Learning disciplinary knowledge through a foreign language that is only employed in the learning environment may be quite tricky for students, especially in terms of specificity, since scaffolding may be needed to foster comprehension (Mahan, 2022). Not only are the students expected to read and understand but also produce specialised discourse within a given field of expertise. In recent years, research has focused on students' experience with CLIL programmes, including topics such as motivation or language use (Bellés-Calvera & Bellés-Fortuño, 2021; Lasagabaster, 2017; Llinares & Dalton-Puffer, 2015). At the same time, opportunities for team-teaching collaboration have emerged among language and content specialists (Bellés-Fortuño, 2021; Carrió-Pastor, 2021), giving rise to new language policies as well as projects, particularly at a higher education level. A clear example is that of CLHIOS*, a multidisciplinary research group at Universitat Jaume I where language and content lecturers belonging to the domains of Humanities and Health Sciences cooperate with each other. Within the umbrella of CHLIOS teaching innovation group this study seeks to explore the perceptions of first-year Psychology undergraduates coursing a CLIL module and thus help lecturers implement new initiatives in the content classroom. To that end, a survey was designed with items addressing issues related to their command of the target language, employability, specificity, and satisfaction with the learning progress. Results suggest that even though 72.4% of the participants claim having a good language level in English, they seem to struggle when communicating with experts using productive skills (i.e. speaking and writing). Getting nervous or having limited specialised vocabulary are some of the difficulties they may encounter. With this in mind, language teachers have provided CLIL lecturers and students with materials and resources that may be beneficial for the development of both productive and receptive skills.
* CLHIOS project USE
Keywords: CLIL, Psychology, beliefs, institutional project, teacher collaboration
References
Bellés-Calvera, L., & Bellés-Fortuño, B. (2021). CLIL and e-learning environments: The role of Google My Maps and students‟ written performance in Classical History. Verbeia, 5, 26-56.
Bellés-Fortuño, B. (2021). CLIL assessment: Accommodating the curricular design in HE. In M.L. Carrió-Pastor, & B. Bellés-Fortuño (Eds.), Teaching Language and Content in Multicultural and Multilingual Classrooms: CLIL and EMI Approaches (pp. 293-314). Palgrave Macmillan.
Carrió-Pastor, M.L. (2021). CLIL vs EMI: Different approaches or the same dog with a different collar? In M.L. Carrió-Pastor & B. Bellés-Fortuño (Eds.), Teaching Language and Content in Multicultural and Multilingual Classrooms: CLIL and EMI Approaches (pp.13-30). Palgrave Macmillan.
Lasagabaster, D. (2017). Integrating content and foreign language learning: What do CLIL students believe? Journal of Immersion and Content-Based Language Education, 5(1), 4-29.
Llinares, A., & Dalton-Puffer, C. (2015). The role of different tasks in CLIL students' use of evaluative language. System, 54, 69-79.
Mahan, K.R. (2022). The comprehending teacher: scaffolding in content and language integrated learning (CLIL). The Language Learning Journal, 50(1), 74-88.
