Teacher’s Guide on CLIL Methodology in Primary Schools – 2 volumes

Teacher’s Guide on CLIL Methodology in Primary Schools – Volume 1 – ENG (pdf – 2 MB)

Teacher’s Guide on CLIL Methodology in Primary Schools – Volume 2  – 15 Lesson Plan Package – ENG (pdf – 11 MB)

The Teacher’s Guide on CLIL Methodology in Primary Schools (hereafter called the Guide) is a 2-volume practical introduction to CLIL for (Foreign Language and Content) teachers who know nothing or only very little about CLIL. Its aim is aligned with three major objectives of the C4C project: to support teachers to deliver high quality teaching, to enhance digital integration in learning and teaching, and to improve mastery of English at EU level.

The Guide is inspired by local research into the needs and conditions of the partners in an Erasmus+ funded project called CLIL for CHILDREN: Italy, Poland, Portugal and Romania. C4C Questionnaire respondents indicated that they would appreciate being provided with an easily accessible course on CLIL methodology that would offer comprehensive training in how to develop primary school CLIL materials and lesson plans effectively. The course adopts a hands-on approach and demonstrates through practical examples how to develop CLIL materials and lesson plans, specifically designed for primary school use.

‘Primary education’ refers to teaching and learning situations where, for the most part, one teacher teaches all ‘subjects’ to her own class or group of children aged up to 12 in certain European countries. In certain contexts primary education already includes the notion of subject areas taught independently, as is the case, for example, for primary CLIL in some countries. Teaching in primary  is often by ‘topic’ or ‘project’ based, among other models, and the teacher draws implicitly on different disciplines and ‘subjects’ to render children’s ‘meeting with the world’ more systematic (Byram, 2007).

The Guide is also developed from previous project products, all available for download at www.clil4children.eu, namely:

• A State of the Art Report (C4C, 2016) about use of CLIL Methodology in Primary Schools in the above mentioned countries

• A Guide to OER (Open Educational Resources) on CLIL for Primary Schools (C4C, 2016)
• Guidelines on How to Develop CLIL Materials and Lesson Plans in Primary Schools (C4C, 2017)

• Guidelines on How to Use CLIL in Primary Schools (C4C, 2017)
• C4C 15 Lesson Plan Package (C4C, 2017), which is integrated in volume 2 of the Guide.

There are many diverse school frameworks across European countries. This Guide supports diversity in CLIL organisation, content and intensity, but not in what concerns the choice of language. The Guide focuses exclusively on English as the foreign language to be integrated with three subject area contents in primary education (5 to 12 year-old students): Science, Geography and Mathematics.

The Guide is addressed to in-service teachers (English teachers, generalist primary teachers and specialist teachers of Science, Geography, and Mathematics). The Guide can be used as complementary to face-to-face and distance in-service teacher training or be used by teachers involved in CLIL at their convenience.  So, if you have been involved in some CLIL experiments or training in the past, you may wish to concentrate only on the parts of this Guide that are useful to your CLIL planning and monitoring.

The aim of the Guide is to list examples of good practice and provide practical worksheets in order to:

• Help teachers plan CLIL learning activities with students.
• Help teachers observe students’ behaviour and learning.
• Help teachers monitor the results of CLIL learning sequences.

The volume 1 of the Guide is divided into the following parts:

1. Introduction: a CLIL approach in Primary Education
2. Effective CLIL methodologies
3. Some principles and language for CLIL lesson planning
4. Planning CLIL lessons
5. Scaffolding Resources & Materials for CLIL
6. Monitoring & Assessment in CLIL

Volume 2 of the Guide includes the 15 Lesson Plan Package with teacher notes developed for the C4C project by dedicated CLIL teachers, researchers, and teacher trainers.

In each part there will be tables for quick reference, brown boxes with advice, suggestions, and examples, as well as a review check questionnaire at the end of each Part for users to revise concepts presented in each part.

You will also find a Glossary of the terms used in the Guide for quick reference at the beginning of volume 1.