CLIL for University Curricula: A Promising New Frontier

Across Asia, many universities face the challenge of raising students’ English academic skills to meet global standards, achieve their Ministry of Education’s objectives, prepare their students for EMI courses within their own faculties, and raise their language skills for study abroad. For many universities, transitioning from communicative-based instruction to a comprehensive Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) curriculum may provide a solution. This paper (and presentation) reports the results of a government-funded study involving researchers at five prominent liberal arts universities in Japan, describing the reform of a semi-intensive 1st-year English program of 250 students, now in its 4th and final year. It details the rationale behind the reform, the innovative approaches adopted, the obstacles faced (some significant), the changes implemented, the ongoing challenges, and the substantial outcomes achieved. Instead of relying on commercial textbooks, the English program utilizes a coordinated CLIL approach across six weekly classes, drawing on liberal arts content in areas such as sociology, economics, earth sciences, biology, and natural history. The results of using liberal arts content indicate notable quantitative improvements: students in the CLIL program showed a 107 to 140 percent greater increase in their TOEFL ITP scores compared to their peers in the previous seven years. Qualitative student satisfaction surveys also indicate postive outcomes, with the majority of respondents (67%) in 2023 “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their English classes, and in 2024 an even a higher proportion (78%) indicating such satisfaction. The materials for the new curriculum, created by the curriculum-designers and available on the web, can now be adopted by other universities facing similar challenges. This includes adaptable reading, listening, and writing materials in 6 academic fields. The researcher-practitioners conclude that CLIL-based study at the university level—while facing administrative and staffing challenges—offers a promising path forward.