Moving Towards a Revolutionary Change in Multilingual Education: does CLIL live up to the Hype?

Abstract

This paper presents a descriptive study, within the Spanish BIMAP research project, analysing the success factors of the CLIL approach in the teaching of foreign languages. Indeed, the wide dissemination of this methodology points to the world-wide acclaim it has received, so much so that it is currently considered to be one of the best strategies for the promotion of multilingualism. After a brief historical introduction on the origin of this methodology, on changes in the concepts of bilingualism and multilingualism and some underlying psycholinguistic issues which support it, a series of important issues will be covered: the differences between CLIL and other immersion systems, the success factors in CLIL and the criticisms that have been levelled against it. Finally, this work analyses how language and content are integrated in the light of research carried out in the context of history classes.