Wenhsien Yang*

National Kaohsiung University of Hospitality and Tourism, Taiwan

[email protected]

THE DEVELOPMENT, ADOPTION AND EVALUATION OF

THE INTEGRATION OF AN ESP AND CLIL TEXTBOOK:
PERSPECTIVES FROM THE CLIL LEARNERS

Abstract

Extensive research has confirmed CLIL linguistic benefits but the evaluation of its
textbooks and practitioners’ performance is still relatively scant. Thus, the aim of
this study is to evaluate a customised language-oriented CLIL textbook and the
teacher’s teaching performance of using it. The textbook was produced by a research
team and used for 18 weeks by English majors in a national polytechnic university of 68
Taiwan. After the one-semester trial, two well-established questionnaire surveys
were respectively administered to examine 55 learners’ judgement of the quality of
the textbook and their evaluation of the practitioner’s teaching quality. The results
indicated that the learners welcomed the idea of integrating language and content
learning into a single course, but were also concerned about the quality of its design
for facilitating critical thinking, assessment, meaningful learning, and technology
inclusion. The learners’ English levels and their preferable future jobs significantly
affected their attitudes towards the CLIL course. However, they exhibited relatively
high satisfaction and agreement with the CLIL practitioner’s performance of
facilitating exposure to input, meaning-focused processing, form-focused processing,
opportunities for output production, and use of learning strategies. The study has
implications for CLIL material development and evaluation, particularly in the
under-researched context of higher education.

Key words

content and language integrated learning (CLIL), textbook production and

evaluation, teacher performance, tertiary level.

* Corresponding address: Wenhsien Yang, 1, Hsung-ho Rd. Hsiao-kang Dist., 812, Taiwan.

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e-ISSN:2334-9050
 THE DEVELOPMENT, ADOPTION AND EVALUATION OF THE INTEGRATION OF AN ESP
AND CLIL TEXTBOOK: PERSPECTIVES FROM THE CLIL LEARNERS

1. INTRODUCTION
Due to the ever-increasing demands of globalisation, enhancing (under)graduates’
employability and mobility has become an issue of vital importance to universities
around the world. They aim to prepare their students for the international job
market by equipping them with the mobility and employability needed to compete
with their peers worldwide. One of the most important measures universities are
taking is strengthening learners’ language competence to allow them to
communicate across national borders (Räisänen & Fortanet-Gómez, 2008).
Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is one of the common
approaches proposed to address the need to acquire both language skills and
content knowledge. It has been widely adopted in tertiary education, particularly
in Europe (Arnó-Macià & Mancho-Barés, 2015), and is an alternative to the English
for Specific Purposes (ESP) approach (Wahyuningsih, 2016), complementing its
scant subject matter. The establishment of tertiary level CLIL programmes has
been encouraged in the drive to internationalise higher education in Taiwan (Yang
& Gosling, 2014) as well.
However, ESP has received considerably more attention than CLIL in Taiwan.
The major differentiating factor is that CLIL is dual-focused, placing equal weight
on both the language and subject content, while ESP focuses on providing learners
with the language skills necessary to master the content knowledge. Therefore,
167
69
ESP is considered a form of English Language Teaching (ELT), whereas CLIL is not.
Other major differences between the two approaches include the course materials,
the teaching strategies, and teacher preparation. Perhaps due to the increased
emphasis on ESP, little attention has been paid to the teaching materials used in
CLIL courses. However, as CLIL courses are being encouraged in Taiwan, it is
essential that suitable resources, such as specifically designed CLIL textbooks, are
made available. To seek a possible synergy between ESP and CLIL material
production, the aim of this study is therefore to describe the development of a
language-based CLIL textbook that integrates ESP materials, its application in the
classroom, and 55 English-major students’ evaluation of its effectiveness and the
performance of the teacher who used the textbook in the CLIL course at a national
polytechnic university of Taiwan. The study therefore aims to answer the following
questions:

1. What are the learners’ perceptions of a customised CLIL textbook integrating

ESP materials?

2. How do the learners evaluate the practitioner’s teaching performance in the

integrated ESP and CLIL course using the CLIL-specific textbook?

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2. LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. (In)compatibility between ESP and CLIL practices

ESP and CLIL have traditionally been viewed as two separate teaching approaches
with different focuses, but there has been little discussion of their overlap or
compatibility. Some researchers have pointed out that they are not necessarily
absolute opposites, but may in fact share some similarities; however, their
differences may outweigh their similarities. As Fortanet-Gómez and Bellés-Fortuño
(2008) argued, the single main aim of ESP is the teaching and learning of a foreign
language, whereas CLIL places more emphasis on content. However, some scholars
have argued that the distinction between the two approaches is not completely
clear, stating that both ESP and CLIL practitioners need to find a balance between
the target language culture and the professional subject matter (Poręcka, 2011).
Liew and Khor (2014) argued that CLIL and ESP are two separate approaches but
that ESP has moved closer to CLIL due to university students’ expectations of
learning content knowledge in their language courses. Thus, they define CLIL as an
integrated ESP model, stating that integrated ESP can address some of the
shortcomings of the traditional ESP approach. However, Riley (2013) argues that it
is only with the close collaboration of the content and language teachers that the 70
transformation of ESP into CLIL can be achieved.
However, ESP and CLIL are more closely related than many people realise in
terms of catering to both language and content learning (Torregrosa Benavent &
Sánchez-Reyes Peñamaría, 2011). The complexity of ESP teaching in today’s
classrooms has attributed CLIL’s emergence to the development of ESP, and new
developments in the area of ESP have created challenges for ESP teachers due to
the need for higher qualifications including content knowledge and transferable
skills (Jendrych, 2013). For instance, Bruton and Woźniak (2013) describe a
university course which adopted both approaches, and discuss the
interconnections between them, their influences on each other, and the benefits
and problems encountered. They argue that courses which combine both
approaches are time-consuming for both language and content teachers. However,
the benefit is that the content teachers’ confidence in using English to teach in the
classroom increased, as did the language teachers’ confidence in teaching the
subject content.
González Ardeo’s (2013) study investigated the coexistence of both types of
courses in a Spanish university. He found that although they were in fact
compatible, both approaches posed challenges for the content teachers, the
language teachers and the learners such as the diverse students’ awareness of
language acquisition and content learning, their attitudes towards English, and the
feeling of compatibility of ESP and CLIL. Brebera and Hlousková (2012) discussed
the application of the principles of CLIL to ESP in a higher education context, and

