IMPLEMENTATION OF CONTENT AND LANGUAGE INTEGRATED LEARNING (CLIL) IN TEACHING ENGLISH TO TECHNICAL STUDENTS IN ALGERIAN HIGHER EDUCATION

Abstract

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) has become a crucial construct in the context of teaching and learning worldwide. Despite this, relatively limited research has been undertaken to explore its implementation in Algerian tertiary education. The latter has witnessed, more recently, an increased interest in the development of technical graduates' English language skills and content knowledge necessary both in academic and professional scopes. This paper aims to provide insights on the effectiveness of CLIL as an innovative approach in Algeria. It seeks first to explore students' attitudes towards learning English in the faculty of technology at the University of Medea in Algeria. Second, based on the data of an experimental study collected through a questionnaire, pretest and posttest, and class observation, this paper investigates the impacts of CLIL implementation to improve technical students' English language competence, content learning as well as their attitudes towards English. The sample of participants included 30 students divided into an experimental and a control group. The study’s findings revealed that students possessed deficient subjectspecific content knowledge and exhibited notably low interest in the course, both of which contributed to their negative attitudes toward English. The results emphasized the significant role of CLIL implementation in promoting content knowledge and language proficiency of the experimental group students over the control group, as well as in improving their attitudes towards English. This paper concludes with several implications regarding ways to implement CLIL in teaching both content and language for technical subjects in Algerian higher education