Multilinguismo, CLIL e innovazione didattica - Libera Università di ...

An example from CLIL-Science
chanics. While learning content terminology is valid, this alone does little to
prepare learners for university entrance exams. Likewise, CLIL is definitely not
about using simplified content: if students are already learning that “the DNA
double helix is formed between hydrogen bonds that pair adenine with thymine
and guanine with cytosine on adjacent sugar phosphate backbones”, would
they find the statement “DNA is contained in the nucleus...” captivating?
These ‘language-driven’ models of CLIL, dubbed ‘Soft-CLIL’, do not aim to
fulfill the content-curriculum. However, since content provides authentically
interesting language-learning contexts, Soft-CLIL is extremely successful
when applied to primary, secondary and even tertiary language-learning
classrooms (e.g. Lasagabaster and Ruiz de Zarobe, 2010): learning a FL
through content of general interest such as how cloning works, how coffee
goes from bean to cup or how volcanoes erupt is more engaging than ‘decontextualized
language exercising’. More importantly, via Soft-CLIL, FL-teachers
can coherently merge the acts of ‘speaking, reading, writing and listening
about’ with the process of thinking about because genuinely interesting content
is worth some thinking about.
However, Soft-CLIL cannot suffice if, as in the case of Italy, CLIL is mandated
within content-learning time and in the last year of high school. If CLIL is to
consume the already limited amount of time destined for content-learning,
then it must move the content-curriculum forward: if we must prepare students
in their last years of compulsory education for university entrance
exams during the meager two hours per week devoted to ‘science’, then we
must consider ‘Hard-CLIL’, CLIL which is content-driven. Interestingly,
despite such far-from-ideal working conditions, if we interpret the acronym
mathematically, CLIL actually offers a pragmatic set of modus operandi for
implementing close-to-ideal (science)-education. Section 2 first discusses why
science-education must be potentiated. Section 3 presents the mathematically
derived CLIL modus operandi for renovating (science) education and Section 4
analyzes a CLIL-science activity developed according to this modus operandi.
Section 5 concludes by discussing how FL-expertise will be essential to ensure
that content-driven CLIL is rigorously implemented so as to potentiate, and
not impoverish, content education.
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