Guide to OERs for CLIL in

Primary Schools
Report O2/A4 - Ver.01 – 2016
CLIL for Children, 2016

Strategic Partnerships (Key Action 2)

Project number: 2015-1-IT02-KA201-015017

This publication was supported by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission.

This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held
responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained herein.

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Contents

1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 4

2 How to use this guide ........................................................................................................ 7

2.1 What you find in section 3 ................................................................................................ 7

2.2 What you find in section 4 ................................................................................................ 9

2.3 What you find in section 5 ................................................................................................ 9

2.4 What you find in section 6 ................................................................................................ 9

2.5 Annexes ............................................................................................................................. 9

3 An Overview of collected OERs ....................................................................................... 10

4 What are Open Educational Resources (OERs)? ............................................................. 14

4.1 How the CLIL OERs were selected ................................................................................... 15

4.2 Why are OERs important for the primary CLIL teacher? ................................................. 17

5 Adapting OERs to your own contexts.............................................................................. 19

5.1 Language and content ..................................................................................................... 19

5.2 Amount of necessary adaptations .................................................................................. 20

5.3 Language proficiency of students ................................................................................... 20

5.4 Equipment ....................................................................................................................... 21

5.5 Individual and group work .............................................................................................. 21

6 Learning resources and environments of the CLIL Teacher ............................................ 23

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1 Introduction
The Guide to OERs for CLIL in Primary Schools results from the combined effort of four C4C
partners to collect and census 90 Open Educational Resources (OERs) to teach English
through CLIL in primary schools (ages 5 to 12 or grades 1 to 6) in a series of European
countries, namely: the Czech Republic, Italy, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Romania, and Spain.

The project C4C. CLIL for Children starts from research on the current state of CLIL practice in
the various countries participating in the European project. For this purpose C4C partners
surveyed CLIL OERs of good quality in the areas of Science, Mathematics and Geography in
order to establish a sound baseline from which to develop the following products targeted at
primary school teachers:

 Guidelines for developing and using CLIL.

 A set of materials and planning of lessons to teach Science, Mathematics and

Geography in English.

 A guide on these topics.

 An online course on the use of CLIL for primary school.

Thus, the survey on OERs in the above countries has been carried out by keeping in mind the
need for selecting and identifying several types of resources and materials:

 Useful resources for training and professional development of the CLIL teacher.

 Resources for planning CLIL courses and lessons.

 Resources for the classroom and materials to be used with children directly.

There are many organizations in each one of the above mentioned countries and on the web
that have organized pools of resources for primary and secondary CLIL, among which a couple
of European consortia and EU-funded projects, the British Council, and many primary and
secondary schools. In each of the C4C National Reports you can read more in detail about

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these pools of resources. However, the C4C Guide to OERs has not only explored these pools
of Open Resources for CLIL, but selected from them both lesson plans and resources
according to topics for CLIL Science, Geography and Mathematics, which it described and
rated for the use of teachers, students and teacher trainers.

In this Guide you will find:

 OERs described and evaluated according to the following aspects:

o The title of lesson or resource in English and in the national language of the
OER.
o Link(s) to the website where you can actually download materials and
resources from.
o A brief description of what you can find in the OER.
o The age of students and/or grade, organized in three age categories: 5 to 7; 8
to 10; 11 to 12, which also generally correspond to grades 1 and 2, grades 3
and 4 and grades 5 and 6.
o The theme(s)/topic(s) covered, arranged within 3 major disciplinary areas:
Science, Geography and Mathematics and according to the age groups
mentioned before.
o The relation of the OER to national curricula topics in Italy, Poland, Portugal,
and Romania.
o The language skills and lexis for CLIL English.
o A description of the resources and materials, including visual aids.
o The potential of the OER to integrate content and language for CLIL: why it is
relevant for teaching and learning contexts, how it might be adapted to those
and integrated, as well as how it constitutes a good CLIL example.
 A rating of the collected OERs based on stars (*** very good; ** good; * not so good)
to highlight best practice, which indicates how well the OER:

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 o Takes the learner’s developmental stage, cognitive development and language
competence into account
o Demonstrates a good balance of content and language
o Integrates content and language
o Encompasses variety of activities for learners
o Engages learners
o Combines mother tongue and English in the response of learners
o Includes notes on how the product and process of learning should be assessed

You will also find, in section 3, clear instructions on how to access the selected OERs and use
this guide.

