Critically Evaluating Materials for CLIL: Practitioners’ Practices and Perspectives

Abstract

This chapter presents a critical perspective on materials selection, adaptation, design, use and content in one second language education context, content and language integrated learning, or CLIL. CLIL is an educational approach in which curriculum subjects are taught through a language which is not the one normally used by teachers and students. Although any language can be used in CLIL or related approaches such as immersion,¹ English has become the dominant language to the extent that it has been suggested that a more accurate acronym might be CEIL — content and English integrated learning (Dalton-Puffer et al., 2010). Indeed, in terms of English language education, Graddol (2006) predicts that CLIL, along with the teaching of English to young learners and English as a lingua franca will be the dominant trend and will eventually replace English as a foreign language. The implementation of CLIL where it involves substantial teaching of non-language subject matter through a foreign language goes well beyond the introduction of new language teaching methodologies or approaches. It involves a ‘reculturing’ (Fullan, 2007) of not only the field of language teaching, but right across the curriculum as non-language subjects are involved. This reculturing affects all components of the system, and educational materials are central to this.