TKT: CLIL study guide
TKT: CLIL · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
TKT CLIL - Content and Language Integrated Learning - is one of the two specialist modules of the Teaching Knowledge Test, a series of modular qualifications from Cambridge English that test knowledge in specific areas of English language teaching. It is designed for both new and experienced teachers, including teachers of primary, secondary and adult learners, who want to prove their knowledge with an internationally recognised certificate; Cambridge English lists an English level of B1 or above for its target audience. The TKT: CLIL study guide has 6 sections and about 2,066 words.
01Knowledge of CLIL and Principles of CLIL
CLIL is dual-focused education: a subject is taught through an additional language, and both content and language are planned for. Content drives the lesson; language is the vehicle, not the syllabus.
346 words, about 2 min02Lesson Planning
Planning starts with what learners must understand and be able to do, then asks what language that requires. Analyse the language demands of the content: key vocabulary (technical and semi-technical), collocations, functions (defining, hypothesising, comparing, explaining cause), grammar needed for those functions, and the text types learners will read or produce.
335 words, about 2 min03Managing the Learning Environment
In CLIL the classroom is a language-rich environment where learners must both understand and use the target language. Managing this means planning interaction patterns : teacher–whole class for input and modelling, pair work for rehearsal before public speaking, small-group work for collaborative tasks, and individual work for consolidation.
372 words, about 2 min04Teaching Strategies
Scaffolding is temporary support that lets learners perform beyond their independent level and is then removed. Its forms include modelling the task, thinking aloud, demonstrating with a worked example, providing substitution tables and sentence frames, using visuals and graphic organisers (tables, timelines, Venn diagrams, flow charts, concept maps), key-word lists, glossaries, and guided questioning.
336 words, about 2 min05Planning and Preparing CLIL Materials
Materials in CLIL must satisfy two sets of criteria at once: content criteria (accurate, curriculum-relevant, appropriately challenging, culturally appropriate, engaging) and language criteria (level of vocabulary and syntax, density, text type, availability of visual support, opportunity for learner output). Authentic materials - real subject texts, diagrams, video, news, data - bring genuine language and motivation, but often carry high lexical density, complex nominalisation, cultural assumptions and unhelpful length.
324 words, about 2 min06Assessing Learners
CLIL assessment is dual : it should capture subject learning and language development, but the two should not contaminate each other unfairly. A learner may understand the science fully yet be unable to express it in the target language, so an assessment that requires extended written prose in the additional language may under-report content knowledge.
353 words, about 2 min