Less is more

Abstract

Pedagogical practices that are effective in content courses are often effective in CLIL courses too, yet one such practice – content compression – is generally neglected. Content compression is the purposeful reduction of the content to be taught; however, the CLIL literature often warns against the reduction and simplification of content for fear that it might harm students’ understanding of the subject content. This paper explains the ostensibly paradoxical result that content compression improves students’ understanding of content and shows why it is well suited to CLIL, if applied correctly. It presents content compression principles and techniques that are appropriate to content production and teaching practice in the CLIL classroom and shows how it was used to enhance language acquisition by students in a CLIL business course at a Colombian university over a period of three semesters. This experience suggested that content compression, in combination with other pedagogical practices, not only increased students’ linguistic confidence, but also enhanced their perceived learning in both content and language.

Content and language integrated learning: teaching L2 at universities through students’ major

“…These results suggest that the majority of students believe that using content related to their field of study would be beneficial for improving their speaking skills in English classes (Wentzel, 2021). This could have implications for the design of English courses, as incorporating relevant content into language instruction could make the language learning experience more engaging and relevant for students.…”

“…On the other hand, some students find it necessary in order to continue studying, while a small percentage only see the use of English to travel or live abroad. Nonetheless, the students who find English only suitable for migration and travel purposes will find CLIL approach beneficial as it would help them improve their speaking skills (Wentzel, 2021).…”

Número Completo (marzo)

“…These results suggest that the majority of students believe that using content related to their field of study would be beneficial for improving their speaking skills in English classes (Wentzel, 2021). This could have implications for the design of English courses, as incorporating relevant content into language instruction could make the language learning experience more engaging and relevant for students.…”

“…On the other hand, some students find it necessary in order to continue studying, while a small percentage only see the use of English to travel or live abroad. Nonetheless, the students who find English only suitable for migration and travel purposes will find CLIL approach beneficial as it would help them improve their speaking skills (Wentzel, 2021).…”