Педагогические науки/5

Ким Лидия Матвеевна, Садуахасова Маншук Бахитовна

Таразский Государственный Университет имени М.Х.Дулати, Казахстан, Тараз

DISADVANTAGES OF CONTENT and LANGUAGE INTEGRATED LEARNING

CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) is one of the buzz words in education system nowadays.

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is "an innovative approach to learning, a dynamic and motivating force with holistic features" (Paresi et al. 2001: 77). This method of learning the content of subject through a foreign language has been acclaimed worldwide as a pedagogical tool of providing learners with a special learn-promoting atmosphere. Although studies conducted in CLIL classrooms have demonstrated numerous positive effects on language competences and attitude, there are still certain skills which cannot be developed as successfully as in traditional classrooms. First of all, this concerns productive skills which are fostered less effectively in CLIL classes. Therefore, additional strategies are much needed in order to boost both oral and written skills. One of such suitable techniques is cooperative learning (CL), which gives learners an opportunity to work with their peers and, what is even more important, motivates them. Incorporating CL into CLIL may help facilitate overall language proficiency and reach a high level of learning motivation. This paper will analyse how students may be motivated in CLIL classes by implementing CL. The purpose of the study is to show how CLIL enriched by CL can create a motivating learning environment.

CLIL is a teaching approach which connects subject with the foreign language. It is about teaching subjects such as history, mathematics, science, geography, art or other non-language subjects with the help of a foreign language. Up to date CLIL is mostly used in teaching such subject as Mathematics, Physics, Biology. But in Kazakhstan there many schools that uses CLIL in their education system such as KTL, NIS, KTC and so on. All subjects in these schools are in foreign language, in English in this case. There are so many ideas and opinions that say CLIL is useful and effective. However, from my point of view there are some disadvantages of CLIL approach.

Many English language teachers worry about using CLIL materials because they feel they don’t have the background knowledge of the subject. It is new that the majority of teachers may have difficulties to completely integrate it in the learning process. It needs planification, resources, qualification and preparation. CLIL needs long time to elaborate for teachers and students. Teachers need be more focused on CLIL but not on language.

Besides, there are some researchers who emphasize the ability of CLIL to improve content and language competences and who strongly believe in the importance of the CLIL methodology (cf. Mehisto & March 2008).

Despite the presented potential of CLIL project, several disadvantages of the content-based language teaching were observed and investigated by different scholars and teaching experts. These studies have demonstrated that especially productive skills are less boosted in CLIL classrooms and are achieved at considerably lower levels of performance than receptive skills. This means that both speaking and writing skills are reported to be negatively affected in content-based contexts. Apart from the questions of negatively affected linguistic competences raised by various researchers, other scholars were concentrated on issues associated with language development. However, only few studies are concerned with learners' attitudes or perceptions Since this paper is focused on CL as an effective teaching tool for motivating learners in CLIL classes, the research done on CL will be briefly discussed in the first subsection of the next section devoted to CL.

As far we are concerned lack of linguistic competence in foreign language and lack of materials can be mentioned as another disadvantage of CLIL. Because it is not an old proven methodology, it is just a new wave spread into modern methodology. That’s why there is not enough new materials connected either with subject or foreign language.

Not all pupils are motivated to learn a foreign language and prefer studying foreign language additionally to subjects rather than studying the subject in native language. They feel that they may misunderstand the subject itself. To my mind it’s a kind of challenge for them.

Each new method in teaching always has advantages and disadvantages. However such methods happen to be despite disadvantages they have. They must become integrated in socio-culture, education system, probed and practiced at all. And so is CLIL. Further research in this area is needed to identify other positive aspects of CL, which are suitable for CLIL and which may be applied effectively, especially to improve writing skills. It will be also essential to identify other cooperation features which may increase motivation to learn language in content-based classes. Of course, CLIL needs to proceed with development and research not only to highlight its advantages, but also to focus on additional teaching techniques in order to guarantee that students can successfully develop both their receptive and productive skills in a content-based environment. The results of this paper show that CLIL's benefits will far outweigh the disadvantages when implementing CL into CLIL.

References

1. Alba, J. O. (2009). Themes and vocabulary in CLIL and non-CLIL instruction. Content and Language Integrated Learning: Evidence from Research in Europe, 41, 130.

2. Arocena Egaña, E., Cenoz, J., & Gorter, D. (2015). Teachers’ beliefs in multilingual education in the Basque country and in Friesland. JICB, 3(2), 169-193. doi:10.1075/jicb

3. Ball, P., Kelly, K., & Clegg, J. (2015). Putting CLIL into Practice. Oxford University Press.

4. Banegas, D., Luis. (2012). CLIL teacher development: Challenges and experiences. LACLIL, 5(1), 46-56. doi:10.5294/laclil