C for CALP

CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Profiency) is the specific language that we need for some subjects. We must distinguish it from BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills), which is the daily vocabulary that we need to interact socially. It is important to separate these two terms and understand how they work.

 In the past, people did not make any distinctions between the day to day vocabulary and the specific vocabulary of some subjects, but soon teachers and researchers realize that was necessary to separate them. According to Cummins, the reason why CALP appeared was because teachers realized that, even the immigrant students with the greatest knowledge of the second language, could not understand the specific vocabulary of some subjects. So there was a need to teach this specific vocabulary to non-native students, so they could follow the classes properly. 

One problem that we can see in CALP is that students only use this specific language in the classroom. They do not have many opportunities to use this language out of the school. That is the reason why some non-CLIL students have the same CALP level than CLIL students. Usually, students do not have any chance to use BICS either, so is a good option to teach BICS in CLIL classes, because if students do not know how to use BICS, they will not be able to use CALP.

(Cummins, 1984)

 Other topic to take into account when talking about CALP is the different teachers we can find. In some countries, CLIL teachers are native people who do not have any academic training in teaching. They have great BICS level but they have never been taught on how to teach CLIL. Besides that, their CALP level is not as good as their BICS´s level is.

On the other hand, there are other CLIL teachers who are non-native people. Their BICS level is usually lower than the BICS level of native people. Moreover they know how to teach CLIL subjects, because they have been preparing themselves to do that.

Nowadays, due to the importance of the English language around the world, some private schools prefer to hire native teachers without any teaching preparation rather than non-native teachers well prepared. This is a matter that schools must consider, thinking which is the best option for their students.    

















Another thing that is important for teachers to know is that CALP skills are much harder to obtain
than BICS skills. According to academics in the USA immigrant students need two years to acquire BICS skills, and seven to learn CALP skills.

(John Clegg, 2009)

To sum up, I would like to give my personal opinion about CALP. From my point of view, is indispensable for all the students to learn CALP skills; otherwise, they will not be able to follow the lessons. In addition to this, the different types of CLIL teachers that we can find in the schools is another topic to discuss. I have always asked myself which teacher is better for CLIL subjects, a native person without any academic training in teaching or, a non-native person well prepared. I had the chance to analyze this while I was doing my internship. The school where I went was a bilingual school. The director hired a lot of English and American people, and some of them had little preparation about how to teach. The science teacher was a young woman, who liked children but did not have any academic training. During her classes, the children talked a lot and they usually did not pay attention to her explanations. When I asked her why she allowed the children to speak that much, she answered me: They are just children, let them have some fun! The result of this “methodology” was that the children did not learn anything about science. They passed the exam because the teacher wanted to, but any of them reached 5 of 10 points.

On the other hand, the 5^th grade science teacher was a Spaniard woman, who got her teaching degree six years before. I went twice to her classes and I really liked them. Her accent was not perfect, but she knew how to deal with her students. The children of her class did not talk, because she established her leading position from the very first moment. Besides that, they knew a lot of specific vocabulary of science, and their grades, in most of the cases, were really high. These are just two examples of different science teachers. I went to different CLIL classes and the results were almost the same.

 

                                                               

REFERENCES

 

·         BOOKS

 

- Llinares, A. & Morton, T. & Whittaker, R. (2012). The roles of language in CLIL. New York: Cambridge University Press.

 - Cummins, J. (1979). Cognitive / academic language proficiency, linguistic interdependence, the optimum age question and some other matters, Working Papers on Bilingualism. Malaysia: ERIC Clearinghouse.

 

·         WEB

 

- Clegg, J. (2009). Skills for CLIL. Retrieved from http://www.onestopenglish.com/clil/methodology/articles/article-skills-for-clil/501230.article