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pointed out the problematic nature of providing uniform CLIL guidelines for
teaching content and language in tertiary contexts. They called for further research
at the local, national and international levels to help teachers overcome the
challenges posed by this new approach.
Lara-Garrido (as cited in Suwannoppharat & Chinokul, 2015) also argued
that there is a close connection between CLIL and ESP, as both place particular
emphasis on the learners’ needs and on their interest in communication. It
therefore seems valid to argue that CLIL is a new and interactive English teaching
approach. Fernández (2009) considers it a generic term covering a wide range of
notions, including ESP. Tarnopolsky (2013) argued that the two approaches share
the common feature of integrating language learning and the content matter of
non-linguistic disciplines, with CLIL having a broader scope, while ESP is generally
considered a language course. Jendrych and Wisniewska (2010), and Yang (2016)
also agreed that in some cases teaching ESP is similar to teaching CLIL due to the
emphasis on teaching language and professional skills in both approaches.
Considering the similarities between ESP and CLIL, it is hardly surprising that
there have been urgent calls for collaboration between ESP and CLIL practitioners,
and for a balanced weighing of the content and language teaching. Nashaat-Sobhy,
Berzosa, and Crean (2013), for example, pointed out the need for content and
language teachers to collaborate on the design of teaching materials, stating that
the schema theory can help learners scaffold their language development while
also facilitating peer collaboration. Gavrilova and Trostina (2014) argued that the 71
only way to create the necessary synergy for preparing highly-qualified specialists
in particular fields of knowledge is to adopt an integrated language and subject
matter interdisciplinary approach.
In short, CLIL and ESP are seemingly two distinct approaches which share
notable similarities. For example, needs analysis derived from ESP is applicable in
CLIL contexts, while the same teacher preparation procedures can be adopted for
both approaches. Similar implementation difficulties are encountered including
issues related to teacher training, teaching qualifications, peer collaboration,
students’ motivation and teaching material design.

2.2. CLIL materials development and evaluation

In the specific context of CLIL, the aim of the textbook is to respond to the 4Cs
framework of CLIL (Coyle, 2007). That is, the design should ideally accommodate
the development of learners’ communicative skills, content knowledge, cognitive
ability, and cultural awareness. However, compared to the more abundant ESP
teaching materials published by EFL (English as a Foreign Language) publishers,
CLIL teaching materials are relatively scant (Coyle, Hood, & Marsh, 2010), and
even less evaluation has been carried out on CLIL-specific materials. Thus, very
often authentic English textbooks are used in CLIL classrooms without proper

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content and language design (Yang, 2018). These international series of EFL or
CLIL-driven materials without much appropriate adaptation are usually not
cognitively engaging or connected to the local context because they are intended to
cater to a wide range of educational settings. They are generally not suitable for
integrating subject matter and language learning (Banegas, 2012; Bell & Gower,
2011; Tomlinson, 2012). Coyle et al. (2010) maintain that CLIL materials produced
under the EFL umbrella tend to overlook the balance of content and linguistic
presentation, aspects of courses, modules, and units. In other words, CLIL
materials should be developed in accordance with the specific context, considering
local school cultures and curricula, and involving the efforts of CLIL practitioners.
Contextualisation in Coyle’s (2007) 4Cs framework is an important concept of
ensuring the success of CLIL-based learning across diverse contexts.
In terms of evaluation, there are only a few well-established criteria
specifically used for evaluating CLIL materials, compared to the significant amount
of research on how to evaluate EFL and ESL textbooks. Banegas (2012) argues that
some ESL/EFL course books may be treated as a weak form of CLIL materials
where language classes are taught by CLIL language teachers with great use of
content, aiming to develop the learners’ content-based language proficiency
(Ikeda, 2013). However, the criteria applied to evaluate them may not precisely fit
the evaluation of CLIL materials because the majority of these principles focus on
language elements and presentation rather than disciplinary knowledge.
Moreover, CLIL materials adapting EFL elements tend to be superficial, and there 72
have been few endeavours to promote bilingual education (Banegas, 2012).
Morton (2013) surveyed European CLIL teachers’ practices and perceptions
of finding, adapting, creating and using materials in secondary education, and
found that a great majority of the teachers would be willing to create their own
CLIL materials. Yet, they are concerned about the appropriateness of materials in
terms of both content and language difficulty in their educational or cultural
contexts. So far, the most comprehensive standards for planning quality CLIL
materials are Mehisto’s principles (2012). Only one study so far has adopted these
standards to appraise publisher-made or contextualised self-designed CLIL course
books and materials, that is, Yang’s (2018) study in Taiwan. A CLIL course book,
Introduction to Hospitality and Tourism, was developed and taught for 18 weeks.
A post-course survey revealed that the respondents had very high agreement with
Mehisto’s (2012) principles of quality CLIL materials, but when judging the
designed CLIL materials, their agreement reduced by between 5% and 25%,
indicating that his materials have room to improve. Yang (2018) found that the
variables of learners’ gender, previous major at high school and English proficiency
led to significant differences in their evaluation. The main reason may be the
various levels of English proficiency, expectations regarding the course and their
previous knowledge of the content and target language, mirroring the importance
but also the difficulties of needs analysis in CLIL execution in Taiwan’s polytechnic
universities.

