In all the subjects in the schools, the children have to develop very specific skills to consider that he has
reached the established level, and CLIL is not less. However, somehow, CLIL
should be considered a way to develop skills that support the development of
the skills required in the rest of the subjects. For example, CLIL is a way of
helping students to understand vocabulary of the world of rocks, which is a
topic normally connected to “Science”. Indeed we are talking about different
things, but if we do not have enough time to study rock´s vocabulary deeply, we
must provide to the students help in a different way.
With these first knowledge, we
can say that CLIL helps students to affront there difficulties of other
subjects in a second language, but we ca not do it without connecting them with
those subjects. This means that the same topic must be seen in at the same time
in the two subjects. If we use the example that I have suggested before, we
cannot work the topic of the rocks in “Science” and then two weeks later see it
in CLIL. It must be approached at the same time; otherwise it will create a lot
of confusion in the children.
Of course there are a lot of
points that can help the children to learn better a foreign language or other
topics, but the most important is the influence of parents. “Recent researches
have shown that children benefit in many different ways when their parents are
interested in and involved in their education.” (Brewster and Ellis, 1991) The
problem is that is not easy to work with the parents, because you have to face
their beliefs and worries, and sometimes they do not want to hear the truth. That
is why “teachers need to be prepared and willing to take on these additional
aspects of parent care as part of their day-to-day role.” (Brewster and Ellis, 1991) How?
Teachers should be available to talk to parents about their children´s progress.
Before talking with them, teachers must be prepared and sure about what they
want to advice or talk about. For instance, a primary teacher that sees some
characteristic aspects of hyperactivity on one of his students, first he must
talk to the school psychologist and confirm that the suspicions are true or
false before telling it to the parents. 
Apart from preparing the class
very carefully, there is another task for the teacher that is a little bit
complicated. In all the classes including CLIL, it is obligatory to connect
different skills to get to a new goal. Something connected with all the classes
and with two important skills required is “Literacy”. “Literacy” connects
reading and writing skills, both of them are needed for all the subjects and in
the real life. How could we use “Literacy” correctly? “The most effective way
to make the connection between reading and writing is to do it whenever the opportunity
arises.” (Cloud, Genesee, Hamayan, 2009) We have to lookout for the situations
that we can use to connect the two tasks, read something they have written, or
write about something they have read… These is the idea of connecting not only the
reading and writing, also many tasks and topics.
To conclude, in all the
subjects a teacher must be trained sufficiently to provide a good learning process
and make sure that the development of different skills is working. Their duty
is to increase those skills or abilities which the students are good at and supporting
them in their problems. Besides, society should be cornered about the important
role of parents in the education of the children, without them it is impossible
to create an appropriate learning environment.
References:
- BREWSTER, J. AND ELLIS, G.
(1991). The Primary English Teacher´s
Guide. England: Pearson Education Limited.
- CLOUD, N., GENESEE, F. AND
HAMAYAN, E. (2009). Literacy Instructions
for English Language Learners. United States of America: Heinemann.
