CLIL For Teachers And Teams: Recent Episodes
Patrick De Boer
My name is Patrick and I am a CLIL teacher trainer, coach and maths teacher. In this podcast I'll share my thoughts, ideas and experiences on both CLIL training and teaching. Want to find it out more about CLIL or how I can help you become even better CLIL teachers or teams? You can find me at www.clilmedia.com. Enjoy!
Do you use CLIL with primary school kids? This is an episode for you!
Linton Roe is not just an expert on implementing CLIL with primary students, he also has extensive experience with students who can't read or write (yet). In other words, most CLIL activities I can think of don't work with this target audience.
I had a great time with Linton as he shared his way of working with students this age, I am sure you can hear his enthusiasm as you listen to this episode.
Enjoy!
During this second interview with Phil Ball we continued our conversation on implementing skills and competencies in CLIL. We also talked about the role of CLIL in relation to the latest Pisa-Panic in the Netherlands. As always, Phil is a great sparring partner and very willing to share his knowledge (and enthusiasm) on implementing CLIL in the classroom. Enjoy this episode!
On March 13 I will host another free mini-workshop "The 5 steps to engaging CLIL lessons" for which you can register at www.clilmedia.com/webinar. Looking forward to meeting you live!
Is bilingual good for you? And why?
And what effect does having a native speaker in your teacher team have on the quality of CLIL lessons?
These are just a couple of questions Lola Lopez Navas and I discussed during this episode. We also discussed the complicated way education is organised in Spain and the way CLIL education started. Hopefully, this becomes a bit more clear at the end of this episode ;).
On 13 March I host another online mini-workshop "Five steps to more engaging CLIL lessons without spending more time". Sign up for free at www.clilmedia.com/webinar.
Enjoy this episode!
In this episode, I interview Sabine van Esch, who is not only a CLIL coach but also recently finished her research on the impact of CLIL on motivation during history. An interesting topic I though was worth talking about!
At the end of the episode, I mention the mini-workshop you can sign up for at www.clilmedia.com/webinar.
What role do images play in a CLIL context? And how can you help students be aware of that to support their learning?
That is primarily what Michele and I talked about, but as always, we also talked about a lot of other things because we both just enjoy talking CLIL :).
About Michele C. Guerrini:
Michele C. Guerrini teaches at the Universidad de Alcalá de Henares Masters in TEFL, and develops CLIL science, geography and history projects for educational publishers. She is co-author of Learning Lab: Social Science (Santillana) and co-editor of CLIL across educational levels (Richmond). She is currently exploring A.I. tools for education.References mentioned in this episode:
Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition – Univ. of MinnesotaScaffolding techniques in CBI classrooms.(2004). http://carla.umn.edu/cobaltt/modules/strategies/scaffolding_techniques.pdf
Cloud Community College. Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy Process Verbs, Assessments, and Questioning Strategies (n. d.). Based on Anderson, L. D. & Krathwohl, D. R. (2001). https://www.cloud.edu/Assets/pdfs/assessment/revised-blooms-chart.pdf
Mayer, Richard. Multimedia Learning. 2nd edition. Cambridge, 2009. Mayer, R. and Moreno, R. (1998). A cognitive theory of multimedia learning: implications for design principles. http://esoluk.co.uk/calling/pdf/chi.pdf
McTigue, E. and Croix, A. (2010). Visual Literacy in Science. ScienceScope, 17-22. http://aholt.pbworks.com/f/VisualLiteracyinScience.pdf
McTigue E. and Flowers, A. (2011). Science Visual Literacy: Learners’ Perceptions and Knowledge of diagrams. The Reading Teacher, 64(8), 578–589. DOI:10.1598/RT.64.8.3 http://reading763.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/70643303/Science%20Visual%20Literacy.pdf
Mehisto, P. (2012). Criteria for producing CLIL learning material. Encuentro 21, 15-33. http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED539729.pdf
Nelson, J. and Olander, C. (2022). Meaning-making of arrowsin a representation of the greenhouse effect. Journal of BiologicalEducation, DOI:10.1080/00219266.2021.2012229
Preston, C. (2018). Food webs: implicationsfor instruction. The American BiologyTeacher, 80(5), 331–338, ISSN 0002-7685. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324568211_Food_Webs_Implications_for_Instruction
With Brussels being a special city for multilingualism, I wanted to interview Jill Surmont who trains future teachers and does a lot of research on CLIL in Belgium.
During our talk, we discussed the Language Paradox (wondering what that is? Listen to the episode ;)), what makes CLIL special (and the answer was an eye-opener for me) and different bits of research that have recently been done in the field of CLIL.