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2 How to use this guide
There are many ways in which you can use this Guide. You may just be interested in finding
tips for a CLIL lesson plan you are planning or developing or to learn about what a CLIL lesson
plan could look like, in which case, section 3 is the section you need to refer to. In section 3
you can explore OERs thematically by discipline (Science, Geography or Mathematics), by
language level (A1, A2, B1), or by age of children (5-7/ grades 1 and 2; 8-10 / grades 3 and 4;
11-12 / grades 5 and 6). Alternatively you can also access national country reports for Italy,
Poland, Portugal and Romania.

2.1 What you find in section 3

You explore OERs thematically, by choosing the disciplinary area (Science, Geography or
Mathematics) and then choosing an age range: 5-7/ grades 1 and 2; 8-10/ grades 3 and 4; 11-
12/ grades 5 and 6. The OERs and the lesson plans and resources described therein are
organized according to the following codes:

a. A1 for Science

b. A2 for Geography

c. A3 for Maths

Within each of these categories, there are age categories. Thus:

a. A1 for Science

a. A1.1. OERs for 5 to 7 year-olds / grades 1 and 2

b. A1.2. OERs for 8 to 10 year-olds / grades 3 and 4

c. A1.3. OERs for 11 to 12 year-olds / grades 5 and 6

b. A2 for Geography

a. A2.1. OERs for 5 to 7 year-olds / grades 1 and 2

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 b. A2.2. OERs for 8 to 10 year-olds / grades 3 and 4

c. A2.3. OERs for 11 to 12 year-olds / grades 5 and 6

c. A3 for Maths

a. A3.1. OERs for 5 to 7 year-olds / grades 1 and 2

b. A3.2. OERs for 8 to 10 year-olds / grades 3 and 4

c. A3.3. OERs for 11 to 12 year-olds / grades 5 and 6

You will find that there is a higher percentage of OERs concerning the disciplinary area
‘Science’ than there are for ‘Geography’ or ‘Mathematics’. Given the holistic character of
primary education, teachers are well advised to consider ‘Science’ ‘Geography’ and
‘Mathematics’ contents from their own contexts and curricular perspectives in an integrated
way. In some cases OERs were classified as mixed cases (eg. Mixed: Science and Geography)
and thus occur both among the OERs for Science and those for Geography.

The same occurs for the category age defined in this Guide. Some OERs may be used with
children aged 7 and children aged 8, thus occurring in those two age categories.

As pointed out above, you may also use this Guide by reading the country reports prepared by
Giunti O.S. Organizzazioni Speciali, Italy, the Instituto Politécnico de Castelo Branco, Portugal,
the University of Lodz, Poland, and the University of Pitesti and School Al. Davila, Romania,
which compiled OERs according to the curricula for CLIL in primary schools. You can access
them by clicking below:

d. Country Report: Italy

e. Country Report: Poland

f. Country Report: Portugal

g. Country Report: Romania

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2.2 What you find in section 4
Should you want to read more about the concept of OER and how it is used in education, refer
to section 4. This section explains what OERs are and why they are important for education.
You can also read more about the criteria used by C4C to select the OERs that are compiled in
this guide. Section 4 also highlights why using OERs can render teachers’ lives easier in a CLIL
context in terms of the time they will need for planning and preparing visual aids to their
lessons, the use of interactive resources, as well as cost effectiveness.

2.3 What you find in section 5

Section 5 tells you more about adapting the selected OERs to your own contexts if you are a
CLIL teacher, by drawing on some concrete examples. It highlights the ratio of language and
content, time and resources needed for adapting materials, refashioning tasks to suit the
language level of students, and types of classwork you may want to consider when planning to
use the selected OERs.

2.4 What you find in section 6

Section 6 focuses on the profile of the CLIL teacher and links learning resources and
environments (of which OERs are a part) to the big picture of CLIL lessons and courses, how
they must be planned effectively and what teachers might need to consider. Step by step
descriptions are given with resource to concrete examples of OERs mentioned.

2.5 Annexes
At the end of the 6 sections, there are several annexes:

Annexes 1, 2, 3 and 4 contain the 4 Country Reports for Italy (annex 1), Poland (annex 2),
Portugal (annex 3) and Romania (annex 4) and respective OERs as explained in section 3.

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3 An Overview of collected OERs

In this section you find an overview of OERs per disciplinary area and age of learners, which
includes name of lesson or resource (topic) and country where it originated from. You can click
directly on the ‘Topic’ to access the description of the OER.

