ESL Trends: Authentic Content and CLIL

This is our first ever post on ESL trends, so let’s start by discussing what this is about.  A “trend” is something that is becoming a commonly discussed topic and becoming popular to do.  An “ESL trend” is a recent movement or change in the way English is taught around the world.  As ELLs, it’s important to know what the trends are so you can tell if it is right for you.

In our ESL trends posts, we will discuss the trend, how it is affecting English language learning, and what you should do about it.  So let’s talk about the trend of using authentic content to teach English, which includes something called CLIL.

Authentic content is stuff that is real, like a true story, an English TV show, or a recorded phone call, as opposed to contrived content, which is stuff teachers make up to bring into their lessons and textbooks, like a scripted dialogue or a made up story. 

CLIL is an acronym for Content and Language Integrated Learning, which means learning new concepts in a new language, like learning biology in English at school. It’s teaching English and something else together. You learn about something in the world while encountering new words and grammar.

Recently, a lot of textbook making companies are shifting to using real-life content to teach English, and a lot of websites are offering “authentic” learning materials by using native music, blockbuster movies, news articles, and more to help students learn English.  CLIL is something they brag about in their course materials.

A very long time ago, English was taught to non-natives on a native level.  They were given real life content and expected to learn from adult conversations.  Students were taught advanced level grammar at the same time as beginner level grammar.  The result was ineffective learning.  It was too hard!

So after that, there was a push for content developed specifically for English language learning.  Teachers began to create content using simple vocabulary and grammar.  They had to invent things like people and places to be able to describe and discuss things on a simple level.  Real-life things are too complicated for beginners!

After a while, teachers started to see that students didn’t trust the content and were often demotivated by the content that seemed faky.  On top of that, by oversimplifying everything, students were restricted from being exposed to truly native content, and when they travelled to an English-speaking country or read an English book or watched an English movie, they were shocked at how little they understood, even though they could hold hour-long conversations with their native teacher.  Students were learning “textbook English” as opposed to “real English”.

The response was to start reincorporating authentic things into the classroom.  But now, there is a better balance because the authentic content is simplified or adjusted with ELLs in mind.  You might be reading about a real recent event, but it’s been written in simpler terms; or you might be watching a real English movie, but you aren’t expected to understand everything, instead you are taught some key vocabulary and a repeated grammar structure. This makes it one of the good ESL trends.

The result is that students are finding more satisfaction, as they can talk about real things, and more interest, as they know what they are learning is important in real life.  They are also getting exposed to native language use more often, so they are better prepared for communicating with natives.

CLIL has become popular recently because many claim it is an effective way to learn language.  Learning something new can be a motivation and interest to adult students who are sick and tired of “classroom English” and need a change.  Because many famous professionals supported the idea, it started to become incorporated into many areas of English learning, such as children’s course textbooks, international schools where students learn all their subjects in a different language, and the publication of graded readers on various scientific topics. CLIL is one of the recent ESL trends that hasn’t been properly researched in real-life classrooms with a variety of student types, and that’s why we’ll share some things to watch out for about CLIL in just a minute.

There are a few things to note on this ESL trend. 

In children’s ESL, using authentic content is a big mistake for a few reasons.  For one, their understanding of foreign ideas and lifestyle is so limited that even if they learn the related language, they won’t understand what is being taught. 

I taught kids classes with a very popular textbook before, and they thought it was good to put in a section on foreign culture in each unit.  The teacher’s notes say that you should start by discussing the topic in their own language so they understand the concepts, then go into English. 

The problem was, I couldn’t speak their language, they couldn’t care less about foreign culture because they weren’t even 10 years old, and the content discussed was somewhat related to the unit but they were never taught the language they needed to talk about this cultural point.  After trying many ways and many times for many classes, I realized that skipping that section in every unit was the best use of class time, and other the teachers did the same. Not all ESL trends are successful in the classroom.

Another problem is the complexity of the language, like what was in the cultural parts of the unit.  Children need super-simplified language, and it’s almost impossible to get authentic content that simplified.  If you pick up a native children’s book, you’ll see very quickly that it’s not simple.  Those are meant to be read by parents to the children, who have already learned the basics of communication in English.  So, content for kids has to be manufactured.

