CLILing EMI for Effective Mediation in the L2 in Pre-service Teacher Education: A Case Study at a Spanish University

Abstract

This chapter provides an insight into the implementation of a “CLIL form” of English as Medium of Instruction (EMI) in three pre-service teacher education courses. Their design and delivery exposes learners progressively to Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) principles and strategies, and, through effective scaffolding, ensures the students’ mastery of both content and specialist linguistic skills, regardless of initial proficiency and avoiding the use of the L1 as a mediating approach. In the first two EMI courses, devoted to language pedagogy, specialist content knowledge is mainly mediated by extensive and systematic use of formative assessment strategies, crucial in the students’ development of specialized functional language skills (Richards, RELC Journal, 48, 7–30, 2017). The third one, Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), is a team-taught CLIL course on bilingual education, in which students have the possibility of learning the rationale and foundations of the CLIL approach from an authentic co-teaching experience in which they also take part. Thus far, evidence collected regarding student performance and perceptions support the view that CLIL is an effective approach to bilingual instruction in tertiary education (Custodio-Espinar et al., Effects of co-teaching on CLIL teacher trainees’ collaborative competence, in press; Lasagabaster, Language Teaching, 51, 400416, 2018).