In table 1 you will find OERs in the area of Science, organized by age of learners:

Age of learner Topic Country

5-7 Adult Teeth DE
5-7 Animal Groups and Their Features DE
5-7 CLIL Nutrition ES
5-7 Family DE
5-7 Family and home ES
5-7 Food and Meals ES
5-7 Our Body ES
5-7 Parts of a Plant DE
5-7 Plants PT
5-7 Plants and their Components RO
5-7 The Colour Wheel DE
5-7 The Five Senses ES
5-7 The Very Hungry Caterpillar -
5-7 Water on the Earth ES
5-7 What we Put on the Plate CZ
5-7 Phenomena of the Nature. The Rainbow RO
5-7 Natural Numbers from 1 to 10 RO
5-7, 8-10 Space – The Sun, Moon, Stars and Planets UK
5-7, 8-10 Comparing experiences: IT

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 Growing: animals and plants life cycle
The solar system
5-7, 8-10 Birds in Winter DE
5-7, 8-10 Five Senses DE
5-7, 8-10 From Grain to Loaf PL
5-7, 8-10 Teeth UK
5-7, 8-10 Global Warming PL
5-7, 8-10 The Solar System RO
5-7, 8-10 Means of Transportation RO
5-7, 8-10 Amusing English IT
5-7 Sounds Everywhere ES
5-7, 8-10, 11-12 How To Start IT
5-7, 8-10, 11-12 Artined - Use case scenarios IT
5-7, 8-10, 11-12 CLIL dossier for teachers IT
Storytelling: picturebooks and stories for
5-7, 8-10, 11-12
second language education IT
8-10 Animals
8-10 Dissolving Sugar at Different Heats NZ
8-10 Healthy Food/Healthy Habits PT
8-10 Kids Love Rocks PT
8-10 Other Animals ES
8-10 Protection of the Environment RO
8-10 The Solar System ES
8-10 Water’s Cycle in Nature RO
8-10 Discovering Mantua IT
8-10 The Earth Our House IT
8-10 Science Videos IT
8-10 Humans and Animals IT
8-10 Life in a Pond IT
8-10 Let’s Plant IT
8-10 Weather and Climate ES
8-10, 11-12 Plants IT
8-10, 11-12 Human Body RO
8-10, 11-12 The World’s Continents RO
8-10, 11-12 Healthy Eating IT
11-12 Anatomy, Bones and Important Organs CZ

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11-12 Animals Among Us CZ
11-12 Description of Animals CZ
11-12 Digestive Rollercoaster CZ
11-12 Funny Forest CZ
11-12 Units of Measurement RO
11-12 Microorganisms CZ
11-12 The Conditions of Life on Earth CZ
11-12 Vertebrates’ Adaptation to Living on the Land PL
11-12 Photosynthesis ES
Table 1 OERs for Science organized according to students’ age.

In table 2 you will find OERs in the area of Geography, organized by age of learners:

Age of learner Topic Country

5-7 Phenomena of the Nature. The Rainbow RO
5-7 The Solar System PL
5-7, 8-10 The Solar System ES
5-7, 8-10 Global Warming PL
5-7, 8-10 The Solar System RO
5-7, 8-10 Amusing English IT
5-7, 8-10, 11-12 London Parks and Museums IT
5-7, 8-10, 11-12 CLIL dossier for teachers IT
5-7, 8-10, 11-12 How to Start IT
8-10 Weather and Climate ES
8-10 Landscapes and Weather ES
8-10 Life in a Pond IT
8-10 Let’s Plant IT
8-10, 11-12 The World’s Continents RO
8-10, 11-12 Moon, Earth’s Natural Satellite RO
8-10, 11-12 The Relief RO
8-10, 11-12 We are all TOURISM IT
11-12 Sightseeing in London PL
11-12 CLIL – Planning Tools for Teachers IT
Teaching geography through English. A CLIL
11-12 Approach IT
11-12 Continents CZ

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11-12 The Romanian Plain RO
11-12 Weather Forecast CZ
11-12 Units of Measurement RO
Table 2 OERs for Geography organized according to students’ age.

