Abstract:

The main focus in learning in technical universities is usually in the substance, i.e. in the engineering knowledge (content). Nonetheless, in order to success in the global work life, language and communication skills are increasingly important for technical university graduates. It can be argued that by integrating the content and language studies, synergies and many benefits can be found (Heikkinen et al. 2002). However, although in European primary and secondary education content and language integrated learning (CLIL) is quite established, in higher education this is not the case yet (Coleman 2006). Especially in technical universities CLIL is still rather rare, but an increasing practice (Lanqua 2013).The main idea in CLIL is that both content and language learning are promoted at the same time (see e.g., Jäppinen 2005). In this paper content and language integrated learning is defined as learning where some form of specific and academic language support is offered to students in order to facilitate their learning of the content through language (Lanqua 2013).

This paper presents results of a pilot project where engineering content and language learning were integrated. In our case organization representing a technical university, three content courses were integrated with language courses. One content course was integrated with students’ mother tongue learning, and two content courses were integrated with foreign language learning. The content and language learning were integrated in these pilot courses through course exercises. In this paper we describe the perspectives of the students and the teachers about the integrated learning, as well as present the effects of CLIL on learning results. We also identify the key challenges in implementing CLIL in engineering studies.

The results of the pilot project indicate that students mainly felt the integration beneficial for them as content course and language course complemented each other well. However, few students didn’t want to take the integrated execution, because they feared that during integration they won’t be able to be so engrossed in the content nor the language. The teachers saw CLIL positively. They saw students more motivated and exercises better both in linguistic form and by scientific approach. CLIL required only little more time from the teachers and the learning outcomes form CLIL seemed to be better than in ordinary execution of the courses. The most important thing to improve in the CLIL was found to be more profound communication of the CLIL to the students. More detailed results with the evaluation will be presented in the full paper.

References:
[1] Coleman, J. A. 2006. English-medium teaching in European higher education. Language Teaching, vol. 39, 1-14.
[2] Heikkinen, A., Kalin, M., Kivinen, M. & Räsänen, A. 2002. Yhdessä vai erikseen – kokemuksia tieteenalalaitos- ja kielikeskusopettajien yhteistyöstä. Working Paper 2, Language Center, University of Jyväskylä.
[3]Jäppinen, A. 2005. Thinking and content learning of mathematics and science as cognitional development in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL): Teaching through a foreign language in Finland. Language and Education, vol. 19, no. 2, 148-166.
[4] Lanqua. 2013. A Quality Toolkit for Languages: Frame of Reference for Quality in Languages in Higher Education. http://www.lanqua.eu/sites/default/files/LanQua_frame_of_reference.pdf, read 2013-12-12.

Keywords:

Content and language integrated learning (CLIL), case study, engineering studies.