Professional Documents
Culture Documents
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
1. CLIL Experiences within the State Educational System
5. Conclusions.
5.1. Teachers
5.2. Involvement of Administration and Schools
5.3. Further Needs
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
Introduction
The new Education Law establishes the general education framework for the
whole territory, but the education system in present-day Spain is extremely
decentralised. This new curriculum is known as the Reforma. Each
Autonomous Community (Catalonia, the Basque Country, Navarra, etc ) is in
charge of developing and implementing the new curriculum according to their
own educational policy, on the one hand, and according to the general
guidelines of the Reforma, on the other. For example, Catalonia and the
Basque Country, the first Autonomous Communities to be given full
responsibility for the education system in their own territories, share 45 % of
the whole curriculum with other communities. The other 55 % of it is for them
to design and develop.
Describing the state of the art regarding CLIL experiences in Europe, was
one of the goals of our project. Every partner representing a different country
or region was asked to write an addendum to previously published reports
(see, for example, Fruhauf et al., 1996). In the case of Spain there existed a
previous report on Language Teacher Training and Bilingual Education
(Pérez-Vidal, in press), which gave a very accurate and general view of the
linguistic situation in Spain, but in which only two CLIL programmes were
included (Quincanon et al., 1999; and Cenoz, 1998; see below). The present
report focuses exclusively on CLIL experiences in Spain and attempts to be
as comprehensive as it can be at the moment, although it almost starts from
scratch. While every effort has been made to enquire in the different
Autonomous Education Departments, the absence of answer in some cases,
together with the lack of previous published information, may have resulted in
the unplanned exclusion of unknown-to-us recent CLIL experiences
(particularly in areas other than Catalonia, the Basque Country, and
Navarra).
Compulsory education starts at the age of six in Spain, yet infant state-run
schools start from the age of three. Although English is introduced at the age
of eight by law, a few state-run schools start teaching English earlier.
The teachers of infant school are Primary teachers, who - as a result of their
training programme - can be either infant specialists or foreign language
specialists, but not both. (Other specialities for Primary teachers include
Music, Physical Education, Handicrafts, etc.)
The Ministry of Education has recently signed an agreement with the British
Council in Spain in order to have a British native speaker in 43 schools for
infants ranging from 3 to 5 (see www.clic.net/bulletin5).
English is the most frequently chosen (first) foreign language both in Primary
and Secondary Education. A second foreign language can be chosen in
Secondary Education, and under special circumstances in some Primary
schools.
These type of schools are private but partially funded by the State (now by
the corresponding Autonomous Government of each Community). They are
supposed to be ruled by the same principles that rule state-run schools, but
in practice there are important differences between them. For example, semi-
private schools have a longer school time per week both in Primary and
Secondary Education, and tend to be very concerned with parents'
expectations regarding education standards, since parents partly support the
tuition of their children. Furthermore, some of them have their own traditions
in teaching from the time in which they received no state funding.
Among these traditions appears the provision of some degree of CLIL both at
Secondary and Primary level. In Catalonia, the Basque Country and
Navarra, just to mention a few of the experiences we have gathered
information from, CLIL instruction is introduced very early in just one
language and in just either one or a couple of content-matter areas, but it
ends up including two to three languages in about four to five different
subjects. Examples of this type of school are San Cernin and Irabia in
Pamplona (Navarra), and John Talabot (Barcelona) and La Vall (Bellaterra,
Barcelona). The last two are, furthermore, trilingual, and present distinct
characteristics.
Apart from these trilingual schools, most CLIL experiences have some
features in common, which appear in the following sections.
During the first four years of Primary school, the foreign language is still
used orally, and it is only in the last two to three years of Primary
Education, that foreign language writing is introduced.
Besides CLIL classes, most schools would provide regular foreign
language courses that are taught by specialists, either native or non-
native foreign language instructors, not necessarily the same
instructors of the CLIL courses.
Most schools choose to introduce the second foreign language by the
time students start writing in the first foreign language.
Two to four subject-matter areas are taught in the first foreign
language: Physical Education, Handicrafts, Social Sciences, Natural
Sciences, etc.
The second foreign language is introduced both as a means of
instruction in the CLIL classes and as the means of communication in
communicative-oriented regular language courses.
The evaluation of CLIL classes tends to focus on the extent to which
the content-subject objectives are fulfilled.
Most students from these type of schools are expected to pass either
an internal or an international certificate in the foreign language before
they finish Primary Education.
Content-subject instructors tend to be Primary school teachers with a
degree in the subject-matter with enough command of the language.
Some of them are native speakers.
It is very common for these type of universities to offer part of the curriculum
in one or two foreign languages.
Originally it was an initiative to link the teaching of foreign languages with the
promotion of international understanding, co-operation and solidarity. In
Catalonia it was extended so that the objectives were shared by other
teaching areas, particularly the languages of the participating countries and
the social sciences.
5. Conclusions.
5.1. Teachers
Teachers' profile
From what we have described, it may be seen that not many Primary
teachers may have enough communicative competence in the target
language so as to teach a content subject in it. Second, foreign language
Secondary school teachers may be very competent in the foreign language
but have no training in any other content subject. Third, very few content
subject Secondary school teachers have a native-like command of the
foreign language. Finally, none of them have had any training in CLIL.
Up to now, only private and partially private schools seem to have been able
to afford either native speaker teachers with a degree in the content subject,
or teachers with two degrees, one in the content subject area and one in a
foreign language. Yet they have not had any training in CLIL either.
CLIL-specific training
The fact that the Teacher Training system in Spain does not include dual
qualifications makes it very difficult to find teachers to implement CLIL. In
fact, most of the teachers in this report had not had any previous specific
training, and their projects were planned and designed on the basis of
intuition and common sense. It is, therefore, highly recommended that both
undergraduate and graduate courses for teachers should include some CLIL
training.
The second most common concern among school teachers was how to
guarantee coordination between the foreign language department and each
of the content-subject areas or departments. Some private and semi-private
schools have already included CLIL programs as part of the School Linguistic
Project, and, consequently, they are able to plan their schedules and staff
meetings, so as to make possible this necessary coordination between the
different teachers. In state-run schools, since CLIL experiences have not yet
become part of the School Linguistic Project, coordination is up to volunteer
work on the part of the teachers involved.
Materials design
It is not by chance that most of the self-made CLIL materials used in the
projects reported above are still unpublished. It is an extremely time-
consuming task to gather, adapt and design teaching materials, a type of
task for which, on the other hand, most teachers are not responsible in their
regular courses. An extremely great effort needs to be made so as to provide
CLIL teaching materials that can be used by as many teachers and learners
as possible. Again, the support of the Educational Authorities is needed to
provide expert teams that can undertake specific materials design.
Theoretical Foundations
A very common concern among those who have been involved in CLIL
projects is to gather enough and solid theoretical background on CLIL
projects to support and inspire their own decision making process, and to
inform the School Linguistic Project. The lack of CLIL teacher training
courses leaves up to the administrators and teaching staff the task of
identifying the theoretical foundations for CLIL projects. Besides, in Spain the
rationale for implementing a CLIL project cannot explicitly be found in the
present Curriculum Reform Guidelines, nor in most undergraduate and
graduate teacher training courses, either. This explains that many teachers
report not being familiar enough with the rationale for CLIL, ignoring most of
the teaching techniques and strategies generally associated with content-
based teaching, and not knowing how to cope with the evaluation procedures
(focusing on meaning rather than on form?).
Teachers' Qualifications
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES