Language Integrated Education

A NEW WAY OF LINGUISTIC ADQUIITION: CLIL METHOD

INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS CLIL?

From bees to humans, communication has played an important role since the beginning of time. The acquisition of a new language was already essential in the past to establish borders after a war, to sign peace treaties or even to trade. Our current society is not an exception and it could even be said that, the use of a second language is more indispensable now than ever.

For several years, the educational systems of many countries have stressed the importance of languages. The European Union has developed linguistic policies that have been already applied by Member States. The Common European Framework provides a common basis for the elaboration of language syllabuses,

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is a dual-focused approach in which an additional language is used for the learning and teaching of both content and language (Coyle, Hood & Marsh, 2010). This approach involves learning subjects such as history, geography or others, through an additional language (Marsh, 2000). Thus, these programmes use the foreign language as the medium for learning the content of several courses rather than concentrating on the language as the object of the course (Ruiz de Zarobe,

Moreover, with this concrete programme, the students put into practise four different skills in a real situation and, not as in the case of English classes, where the situation is fictitious, given by the book. The issues covered in the project can be taught in any high school of Spain, and probably in any country of European Union, and, of course, we cannot forget the fact that in this project the students have to interact orally, which is, maybe, the most necessary and feared skill at the same time.

CONCLUSIONS: WHY CLIL?

Educational systems have to be adapted to young generation; the new technologies or the process of globalization have changed our way of life. Nowadays, the aim of language learning should not be speaking as a native; but it is being able to interact with everyone in different situations and contexts, which is, in my opinion, what our society demands, so, new forms of learning and teaching languages are needed.

According to Marsh (2011), on the one hand, what CLIL can offer is a natural situation for language development which builds on other forms of learning. Young children seem so good at picking up language is often to do with the naturalness of the environment around them. In a language classroom, learners work with structures,