Faculty of education department of english language and literature

CLIL in music lessons

It was already mentioned that in 2008 CLIL was used in around 6% of schools in the Czech Republic. According to the same data, the most frequently used CLIL language was English and the most frequently integrated subjects were ICT, arts and music (Vojtková and Hanušová 26). The choice of these particular subjects is not surprising considering the universal language of ICT being English and the most popular singers and musicians nowadays usually coming from English-speaking countries (or coming from other countries but performing in English).

The newer research from 2011 shows that the schools using CLIL approach are likely to do so in Czech language and literature, mathematics, social sciences and art and music subjects (Kubů et al. 7). The implementation of content matter into language lessons seems to be more hesitant but again, there are certain subjects which teachers prefer to implement: Czech language and literature, history and music (Kubů et al. 8). Music seems to be popular subject of implementation with both content teachers and language teachers. After all, it is very common to use songs in English language lessons even if the teacher does not apply CLIL approach. And of course, popular English songs are sung in music lessons as well, although the emphasis on the language is usually quite inconsiderable. Students usually like working with songs as they see these activities as a kind of relaxation rather than “proper” learning. Thus, they pick up some language features (pronunciation, intonation, stress) without even realizing it.

It is not difficult for teachers to find some tips on working with songs in their lessons. Nowadays, tons of them can be found all over the Internet but there are some great printed sources as well.¹⁴ These activities can be used in both English lessons and music lessons (if the teacher knows at least some English).

However, the actual CLIL approach is built on more than just a few songs taught in English. The whole lesson should be carefully designed (preferably in cooperation with content and language teacher) and it should follow the important CLIL features. Here, it should be also emphasized that according to RVP ZV the vocal activities (singing) form only one quarter of music education (see chapter 3). There are other expected outcomes that students should learn in music lessons. Since these other outcomes are usually more theoretical and not as much fun as singing, students consider them boring and unimportant. It is the role of the teacher to make this matter as attractive as possible and CLIL might be one of the ways to do so.

In order to avoid repeating the activities which involve working with songs and fill out the gap in materials available for music lessons, this work focuses on other topics that are not very often dealt with.

5. Designing CLIL lessons

This chapter describes several stages of a teaching unit, even though not all of them have to be taught in a single lesson. The structure of this chapter (activating, guiding understanding, focus on language, focus on speaking, focus on writing and assessment, review and feedback) was taken from Dale and Tanner (30) and the same structure is also used for arranging the activities which can be found in the Appendix.

1. Activating

This first phase of a lesson usually activates the thinking skills of remembering and recalling. But there could also be other thinking skills involved depending on what type of activity the teacher opts for, for example predicting, hypothesising and guessing or comparing, contrasting, looking for similarities and differences, classifying, categorising, organising, ordering, evaluating and others.

The activating part of the lesson can be planned up to a certain point only. The teacher prepares the activity and can also think of possible troubles that might occur. However, the contributions coming from learners are sometimes impossible to predict and some teachers might get nervous about the fact that the lesson is being seemingly out of control. It is important to keep in mind that in a CLIL lesson the active role is passed on to students. The teacher only facilitates the learning and therefore some parts of a lesson might seem to get out of hand. Of course, troubles might occur and in such cases, the teacher should step in and help to solve a problem. However, the teacher should only moderate the process and students should be the main authors of a solution. For example, if a student provides obviously inaccurate piece of information (or incorrect vocabulary) and the classmates do not notice (or do not know that it is wrong), the teacher should call attention to the mistake but do not provide the right answer. Students themselves could find the correct information online or in a textbook or any other reliable source. Also, the problematic point can be left open at this stage and the right solution can be found later in the lesson while working on a different activity. Of course, the described situation expects that students work with facts and there is the right and wrong solution to the problem. While working with opinions, there are no right or wrong answers and students should be encouraged to talk about their opinions without being afraid of criticism. In any case, the safe learning environment is crucial and it is the teacher’s main task to ensure that students are not afraid to make mistakes or contribute to the discussion with their ideas.

