take directly into the CLIL classroom no matter if we have come to CLIL from language teaching or subject teaching. These activities usually help us answer more than just one of the basic questions above as we are preparing our lessons. The activities are organised into chapters that refer to stages in the lesson and language skills the activities are designed to improve, so it is easy to find an activity type you need as you are planning your lesson. The chapters include: Giving new information, Teaching and activating key vocabulary, Speaking, Writing, Consolidation and revision, Using supplementary resources and Project work. All the activities are clearly explained in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step manner, all of them complete with a demo subject example, a list of possible content areas the activity structure can be used with different subjects, advice on how to use the activity with mixed-ability groups or when and how to use the mother tongue. The authors show us how to make things simple and manageable, how to break things down, simplify them, make the abstract visual, find chunks and key words, take notes, organise things around concepts or even turn learning into a whole-body experience and get the learners to be the words, to be the concepts themselves. All of the activities get the learners to actively participate in the learning process often in a playful manner. As the authors say, the learners "have to 'work for' the information rather than trying to take it in passively." This will keep them motivated and interested, give them time to study for real understanding and learn co-operatively with their peers. At the same time, organising the learning process in this leaner-centred way decreases stress levels for both the learner and the teacher as they are not 'put on spot', they are not forced to perform in front of the whole class if they are not ready either linguistically or content-wise. They can move on from one success of completing a manageable task to another learning from and helping each other.

This is our CLIL life made a lot easier, isn't it? So where is the challenge I have promised? I have found it in two things: Firstly, the adaptability and flexibility of these activities mean that we have an endless task of finding out where they are best used in our own contexts, which subject, what level and content. The other challenge is the inspiration we get from them to venture out and look into the methodologies of language teaching and teaching different subjects and see how we could also combine strategies used in them and come up with similarly flexible, adaptable and enjoyable activities ourselves.

As I said at the beginning, this resource book is of a rare kind. As I see it, this is largely the result of a clear understanding on the authors' part of the difficulties CLIL students and teachers need to face on a daily basis and of what works in the classroom. So more than anything else Teaching Other Subjects Through English is REAL: real contents from real teachers to real students in real classrooms through real language. A real help and a real challenge.

Please check the CLIL - Teaching Other Subject Through English course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the What's New in Language Teaching course at Pilgrims website.