CLIL in Spain: Implementation, Results and Teacher Training

CLIL in Spain: Implementation, Results and Teacher Training is an admirable effort to compile, in less than 300 pages, research on what is basically a nation's attempt to promote multilingualism through CLIL. As a keyword search for ‘CLIL’ within ELTJ uncovered only two articles, let me say a few things about CLIL, so readers can appreciate its importance for the international EFL community and thus the value of CLIL in Spain. More importantly, as a reviewer always reads through lenses coloured by personal experience and thus expectations, one should know the stance of this review. Since it debuted as an acronym in the mid-1990s, CLIL has evolved from simply a way to increase foreign language (FL) exposure, ergo FL learning (Marsh 2003), into a pragmatic approach to renovating classroom practice. This is the logic: if we interpret the CLIL acronym mathematically (Ting 2011), we obtain a 50:50/content:language ratio that solicits the first question, ‘whose language does the “50/language” refer to?’ Obviously, the answer is ‘the learner's language’. Next, we become explicitly aware that learners must approach content through an FL for they have limited linguistic resources, leading to the next question, ‘is the input language comprehensible?’ Then, since the purpose of using an FL is so learners can master it, we inevitably ask ‘how often is the learner using the language, to do what and how effectively?’ Such ‘language awareness’ automatically shifts classroom dynamics from one that is teaching focused to one that is learner centred. Not only. Language-aware, learner-centred learning catalyzes ‘content-aware’ instruction whereby teachers quite naturally also wonder if the input content is comprehensible. CLIL is therefore not simply ‘doing it in a FL’: if physics is already challenging in L1, doing it in an FL would not only not spark interest in physics but probably abate any inkling of passion for the FL. Done well, CLIL is therefore not immersion (Lasagabaster and Sierra 2010): with ad hoc materials, CLIL ensures that not only are both language and content comprehensible but that these are embedded within learning-centred tasks and activities that prompt learners to use language to attain information, negotiate understanding, construct knowledge, and then effectively language new content knowledge. This is great. However, the astute reader will realize that the depth of content and complexity of language increases exponentially as we progress up the education continuum: while a language expert would excel in ‘soft-CLIL’, where the aim is to acquire vocabulary and lexis for discussing content on a general level, content expertise is a requisite for ‘hard CLIL’ where the learning objective is content driven. Teacher training for CLIL is therefore no simple matter since multilingualism is undeniably essential for intercultural communication, but so are decent surgeons and engineers, even if they are monolingual.