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6 October 2025
Read time: 3mins
‘If you’re facing a pedagogical challenge, chances are you’re not alone – your colleagues are teaching the same students and likely experiencing similar struggles.’
Shanique Harris
Starting at a new school is always an adjustment, but I hadn’t anticipated just how much of a challenge it would be to teach subject content to students who were still developing their English proficiency.
Working in an international school, the majority of my students are EAL learners, and despite my enthusiasm for geography and my engaging slides, there was a major disconnect – students weren’t understanding what I thought were basic words on my slides. I found myself spending a lot of time adapting my teaching to meet student needs.
While discussing my seemingly creative strategies for developing students’ language understanding with an English teacher colleague, she casually remarked, ‘Oh, so you’re basically doing CLIL.’
CLIL? I had no idea what that was.
A quick dive into research revealed that Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is a structured approach that blends subject teaching with language development. I felt both excited and slightly disappointed – I hadn’t invented these strategies myself!
Determined to improve, I observed EAL lessons and met with the Head of EAL to learn more. Seeing the impact, I worked with the Head of EAL to run a 30-minute pop-up Professional Development (PD) session for teachers, sharing practical CLIL strategies I was using with our students. The response was positive – it provided space for teachers to share their own experiences, we discovered common struggles, and left with new ideas.
So, what’s next? And what have I learned? If you’re facing a pedagogical challenge, chances are you’re not alone – your colleagues are teaching the same students and likely experiencing similar struggles. One of my colleagues even had fantastic resources that he shared, reinforcing the idea that sharing is caring. (Or put another way: If you don’t talk about the challenges you face, you miss out on the solutions that others might have!)
This session has now influenced school policy, as SLT has decided to introduce regular teacher run CPD sessions on different aspects of teaching and pastoral care – something that wasn’t fully established before.
I’m proud to have positively influenced the way the school supports its teachers. The key takeaway? Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there – sharing ideas can lead to real change. I wrote all of this up in an article for GA, which has just been published in the autumn issue of Teaching Geography if you’d like to read more.
Written by Shanique Harris, a humanities teacher at an international school in Central Asia.
©Shanique Harris, and the Geographical Association, 2025
