Innovation in Language Learning

The main premise of CLIL is that language is taught through meaningful, engaging content. CLIL programs can range along a continuum from content-driven, in which instruction is guided by content objectives and the role of language learning is to support mastery of the content, to language-driven programs in which the focus is on language learning with content in a secondary role [1]. Even though CLIL’s has been advocated in most European countries since the late 1970s [2], the degree to which the approach is actually applied in foreign language classrooms is unclear. In fact, Cloud [3] suggests that because integrating language and content places high demands on teachers, “content-based instruction […] is often translated into isolated fact and vocabulary learning, largely ignoring what we’ve learned about how true subject-specific conceptual understanding develops in children” (p. 116). This project uses a survey method to examine how participants in a hybrid in-service English teacher course perceive the role of content when teaching English as a foreign language (EFL). The project also aims to determine whether participation in the course lectures and activities that focus on implementing the CLIL approach in a foreign language classroom has an impact on the degree to which the teachers integrate CLIL in their own teaching. The presentation describes the objectives, lectures, and on-line and in-class activities in the course; it discusses the survey used to collect information about the participants’ views on integrating content when teaching EFL and the degree to which their teaching practice reflects these beliefs; it compares the results of the surveys administered at the beginning and at the end of the teacher training course; and finally it discusses the implications of the findings for the in-service course curriculum.