https://doi.org/10.15446/profile.v22n2.80528
CLIL and Comprehensive Sexual Education:
A Case of Innovation From Argentina
AICLE y educación sexual integral: un caso de innovación desde Argentina
Darío Luis Banegas1
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, United Kingdom & Ministerio de Educación
del Chubut, Rawson, Argentina
Cristina Lauze
Escuela No. 713, Esquel, Argentina
Social issues are believed to enrich English language teaching with meaningful topics. In this article we
describe and reflect on an innovative practice which combined content and language integrated learning
with comprehensive sexual education at a state secondary school in Argentina. By law, comprehensive
sexual education must be included across the Argentinian curriculum and English language learning
cannot be the exception. Therefore, we designed and implemented a collaborative-driven innovation
that allowed learners to learn English and comprehensive sexual education with a focus on authentic
materials, purposes, and tasks. The innovation was developed over a month and it involved learners
delivering presentations on comprehensive sexual education topics. Reflections on the effect of the
innovation and possible future directions are included.
Keywords: Argentina, authenticity, awareness, comprehensive sexual education, content and language
integrated learning, English language teaching
Se cree que el análisis de cuestiones sociales aporta temas significativos a la enseñanza del inglés. En
este artículo describimos una práctica innovadora que combinó el aprendizaje integrado de contenido
y lengua extranjera con la educación sexual integral, en una escuela secundaria estatal en Argentina.
Por ley, la educación sexual integral debe incorporarse a todo el currículo escolar, y el aprendizaje del
inglés no queda exento. Por consiguiente, diseñamos e implementamos una innovación colaborativa
para permitir que los estudiantes aprendieran inglés y educación sexual integral, a partir de materiales
auténticos, objetivos y tareas. La innovación duró un mes e incluyó presentaciones grupales de los
estudiantes sobre temas de la educación sexual integral. El artículo incluye reflexiones sobre los efectos
de la innovación y los posibles caminos a futuro.
Palabras clave: aprendizaje integrado de contenido y lengua extranjera, Argentina, autenticidad,
concientización, educación sexual integral, enseñanza del inglés
Darío Luis Banegas https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0225-0866 ∙ Email: dario.banegas@strath.ac.uk
Cristina Lauze· ∙ Email: cristinalauze@gmail.com
How to cite this article (apa, 7th ed.): Banegas, D. L., & Lauze, C. (2020). clil and comprehensive sexual education: A case of innovation
from Argentina. Profile: Issues in Teachers’ Professional Development, 22(2), 199–209. https://doi.org/10.15446/profile.v22n2.80528
This article was received on June 19, 2019 and accepted on March 30, 2020.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons license Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
4.0 International License. Consultation is possible at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Profile: Issues Teach. Prof. Dev., Vol. 22 No. 2, Jul-Dec, 2020. ISSN 1657-0790 (printed) 2256-5760 (online). Bogotá, Colombia. Pages 199-209
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Banegas & Lauze
Introduction
In formal education, English language teaching
(elt) is imbricated in a complex network of curriculum
imperatives which include the need to educate learners
for diversity, inclusion, and above all, social justice.
Thus, the English lesson cannot turn a blind eye to key
concepts which are expected to be addressed across the
entire school curriculum.
Since 2006, comprehensive sexual education (cse)
is mandatory across the curriculum in Argentinian
education. Law 26.150 (2006) establishes that learners
have the right to receive cse from a gender perspective
in order to promote diversity and equality. A gender
perspective hinges on the position that sexuality is one
dimension of human life and examines the impact that
gender has on people’s roles, opportunities, and access
to economic and cultural capital (Gognar et al., 2013;
Morgade & Alonso, 2008). From this perspective, cse
includes topics such as identity, gender relations, gender
violence, sexuality and health, interpersonal relationships and respect, gender and human rights, sexual
harassment, and the deconstruction of sociohistorical
and cultural practices. Enforcement of this law entails
the obligation of including cse topics across the curriculum not only as a mandatory subject but also as
content present in other areas such as literature, science,
history, and English as a foreign language (efl).
While this law has been celebrated by some, supporting the extension of human rights and attacked by
others on moral and religious grounds, it is generally
agreed that in order to secure careful and sustainable cse
implementation, teachers need to be properly trained
to dismantle their own beliefs and develop their cse
awareness together with pedagogical tools to include
cse in their own subject-specific teaching practices.
