CLIL in Germany and Europe

Overview of the current state of research

Abstract

Bilingual Teaching (in the European context ‘Content and Language Integrated Learning‘, short: CLIL) has been an inherent part of the German school system for years. However, these programmes were rarely evaluated and if so, only with small sample sizes and by means of critical study designs that did not allow generalisations. This article gives an overview of the research so far and emphasises shortcomings and potential for further research. The study review from the year 2000 onwards reports mainly positive results regarding students’ language and subject-content competencies. If looking closely at the samples, it becomes apparent that CLIL-students compared to control groups were often in highly selected classes due to the nature of selecting students with excellent grades and high motivation for these programmes. Because of these invalid comparisons, potential effects of CLIL on a heterogeneous student group are unknown. A different area of research shows that teachers are still uncertain about how the concept is taught correctly, which is due to lacking pre- and inservice advanced education. Further evaluations of CLIL practice in well thought out settings have to take place and additionally, practical implementations for teacher education have to be established in order to keep CLIL a successful teaching concept with benefits for all participants.