Abstract
CLIL effective pedagogy has been uncovered during the last two decades, and literature points to a number of considerations that CLIL teachers should take into account if they aspire to ensure optimal teaching and learning practices. Among other aspects, CLIL effective pedagogy may bear in mind a range of issues such as multimodal communication, oral communication, pedagogical translanguaging, collaborative teaching, critical thinking, and cooperative learning. In the present chapter, these will be described and justified from a theoretical perspective as relevant pedagogical ideas that CLIL professional development should consider. In addition, each of these CLIL-friendly pedagogical practices will be accompanied by an illustrative exemplification settled in a primary education context to facilitate their understanding and let readers clearly perceive how they may be operationalized at the classroom level.
TopIntroduction
From a general perspective, CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) may be seen as a pedagogical approach focused specifically on content and language learning. Nevertheless, this might be a quite short-sighted understanding of the concept. CLIL holds a pivotal position for reframing its potential as a pedagogic, rather than a linguistic, phenomenon. Currently, CLIL aspires to be more than a mere language teaching methodology, since it may foster more than the simple learning of content and language. In fact, it emerges as a possibility of leaving behind traditional approaches of learning and moving forward towards an updated approach of educational practices (Coyle, 2018). Well-prepared CLIL practices respond to the necessities of the 21st Century’s world. Therefore, this pedagogical approach might be considered as an innovative practice aimed at promoting quality education. In spite of this, for proper quality education to be promoted, teacher professional development is of utmost importance, since it should ensure that educational programs are not only well articulated, but also effectively implemented at the classroom level (Martínez-Agudo & Fielden-Burns, 2021).
Even though a sharp increase and an enormous uptake of CLIL have been taking place in numerous countries all over the world (Lasagabaster & Doiz, 2016; Siqueira et al., 2018),
Its rapid spread has been considered to outpace teacher education provision. Teachers, undoubtedly the actors who have been more deeply impacted by CLIL, have often been thrown out to teach according to this approach without sufficient or adequate training, because the demands placed on them by the implementation of this new approach have been largely overlooked. This situation needs to be countered and teacher training should figure prominently on the present and future CLIL agenda, as the success, sustainability, and continuity of CLIL schemes are considered to hinge largely on teacher education and preparation (Pérez-Cañado, 2018, p. 1).
This is concerning because CLIL teachers should possess scientific knowledge, which is connected not only to their expertise regarding the specific contents of the subject they teach, but also to the pedagogical practicalities of CLIL, with which they need to be well-versed too (Mehisto et al., 2008). According to previous literature, some CLIL teachers lack the necessary awareness of pedagogical essentials that are key for adequate CLIL implementation (Hu & Gao, 2021). In addition, some CLIL teachers have reported that they feel underprepared to properly apply this pedagogical approach (Contero, et al., 2018; Salvador-Garcia & Chiva-Bartoll, 2017). Consequently, if CLIL attains to stay deservedly within the educational scenario without hindering quality education, the challenges it poses linked to teacher professional development must be faced.
Against this backdrop, Pérez-Cañado (2018, p. 3) proposes several lines of action aimed to guarantee enduring bilingual education. Particularly, two of these lines of action are precisely focused on teacher professional development. One of them refers to ‘modifying existing undergraduate degrees to guarantee that preservice teachers receive sufficient methodological and theoretical grounding on CLIL’. The other raises that ‘preservice teachers can also be more adequately prepared to step up to the bilingual challenge by reinforcing CLIL preparation in university teacher trainers’. All in all, to ensure quality of bilingual education, proper and specific teacher training for CLIL is critical. Taking into account the aforementioned ideas, the aim of this chapter is to describe several CLIL-friendly pedagogical options on which CLIL teacher professional development may be focused to guarantee a success-prone implementation of this approach and foster quality education.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Pedagogical translanguaging: It is the conscious acknowledgement and connection between different languages happening in a teaching-learning process.
Oral communication: It entails communication through mouth and the ear, and includes peaople conversing with each other, speeches, presentations, discussions, etc.
Collaborative Teaching: It is the process of teachers working together to foster a common goal, which is always improved learner outcomes. Collaborative teaching involves: debating, planning, and problem-solving together. inquiring together, etc.
Multimodal communication: It refers to the fact of conveying meanings thanks to the integration of elements such as language, images, resources, interactions or events.
Critical Thinking: It is the process consisting of purposeful, self-regulatory judgment focused on deciding what to believe or do (Kosumoto, 2018 AU42: The in-text citation "Kosumoto, 2018" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. ).
Cooperative Learning: This is a learning approach in which students work together in small groups on a structured activity. They are individually accountable for their work and that of the group in general. One of the main aims of this approach is to maximize not only each student’s learning, but also that of their groupmates ( Johnson & Johnson, 2018 ).
Pedagogical affordance: These are the pedagogical characteristics of a learning context that enable learning to occur.