CLIL for higher education lecturers: a small private online course

Abstract

The concept of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) as ecosystems which thrive by offering English-taught programmes to ever-increasing numbers of international students as well as providing multilingual spaces for home students is a reality in many parts of Europe and beyond. Leask (2015) sees this as an opportunity to improve the pedagogical quality of education. This implies supporting the continued professional development of HE lecturers in bilingual education and in the CLIL approach. CLIL responds to what Valcke et al. (2022) consider quality education in a lifelong learning perspective. This presentation describes a self-study Small Private Online Course (SPOC) "CLIL for Higher Education" developed by teacher educators in Portuguese and Spanish universities. The length of the SPOC is ten hours, divided into five 2-hour modules that can be approached flexibly in any order. The course aims to support teachers to understand the benefits of using CLIL when teaching content in English, to identify the linguistic and communicative needs of students who are learning in English and to learn to use effective learning and teaching strategies. Two pilots of the SPOC will be presented, one conducted at the University of Extremadura (Spain) and another at the Polytechnic Institute of Portalegre (Portugal) which provide examples of the flexible nature of the SPOC as a self-study resource and as part of a blended course for HE teachers. The two pilots are also analysed in terms of the advantages and limitations of the digital support from the point of view of users.