TKT: CLIL Exam Flashcards

Q: Is TKT: CLIL the same as core TKT?

No. Cambridge English describes TKT: CLIL as a specialist module on Content and Language Integrated Learning. Core TKT Modules 1–3 address broader English-language-teaching knowledge, lesson planning/resources, and classroom management. TKT: YL is a separate specialist module on young learners.

Q: What does the TKT: CLIL module assess?

It assesses knowledge of a CLIL approach: its aims and rationale, lesson preparation, lesson delivery, and assessment. It tests teaching knowledge and terminology, not subject knowledge, English proficiency, or observed classroom performance.

Q: How is TKT: CLIL structured?

Cambridge English states that each TKT module has 80 multiple-choice and matching questions and lasts 80 minutes. The current Cambridge English information says TKT is available in digital and paper-based formats at authorised centres.

Q: Does TKT: CLIL have a pass mark?

No. Cambridge English reports a band for each completed module rather than a pass or fail result. Band 1 indicates limited knowledge, Band 2 basic but systematic knowledge, Band 3 breadth and depth of knowledge, and Band 4 extensive knowledge of the module's content areas.

Q: How are these flashcards allocated?

The official handbook allocates 25 questions each to knowledge of CLIL and lesson preparation, 20 to lesson delivery, and 10 to assessment. This 50-card set scales those official counts to 16, 16, 12, and 6 cards respectively using largest-remainder rounding.

Question 1

TKT: CLIL module identity

Accepted Answer

TKT: CLIL is Cambridge English's specialist module on Content and Language Integrated Learning. It is distinct from the three core TKT modules and from TKT: YL, the separate specialist module on young learners.

Question 2

Editorial card allocation

Accepted Answer

The official handbook distributes 80 questions as 25 Knowledge of CLIL, 25 Lesson Preparation, 20 Lesson Delivery, and 10 Assessment. This 50-card review scales that distribution to 16, 16, 12, and 6 cards by largest-remainder rounding.

Question 3

CLIL

Accepted Answer

Content and Language Integrated Learning is an approach in which learners develop curricular content and a target language together. The content subject remains central while language is planned as support for learning and communication.

Question 4

The 4 Cs framework

Accepted Answer

Coyle's 4 Cs are Content, Communication, Cognition, and Culture. A well-planned CLIL lesson considers subject learning, the language needed to communicate, thinking processes, and cultural or citizenship perspectives.

Question 5

Content in CLIL

Accepted Answer

Content is the subject knowledge, concepts, and skills learners are developing—for example, understanding a scientific process or interpreting a historical source. It gives the language work a purposeful curricular context.

Question 6

Communication in CLIL

Accepted Answer

Communication includes the language learners need to understand, discuss, explain, and present subject ideas. Plan both receptive language, such as reading a diagram, and productive language, such as justifying a conclusion.

Question 7

Cognition in CLIL

Accepted Answer

Cognition is the thinking learners use to work with content. It ranges from recalling and classifying to analysing, evaluating, and creating. Cognitive demand should be challenging but supported.

Question 8

Culture in CLIL

Accepted Answer

Culture in the 4 Cs connects learning with perspectives, communities, and citizenship. It can invite learners to compare viewpoints and understand how a topic is experienced in different contexts.

Question 9

BICS

Accepted Answer

Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills are the language skills commonly used for everyday social interaction. They are not the same as the academic language learners may need to explain evidence or write a subject report.

Question 10

CALP

Accepted Answer

Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency is language used for demanding academic tasks. It includes the ability to understand and express subject-specific ideas, relationships, and reasoning in contexts with less immediate support.

Question 11

Content-obligatory language

Accepted Answer

Content-obligatory language is language learners need in order to understand or communicate the subject content. In a science unit on forces, terms such as force, friction, and measure may be essential to the learning goal.

Question 12

Content-compatible language

Accepted Answer

Content-compatible language is useful language that can be developed through the topic but is not essential for learning that content. A unit on habitats might provide opportunities to practise comparative forms even if they are not the core subject objective.

Question 13

Communication skill

Accepted Answer

A communication skill is a language function used to work with content, such as comparing, hypothesising, explaining cause and effect, interpreting data, or justifying an opinion. Match the function to the task learners must complete.

