Modern approaches in bilingual education – the CLIL perspective

Abstract

The paper presents the results of a study conducted among teachers in Arad county, aiming at identifying their receptiveness towards the use of the teaching method CLIL. Content and Integrated Language Learning (CLIL) is a teaching method that gains territory among primary school education in Europe but is not limited to it. More and more secondary school teachers understand its benefits and use in with subjects such as Science, History, Geography, Religious Education, Physical Education etc. It refers to situations in which pupils and students are taught subjects through a foreign language with a double aim: content and foreign language learning. CLIL uses a different approach than foreign language teaching as it involves the cooperation (team teaching) of a content teacher and a foreign language teacher. The method is also useful in bilingual education when the so-called mather tongue is not learnt at home (German in Romania, Romanian in Hungary etc). The study conducted in this paper reflects the opinion of teachers and pupils regarding the use of CLIL in classes. The questionnaires that were analysed had been applied to 30 minority teachers (10 German, 10 Hungarian and 10 Slovak) tenured in Arad County and 75 students (25 in German minority classes, 25 Hungarian minority classes and 25 Slovak minority classes).