Research Plan: Teacher Learning For CLIL Teachers

Abstract

The proposed research questions of the participating schools in the embedded research of the U-Teach programme demonstrate a notion of a lack of teacher learning in bilingual education and a lack of collaboration between teachers of English and other subject teachers. (How) can bilingual education in the Netherlands -TTO- be improved by (more) collaboration between the teacher of English and the other subject teachers? Two of the schools (Herman Wesselink College & Regionale Scholengemeenschap Broklede) suggested a research directed towards an answer to this question. The proposals bring forth a broad context of practical and theoretical implications. For example, can collaboration be organized on a structural basis, and should the teacher of English make his/her lessons more compatible for students in TTO? The first question would lead to a research focussed on school management and course planning. The latter would discuss language acquisition theory in combination with again organizational matters. A third aspect surfaced considering the personal relevance of the researcher. Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is a well-developed concept of contextualizing language and embedding language instruction in content learning: students learn a subject through English and by doing so they simultaneously learn English. In the U-teach programme CLIL is approached from many different angles. Student teachers are made aware of many language acquisition strategies. However, as an intern at school the implementation of these strategies in regular content-based lessons can be difficult. Where to start? How to give feedback and how to assess students at their level of English? Accordingly, the research problem proposed here is to look at the nature of teacher learning of subject teachers (other than English) in bilingual education in the Netherlands.