The introduction of English and other foreign languages as media of instruction, which is generally referred to as Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), has transformed the teaching experiences of a large number of educators. Yet their daily struggles and personally ambivalent stances have hardly been examined. This paper addresses this overlooked area of CLIL practice by taking a critical sociolinguistic stance towards language-in-education policy. Drawing on an ethnographic case study, it analyses the on-the-ground implementation of PEP, a government initiative to foster the plurilingualisation of the Catalan education system, in a state secondary school near Barcelona. Through the situated analysis of policy makers', administrators', and educators' actions and discourses, the paper shows how the different groups of actors rationalise their engagement with the programme differently, while still aligning themselves with the official imagination of PEP, and constructing a collective ethos of commitment and hard work to improve the school's reputation. Three neoliberalised worker subject positions are identified: the entrepreneurial head teacher, who anticipates avenues for school transformation before they are put into place; the activised civil servants, who construct themselves as exemplary moral agents; and the maximally flexible temporary teachers, who live their participation in PEP with anxiety and a sense of burden, but are also aware of the many opportunities PEP offers. This paper contributes situated insights on CLIL implementation and addresses issues of power and inequality overlooked by the dominant paradigms in the field.
This study explores the connections between language policy implementation in three Barcelona-area secondary schools and the language attitudes and behaviors of Spanish-speaking Latin American newcomers. Data were collected through interviews and ethnographic participant observation document indexes of different forms of language socialization processes and highlight the role of teachers and of 'Reception Classes' (RCs) in which students receive Catalan language support. Different RC models and placements of the RC in the school have effects on those processes and the students' attitudes toward Catalan and schooling. Deficient models result from lack of institutional support and unfavorable conditions of the RC in the school. Positive models result from individual teacher initiative and commitment to move beyond basic language teaching and include broader social and academic objectives for newcomers. We conclude that language policy meeting goals requires consistent commitment at all levels from policy-makers to individual teachers.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.