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As Coyle et al. (2010) argue, research is still needed to investigate the

effectiveness of CLIL materials from the perspectives of design and task. In
addition, CLIL practitioners’ classroom practices and how to use tailor-made CLIL
materials also have a great effect on the success of the CLIL approach. Thus, the
present research aims to have the learners not only evaluate the effectiveness of a
contextualised CLIL textbook, but also to evaluate how successfully CLIL
practitioners conducted teaching in CLIL classes.

3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1. Textbook design, methods, context and participants

In order to answer the research questions, we selected an ESP course, English for
MICE (meeting, incentive travel, convention and exhibition), to be transformed into
a CLIL course. This course was selected because students who had previously
graduated expressed the need to learn more content knowledge after returning
from their internship. The course was originally delivered in the fourth year of the
Applied English Department (AE) at a national polytechnic university of Taiwan,
designed and taught according to the ESP approach. This university is well-known 73
for its ‘sandwich curriculum’, where all the students have to complete a one-year
domestic or overseas placement in hospitality and tourism relevant industries. The
55 learners, 46 females and 8 males, had an average English proficiency of CEFR
B2 level, which is the highest level among the students in the University. However,
having continuously received feedback from previous students and industry
employers that AE students lacked professional knowledge of the hospitality and
tourism disciplines, the AE faculty decided to integrate the course, English for
MICE, with more CLIL elements to achieve a better balance between language and
content, in the hope of accommodating future learners’ and employers’ needs. Also,
it was assumed that these final year students could make a greater contribution to
sensitising the distinguishing features of an integrated CLIL-ESP teaching model,
which was actually very different from their previous ESP learning experiences in
the first and second years. Furthermore, their internship experiences could help
accurately evaluate whether or not the newly-proposed learning model is capable
of preparing graduates with sufficient language skills and content knowledge to
survive in future job markets.
Upon securing the faculty’s consensus, the first step was to turn the current
ESP textbook into a CLIL one. In designing this new textbook, titled MICE 2, we
kept the language elements intact and designed additional subject matter to
achieve a suitable balance between content and language. The newly-developed
CLIL textbook was mainly written by the researcher and his research assistant
who had industrial internship experience in a MICE-relevant industry. In addition,

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one MICE content specialist in the University was asked to offer guidance or
consultancy if professional opinions were sought. The content of each unit came
from on-line resources and some already existing Chinese MICE textbooks with
appropriate selection and adaptation. Both the content and the English were
refined and proofread by a local content specialist and a native English-speaking
teacher. Finally, the textbook consisted of 14 units, each of which aims to develop
learners’ 4Cs skills or knowledge (communication, content, cognition, cultural
awareness). Four major sections of each unit were designed to address each C
individually. The Reading section is to instruct content knowledge, the Vocabulary,
Dialogues and Communicative Activity sections aim to provide learners with
necessary language and communication skills to demonstrate their content
knowledge, the Cognitive Activity section challenges learners’ lower-order and
higher-order thinking skills to elicit critical thinking, and the Learning Activity
section uses on-line videos to train learners’ learning skills and to help them
compare and contrast diversities of managing MICE industries in different settings
in order to raise their (inter)cultural awareness. The new textbook was completed
in the summer of 2018.
In the fall semester of 2018, the newly-produced textbook was used as the
main teaching resource for the English for MICE course which was delivered for a
period of 18 weeks for two hours per week to a class of 55 undergraduate AE
learners with an average English proficiency of above CEFR B2. The instructor of
this new CLIL course was also the researcher of this study as he was the only 74
teacher in the AE faculty who had received formal CLIL teacher training and had
published many journal articles on CLIL. He performed multiple roles as he was
not only a researcher, but also a textbook writer and a CLIL practitioner, “who
plays a crucial role in understanding his students and designing meaningful
learning experiences that reflect their needs and interests” (Jones, 2016). Thus, the
research framework of this study is teacher’s action research, where the
researcher as a practitioner continuously reflects on his teaching practices in
terms of ideals and knowledge of the local situation (Hammersley, 1993).
By the end of the semester, in order to elicit the learners’ perceptions of the
textbook to answer RQ1, they were asked to complete a questionnaire in the final
week of the semester. This bilingual Mandarin Chinese/English questionnaire is
composed of three main sections with a total of 21 questions: the participants’
demographic information (4 items), their perceptions of the evaluation of the CLIL
materials (16 items), and one open-ended question about any extra comments
they would like to add to the textbook. The items were adopted from Mehisto’s
(2012) principle of producing quality CLIL learning materials where 16 specific
criteria are proposed to evaluate CLIL materials (see Appendix A). A 7-point Likert
scale was used, ranging from 1: strongly disagree to 7: strongly agree. The
questionnaire was provided in an online format, and took approximately 10-15
minutes to complete. A total of 55 valid questionnaires were received, giving a

