Effective CLIL starts with good planning. ✅
One of the most important elements of successful CLIL teaching is preparing your lesson in advance, and the structured lesson template I provide is designed to make that process simple and reliable. It includes all the essential components of a CLIL lesson — from language aims to scaffolding and assessment — and even prompts you to plan tasks that develop LOTS (Lower Order Thinking Skills) and HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills) using Bloom’s revised taxonomy.
🧠📊 This means teachers can intentionally create activities that go beyond basic understanding and push students toward deeper thinking.
With this template, you won’t risk forgetting anything; you can walk into class confident, organised and fully prepared, leading to a smoother, more engaging lesson for your students. 🎯👩🏫
🔍 What a CLIL lesson plan should include:
All the steps and activities of your lesson should be the result of an intrinsic weaving of all the elements that are required to be included into a CLIL lesson, such as:
✅ Defining the learning and teaching objectives through the content
📘 Defining the content to reach those objectives (CONTENT)
🧠 Defining the HOTS & LOTS for each activity to support the development process (COGNITION – CONTENT)
💬 Deciding on the classroom language, language for learning and subject-specific language needed to communicate learning (CONTENT – COMMUNICATION)
🌍 Finding ways to connect what is learnt to real life and global awareness (CONTENT – CULTURE)
📝 Deciding how learners will carry out the activities: reading, writing, speaking or listening
Difficult? Let's make it simple!
This may sound extremely complicated and overwhelming 😅 — but once you go through this handbook, you’ll realise it’s simply all in the planning!
🗂️ The lesson plan template will guide you to think about everything before the lesson, so that you can rely on it to run the class smoothly.
Key Elements of a CLIL lesson
- The 4Cs (content, cognition, communication, culture)
- Prior knowledge
- Learning objectives & Scaffolding
- Activities with HOTS & LOTS and cognitive levels & age in mind
- Materials & resources
- Evaluation
The elements just mentioned should be relatively all included in the steps of your lesson.
THE MAIN STEPS OF A CLIL LESSON ARE:
- Welcome routine
- Introduction to the lesson
- Presentation of New Content
- Working session
- Evaluation
- Wrap up routine
📄The Power of a 4-Page CLIL Lesson Plan Template
The free CLIL Lesson Plan Template – 4 Pages of Pure Support!
Did you know that my CLIL lesson plan template is made up of 4 structured pages?
Each page helps you think about everything you need before teaching — ✅ content, ✅ language, ✅ HOTS & LOTS, ✅ activities, ✅ culture, whether you'll achieve the learning objectives through writing or speaking or model-making…
So you can walk into class feeling confident and organised!
📄Customize page 3
🔧 One of the pages is fully customisable — you can copy it as many times as you need to design different CLIL activities or build a whole unit. This means the template grows with you and becomes your personal planning toolkit.
✨ It’s not just a document — it’s a way to plan with clarity and never forget a key element again!
📄 Now let’s take a sneak peek at the 1st page of the CLIL lesson plan template provided, to see all the elements that truly complete a CLIL lesson.
