Since the opening of the first CLIL department in the Netherlands in 1989, tweetalig onderwijs (‘bilingual education’) has expanded into a national network of over 130 secondary schools, serving a... Show moreSince the opening of the first CLIL department in the Netherlands in 1989, tweetalig onderwijs (‘bilingual education’) has expanded into a national network of over 130 secondary schools, serving a population of around 37,000 learners. While academic interest in the field has also seen growth and diversification, the pace of practical developments and the lack of a structured research agenda have led to research becoming fragmented and lagging behind practice. This chapter provides an overview of the Dutch CLIL context followed by a critical review of research into organisation, implementation, outcomes and experiences in Dutch bilingual education. The chapter concludes with a reflection on the ways in which future research could support further developments in practice. Show less
Studies of motivation in bilingual education settings often address questions of differences between learners in bilingual programmes and those in mainstream education. Problematic in this respect... Show moreStudies of motivation in bilingual education settings often address questions of differences between learners in bilingual programmes and those in mainstream education. Problematic in this respect is our increasing awareness of the inherent differences between these two learner groups, as learners in bilingual programmes have often chosen or been selected for a bilingual route (Mearns et al., 2017). The study presented here therefore does not seek to compare learners in bilingual and non-bilingual programmes, but rather to explore the nature of language learning motivation within the context of bilingual secondary education (BSE) in the Netherlands. Using a purpose-designed tool reflecting the L2 Motivational Self System (Dörnyei, 2009), this study investigated trends in motivation across genders, academic tracks and year-groups of nearly 2000 learners. Findings suggest that, although these learners all have bilingual education in common, differences between the motivations of these groups should not be overlooked. Show less
Kampen, E. van; Meirink, J.A.; Admiraal, W.F.; Berry, A. 2020
This study aims to characterise teachers’ integrated content-language learning pedagogies teaching the skills-focused subject Global Perspectives (GP) in Dutch bilingual upper-secondary-schools.... Show moreThis study aims to characterise teachers’ integrated content-language learning pedagogies teaching the skills-focused subject Global Perspectives (GP) in Dutch bilingual upper-secondary-schools. Eleven teachers from seven bilingual schools across the Netherlands participated in the study in the school-year 2016-2017. To obtain insight into teachers’ pedagogies, semi-structured interviews and observations of GP lessons were used. Dalton Puffer’s Cognitive Discourse Functions (CDF) construct [(2013). A construct of cognitive discourse functions for conceptualizing content-language integration in CLIL and multilingual education. European Journal of Applied Linguistics, 1(2), 216–253. https://doi.org/10.1515/eujal-2013-0011], in combination with a focus on subject-specific Culture, was used as a heuristic to analyse the integrated content-language pedagogies of teachers. Main findings include that the participating schools had three distinct Intended Curriculum foci and, within these, five different types of integrated content-language learning pedagogies were identified. Main implications discussed are that focusing on subject-specific culture and using the CDF Construct is a useful heuristic to allow analysis of teachers’ integrated content-language pedagogies, and that it may also provide a useful framework for both pre- and in-service teachers in CLIL contexts to emphasise the integrated nature of CLIL teaching. Show less
