Unit 1-16. CONTENT AND LANGUAGE INTEGRATED LEARNING
Section 1. Guidelines for reading texts on the use of English in European education
CLIL stands for Content and Language Integrated Learning. It refers to teaching subjects such as science, history and geography to students through a foreign language. This can be done by the English teacher using cross-curricular content or by the subject teacher using English as the language of instruction. Both methods result in the simultaneous learning of content and English. Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) is a term created in 1994 by David Marsh and Anne Maljers as a methodology similar to but distinct from language immersion and content-based instruction.
It's an approach for learning content through an additional language (foreign or second), thus teaching both the subject and the language. The idea of its proponents was to create an "umbrella term" which encompasses different forms of using language as medium of instruction. CLIL is fundamentally based on methodological principles established by research on "language immersion".
This kind of approach has been identified as very important by the European Commission because: "It can provide effective opportunities for pupils to use their new language skills now, rather than learn them now for use later. It opens doors on languages for a broader range of learners, nurturing self-confidence in young learners and those who have not responded well to formal language instruction in general education. It provides exposure to the language without requiring extra time in the curriculum, which can be of particular interest in vocational settings." The European Commission has therefore decided to promote the training of teachers to "..enhance the language competences in general, in order to promote the teaching of non-linguistic subjects in foreign languages".