The ECML National Support Event “CLIL in Languages Other Than English – Successful transitions across educational stages”, held at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, brought together 31 participants. These were mainly primary and secondary teachers of English, French, German, and Greek, along with educational advisors and some educators from nursery schools and tertiary education.
In the first part of the training, Petra Daryai-Hansen introduced the concept of vertical and horizontal transitions in CLIL, shared recommendations to support CLIL in languages other than English (CLIL LOTE) across educational stages, and outlined guiding principles for CLIL. Additionally, Marina Mattheoudakis presented language descriptors for CLIL LOTE transitions based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages illustrated through concrete teaching materials.
Building on these presentations, the second part of the training focused on analysing participants’ own materials and developing new CLIL resources using the language descriptors and guiding principles. In this workshop, teachers collaborated across educational levels and languages, creating innovative lesson plans such as “Demystifying the Label”, “Democracy”, “Environmental Wonders”, and “People Who Made History” – also taking learners’ plurilingual repertoires into account, for example by including home languages.
Inspired by the results, participants agreed to share their materials on a common platform and to establish a CLIL network – continuing to bridge transitions across educational levels and languages.
Petra Daryai-Hansen