CLIL challenges in designing learning experiences

This chapter explores issues encountered by beginning CLIL teachers in making sense of and applying guidelines aimed at teachers when designing learning experiences for CLIL. After summarising current guidelines, the authors draw on Coyle et al.’s (2010) 4Cs model, an additional C for collaboration and developments conceptualising integration and disciplinary literacy, to reflect on their own experiences as CLIL teacher educators in The Netherlands. They discuss how principles behind CLIL can be made relatable to both content and language teachers. They argue that, in taking a holistic, literacy-based view of subject teaching, teachers from both linguistic and non-linguistic disciplines are positioned as experts in all aspects of their subject, and can enter into collaboration on an equal footing with each other. Challenges remain, including a need for cross-disciplinary collaboration between language specialist and subject specialist teacher educators.