2. Guiding understanding

First of all, the teacher decides what sort of input learners will be provided with. Dale and Tanner suggest that the input should be “very varied” (31) or we can say that it should “assault” as many senses as possible. That means that for example a text should be accompanied by visuals (pictures, photos, charts, diagrams, sketches, etc.) as well as audio or video inputs, or even samples which might be touched, smelled, felt or tasted (if possible). The more inputs students get the more information they are likely to remember.

Teacher also evaluates the level of difficulty of materials used in a lesson. The input should not be too difficult (students might feel overloaded) but it should not be too easy either (students might feel undervalued and then bored). The difficulty level of a material can be inappropriate in terms of both the content and language. The teacher should always carefully assess the adequacy of chosen inputs and make some modification if necessary. Therefore, this part of a lesson could be one of the most challenging for teachers to prepare.

There are some online tools which might help teachers to evaluate the language difficulty of a text (some are mentioned in Dale and Tanner 30). Plus, the language aspects of an input can be also discussed with a language teacher.

There is another important task for the teacher while working with inputs. At this stage of a lesson, the teacher should guide the understanding of the input. That means that the prepared material cannot be simply dumped on learners without any other help. The work has to be divided into smaller steps and each step has to be carefully supported by the teacher so that students really understand what needs to be learnt and how and not just grope in the dark. This is one of the parts of a lesson where scaffolding (see chapter 1.7.) plays a crucial role.

Probably the main thinking skills involved here are understanding and creative thinking. But these can be achieved through other thinking skills like predicting, reasoning, evaluating, ordering, comparing and contrasting and others.

3. Focus on language

Even if the teaching is done in a content lesson, there are always some language aspects which need to be taken into consideration. Many content teachers avoid correcting students’ grammar mistakes because they are not very certain about English grammar rules themselves. The content teacher may discuss some language aspects of lesson materials with the language teacher while planning the lesson. They can discuss the difficulty of the materials or identify which language aspects should be focused on during the content lesson. Also, the language teacher can pre-teach some of the relevant grammar rules in a language lesson. Dale and Tanner suggest a checklist (33) which teachers may use to evaluate their materials in terms of language.

Correcting grammar errors during a content lesson might be too demanding for some content teachers. If the utterance is understandable and the meaning is clear, the grammar mistakes can be disregarded, especially when complex grammar rules are involved. However, if the teacher is sure about the right grammar and is able to help learners correct their errors, then this practice should be encouraged. The teacher can also encourage students to use shorter clauses in order to avoid ambiguity and reduce mistakes caused by excessively long sentences. Pre-teaching some basic phrases or setting a right example beforehand is also advisable.¹⁵

As far as vocabulary is concerned, content teachers should be familiar with the right English equivalents for key words of their subjects. Plus, they should look for ways to help their learners remember the vocabulary. Students need enough time to memorize the new words and actively use them; they also need enough time to store the new words into their long-term memory. Teachers can facilitate the process of memorizing by enabling learners to do active tasks with the new vocabulary. The new words from previous lessons should be constantly recycled and students should be reminded to use them. Students should know the Czech equivalents of the specific terms and also the English definitions (they do not have to remember the exact wording of a definition by heart but they should be able to create their own definition in order to prove that they understand the concept).

This phase of the lesson focuses on thinking skills of understanding, defining and remembering but also ordering, classifying, comparing and contrasting or analysing.

4. Focus on speaking

At the beginning, learners might be reluctant to use English in a content lesson, especially at lower levels of English. Therefore, the teacher should start with simpler questions which could be answered by a single word or give learners more choices to choose from before moving on to more difficult questions. A lot of praising also helps learners to get more comfortable while speaking English. Working in pairs or smaller groups can help students get over the initial anxiety because some students might be reluctant to speak in front of more than couple of peers.

Scaffolding strategies play a very important role during speaking. Scaffolding can eliminate the initial stress and help learners overcome the worry about making mistakes and feeling embarrassed in front of their listeners. Each speaking activity can be preceded by quick pre-teaching. The teacher provides useful phrases which students might use while speaking. This is essential while working with beginners or younger learners, otherwise they can get lost at the very beginning of the activity. When students are more advanced in English, they can provide the example phrases themselves in a short brainstorming activity before speaking.

