Tailored CLIL training for education degrees based on student teachers’ perceptions of their competence to plan CLIL lessons

Abstract

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Bilingual and multilingual education through content and language integrated learning (CLIL) has been introduced in the European Union mainstream education and beyond. However, initial education of CLIL teachers lacks sufficient training in CLIL and demands tailored programmes adapted to contextual demands. For this, opinions and competence in CLIL lesson planning of education degree students from all specialities and years at a university that trains potential CLIL teachers were analysed. A mixed-method study, based on a convergent parallel design, was employed to integrate quantitative (N = 271) and qualitative (N = 24) methods to measure infant and primary education student teachers’ competence to plan CLIL lessons and compare it with their conceptualisation of what a CLIL course should include. Results showed statistically significant differences in this competence among the degrees and revealed that students perceive lack of lesson planning opportunities, low level of proficiency of some teachers, superficial training in cross-cutting areas, and imbalance between theoretical and practical training as influencing factors in their perception as potential CLIL teachers. This study enables higher education stakeholders to connect with the reality of initial teacher training for CLIL from student teachers’ voices and signals priority actions to prevent the main lacks when CLIL teacher training happens later.