VJE Vietnam Journal of Education, Vol. 5, 2018, pp.

pp. 41-45 Special Issue for the 1st ICME at Hanoi National University of Education

TEACHING MATHEMATICS IN ENGLISH TO VIETNAMESE 6th GRADE

STUDENTS BY USING CONTENT AND LANGUAGE
INTEGRATED LEARNING (CLIL) APPROACH
Vu Dinh Phuong - Le Tuan Anh
Hanoi National University of Education

Received: 28/10/2018; Revised: 25/11/2018; Accepted: 18/12/2018.

Abstract: CLIL refers to teaching subjects such as Mathematics, Physics, Biology, etc. through a
foreign language. In this paper, we try to answer the following questions: 1) Can we teach 6th
grade Mathematics through English? 2) - How often can we teach 6th grade Mathematics through
English? 3) How can we teach 6th grade Mathematics in English effectively? To answer these
questions, firstly, we study current 6th grade Mathematics curriculum and English curriculum in
Vietnam to find the knowledge and skills that Vietnamese 6th grade students have already
acquired and what they have to learn more in 6th grade. After that, we choose some 6th grade
Mathematics contents and English contents which can be taught together. Finally, we propose the
ways to use CLIL approach to teach those contents effectively.
Keywords: 6th grade Mathematics, 6th grade English, CLIL, Curriculum, Mathematics teaching.

1. INTRODUCTION progression in knowledge, skills and understanding of

1.1. Content and Language Integrated Learning the content; +) engagement in associated cognitive
Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) processing; +) interaction in the communicative
refers to teaching subjects such as Mathematics, context; +) development of appropriate language
Physics, Biology, etc. through a foreign language. CLIL knowledge and skills; +) the acquisition of a deepening
is an important approach or approach in our global, intercultural awareness, which is in turn brought about
technological society. It helps learners to develop skills by the positioning of self and otherness.
in their mother languages and also helps them develop Relating to teaching Mathematics in English, we can
skills to communicate ideas related to science, arts and see that the aims of teaching and learning outcomes are
technology to people around the world (Bently, 2015). the integration of content (mathematical concepts,
CLIL approach focuses not only on content but also on theorems, methods and problems), communication
language. “Each is interwoven, even if the emphasis is (learning and using mathematical language, English to
greater on one or the other at a given time” (Coyle, communicate with other people), cognition (learning
Hood and Marsh, 2010). and using mathematical thinking), and culture (using
Mathematics as international students).
In this paper, we present the use of CLIL approach
to teach Mathematics through English in Secondary 1.3. Different models of CLIL
school in Vietnam. Bentley (2015) asserted that there are three models
of CLIL:
1.2. Four components of CLIL
- Soft CLIL (Language led): teach topics from the
According to Bently (2015), CLIL has “4 Cs” as
curriculum as part of a language course.
components: Content, Communication, Cognition, and
Culture. “The integration of content, communication, - Mid-way CLIL (Subject led - modular): teach a
cognition and culture is one way to define teaching aims modular CLIL programme where a subject such as
and learning outcomes” (Bently, 2015, p. 7). Based on science or art is taught for a certain number of hours in
Coyle, Hood and Marsh (2010), The 4Cs Framework target language.
integrates four contextualized building blocks: content - Hard CLIL (Subject led - partial immersion):
(subject matter), communication (language learning and Teach partial immersion programmes where almost half
using), cognition (learning and thinking processes) and the curriculum is taught in the target language (p. 6).
culture (developing intercultural understanding and In this paper, we suggest suitable models of CLIL to
global citizenship). It suggests that effective CLIL takes teach Mathematics in English to 6th grade students in
place as a result of this symbiosis, through: +) Vietnam.

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 VJE Vietnam Journal of Education, Vol. 5, 2018, pp. 41-45 Special Issue for the 1st ICME at Hanoi National University of Education

1.4. The advantages and disadvantages of teaching Dalton-Puffer (2007) analyzed communicative
Mathematics in English to Vietnamese 6th grade abilities of teachers and students in CLIL classrooms in
students by using CLIL approach the book named “Discourse in Content and Language
This paper studies to teach Mathematics in English Integrated Learning (CLIL) Classrooms”. In this book,
effectively. Firstly, we consider the advantages and Dalton-Pubffer examined from many angles about the
disadvantages of teaching Mathematics in English to teachers and students talk in the CLIL classrooms at
Vietnamese 6th grade students by using CLIL secondary school.
approach. Quazizi (2016) studied about the effects of CLIL
There are many advantages of teaching education on the subject matter (Mathematics) and
Mathematics in English to Vietnamese 6th grade target language (English). In this paper, the author
students. We can list some of them: investigated the effects of CLIL on the attainment of
Mathematics and the effects of CLIL on the learners’
- Recently, the project for “Teaching and learning proficiency through teaching English.
foreign language in Vietnamese education system, stage
2008-2020” has fostered the teaching of Mathematics in In Vietnam, Chu Thu Hoan (2014, 2017) studied
English. about teaching mathematics in English at high school in
Vietnam by using CLIL approach. Especially, she
- Students’ level of English is fairly good to learn focused on the role of teachers in CLIL classrooms.
Mathematics in English.
After analysing an issue of teaching and learning
- Materials for teaching and learning Mathematics in mathematics in English for non-English native students
English are diverse and available on the internet. in some countries such as Korea, Malaysia and the
However, there are also some disadvantages of USA, Nguyen Chien Thang discussed some Vietnam’s
teaching Mathematics in English to 6th grade students: achievements of training pre-service teachers to teach
- Teachers, especially Mathematics teachers and mathematics in English and some starting approaches to
teachers of English, have difficulties in teaching training those teachers in Vinh University, Vietnam
Mathematics and English together because their major (Nguyen Chien Thang, 2016).
in University is just Mathematics or English. Besides, Le Tuan Anh and Vu Dinh Phuong (2018)
- CLIL seems to be new approach for teachers in investigated into equipping the contents of CLIL for
Vietnam. students in Mathematics education major taught in
English at University.
- Determining the suitable time to teach
Mathematics in English is also a challenge. 3. METHODS AND RESULTS
- Students’ proficiency levels of English are varied 3.1. Methods
in each classroom. To get the main results of this paper, we used some
2. LITERATURE REVIEW research methods presented below.
The tradition of integrated language and content is 3.1.1. Theoretical study method
very old, dating back more than 2000 years as the Firstly, we studied carefully about the CLIL
Roman Empire expanded and absorbed Greek territory, approach. We attended the TKT course - CLIL module
language and culture (Coyle, Hood and Marsh, 2010). organised by Cambridge English Language Assessment
The term CLIL was coined by David Marsh, a member - Part of the University of Cambridge. Through this
of a team working in the area of multilingualism and course, we studied the Knowledge of CLIL and
bilingual education at the Finnish University of principles of CLIL, Lesson preparation, Lesson
Jyväskylä in 1994. He based the concept of CLIL on the delivery, and Assessment (see more in Bentley, 2015).
experience of Canadian immersion and British LAC We also studied the books and papers related to CLIL
programs (Hanasová, 2015). After that CLIL became approach all over the world.
very popular in Europe in a relatively short period of Secondly, we studied the current 6th grade
time (Van de Craen et al., 2018). According to Turner Mathematics curriculum and English curriculum in
(2013), CLIL has been gaining in popularity in many Vietnam to find the knowledge and skills that
countries all over the world (p. 395). Vietnamese 6th grade students have already acquired
There have been a lot of researchers studying about and what they have to learn more in 6th grade. We
CLIL approach. It can be listed some of them here. compared two curriculums to choose some 6th grade

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 VJE Vietnam Journal of Education, Vol. 5, 2018, pp. 41-45 Special Issue for the 1st ICME at Hanoi National University of Education