Another reason kids content is contrived is that it has to be interesting.  Kids NEED to be very interested in the lesson to learn anything, so big companies create colorful characters that aren’t real and make videos, songs, stories, and more for the kids to learn from.  This works really well, and kids are more interested and motivated by these lovable characters than recent events and foreign culture. 

In the same course with the cultural topics, there were large sections on real life topics that discussed things about the world, like the difference between services and products in a unit on jobs.  The idea is that they will learn better if it is a real life thing, because that’s how adults work sometimes, but the result was a very boring reading lesson.  Not only do the kids struggle to understand the concepts of how real life works, but they also didn’t care and ended up not learning the English language aims well. Every time.

Always the most difficult sections of every course to teach, in any institution or curriculum, are the sections that the students don’t fully understand.  You first have to give them a lecture on the topic in their language for them to start to understand, but they won’t all get it even in their own language.  One or two students in a group class is interested in learning about cave diving, the rest zone out the moment they see some new concepts they don’t get.  Then it’s a lost case! 

I’ve never seen CLIL work for children. They want to play and have fun.  So when teaching kids ESL, it’s better to avoid authentic content, and stick with learning content specifically designed for their language level and developmental level.  The push for CLIL and authentic content is one of the ESL trends that is too broadly applied.

Another thing to note about authentic content, is that it has to be taught right.  There are many who fall into the trap of thinking “They should be exposed to real life English,” and then go back to the old way of giving them things that are too difficult for their level.  Just because it’s authentic material doesn’t mean it’s good and useful for English language learning. Just because it’s one of the popular ESL trends doesn’t mean it’s a magic formula for English learning success.

Another note to make on the topic is that CLIL can cause language learning to take a back seat.  In other words, since the topic of the CLIL is related to something real, like space, there is a need for the students to learn something about space to understand the language.  The problem is, they are trying to learn the language to communicate on the topic of space, and they are trying to understand the topic of space in a new language.  It’s a catch-22. 

This often results in stunted learning: they don’t learn the content well because they aren’t sure of the language, and they don’t learn the language well because they aren’t sure of the content.  Despite what professors at universities and “research” say, after years of being in classrooms with real students, I’ve seen this problem far too often.  On top of this, most students pay to learn English, and they find it frustrating to waste useful class time on learning other topics.  I wouldn’t like it if I paid for a trip to the zoo and I was forced to spend time in the zoo library reading about animal habitats.  I’m there for the animals!

So what can you do?  If you are looking for a way for your child to learn English, I would avoid the CLIL styles.  It’s too much of a burden and it usually doesn’t work.  Look for something that teaches English English, not math English or science English or something like that.  They tell you that you’ll get more for your money because it’s two subjects in one, but as someone who has taught that for years, I can tell you it doesn’t work that way for most.

If you are an adult and looking to develop your English, focus on the topics you know and like.  These are anyways the things you are most likely to talk about and have the need to communicate about.  Your English acquisition will be faster because you don’t need to waste time trying to understand the meaning of the content. 

If you are motivating by learning new and interesting things, give CLIL a try.  You can overcome the problem by previewing the content or checking your understanding afterwards in your own language (something children can’t do).

Authentic content that is not CLIL is usually a good thing.  Just stay away from websites and courses that keep the content too far above your level and expect you to understand everything, as they are embracing ESL trends without testing them out objectively on students.  Using high level content is doable for beginner learners if the goal is to teach simple things like vocabulary. 

This is one of the problems of studying IELTS, as the content in the IELTS is advanced, and if a beginner only uses advanced materials they will get frustrated and demotivated as the learning is slow.  IELTS exams ask you to understand every detail!  It’s good to have authentic content, but it’s better to have things brought to your level.

Now it’s time to practice what you read to make sure you learn it at a deeper level, so go ahead and do the practice exercises below. Stay tuned to learn more about ESL trends and how to study English in future blog posts! If you are looking for some vocabulary development, don’t forget to see if there is a new vocabulary lesson every week at our 1pic1000words page! And if you are looking for lessons that meet your personal needs and are focused on learning English, not some other subject mixed in with English, see our courses or contact us to tell us what and how you would like to learn. We can help!💪

Practice Activities