CLIL Teacher Professional Development: Competencies and Best Practices

Posted on Sep 23, 2025 in Early Childhood Education

European Perspective on CLIL Teacher Education

Professional Profile of CLIL Teachers

This section addresses key questions and insights regarding CLIL teaching and its implementation.

Key Aspects of CLIL Teaching

  • Advantage of CLIL: Students are exposed to English for extended periods. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and CLIL are highly compatible.
  • Teaching Academic Subjects in a Foreign Language: Most CLIL teachers prioritize content instruction over explicit language teaching.
  • Integrating Language and Content Learning: Effective integration requires strong coordination between teachers.
  • Student Difficulties in CLIL Lessons: Students may struggle with understanding the subject matter due to language barriers.
  • Challenges for CLIL Teachers: CLIL approaches often do not yield immediate results, requiring patience and sustained effort.
  • Managing Knowledge and Language Proficiency Gaps: It is crucial to adapt teaching materials to the students’ current language and subject knowledge levels.
  • Qualities of a Good CLIL Lesson: Good lessons incorporate authentic materials, provide clear input, and attend to student diversity.
  • Improving CLIL Classes in Spain: While an ideal CLIL classroom can be conceptualized, its success is highly dependent on the specific educational context.

Understanding CLIL: Core Concepts

  • CLIL as an Innovative Approach: CLIL is often seen as an innovative or alternative approach to Communicative Language Teaching.
  • What is CLIL? It is a dual-focus approach that integrates both language and content learning.
  • Content vs. Language Focus: When focusing primarily on content outcomes, students may make more errors (fossilization). Conversely, an exclusive focus on language might result in a loss of content understanding.
  • Critical Perspectives: Most criticisms of CLIL relate to its practical implementation rather than its theoretical framework.
  • European Perspective on CLIL: It is important to distinguish between tasks and projects. The success of CLIL relies on well-prepared, high-quality teachers, given the diversity of CLIL program formats and practices across Europe.

Areas of CLIL Teacher Education

Effective CLIL teacher education encompasses several critical areas:

  • Lesson Planning: Teachers must plan lessons that effectively integrate content and language.
  • Addressing Learner Needs: While attending to individual student needs, teachers must also manage the entire class effectively to maintain control.
  • Teacher Well-being and Emotions: Acknowledging and managing teacher emotions is vital, as they significantly influence classroom behavior and control.
  • Promoting Interaction: Utilizing projects can enhance communication and collaboration among students.
  • Understanding Learning Styles: Teachers should consider diverse learning styles, such as Gardner’s eight intelligences, to cater to all students.

Advisable CLIL Training Approaches

Effective CLIL teacher training should be:

  1. Based on the specific training needs and expectations of CLIL teachers.
  2. Designed to define the multiple professional competencies required for teaching through CLIL.
  3. Flexible and adaptable to various school and classroom contexts.
  4. Structured to allow for reflection, assessment, and feedback on teaching practice.
  5. Supportive of adopting action research methodologies.

Competency-Based Teacher Education in CLIL

Defining Competence in CLIL

Marsh et al. (2010) define competence as the demonstrated ability to use knowledge, skills, and personal, social, and/or methodological abilities in work or study situations, contributing to professional and personal development. This approach emphasizes clear standards of competence and professional profiles for CLIL educators.

Components of a Competency-Based Approach

  • Knowledge
  • Skills, abilities, and strategies
  • Attitudes and Values

Main Professional Competencies for CLIL Teachers

  • Target language competence
  • CLIL methodology-based competence
  • Content subject competence

Idealized CLIL Teacher Competencies

  1. Language/Communication: Sufficient knowledge of the foreign language and pragmatic skills essential for CLIL instruction.
  2. Theory: Comprehensive understanding of the differences and similarities between language learning and language acquisition concepts.
  3. Methodology:
    • Ability to identify linguistic difficulties students may encounter.
    • Ability to employ communication and interaction methods that facilitate meaning comprehension.
    • Ability to use strategies (e.g., repetition, echoing) for correction and modeling good language usage.
    • Ability to design and implement dual-focused activities that simultaneously address language and subject aspects.