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THROUGH A FOREIGN LANGUAGE
STAGE 2 “The experiment”
The chemistry teacher sets out the different stages of the titration
experiment. He/she:
shows the equipment available and sets up the groups;
gives out a handout and introduces its content: introduction and aim,
procedure and calculation;
reads out the introduction and aim, and answers students’ questions.
Students carry out the titration experiment in groups of three. They:
go through the instructions in the handout carefully, following the
procedure step by step;
take notes of the results of their experiment;
work out the calculation using the results from their experiments.
STAGE 3 “Final report”
Students prepare an oral report about the experiment in groups and
present it to the class and teachers. They discuss their results and answer
questions from the teacher and from the other groups.
This box was prepared by Luciana Pedrazzini.
The activity described above was carried out at Istituto Tecnico Industriale “A.Volta” in Lodi
(Italy) in May 1999. Teachers involved in the activity: Paola Marelli and Luciana Pedrazzini.
Assessment
In teaching, CLIL ensures that content and language both contribute to the
learning experience. In assessment, however, content should be given
priority over language accuracy. Some teachers give tests which include two
sections. The first is comprehension-based and may be structured like a
multiple-choice task. In this section learners are mainly assessed on their
knowledge of the subject matter. The second section may be more
linguistically orientated, with open questions which require foreign
language production on the part of the learners.
In this way both content and language are assessed in the same test.
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