Lessons to be learned: a professional development approach to curriculum planning in a multilingual school in Galicia

This chapter focuses on how integrated curriculum planning and implementation in a trilingual setting might provide useful insights for those working with CLIL, across what would appear to be very different and specific linguistic contexts including multilingual and Anglophone contexts. We draw on relevant lessons learned from a detailed longitudinal case study in Galicia to highlight key areas for consideration and analysis across different contexts. This experience emphasized four key factors that emerged from the study that we suggest are transferable to other linguistic contexts:

Key factor 1: Training/professional learning for teachers before designing their curricula and implementing their lessons.

Key factor 2: A literacies approach which facilitates pluriliteracies development through drawing on languages of instruction, making subject teachers aware of a) the language component in their design, and b) the paramount role of meaning-making when building both subject and linguistic knowledge.

Key factor 3: Teacher collaboration where language and content teachers co-construct the CLIL curriculum together and implement their designs across CLIL lessons.

Key factor 4: Ownership of CLIL pedagogies - integrated curriculum planning and design aligned with task-based learning, project-based learning and integrated assessment formed the basis of pedagogic training modules followed by participating teachers.