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Content and Language Integrated Learning
David Gonzalez Gandara
1 de mayo de 2010
The Action Plan for Language Learning
The European Commission, from its Action plan for Language
Learningand Linguistic Diversity[1] promotes, among other
iniciatives, the teachingof content areas in school using official
European languages other than thestudents mother tongue. It is
clear that this action will foster the ability tocommunicate of
European citizens in the future, provided they acquire com-petence
in more than one official European language. Content and
LanguageIntegrated Learning is deeply related with the language
policies of the Com-mission, as long as one of the main objectives
of the Planis the knowledge
of owns mother tongue plus two other languages.
New methods
The use of a language other than the students mother tongue in
theteaching of content areas may lead to achieve some other
objectives the Com-mission is aiming for Education in general. The
fact that the students do notmaster the language used in these
subjects may well force teachers to lookfor new methods, more
centered on the students interests and motivations,
in a way that they can attract their attention more easily.
Affordability
Some criticism has been made in my community about the real
possi-bilities of putting Content and Language Integrated Learning
into practice.Spain, and specially Galicia are deeply affected by
the economic crisis of the
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recent years, and some people do not appreciate the increase on
the budget
for education that would be required in order to implement the
programs.But the truth is that some schools, each year more are
joining, are imple-menting the program with the resources they
already had. The requisite ofagreement by the students families is
easily achieved in most of the cases. Itmay not be possible to
carry out Language and Content Integrated Learningon every school,
but it is likely to be a fact in a big number of them.
What languages are present
One logical consequence about implementing the programs with the
re-sources schools already have is that the languages available are
only theones that have been taught as a subject until this moment.
In most of theschools, only English is available, specially in the
case of primary schools,where French has not been taught for the
last decade. Secondary schoolsusually have the possibility of CLIC
experiences in English and French. Afew very big schools may have
German or Portuguese teachers available. Therest of Europe official
languages are not very likely to be present on Spanishschools.
Conclusion
Although there are some limitations, it seems that CLIL is being
success-ful in Spain. There is a long way to run, teachers and
students motivationsand possibilities have not reached their limits
yet.
References
[1] Commission, E. Communication from the commission to the
council,
the european parliament, the economic and social committee and
thecommittee of the regions. Brussels, 2003.
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