The talk discusses how CLIL teachers in three schools use critical pedagogy – the exploration of matters of social justice and equity – to respond to issues arising in their contexts such as the Syrian refugee crisis and Brexit. Teachers reported that this has led to increased student engagement, motivation and learning,
This talk aims to show how teachers in three schools used critical pedagogy to have students explore issues arising in their communities in order to increase student learning. Reagan (2016) sees critical pedagogy – the exploration of issues of social justice and equity – as a way of making content and language learning ‘count’ and thus memorable. By having students engage with ‘understanding their place and responsibility within’ the world in order to improve it, Reagan suggests they become truly engaged with thinking critically about content and language that reaches beyond the walls of the classroom. After defining critical pedagogy the talk focuses on three separate examples of CLIL. The first is an upper secondary school in Italy where CLIL modules are integrated into science and maths courses. The school has responded to students’ wishes to explore in English topics arising from their context such as the Syrian refugee crisis, the causes of terrorism, and the environment. A school 'hard' and social science fair provides students a meaningful opportunity to dislpay learning from their research. The second example comes from an Italian lower secondary school where students investigated the possible advantages and disadvantages of Brexit for the UK, whilst discussing how the EU might influence their own lives. The third example is from a secondary school in Portugal. Students analysed advertisements from over five decades to identify common ways in which advertisers try to persuade and manipulate consumers. They then created their own advertisements. The teachers concerned reported that the topics arising from their contexts motivated students to engage deeply with their learning. In addition, the teachers argued that students learned a richer range of and more language in these lessons than would have been the case in a standard language lesson. As a by-product students also learned valuable content.