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response rate of 100%, and its reliability reached Cronbach’s alpha .95, tested in
previous similar cases (Yang, 2018).
To answer RQ2, we administered another questionnaire to investigate how
the learners appraised the CLIL practitioner’s teaching in the classroom. We used
de Graaff, Jan Koopman, Anikina, and Westhoff’s (2007) observation tool to survey
learners’ perceptions of the effectiveness of the teaching. The questionnaire was
presented in both Chinese and English and consists of four demographic items, five
sections with a total of 24 items on how teachers facilitate exposure to input at a
minimal challenging level, meaning-focused processing, form-focused processing,
output production and the use of teaching strategies such as eliciting receptive
compensation strategies, productive compensation strategies or reflection on
strategy use. The questionnaire also included an open-ended question about any
additional comments on improving future teaching, giving 29 questions in total.
This questionnaire also used a 7-point Likert scale, where 1 =strongly disagree and
7=strongly agree. This second questionnaire was administered at the end of the
semester together with the first one (also in an online format), and took
approximately 15-20 minutes to complete. A total of 55 valid questionnaires were
received, giving a response rate of 100% as well, and its Cronbach’s alpha
reliability reached .98 (see Appendix B for the complete questionnaire). In terms of
the ethical issues around student participation in the study, before completing the
questionnaires, students were made aware that their responses would be
anonymous and would not have an influence on their course grade. 75

3.2. Data analysis

The data from the two questionnaires, the first on the learners’ perceptions of the
CLIL textbook and the second on their perceptions of the practitioner’s teaching
performance, were analysed using the statistical software SPSS 16.0. In addition to
the essential descriptive analysis, t tests and one-way ANOVA were run in order to
determine the effects of gender, English proficiency, internship location, and job
preference after graduation. The Scheffé post-hoc test was used to determine any
significant differences within the groups, while the Pearson correlation test was
used to determine any significant relationships between the variables. The
standard for significance for this research was set at p<.05. In addition, the validity
of the data collected in the two questionnaire surveys was enhanced by judiciously
combining the teacher’s involvement in designing the materials and conducting
teaching as an insider, and his purposeful estrangement of being physically absent
while the learners were completing the surveys (Hammersley, 1993). In the
following sections, we present the major results and discuss the most significant
findings.

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4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

4.1. Evaluation of a customised CLIL textbook

The results of the students’ evaluation of the textbook are summarised in Table 1
and are discussed in detail below.

Item 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8

Mean 5.07 5.35 5.05 5.24 5.18 4.89 4.87 4.91
SD 1.05 1.00 1.11 1.09 1.26 1.23 1.09 1.25
Agree 79.9% 80% 67.3% 83.6% 76.4% 63.6% 60% 61.8%
Item 2.9 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16
Mean 4.87 5.09 4.81 5.13 5.04 5.11 4.12 3.87
SD 1.26 1.34 1.40 1.28 1.33 1.44 1.69 1.48
Agree 61.8% 70.6% 60% 74.5% 67.3% 63.6% 41.8% 34.5%

Table 1. Descriptive results of evaluating the CLIL textbook1

The results revealed that the students showed low agreement with the
statement that the current CLIL textbook meets the principles of good quality CLIL
materials. For items related to assessment (2.7), fostering critical thinking (2.11)
and meaningful learning (2.13), the average agreement reached between 60% and 171
76
68%, while items 2.15 (environmental issues) and 2.16 (social issues) had much
lower agreement of 41.8% and 34.5% respectively. The major reason for this
result may be the fact that all of the learners were senior students with a full one-
year industrial internship experience and so they had much higher expectations of
what content elements the CLIL book should contain. Compared to what they had
experienced in their industrial placements, the social or environmental issues
were less mentioned in the textbook. Besides, the students expressed their concern
that fewer opportunities were offered for collaborative learning with peers and for
autonomous learning. Communicative activities and collaborative work were
included in the design but were not always covered owing to the time pressure to
complete one textbook unit within one 2-hour class.
On the other hand, items about CLIL facilitating proficiency of English and the
authentic language use (2.5, 2.10) received more than 70% agreement, indicating
good quality. The results show that most learners believe this textbook was
designed as a language-oriented CLIL version, but that it also addressed subject
matters. The CLIL practitioner, who is also an ESP teacher, might naturally
highlight language elements in his instruction, making learners perceive that
language teaching outweighs content teaching. Thus, the respondents expressed

1Agreement percentage was calculated by adding up the points, 5, 6, and 7 in the Likert Scale of the
questionnaires.

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higher agreement with the design of the language components in the CLIL book.
Another reason may be that they are English language majors and thus view
language learning as essential. Regarding the inclusion of ICT (2.14), the current
CLIL materials did not greatly satisfy the learners, with 63.6% agreement. The
learners’ responses imply that to design good quality CLIL materials, collaboration
between content and language teachers may not be sufficient, as it can only ensure
the accuracy of and a good balance between language and subject matters. Inviting
ICT experts to help design CLIL materials seems indispensable in the Internet age
as technology and multimodalities can highly motivate learners, facilitate
autonomous learning and sustain learning. One positive finding could be that
learners’ awareness of what CLIL is was raised (2.4). There was 83.6% agreement
with the intentions and process the CLIL course aimed to deliver to the learners. It
seems that the learners had a good understanding of the importance and necessity
of integrating content and language. This awareness is also one implicit purpose of
designing customised CLIL materials as, unless such awareness is raised, CLIL will
be confused with the ESP approach.
When comparing the responses across students, we found that there were no
significant differences between genders or the locations of having their industrial
placement, indicating that the learners who stayed in Taiwan and those who went
overseas for internship had similar judgements of the textbook. We had
anticipated that those who spent time overseas might require much more language
and content input in order to survive compared with those staying at home, but no 77
such difference emerged. A possible reason may be that nearly all of the
respondents took very basic job positions in the hospitality and tourism industry
which did not require them to have many professional skills or much content
knowledge, and some jobs, such as housekeeping or restaurant service, offered few
chances for communication.
One significant difference under the variable of English proficiency
(F:(3:51)=2.796, p<.05) and two under job preference after graduation were found.
For the item: The current CLIL materials meet appropriate technical requirements,
like pictures, format, or multimedia, the respondents with higher English
proficiency showed much higher disagreement with the book meeting this
principle than those with lower level English. This suggests that higher L2
achievers rely more on contextual cues, inferential strategies and other resources
to interpret the meaning of the target language, while lower proficiency learners
depend more on their prior knowledge (Sun & Dong, 2004).
Likewise, the respondents showed significantly different agreement with the
items: The current CLIL materials seek ways of incorporating authentic language
and authentic language use (F:(3:51)=2.170, p<.05) and The current CLIL materials
help students to reach well beyond what they could do on their own (F:(3:51)=2.857,
p<.05) when the variable of their job preference after graduation was examined.
Half of the graduates plan to stay in the hospitality or tourism (H&T) business
sectors such as hotels, airlines or travel agencies, and the other half expect to

