Abstract:

The article discusses the in-service teachers' attitudes towards CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning). It aims to explore the extent to which teachers are willing to integrate CLIL and how they perceive the possibilities of such integration. In this article, we also attempt to define professional-competence and qualification requirements for teachers applying the CLIL method. CLIL, as no longer taken as an innovative approach, has been continually discussed not only in the educational context, but the general public frequently talks it over. For the research, three methods were used, two of which were the qualitative – semi-structured interview and observation, and the other was the quantitative – questionnaire. The research sample of the qualitative research consisted of five CLIL teachers (an interview) and 16 lesson observations; the quantitative research involved 147 in-service teachers mostly from eastern Slovakia. The results of the research indicate that in-service teachers are willing to apply CLIL to a reasonably large extent as they are aware of many positive aspects of CLIL. However, this willingness is not unambiguous, and many factors are discouraging such integration. Moreover, it can be stated that there are differences between the professional competencies of teachers applying and not applying the CLIL method.

Keywords:

In-service Teacher, Qualification, Attitudes, Professional Competencies, Content and Language Integrated Learning.