This is a research study monograph into an approach known as Content and Language Integrated Learning or CLIL through English in Italian higher education. There is as yet little agreement on terminology, definitions, learning theories or classroom approaches as regards CLIL. A distinction is therefore made between CLIL, ICLHE (Integrating Content and Language in Higher Education), Content-based Instruction, L2-medium Instruction and Bilingual Education. The research design comprises both quantitative and qualitative elements. A questionnaire survey of all Italian universities profiled the many courses presently delivered using English as the vehicular language, and found some homogeneity in process and subjects, but differences linked to private or public funding and to geographical area. A survey of students (n=134) was designed and administered to obtain their evaluation of a list of techniques used by lecturers to help students understand lectures delivered through English. Respondents recognised and considered as useful most of the categories, including the use of repetitions, examples, summaries, definitions, synonyms, questions and emphasising with intonation. The qualitative part involved observing, recording, transcribing, and analysing lectures delivered through English by four university science lecturers, who were also interviewed. Results confirm the validity of some input presentation strategies and show similarities and differences between student and lecturer perceptions. The data also show discrepancies, at times, between the strategies considered useful by the lecturers and those actually used in the classes.

Interest in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), in Europe and beyond, has increased exponentially since it first appeared on the scene in Europe in the early 1990s. CLIL has grown to become a much-discussed topic of language education today, with the number of publications pertaining to the field continuing to increase. Researchers, teachers, teacher trainers, course planners and others involved in CLIL are constantly searching for new studies to help them understand how CLIL is evolving and how best it can be implemented. As the concept is now informing the pedagogical principles of different educational realities, research and reflection are now required to further understand its potential and implications, its inherent difficulties and possible applications. This volume was conceived with this idea in mind. The book primarily covers three macro areas: learning, teaching and training. It provides insight into the latest areas of research and reflection that are characterizing the CLIL field in the current decade. The wide range of topics covered reveal, for example, a shift in interest towards CLIL at the tertiary level, focusing on lecturer and student perceptions and problems.

This is the first international and interdisciplinary handbook to offer a comprehensive and an in-depth overview of findings from contemporary research, theory, and practice in early childhood language education in various parts of the world and with different populations. The contributions by leading scholars and practitioners are structured to give a survey of the topic, highlight its importance, and provide a critical stance. The book covers preschool ages, and looks at children belonging to diverse ethno-linguistic groups and experiencing different histories and pathways of their socio-linguistic and socio-cultural development and early education. The languages under the scope of this handbook are identified by the contributors as immigrant languages, indigenous, endangered, heritage, regional, minority, majority, and marginalized, as well as foreign and second languages, all of which are discussed in relation to early language education as the key concept of the handbook. In this volume, “early language education” will refer to any kind of setting, both formal and informal (e.g. nursery, kindergarten, early childhood education centers, complementary early schooling etc.) in which language learning within a context of children's sociolinguistic diversity takes place before elementary school.

The label CLIL stands for classrooms where a foreign language (English) is used as a medium of instruction in content subjects. This book provides a first in-depth analysis of the kind of communicative abilities which are embodied in such CLIL classrooms. It examines teacher and student talk at secondary school level from different discourse-analytic angles, taking into account the interpersonal pragmatics of classroom discourse and how school subjects are talked into being during lessons. The analysis shows how CLIL classroom interaction is strongly shaped by its institutional context, which in turn conditions the ways in which students experience, use and learn the target language. The research presented here suggests that CLIL programmes require more explicit language learning goals in order to fully exploit their potential for furthering the learners’ appropriation of a foreign language as a medium of learning.

This Handbook discusses the theoretical and disciplinary background to the study of English-medium instruction (EMI) in higher education worldwide. It highlights issues relating to EMI pedagogy, varying motivations for EMI education, and the delivery of EMI in diverse contexts across the world. The spread of English as a teaching medium and the lingua franca of the academic world has been the subject of various debates in recent years on the perceived hegemony of the English language and the ‘domain loss’ of non-English languages in academic communication. Encompassing a wide range of contributions to the field of EMI, the chapters of this Handbook are arranged in four distinct parts: Part I provides an overview of English-medium instruction in higher education worldwide; Part II focusses on EMI in Europe; Part III on EMI in the Middle East, North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa; and Part IV on EMI in the Asian region. The overall scope and level of expertise of this Handbook provides an unrivalled overview of this field of education. It serves as an essential reference for many courses dealing with applied linguistics, English language education, multilingualism, sociolinguistics, and related subjects at many levels of education, including Master’s and PhD-level studies. This Handbook serves as a valuable edition for university libraries across the world and an essential read for many faculty, undergraduate and postgraduate students, educators, and policymakers.

Widely spread all over Europe and the world, Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is the subject of great, interest as the ultimate frontier of linguistic and pedagogical research. It impinges on the general cognitive processes involved in learning, on language acquisition and on the development of digital competencies. This volume attests to the spreading of the new “CLIL literacy” in the frame of pluriliteracies, and derives theoretical reflections from case studies and experiential reports, thus addressing both academic and school instructors. It combines research from international CLIL experts with the critical perspectives of academics not directly involved in its instruction.

For years, the alternation between L1 and L2 was banned in language classes, since it was thought that this would impair the learning of the second language. In recent years, however, there has been a recognition of the validity of alternation. As such, this book investigates the alternation of the L1 and L2 in CLIL and EMI contexts at three educational levels (primary, secondary, and tertiary) in Italy. Using a mixed-methods research approach, it shows that alternation played a mainly lexical role to explain specific lexis or at least to provide the students with lexis in both languages (English and Italian). It highlights that lexis in CLIL and EMI contexts is indeed crucial for both content and language learning. The book also argues that, despite the contextual differences that exist, the three educational levels (primary, secondary, and tertiary) show a very similar use of alternation, thereby pointing at similarities more than differences.