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choose jobs related to English such as secretarial or tutorial jobs. MICE is a new
emerging job outlet in the local context and thus courses like English for MICE (an
ESP course) and Introduction to MICE (a content course delivered in Mandarin
Chinese) are both taught in the University. The new CLIL-based MICE book was
designed and used for the purpose of equipping the learners with both language
skills and content knowledge about MICE. We discovered that those who plan to
seek jobs in the H&T (40%) and MICE (7.3%) sectors rather than English-related
jobs (41.8%) had higher agreement with the CLIL materials meeting these two
principles. This may be because these students had a stronger preference for
seeking relevant jobs so they were more involved in the CLIL course and had a
more positive attitude. They believed that authentic language integrated into the
content is vital and useful for their future jobs.
Differing from other content courses instructed in their L1, what makes CLIL
learners feel challenged is that they have to learn the subject matter in an L2. CLIL
learners are expected to process both the L2 and the unfamiliar content knowledge
simultaneously, which adds to their cognitive loadings. Hence, timely gradual
scaffolding is important (Mehisto, 2012). Those who were considering H&T and
MICE jobs after graduation exhibited higher agreement with the textbook being
able to help them reach beyond what they could do on their own than those who
chose English language relevant jobs. The newly-developed CLIL MICE textbook is
language-based, containing more subject knowledge than other ESP textbooks but
easier content than the disciplinary textbooks written either in Chinese or English. 78
This purposeful design gradually guides learners to know more about the MICE
industry in the L2 which they are more comfortable using than other non-English
majors are.

4.2. Evaluation of the CLIL teacher’s classroom practices

After evaluating the quality of the customised CLIL textbook, the learners were
asked to judge the CLIL practitioner’s teaching practices. It has to be remembered
that the textbook writer/ course instructor is both a well-trained ESP teacher and
a qualified CLIL practitioner with English language expertise and content
knowledge. It is assumed that these dual roles and integrated identity in the
teaching profession can exemplify how ESP and CLIL teacher preparation can be
compatibly designed. Surprisingly, the respondents demonstrated higher
agreement with the indicators of good performance of the practitioner than of the
materials. This may have been because the researcher was both the author and the
teacher, and the students may not have wanted to offend him. However, as the
responses to the questionnaires were anonymous, did not affect the students’
grades, and the students did not hesitate to criticise the design of the textbook,
there may be other reasons for their more positive response to the teaching. The
indicators for examining the CLIL teaching are classed into five categories as

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shown in Table 2 below, and are discussed in the following sections (see de Graaff
et al., 2007).

Item 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 2.1 2.2 2.3

Mean 5.20 5.16 5.24 5.33 5.25 5.09 5.18 5.23
SD 1.24 1.08 1.10 1.04 1.14 1.38 1.23 1.29
Agree 72.7% 70% 72.7% 78.2% 70.9% 69.1% 74.5% 74.5%
Item 2.4 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 4.1 4.2
Mean 5.32 5.05 5.11 5.00 5.16 5.45 5.65 5.82
SD 1.32 1.39 1.31 1.33 1.30 1.25 1.19 1.88
Agree 74.5% 63.6% 70.9% 63.6% 70.9% 76.4% 80% 85.5%
Item 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4
Mean 5.89 5.64 5.38 4.41 5.09 5.27 5.24 5.27
SD 1.10 1.19 1.62 1.54 1.27 1.28 1.29 1.15
Agree 87.3% 83.6% 76.4% 52.7% 63.6% 72.7% 69.1% 72.7%

Table 2. Descriptive results of evaluating the CLIL teacher’s teaching performance 1

4.2.1. Exposure to input at a (minimally) challenging level

The agreement with items 1.1 to 1.5 reaches 72.7% on average, with 78.2% the
highest for item 1.4 and the lowest (70%) for item 1.2. When learning an L2,
meaningful exposure and functional input are viewed as essential (Krashen, 1985).
Thus, in CLIL teaching, teachers are expected to select and customise the materials 79
to be challenging but comprehensible (de Graaff et al., 2007). The practitioner in
the present research obtained nearly 75% agreement that his performance
facilitated exposure to input at a challenging level. Since this is the first trial of
adopting the CLIL approach and a tailor-made textbook in the MICE course, both
the practitioner and learners were experimenting with this new approach. With no
prior similar instructional experience to rely on, the practitioner kept adjusting the
materials and the teaching pace to fit the learners’ needs and performance
outcomes in class. Besides, as discussed earlier, CLIL learners have to cognitively
process the L2 and the subject knowledge simultaneously, and this inevitably
creates a heavier psychological load and slows the learning pace. Thus, CLIL
practitioners need to fine-tune their class talk in order to make themselves
comprehensible and allow time for processing while addressing the L2 and the
subject matter. The current CLIL practitioner’s performance in this category was
acknowledged by the majority of the learners.

1Agreement percentage was calculated by adding up the points, 5, 6, and 7 in the Likert Scale of the
questionnaires.

