Clil

Content and Language Integrated Learning Motivating Learners and Teachers Do Coyle University Nottingham Motivation works in both directions: high motivation is one factor that encourages successful learning; in reverse, successful learning encourages high motivation. Cook (2001) Introduction In the wake of the Nuffield Report (Nuffield Language Inquiry 2000) at the turn of the new millennium, the teaching and learning of modern languages has been profiled through government policy, European reports and initiatives and curriculum strategies such as those focussing on younger learners, the Common European Framework and the Languages Ladder. Developments such as the Primary Pathfinders, Specialist School Trust initiatives and the Languages Strategy1 in England have engendered widespread discussion about foreign language study. There are many examples of outstanding practice at the micro level, where foreign language learning is motivating and successful for a wide range of learners especially, but not exclusively, in those schools with specialist status such as Language Colleges2. So why is the national picture one of attrition in terms of take-up, with few students continuing the study of languages beyond the age of 14 and university departments under threat of closure? There are of course no simple answers to such questions. There is much talk of globalisation and the knowledge society where some young people have arguably more access to learning than ever before but in ways that are different from traditional schooling. Multi-tasking students can listen to i-pods, whilst downloading from the internet, cut and paste powerful visual imagery into their on-line work, whilst communicating with friends in a chat room. This seems to be somewhat at odds with a national curriculum and examination system, which promote transactional foreign language topic-based study under the guise of communication. Over ten years ago Salters et al (1995:6) commented that [t]he pendulum...