Researcher-Teacher Collaboration in Adopting Critical Content and Language Integrated Learning (Clil): Processes, Challenges and Outcomes

Abstract

While the growing trend of internationalisation and globalisation has been addressed by policymakers and the interest in adopting the CLIL approach has increased, calls have been made for uncovering how teachers can develop ways of designing and implementing corresponding materials and engage students in such an approach. This is a collaborative study that explores in details, based on the Interactional Ethnographic approach, the processes of how the researcher and the teacher worked together in an egalitarian setting to design and carry out a CLIL unit. Throughout this five-month research involved with multiple stages of development of resources, with an English teacher and sixteen of her Grade 4 students, I have made visible the multiple forms of our collaboration and the important issues for consideration with implications in closing the gap between research and practice, and between design and implementation. Finally, I conclude that the researcher-teacher collaborative approach laid out by event maps could be an innovative way to re-examine and reflect upon the dynamics between the researcher and the researched by acknowledging and fortifying the bond between the two.

Involving Students in Educational Design: How Student Voices Contribute to Shaping Transdisciplinary CLIL History Materials

“…While several studies have explored students' beliefs, perceptions, and attitudes regarding CLIL, usually reporting a positive relationship between CLIL and learner attitudes (Coyle, 2013;Pavón Vázquez, 2018;Somers & Llinares, 2018) as well as general student satisfaction (Hüttner et al, 2013;Oxbrow, 2018), there seem to be hardly any studies that actively involved learners when creating researchbased CLIL materials (as in e.g., Banegas, 2013;Gupta, 2020). Yet, previous research suggests that learners indeed can effectively contribute to improving the quality of their education while also elucidating our understanding of their learning processes (Cook-Sather, 2006;Coyle, 2013;Flutter & Rudduck, 2004).…”