CLIL in languages other than English –
Successful transitions across educational stages

In 2020/21, the ECML national authorities kindly provided us with contact details for experts with specific insight into CLIL and/or languages other than English in their country. We approached these experts and asked them to fill in a questionnaire which the project team and associate partners had developed based on previous Eurydice publications (2006, 2017). The survey was completed by experts from 29 countries.

The main results can be summarized as follows: Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is only found to a very limited extent in languages other than English. Transitions between levels of education are given very little attention. And CLIL is almost never linked to plurilingual education. In the comments section, several experts pointed out that it is difficult to build a bridge between things that hardly exist: “There are so few examples of CLIL LOTE that meaningful transitions are difficult to establish”. You can find the survey results here.

The project’s network meeting in June was attended by around 60 experts, and here the CLIL LOTE network was launched. In the school year 2021/22, 57 experts from 27 countries will form working groups and produce concrete materials to show ways in which CLIL LOTE transitions can be strengthened. These will consist of recommendations for the further development of curricula and teacher education; teaching materials that, among other things, build on the CEFR; portfolio examples and suggestions for how to establish collaboration between schools, teachers, and students at different levels of education.

The project team: Petra Daryai-Hansen (coordinator), Satu Koistinen, Beate Lindemann, Evangélia Moussouri

Project website “CLIL in languages other than English – Successful transitions across educational stages” in English, French and German: www.ecml.at/CLILLOTEtransitions

How can we implement Content and language integrate learning (CLIL) across educational stages (primary, secondary, tertiary), both in the language classroom and in other subjects? How can we conceptualize students’ development of language awareness in the context of plurilingual education in primary, lower secondary, and upper secondary language education? And what is the connection between CLIL and plurilingual education?

In the talk, Petra Daryai-Hansen will present the initial results of two projects that she is recently coordinating: the project "Plurilingual education – Minority and majority students' language awareness across educational levels", financed by the Independent Research Fund Denmark, and the project "CLIL in Languages Other Than English – Successful transitions across educational stages", supported by the European Centre for Modern Languages of the Council of Europe and the Danish National Centre for Foreign Languages (NCFF).

The talk is free of charge. Please use the following link to join the talk:

https://ucph-ku.zoom.us/j/62905485312?pwd=SDh1NDdvcVMxSndKTUloQld3MmFPZz09
Passcode: 668804

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The 'Digital series of talks on plurilingualism and interculturality' is coordinated by Petra Daryai-Hansen, in collaboration with Natalia Morollón Martí, Natascha Drachmann, Stephanie Kim Löbl, Anna Lena Sandberg and Karoline Søgaard, Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies, University of Copenhagen.

8 November 2021 - Talk by professor Danièle Moore (Simon Fraser University) in the Digital series of talks on plurilingualism and interculturality 

In this talk, Professor Daniele Moore discusses the potential of inquiry-based plurilingual and transdisciplinary projects to encourage critical awareness of plurality in the context of teacher training and K-12 instruction. Using international participatory and collaborative approaches to teacher training, she examines diversely situated ecologies to explore how the theoretical lens of plurilingualism can contribute to raising awareness of translingual practice as an asset to challenge beliefs and praxis and produce alternative knowledges around teaching, learning, and researching-as-teacher-training.

Please register for this talk here (you will register for the whole series but are not obliged to attend all talks).

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The 'Digital series of talks on plurilingualism and interculturality' is coordinated by Petra Daryai-Hansen, in collaboration with Natalia Morollón Martí, Natascha Drachmann, Stephanie Kim Löbl, Anna Lena Sandberg and Karoline Søgaard, Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies, University of Copenhagen.

In this very first year, we have discovered the complexity of our project. The project aims to develop recommendations for implementing CLIL in Languages Other than English (LOTE) across educational stages (primary, secondary, tertiary), both in the language classroom and in other subjects. Furthermore, the project sees CLIL as a vehicle for promoting pluralistic approaches to language learning. The recommendations will be illustrated by practice examples from various contexts.

This complexity can be visualized as follows:

In this very first year, we have also discovered how innovative our project is. Our review of what has been achieved in previous CLIL projects and our study of the research literature in general has shown that the approach to build bridges across educational levels in CLIL LOTE breaks new ground. Furthermore, the connection between CLIL LOTE and pluralistic approaches to languages is hardly an established practice.

We have therefore decided to issue a questionnaire, based on Eurydice Reports from 2006 and 2017, in the beginning of 2021 in order to:

• to collect information about and challenges concerning CLIL in Languages Other than English in the ECML member states, and
• to establish a CLIL LOTE network / a collaboration with representatives from the ECML member states, who could help provide practice examples from different contexts and could either be invited to the project network meeting in 2021 or the project workshop in 2022.

In 2020, we have initiated a collaboration with associate partners in order to gain their perspectives on our work and furthermore, over the next two years, to collect scenarios and materials from different contexts.

Should you have expertise within the field of CLIL LOTE linked to transitions and/or pluralistic approaches, please contact us. We look forward to collaborating with you in this complex, innovative and highly important field!

Petra Daryai-Hansen, project coordinator

Visit the project website "CLIL in languages other than English – Successful transitions across educational stages" (available in English, French, and German): www.ecml.at/CLILLOTEtransitions

How do we define CLIL and plurilingual education? Which kind of projects have we been involved in - on CLIL and plurilingual education across educational levels? How will we organise this new three-year ECML project?

At this web-based expert meeting we (1) got to know each other and discussed our understanding of the field and our context, (2) agreed on project organisation and design, and (3) defined the next steps.

Building on previous ECML projects, our project will develop recommendations to implement CLIL in languages other than English (LOTE) across educational levels (primary, secondary, tertiary), both in the language classroom and other subjects. Furthermore, the project will promote pluralistic approaches to languages in CLIL (CLsIL).

In this first year, our project will among others

• systematically review what has been done in previous CLIL/CLsIL projects;
• collect recommendations, models and teaching materials from different contexts;
• synthesise existing resources and develop a first draft of recommendations to implement CLIL in LOTE across educational levels; 
• initiate a collaboration with associated partners and the ECML national contact points.

In 2021, the project will invite other experts to a network meeting, and in 2022, we will organise a workshop for representatives of the member countries of the ECML. One of the main goals of our project is to illustrate the recommendations through practice examples from various contexts.

Please get in touch, if you are interested to share your knowledge and experiences, or if you would like to participate in our events!

Author: Petra Daryai-Hansen

More information

• Project website (available in English, French and German): www.ecml.at/CLILLOTEtransitions
• Project team