The aim of this paper is to unfold the process of integration in CLIL by describing the role of the cognitive processes involved in the construction of knowledge. While there has been extensive research of various aspects of CLIL, the actual process of integration of content and language has largely been neglected. Therefore, this paper argues that the role of language in building knowledge has to be stressed further and made transparent to CLIL practitioners, particularly in “hard” versions of CLIL. Raising teachers’ awareness of the epistemic function of language and drawing their attention to the human cognitive architecture can help them achieve a higher level of understanding of the process of integration of content and language. Using the example of a task taken from a training course for CLIL teachers, this paper describes how a focus on the cognitive architecture of learners can improve the integration of content and language in CLIL.

CLIL teachers, particularly in tertiary “hard” CLIL settings, tend to underestimate the role of language for developing conceptual understanding of new content. Nevertheless, they consistently engage with English outside the classroom and even report a variety of activities that they carry out in English with the explicit hope that this will improve their language skills. However, they do not seem to develop transfer strategies that would allow them to benefit from this language engagement in their teaching. The results of a nation-wide study on CLIL teacher wellbeing in Austria confirmed this disconnect, prompting our present follow-up study, which aims to combine teacher training and research and to raise tertiary CLIL teachers’ levels of Teacher Language Awareness (TLA). By means of an online questionnaire, class observations and stimulated recall interviews, we explored teachers’ conceptualization of language, specifically their awareness of the language needed for effective content teaching. Results suggest that research-based TLA coaching must be part of CLIL teacher training to resolve the disconnect between the general communicative functions of language, on the one hand, and the pedagogical functions of language, on the other hand. This can help teachers unlock the potential of their existing language engagement for improving their classroom discourse and practices.

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In this paper, we present a cross-disciplinary collaboration model inspired by collaborative action research (CAR) developed at a computer science department at a University of Applied Sciences in Austria. We outline the roles which language teachers at the institution and external collaborators (teacher educators and language specialists) play in creating a space of trust for the professional development of content specialists. Recent research (e.g. Zappa-Hollman, 2018) has called for such collaborative partnerships between language and content specialists to raise awareness among English Medium Instruction (EMI) practitioners and stakeholders that language is “the crucial semiotic resource to [...] facilitate conceptualization and problem solving in specific disciplines” (Yuan, 2021, p. 2). This demand for an integrative approach which takes the interplay of language and content into consideration has not yet received sufficient attention, neither at the institutional level nor at the level of individual teachers (Zappa-Hollman, 2018). Innovative approaches are clearly needed to improve the quality of ICLHE teaching (Kim et al., 2018). The generally positive reactions of the content teachers to the Trust Model of Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration suggest that it can contribute to improving their understanding of the epistemic function of language and their Integrating Content and language in Higher Education (ICLHE) teaching practice.

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