Question 14

Higher-order thinking

Accepted Answer

Higher-order thinking goes beyond recalling information. Analysing relationships, evaluating evidence, defending a judgement, and creating a solution require learners to manipulate and apply knowledge in more complex ways.

Question 15

Learning skill across the curriculum

Accepted Answer

Learning skills are transferable ways of working, such as note-taking, researching, estimating and checking, sequencing, editing, and guessing meaning from context. They support learners' independence in different subjects.

Question 16

Cognitive-process verbs

Accepted Answer

Action verbs can signal the thinking a task asks for. “List” often signals remembering; “explain” understanding; “calculate” applying; “justify” analysing; “recommend” evaluating; and “design” creating. The full task context still matters.

Question 17

Intended learning outcomes

Accepted Answer

Intended learning outcomes state what learners should be able to know or do by the end of a lesson or sequence. Clear outcomes help align content, language, cognition, activity, and assessment choices.

Question 18

Content objective

Accepted Answer

A content objective names the curricular learning, such as explaining the stages of a water cycle. It should specify the subject understanding or skill rather than simply the activity learners will perform.

Question 19

Language objective

Accepted Answer

A language objective identifies the vocabulary, grammar, discourse, or function learners need for the content task. For comparing data, learners may need comparative forms and language for describing differences.

Question 20

Language demands

Accepted Answer

Language demands are the features learners need to access and communicate the content: key vocabulary, text patterns, grammatical forms, and functions. Identifying them early makes it possible to plan targeted support.

Question 21

Text genre

Accepted Answer

A text genre is a recognisable type of spoken or written text with a purpose and typical organisation, such as a procedure, report, explanation, description, or recount. Teach the genre that fits the subject task.

Question 22

Visual organiser

Accepted Answer

A visual organiser makes relationships in content visible. Select it for its purpose: a sequence chart for stages, a Venn diagram for similarities and differences, or a timeline for chronological order.

Question 23

Concept map

Accepted Answer

A concept map displays ideas and labelled relationships among them. It can help learners organise a topic, connect prior knowledge with new information, and see cause, category, or part-whole links.

Question 24

Venn diagram

Accepted Answer

A Venn diagram uses overlapping areas to show what two or more sets share and how they differ. It supports comparison because the overlap contains common features and the non-overlapping areas show unique features.

Question 25

Flow chart

Accepted Answer

A flow chart represents the stages and decisions in a process. Arrows show direction or sequence, making it useful for procedures, systems, cycles with a clear path, and cause-to-result processes.

Question 26

Materials adaptation

Accepted Answer

Adapting materials makes the content more accessible without removing the learning goal. A teacher might add visuals, reduce unnecessary language, divide a long text into sections, or highlight essential vocabulary.

Question 27

Word bank or glossary

Accepted Answer

A word bank or glossary supplies selected key terms and meanings or visuals. It reduces avoidable vocabulary barriers so learners can focus on the content task; it should support, not replace, meaningful use of the words.

Question 28

Writing frame

Accepted Answer

A writing frame provides a structured template for a text genre, often with headings, sentence starters, or connectors. It scaffolds how learners organise subject information while they develop control of the language.

Question 29

Activity purpose

Accepted Answer

Choose an activity because it advances a planned objective. A ranking task can develop evaluation, a matching task can reinforce key relationships, and an information-gap task can create a real reason to communicate.

Question 30

Activating prior knowledge

Accepted Answer

Activating prior knowledge brings forward what learners already know about a topic, language, or experience before new learning. It helps a teacher identify useful starting points and makes new content easier to connect.

Question 31

Cognitive challenge with support

Accepted Answer

CLIL planning should not make a task easy merely by lowering its thinking demand. Keep the worthwhile content and cognitive goal, then provide support through modelling, visuals, structured language, staged tasks, or collaboration.

Question 32

Resource selection

Accepted Answer

Select resources for their fit with the objectives, learners, and task. Diagrams, real objects, video, data displays, and digital tools can support understanding when they make important content or language more accessible.

Question 33

Scaffolding

Accepted Answer

Scaffolding is temporary, purposeful support that enables learners to complete a task they could not yet manage independently. It can support both content and language and should be reduced as learners gain control.

Question 34

Modelling and think-alouds

Accepted Answer

Modelling shows learners what a successful process or product looks like. A think-aloud makes the teacher's decisions visible—for example, explaining how to extract evidence from a graph before learners try it.

Question 35

Wait time

Accepted Answer

Wait time is the pause after a question or learner response. Allowing thinking time can improve the quality and number of responses, especially when learners are processing both subject content and an additional language.

Question 36

Classroom language

Accepted Answer

Classroom language is the language used to manage learning and discuss content: giving instructions, checking understanding, asking questions, prompting explanation, and providing feedback. Make it comprehensible while keeping its purpose clear.

Question 37

Question progression

Accepted Answer

A question sequence can move from lower-demand recall or observation toward explanation, prediction, and justification. This builds confidence and prepares learners for more complex thinking rather than requiring it without support.

Question 38

Recasting

Accepted Answer

Recasting reformulates a learner's message in a more accurate or appropriate way while preserving the intended meaning. It provides a model without necessarily interrupting communication with a lengthy correction.

Question 39

Checking understanding

Accepted Answer

Checking understanding gathers evidence that learners understand the content, task, or language. Ask learners to explain, show, sort, apply, or summarise; a simple “Do you understand?” gives much weaker evidence.

Question 40

Learning strategies

Accepted Answer

Learning strategies are deliberate approaches learners use to manage learning, such as predicting from headings, using context to infer meaning, organising notes, planning a search, or checking a result. Teach and name the strategy explicitly.

Question 41

Consolidating learning

Accepted Answer

Consolidation revisits important learning so it becomes more secure and connected. Learners might explain a diagram in words, apply a concept to a new example, or summarise the lesson's key relationships.

Question 42

Differentiation

Accepted Answer

Differentiation adjusts support, resources, process, or expected output so learners can work toward the same worthwhile objective at an appropriate level of challenge. It is more than giving faster learners extra work.

Question 43

Strategic use of a first language

Accepted Answer

A learner's first language can sometimes be used strategically to clarify a complex idea, compare concepts, or plan an answer. Use it purposefully alongside opportunities to develop the target language required by the task.

Question 44

Actionable feedback

Accepted Answer

Actionable feedback identifies what is working and names a next step linked to the objective. “Add evidence from the graph to support your conclusion” is more useful than general praise because it guides revision.

Question 45

Focus of assessment

Accepted Answer

In CLIL, decide whether the assessment is gathering evidence of content knowledge, language use, communication, learning skills, or a combination. The task and criteria should match that stated focus.

Question 46

Formative assessment

Accepted Answer

Formative assessment happens during learning to identify progress and next steps. Brief questioning, observation, an exit response, or feedback on a draft can help a teacher and learners adjust what happens next.

Question 47

Summative assessment

Accepted Answer

Summative assessment evaluates learning at the end of a unit, course, or defined period. It can report achievement, but its design still needs to make clear which CLIL outcomes—content, language, or both—it is measuring.

Question 48

Self and peer assessment

Accepted Answer

Self-assessment asks learners to judge their own work against criteria; peer assessment asks them to respond to another learner's work. Clear, accessible criteria and modelling help either process produce useful learning rather than vague praise.

Question 49

Portfolio assessment

Accepted Answer

A portfolio is a purposeful collection of work that shows development over time. It can include drafts, final products, reflections, and feedback, allowing progress in content, language, or learning strategies to become visible.

Question 50

Assessment support strategy

Accepted Answer

Support strategies reduce avoidable language barriers without changing the construct being assessed. Depending on the assessment aim, they can include clearer instructions, familiar task formats, visual support, extra processing time, or a glossary of non-target words.

Free TKT: CLIL Exam Flashcards

Filter by Topic

Jump to Card

About These TKT: CLIL Flashcards

Topics Covered

Frequently Asked Questions

Cambridge TKT: CLIL

Explore More TESOL and English Language Teaching Certificates

Cambridge TKT (Teaching Knowledge Test)

Cambridge TKT: Young Learners (YL)

Cambridge TKT Module 1

TESOL Certificate

CELTA Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

Cambridge TKT Module 2

More From This Family