We recently launched our brand new Introduction to Teaching CLIL four week course which helps teachers develop skills in how to teach CLIL effectively. This short teacher development course gives practical ideas to use in the classroom, and the theoretical background behind them.
We interviewed 
Erik Middel who took the course recently to find out how he got on. Erik is a lecturer of English (ESL) at a teacher training course for primary school teachers who works at NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands.
Why did you decide to take the IH Introduction to Teaching CLIL course with International House’s OTTI?
One of my colleagues found out about the course and recommended this to us. Since I still felt reasonably new to the concept of CLIL and had already started teaching its didactics to our students, I decided to join.
How did you find the course content?
The platform offered by IH World was packed with course material, including useful articles or instruction videos. Even though quite some of that material was a selection from different sources (e.g. YouTube), it was still very useful as it was now just a click away.
Also, the teacher was very knowledgeable on the subject and provided valuable feedback on the different tasks and forum submissions. This helped me structure the theory and organise this in such a way that I can help my students (future teachers) in their lesson design.
What did you find to be the most valuable aspect of the course?
It was great to be part of a small international group and that we were able to discuss about the different topics through the forums. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to join the live lectures (online) since they were planned during my own lectures but I watched every recording at a later stage. The most valuable part was the personal feedback including useful tips on the four tasks we were supposed to do.
How has this course helped in your current role?
Even though I was familiar with quite some of the material, it has mainly helped in getting a better overview of this all and generally understanding how this could be turned into good lesson designs. There’s so incredibly much to say about CLIL so it must have been quite a challenge to cover all of this in just the four weeks.
Would you recommend taking the IH Introduction to Teaching CLIL course?
I would, yes. The course offers a good starting point for finding out about how to teach CLIL-related lessons and design these yourselves. It’s much easier following this course rather than reading the theory in any CLIL course books. There’s plenty of time to ask questions and once again, the feedback on the task are so useful.
If you too would like to become more effective in teaching CLIL then join us for the next Introduction to Teaching CLIL course now: https://ihworld.com/teach/ih-online-teacher-training/introduction-to-teaching-clil/