Multilingualism, Multilingual Education and CLIL in South America

This chapter begins by providing an overview of developments in multilingualism and multilingual education in relation to Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in South America, focusing particularly on Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Uruguay. Then there is a discussion of key moments in the evolution of CLIL in Latin America, followed by a presentation of present-day perspectives where three relationships between CLIL research and practice in the region are foregrounded. These include studies which have yielded positive results related to motivation, the implementation of translanguaging pedagogies and the inclusion of interculturality. A second relationship refers to research which has produced both positive and negative results in relation to language and cognitive development, while a third highlights the contribution of CLIL teachers to materials development and curricular integration. Some key issues noted have to do with the need for a situated CLIL approach, as well as the inclusion of an intercultural dimension.