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4.2.2. Meaning-focused processing

Exposure to input is not sufficient or effective to facilitate language learning on its

own; the input should also be meaningful, storable and retrievable from working
and long-term memory (Johnson, 1982). Thus, CLIL practitioners are expected to
design oral or written activities and tasks to continuously check if the instruction is
adequately comprehended by the learners (de Graaff et al., 2007). Items 2.1 to 2.4
belong to this category and reached 73% agreement, with the lowest agreement
for item 2.1 (69.1%) and the highest for 2.4 (74.5%).
The customised CLIL textbook was designed based on its original English for
MICE textbook which included several communicative activities for practice. More
vocabulary practice, cognitive tasks and learning skill activities were added to
allow the learners to complete tasks which checked their comprehension of the
content in the L2. These specially designed activities helped the practitioner to
identify if the input had become meaningful knowledge for the learners and to
check if there was any need for further clarification, validation or confirmation.
Again, a majority of the learners believed that the current CLIL practitioner
exercised satisfactory performance according to these indicators.

4.2.3. Form-focused processing

Although when first learning an L2, fluency comes before accuracy, both are 80
equally important. Housen and Pierrard (2005) summarised a series of studies
arguing the importance of instructing language structures and form. Accordingly,
CLIL practitioners are expected to raise learners’ awareness of ‘focus on form’ and
make them conscious of features in the target language. Hence, teachers’ implicit
or explicit instruction of demonstrating accurate uses of the L2 and providing
feedback or correction are regarded as necessary in CLIL classrooms (de Graaff et
al., 2007).
Items 3.1 to 3.5 assessed the CLIL practitioner’s performance of assisting
learners with form-focused processing, and the agreement with these indicators
averaged 69.1%. There was less agreement with items 3.1 and 3.3 (both 63.6%),
indicating that the practitioner might not have explicitly offered corrections to
problematic language forms in class. The likely reason is that the learners are all
relatively proficient English users, so the practitioner assumed that there was no
need to correct the wrong usage of language structures. However, Taiwanese
English learners are still used to emphasising correct forms when using the L2 and
also depend on teachers as the traditional authoritative sources of correct usage.
This contextual tendency can explain their lower agreement with these two items.
The last item (3.5) in this category received relatively more agreement from
the respondents at 76.4%. Due to the great number of activities, the learners had
to collaborate with their peers to complete the tasks; therefore, they had many
chances to interact with their peers and to receive feedback from them. This

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 THE DEVELOPMENT, ADOPTION AND EVALUATION OF THE INTEGRATION OF AN ESP
AND CLIL TEXTBOOK: PERSPECTIVES FROM THE CLIL LEARNERS

evidences that in a soft CLIL course, which is language-oriented and opposite to a

content-driven hard CLIL model (Ikeda, 2013), including collaborative tasks and
activities to apply the L2 should outweigh the instruction of the subject matter.

4.2.4. Opportunities for output production

Output production can help increase fluency in L2 performance, drawing learners’

attention to correct form usages, facilitating peer feedback in communicative
activities and thus maintaining their motivation to learn (de Bot, 1996). With
regard to CLIL practices, teachers are expected to “encourage learners to react and
ask questions aimed at functional output as well as stimulate interaction between
learners in the target language” (de Graaff et al., 2007: 609). With the design of
communicative activities, CLIL teachers can encourage learners to use the L2 to
engage in collaborative tasks. It is argued that the more output production, the
more chances for providing correct feedback on using language forms.
These indicators received the highest agreement, i.e. 77.6% on average from
the respondents, compared to the other four categories. Items 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, and 4.4
have over 80% agreement (80%, 85.5%, 87.3%, and 83.6% respectively),
confirming that the teacher used the customised CLIL textbook well to elicit
learners’ responses and interaction in the target language, and this design was
highly welcomed by the learners. Apparently, the soft CLIL model is preferable for
L2 majors such as the participants in this study as they are given many 81
opportunities to use the L2 authentically and interactively, which also motivates
them to learn the subject matter in the L2.
Indicator 4.6 received the lowest agreement compared to all the other
performance indicators, at only 52.7%. Admittedly, written tasks or activities are
not the major focus of the book design, nor are they the focus of the classroom
instruction. Practice of L2 writing is not listed as an aim of the current course so
the lowest agreement for this indicator is predictable. These responses also
confirm previous research on the development of the four L2 skills in CLIL
education, that is, usually CLIL learners’ receptive skills (reading and listening)
outperform their productive skills (writing and speaking) (Aguilar & Rodríguez,
2012; Dalton-Puffer, 2007; Jiménez-Catalán & Ruiz de Zarobe, 2009) due to the
productive skills being less practiced in CLIL classrooms (Coonan, 2007).

4.2.5. The use of strategies

The last category of performance indicators is whether the CLIL practitioner

facilitated the use of strategies. In language learning, strategies can be classed into
two main areas, direct (memory, cognitive, and compensation) and indirect
(metacognitive, affective, and social) strategies (Oxford, 1990). Learners can use
inferential strategies such as retrieving their prior knowledge to compensate for
their deficiencies in receptive knowledge, and may also apply strategies such as

