Abstract:

The current level of internationalization of Spanish universities is demanding an increase in the command of foreign languages among students. Numerous Spanish universities are introducing in their syllabi courses taught in languages different from Spanish, mainly English, through different multilingual programmes. This trend is motivated on the one hand, by the new demands of the current knowledge-based society, and on the other, to the implementation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA)[1]. Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) has experienced a considerable growth and it is being integrated into curricula all across Europe. It refers to any dual-focused educational context in which a foreign language is used as a medium in the teaching and learning of non-language content [2]. The vertiginous speed in the implementation of these programmes has caught professors unaware in the adoption of methodologies adapted to the needs required by the bilingual education projects. Consequently, a desperate demand of new methodological and teaching techniques has arisen among the bilingual teaching community. The aim of this study is to present a lesson planning procedure in a CLIL Computer Engineering classroom as well as a series of activities proposed to achieve a proper acquisition of content and language integrated learning in a bilingual educational setting. We pretend to provide bilingual Engineering professors with useful tools to develop their work successfully. The sample under study stands at the University of Almería, where a pioneer Plurilingualism Promotion Plan is being developed in order to integrate foreign languages (mainly English) into different university courses. We will provide an example of a unit design in the Computer Engineering course, Global Optimization, elaborated under the framework of a teaching innovation project: Desarrollo de herramientas y actividades para la incorporación del Plurilingüismo en el ceiA3 [3].
A CLIL planning template for subjects taught in a second language will be presented. Additionaly, a series of tasks that will evince the usefulness of multimodal resources to facilitate the acquisition of content knowledge and language in university contexts will be shown. We will distinguish between a series of pre-tasks, aimed at allowing students to get familiar with the main contents and proceedings of the unit under study; a main task by which students will show their understanding of the unit contents; and finally, post tasks addressed to consolidate the knowledge acquired within the unit. Furthermore, and as an innovative element, the results of a specific questionnaire addressed to students who showed their level of satisfaction with the tuition in English as well as some suggestions will be presented in order to get some ideas for improvement in accordance with the students’ point of view.

Keywords:

CLIL, lesson planning, Higher Education, Computer Engineering.