Mathematics contents and English contents which can language aspects. Teachers do not get used to teaching
be taught together. Mathematics in English by using CLIL approach that
3.1.2. Observation and survey method requires teachers to focus on both Mathematics and
language aspects.
Through the TKT course - CLIL module, we
observed our teachers using the CLIL approach to teach In this paper, we propose some solutions for
the lessons. We also observed mathematics teachers and teaching Mathematics in English to Vietnamese 6th
teachers of English when they taught in Nguyen Tat grade students by using CLIL approach.
Thanh school. We interviewed some teachers of Solution 1: Using Soft CLIL model (Language - led)
English to know the process of English lesson in to teach some topics from Mathematics as a part of
secondary school. English subject at the beginning of grade 6
We trained mathematics teachers to teach At beginning of grade 6, students do not have
mathematics in English at Phu Tho and Vinh Phuc enough mathematical terms, mathematical structures in
provinces. We observed the teachers teaching some English, English vocabulary and structures so that we
mathematics in English and we have found advantages can hardly teach Mathematics totally in English. One of
and disadvantages of teaching mathematics in English suitable solutions is that teachers of English gradually
from those lessons. provide students with suitable mathematical terms in
3.1.3. Design experiment method English lessons and Mathematics teachers step by step
introduce mathematical terms and structures in English
In the TKT course - CLIL module, we prepared to to students in Mathematics lessons.
teach a mathematics lesson using CLIL approach. The
For instance:
CLIL experts and the trainees attended the lesson and
gave us a lot of comments and feedbacks. - When teachers of English teach Unit 1 “My new
school”, teachers can integrate some contents from the
As mentioned above, during the time we trained
mathematical topic “A set and elements of a set” into
teachers in Vinh Phuc and Phu Tho provinces, we
this unit. For examples, teachers can introduce some
taught some mathematics lessons in English. Through
new words: set, element, collection, describe, list,
those lessons taught by using CLIL approach, we
description. Teachers of English can also introduce
believed that using CLIL approach in teaching
some mathematical structures used grammatical
mathematics is feasible and effective.
structures of this unit such as the present simple and the
3.2. Results present continuous to students: “A set is a collection of
By using the research methods above, we attained objects”, “a is an element of A”.
some results below. - When Mathematics teachers teach Unit 1 “A set
3.2.1. Solutions for teaching Mathematics in English to and elements of a set”, teachers can introduce
Vietnamese 6th grade students by using CLIL approach mathematical terms, concepts and so on. In addition
Recently, there have been many training courses for Mathematics teachers can translate the headings of the
in-service Mathematics teachers to teach Mathematics unit into English.
in English in some Vietnamese cities and provinces Solution 2: Using Subject - led (modular) model to
such as Hanoi, Vinh Phuc, Phu Tho and so on. teach some Mathematics lessons in English
However, the practice of teaching Mathematics in After some lessons that students have enough
English to Vietnamese 6th grade students still mathematical terms, structures in English and
encounters the following challenges: grammatical structures of English, Mathematics
- Most of secondary schools in Vietnam have not teachers can teach some practical lessons of
had their own curricula and enough experiences of Mathematics in English.
teaching Mathematics in English so Mathematics For instance, after some weeks that students learn
teachers have to design lesson plans for teaching mathematical vocabulary and grammatical structures of
Mathematics in English by themselves. The arisen English, Mathematics teachers can teach the practical
questions are how and when to teach Mathematics in lesson after Unit 4 “The number of elements of a set
English to 6th grade students. and a subset of a set” in English.
- When teaching Mathematics in English, To teach Mathematics in English effectively,
Mathematics teachers just focus on Mathematics teachers should pay attention to “4Cs” of CLIL:
knowledge while teachers of English just emphasize Contents, Communication, Cognition, and Culture. To

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 VJE Vietnam Journal of Education, Vol. 5, 2018, pp. 41-45 Special Issue for the 1st ICME at Hanoi National University of Education

attain these aims, teachers should organise a variety of Step 2. Discussing with teachers of English to ask
activities in classroom such as: Categorisation, Cloze them to introduce those terms and structures in English
test, Matching, Multiple choice, Jigsaw reading and lessons 4 weeks before teaching target Mathematics
listening, Pyramid discussion, Hot seat, Loop or domino lesson
games, etc. These are common activities in CLIL. For instance, Mathematics teachers can ask teachers
Solution 3: Using Hard CLIL model (Language - of English to introduce some terms and structures as
led, partial immersion) to teach some mathematical follows:
topics in English + Week 1: point, line, collinear, between,
When students get used to learning Mathematics in construction, “point M is between points P and Q”, “P,
English, Mathematics teachers can teach some Q, and M are collinear”
mathematical topics in English such as “Greatest + Week 2: ray, opposite ray, endpoint, draw,
Common Divisor”, “Midpoint of a Segment”, “Integral distance, “distance between two points”
number”, and so on. These topics can be taught in + Week 3: segment, length, measure, congruent,
Mathematics club or in extra lessons in school. “the length of a segment”
Similar to solution 2, teachers should pay attention + Week 4: bisect (bisector), “half way between”
to “4Cs” of CLIL that they should organise variety of
Step 3. Preparing lesson plan carefully focusing on
activities in classroom.
“4Cs”
In the next section, we introduce a process of
For example, to focus on 4Cs in CLIL approach,
preparation for teaching a Mathematics lesson in
teachers can ask students do some activities below
English by using CLIL approach.
+ For Content: do exercise 60 in the textbook (p.
3.2.2. The process of preparation for teaching a
125):
Mathematics lesson in English by using CLIL approach
Exercise 60. On ray Ox, draw two points A, B such
To prepare for teaching Mathematics in English
that OA = 2cm, OB = 4cm.
based on CLIL models above, Mathematics teachers
can apply the following steps: a) Is A between O and B?
Step 1. Studying the Mathematics lesson carefully to b) Is A the midpoint of OB? Why?
determine mathematical terms and structures in English + For Communication: Play “Hot seat” game:
that students need to acquire for learning Mathematics After introducing the definition of the midpoint,
in English teachers let students play “Hot seat” game to revise
For example, to teach lesson “Midpoint of a some important terms:
segment”, Mathematics teachers can list some * Teacher splits class into 4 teams.
important mathematical terms and structures such as: * Sit the students facing the board.
+ Mathematical terms: point, segment, endpoint, * Take a chair - one for each team - and put it at
between, distance, halfway, construction, length, front of the class, facing the team members. These
measure, congruent, ray, opposite rays, line, draw, chairs are the “hot seats”.
collinear, bisect (bisector). * Get one member from each team to come up and
+ Mathematical structures: “Point M is between sit in that chair, so they are facing their team - mates
points P and Q”; “if only if”; “P, Q, and M are and have their back to the board.
collinear”; “The length of a segment”; “Distance * Teacher shows a figure with one word (related to
between two points”; “half way between”. that figure) on the screen, such as:

