Psychologically it is a great advantage to start early with foreign language instruction and/or intensify the existing instruction. Our students generally show a high level of achievement and great interest in both English and History.

Considering work effort we have figured out that it is a lot of work creating learning centres but later on you benefit from it for years. We are using the created learning centres for grades 6 to 8 again each year. The students in grades 6 to 8 enjoy it and we are happy with the results. Students learn a lot because it is student-centred and they are active and not only receptive.

The results of the different groups are compared, checked and corrected (if necessary) regularly.

From grade 9 on we use excellent CLIL (bilingual) history books offered by Cornelsen or Klett. We conduct the CLIL lessons in grades 6-8 with the help of learning centres, and then use CLIL history books for the up to 50 % of CLIL instruction in the higher grades. The final exams in history in grades 10 and 12 will also be conducted half in English and half in German.

Grade 6: Learning centre “Ancient Egypt and “Everyday life in ancient Rome”

Grade 7: Learning centre “Medieval Times”

Grade 8: Learning centre “The Industrial Revolution”

From Grade 9 on: instruction of complete units/ terms in English, e.g. “Germany, Europe and the World during the Second World War” (Grade 9) or “The World after WW1: between Dictatorship and Democracy” (Grade 12).

We are sure that our eighth graders` success in the Norwegian National tests is also due to the CLIL lessons. The eighth graders ranked 2008/09 shared-first place in the Norwegian National tests in September 2008 in the math category and shared-fourth place in English. This is an amazing achievement. There are two superior factors in their achievement. The first is that some of them have their own innate interest and ambitions in the field of the English language. But certainly the reason for the entire class´ high score, second only to International schools where English is the language of instruction, is thanks to bilingual history lessons they have had since sixth grade.

Furthermore every single one of our students in grade 7 improved their scores in the AKSIS CLIL test tremendously. The first test was taken in the fall 2008, the second test was taken in May 2009, and their scores vouch for the effectiveness of CLIL. Our students outperformed all the other participating schools´ students.

In a questionnaire the seventh graders stated that in a CLIL class you learn just as much about history, but you also learn words that you wouldn´t learn in a regular English class. They also commented in the questionnaires that CLIL classes are more interesting than regular English or history classes. Some even said that CLIL classes were fun.