readers respond

CLI L . . . not only not immersion but

also more than the sum of its parts
Y.L.Teresa Ting
For one who has been navigating in uncertain CLIL (content and language
integrated learning) waters for almost a decade, it was a great pleasure to
read Lasagabaster and Sierras (2010) article in ELT Journal which clearly
states that CLIL is not immersion. I could not agree more. Not only is CLIL
not immersion, here, I would like to discuss how CLIL has the potential to
signicantly renovate both content education and language instruction
throughwhat I call a Core CLIL Construct: a way of reasoning. Inturn, this
Construct provides classroom teachers with three concrete CLIL
Operands: ways of proceeding. I would like to drawthe attention of the EFL
community tohowscienceeducators are usingthese same CLIL notions to
signicantly improve science education. Since EFL practitioners are in
a prime position to contribute to this effort to renovate twenty-rst century
education through CLIL, I list two reasons why the EFL community should
take note of CLIL.
With a PhD in neuroscience and almost 15 years researching rats brains, I
was offered the biochemists dream job of teaching Science in English to
Italianhighschool students brains withthe instructionuse CLIL. Without
concrete guidelines and being of a positivistic mindset, I interpreted the
acronym mathematically and began implementing CLIL science learning
contexts througha 50:50/content:language ratio(Ting 2010) whichattends
to both language and content as per Marsh (2005). If we look at only the
language component of this ratio, we have what I feel is a central way of
reasoningthe Core CLIL Constructwhich lies in the question, Whose
language? This core Construct thus focuses our attention on the process of
learning and not the act of teaching: CLIL obviously attends to how the
learnernot the teacher is acquiring, using, and mastering the foreign
language (FL). Inturn, this Construct automatically provides teachers three
very concrete ways of proceeding: three CLIL Operands. The rst twocome
fromthe fact that we have chosento use anFL for content education: rst of
all, as learners must acquire content knowledge through an FL for which
they have limited linguistic resources, the CLIL teacher must naturally
consider if the language of instruction is comprehensible. CLIL Operand 1
thus asks Do learners understand the language that I, the teacher, or the
book is using? Secondly, if the purpose of using an FL is so learners can
master it, we must cultivate not only the receptive skills of reading and
listening but also learners productive skills of speaking and writing. CLIL
ELT Journal; doi:10.1093/elt/ccr026 1 of 4
The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.
ELT Journal Advance Access published May 2, 2011

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Operand 2 thus asks Can learners use language effectively to obtain
information, negotiate understanding, discuss hypotheses, and
convey knowledge?
Therefore, no matter how perfect the teachers English, a teacher blabbing
about physics in English is not CLIL because CLIL attends to the learners
ability to use language. CLIL thus shifts classroom dynamics away from
teacher-centred lecturing to learner-centred learning. This alone is reason
for any education community to notice CLIL. But there is much more.
Although the two aforementioned Operands regard language instruction,
these catalyze an important change in content education. When a teacher
realizes that the input language must be comprehensible, it comes naturally
to also consider whether the input content is comprehensible. CLIL
Operand 3 thus asks Is the content presented in chewable and digestible
aliquots? The owchart inFigure 1 illustrates howthe Core CLIL Construct
coordinates the three CLIL Operands.
CLIL thus implements language-aware instruction which naturally leads to
content-aware education. Interestingly, that language-aware instruction
positively supports content-aware education was the focus of Science
(volume 328, April 2010) in which science educators extensively cited
Halliday and Martins (1993) landmark volume Writing Science, recognizing
that the language of science is alienating, if not downright annoying. In
fact, when our teachers adopted that concise and authoritative tone to
explain strange-sounding phenomena which our young minds could
neither see nor fathom, they transformed our mother tongue into a foreign
language (Snow 2010)! Well, imagine learning science in an FL: the
challenges of an immersion-like curriculum without the advantages of
immersion-like extra-curricularity! No need to imagine: Webb (2010)
reportedthat whenex-anglophonecolonies inAfricausedEnglish, anelitist
FL, to teach science, dismal results were obtained. However, the situation
was redeemed when science educators realized that, since the language of
instruction was an FL, they had to ensure that the language of instruction
was comprehensible: CLIL Operand 1. The notion speak so learners
understand is obvious for EFL practitioners who are naturally language-
aware instructors, whether the topic is The Beatles or antioxidants. This is
the rst reasonthe EFL community shouldtake note of CLIL: EFL expertise,
probably more than that in any other arena of education, is naturally
positioned for developing language-aware content education.
Not surprisingly, as the African science educators became increasingly
more language aware, they basically came to CLIL Operand 2: What are the
learners able to do with the language? Although the sine qua non of EFL
instruction, this question prompted science educators to implement more
student-led hands-on experimentations, transforming teacher-centred
lecturing into learner-centred learning which automatically increases
opportunities for learners to language their learning. To their credit, these
science educators took language-aware instruction even further to cultivate
learners ability to language scientically i.e. write and speak logically,
coherently, precisely, and objectively. They realized that the processes of
speaking and writing are necessary for transforming hands-on learning
into minds-on understanding (Webb op.cit.). Ever since Cummins (1981)
2 of 4 Y.L.Teresa Ting

