3.2 Scaffolding Content and Language
Key Takeaways
- Scaffolding supports both content and language at once: allowing longer wait time, breaking tasks into small steps, and doing practical demonstrations all reduce task demand.
- Word banks, glossaries, sentence support, and language frames scaffold learners' language input and output around subject content.
- Providing models of effective work and giving constructive feedback show learners what a successful response looks like.
- Relating subject topics to personal experience connects new content to what learners already know, aiding memory and engagement.
- Allowing some use of the L1 (first language) — code switching — lets learners work through a difficult concept without losing momentum.
3.2 Scaffolding Content and Language
Scaffolding is the temporary support a teacher provides so that learners can complete a task or understand content that would otherwise be too demanding for their current level of subject knowledge, English proficiency, or both. Because CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) learners are working with unfamiliar content and unfamiliar language at the same time, scaffolding in a CLIL lesson has to support both simultaneously — the subject content itself, and the input and output language learners need in order to access and express that content.
Features of scaffolding in lesson delivery
The TKT: CLIL syllabus lists a specific set of scaffolding features a teacher uses during lesson delivery:
| Scaffolding feature | What it looks like in a CLIL lesson |
|---|---|
| Allowing longer wait time(s) | Pausing several extra seconds after a question so learners can formulate an answer in a second language, rather than immediately rephrasing the question or calling on someone else |
| Breaking down tasks into small steps | Splitting 'design an experiment to test which material insulates best' into numbered steps: choose materials, predict, measure, record, compare |
| Creating interest in the subject | Opening a lesson on volcanoes with a short video clip or a striking image before presenting content |
| Doing practical demonstrations | Showing, not just describing, how a chemical reaction produces gas, so learners can attach language to something they can observe |
| Giving constructive feedback | Responding to a learner's written explanation of a graph with specific, actionable comments on both the science content and the English used |
| Providing word banks, glossaries, sentence support and language frames | A word bank of key terms (e.g. magma, lava, eruption, crater) plus a sentence frame ('A volcano erupts when ___ because ___') given before learners write about a volcanic eruption |
| Providing models of effective work | Showing a completed sample paragraph or diagram before learners produce their own |
| Relating subject topics to personal experience | Asking learners to connect a lesson on ecosystems to a garden, park, or river they already know |
| Allowing some use of the L1 (first language) — code switching | Letting learners briefly discuss a difficult concept in their first language in pairs before reporting back in English |
Supporting learners' access to content
Several scaffolding features reduce the demand of a task without reducing its subject value. Allowing longer wait time(s) recognises that formulating an answer in a second language simply takes longer than formulating it in a first language; cutting that time short penalises language, not subject knowledge. Breaking down tasks into small steps turns one large, ambiguous instruction into a sequence learners can follow one step at a time, which matters most for multi-stage subject tasks like experiments or extended writing. Creating interest in the subject and doing practical demonstrations both give learners something concrete to anchor new vocabulary to — it is far easier to learn the word evaporation while watching water disappear from a dish than from a dictionary definition alone. Giving constructive feedback and providing models of effective work both show learners, rather than only tell them, what a successful response looks like, closing the gap between what a learner produced and what is expected.
Supporting learners' language production
A second cluster of features targets language directly. A glossary gives learners definitions of key terms; a word bank gives learners a bank of relevant vocabulary to draw on without necessarily defining each item; sentence support and language frames give learners a partial structure to complete, scaffolding the grammar and organisation of their output as well as its vocabulary. Consider a geography lesson on climate change: before learners write, the teacher provides a word bank (greenhouse gas, emission, temperature rise, sea level) and a language frame — 'One cause of climate change is ___ because ___. This leads to ___.' The word bank scaffolds what learners can say; the language frame scaffolds how they say it. Providing these supports for input and output means the same kind of support — visual, lexical, and structural — helps learners both understand incoming subject text and produce their own.
Personal relevance and code switching
Relating subject topics to personal experience connects new, unfamiliar content to something a learner already knows, which both aids memory and gives learners a personal reason to engage with otherwise abstract content — for instance, asking learners studying erosion to describe a riverbank or coastline they have visited themselves. Allowing some use of the L1 (first language) — code switching — moving between the first language and the target language within the same lesson or interaction — lets learners work through a genuinely difficult concept without losing momentum. A teacher might let two learners clarify what photosynthesis means to each other briefly in their first language before asking them to explain the process back to the class in English. Used sparingly and purposefully, this kind of code switching keeps subject learning moving forward while learners are still building the English needed to discuss it independently.
Combining scaffolding features in one task
In practice, a single CLIL task usually stacks several scaffolding features together rather than relying on just one. For a lesson asking learners to explain why a bridge design failed, a teacher might break the task into small steps (look at the diagram, identify the weak point, describe what happened, explain why), provide a word bank of relevant terms (load, stress, joint, collapse), give a sentence frame ('The bridge failed because ___, which caused ___'), allow longer wait time before expecting a spoken answer, and show a model answer from a previous class before learners attempt their own. None of these features changes the subject content of the task — every learner is still explaining the same structural failure — but together they lower the language and organisational barriers enough that learners can reach the same subject understanding as a class working in their first language.
A teacher gives learners a list of key words (magma, lava, eruption, crater) and a sentence frame 'A volcano erupts when ___ because ___' before they write about an eruption. Which two scaffolding features does this combine?
Which scaffolding feature involves briefly permitting learners to use their first language to work through a difficult concept before returning to English?
A learner is asked a question, and the teacher waits several extra seconds in silence rather than immediately rephrasing or calling on another learner. Which scaffolding feature is being applied?