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 VJE Vietnam Journal of Education, Vol. 5, 2018, pp. 41-45 Special Issue for the 1st ICME at Hanoi National University of Education

* The students in the teams describe that word, Coyle, D., Ph. Hood & D. Marsh (2010). Content and
using synonyms, antonyms, definitions etc. to their Language Integrated Learning. Cambridge:
team mate who is in the hot seat - that person can’t see Cambridge University Press.
the word.
Dalton-Puffer, C. (2007). Discourse in content and
* The student in the hot seat listens to their team
language integrated learning (CLIL)
mates and tries to guess the word.
classrooms. John Benjamins Publishing,
* The first hot seat student who can say the word
Amsterdam, Netherland.
wins a point for their team.
* Then change the students over, with a new Chu, T.H. (2014). Teaching math in English at high
member of each team taking their place in their team’s school in Vietnam following by the method
hot seat. named CLIL. HNUE Journal of Science,
* Then show the next word... Educational Sci., 59 (2A), 221-227.
(Adapted from Callum Robertson (2008)) Chu, T.H. (2017). The role of teachers in the content
+ For Cognition: teachers can ask students do some and language integrated learning (CLIL).
activities to develop the cognitive skills such as Vietnam Journal of Education, 423(1), 27-31.
identifying, defining, reasoning. For examples: Larson, J., Boswell, L., Kanold, T. D., Stiff, L. (2007).
* Identifying, reasoning: In the following figures, Geometry. McDougal Little.
which point is the midpoint of a segment? Why?
Le, T.A. & Vu, D.P. (2018). Equipping the contents of
CLIL for students in Mathematics education
major taught in English. Vietnam Journal of
Education Science, 14(3), 45-49.
Hanasová, D. (2015). “History of CLIL”, in
+ For Culture: Teachers ask students to find other Pokrivčáková, S. et al. (2015), CLIL in Foreign
definitions of midpoint in other countries via internet. Language Education: e-textbook for foreign
Some definitions can be listed here: “The midpoint of a language teachers. Nitra: Constantine the
segment is the point half way between the endpoints of Philosopher University.
the segment.” (Boyd et al. (2004)); “The midpoint of a
Quazizi K. (2016). The Effects of CLIL Education on
segment is the point that divides the segment into two
the Subject Matter (Mathematics) and Target
congruent segments” (Larson, Boswell, Kanold, Stiff
(2007). Teachers can also introduce some international Language (English). 9(1), 110-137,
units of measurement such as inch, centimeter, yard and DOI:10.5294/laclil.2016.9.1.5.
so on. Nguyen, C.T. (2016). Ideas on enhancing the
4. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION effectiveness of training teachers to teach
Recently, teaching Mathematics in English has been Mathematics in the English language by
very necessary in Vietnam. One of the suitable ways to analyzing experience of some countries.
teach Mathematics in English is using CLIL approach. HNUE Journal of Science, Educational Sci.,
There are several advantages and disadvantages of 61(3), 72-89.
teaching Mathematics in English to 6th grade students
by using this approach. This paper presents an overview Turner, M. (2013) CLIL in Australia: the importance of
of CLIL approach and proposes some effective and context. International Journal of Bilingual
possible solutions for teaching Mathematics in English Education and Bilingualism, 16(4), 395-410,
for 6th grade students by using this approach. DOI: 10.1080/13670050.2012.691086.
Van de Craen, P., Surmont, J., Knell, G., Stroughmayer,
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