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WENHSIEN YANG

negotiating, paraphrasing or avoidance to accommodate their deficiencies in

productive knowledge (Bialystok, 1990; Westhoff, 1991). It has also been found
that when ESP learners become CLIL learners, they gradually change from using
direct to indirect strategies as the CLIL approach demands more interaction and
collaboration (Yang, 2017). Therefore, CLIL practitioners should be able to develop
“a repertoire of receptive and productive compensatory and communication
strategies” (de Graaff et al., 2007: 610) and also suggest effective strategies to help
learners overcome their language and content comprehension and production
problems.
The participants showed an average of 70% agreement with these indicators
with the highest for items 5.2 and 5.4 (both in 72.7%) and the lowest for item 5.1
(63.6%). Although the majority of the learners still believed the CLIL practitioner
had satisfactory performance with reference to these indicators, the agreement is
relatively low compared to other categories. The possible explanations are that
firstly they were not clearly aware that the practitioner was teaching them certain
types of strategies to approach CLIL learning, even though there is a section in each
textbook unit, Learning Skills Activities, to train learners to use strategies such as
note-taking, memorisation or noticing. Secondly, the learners themselves may not
have been aware that they were employing certain learning strategies such as
negotiating or avoidance (mostly indirect strategies) when they were engaging in
the communicative and collaborative tasks. Their replies raise a concern regarding
whether language learning strategies should be explicitly taught, in particular 82
when learners have to use the L2 to learn content and language at the same time,
which is very different from their previous experiences of learning the target
language. This issue also elicits another concern regarding whether CLIL
practitioners (either language or content teachers) are capable of teaching
language learning strategies. More preparation for teachers should be offered in
order to effectively teach learners’ strategies.

4.2.6. Significant differences by variables

When comparing the students’ replies according to various variables, we

discovered some significant variances by the categories English proficiency and job
preference after graduation, as shown in Table 3.

Performance indicator F-value

1.1 Selecting texts in advance (F:(3:51)=4.525, p<.01)
1.2 Adapting texts in advance (F:(3:51)=5.072, p<.01)
1.3 Adapting teacher talk in advance (F:(3:51)=3.220, p<.05)
2.3 Emphasising correct and relevant identifications of meaning (F:(3:51)=2.786, p<.05)
4.1 Asking for reactions (F:(3:51)=2.927, p<.05)

Table 3. Significant differences according to the variables of English proficiency

and job preference after graduation

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 THE DEVELOPMENT, ADOPTION AND EVALUATION OF THE INTEGRATION OF AN ESP
AND CLIL TEXTBOOK: PERSPECTIVES FROM THE CLIL LEARNERS

Although all the participants in the present study had at least a CEFR (The
Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) B2 (equivalent to a
TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) score of at least 750)
English level, higher English achievers (HA) with TOEIC scores above 880 and
lower English achievers (LA) with TOEIC scores between 750 and 880 showed
significantly different degrees of agreement with some of the performance
indicators. In general, the LA group agreed less with performance indicators 1.1,
1.2, 1.3, and 2.3. This is probably because the lectures included language elements
and subject matter, which is double the learning load compared to the previous
ESP course, English for MICE, and thus they would feel more stressed and anxious
about dealing with these two focuses. Another possibility could be that the CLIL
practitioner regarded all of the participants as proficient English users and did not
suspect that any of them had problems understanding the new concepts or
vocabulary. Hence, the LA group was not able to fully master the concepts, leading
to their significant disagreement. These responses remind teachers to attend to
minor differences even in homogeneous classes, especially when a new
educational approach, curriculum or course is introduced.
Interestingly, those who considered working in the MICE industry in the
future had significantly higher agreement with performance indicator 4.1 than did
those who might stay in the H&T industry or engage in English-relevant jobs. This
may be because the former group are interested in the MICE industry and thus
were more motivated to interact with their peers or the practitioner. It can be 83
assumed that they would show higher interest in answering questions when asked
to make responses in class. Thus, when the course is designed to connect to their
future needs, learners would be more highly motivated and more committed to
learning.
To conclude this section, we believe that CLIL teachers must be well prepared
to facilitate exposure to input at a minimally challenging level, meaning-focused
processing, form-focused processing, output production and the use of strategies.
We argue that a well-organised and flexible teacher training path to help teachers
move from language teachers or subject teachers to CLIL practitioners should be
designed to assist practitioners in realising good quality teaching performance in
CLIL education.

5. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS

The focus of this action research was on the development, adoption and evaluation
of an ESP and CLIL integrated textbook and it aimed to answer two research
questions: how learners evaluate a customised integrated CLIL textbook, and how
they appraise a CLIL practitioner’s teaching practices using that textbook in the
classroom. To answer these questions, we developed a tailor-made CLIL textbook,
MICE 2, based on its original ESP version, and used it as the major teaching

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WENHSIEN YANG

resource. After the one-semester trial, two questionnaires were administered to

examine learners’ judgement of the quality of the book and the practitioner’s
teaching quality. The results indicated that the learners welcomed the idea of
integrating language and content learning into a single course, but were also
concerned about the quality of its design for facilitating critical thinking,
assessment, meaningful learning and technology-inclusion. Moreover, the learners’
English levels and their preferable future jobs significantly affected their attitudes
towards the course. In contrast, the learners exhibited relatively high satisfaction
and agreement with the CLIL practitioner’s performance.
The following two pedagogical implications are suggested. Firstly, in terms of
designing CLIL materials, Coyle’s (2007) 4Cs framework can be a good start for
practitioners to raise teachers’ awareness of how CLIL materials can be produced
and what should be taught in CLIL lessons (Vázquez & Ellison, 2018). Material
writers should be clearly aware that language and content are equally emphasised
in CLIL textbooks or materials, and the ultimate goal of implementing a CLIL lesson
is to equip learners with communication skills, content knowledge, cognitive
thinking and cultural awareness. Thus, any new CLIL teaching production should
be able to develop these four categories of competency. According to our
experiences in this study, if CLIL materials are designed by language teachers, a
language-driven approach can be taken. That is, a soft CLIL model can be adopted.
Any currently available ESP learning materials can be used as the basis; the aims,
scope and subject matter can then be extended to meet CLIL requirements, which
saves time and effort. Accordingly, fewer negative responses and less opposition 84
from language and content specialists will result. Although ESP and CLIL are not
completely compatible per se, this integrated CLIL and ESP model which borrows
the ESP notions of needs analysis and material design, can bridge the two extremes
between a language-driven and a content-based course (Yang, 2016).
Secondly, CLIL practitioners should be well prepared once teaching materials
are available, particularly if language teachers lack disciplinary knowledge or
content specialists do not have a language teaching background. Thus, a systematic
CLIL education framework for both language and content teachers seems
indispensable; the European Framework for CLIL teacher education (Marsh,
Mehisto, Wolff, & Frigols Martín, 2012) provides a good example. In their design,
“teachers undertaking CLIL will need to be prepared to develop multiple types of
expertise: among others, in the content subject; in a language; in best practice in
teaching and learning; in the integration of the previous three; and, in the
integration of CLIL within an educational institution” (Marsh et al., 2012: 5). The
CLIL training framework includes education on developing CLIL practitioners’
knowledge of methodology for integrating both language and content and skills of
creating rich and supportive target-language environments, making input
comprehensible, using teacher-talk effectively, promoting student-comprehensible
output, attending to diverse student needs and continuously improving accuracy
(Hillyard, 2011).