Focus on speaking involves especially higher order thinking skills like creative thinking, evaluating, justifying, reasoning, explaining and others.

5. Focus on writing

The scaffolding principles of writing are very similar to those of speaking. With beginners or very young learners, the writing should be simple and short. The teacher can provide a model text (or paragraph) on the board which learners follow with minor changes only. Learners might also be asked to write a similar text on a different topic or complete a gapped text etc. Plus, the writing tasks do not have to be comprised of coherent texts only (e.g. instructions, short notes, operating manuals etc. are very often fragmented and can be used with learners at lower levels of English).

When learners start to get more secure in their writing, the tasks can become more elaborate and longer; students put in their own ideas and work more independently. However, it is still important to set the purpose of each writing activity as well as a text-type (email, letter, brochure, etc.). If students find it difficult to come up with their own topics, the possible ideas can be brainstormed beforehand with the whole class. Some examples of what is expected from learners are also very useful. Many students might need help with organizing their ideas. Before writing, the teacher can model the structure of the expected outcomes – what the first and last paragraph should contain and what comes in between. Some students might want to outline the basic points before writing but others prefer developing the ideas while writing. Both methods are possible if the final result complies with the assigned task. A good way to help learners organize their ideas is working with writing frames (some examples of writing frames can be found in Dale and Tanner 210-216).

In terms of scaffolding language, the important part of writing is linking words. If the content teacher does not feel confident teaching linking words, the language teacher might help in their language lessons (explain their meaning and how to use them in text). However, the content teacher should encourage students to use linking words as much as possible and be ready to help learners when necessary.

The type of writing activity very much determines which thinking skills are involved. Some activities work simply with organising, ordering and classifying, other might involve creative thinking, evaluating, reasoning or analysing.

6. Assessment, review and feedback

Rubrics are specific tools for assessment which contain a number of criteria. If the teacher works with an assessment rubric it can be shown to learners at the beginning of an assessment in order to clarify what will be evaluated. The rubric can be used again while students are still working on the task – learners can check their progress and evaluate their assignment so far. And eventually the rubric is used again when the task is finished (Dale and Tanner 39). Because rubrics provide a whole range of criteria that are being assessed they have usually much larger information value than a single mark both for teachers and for students. A rubric does not have to be a product of the teacher’s work; assessment criteria for the rubric can be brainstormed and agreed upon within the class. When designing the rubric learners can think of what aspects of their work are important and how these will be evaluated.

Teacher is not the only person who provides assessment. An important part of feedback can be gathered from students’ classmates (peer assessment) and from students themselves (self-assessment). Students should be encouraged to reflect on their own work and learn how to assess it not just hand it in, get a mark and not be bothered with the task anymore. After each activity, students can be provided time to evaluate their work and this can be done in various ways. Students may get a self-assessment rubric and answer the questions which make them think of their work, what they did well and what could have been done better (hundreds of examples of self-assessment rubrics can be found online; also see tables 1.I. and 1.M. in the Appendix). Another way of self-assessment can be a student’s diary or journal where students put notes about their work – what they liked or did not like, what was the most difficult part of the task etc. (learners on lower levels of English can write in their mother tongue).

Peer assessment can be intimidating, especially when learners do not feel confident about their own work. It might be arranged before the assessment that only positive feedback is allowed to be provided from students in order to avoid malicious comments and embarrassment. Criticism is also an important part of peer assessment. However, some rules for delivering negative comments should be established beforehand. Learners should be taught some phrases so that they can tell the critic remarks sensitively. Plus, when students criticize their peers they should also be able to suggest a different solution.

The self-assessment can also take form of an informal interview or discussion (in pairs or small groups) when learners simply discuss the assignment. The main points of such discussion can be prepared by the teacher so that students do not wander off the topic.

The assessment activities usually involve thinking skills of analysing, evaluating, reasoning, remembering and recalling, identifying, comparing and contrasting, classifying and ordering, etc.

On the previous pages, the main principles of CLIL were explained, the situation in the Czech education system was summarized and the steps for designing a CLIL course were established. The theoretical concepts described above are put into practice in the following chapters.