Content and language integrated learning: university perspective

Abstract

The major challenges CLIL implementers currently face related to the course structure and also chronology of language learning occurrences. ESP courses are taught primarily in the first two years of a degree course while the disciplines referring to students’ professional domain and thus the specific content with its terminology that can be used for ESP practices appears later, in the third year, for example. This means that if CLIL should be implemented in Ukrainian tertiary education, the scheduling of the curricula should be done in correlation between degree and ESP courses. To further on, the frequently mentioned dilemma of who should teach CLIL – a subject or a language teacher has an outcome in the English teacher having to master professional trivia of the field their students major in. CLIL endeavors are not submitted to a local board of experts for approval, thus the schools and universities that propose them are essentially self referential or rely heavily on the set book CLIL content. On account of this situation, any teacher, also in collaboration with students, can decide to set up CLIL in this or that variation. It has not been specified what kind of assessment system is to be applied concerning language vs. content point distribution.