Framed in exploratory practice (Hanks, 2017), the
innovation described in this article emerged from Cristina’s (one of the authors of this paper) two interwoven
puzzles: (a) how to include cse in the efl class, and (b)
how to boost motivation and language learning among
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teenage learners. Through personal communications,
we agreed to the inclusion of cse topics in elt following a content-and-language-integrated learning (clil)
approach for a period of four weeks, that is, four lessons.
Darío (one of the authors of this paper) was interested
in implementing and examining the effects of cse in
elt in state secondary education.
In Argentina, efl is a mandatory subject present
throughout the six years of secondary education and
it is, in the state sector, taught two hours a week usually framed in communicative language teaching with
instantiations of a code-switching approach where l1
(Spanish) is used in the lesson for specific purposes
such as clarifying doubts, checking understanding, or
guiding learners’ task completion. In light of the tangible
need to include cse in efl, we believed that clil was a
helpful approach to operationalise the inclusion of cse
in efl with secondary school learners.
In this article, we first offer a concise conceptualisation of clil. We then review connections between clil
and cse, which support our pedagogical innovation.
We describe the innovation itself including teaching
materials, learners’ posters, and voices from the classroom to understand the effect of the innovation. In
the final section, reflections and future directions are
integrated to offer a comprehensive evaluation of this
innovative practice and how it can resonate in regard
to other elt contexts.
Theoretical Framework
clil is often defined as a dual-focus approach
through which curriculum content is taught through
an additional language so that learners gain in terms of
content and language learning at the same time (Ball et
al., 2015; Coyle et al., 2010; Genesee & Hamayan, 2016).
Given the focus on integration and the multiplicity of
clil realisations in practice (Díaz Pérez et al., 2018),
clil may usually be configured as (a) a content-driven
approach or (b) a language-driven approach. The first
approach entails teaching a subject through the medium
Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas, Departamento de Lenguas Extranjeras
CLIL and Comprehensive Sexual Education: A Case of Innovation From Argentina
of an additional language, for example teaching science
(e.g., Garzón-Díaz, 2018) or history (e.g., Lara Herrera,
2015) in English. The second approach is adopted in efl
lessons in which English learning is contextualised in
curriculum to increase authenticity of purpose and topics
(Pinner, 2013) and enhance language learning motivation
(Banegas, 2013). In the case of our innovation, we adopted
a language-driven clil approach since the subject was
still English and we were not fully qualified to teach
cse, yet it is mandatory to include a gender perspective
across the curriculum in Argentinian education.
clil practitioners, theory, and research support
the position that clil enhances motivation (Doiz et
al., 2014), language learning, critical thinking skills
(Coyle et al., 2010), citizenship education (Porto, 2018),
and content learning (Pérez Cañado, 2018) in ways that
reveal the benefits of developing comprehensive and
cross-curricular aims. In view of this, language-driven
clil may afford the teaching of English through cse
topics and in so doing learners develop their English
language proficiency to discuss matters that are relevant,
critical, and present in their daily lives inside and outside
the school environment.
In the broad context of our experience, cse is a right,
a must, a need, and a drive to promote social justice,
diversity, and inclusion. According to unesco’s (2018)
website, comprehensive sexual education is
a curriculum-based process of teaching and learning
about the cognitive, emotional, physical and social aspects
of sexuality. It aims to equip children and young people
with knowledge, skills, attitudes and values that will
empower them to realize their health, well-being and
dignity; develop respectful social and sexual relationships;
consider how their choices affect their own well-being
and that of others; and understand and ensure the protection of their rights throughout their lives. (“What is
Comprehensive Sexuality Education?,” para. 1)
unesco (2018) suggests applying a learner-centred
approach to address cse across the curriculum.
Therefore, language-driven clil, in accordance with
current imperatives in education, places the learner
at the centre of the educational experience to discuss
the broad spectrum of topics found under the terms
gender and sexuality.
In line with the general literature on gender and
sexuality, within the elt literature (e.g., Nelson, 1999,
2004, 2006, 2009, 2010), sexuality and gender are understood as identitary constructs under constant change
that need to be deconstructed and discussed in language
education in order to respect and value diversity among
learners, educators, and society as a whole. According
to Evripidou (2018a), gender as a social and stratifying
institution regulates different aspects of human activity,
and heteronormativity needs to be challenged in order
to include the wide spectrum of diverse gender identities
found among human beings.
