CLIL Collaborations in Higher Education: A Critical Perspective

While the research on Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in North American K-12 settings, as well as European post-secondary English as a medium of instruction contexts, is substantial, there is limited research on CLIL in Anglo-dominant higher education. CLIL is a pedagogical approach wherein applied linguists and content faculty collaborate to support multilingual student success in the internationalized university. This study critically examines CLIL interdisciplinary collaborations between applied linguists and content faculty at a Canadian university to better understand the processes and discourses that shape these partnerships. Data were collected from audio-recorded professional development meetings involving applied linguists, as well as semi-structured individual interviews of content faculty and applied linguists. To analyse the data, we draw on critical applied linguistics perspectives to examine the institutional structures, processes and discourses impacting interdisciplinary collaboration between applied linguists (ALs) and content faculty (CF) and to investigate the power dynamics within these relationships. The findings suggest that in CLIL collaborations applied linguists and content faculty work together in a "trading zone" or "contact zone" against a backdrop of power relations and institutional constraints and affordances. Recommendations are made in relation to the importance of institutional support for interdisciplinary collaborations for universities that have increasing linguistically and culturally diverse student populations.