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General Overview

This workshop will introduce students to various aspects of teaching and learning English with CLIL. It will offer a practical insight into how the learning of both content and a second language can be combined into a single educational experience. It will enable students to further their understanding of on-the-ground practice of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in the era of innovation. There will be guidelines which will help learners move from the why to do CLIL to the how to do it as they will approach CLIL in modern education, become familiar with some of the core features of CLIL methodology and finally put CLIL in motion.

Week 1 will focus on the rise of CLIL in modern education and it will take participants closer to the core features of the methodology and pedagogy associated with it.  Week 2 will focus on how we can transform the CLIL methodology into practice. We will also debunk some of the myths and limitations regarding content-based learning. Week 3 will focus on how we can put CLIL in motion and make it come alive. Week 4 will explore the importance of connecting learners and learning to the real world and present the learning outcomes of the acquisition of content.

We will have two short-written assessments and a mixture of group and individual tasks.

General aims

Describe CLIL and its core features

Outline difficulties, debunk myths

Outline how to support language learning in content classes and how to support content learning in language classes

Design activities for a CLIL lesson

Topics per week

Week one:

What is CLIL, what is its relevance to our era, what are the theoretical underpinnings behind it, what are its features?

Week two:

How does CLIL work for students? What are its limitations, how can we make it relevant to the learners? How can focusing on content generate initial motivation?

Week three:

How does authentic material transform into a lesson plan? Learning outcomes for students.

Week four:

Putting CLIL in motion. Lesson plans and activities.

Methodology

The course will use a broadly ‘hands on’ constructivist approach to learning and students will be asked to collaborate to complete tasks. The workshop will be conducted online via Athens University’s platform and through asynchronous online activities based on reading and online resources. In Weeks 1 & 3 there will be synchronous online workshops via ZOOM and for weeks 2 & 4 a ‘flipped classroom’ approach will be followed.

Instructor

Maria Diavati, BA in English Literature and Philology (UOA), MA in TESOL (Cambridge University), MBA in Educational Leadership (University of Cumbria), Licentiate Trinity College London CertTESOL and DipTESOL .

Maria has worked in English Language Teaching (ELT) as a teacher, examiner, teacher trainer, material developer and recently an author. With more than 25 years of teaching experience she is currently academic coordinator in two foreign language schools which have received multiple awards for their premises, use of technology and innovative teaching approaches. She introduced the VR and AR experience in the Greek ELT and adopted CLIL as the main educational framework. To suit the needs of our era Maria enhanced CLIL by designing and introducing new courses for all levels, created classrooms without walls and incorporated VR in its implementation. 

She is also a certified public speaker from the University of Washington and has introduced "Raise Your Voice" public speaking workshops, recognizing presentation literacy as a core skill for both students and teachers. She actively contributes to educator development by participating in conferences and workshops and serves as the external facilitator of content-based workshops for undergraduate students in the English Department of Literature at the Kapodistrian University of Athens.

Maria is the visionary behind the development of the CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) educational framework in Greece. Her pioneering approach emphasizes content-based methodologies, introducing innovative courses in subjects such as marketing and psychology to enhance language acquisition. As the author of the "Crossroads" series, Maria has created a unique content-driven set of 7 books where learners engage with a different subject per level—ranging from marketing to environmental studies and nutrition—while simultaneously developing their English language skills.

Her dedicated research on the effectiveness of the CLIL method has made significant contributions to the field, with her findings presented at prestigious conferences such as IATEFL Belfast 2022, ACEIA Seville 2024, IATEFL Edinburgh 2025, and the 12th and 13th ELT Conferences in Malta. These research outcomes have also been published in leading educational journals, further establishing her impact on the educational community.

Maria Diavati’s innovative methodologies and quality content not only enhance student learning but also ensure outstanding success rates in language proficiency exams, marking her as a leading figure in contemporary language education. She was recently nominated for the prestigious 'Educator of the Year' award, representing excellence in Greece and Cyprus.