With interrelated foci, scholars have addressed
gender as a multifaceted construct in second language
learning: inclusive pedagogies (Sauntson, 2018), identity
(Nguyen & Yang, 2015; Norton & Pavlenko, 2004), lgbt
learners’ trajectories and classroom participation (Evripidou, 2018a; Moore, 2016), interaction from feminist
poststructuralism (Pavlenko, 2004), teacher preparation
(Mojica & Castañeda-Peña, 2017), teachers’ perceptions
(Evripidou, 2018b), coursebooks (Ariyanto, 2018; Gray,
2013), teacher-developed materials (Govender, 2019), and
awareness raising in educational communities (Pakuła et
al., 2015). These studies, from a praxiological notion, are
unified by the following stance: elt cannot ignore human
action; it should adopt an attitude that allows learners
to understand the purposes behind human behaviour
and the diversity of actions found across institutions
and social practices. From this stance, there is a pressing
need to imbue elt pedagogical contours with gender
topics to ensure diversity, equity, and social justice not
only at a conceptual level, but more importantly, at an
activity level. In other words, language learners should
not reflect on gender diversity and other cse-related
topics but should work towards enacting diversity with
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their daily language-mediated activities. However, the
first step to achieve this aim is to raise awareness and
to provide learners with content about cse.
Two unpublished studies make explicit connections
between clil and cse. In an exploratory study carried
out in Hong Kong higher education, Ho (2017) drew
on clil to design a sexuality equity curriculum for
a language enrichment programme. Findings show
that the adult learners developed critical awareness
about gender and sexuality issues and increased their
motivation to read and participate in class as they
emotionally engaged with literary texts and other multimodal resources which explored gender and identity
in the Asian context. In Latin America, a qualitative
study carried out with Colombian teenagers (Vargas
Reyes & Porras Hernández, 2015) investigated the impact
of designing language-driven clil lessons on contraceptive methods given learners’ limited knowledge
concerning content. While this study offers support
for the inclusion of cse in efl, it addresses cse from
a biological stance, which, in current conceptions
of sexuality education, is limited as it does not fully
embrace the totality of what sexuality entails as it is
achieved through a gender perspective. These studies
show that awareness raising is vital, and that learners
should occupy a central position so that they can build
new knowledge based on prior lived experiences. They
also highlight that, as defined by unesco (2018), cse
should not be limited to sexuality as a biological trait;
it should sit at the intersection of gender and identity
and the effects that these have on all human activities
such as personal rights, relationships, and work-related
aspirations and practices.
In light of this framework and the Argentinian
context, we believe that in efl educational settings,
language-driven clil may become a helpful approach
to increase learners’ awareness of wider and critical
social issues while developing their English language
proficiency. In the innovation in practice reported in
this article, we included cse as curricular content to
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teach English in tandem. Concomitantly, the experience transformed itself into an in-service professional
development opportunity for Cristina for it combined
language-driven clil pedagogies applied to the domain
of cse.
The Teaching Context
Our innovation was carried out in Year 6 at a state
secondary school in southern Argentina. The school year
started in March 2018 and finished in December 2018;
nevertheless, classes were interrupted between May and
July due to major teacher strikes in the province. The
class consisted of 20 teenage learners, 11 females and 9
males, with an average age of 17, and Spanish was their
l1. Although they were in the last year of secondary
education, their English language proficiency ranged
between a1–a2 according to cefr levels. Only one
learner was a b2.
Graduated from an Argentinian university, Cristina was their regular efl teacher and she expressed
interest in peer teaching with Darío, a teacher educator and curriculum developer in the region. The
innovative practice took place during October and
November 2018.
The Innovation
As described above, the innovative practice consisted
of developing and delivering cse-based efl lessons to a
group of teenage learners in their last year of secondary
education. The aims were: (a) to allow learners to deepen
their views on cse topics; (b) to engage in authentic
materials, purposes, and tasks; (c) to develop their
language skills, particularly focusing on reading and
listening, and to a lesser extent writing and speaking; (d)
to learn cse-specific vocabulary, and (e) use grammatical
structures and items learnt so far through their regular
coursebook and lessons.
To this effect, we decided to engage in peer
teaching for four lessons. Due to time constraints
and workload, peer teaching entailed Darío sharing
Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas, Departamento de Lenguas Extranjeras
CLIL and Comprehensive Sexual Education: A Case of Innovation From Argentina
his plan with Cristina and refining the dynamics of
each lesson via WhatsApp. Darío collected materials
for each lesson and co-delivered the four lessons
having complementary roles. We agreed that we would
use both English and Spanish in our teaching and
that learners would be allowed to operate in both
languages for processing and encoding meanings. We
also agreed that Darío would keep a journal, and that
Cristina would help in recording learners’ perceptions
and assessment of the innovation. In Lessons 1 and
2, an informal group discussion took place to gain
learners’ insights. While Darío asked questions,
Cristina recorded learners’ contributions. We also
took pictures of learners’ working and evidences of
teaching and learning (e.g., notes on the whiteboard,
learners’ posters).
