Martí Quixal Martínez
Co-designer and co-teacher of the Muffins R Us project
My thoughts on CLIL
If you are into FL teaching you probably have heard about CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Instruction) before, but not about CRLL (Content-Rich Language Learning). This is what this five session course was about. It was short and intense, and the most important lesson I learned is: It seems easier than what it actually is. Why? Because it is easy to get the impression that just by using English you learn to use it, but this is not true. Our brain seems incredibly capable to learn stuff without necessarily paying attention to form; or, at least, the brain does not seem to “acquire” this form in our usual non-native country contexts.
That said, the other important thing I learned is that the more exposure and more opportunities you have to practice that FL, the better you will be in it and the more chances you have to improve. Through this course, and the practicum I did in Secció d’Institut Sunsi Móra (February to March 2017), I’ve learned that paying attention to form can be made relevant by using CLIL, and students seem to be more aware of the need to use those linguistic contents/structures.
The realization of the Muffins R Us project made me realize how hard it is to plan a time slot for production during the session; and how natural it is to help students understand while you are actually doing something they have to learn (as baking muffins).
My part in the project was similar to the contribution of the other two members: we all discussed the topic, we all agreed on target language contents (vocabulary, functions, grammar), we all contacted participants, we all bought part of the ingredients and we all participated in the teaching session. And it was so much fun!
