Content-and-Language-Integrated Learning

Abstract

Over the past twenty-five years, a growing number of second language immersion programs have been developed in Australian schools. While 'immersion program' is an established term in Australia, internationally and increasingly also nationally, these programs are referred to as 'Content and Language Integrated Learning' or 'CLlL' programs (Smala, 2009). In these diverse local programs, a language other than English is used as the medium to teach curriculum, for example, maths, science or social science, for a variety of year levels, age groups and settings. The current project of developing a National Curriculum for Languages prompted the Modern Language Teachers Association of Victoria (MLTAV) to include questions about immersion teaching as preferred second language teaching option in a recent online survey. 71%of the 386 respondents assigned a medium to very high importance to the inclusion of immersion models for a National Languages Curriculum (Modern Language Teachers Association of Victoria, 2009). In the recent Australian Council for Educational Research review on Second Languages and Australian Schooling, the author Professor Joe Lo Bianco dedicates several sub-sections to immersion pedagogies and declares them as amongst the most promising design developments in the area (LoBianco fr Slaughter, 2009). In addition to the advantages that immersion models present for second language learning, other researchers have, for example, pointed out the benefits for such concepts as higher order thinking (Kong, 2009).