CLIL

Abstract

By integrating content and language learning-objectives, one gains a transdisciplinary literacy-focused perspective that brings into focus the thinking skills, literacies, and soft skills that all children need to succeed. This proposition is grounded in two sets of CLIL-materials. For preschoolers, this transdisciplinary literacy-focused perspective transformed must-learn vocabulary and grammar into tasks for cultivating early numeracy, logical thinking, and self-regulatory behaviours. For primary-level learners, this approach recognized the cognitive maturity and reasoning abilities of 8-year-olds: age-appropriate disciplinary concepts regarding natural history were presented through materials using age-matched academic language, thus providing children whole complex discourses for thinking whole complex thoughts. To help readers incorporate such a perspective into their own practice, a workshop format presents some cognitive-neuroscience principles guiding the development of these materials alongside specific design considerations, implementation processes, and classroom observations.