Carmel Mary Coonan

Insider Views of the CLIL Class Through Teacher Self-observation–Introspection

This paper aims to highlight some of the issues that are appearing in full force now that the Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) option is being ever more taken into consideration by schools and education authorities throughout Europe. The reasons for the interest in CLIL-based learning are various, including the support given to this learning environment by European institutions (the European Commission and the Council of Europe) and the numerous European projects that have been financed to explore the different issues involved. Just as the introduction of new information technologies into education has given rise to a reconsideration of the learning and teaching processes and procedures involved, so CLIL requires a similar re-appraisal. CLIL constitutes a new learning and teaching environment. There is a danger, however, that the full impact of CLIL be not realised or be underestimated, the question being merely seen as one of change of language medium. This is of course one issue, but the choice of language medium has profound repercussions at all levels — political included. Indeed, this is how it should be if CLIL is to be fully part of the educational system, invested with a specific role as part of the language policy of the country, the local education authority, the school and also of the general school curriculum.