We can think of a CLIL lesson as a three course meal: an appetizer that energizes the learners at the start; the main course activities that hit all the key learning objectives for the lesson; and a final dessert that reflects on the lesson by consolidating what's been learnt.
It’s essential to plan for reflection at the end of a lesson in order to get feedback on the lesson — have the objectives for the lesson actually been achieved? For CLIL, wrapping up the lesson can be an opportunity to reflect on both the learning of subject content and also of language. It can also be an activity that provides another opportunity for learners to produce spoken output, sharing their ideas and reviewing their learning with each other.
I often get asked by teachers for ideas for lesson reflectors. Here then are ten ideas for lesson reflectors in CLIL.
- Select a group of students to give a summary of the lesson as a short presentation in front of the class.
- Ask a group of students to create a ‘still frame’ of a key idea from the lesson (a still frame is a frozen tableau). The other pupils have to discuss what the still frame shows.
- Ask students to write an important question to ask the rest of the class to test their understanding of the lesson. Students can share and discuss the questions in groups.
- Use a speaking/writing frame:
“The best part of the lesson was…”
“The most difficult part of the lesson was…”
“The most interesting part of the lesson was…”
- Put the questions you are going to want answered at the end of the lesson on the board at the start of a lesson. Draw attention to these questions at relevant moments during the lesson, and then ask pupils to answer them (perhaps through a small group discussion) in the last ten minutes of the lesson.
- Ask student to write down three facts that they have learnt in a lesson and share these with a partner or in a small group.
- Ask pupils to complete a list of ten keywords from the lesson with each word put into a sentence to show they understand its meaning. These are shared with a partner or in a small group, everyone adding to their lists.
- Ask students to design an exercise for the next lesson as a follow up to work done in the lesson.
- Get students in small groups to design one screen of a Powerpoint presentation (they do this on a large sheet of paper) that uses a heading and bullet points to sum up what they learnt in the lesson.
- Ask pupils to work in small groups to make a set of word cards drawing on the key vocabulary from the lesson, with definitions on other cards, then use the cards to compose sentences that describe the main ideas from the lesson and/or ways in which ideas in the lesson could connect with other subjects.
Finally, how about getting pupils to complete a feedback form for the teacher: what went well (www) and even better if (ebi)?
