Challenges of CLIL in a Primary School in China: A case study from an international school in a medium-sized city

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) as a new educational trend has rapidly grown and expanded in many places across the globe. Impacted by the educational internationalization and globalization, an international primary school in a medium-sized city in China has adopted CLIL as part of the school curriculum. This research investigated perceptions and attitudes towards CLIL teaching of teachers at this school. The case study of 8 current CLIL teachers as participants was conducted with a mixed methods approach. The data were collected via an online questionnaire survey and a subsequent focus group interview, and the final results were analysed, discussed, summarized and evaluated systematically and critically. The analysis of the findings suggests that although there are many challenges for students, teachers and the school, they all can greatly benefit from CLIL. The teachers showed an overall positive view and preferred to continue CLIL teaching in the future. The findings also reveal some concerns and challenges in implementing CLIL in the school, including the shortage of sufficiently qualified CLIL teachers, a lack of suitable teaching materials, the deficiency of theoretical framework for CLIL lessons, the simplistic assessment criteria of CLIL learning and the challenging relationship between subject teachers and language teachers. And some possible pedagogical implications and suggestions are put forward in the perspectives of teachers, schools, parents and educational authorities to address the issues with the intention of further developing and improving CLIL in the whole school and similar educational settings facing similar situations