3.1 Classroom Language and Questioning

3.1 Classroom Language and Questioning

In a CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) classroom, a subject teacher — for example, a science, geography, or history teacher delivering a lesson in English to learners whose first language is not English — uses classroom language for two purposes at once: to move the subject content forward, and to give learners repeated, meaningful exposure to the language they need in order to talk and write about that content. Two elements dominate lesson delivery in this content area: how a teacher questions learners, and how a teacher structures talk so that learners, and not only the teacher, are doing the talking.

Lower-order and higher-order questions

Questions are one of the main tools a CLIL teacher has for scaffolding thinking — providing temporary support that lets a learner reach a level of understanding or language production they could not reach unsupported. The TKT: CLIL syllabus distinguishes two broad levels of questioning:

Lower-order questions check that learners have understood or retained a specific piece of subject content or vocabulary — they usually have one correct answer and a short expected response. Higher-order questions ask learners to reason with that content: to explain a process, weigh evidence, or give an opinion supported by reasons. Effective lesson delivery in CLIL typically progresses from lower-order to higher-order talk within the same lesson or task: a teacher first confirms that learners have the factual building blocks ('What happened to the water level after the storm?') before asking them to think with those blocks ('Why do you think the water level rose so quickly, and what is the evidence in the data we collected?'). Asking a higher-order question before the lower-order groundwork is in place often produces silence, because learners lack both the content knowledge and the language needed to respond. Asking only lower-order questions throughout a lesson, on the other hand, caps the cognitive and language demand of the lesson and under-uses the CLIL opportunity to develop thinking skills alongside language.

A science teacher planning a lesson on states of matter might sequence questions this way: 'What happens to ice when you heat it?' (lower-order recall), then 'What is this process called?' (lower-order, vocabulary), then finally 'Why does heating make the particles move faster, and how does that explain the change from solid to liquid?' (higher-order — requires connecting cause, process, and evidence). The same content runs through every question, but the cognitive and language demand rises step by step.

Purposes of classroom language

A CLIL teacher's language in front of the class is not a single, uniform register — it shifts purpose from one moment to the next within a lesson. The syllabus identifies a specific set of purposes classroom language serves during lesson delivery:

• Presenting subject content — introducing new facts, processes, or concepts for the first time.
• Developing understanding — checking, deepening, or repairing learners' grasp of content already presented.
• Commenting on what's happening during practical work — narrating a demonstration or experiment as it unfolds (e.g. 'Notice how the liquid is turning blue as I add the solution').
• Developing learners' communicative and/or cognitive skills — language aimed at building how learners think or interact, not only what they know.
• Discussing ideas — open exchange of opinions and interpretations about the content.
• Encouraging learners — praise and motivation that keeps learners engaged and willing to take risks.
• Explaining subject concepts — clarifying a concept in accessible terms.
• Instructing — giving directions for a task or procedure.
• Modelling subject language — the teacher using the target vocabulary and structures correctly so learners have a model to copy.
• Questioning — the lower- and higher-order questioning described above.
• Recasting — reformulating a learner's inaccurate or partial utterance into a corrected form, without direct correction, so the learner hears the target form embedded in the response. For example, if a learner says 'The ice is go to water,' the teacher might recast: 'Yes — the ice is turning into water. It's melting.'
• Classroom management — organising learners, transitions, and behaviour so the lesson runs smoothly.

In practice, a single five-minute stretch of a CLIL lesson can move through several of these purposes. A geography teacher might instruct ('Open your maps to page 12'), model subject language ('This line here is called a contour line'), question ('What does a contour line show us?'), and recast a learner's answer, all before returning to presenting subject content about the next map feature.

Encouraging Student Talking Time (STT)

Because CLIL lessons must develop language as well as content, lesson delivery deliberately builds in opportunities for Student Talking Time (STT) — time in the lesson where learners, rather than the teacher, are producing language. A teacher-fronted lesson in which the teacher does most of the talking gives learners far less practice using subject language themselves. The syllabus lists several concrete ways of increasing STT:

1. Pair work — two learners discuss a question or compare answers before reporting back, e.g. predicting the outcome of a science experiment together.
2. Task-based learning — learners complete a content task (a chart, a diagram, a classification activity) that requires them to talk their way through a problem.
3. Group presentations — small groups research or complete a task and then present their findings to the class in the target language.
4. Role play — learners take on roles connected to the subject content (e.g. acting out a historical negotiation, or a courtroom debate on an environmental issue) to practise subject-specific language in context.
5. Explaining results — after practical work, learners describe what they found and why, rather than the teacher summarising for them.
6. Peer and group feedback — learners comment on each other's work or presentations, using evaluative and subject language.

A history teacher, for instance, might replace a teacher-led summary of a treaty's causes with a role play in which pairs of learners represent different countries and negotiate, then give a group presentation of the agreement they reached, followed by peer feedback from another pair. Every stage increases STT compared with a lecture-style explanation, while keeping exactly the same subject content as the learning target.