1. Home
2. Timothy Byrne & Katherine Opello

Timothy Byrne & Katherine Opello

“Just CLIL it” - Lessons learned from CLIL collaborations during Covid

Audience focus: Teachers of adolescent learners, Teachers of adult learners, Business English teachers, Academic English teachers, Teacher trainers, Freelance teachers

Abstract

In this presentation, we will highlight techniques that have been used successfully in several of our CLIL’led courses (Content and Language Integrated Learning) at UCLouvain, with a focus on the ways in which these methodologies developed through our collaborations with content teachers. Specifically, we will discuss how we teamed up with academics in the Biomedical Sciences and Pharmaceutical Studies Departments, as well as in the Theology and Psychology Faculties.
We will also talk about how the English course in the new PPE Bachelor’s (Politics, Philosophy and Economics) came about.
Finally, we will deal with the ways in which we facilitated English language learning at various levels for techno-pedagogues and administrative staff.
We will seek the audience’s thoughts and comments about how these practices can be adapted to online education at both secondary and tertiary levels. We hope that participants will take away meaningful teaching and learning methods that can be used in a variety of face-to-face and online settings with multiple stakeholders (content teachers, students and administrative staff).

Biographies

Timothy Byrne worked overseas in Gabon and China for four years prior to teaching English at the ILV, the Institut des langues vivantes of UCLouvain, where he is also a CLIL coach. His interests range from cinema through competitive running to being woke. He has published two books at ACCO, Business English Writing Skills and English through Film.

Katherine Opello has been teaching English at UCLouvain at the Institut des langues vivantes since 2013 and is currently assistant head of the English Department.