Accommodating diversity in linguistic and intercultural teaching: can CLIL do the job?

ABSTRACT

This article carries out a comparison of frontline stakeholder perspectives in order to determine whether CLIL can accommodate diversity in linguistic and intercultural teaching. It reports on a cross-sectional concurrent triangulation mixed methods study with 2,676 teachers, students, and parents in 36 Primary and Secondary schools across Spain. It employs four types of triangulation and carries out across-cohort comparisons in order to determine the potential of CLIL to provide diversity-sensitive teaching. This study positively disrupts some previous trends and evinces that, as mainstream bilingual programs become ingrained in our education systems, measures to cater for diversity are also increasingly apparent.

Este artículo realiza una comparativa de las perspectivas de los principales agentes implicados en el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje con el fin de determinar si el AICLE puede realmente atender a la diversidad en la enseñanza lingüística e intercultural. Desarrolla un estudio de métodos mixtos con triangulación concurrente con 2.676 profesores, alumnos y familias de 36 centros de Educación Primaria y Secundaria de toda España. El estudio altera positivamente algunas tendencias anteriores y evidencia, a medida que los programas bilingües se arraigan en nuestros sistemas educativos, las medidas para atender a la diversidad también son cada vez más evidentes.

KEYWORDS:

• CLIL
• intercultural teaching
• diversity
• inclusion, differentiation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 However, as Siqueira (2012, p. 210) has underscored, heed should be taken with materials that ‘introduce culture as a monolithic, static, and generalized element, with a prevalence, naturally, of cultural references from hegemonic societies’. Materials should also accommodate the local, reflect local realities, insert local cultures, develop students’ intercultural competence, and include topics which are part of the real world so that that ‘plastic world of FL textbooks’ truly starts to melt (Siqueira, 2015, p. 246). Ur (2011) suggests they should be adapted in terms of content, culture, situations, characters, texts, and language, with a greater inclusion in all cases of international and local sources and fewer inner-circle or authentic instances.

2 To address this first RQ, the following questionaire items have been considered: 5, 6, 7, 17, 18, and 19 for the teacher survey (TS); 1, 2, 3, 13, 14, and 15 for the student survey (SS); and 1, 2, 12, 13, and 14 for the parent survey (PS). Figure 3 is based on the items for the teacher survey and presents the parallel ones for the student and parent surveys. The interview data for this RQ and all others is offered by summarizing the themes identified and providing direct quotes from the stakeholder groups.

3 To address this second RQ, the following questionaire items have been considered: 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16 for the TS; 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 for the SS; and 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 for the PS. Figure 4 is based on the items for the teacher survey and presents the parallel ones for the student and parent surveys.

4 To address this third RQ, the following questionaire items have been considered: 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, and 28 for the TS; 18, 19, 20, 21, and 22 for the SS; and 17, 18, and 19 for the PS. Figure 5 is based on the items for the teacher survey and presents the parallel ones for the student and parent surveys.

5 To address this final RQ, the following questionaire items have been considered: 8, 9, 41, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, and 53 for the TS; 4, 5, 36, 37, and 38 for the SS; and 3, 4, 34, 35, and 36 for the PS. Figure 6 is based on the items for the teacher survey and presents the parallel ones for the student and parent surveys.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Junta de Andalucía [grant numbers 1263559 and P18-RT-1513]; European Union [grant number Grant 2018-1-ES01-KA201-050356]; Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades [grant number RTI2018-093390-B-I00].

Notes on contributors

María Luisa Pérez Cañado

Dr. María Luisa Pérez Cañado is Full Professor at the Department of English Philology of the University of Jaén, Spain. She is the coordinator of an intercollegiate MA degree on bilingual education and has been or is Principal Investigator of 15 research projects on CLIL. She has been granted the Ben Massey Award for the quality of her scholarly contributions in higher education and four awards for pedagogical innovation. She is also included in the Top 2% of the world's most cited scientists according to the Ranking of World Scientists drawn up by Stanford University (2021, 2022, and 2023).