In table 3 you will find OERs in the area of Mathematics, organized by age of learners:

Age of learner Topic Country

5-7 Natural Numbers from 1 to 10 RO
5-7 Addition of the Natural Numbers from 0 to 10 RO
5-7 Chocolate Maths CZ
5-7 Dividing by Two DE
5-7 Let’s Learn the Notions of Thick and Thin! RO
5-7 Natural Numbers from 0 to 100 RO
5-7 The Geometric Figures RO
5-7 The Subtraction of the Natural Numbers RO
5-7, 8-10 Means of Transportation RO
5-7, 8-10 Can I have the Bill, Please? ES
5-7, 8-10 Let’s Go Shopping DE
5-7, 8-10 Numbers IT
8-10 Let’s Plant IT
5-7, 8-10, 11-12 CLIL dossier for teachers IT
5-7, 8-10, 11-12 How to Start IT
5-7, 8-10, 11-12 Maths Aids IT
5-7, 8-10, 11-12 Welcome to Maths Playground IT
5-7, 8-10, 11-12 Tangram RO
5-7, 8-10, 11-12 Artined - Use case scenarios IT
Storytelling: picturebooks and stories for second
5-7, 8-10, 11-12 language education IT
8-10 Do you know the division? RO
8-10 Grade 3 Maths UK
8-10, 11-12 The World’s Continents RO
11-12 Photosynthesis ES

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 11-12 Units of Measurement RO
11-12 2D Shape Jungle CZ
11-12 A Fraction of a Party CZ
11-12 Shapes in Things CZ
Table 3 OERs for Mathematics organized according to students’ age.

4 What are Open Educational Resources (OERs)?

OERs (Open Educational Resources) have become an important key concept of the European
educational policy in recent years. The term was used in 2002 for the first time at the UNESCO
conference Impact of the Open Educational resources for Higher Education in Developing
Countries. According to the UNESCO publication A Basic Guide to Open Educational Resources
(OER), published in 2011, 2015 (page 5), OERs are described thus:

In its simplest form, the concept of Open Educational Resources (OER) describes any
educational resources (including curriculum maps, course materials, textbooks,
streaming videos, multimedia applications, podcasts, and any other materials that
have been designed for use in teaching and learning) that are openly available for use
by educators and students, without an accompanying need to pay royalties or licence
fees.1

Thus, OER refers to educational materials and teaching in digital format that have the
characteristic of being open in a double sense: free material available on the net; and materials
adapted to the needs of learners and the needs of the context. The Open Educational
Resources may include:

1
UNESCO and Commonwealth of Learning (2011, 2015). A Basic Guide to Open Educational Resources
(OER). Prepared by Neil Butcher and edited by Asha Kanwar (COL) and Stamenka Uvalic´-Trumbic´
(UNESCO). Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

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- Educational content: courses, modules, teaching units, publications.

- Tools: software for the creation, distribution, use of open educational content; tools
for content development and online learning community.

- Resources for operation: licenses for intellectual property to promote open publishing
of materials, principles of content design and localization.

In order to encourage innovative ways of learning through technology and digital content, the
European Community promoted various actions to ensure a more widespread use of OER. The
initiative Opening-up Education, launched in 2013, was aimed to further investigate the
potential of OER, highlighting the advantages in terms of access to educational materials of
good quality and in terms of cost-effectiveness ratio. Within the initiative Opening-up
Education, the European Commission launched the project Open Education Europa for the
creation of a European portal for open educational resources and the exchange of good
practices ( http://openeducationeuropa.eu ).

4.1 How the CLIL OERs were selected

The number of CLIL materials openly available for use by primary school teachers and students
has significantly increased in recent years. CLIL OERs are created both by experts, trainers and
teachers, both by content and language teachers. Many content teachers have loads of
materials which CLIL teachers may be able to find equivalents of in English, and language
teachers have ideas as to how to exploit those materials for language. OERs give both parties
the opportunity to share materials.

For the C4C. CLIL for Children project, the collected OERs are resources available and shared
through the Internet. They essentially consist of teaching and learning materials, and more
specifically of lesson plans for CLIL in primary education (for children aged 5 to 12). These can
be described from two points of view:

 The teachers’ (lesson plans)

 The students’ (lesson worksheets, tutorials, peer group discussions, practical work)

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The OER materials selected for the Guide had to meet a number of criteria (adapted from
“Assessment in CLIL Learning”, a chapter by Ute Massler in Guidelines for CLIL Implementation
in Primary and Pre-Primary Education, 2 which are listed below in the form of questions:

 Is the OER material relevant for primary school students?

 Can it be easily integrated within the school curriculum (Mathematics, Geography, and
Science)?

 Can it be easily adapted to the needs of primary school students in a given setting?

 Is there a balance between content and language elements?

 What is the materials’ cognitive load?

 Are the materials visually attractive?

 Are they engaging and motivating?

 Are they easily accessible both for teachers and learners?

The OERs were selected by teams of researchers and teachers in Italy, Portugal, Poland and
Romania, with a particular focus on identifying at least 20 OERs in their own and adjacent
countries.

