Hartes CLIL, weiches CLIL … gibt es so etwas?

Na ja, im Englischen spricht man von Hard CLIL und Soft CLIL, das klingt vielleicht etwas besser. Aber was ist damit gemeint? Um die Vielfalt der CLIL-Realitäten besser in den Griff zu bekommen, unterscheidet das Goethe-Institut in zwei Haupttypen. Dies wird in der folgenden Tabelle verdeutlicht:

Oder anders gefragt: Hard CLIL, soft CLIL … what do you mean by that?

Well, what we basically mean is the difference between content-driven (hard) and language-driven (soft) CLIL. Russel Stannard says, “The term CLIL seems to be an umbrella term for a range of contexts. At one end we have what is often termed ‘Hard CLIL.’ (Phil Ball 2009).  In most cases, this means the delivery of a subject like history or geography in English rather than in the mother tongue. These courses are often delivered by subject specialist teachers who are non-native. There are several challenges here. Firstly, the teachers are not normally trained language teachers but rather have been trained to deliver their subject knowledge in their mother tongue, so they might not be aware of the techniques that might help them to deliver their subject in English /…/.

Weak or soft CLIL reminds me more of my own language learning and what I used to like to do in class. In other words, focus on (hopefully) interesting content through the medium of English. /…/ In reality, there is probably more language focus in these classes as the teachers delivering the content are usually trained language teachers. /…/ The objective is still the same, ie to make the content digestible to the students so that they can engage with it.”

 In any case, “In CLIL, content is KING”, Russel Stannard says. I couldn´t agree more.

For more information, get in touch with your online CLILvoc coach, please.