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 THE DEVELOPMENT, ADOPTION AND EVALUATION OF THE INTEGRATION OF AN ESP
AND CLIL TEXTBOOK: PERSPECTIVES FROM THE CLIL LEARNERS

Since developing and evaluating CLIL materials is still in its infancy, future
studies and attempts can be made to complement it. For instance, will the quality
of the CLIL textbook be the same, better or worse if it is produced based on a
content textbook and written by content teachers? Similarly, will there be any
different results of teaching appraisal if the same CLIL course is taught by a
content teacher instead of a language teacher? Future comparison investigations
on these issues can help depict a holistic framework of CLIL teacher training. In
addition, qualitative data can be adopted to support the questionnaire surveys. For
instance, interviews with the CLIL learners and prospective practitioners can
better realise what they expect from a quality CLIL textbook and what teaching
performance should be exercised to achieve the aims of the textbook, thus
benefiting students to a greater extent.

[Paper submitted 18 Sep 2019]

[Revised version received 8 Jan 2020]
[Revised version accepted for publication 9 Apr 2020]

Acknowledgement

This research was co-sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST-
106-2628-H-328-001) and Higher Education Sprout Project, Ministry of Education
(MOE), Taiwan.
85
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WENHSIEN YANG is Associate Professor in the Department of Applied English at

National Kaohsiung University of Hospitality and Tourism, Taiwan. His main
research and teaching interests include the areas of ESP, genre analysis, corpus
linguistics, second language writing and CLIL, and he has published many research
articles about those topics in world-leading journals.
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88

Appendix A
Questionnaire: Evaluating the CLIL customised textbook

1.1 Gender: (Female, Male)

1.2 English proficiency (TOEIC: <500, 551-750, 751-880, >881, Unknown)
1.3 Location for internship (Domestic, Overseas)
1.4 Preferable job after graduation (Hospitality & tourism, MICE specific, English relevant, Others)

2.1 Language and content teaching is equally weighted.

2.2 Language teaching outweighs content teaching.
2.3 Content teaching outweighs language teaching.

The current CLIL textbook:

2.4 makes the learning intentions and process visible to students.
2.5 systematically fosters English proficiency.
2.6 fosters learning skills development and learner autonomy.
2.7 includes self, peer and other types of formative assessment.
2.8 helps create a safe learning environment.
2.9 fosters cooperative learning.
2.10 seeks ways of incorporating authentic language and authentic language use.
2.11 fosters critical thinking.
2.12 helps students to reach well beyond what they could do on their own.
2.13 helps to make learning meaningful.

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 THE DEVELOPMENT, ADOPTION AND EVALUATION OF THE INTEGRATION OF AN ESP
AND CLIL TEXTBOOK: PERSPECTIVES FROM THE CLIL LEARNERS

2.14 meets appropriate technical requirements, like pictures, format, or multimedia.

2.15 includes environmental issues.
2.16 contains social issues like the elderly, the physically challenged, minorities, gender equality or
general social concerns.

3. Please write down any comments or suggestions for the current CLIL textbook.

(Adapted from Mehisto, 2012)

Appendix B
Questionnaire: Evaluating the CLIL practitioner’s teaching

A1. Gender: (Female, Male)

A2. English proficiency (TOEIC: <500, 551-750, 751-880, >881, Unknown)
A3. Location for internship (Domestic, Overseas)
A4. Preferable job after graduation (Hospitality & tourism, MICE specific, English relevant, Others)

The CLIL practitioner:

1.1 selected texts in advance.
1.2 adapted texts in advance.
1.3 adapted teacher talk in advance.
1.4 adapted text in teaching.
1.5 fine-tuned teacher talk.

2.1 stimulated meaning identification. 89

2.2 checked meaning identification.
2.3 emphasised correct and relevant identifications of meaning.
2.4 provided exercises on correct and relevant identifications of meaning.

3.1 facilitated noticing of problematic and relevant language forms.

3.2 provided examples of correct and relevant language forms.
3.3 corrected use of problematic and relevant language forms.
3.4 explained problematic and relevant language forms, e.g. by giving rules.
3.5 had pupils give peer feedback.

4.1 asked for reactions.

4.2 asked for interaction.
4.3 let students communicate.
4.4 stimulated the use of the target language.
4.5 provided feedback, focusing on corrected output.
4.6 organised written practice.

5.1 elicited receptive compensation strategies.

5.2 elicited productive compensation strategies.
5.3 elicited reflection on strategy use.
5.4 scaffolded strategy use.

6. Please write down any comments or suggestions for the current CLIL practitioner.

(Adapted from de Graaff et. al., 2007)

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