The CLIL for Children project further considered copyright issues, for the selected OERs
incorporate a license that facilitates reuse, i.e. there is no need to ask for copyright permission.
It also took into account that the selected OERs could be adapted to other learning contexts,

2
Ute Massler (2011).Assessment in CLIL learning. In: Guidelines for CLIL Implementation in Primary and
Pre-Primary Education, edited by Sophie Ioannou-Georgiou and Pavlos Pavlou. Online publication
available at
http://www.schools.ac.cy/klimakio/Themata/Anglika/teaching_material/clil/guidelinesforclilimplement
ation1.pdf.

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and constitute examples of Best Practice. This signifies that the OERs include many of the
following characteristics: They

 take the learner’s developmental stage, cognitive development and language

competence into account
 have a good content-language balance
 integrate content and language
 present students with a variety of tasks
 engage students
 provide clear instruction regarding language in which students are to respond
 provide instruction on the way students should be assessed
 use visual aids effectively

4.2 Why are OERs important for the primary CLIL teacher?
Primary school content and language teachers working within CLIL methodology often
complain about the lack of adequate teaching materials. In fact, the scarcity of materials
(lesson plans, visual aids, worksheets, tutorials, peer group discussions, practical work, etc.)
has always been one of the major challenges in the implementation of CLIL methodology in the
school context. Many teachers still believe that if you want to do CLIL you have to prepare and
research almost everything yourself, which is rather time consuming. This belief leads teachers
to create their own materials; something which obviously has some added benefits in that
materials created for a teacher’s specific context are bound to be better suited to their
students than materials which have been produced with a wide student population in
mind. On the other hand, developing good-quality materials might take some trial-and-error
and will be something a novice CLIL teacher can be uncomfortable with. Moreover, a similar
competence in both content subject and foreign language cannot be expected from all
teachers. Therefore, appropriate teaching materials, not infrequently, accompanied by
detailed teacher guidance including background information on topic, language and

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methodological features is of great importance to ease teachers’ workload and thus to further
support CLIL implementation. Materials-related support is a prerequisite of successful CLIL
programmes. This can take the form of producing materials, training teachers in materials
development, establishing materials banks or facilitating the sharing of materials through
Open Educational Resources (OERs). As Morton (2013) notes, materials prepared and
contextualized by CLIL teachers can be shared “with other CLIL teachers in similar contexts”
(Morton 2013, 118)3. The Internet research conducted for the purpose of the CLIL for Children
project has proved that OERs offer vital support to CLIL teachers during the realisation of this
complex and challenging teaching approach.

Another very important benefit of exploiting OERs is that they are cost- and time-effective.
OER resources include PowerPoint presentations for the introduction of subject-concepts,
lesson plans used by other CLIL teachers, quizzes, games and songs which can facilitate
subject-content teaching. Although these resources will not often be an exact fit for a
teacher’s specific context, they are usually easily adapted and they always offer new ideas
about how other colleagues approach the content. The contents of many OERs resonate with
teachers and programme co-ordinators who are interested in moving beyond the theoretical
aspects of CLIL literature and into the practical application of this approach.

Finally, OERs can offer support for yet another difficulty often reported by CLIL teachers, when
they prepare their teaching materials: the time-consuming task of preparing the many
visual aids which are required for increased visualisation during CLIL lessons. Developing
visual aids is made easier and faster with the help of many OER websites which offer
ready-to-print flashcards as well as tools for the creation of customised materials.

3
Morton, T. (2013). Critically Evaluating Materials for CLIL: Practitioners’ Practices and Perspectives. Critical Perspectives on
Language Teaching Materials, 111–136.

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5 Adapting OERs to your own contexts
CLIL materials created by Italian, Polish, Portuguese or Romanian teachers are scarce and hard
to find, therefore teachers who would like to incorporate existing materials into their lesson
plans will have to do their fair share of adaptation. This is primarily due to the fact that the
OERs available online have been created by teachers from other countries to meet the
requirements of their national curricula and their students’ needs. The materials produced
may only partly overlap with teachers’ own curricula or may, to a certain extent, be country-
specific. Therefore teachers will often have to make essential adjustments.

Some OERs are instantly applicable, most of which make use of posters, mind maps, pictures
and puzzles as well as worksheets for students to fill in. These can easily be printed out and
used in class without increasing the teacher’s workload (e.g. BIRDS IN WINTER). Other
materials referred to in OERs require a considerable amount of preparation and classroom
props to be produced or brought to class, respectively. For example, the teacher may have to
provide various kinds of food, price tags, coins and banknotes, and some transparencies
prepared before the class, as well as ‘build’ a shop in front of the blackboard, as in the case of
LET’S GO SHOPPING, which is both challenging and time-consuming. The decision whether to
venture on such elaborate preparations or rely on easy to use materials is left to the discretion
of the teacher.

