Teachers develop CLIL materials in Argentina: A workshop experience

Abstract

Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) is a Europe-born approach. Nevertheless, CLIL as a language learning approach has been implemented in Latin America in different ways and models: content-driven models and language-driven models. As regards the latter, new school curricula demand that CLIL be used in secondary education in Argentina and that teacher pedagogies and materials match the L1 curriculum and overall context. Therefore, teachers initially educated in other paradigms need professional development opportunities to understand CLIL as an innovative language teaching approach. The aim of this article is to reflect on CLIL materials produced by a group of Argentinian teachers as part of a professional development workshop. In this article, I shall first conceptualize CLIL and review the literature around CLIL materials. Then, I describe the workshop and offer content analysis of participants’ lesson plans. I shall conclude with emergent working principles based on these participants’ practices and suggestions for further research.