Putting CLIL into Practice in Different Educational Contexts; Italy, Spain, Turkey, and the Czech Republic
Abstract
Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is a dual-focused educational approach in which an additional language is used for the learning and teaching of both content and language. CLIL serves perfectly for the European aim of being 'plurilingual' to create a common future through a mutual understanding with the European citizens, who are able to speak at least two European languages capable enough to communicate and switch between languages, in addition to their mother tongue. This paper represents a comparative study of the differences in implementing CLIL methodology at the various national levels among one non-European, and three European countries, namely Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic, and Turkey. Not only does it tend to reveal the diversity of approaches towards CLIL as a popular method to teach and learn the content through a second language, but also it offers an insight into the legislation policies of these countries and their interest to promote CLIL as a national tool in supporting language learning to become a multicultural society. The aim of the study is to bring answers to the following questions (1) Is CLIL used at all levels of education? (2) Is it compulsory or voluntary to implement CLIL at schools? (3) Are these schools private or public? and last but not least (4) If the schools themselves can decide to implement CLIL or if they need approval from a higher authority. All four countries record an increase in the popularity of CLIL methodology in teaching and learning foreign languages, however as this paper demonstrates, levels and forms of implementation differ. The question for further investigation poses itself and sounds, "Is it a consequence of legislative support?".