5.1 Language and content

OERs assist teachers in relating content knowledge and language learning. The language aims
are usually determined by the content objectives. The best materials found are those in which
the ratio of language and content knowledge is well balanced, thus enhancing the learning of
both, and developing in students a positive attitude to gaining new language skills and
acquiring knowledge. Such materials frequently make use of the task-based approach, where
the lesson is organized around a specific task to be completed by students. In A FRACTION OF
A PARTY, the content objective is for students to learn how to divide fractions. In order to do

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that, they have to help the characters in the video they watch organize two parties, by
deciding what they need to buy, and dividing the food they have bought between the two of
them. Based on that, the linguistic content was determined, namely the grammatical structure
there is/are some… and there isn’t/aren’t any, as well as countable and uncountable nouns. In
order to solve the practical problem they are given, students have to spend a lot of time
communicating as well as doing the necessary calculations, which is not only educational but
also enjoyable and motivating.

5.2 Amount of necessary adaptations

Necessary adaptations to OERs will require varying amounts of work on the part of the
teacher. For example, in the OER on the wild fauna of the Jizera Mountains (FUNNY FOREST), it
may be necessary to adapt some of the questions the teacher asks the students about animals
living in the region, as the ecosystem of mountainous areas in Poland, Portugal, Romania or
Italy differ slightly from that of the Czech Republic. However, changes to the lesson plan will be
cosmetic rather than radical, and the quality of the OER will compensate for any additional
work that has to be done. For other OERs, however, teachers may have to spend considerably
more time making adaptations, as in the case of LET’S GO SHOPPING, where a completely new
handout has to be produced, with pictures of foods that young local learners can recognize
and with the own currency if different from the euro.

5.3 Language proficiency of students

Apart from ensuring that the materials meet their curricular aims, teachers will have to take
into account their students’ linguistic proficiency, or, in other words, they will have to decide
whether the target language and the language of instruction are appropriate for their
students’ level of English and introduce necessary changes accordingly. For example, in the
FIVE SENSES, designed for Year Two (5-7 age group), students answer questions about their
experience of using the five senses: What did you smell/see/hear/taste/feel? Was it good?
Eight-year-olds in some countries may not be able to answer questions in the Past Simple, and

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it may be necessary to replace the questions with ones that use structures the students are
familiar with.

5.4 Equipment
Some of the OERs are in the form of interactive worksheets (e.g. 2D SHAPE JUNGLE, WEATHER
FORECAST or CONTINENTS), the use of which requires not only a computerized classroom, but
also Internet access. This may pose some difficulties for teachers, as in some schools,
electronic devices are yet to become an integral part of teaching subjects other than IT.
However, if both content and language are pre-taught in class, these tasks can be assigned for
homework (preferably optional due to assessment issues), and can not only help students
recycle content knowledge and new vocabulary, but can also increase their motivation, as
present-day students usually find the use of electronic media much more appealing than
completing traditional exercises. Another solution to the problem might be for the teacher to
use their desktop computer and an overhead projector, with the class working jointly to
answer the questions. This option would have the additional advantage of introducing an
element of group work as students try to reach a compromise on the choice of answers.

5.5 Individual and group work

The OERs may engage the student in both kinds of work: individual and group work. In
SIGHTSEEING IN LONDON, for instance, the students work on their own. They solve a rebus,
mark the regions and capital city of Great Britain on a worksheet, read a text about London,
underlining characteristic places, and finally, watch a film about London in order to complete a
quiz.

In ANIMAL GROUPS AND THEIR FEATURES, on the other hand, students work in groups. They
gather information about groups of animals by walking around the classroom and finding out
about them at different work stations. Then they complete a worksheet together.

Many resources combine the two methods. In ADULT TEETH, after being exposed to the
teacher’s presentation, students first work in groups to create posters of distinct kinds of

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teeth, and then, complete a worksheet with information they have learned, working on their
own. An extreme example of group work is THE SOLAR SYSTEM WEB QUEST, a group project
lasting a full month, in which students working in groups create a PowerPoint presentation and
shoot a film about the Solar System – a truly challenging task.

