CLIL is the abbreviation for content and language integrated learning (in French: EMILE—enseignement d’une matière par l’intégration d’une langue etrangère), an approach that has emerged across Europe in response to increasing demands to improve students’ foreign language competence. It integrates language with nonlanguage content, in a dual-focussed learning environment. It has been used for quite a long time to provide linguistically enhanced education enabling students to leave school with the ability to use two or more languages. In Europe, this approach is estimated as being used in about 3% of schools.

The March 2002 Barcelona European Summit had highlighted the importance of foreign language learning and of maintaining linguistic diversity in Europe by calling on EU Member States and the European Commission to do all they could “to improve the mastery of basic skills, in particular by teaching at least two foreign languages from a very early age.” CLIL/EMILE has emerged as a pragmatic European solution to a European need together with the “Mother Tongue + 2 other languages” formula that sustained the importance of plurilingualism.

The question of teaching one or more subjects in the curriculum in a language other than the normal language of instruction is of special interest. Students learn the content of the curriculum at the same time as they exercise and improve their language skills. School subjects and languages come together to help learners more effectively to meet the linguistic and cultural demands of Europe. This type of approach is justified not only because the requisites for success lay in exposure, but also because:

·         Traditional methods for teaching second languages often disassociate learning from cognitive or academic development.

·         Language is learned most effectively for communication in meaningful, purposeful, social, and academic contexts.

·         Integration of language and content provides a substantive basis for language teaching and learning: Content can provide a motivational and cognitive basis for language learning because it is interesting and of some value to the learner.

·         The language of different subject areas is characterized by specific genres or registers which may be a prerequisite of specific content or to academic development in general. (Marsh, 2001)

The aims of CLIL/EMILE are

·         that students should be given opportunities to learn subject matter or content effectively through the medium of a European language which would not be considered as the usual language for subject instruction in their regular curriculum;

·         that students should be given opportunities to use language/s in a variety of settings and contexts in order to enable them to operate successfully in a plurilingual and pluricultural Europe; and

·         that young people need support in developing specific and appropriate intercultural as well as linguistic knowledge skills and strategies, in order to function as autonomous mobile European citizens.

CLIL requires a reconceptualisation of language from language learning per se toward an integrated model that actively involves the learner in using and developing language of learning, language for learning, and language through learning. Recent projects aimed at training Italian teachers of subject matters in teaching content through English have witnessed an unprecedented number of teachers participating in order to meet a new and engaging challenge. The acknowledged role of language as a means to sustain cognitive reasoning as well as content learning has been the underlying notion of most projects developed during the teacher education courses by new groups of language teachers and learners. Emerging communities of practice of teachers of different subject matters are learning to collaborate and explore implications of using another language to widen the borders of their subject matter. Discovering the potential role of language in teaching and learning (languaging) as well as the key role of dynamic assessment has been among the pivotal issues addressed by CLIL course participants.

References

ALPME http://upf.es/dtf/alpme/

CLIL Compendium http://www.clilcompendium.com/

Coyle D., Hood, P. and Marsh, D. 2007. Content and Language Integrated Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Genesee, F. 1987. Learning though Two Languages: Studies of Immersion and Bilingual Education. Rowley, MA:Newbury House.

Coonan, C.2003. Some issues in implementing CLIL, European Language Council Bulletin 9. European Language Council, Freie Universität Berlin. Available at http://www.celelc.org/archive/Information_Bulletins/00_resources_info_bulletins/2003_IB/co onan_en.pdf?1370253493

Coonan C., 2007. Insider views of the CLIL class through teacher self-observation-introspection, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 10/5: 625-646.

Coonan C. 2012. The foreign language curriculum and CLIL, Synergies Italie 8: 117-128. Available at http://ressources-cla.univfcomte.fr/gerflint/Italie8/carmel_mary%202.pdf

Coonan C. 2012. Affect and motivation in CLIL. In David Marsh and Oliver Meyer (eds), Quality Interfaces: Examining Evidence & Exploring Solutions in CLIL, Eichstaett, Eichstaett Academic Press: 53-66.

Dalton-Puffer C. and Nikula, T. 2014. Content and language integrated learning, The Language Learning Journal 42/2: 117-122.

Dalton-Puffer C., Nikula, T. and Smit, U. (eds) 2010. Language Use and Language Learning in CLIL Classrooms. Bern: Peter Lang.

European Language Council http://www.fu-berlin.de/elc/en/tnp1prod.html; http://www.fu-berlin.de/elc/ ; http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/policies/lang/key/legislation_en.html

Järvinen, H.M. 2009. What has Ecology to do with CLIL? An Ecological Approach in Content and Language Integrated Learning. In Marsh,D.,Mehisto, P., Wolff, D., Aliaga, R., Asikainen, T., Frigols-Martin, M.J., Hughes, S., Langé, G. (eds.). CLIL Practice: Perspectives from the Field. CCN: University of Jyväskylä (Finland).

Lopriore, L. 2014, CLIL: una lingua franca (6-11)..LA RICERCA, Torino:LOESCHER.

Marsh, D. (2001). CLIL/EMILE: The European dimension. Finland: UniCOM, Continuing Education Centre

Swain, M. 2006. Languaging, agency and collaboration in advanced language proficiency. In TIECLIL http://www.tieclil.org/

The Training of Teachers of a Foreign Language: Developments in Europe CLIL – Content and Language Integrated Learning http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/policies/lang/key/studies_en.html

Wenger, E. 1998. Communities of practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lucilla Lopriore, associate professor, Roma Tre University. MA TEFL, Reading University; PhD Italian as a foreign language, Siena for Foreigners University. TESOL Italy president (1996–98), TESOL International Association Board of Directors member (2001–2004), TESOL International Association Research Committee (2013–2016). Italian national coordinator of the Early Language Learning in Europe (ELLiE) longitudinal research study (2006–2010). Teacher-educator and course-book writer, her fields of interest are: English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), language teacher education, assessment and evaluation, early language learning, content and language integrated learning (CLIL). She has published extensively in the field of teacher education, early language learning, ELF, CLIL, and assessment.