CLIL: Towards a Transdisciplinary and Literacy-Focused Approach to Language-Learning

By integrating Content and Language learning-objectives, we gain 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 the learning theories and principles guiding the development of these materials, alongside specific design considerations, implementation processes and classroom observations.