3 Ways to Nurture Writing Through CLIL

As an English as a foreign language teacher, I’ve frequently heard about the need to expose learners to more English — more exposure gives learners more options to expand their linguistic repertoire and knowledge of the world. The integration of content and language is one approach to providing multilingual learners of English (MLEs) more opportunities for this expansion, giving students extended chances for reinforcing the English language through other subjects. Here are three ways content and language integration can be used to help MLEs’ writing.

1. Implement Thematic Units to Contextualize Writing

Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) provides the methodological aspects to implement integrated lessons. This can begin with planning and executing units of learning with a theme that connects students with real use of language. This theme can be taken from a content area such as history, science, arts, or mathematics, and the language structures should be taken from the themed material and reinforced through the diverse tasks students carry out within the lesson. Writing tasks, then, will be aligned with the thematic units of the course, which give content-rich contexts and a cohesive structure to make the tasks more meaningful and engaging.

Example Activity: Natural Disasters
In a unit on natural disasters, MLEs learn about earthquakes by reading about the San Andreas Fault and connect this topic with what happens in Japan and Chile with the Ring of Fire. As a follow-up activity, learners write a report on a recent earthquake they have heard of on the news, describing its causes and how it affected the community. In so doing, MLEs combine knowledge taken from geography with academic writing, where they reinforce specific language structures.

2. Utilize Writing in Different Genres

Learners are often required to read and listen to different texts and write and talk about information taken from diverse genres at school. CLIL exposes MLEs to the writing or oral styles and structures of texts that are hallmarks of specific genres (e.g., biographies, opinion essays, articles, short stories, descriptions) while also expanding their content knowledge on the topics developed throughout the texts. These texts also serve as a model for students to produce these genres themselves.

Example Activity: Water Cycle
In a science class on the water cycle, learners listen to a podcast about this topic and take notes about the details presented in the episode. Later, they write an essay about the stages of the water cycle and highlight its relevance for life on Earth. Learners pay attention to the factual and organized information based on the podcast and emphasize the use of cause-and-effect language patterns.

3. Focus on Authentic Learning Tasks to Promote Writing

Authentic tasks reflect real-world problems and activities that require higher order thinking and connect students with real-world experiences. Utilizing authentic tasks in project-based learning — through CLIL — engages MLEs while offering straightforward practice with specific, targeted language structures. This approach can be especially effective if done through collaboration among instructors of different content areas.

Example Project: The Body
In a physical education class, learners work on a project about the body parts, paying attention to the muscular system. This is complemented with a lab report in science class where learners report on a chicken wing dissection. In the English class, learners reinforce the parts of the body and the structure of a lab report; they practice sentence structure, punctuation, and parts of a lab report. 

Content and language integration is an approach that provides an effective way of helping MLEs develop their writing skills. The use of thematic units, the inclusion of different genres, and authentic tasks in the classroom help to contextualize writing tasks by providing a rich context for enhancing content and language knowledge. These three examples provide more opportunities for MLEs to engage with and develop their writing skills.   

For more on engaging your MLEs in their writing, see also my blog post “5 Approaches to Engage Multilingual Learners of English in Writing.”