Promoting CLIL teacher development through a material-driven model of teacher-researcher collaboration : a case study of primary teachers in Mainland China

Abstract

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) has become increasingly popular around the world. However, it is not easy to implement CLIL successfully as CLIL it has high requirements for teachers’ competencies (e.g., CLIL theories, pedagogical content knowledge, language awareness). But most of the teachers who are asked to implement CLIL may not possess these competencies since they usually have received training in one subject and lack preparation in CLIL. Thus, there is an urgent need for CLIL teacher education and professional development. Nevertheless, limited studies have been conducted in this direction.

To address the research gap, this study explores CLIL teacher learning in a professional development (PD) project conducted in a primary school in Mainland China. The PD intervention is guided by a material-driven model of teacher-researcher collaboration (Lin & Cheung, 2014), in which teachers and researchers share equally important expertise and co-design teaching materials. Meanwhile, the theoretical framework for analyzing the complexity of teacher change has been developed from previous literature on teacher education (e.g., Lo, 2017; Opfer et al. 2011; Vermunt & Endedijk, 2011). Using the methodology of design-based research and multiple-case study approach, this study investigates the complicated process of teacher development in CLIL and the factors that may have affected such a process. Multiple sources of data are collected to track any changes in the understanding and practices related to CLIL of four selected teachers. Several ways are used to ensure the trustworthiness and ethicality of the research. The results show that teachers demonstrated some changes in their understanding of CLIL and teaching practices, though to varying degrees. Most of the teacher cases understood the essential concepts of CLIL and employed slightly more strategies to achieve the dual goals of CLIL. But one teacher misunderstood the focuses of CLIL and had conflicts between his teaching beliefs and practices. Students’ responses provide complementary evidence of teacher’s professional development in CLIL. The findings further reveal that CLIL teacher professional learning may have been influenced by factors such as contextual factors, teachers’ existing beliefs and attitudes, teachers’ previous teaching and training experience, and some critical features of PD activities and so forth. These factors are interconnected and work together to make teacher growth occur (or not occur). This can explain why teachers in this study showed different degrees of development even though they experienced the same PD intervention. In addition, some principles and strategies of CLIL material design have been identified from the collaborative experience. Therefore, this research yields important implications for CLIL teacher development and CLIL material design.