Languages for all in education: Clil and iclhe at the crossroads of multilingualism, mobility and internationalisation

Abstract

Within the European strategy towards multilingualism, which has guided linguistic policies in recent years, ‘Languages for all!’ is the prevailing motto. This idea has been extremely well captured by one of the central planks in the strategy, the Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) approach at primary and secondary educational levels, which has quickly become popular both top-down and bottom-up. CLIL has its natural continuation at university level, where the preferred term used is Integrating Content and Language in Higher Education (ICLHE). This chapter underlines the instrumental role played by such approaches in the promotion of internationalisation as a position and as a de facto situation. In doing so, it is argued, they are central in meeting the language demands of education, the preparation for mobility being part and parcel of them. CLIL and ICLHE can help students ‘learn to learn’ in multilingual academic settings, and perhaps eventually work in multilingual settings. And for those who do not get to travel, ‘internationalisation at home’ might be a foreseeable objective.