Towards integrating language and content in EFL contexts: Teachers’ perspectives

Abstract

Recent years have been witnessing numerous advances in teaching English as a second/foreign language as well as in teaching school and academic subjects through the medium of English. A range of approaches, with a wide support of educational systems all over the world, have promoted the view that it is beneficial to take advantage of a close relationship between language and content with the goal of integrating language and content-oriented goals in both L1 and L2 educational environments. Among the multitude of labels offered to represent the recommended approaches, it was the term CBI (Content-Based Instruction), commonly used in Canada and the USA, and that of CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning), introduced by the Council of Europe, that seem to have gained a great deal of recognition in recent literature. The CBI/ CLIL approaches found themselves in the centre of interest of numerous L2/ FL specialists involved, on the one hand, in establishing bilingual education programmes, and, on the other, responsible for designing day-to-day teaching practice. As a result, many diverse applications in practice were undertaken. The present volume is intended for EFL teachers working at different educational levels who are interested in introducing change into their teaching practices. It shows that useful research-based modifications can be worked out by classroom teachers with their specific goals in minds so that language and content focus can be appropriately counterbalanced depending on the needs of particular groups of learners and curricula requirements.