Enjoy!
P.E. teachers might sometimes have a hard time finding materials for their CLIL lessons, as many books are written for more theoretical subjects. In this episode, I interview Christel de Jong, who has made it her mission to facilitate P.E. teachers in their CLIL lessons. During the interview, she shared many practical tips and insights for P.E. and other CLIL teachers. Enjoy!
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Christel's website: https://www.sportseducationtransformation.com/
Amazing PE lessons: https://www.amazingpelessons.com/
The series of articles on her trip to Canada (in Dutch):
Article 1
Article 2
Article 3
The first episode of 'season two' starts with a Special Episode: An interview with CLIL expert David Marsh.
During an hour we discussed various topics and I learned quite a few new things myself!
Topics like:
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What makes CLIL CLIL?
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Should we make the native speaker a special person in the organisation?
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Is L1 forbidden in a CLIL lesson and why/why not?
In the episode, we also discuss the upcoming Online CLIL Summit (www.onlineclilsummit.com) so be sure to have a look.
As for the paper mentioned by David, it turned out to be called "Reinventing the native speaker" by Paolo Escudero and Michael Sharwood Smith.
Enjoy!
In this episode I share a different way of opening your lesson: using diagnostic, formative questions. This is based on the idea of Craig Barton to use diagnostic questions to check for understanding, but you can also use it to activate prior knowledge at the same time.
I also share information on the Online CLIL Summit in October, more information can be found at www.onlineclilsummit.com.
This will be the last episode of this season. I will be back in September.
In a CLIL lesson, you promote language output. But then what? How do you deal with students who say something in English and maybe make a mistake?
In this episode, I discuss 6 different ways you can provide feedback on spoken output.
The information comes from two blog posts I published quite some time ago already:
How to provide effective feedback | Part 1
How to provide effective feedback | Part 2
In this episode, I share three practical lesson ideas that help to implement the idea of the Ebbinghaus retention curve. In other words: how to make sure students remember things better. And why this might be even more important in a CLIL lesson.
You can find the blog post for this episode here: https://www.clilmedia.com/why-repeating-things-really-does-work-in-a-clil-lesson/
Registering for the mini-workshop mentioned is possible here:https://www.clilmedia.com/miniworkshop
Resources mentioned on the Ebbinghaus curve:
https://www.bigrockhq.com/guru-insights-hermann-ebbinghaus-on-knowledge-fade/
https://methodsof.com/blog/the-ebbinghaus-forgetting-curve/
https://teachlikeachampion.org/blog/an-annotated-forgetting-curve/
In this episode, I discuss why some activities work better for certain teachers than others, based on the publication of Tom Sherrington: https://teacherhead.com/2023/04/28/technique-personality-and-values-or-why-i-wouldnt-ever-do-all-hands-up/
You can find the blog post that was written with this episode here: https://www.clilmedia.com/but-the-instruction-was-clear-right/
More information on the CLIL Implementation calls can be found here: https://www.clilmedia.com/implementation/
My blog post on "What is CLIL" was published in 2016, and some time has passed. All the more reason to have another look at this blog post and update it with a more practical approach to CLIL.
You can find the blog post that this episode refers to at https://www.clilmedia.com/what-is-clil-again/
The free training mentioned during this episode can be found at https://www.clilmedia.com/freetraining
What do you need to do to make sure your students do NOT learn a new language? In this episode, I share three things I think will do just that. All with the obvious purpose of making you aware of the things you might just want to focus on.
Want to respond to this episode? You can do so below this post: https://www.clilmedia.com/three-ways-to-make-sure-your-students-do-not-learn-a-new-language/
In this episode, I discuss something that has been bugging me for a while: the fact that I often hear only the positive sides of CLIL. As if teaching CLIL always results in 100% motivated students without any effort by both the student and the teacher. That is not true. I not only share my take on this but also share one reason why CLIL is often not working..and how one can go about solving this.
The blog post on this topic can be found at: https://www.clilmedia.com/clil-as-the-holy-grail-of-teaching/https://www.clilmedia.com/clil-as-the-holy-grail-of-teaching/
Alright, so you prepared your CLIL lesson. You made sure you implemented scaffolding, accommodated differentiation, activated prior knowledge and planned engaging activities and tasks. Only to find out your lesson doesn't quite go the way you planned it... In this episode, I share some thoughts on preparing a CLIL lesson that will hopefully help reassure you you are on the right track ;).
The blog post belonging to this episode is https://www.clilmedia.com/you-did-your-best/
The webinar mentioned in the episode can be found at https://www.clilmedia.com/webinar
For this 15th episode of the podcast, I interviewed Phil Ball (co-author of 'Putting CLIL into practice) and we talked about what role a CLIL activity plays in a CLIL lesson. We also briefly talked about the 'three dimensions of CLIL' and how this translates to practical CLIL lessons.
I had a blast, enjoy!
Teachers often discuss what happens in their lessons, thinking about the practical implementation of CLIL. I completely understand that. However, I think it is also important to think about why you do what you do every now and then.
In this episode, I discuss two models that can help you think about this 'why': The Golden Circle of Simon Sinek and The Ladder of Ben Tiggelaar.
In this episode, I discuss the challenges of teachers who just start out teaching in bilingual education. Often, there is little focus on actual CLIL training and teachers have to wing it. With all of the consequences of that..
The blog post belonging to this episode can be found here: https://www.clilmedia.com/english-first-clil-secondThe call for school leaders can be planned here: https://www.clilmedia.com/#tve-jump-178a72fe061
The coaching call for teachers can be planned here: https://calendly.com/patrickdeboer/clil-sparring-session
CLIL can do a lot of things, but it cannot solve every challenge you face as a teacher. And it might even be unwise to try and do that, as you might get demotivated to implement CLIL if it doesn't work. In this episode, I talk about two things CLIL can and two things CLIL cannot solve.
Links mentioned in this episode:
Book a free coaching call: https://calendly.com/patrickdeboer/clil-sparring-session
The blog post related to this podcast: https://www.clilmedia.com/what-clil-can-and-cannot-do
Ever wondered if students are up for the task you give them? I'm sure you have!
In this episode, I discuss a strategy you can implement to figure out how to best help your students actually understand!
The blog post related to this episode can be found here: https://www.clilmedia.com/my-students-cant-do-that/
And more information on the mentioned training can be found here: https://www.clilmedia.com/clil-in-het-nederlands/
CLIL is great. There, I said it. But CLIL can also be complex, overwhelming and altogether a little unclear. In this episode, I talk about what makes CLIL CLIL and why I think many of the things related to CLIL also work in non-CLIL lessons.
The blog post related to this episode can be found here: https://www.clilmedia.com/?p=8704
And more information on the mentioned training can be found here: https://www.clilmedia.com/clil-in-het-nederlands/
I know it only happens to me, but sometimes my lessons don't go quite as planned. In this episode, I share this experience, what I learned from that and how planning a CLIL lesson can help you save both time and energy.
You can find the blog post on this topic here: https://www.clilmedia.com/?p=8692
Last week I closed down the CLIL Club on Facebook, and I received quite a few responses on that. In this episode, I share some takeaways based on this experience.
With more and more CLIL teachers around, it is more likely more experienced teachers end up in a training session because they feel they might not learn something new anymore. I wonder though: is that actually true? In this episode, I share ideas on how to work with colleagues who might be reluctant at first.
You can find the blog post on this topic here: https://www.clilmedia.com/i-already-know-this-activity and if you are interested in working together to train your CLIL teachers you can contact me on my website: https://www.clilmedia.com/contact/
How many top priorities can your school have? And is bilingual education one of them? That is something I talk about in this episode of the CLIL for teachers and teams podcast!
Read the blog post at https://www.clilmedia.com/is-bilingual-education-still-on-top-of-mind-or-is-it-more-of-a-marketing-tool/
In this episode, I talk about the three different types of audiences you can either be yourself or recognise whenever you have a group of students in front of you. It can be important to realise what these three different types are because they require a different approach when it comes to learning and it can go a long way if you know how to motivate all three different types.
I am easily bored and suffer from 'shiny-new-object' syndrome. And I am sure I am not the only one. How do you go about making sure the people you work with are not that easily distracted? In my opinion, the key phrase here is 'involvement'.
In this episode, I discuss various ways to make teachers feel more involved with your organisation as well as different ways to increase student involvement in your lesson.
In this episode, I share some thoughts on dealing with a barrier to learning for students in bilingual education and some practical ideas on how to work with that in the lesson and as a team.
In this episode, I share my tips on how to increase student engagement during a CLIL lesson, both from a teacher's perspective and a coordinator/coach's perspective.
In this episode, I share my goals for this podcast and a little bit about me and my background, so you know who your host is. And I already mention my take on CLIL and what it should mean for teachers to implement this in their lessons, I just couldn't stop myself. Enjoy!