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entered BICS (basic interpersonal communication skills) and CALP
(cognitive academic language prociency) into our professional lexicon 30
years ago, EFL practitioners have developed methods to engage learners in
the deep-level cognitive processes needed for transforming informal
classroom discussions into formal academic reports. In fact, regardless of
the subject matter or whether it is our L1 or an FL, attending to howlearners
are languaging understanding automatically puts literacy onthe learning
gure 1
Coordination of the three
CLI L Operands by the
Core CLI L Construct
CLI L . . . not only not immersion 3 of 4

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agenda (Swain2006; Pearson, Moje, andGreenleaf 2010). The fact that EFL
expertise languages comfortably between BICS and CALP is the second
reason the EFL community should take note of CLIL.
Therefore, although prompted by different reasons for merging science
education with FL instruction, science educators in ex-anglophone colonies
in Africa and CLIL practitioners in Europe have none the less reached the
similar realizationthat content educationcanbenet greatly fromlanguage-
aware instruction. And EFL practitioners are in a prime position to
contribute. Given content-learning objectives dened by content experts,
EFL practitioners have the necessary expertise for designing ad hoc CLIL
learning contexts which are not only learner centred, content driven, and
literacy directed but also fall within the comfort zones of both EFL and
content teachers. Considering that most of the world does not have
immersion-like possibilities, CLIL is not only not immersion
(Lasagabaster andSierra op.cit.) but, done well andunder the tutorage of the
EFL community, is revealing itself to be much more than the sum of its
parts.
Final revised version received January 2011
References
Cummins, J. 1981. Age on arrival and immigrant
second language learning in Canada: a
reassessment. Applied Linguistics 11/2: 13249.
Halliday, M. A. K. and J. R. Martin. 1993. Writing
Science. London: Falmer Press.
Lasagabaster, D. and J. M. Sierra. 2010. Immersion
and CLIL in English: more differences than
similiarites. ELT Journal 64/4: 36775.
Marsh, D. 2005. Adding language without taking
away. Guardian Weekly, 8 April. Available at http://
www.guardian.co.uk/guardianweekly/story/
0,12674,1464367,00.html (accessedon20February
2011).
Pearson, P. D., E. Moje, and C. Greenleaf. 2010.
Literacy andscience: eachinthe service of the other.
Science 328: 45963.
Snow, C. E. 2010. Academic language and the
challenge of reading for learning about science.
Science 328: 4502.
Swain, M. 2006. Languaging, agency and
collaboration in advanced second language
prociency in H. Byrnes (ed.). Advanced Language
Learning: The Contribution of Halliday and Vygotsky.
London: Continuum.
Ting, Y. L. T. 2010. CLIL appeals to how the brain
likes its information: examples from CLIL-
(Neuro)Science. International CLIL Research Journal
1/3: 118. Available at http://www.icrj.eu/13-73
(accessed on 26 October 2010).
Webb, P. 2010. Science education and literacy:
imperatives for the developed anddeveloping world.
Science 328: 44850.
The author
Y.L. Teresa Ting divides her assistant professorship
between the Faculty of Sciences and the Department
of Linguistics of the University of Calabria in
southern Italy. She is also the coordinator of the
CLIL- ICLHE (Integrating Content and Learning in
Higher Education) Division of the University
Language Centre. These responsibilities give her the
opportunity to collaborate with both content and
foreign language teachers at all levels of instruction
in order to research and implement more effective
learning environments for CLIL and ICLHE.
Email: yltting1@gmail.com
4 of 4 Y.L.Teresa Ting

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