CLIL in Sweden – why does it not work? A metaperspective on CLIL across contexts in Europe

This study looks at the ‘nation -specific’ conditions to explain why a CLIL approach in the Swedish context has not been as successful as anticipated. National policy, teacher education, pupil age at introduction and exposure to the foreign language (English) outside school are identified as key factors. It is argued that individual national profiles need to be taken into much greater account for the benefits of CLIL to be a reality. Food for thought.
Many studies show positive correlations between content and language integratedlearning (CLIL) and the learning of English as a foreign language. However,findings from CLIL research in Sweden do not match those obtained elsewhere.The aim of this article is to show that some explanations for discrepancies inresults obtained across CLIL contexts in Europe may be found in nation-specificcontextual factors. Four such factors are focused on: policy framework, teachereducation, age of implementation, and extramural exposure to English. Thearticle gives an overview of these factors in four European countries: Finland,Germany, Spain, and Sweden. A coordinate system is created using fourquadrants: the policy framework factor is paired with amount of research; theage factor is combined with amount of CLIL; the teacher education factorincludes pre-service and in-service programs; and extramural English is con-sidered in amount and range. From this coordinate system, nation-specific CLILprofiles emerge. It is argued that such national profiles will serve as an essentialtheoretical point of departure for comparisons of research results across nations.Furthermore, the profiles will facilitate policy-level discussions on CLIL implementation in individual countries

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