Dr. Peeter Mehisto
On September 7, 2012, Sophia University held a symposium on “How to Teach Content Courses in English: Learning from the Theory of CLIL, ‘Content and Language Integrated Learning.’”
Globalization movement is well on its way in universities, and under the circumstances professional needs and interests for teaching courses in English are growing more than ever. Against this background, this symposium focused on one topic “How to Teach Content Courses in English,” a question that university instructors must face sooner or later in their professional career.
Therefore, the common goal of this symposium was to consider a question of English teaching methods in all its aspect and give better insights into how English education should be.
We have invited Dr. Peeter Mehisto, an initiator and the foremost organizer of CLIL programme, to the symposium as a keynote speaker. He brought many years of his expertise and experience in CLIL programme development. He presented the outcomes of his innovative programme which are now implemented in schools around the world. His evidence-based report on integration of language and content is given to his ideas that the CLIL programme is playing a significant role in multilingual educational environment in Europe.
After the keynote speech, a coordinator of this symposium Associate Professor Makoto Ikeda, Faculty of Humanities, Department of English Literature proceeded the report session. The guest speakers were professors who are actually teaching courses in English in the universities at home and those who are specialized in teaching the English language. They were Professor Yoshinori Watanabe, Faculty of Foreign Studies Department of Linguistics at Sophia University; Assistant Professor Aki Yonehara, Graduate School of Governance Studies at Meiji University; Professor Shaun Malarney, College of Liberal Arts at International Christian University; and Assistant Professor Mathew Thompson, Faculty of Liberal Arts at Sophia University.
During the open discussion, the participants discussed about how they should strike a good balance between content-oriented learning and language-oriented learning in teaching their courses. Also they talk about how important it is to make students enjoy all the advantages of learning the courses in a foreign language. Participants exchanged opinions freely and contributed proposals and ideas for innovation.
What is CLIL?
CLIL is short for Content and Language Integrated Learning. Educational curriculum based on CLIL has been implemented by many educational institutions in Europe.
By teaching content courses in much the same way as the language courses, it will introduce a new field of approach toward comprehensive education. It is also an educational method that can strengthen the faculty of using and doing something with the knowledge acquired in classroom.
Sophia University has already implemented CLIL in the field of language teaching and we are promoting the research activities concerning CLIL. The two-volume publication on CLIL by Yoshinori Watanabe, Makoto Ikeda, and Shinichi Izumi serves as a touchstone for the theory of content and language integrated learning.
