Searching for identity and focus: towards an analytical framework for language teachers in bilingual education

Abstract

In CLIL contexts, school subjects are taught in an additional language, allowing learners to acquire the target language through meaningful use. This places language teachers in an ambiguous position. What is their role in this context? On the one hand, language teachers are expected to collaborate with subject teacher colleagues; on the other hand, they teach separate language lessons. This double role provides language teachers and their educators with specific challenges in terms of identity and focus.To explore and explain the choices language teachers have, this review examines international research from the last 25 years with a primary focus on secondary schools. As recent discussions argue convincingly that research into CLIL, Content Based Instruction and immersion benefit from convergence and cross-fertilisation, we used a broad range of search terms to identify primary and secondary research.Selected articles were organised into four inquiry areas and analysed thematically: (1) language focus, (2) content focus of learning, (3) language teachers' pedagogical practices, and (4) their collaboration with subject teachers. Based on these themes, we developed a framework for language teachers and their educators in bilingual education designed to help them explore, explain and develop their own identity and focus.

Juggling ideals and constraints

“…Yet until recently, most publications on CLIL and bilingual education research, teaching methodologies and training courses have focused on STs rather than TEBs (Dale, Oostdam, & Verspoor, 2017). This tendency is also reflected in the Standard.…”

“…This provides TEBs with specific challenges. This article reports on a focus group (FG) study exploring the extent to which the ideals of stakeholders in bilingual schools in the Netherlands reflect the literature on this topic, using a frame of reference developed for this purpose (Dale, Oostdam, & Verspoor, 2017). Five FGs were held with TEBs and STs from Dutch schools in the network for bilingual education and with members of the network's quality assurance panels.…”

Exploring the curriculum development in content and language integrated learning: A systematic review

“…A second notion, 'interdisciplinarity', is concerned with linking content discipline, language discipline, and other related disciplines. First, CLIL is not influenced by one theory, but by the fusion of many, such as language educational theories, constructional theories, and cultural learning theories [38][39][40]. Thus, when stating CLIL philosophy, there is a need to consider deriving its theoretical foundation from different theories.…”

Postscriptum: research pathways in CLIL/Immersion instructional practices and teacher development

“…Morton's contribution is also a good example of the productive migration of theoretical constructs between related research areas, as he develops his specific conceptualisation of language-knowledge for content-teachers from earlier constructs emerging in mathematics education and EFL. Applying a metaphor introduced by Dale, Oostdam, and Verspoor (2017), then, the 'lineage' of Morton's LK-CT (Language Knowledge for Content Teachers) reaches back to Shulman's notion of Pedagogical Content Knowledge or PCK (Shulman 1987).The lineage-metaphor is used by Dale et al in their article to capture the 'several lines of thinking about language teaching in school contexts, broadly represented by the three terms foreign language (FL) teaching, second language (SL) teaching and mother tongue or first language (L1) teaching.' They continue by stating that 'All three lineages can provide insights into language teaching in this context.…”

“…Morton's contribution is also a good example of the productive migration of theoretical constructs between related research areas, as he develops his specific conceptualisation of language-knowledge for content-teachers from earlier constructs emerging in mathematics education and EFL. Applying a metaphor introduced by Dale, Oostdam, and Verspoor (2017), then, the 'lineage' of Morton's LK-CT (Language Knowledge for Content Teachers) reaches back to Shulman's notion of Pedagogical Content Knowledge or PCK (Shulman 1987).…”