FEATURES
Rosa-Maria Cives-Enriquez explains why she puts
story-telling at the centre of her language classroom
A
s a linguist and trainer, I am all too aware of the
investment – financial and emotional – that
organisations and individuals make to acquire
new competencies and language skills. It therefore makes
sense for me to do everything possible to try to fulfill
some, if not all, of those expectations and do everything
in my power to give my learners the tools to help them
remember, recall and apply what they have learned.
Over the years, I have blended my own methods with
research from leaders and pioneers in language education.
Stephen Krashen and Steven Pinker promoted natural
language acquisition – communication and immersion
over traditional grammar and drilling. Blaine Ray invented
TPR Storytelling in the 1990s – a story-based method that
rapidly gained popularity among teachers worldwide. The
concept of multiple intelligences was devised by Howard
Gardner, Professor of Cognition and Education at Harvard
Graduate School of Education, who identified eight
strengths or intelligences in which we each excel to
differing degrees.
1
I refer to these constantly in the
planning of my multisensory learning environment.
In addition, I draw inspiration from Management
Theory and my work as a Learning and Development
(L&D) professional. I feel there is an overlap in the work
of language and L&D professionals when we invest in "a
person's fundamental human needs"
2
by creating an
environment where individuals thrive. At the recent
conferences I have attended in the UK and abroad there
has been much talk of meaning-focused materials for L2
(second language) learners
3
and, with that, an old familiar
friend keeps making an appearance: CLIL (content and
language integrated learning).
Good practice model
I find it quite surprising that CLIL didn't gain its deserved
momentum as a way of encouraging plurilingualism/
multilingualism until the beginning of the millennium. This
is the way I was taught Spanish (at an immersive Spanish
school) in the UK in the mid 1970s, and the way I, too,
have taught Spanish for many years. The term was coined
by David Marsh at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland only
in 1994: "CLIL where subjects, or parts of subjects, are
taught through a foreign language with dual-focused aims,
namely the learning of content and the simultaneous
learning of a foreign language."
4
Through CLIL, students
use a language as they learn; their thinking skills are
engaged through successful methodologies from the start.
Students are learning in a very active and challenging way.
The CLIL methodology is considered a model of good
practice in many European countries. It has been adopted
A story toremember
