The use of telecollaboration for the development of intercultural competences in CLIL teacher education

Abstract

Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) is a dual-focused educational approach in which the learning of the language is integrated with that of the content with the objective of promoting both content and language mastery. In the context of initial teacher education, this chapter argues for the use of methodologies based on collaborative work in international learning contexts for enhancing pedagogical competences for an efficient implementation of CLIL. Using intercultural telecollaboration as a tool for creating virtual learning environments, 60 pre-service teachers from two universities in two countries (Spain and The Netherlands) worked collaboratively in a regular course on CLIL methodology for 10 weeks. Based on a reflective practice model of teacher education, this chapter explores how pre-service English language and content teachers began to build their knowledge on CLIL. Because the author participated on the Spanish side, data analysis in this chapter is restricted to pre-service English language teachers at the University of Valladolid, Spain. However, their experience intends to inform teacher educators about the possibilities for CLIL methodology competence development by creating intercultural learning environments with tools such as intercultural telecollaboration in the context of initial teacher education.