Content-Related and Methodological Issues in Bilingual and Plurilingual Programmes

Abstract

CLIL programmes have been implemented in a large number of Spanish schools in the last decades as a means of promoting foreign language proficiency and fostering multilingualism and language diversity in order to meet the new demands of our globalized societies. Although Spain is considered one of the European leaders in CLIL practice and research, it nevertheless faces many challenges caused by teachers´ insufficient training both in the target language and in CLIL methodology. While the language-related shortcomings have been identified to a certain extent and remedied through language immersion courses and language assistant programmes, the content-related and methodological issues are still being largely neglected in spite of the fact that there exists considerable CLIL literature where these issues have been addressed. Renowned CLIL authors such as Do Coyle, David Marsh and Peeter Mehisto stress the importance of high quality teaching as key to the success of the CLIL approach; they claim that good CLIL practice not only broadens conceptual mapping resources by boosting cognitive development and metacognitive skills, but it also encourages active, meaningful, “deep” learning, critical thinking and creative thought with the help of scaffolding techniques that facilitate both language and content learning. This paper examines the language practices in content classrooms in the bilingual programmes of Castilla la Mancha. With a view to identifying the main difficulties that both teachers and students face. It also explores different ways of approaching these challenges, most of which are bound to be extensive to the Indian context.