Teachers` conceptualization of content and language integrated learning (CLIL): Evidence from a trilingual context

This paper reports on research into the top-down implementation of CLIL
in the trilingual context of Kazakhstan, with a focus on teachers’
conceptualization of integration. Kazakhstan is the first Central Asian
country to introduce CLIL for using three different languages as a
medium of instruction for different content subjects as part of an
ambitious national language-in-education policy. With a constructivist
position, the study sought to explore the reality, i.e. the
conceptualization of CLIL from teachers’ own perspectives through
interviews and observations with five participants, working in the
network of 20 state-funded and highly selective Nazarbayev Intellectual
Schools. Findings suggest that most of the participating teachers were
not aware of the pedagogical intentions behind CLIL and understood it
merely as just teaching through another language. The subject teachers,
who worked in the context of demanding enquiry-based curriculum,
prioritized content over language, assuming only an indirect role in
facilitating students’ language development.