1.3 Communication Skills Across the Curriculum
Key Takeaways
- Communication skills are the functions learners perform with language — such as comparing, hypothesising, justifying, and persuading — not the grammar forms themselves.
- A single CLIL lesson typically moves learners through several communication skills in sequence, from interpreting data to presenting and evaluating solutions.
- Instructing is a learner skill as well as a teacher skill — pair or group practical work requires learners to instruct each other, not only the teacher to instruct the class.
- Cambridge exam items often ask which specific communication skill a piece of classroom language demonstrates, so precise identification matters more than general recognition.
1.3 Communication Skills Across the Curriculum
From Language Forms to Communicative Functions
Section 1.2 covered the grammatical forms learners need. This section covers the communication skills — the things learners actually do with language once they have those forms — across curricular subjects. Cambridge groups these functions together as the interactive and expressive purposes for which learners use language in a content lesson.
The Official List of Communication Skills
According to the Cambridge TKT: CLIL syllabus, the communication skills learners develop and use across the curriculum include: agreeing or disagreeing; asking questions; clarifying what has been said; comparing and contrasting; describing cause and effect, diagrams, images, or a process; evaluating work (own and others'); expressing ideas; giving examples, information, or reasons; hypothesising; instructing; interpreting data; justifying answers or opinions; persuading; predicting; presenting solutions or presenting work; stating facts and opinions; and suggesting changes or ideas.
The Full List at a Glance
| Skill | Example classroom language |
|---|---|
| Agreeing or disagreeing | "I agree, because the data shows a clear pattern." |
| Asking questions | "What happens to the liquid when you heat it?" |
| Clarifying | "Do you mean the first graph, or the second one?" |
| Comparing and contrasting | "Unlike granite, limestone reacts strongly with acid." |
| Describing cause/effect/diagram/process | "First the water evaporates, then it condenses." |
| Evaluating work | "Your explanation is clear, but you could add a labelled diagram." |
| Expressing ideas | "I think the main reason for this is..." |
| Giving examples/information/reasons | "For example, iron rusts because it reacts with oxygen." |
| Hypothesising | "If we added salt, the water might boil at a different temperature." |
| Instructing | "Pour the liquid slowly into the beaker." |
| Interpreting data | "The chart shows population grew fastest after 1950." |
| Justifying | "I chose this answer because the evidence supports it." |
| Persuading | "We should recycle more, because it reduces waste." |
| Predicting | "I predict the ice will melt within five minutes." |
| Presenting solutions/work | "Our group's solution is to insulate the container with wool." |
| Stating facts and opinions | "Water boils at 100°C. I think this experiment was useful." |
| Suggesting changes/ideas | "Maybe we should repeat the test to check our results." |
Worked Classroom Example: A Geography Lesson
Imagine a CLIL geography lesson on climate change taught in English to a group whose first language is not English. Over the course of one lesson, learners move through several of these communication skills in sequence:
- The teacher shows a graph of rising global temperatures and asks learners to interpret data ("What does this line show?") and describe cause and effect ("Why do you think temperatures are rising?").
- Learners hypothesise about consequences ("If sea levels keep rising, coastal cities might flood") and predict future scenarios.
- In pairs, learners compare and contrast two countries' carbon emissions using a data table, then agree or disagree with a partner's interpretation.
- Each pair presents solutions to the class — for example, proposals for reducing emissions — using language to justify their answer and persuade classmates that their solution is worth adopting.
- Other learners evaluate each presentation and suggest changes or ideas for improvement.
- Finally, learners state facts and opinions in a short written summary, giving reasons and examples to support their views.
Instructing Is Not Only a Teacher Skill
Instructing is often assumed to be something only teachers do, but in a CLIL classroom it is equally a learner skill: during a paired science experiment, one learner instructing a partner ("Pour it slowly," "Now stir it for ten seconds") is practising the same communication skill as the teacher giving procedural instructions at the start of the lesson. A well-planned CLIL task deliberately builds in opportunities for learners — not only teachers — to instruct, ask questions, and clarify with each other.
Why This List Matters for Planning and for the Exam
Two things make this list high-value for CLIL lesson planning and for the exam. First, communication skills are not tied to any single subject — "interpreting data" and "describing a process" belong equally to science, geography, maths, and even history (interpreting a population chart, describing how a battle unfolded). A CLIL teacher plans activities that deliberately practise several of these functions in a single lesson, rather than only ever asking learners to "state facts."
Second, Cambridge exam tasks often present a short classroom scenario or piece of learner language and ask which communication skill it demonstrates. Being able to name the specific communication skill in a piece of classroom talk — not just recognise that "communication is happening" — is exactly the discrimination the matching and multiple-choice tasks require.
A learner says: 'I think the results are wrong because the thermometer wasn't calibrated.' Which two communication skills does this utterance combine?
During a paired science experiment, one learner tells their partner: 'Pour it in slowly, then stir for ten seconds.' Which communication skill is this learner practising?
'Unlike granite, limestone reacts strongly with acid, but marble does not' is an example of which communication skill?
Which communication skill is a learner using when they say: 'Maybe we should repeat the test to check our results are accurate'?