A preliminary approach to the situation of CLIL in Galicia: A case study at the secondary school level

Abstract

This project aims at describing the methodology known as Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and its current situation in Galicia. Broadly speaking, CLIL revolves around the teaching and learning of content subjects comprised in the national curriculum of Secondary Education (e.g. Biology, History, Maths) through a second or foreign language, English in this case. The study will consist of two parts: a theoretical section, in which some of the main contributions to this topic will be referred to, and a practical section, in which a case study will be described. Firstly, I will provide a definition of what CLIL is, what aspects it involves and how it is implemented in our Autonomous Community. Secondly, I will analyse how this methodology is applied in a private school located in the area of Pontevedra, where teachers make use of CLIL in their classes so as to develop their syllabuses within the International Baccalaureate (IB) framework that follows the so-called Programa de los Años Intermedios (PAI). I will also refer to PAI in the theoretical section of this dissertation. To this end, I will provide students and teachers with different questionnaires in order to verify their degree of satisfaction with this specific methodology, paying special attention to whether the implementation of CLIL has led to a more frequent use of the L2 and/or to an improvement in the students’ level. Finally, after having examined all the data retrieved from the questionnaires, I will draw some tentative conclusions.