Why is knowledge of content-obligatory language important in CLIL?
Teachers need to analyse resources, tasks and texts so they can be prepared to pre-teach the language or help learners to notice the subject language which they listen to, read and produce. Teachers may decide to use vocabulary ‘word banks’, sentence substitution tables or writing frames so that learners have support while using subject language. It is easy to forget that the reason learners may not communicate in class is that they are unsure of the subject-specific language. Many learners, particularly teenagers, are happy to do subject tasks such as draw a design from a decorated Mayan vase, but would rather remain silent than make mistakes with the language they need to describe what they have drawn. Younger learners like the security of visually attractive language support.