In the subsections below we describe each lesson
and share the effects it had on the actors involved as
the innovation unfolded.
Introducing the Innovation
In Lesson 1, we introduced the aim of the lessons
for a month. Darío explained in English specific aspects
of the projects such as collaborative work, the use of
authentic materials, and the presentation of posters
as the final product. It was highlighted that we would
discuss five cse-related topics: (a) same-sex marriage
(legal in Argentina since 2010), (b) abortion, (c) lgbt
rights, (d) gender equality, and (e) gender violence.
In English, we elicited learners’ prior knowledge on
each topic and noted their comments on the board.
This moment was also used to present subject-specific
terminology. Once we had a map of these five topics,
Darío asked the class to work in groups to discuss
possible reasons for addressing such topics. As one
representative from each group voiced their views,
Cristina collected learners’ responses. Below, we summarise their main perceptions:
These topics are important to prevent pregnancies and
sexually-transmitted diseases. (Marcos)
Because sometimes our families don’t support us and
learners need to find someone who can listen to them
and that help may be found here at school. (Sheila)
To take care of ourselves, among ourselves, and remind
ourselves that everybody deserves respect. (Rocío)
In this lesson, we were positively surprised as the
learners asked about inclusive/nonsexist language in
English and its differences and similarities with Spanish (Banegas & López, 2019; Mare, 2018). We took this
opportunity to revise vocabulary (e.g., policeman/
policewoman vs. police officer) and pronouns (e.g.,
his/her, their). We reflected on the social implications
of inclusive language and the applications of the cooperative principle to achieve linguistic and social goals
without forgetting aspects such as representation and
empowerment through language-mediated practices.
Drawing on systemic functional linguistics, we all
agreed that language was dynamic, that it belonged to
speakers and that we could accommodate it to represent
new realities; however, we also admitted that language
change is a process which cannot be imposed.
We then organised the class into five groups and
each group selected one of the topics mentioned
above. We noticed that the learners took the topics
without any concerns. In fact, they expressed that it
was high time these topics could also be discussed
in the efl lesson:
Miss, this is fantastic. It’s the first time we talk about
gender diversity in English. We always talk about straight
couples and stereotypical families. This is real and I like
it! (Tamara)
We explained that during the lessons concerning
the five topics we would be summarising authentic
materials and discussing some topics in particular. We
clarified that both Spanish and English could be used in
the lessons but that the final poster presentation would
be carried out in English. Next, each group received a
set of printed authentic sources according to the topic
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Banegas & Lauze
of their choice. We agreed that together with their prior
knowledge, the learners should handle content from
quality sources so that their views were argumentatively
valid. In so doing, we sought to develop their critical
thinking skills and work towards developing learners’
informed ideas. In addition, we shared with them
websites and videos. For example, for the topic of gender
violence, the group had texts on movements such as
Me Too, Time’s Up Now, and Ni Una Menos (Not One
Less), which described the origin and aims of each
movement and outlined achievements and statistics
related to gender violence. With that material, groups
were asked to read for general understanding, highlight
key words, and summarise main ideas through bullet
points and graphic organisers. To scaffold the process,
they could use English–Spanish dictionaries.
Developing the Innovation
In Lesson 2, we revised the main concepts we
had discussed in Lesson 1. We favoured listening and
speaking skills as we also noted that the learners were
interested in more exposure to English and more opportunities for using English to talk about cse.
We then explained that first we would focus on
gender violence. As a pre-watching activity, we asked
them to say what types of violence we could find. We
then showed a video called The Mirror, a domestic
short film on violence, downloadable from YouTube.
This video had not been shared with the learners as
we wished to introduce new sources of input when
discussing some of the topics. After a first watching,
we asked them to determine what type of video it
was (a short film promoting a helpline). On a second
watching, we paused the video at specific moments to
make a list of the signs of violence the woman suffers
and how each situation becomes more dangerous. We
introduced new vocabulary and structures and reflected
on ways people could ask for help in Argentina.
