Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is a dual-focused educational approach whereby an additional language is used for the learning and teaching of both content and language. In the Netherlands, this takes place in bilingual secondary education (tweetalig onderwijs). Policy guidelines, teaching handbooks, research and teacher education primarily focused on how subject teachers implement CLIL. Little was known about the nature and range of the pedagogical and collaborative practices of language teachers in this context. Exploring formal and practical theories of teaching, this dissertation reports on four studies; a literature review, focus group study, survey, and multiple-case study. These generated building blocks for a knowledge base for Teachers of English in Bilingual streams (TEBs) including a theoretical framework for language teaching in CLIL contexts, a set of practices which emerged as a professional development tool for TEBs, eight case descriptions of prototypical practices, and a model of the dynamic interaction of TEBs’ beliefs and practices. Reviewing the findings in the light of developments in conceptualizing what CLIL means for teachers in practice, the discussion highlights four points. Firstly, language teaching in CLIL contexts is not the same as foreign language teaching. Secondly, CLIL achieves integration through subject-specific language. Thirdly, CLIL contexts can lead to transformative change in language teachers’ beliefs and practices. Fourthly, collaboration between language and subject teachers can be beneficial. It concludes that teacher education and policy guidelines can and should do more to support, encourage and enable language teachers to be both creators and agents of change.
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For decades, Scandinavian culture effectively prohibited the development of special provisions for talented students in higher education. However, in recent years, a cultural shift has gradually made more room for excellence and talent development in the national discourses. This paper analyzes the climate for talent development in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. Following a first inventory of honors programs in Scandinavian higher education in which the only programs were found in Denmark, 10 experts were interviewed to analyze their national situation and reflect on the leading role of Denmark. In this country, external incentives, focus on quality, pioneers, and an open atmosphere were found to produce a culture more appreciative of excellence over the last decade. Starting from the Danish experience, the situation in Norway and Sweden is analyzed, showing that the combination of factors leading to change in Denmark is not yet present here. Lessons for other countries are highlighted, notably the importance of sharing information and exchanging knowledge at an international level.
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This paper introduces our special issue about ideologies in sign language vitality and revitalization and discusses ideologies related to the vitality of sign languages. Rather than taking for granted the notions of vitality and endangerment or developing criteria for measuring sign language vitality, the papers in this issue will provide a discursive construction of sign language endangerment. This construction in turn provides critical and historical reflection on how vitality has emerged as a concern for sign languages in specific local, national, and international contexts, the actors and institutions bringing forward this framing, and in whose interest it is to promote such discourses. The issue will survey how and by whom these ideologies are described, mobilized and legitimized, and what conceptualizations of language are emphasized and by whom.
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