CLIL Approach and Educational Technologies: ClassLabs, Teachers' Digital Literacy, and High School Students' Opportunities

Introduction

CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) is an educational approach foreseeing both curricular content taught through the medium of a foreign language, and a classroom providing the only site for learners’ interaction in the target language (Dalton-Puffer, 2011; Genesee & Hamayan, 2016). The term CLIL was created in the mid Nineties on the not completely new idea to designate practices in content-based language learning. In fact, in Sixties, in Canadian and USA schools, a prototype of CLIL methodology was carried on by means of immersion programs under a different label: Content-based language teaching or Content-Based Instruction (Arribas, 2016).

CLIL giving equal attention to language and content provides the definition of a “dual-focused approach” (Mehisto, Marsh, & Frigols, 2008) with a practice that is “content-oriented but language sensitive” (Wolff, 2007). It regards a content-based instruction and immersion education, even if only less than 50% of the curriculum is usually taught in the target language. In particular, in CLIL approach the following elements can be detected (Arribas, 2016): language is used as an instrument to learn the content of a subject present in the school curricula: language and subject learning converge (Coyle, Hood, & Marsh, 2010); the focus is on content and not on the grammar; language is learnt in a natural way in the classroom setting, relating it to the real world; learners’ exposure to the target language increases; CLIL prepares students to a multilingual and global society. Regarding learning strategies, CLIL foresees a shift from a traditional teacher-centered practice to a motivating student-centered model, where collaborative groups work and exchange information. In this view, CLIL becomes a significant communicative medium in contrast to a focus on individual thinking processes, and teachers create as many opportunities as possible for interaction, ideating and using proper tasks to promote them. Furthermore, considering Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) as a substantial added value to enhance these teaching practices, CLIL and technologies for learning are strictly linked, as recommended by the European Commission. In fact, in recent years, in order to “free” learning from the chains of the traditional means and contents, schools have understood the importance of carrying on activities linked to sophisticated educational technologies, and have reserved specific curriculum activities and physical spaces (with laboratories) to the use of technology (Bertacchini, Gabriele, Tavernise, 2013). In these laboratories, CLIL allows the bridging of educational experiences based on advanced technologies with traditional forms of schooling: in their daily life, students experience a world full of digital codes, accessing, searching and manipulating information, and in CLIL contexts, they apply their skills thanks to an appealing and engaging setting. In this work, towards the goal of detecting all the elements that can contribute to the development of a CLIL approach in a technology-enhanced educational setting, an effective integration of different kinds of computer-based activities in a ClassLab is proposed, also discussing the role of the fundamental actors of the educational process: teachers and students. In particular, fundamental questions are the following: is there a grounded theoretical approach regarding the proposed methodology? How is possible to combine tasks and technologies in a CLIL course in a class curriculum? Are traditional technology devices (the ones typically used at school) sufficient for the suggested practice? What do teachers think about the possibilities offered by the CLIL approach and are there limitations? What are the challenges and the opportunities of the technological approach? Is it important continue to discuss on an approach born in the Nineties? The Italian context is also explored.