PLURILITERACIES DEVELOPMENT THROUGH CLIL

    

The Graz Group from the European Centre for Modern Languages is currently working on the project:  "Literacies through Content and Language Integrated Learning: effective learning across subjects and languages". 

This project  aims to develop CLIL approaches, which teachers can use in the classroom, with a special focus on providing support for academic literacies in Secondary education. Quoting Oliver Meyer,  Do Coyle , Ana Halbach , Kevin Schuck and Teresa Ting, the project aims at realizing " the full learning potential of CLIL by focusing on (i) a deeper understanding of the role of subject-specific literacies in enabling and enhancing effective (plurilingual) learning; and (ii) the iteration of a working model which will support new classroom practices and promote the development of learners’ pluriliterate repertoire". 

In order to succeed at fulfilling  this ambitious goal, the group will develop a guide for transforming CLIL practice, which  will be later evaluated, adapted and disseminated by practitioners.

The following video by Teresa Ting will let you know what the Graz group Model on Pluriliteracies through CLIL means: 

For a deeper understanding of the model, "A Pluriliteracies Approach to Teaching for Learning" document by OLiver Meyer in cooperation with  Ana Halbach and Do Coyle is a must read.

Inside this document, you will find that there are  five essential principles that have to be taken into account to foster literacies development:

1. Conceptualising learning progression

2. Focusing on the learner

3. Languaging for understanding

4. Realising cultural embeddeness

5. Rethinking scaffolding for learner development

It goes beyond the scope of this post to enter into details for each of the principles above but we will develop them in next seminar sessions. Right now I would like to say that I firmly believe that implementing any content area through a foreign language makes literacy the centre of the learning process so we should be paying some attention to it in our classroom practice. 

For those of you who wish to know how to put the model into practice, a powerful bank of materials  is provided by the  Graz Group on their CLIL section . You can find ready-to-use classroom units  for Chemistry, Geography and History. As the group develops more materials, they will add them to this page.

Finally, it is only fair to thank the Graz Group for the great contribution they are offering to our CLIL practitioners and to wish them all the best in the development and  dissemination of their project.