The keynote address “Diving into deep learning” looked at a variety of challenges teachers have experienced with CLIL and Pluriliteracies teaching in their classroom, the pedagogical practices they tried to put into place and the impact they had on their teaching and their students’ learning. In order for deep learning to occur, it is important first to co-construct knowledge with students and to ensure the language is accessible to them so they can understand and learn at the appropriate cognitive level. It is also essential to teach students the language that is needed to bring them to the level where they can demonstrate their understanding by producing texts and discussing new ideas and concepts without any scaffolding.
The two workshops “CLIL in Practice” and “Pluriliteracies in Practice” looked at some of the difficulties CLIL students often encounter with the 4Cs (Content, Communication, Cognition and Culture) and with the different disciplinary literacies. At the event participants examined and took part in concrete and practical CLIL activities that can help their students. All the activities undertaken are easily adaptable to individual classroom settings.
Dunja Chamberlain
ECML expert