In Lesson 3, we followed a similar plan for the
video-based tasks around gender violence. We started
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the lesson asking for learners’ views on abortion, a hot
topic in Argentina in 2018 as a bill to legalise abortion
in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy was passed by the
Lower House but rejected by the Senate. We then
showed them a video called “Understanding Argentina’s Abortion Debate: Both Sides of the Issue,” found
on the New York Times YouTube channel. Through
a graphic organiser, we helped learners notice the
balance of divergent views on the video and language
items used to express support or concerns with the bill.
The rest of Lessons 2 and 3 were devoted to learners’
group work reading and summarising the contents of the
materials provided. Some groups produced summaries
in Spanish which they then translated back into English.
We took advantage of this process to teach and revise
new structures and vocabulary, and, most importantly,
discuss the implications and resonances of each topic
with the groups. By the end of Lesson 3, some groups
had already produced a summary of the material and
had produced a bullet-point list which would constitute
the backbone of their posters.
Wrapping Up the Innovation
Lesson 4 was divided into two parts. Part 1 was
devoted to providing feedback on groups’ summaries
and bullet points. Then each group started producing
their posters. While they were working on them, we
supported them by reading aloud their posters and
summaries to help them with pronunciation and overall
understanding.
In Part 2, each group presented their posters. While
stronger learners delivered their contributions in English,
less confident learners codeswitched between English
and Spanish. Thus, one of the language areas in the
spotlight was speaking together with reading as the
project unfolded.
Finally, all the posters were taped on the corridor
walls to share the experience with the rest of the school.
Below, we include the posters (Figures 1, 2, 3, and 4)
from which permission of the learners was granted.
Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas, Departamento de Lenguas Extranjeras
CLIL and Comprehensive Sexual Education: A Case of Innovation From Argentina
Figure 1. Poster by Students on Same-Sex Marriage
Figure 3. Poster by Students on Abortion
Figure 2. Poster by Students on Gender Violence
Figure 4. Poster by Students on Gender Equality
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Banegas & Lauze
The four posters show that in terms of content,
learners developed summarising strategies to synthesise
the main concepts and terms on the cse addressed.
In this regard, summarising became both a powerful
cognitive and linguistic tool to communicate the main
features of each topic. The posters reveal that learners
acquired knowledge about when abortion is legal or
illegal, facts about the movement called Ni Una Menos
and the difference between gender and sex. In terms
of language development, the posters attest to learners’
use of subject-specific terminology (e.g., foetus, harassment) and complex syntactical constructions featuring
subordinate and relative clauses.
Reflections
At the end of Lesson 4, we switched to Spanish and
asked learners to reflect on the effects of this innovative experience in their regular elt lessons. Learners’
voices became our data to understand the impact of our
clil-cse endeavours. The class discussion in Lesson 4
was audio-recorded using our mobile phones. We then
transcribed their views and applied thematic analysis
for initial codes and unifying categories. Through thematic analysis we identified four overarching themes:
(a) content and English language learning through
clil, (b) opportunity for collaborative work, (c) oral
skills development, and (d) authentic materials as a
positive challenge.
The language-driven clil approach adopted to
combine cse topics with English language learning
allowed learners to experience positive effects regarding
content and language learning. As promoted in the clil
literature (e.g., Ball et al., 2015; Genesee & Hamayan,
2016), the learners were able to notice that clil helped
them acquire new content and new language items at
the same time. The learners’ voices included below are
proof of this theme:
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is central because it can teach us about how to defend
people’s rights and gender issues. So we learnt about
the topic and specific words to talk about it. That makes
learning English motivating and relevant. (Nelson)
I didn’t know we have in Argentina so many laws to defend
gender diversity and act against gender violence. That
was new to me and I enjoyed learning English because it
was connected to a critical aspect of society; we need the
laws and we also need their enforcement. And because
we did it in English, I learnt the words needed to talk
about them such as law, bill, etc. (Vera)
The learners’ comments indicate that cse from
a gender perspective (Morgade & Alonso, 2008) is
important in secondary education and that they can
benefit from it both content- and language-wise.
Gender is recognised as a critical dimension of social
practice (Evripidou, 2018a; Nelson, 2010) which
deserves serious attention. As previously reported
(Banegas, 2013; Doiz et al., 2014), clil can therefore
become a solid and motivating educational approach to
design and achieve content and language aims which
provide learners with the opportunity to exercise
agency, develop critical thinking skills, and cultivate
critical citizenship (Coyle et al., 2010; Porto, 2018).
The learners’ comments show their higher-order
thinking as the learning of content in the efl lesson
helped them become aware of the necessity to learn
about history and social justice.
