CLIL and ESP in Pharmacy: over-the-counter or prescription English? [LSP teaching methodologies and English-medium instruction]

This paper focuses on preliminary findings of a study conducted as part of a teaching innovation project within the subject of English for Pharmacy taught to first-year undergraduate students in Spain. The project seeks to find synergies between content and language learning to better adapt the ESP course to the CLIL context and offer more tailored support to CLIL lecturers and address their new needs arising during the process. We report the findings of a focus group and two questionnaires exploring the needs and perspectives of experienced CLIL lecturers who integrate English in their Pharmacy subjects and of laboratory staff who work with Pharmacy students and lecturers. The results show that although English is omnipresent and seen as natural in Pharmacy by both lecturers and students, it is integrated mainly in less challenging content and is chiefly treated as an occasion to practice English rather than an integral part of evaluated learning outcomes. In this regard, the ESP course seems to be the only occasion when disciplinary language is ‘prescribed’, monitored and evaluated. Participants’ reflections on the development of CLIL in their subjects reveal that English seems to be viewed as an over-the-counter medicine administered for minor problems and without prescription or follow-up, but with effort and additional workload involved. This, in turn, raises doubts among content lecturers about the actual purpose of the integration of English in their subjects