Interaction and Dialogue in the CLIL classroom

            I would like to star introducing a question, what is the meaning of language? According to Cambridge Dictionaries is “a system of communication consisting of sounds, words and grammar, or the system of communication used by people in a particular country or type of work”.

Of course language is very important and it is essential for the humans because is the way that we have to communicate with others and also is the way that we use to express our opinions.

  As we could see, language is primordial to human and to society but how the is language used in CLIL classroom by teacher and by the students? In CLIL classrooms the students are able to develop speaking skills; also this classroom provides them the possibility to interact with their classmates and with the teacher. The students have to understand and be able to produce wide range of language early in CLIL and the teacher has to in the best way to develop the spoken and the writing language in their students.  (Bentley, K. 2010)

            Interaction has a main role in the process of teaching- learning. The process of teaching – learning, is relative to the interaction how is produced among the teacher and the students through the language and also through the communicative relation established among them. We can say that the level of communication and how is established among the teachers and their students determines the results in the learning process. If the teacher is able to achieve a good interaction with his students probably he will get an effective learning. (Moral Santaella, C. 2010). 

The first research on the importance and effectiveness of classroom interaction dates from the decades of the 60s and 70s made by Rosenshine and Stevens (1986) and Brophy in the same year.

Ana Llinares writes about the roles of interaction in CLIL classrooms (2013)

 “For many advocates of CLIL, the most important advantage of the approach is that it encourages more meaningful spoken interaction in the classroom than traditional language teaching. Through engaging in cognitively demanding and meaningful activities, students will have more opportunities to communicate in the foreign language, and will be more motivated to do so. While many language teachers do use language-rich, meaningful tasks in the classroom, this is a powerful justification for using a CLIL approach. Yet, the nature of classroom talk in CLIL lessons is not always very well understood by practitioners.”

(Llinares, A. 2013, The roles of interaction in CLIL classrooms, website       Getxolinguae)

 As I believe if we use the interaction in our CLIL classrooms we will get great results because interaction is a good tool to develop the communication and the motivation in our students.

 To develop interaction we can use the dialogue, in a research published by Muijis and Reynolds in 2005 stand out the positive effects of the interactive teaching; using questions with the students, promoting the active participation in the classroom and solving problems in cooperation among all the students. The dialogic dimension has a lot of positive aspects and benefits, for example “some research in L2 has demonstrated how dialogic collaboration among peers can resource a level of achievement which “outstrips ... individual competencies” (Swain 2000:111). Swain’s findings in L2 contexts complement Mercer and Littleton’s (2007) findings in L1 contexts offering reason to believe that the same may be true for CLIL.”                  (Moate, J. 2011, Reconceptualising the Role of Talk in CLIL).

 A dialogic collaboration helps us to give to our students communicative activities, this activities develop social skills because they interact with their classmates also the students develop the collaborative skills, something that is essential in the process of learning and also a skill that they will have for all their lives.

         To sum up, I would like to emphasize the importance of communication and of course how with a good interaction we could get an effective learning. If we use the interaction as a tool to improve the language of our students I am sure that we will have a great result, and if we work in that way our students will be motivated and they will develop collaborative skills, which are a very important skills not only in the school also in the life and for their develop as human.

 Bibliography: 

Books:

•           Llinares, A. Morton, T.  Whittaker, R. (2012), The roles of language in CLIL. Cambridge University Press.
•           Bentley,K. (2010), The TKT course CLIL Module. Cambridge University Press.
•           Moral Santaella, C. (2010), Didáctia, teoría y práctica de la enseñanza. Editorial Pirámide.
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Websites:

•        (Llinares, A. 2013, The roles of interaction in CLIL classrooms, website Getxolinguae)

Articles:

•           Moate,J. (2011). University of Jyväskylä. Reconceptualising the Role of Talk in CLIL, Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies, Vol. 5, 2 , 2011, 17–35. 

Music as a good tool for learning English as a L2

 It is a fact that music belongs to culture and it is art and with no doubt music have the power to transmit a lot of feelings. With songs we can also express things that we are not able to express with words. For that reason I think that is a good way to learn and also a perfect way to teach because it can be a motivating resource for students and also for teachers.

   Many researches support that the inclusion of songs and music elements during the teaching process of a second language have a lot of benefits in the learning process. Using music to learn English as a L2 not only increases listening comprehension, but speaking, reading and motivation as well.

   Language and music are two similar human abilities; the melody and the rhythm of speaking are connected with the intonation in music. I would like to add some of the aspects that music and language have in common:

             

Language and music

Both are universal human abilities.       Both have 3 ways of expression: vocal, gestural, and written.         Are developed spontaneously in children           Both follow a set order in the structure, some grammatical rules using words or using musical notes.

   

   Now I would like to set out the following question, why are songs a useful tool to acquire and learn English as a second language? 

Songs are constantly present in our daily lives, as I said before everybody enjoys music; frequently teachers of second languages use songs at the beginning or at the end of their class, also songs are used to support some topics. For example, if they are studying the human body, the teacher can use the some songs related to the vocabulary of the unit as for example the popular “head, shoulder, knees and toes”.

We have many types of songs which can be used in the classroom, from nursery rhymes to pop music, and we cannot forget a lot of music written specifically for English language teaching.

 If we use the music that our students usually listen or the songs that are popular in that moment it could be very motivating for the kids.

Howard Gardner once said: “It’s not how intelligent you are, but how you are intelligent.” In our classroom we have different kids; we have not two students who learn exactly in the same way for this reason, we will have to use different learning styles.

Garner says if a student is good at picking up sounds, remembering melodies and rhythms; they like to singing, humming, playing instruments and listening to music, learning through songs will be very beneficial for him.

(Mol, H. 2009)     

I am going to add another question, when and how should we use songs in the classroom? We can use songs in different moments, for example at the beginning of the class, when we change from one activity to other, to introduce a new topic, new vocabulary, to revise language, if want to get everyone´s attention….

(Brewster, J. Ellis, G. Girard, D.2002)

Summarizing I would like to add some five reasons why we have to use songs in English class:

•          Songs are real materials.
•           With songs we can teach culture and history.
•           Songs have repetitions of vocabulary.
•           It is a good and motivating way to teach and develops vocabulary pronunciation.
•           They are fun and motivating.

(Teaching English, British Council, BBC website 2011)

To conclude I would like to say that this topic it is very important and interesting. Motivation is one of the most important aspects that as teachers we should get with our students, because if our students are motivated they will learn successfully and if we teach with songs I am sure that we will have wonderful outcomes. This is not only motivating for our students, also is motivating for us as teachers.

“Music has to be an important part in education. Music is indeed an excellent vehicle for communication, language and culture, hence thinking of education without a musical approach would be nonsense.” Plato, The Republic

Bibliography

Books:

•          Grüner, R. (2009) Teaching English Through Songs. Seminar paper in the subject English - Pedagogy, Didactics, Literature Studies.

•     Brewster, J. Ellis, G. Girard, D. (2002) The Primary English Teacher's Guide (Penguin English) 

Articles (pdf):

•           Contreras, A. Flores, A. (2010)  Can Music Improve Foreign Language Learning?

Webs: 

-          Teaching English, British Council, BBC website 2011

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/blogs/evab2001/using-songs-teach-english

-          Mol, H. (2009) Humanizing Language Teaching

http://www.hltmag.co.uk/apr09/less01.htm