VIDEO: David Marsh on CLIL

“David Marsh has worked on multilingualism & bilingual education since the 1980s. He was part of the team which conducted groundwork leading to the launch of the term CLIL in 1994. In 2002, he coordinated production of CLIL - The European Dimension: Actions, Trends and Foresight Potential for the European Commission (DG EAC).  This overview of the situation in Europe was used in the compilation of the 2004-2006 EC Action Plan: Promoting Language Learning & Linguistic Diversity.” (Found on: http://clil-cd.ecml.at/)

In the video, David Marsh presents an overview of CLIL and he gives his opinion about how it works and what is its future by answering some questions.

Firstly, he is asked how did he become involved in CLIL. It was because of his bad experience he saw in including a bilingual method in Asia, so when we moved to Europe, he wants to end up with a solution and create a method in which children can get the knowledge and the language. So, they created CLIL. I find very interesting how from bad experiences, they reconverted in a very good method, that I think it would be in all our school.

But, although it is a very well-created method, David Marsh explains that it does not always work. In my opinion, I think that the most important points are that teachers have to work together (subject teachers and language teachers) and, what is more, to be supported by the government. For using that type of methodology, teachers need time to get involved, to prepare and to evaluate. And also, I think the rhythm of the lessons has to be slowly at the beginning. This is also what David Marsh try to explain, “teachers have to be supported by the system”.

At last, I want to highlight his answer to the question “Are some personality types better suited to teaching CLIL than others?”. I totally agree with the fact that we only need to have a vocation for teaching, and to love it. So, I think the best “personality” it’s the one of who wants education to get better and better and collaborate for achieve that goal.