CLIL en français a project by Manor House School
• an Erasmus+ and eTwinning project • enhances students’ experience of learning French by teaching History through the medium of French • aims to establish Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) as an integral part of language education • combines expertise through team-teaching What inspired you to start the project? We started our “CLIL en français” project to explore a new method to engage our students with language learning. Content and Language Integrated Learning allows learners to study subjects like History, Geography and Music through the medium of their modern foreign language. This is an excellent way to further expose our students to French, while teaching them more about other subjects too. Having observed CLIL instruction and its benefits through Erasmus+ job-shadowing in France, we wanted to introduce this great practice in Manor House. What has been the impact of the project? Our project has had a very positive impact. The students became more confident expressing themselves in French and explored different topics of interest to them in detail through French. Last year’s group won the European Day of Languages prize for their CLIL eTwinning project. This year’s group have become Junior Ambassadors for the European Parliament Ambassador School Programme. We have seen evidence of their increased fluency and confidence through 37
DELF exam results, and increased interest in the content covered based on Leaving Cert subject choices. What would you advise someone who would like to replicate your project? We would definitely recommend the use of CLIL to other schools as it has been a very positive addition to our school. As the emphasis in CLIL classes needs a balance between the Content and the Language, it is important to have knowledge and expertise in both areas of instruction available when planning these classes. We have been able to team-teach our CLIL module, with a French and a History/Geography teacher planning and working together. This has been key to its success so far. Contact details: Gemma Kelly MFL Teacher, CLIL Co-ordinator Manor House School www.manorhouseschool.com
