Measuring teachers’ competence to plan clil and diagnosis teachers’ training needs

Abstract

INTRODUCTION. In a context of remarkable heterogeneity in the training received to teach CLIL, this article presents the process of design and validation of a questionnaire that aims to measure the level of integration of the CLIL methodological principles in the programming styles of qualified/accredited teachers in bilingual schools. METHOD. The objective is to measure teachers’ competence to program CLIL and diagnose the areas that require training. In order to do that, it has been necessary to define what “CLIL programming” involves based on a CLIL lesson plan model that integrates the core methodological principles of this approach. This has served to design the initial structure of the questionnaire that was submitted to validation by experts. The validation process allowed reducing the number of items and improving their clarity, precision and relevance. The resulting questionnaire was applied to a stratified random sample of 383 teachers, from 47 bilingual primary and secondary schools, distributed in the five administrative districts in which the Community of Madrid is organised. RESULTS. The analyses have shown that the questionnaire is a reliable and valid tool to collect the information sought and has allowed the designing of a final version of the questionnaire named CIPMA (Cuestionario de Integración de los Principios Metodológicos AICLE). DISCUSSION. All this leads to the conclusion that CIPMA is a validated questionnaire ready to be applied in other contexts (with other samples) in order to measure teachers’ competence to plan CLIL lessons and to diagnose their training needs. This strategy of measuring teachers’ competence and diagnosing specific teachers’ training needs can contribute to a greater homogenization of the teaching competence to program CLIL lessons in bilingual schools.