It is felt that although individual work has its undeniable benefits, it is group work that
increases students’ motivation and gives them an opportunity to become more involved
because it encourages creativity and cooperation, allows students to pool knowledge and skills
to tackle problems, and thus increases their confidence, which will help them deal with
difficult tasks successfully. Finally, group work is a chance for pupils to practice content
knowledge they have been exposed to in a meaningful context. Therefore teachers who plan
to adapt and use any of the materials collected are advised to take full advantage of the many
collaborative activities available.

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6 Learning resources and environments of the CLIL
Teacher
The European Framework for CLIL Teacher Education (2010)4 identifies eight areas of
responsibility for the CLIL teacher:

1. Personal reflection. The ability of the teacher to reflect on his/her cognitive, social
and emotional development to support better the cognitive, social and emotional
development of his/her students.
2. CLIL fundamentals. Understanding of the essential characteristics of CLIL and how
they are linked to good educational practices
3. Content and Language Awareness. The awareness of the interdependence between
language and subject content. A good learning of contents depends on the language
while, in turn, the development of language learning is related to the learning of
contents.
4. Methodology and Assessment. The learning of subject content through a foreign
language requires a good knowledge of methodological techniques and aspects linked to
assessment.
5. Research and Evaluation. The CLIL teacher is a researcher teacher who proceeds in
the teaching of methodology following a path of research, reflection and assessment.
He/she is a teacher who spurs pupils on to an attitude of research, reflection and self-
assessment.
6. Learning Resources and Environments. CLIL teaching needs a teacher who is able
to use specific learning resources and create a rich and stimulating learning
environment.

4
Marsh D., Mehisto P., Wollf D., Frigols Martin M. J., (2010) European Framework for
CLIL Teacher Education, Strasbourg, European Centre for Modern Languages.
www.ecml.at

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 7. Classroom management. The classroom management should facilitate the integrated
learning of language and content. The teacher must implement strategies to facilitate
communication of students and encourage cooperative learning.
8. CLIL management. The management of CLIL programs is a complex work that
involves students, parents, teachers, managers, each one with his/her own role.
The various specific areas of expertise help create the general skills of a CLIL teacher. The
specific skills are connected to each other, even if examined or taught them separately in teacher
training.

The Framework for CLIL Teacher Education stresses that resources and learning environments
are integrated elements and help stimulate cognitive development. Moreover, it is also essential
to create a system of scaffolding and learning support to facilitate a positive atmosphere that
will involve students and test how they can learn language and content in an integrated way. In
particular, it is specified that:

CLIL requires CLIL specific learning resources, and enriched learning environments.
These are highly integrative, multilayered and cognitively demanding, yet are balanced
by enhanced scaffolding and other support systems. These help students build a sense of
security in experimenting with language, content, and management of their own
learning. (p.19)

For this reason, the CLIL teacher, as illustrated in the Framework, must be able to:

- Keep the focus on the constituent elements of CLIL, namely content, language and
ability to learn how to learn (learning skills)
- Create motivating materials from the language and cognitive view and know how to use
them properly
- Identify criteria to select CLIL resources, including multimedia resources, which are in
line with the principles of CLIL
- Assess potential difficulties in the use of resources and provide possible solutions.
- Help students create cross-curricular links
- Develop collaborative attitudes with other teachers and participate in networks aimed at

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 sharing materials and the creation and adaptation of resources.
It follows that the various resources, however interesting and well-structured they may be, are
not able to solve the teacher’s problem by themselves, but they should be placed in a wider
context. The resource needs the skills of the teacher who decides why to select it, how and when
to use it, how to make it available to everybody.

To remain within the competencies described in the Framework, take, for example, the ability
of the teacher to stay focused on the constituent elements of CLIL and know how to select
media resources that are in line with the principles of CLIL. Let's examine how the work on the
Italian OER may help a teacher in these fields of expertise.

For a teacher who wants to start a CLIL project, the starting point is to select the topic to deal
with. The second point is to know how to integrate the main aspects of CLIL in the project. In
the article CLIL: Planning Tools for Teachers (see www.unif.it), Do Coyle highlights the four
guiding principles (The 4 Cs), to be used for planning a CLIL project:

Content: progression in knowledge, skills

Communication: interaction, language using to learn

Cognition: engagement, thinking and understanding

Culture: self and other awareness/citizenship (p. 4).

For each point, the author suggests some general questions that can help the teacher plan the
learning path. For example, for the aspect related to content, Coyle suggests the teacher to
question: “What do I want to teach? What do I want my students to learn? What are the learning
goals? What are the expected results?”

To work on communication and integrate language and content, typical questions are: “What
language do my students need to know? What specialized vocabulary and expressions? What
language do we need to carry out classroom activities and complete tasks?”

