CLIL: Achieving its goals through a multiliteracies framework

Abstract

This article examines how CLIL goals can best be realized by adopting a multiliteracies (New London Group, 1996) framework as it can provide 1) the critical link between content and language and allow students to not only develop their ability to produce and interpret texts, but also expand their critical awareness of the relationship between one another, discourse conventions, and social and cultural contexts, that our times demand and 2) an organizing principle for CLIL teachers that potentially promotes more principled curricular and pedagogical decision making and practices. Accordingly, I begin by examining shared rationales and goals between CLIL and a multiliteracies framework. Next, I highlight the ways in which to organize CLIL instruction through a multiliteracies framework. Finally, I conclude by presenting a model multiliteracies-based CLIL lesson.