How to maximise LANGUAGE production
The CLIL art teacher needs to create opportunities for students to be exposed to (passive use of language) and, most importantly, use (active use of language) the target language as much as possible. The following are some thoughts on how to maximise students’ language outcomes in a CLIL art setting.
Language skills. Encourage students to produce language in as many ways as possible using different approaches or games to help students develop their language skills in reading, writing, listening and speaking. These can all be incorporated in a single project. For example, students first listen to the teacher telling the story of the theft of Picasso’s Weeping Woman (listening), then read and reorder short sentences summarising the story using key vocabulary highlighted by the teacher (reading), then write little comics (writing) and finally make shadow puppets to perform the story in front of their peers (speaking). You will find this project under the tab Stories.
Language routines. Younger students tune into L2 at the start of the lesson singing a short song or chant. For example, a short hello song or a weather chant (e.g. is it sunny? NO IT IS NOT! is it raining? YES IT IS!). Older students answer a a quick question in L2 while taking the roll or as they are coming in the classroom (e.g. how are you today? what’s your favourite fruit).