Also for the other aspects concerning cognition and culture, the author suggests stimulating
questions.

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To showcase an example, let's say that a teacher wanted to propose a CLIL Geography course.
The teacher can refer to specific online resources to see how to decline the 4Cs compared to the
subject content. On the website of Foggia University (see www.unifg.it), you find the file
Teaching Geography through English (University of Cambridge) that integrates The 4Cs of
CLIL with other stimulating questions and concrete examples such as:

 Content – Which topics for geography? For example, rivers, ecosystems, etc…
 Communication - Which specific language for geography lessons? For example, the
vocabulary to talk about the phenomena of cause and effect as in floods or landslides.
 Cognition - Which activities to stimulate cognitive skills? For example, identifying
places.
 Culture (Community and Citizenship) - What are the cultural aspects of the CLIL
lesson? For example, to find similarities between the local landscape and the landscape
of the places of students having different backgrounds.
To keep to the subject of landscapes and places, the teacher who wants to deal with these issues
can see how they developed some environmental education paths that constituted the main topic
of some eTwinning projects for primary school (http://eTwinning.indire.it): see for example
Earth Day and Environment and language integrated learning paths (http://new-
twinspace.etwinning.net/web/p97691, and http://new-twinspace.etwinning.net/web/p82958).

Teachers may also consult some CLIL good practices related to the knowledge of the territory,
such as Discovering Mantua, on the website www.progettolingue.net/aliclil/, which collects the
experiences of teachers who took part in training courses organized by the Regional School
Office for Lombardy. Examining the educational experiences of other teachers and reflecting on
the strengths and weaknesses of the various projects helps evaluate potential difficulties in the
use of resources and provide possible solutions. It also helps to select materials and online
resources with greater critical acumen.

For the selection of specific materials, according to the Geography topic chosen and the issues
to be dealt with in the classroom, the teacher can continue his/her search looking for appropriate

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resources in English on the website of the British Council (www.britishcouncil.it) or visit the
site of the European Center for CLIL resources (www.scoop.it/t/clil).

However interesting and well structured, the materials need to be adapted to the reality of the
classroom and sometimes be modified, simplified and integrated. To make content
understandable in a foreign language as well, it is important for the teacher to use specific
strategies. Some suggestions on this subject can be found in the article “CLIL come e perché”
by Paola Traverso (http://www.giuntiscuola.it/lavitascolastica/magazine/articoli/) that shows
some CLIL methodological aspects and possible strategies to use to facilitate the understanding
of contents, including:

 appeal to prior knowledge

 split contents into smaller units
 highlight key words and concepts
 look for similarities and differences
 use visual aids and authentic materials
 make use of diagrams, charts, mind maps
 introduce contents using suitable methods for different learning styles
 promote collaboration between peers and cooperative learning
 simplify and grade language keeping in mind the language level of students
If scrolling the list, the teacher realizes he/she lacks some tools, such as visual aids and
presentation of content in different ways, he/she can consult online resources looking for video
materials, games, songs and rhymes on the website www.britishcouncil.it. In addition, the
teacher can see some links on the website Orizzonte Scuola (www.orizzontescuola.it), such as
BBC learning English, selecting and adapting some activities and materials for his/her
classroom. For the presentation of content using artistic methods and involving the various
sensory channels, the teacher can also view some of the techniques used in the European project
Artined (www.artined.eu/it).

When a teacher finds materials which meet his/her needs or interesting proposals for future
work, he/she can create a small archive or personal repository to be updated regularly. If he/she

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wants, the teacher can share the resources and experiences implemented in his/her classroom
with other colleagues of the same school or other networks of schools throughout the area, for
example, activating contacts with professional associations for language teachers (www.anils.it
and www.lend.it).

The above-mentioned path aims to highlight how important is grasping the various proposals by
integrating materials that are a resource for the teacher (general information on the constituent
elements of CLIL (The 4 Cs), methodology, planning) with materials that are a resource for the
classroom. The integration of the various types of resources helps to better meet the educational
needs.

In terms of educational planning, it is important to keep in mind the characteristics of the social
context where to work and the needs of students. It is also important to be aware of one’s own
knowledge and skills, in order to find one’s way to get by between the several sites and
resources without proceeding fortuitously. In this way, teachers can select the materials more
effectively and learn to use them in their classroom by making the necessary adaptations.
Digital resources are, in fact, a valuable educational tool, especially when combined with the
well-pondered and reflective action of the teacher.

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 More info in the website www.clil4children.eu

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