In relation to collaborative work, all the learners
agreed that the lessons allowed them to establish new
relationships with their peers as they worked with
people they did not normally work with. Two learners
expressed:
I thought we were going to kill each other! But that didn’t
happen, on the contrary it was enriching to work with
others. (Daniela)
In my group we learnt about Ni Una Menos. We’ve heard
It was good fun. By discussing abortion in my group, I
and talked about it but we had never learnt anything
got to know my mates a lot more and I understood other
about how it started, and the history of this movement
views on the topic. (Carolina)
Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas, Departamento de Lenguas Extranjeras
CLIL and Comprehensive Sexual Education: A Case of Innovation From Argentina
While Daniela’s metaphor refers to her presumption
that the topics would generate heated antagonism,
Carolina found the experience rewarding for getting to
know her classmates through discussion of cse topics. In
both cases, cse acted as a space for mutual understanding
and growth. The sociocultural nature of our project
seemed to have contributed to learner motivation and
content learning with peers (Coyle et al., 2010).
Most learners valued that working with videos and
our favouring English over Spanish to lead the lessons
forced them to pay more attention and develop their
listening and speaking skills. One learner expressed
that despite having problems with speaking, he felt he
had improved his pronunciation:
I can’t speak fluently, but I think that I improved my
pronunciation of key words. Or I am more careful and
pay attention when the teachers speak and notice how
they pronounce important words. (Julio)
Another learner said:
The videos were authentic, kind of difficult because we
weren’t used to real videos, but I managed to pay attention
and focus on the main ideas, the most important concepts.
Like I learnt to focus on what was important. (Camila)
Julio’s and Camila’s words are important because
they show that language-driven clil through the use
of authentic materials allowed them to develop their
oral skills, which are not usually foregrounded in the
literature (Ball et al., 2015; Genesee & Hamayan, 2016).
Concerning authentic materials, most of the learners welcomed the challenge as it provided them with
instances of genuine English on topics which were worth
including in elt. On the process of reading and summarising the authentic texts, one learner commented,
We made an extra effort. We made an effort to read,
understand, translate and summarise back in English.
I think that helped us remember and understand the
topics a lot more because we were more conscious of
what we were doing. (Camila)
As discussed in Pinner (2013), authenticity proved
to be an essential feature of the project. In our languagedriven clil exploration, authenticity was present at the
levels of content, materials, and tasks. Learners engaged
in tasks which resembled genuine language-mediated
social practices such as summarising or giving an opinion
on a given issue.
Conclusion
Framed in exploratory practice (Hanks, 2017), the
aim of this contribution was to describe and discuss a
four-week project carried out with state secondary school
learners in Argentina which consisted of enthusing
learners by combining cse topics with English language
learning. Language-driven clil, particularly featuring
authentic materials, was employed to provide learners
with opportunities for relevant and socially situated
content and language learning.
According to learners’ views, there was improvement in content learning and language development,
especially in relation to vocabulary and oral (speaking
and listening) skills. They also exhibited improvement
in summarising strategies and higher order thinking
skills. cse in the efl lesson became a space for citizenship development as gender-related topics were linked
to wider issues such as social justice and human rights.
Albeit limited and context-specific, our experience
shows that elt can extend to include critical issues which
reflect the diversity and complex landscape within and
outside schools. As part of a wider curriculum, elt in
formal education cannot ignore gender and sexuality
matters; therefore, it must create opportunities for critical
engagement with such topics. To achieve this goal, elt
educators and educational authorities need to work
collaboratively and embrace topics which have been
underrepresented in elt curriculum and materials.
Future teaching and research experiences should
foster investigation of the effects of cse through languagedriven clil with different age groups and contexts and
examine materials which reflect diversity and inclusion.
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About the Authors
Darío Luis Banegas is a lecturer in tesol at the University of Strathclyde (uk), a teacher educator and
curriculum developer for the Ministerio de Educación del Chubut (Argentina), and an associate fellow with
the University of Warwick (uk). He leads modules on elt approaches, linguistics, and educational research.
His main interests are: clil, action research, and initial language teacher education.
Cristina Lauze is a teacher of English in secondary schools in Esquel (Argentina) and a teacher
educator at an initial English language teacher education programme. She is actively involved in professional
development opportunities and is interested in social and psychological factors behind language learning.
Profile: Issues Teach. Prof. Dev., Vol. 22 No. 2, Jul-Dec, 2020. ISSN 1657-0790 (printed) 2256-5760 (online). Bogotá, Colombia. Pages 199-209
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