36.1960, Confs: English CLIL Programs: Teaching Geography in English or English in Geography? (France)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-36-1960. Wed Jun 25 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.1960, Confs: English CLIL Programs: Teaching Geography in English or English in Geography? (France)

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Date: 24-Jun-2025
From: Agnès Leroux [agleroux at parisnanterre.fr]
Subject: English CLIL Programs: Teaching Geography in English or English in Geography?


English CLIL Programs: Teaching Geography in English or English in
Geography?
Short Title: CLIL geography and English

Date: 20-Nov-2025 - 21-Nov-2025
Location: Paris Nanterre, France
Contact: LEROUX Agnès
Contact Email: agleroux at parisnanterre.fr

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics; Discourse Analysis; Language
Acquisition; Psycholinguistics

Submission Deadline: 30-Jul-2025

The aim of this conference is to bring together specialists in
didactics, linguistics, geography, and second language acquisition, as
well as teacher trainers and secondary school teachers to discuss the
teaching and learning of English as a Second Language (ESL) using a
CLIL approach, in geography classes more specifically.
The CEFR (2001, 2018) promotes an action-oriented perspective for the
teaching of foreign languages and considers learners as social actors.
This approach aims to engage students in tasks that include
collaborative and interactive work. However, task-based teaching is
not familiar to all geography teachers, particularly regarding
language practice and the key role it plays in the construction of
knowledge. Because of a lack of specific training in CLIL, a large
proportion of students use their mother tongue during
talk-in-interaction, which prevents them from building solid skills in
the foreign language.
In France, CLIL programmes do not have a dedicated syllabus that
defines the academic expectations. As a result, teachers have to
design their curriculum according to their own class objectives, both
in terms of knowledge or skills. French-geography differs from the way
geography is dealt with in English-speaking countries, not only
historically speaking, but also in the way it has developed its arrays
of interest and concepts (Hancock, 2002; Claval, 2008; Gintrac, 2012).
For example, concepts widely used in French school geography do not
necessarily have an equivalent in English, or do not occupy the same
place within the Anglophone discipline (Gonin, 2024). These
considerations raise questions about the content taught in DNL
geography.
This conference is taking place as research carried out in Europe, and
looking into primary, secondary and higher education, generally shows
positive results from CLIL teaching in terms of learner motivation and
academic results. However, several studies have pointed out that the
apparent “CLIL effects” are perhaps exaggerated, and partly
attributable to the selection of pupils and students that are already
high achievers and highly motivated (Sylvén, 2010), as is the case in
France. Large-scale studies in Spain have reported an increase in
language skills for all CLIL groups (Pérez Cañado, 2018), but research
on that topic is still scarce in France.
We are expecting presentations which could, for example, provide some
answers to the following questions:
- What are the characteristics of the specialised language of
geography, in French and in English? Who should teach it and how?
- What classroom language practices are specific to these CLIL
programmes in geography?
- How do the concepts taught in geography help students understand the
differences between English and French perspectives on global issues?
- Which approach to geography should be favoured when teaching it in
English? The French approach or the approaches of the English-speaking
world? How do these approaches differ?
- How do teachers interact and adapt their classroom discourse to
support linguistic and conceptual learning in English?
- How do the students’ language skills develop as a result of CLIL
teaching?
- What are the synergies and differences between EFL lessons and CLIL
lessons? How can the integrated construction of knowledge be
scaffolded?
- Is there such a thing as CLIL didactics?
These questions and themes are not, of course, exclusive. While the
French context is the starting point for our questions, proposals
relating to other education systems around the world are welcome.



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