Teacher language awareness in CLIL teacher education in Argentina, Colombia, and Ecuador: a multiple case study

This multiple case study-based investigation examined teacher language awareness (TLA) for content and language integrated learning (CLIL). This study was carried out in three teacher education programmes in Argentina, Colombia, and Ecuador during two consecutive academic years (2019-2020, 2020-2021), and it sought to explore teacher educators' (n = 5) and student-teachers' (n = 58) understanding and practice of (teacher) language awareness for CLIL settings. Data were collected through interviews, online forums, teaching resources (e.g. slides, lesson plans, assignments) and classroom observations (online and face-to-face), and analysed following an interpretivist and inductive approach. Findings show that the participants approached TLA as explicit knowledge about language, and associated it to notions of basic interpersonal skills, general academic language, and subject--specific terminology when TLA was embedded in CLIL. Based on Morton's (2018) construct of language knowledge for content learning, the paper puts forward a data-driven model of teacher language awareness for CLIL teacher education.RESUMENEsta investigacion basada en un estudio de casos multiples examino la conciencia linguistica de los docentes (TLA por sigla en ingles) para el aprendizaje integrado de contenidos y lenguas extranjeras (AICLE por su sigla en espanol). Este estudio se llevo a cabo en tres programas de formacion del profesorado en Argentina, Colombia y Ecuador durante dos anos academicos consecutivos (2019-2020, 2020-2021), y busco explorar las actitudes de los formadores de profesores (n = 5) y de los educadores en formacion (n = 58) sobre la comprension y practica de la conciencia linguistica en entornos AICLE. Los datos se recopilaron a traves de entrevistas, foros en linea, asi como recursos didacticos (por ejemplo, diapositivas, planificaciones de clases, tareas), y observaciones en aula (en linea y de forma presencial), y se analizaron siguiendo un enfoque interpretativista e inductivo. Los hallazgos muestran que los participantes abordaron el TLA como conocimiento explicito sobre el lenguaje y lo asociaron con nociones de habilidades interpersonales basicas, lenguaje academico general y terminologia especifica de sus especialidades cuando el TLA estaba integrado en AICLE. Basado en el concepto de conocimiento linguistico para el aprendizaje de contenidos de Morton (2018), el articulo presenta un modelo basado en datos de conciencia linguistica de los docentes para la formacion del profesorado AICLE. The increasing use and popularity of content and language integrated learning (CLIL) education in diverse instructional settings has posed new challenges and opportunities in teacher education programmes. In particular, few studies have attempted to explain the specific tenets understood and enacted when transforming teacher language awareness (TLA) processes into concrete pedagogical actions when using CLIL approaches. To address this issue, this multiple case study examined three pre-service teacher education programmes in three South American nations (Argentina, Colombia and Ecuador) using a multi--layered set of data collection methods to explore the teaching perceptions and practices of five teacher educators and 58 student-teachers (i.e. pre-service teachers). The findings showed the importance of educating prospective teachers on CLIL's components to improve bilingual education endeavours. Participants demonstrated various experiences and understandings regarding teacher language awareness despite the repeated tendency to emphasise explicit (language) knowledge as a core element to develop generic and specialised registers. Our study highlights a four-component framework: (i) exploration, (ii) inductive input, (iii) reflection, and (iv) informed use regarding TLA for CLIL teacher education. The findings of this study suggest the pivotal relevance of educating the next generations of teachers in the integration of language and content in any of its forms, given the high probability that teachers may work in CLIL contexts in the future.