Teach It in English! Implementing English in the Political Classroom

Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) has recently gained great popularity in German schools. Reports of teachers and pupils indicate that in bilingual lessons foreign language learning is perceived to be less artificial and far more motivating than in traditional language teaching. In contrast to conventional language learning CLIL emphasises subject specific contents. Although many teachers are not sure in which way English as predominant medium of instruction should be taught, most of the rather experimental attempts to do so are reported to be successful. Nevertheless, in some German states there neither is a curriculum, nor are there any recommendations specifically developed on the needs of different subjects taught in the integrated way. CLIL requires teachers to be strongly committed and to invest extra time and work to turn this relatively new concept into a success. But what is their motivation for establishing such learning environments? To find out about some of the reasons why CLIL is currently so successful in German schools, I examine the example of political education in Saxony and the extra benefits of CLIL when being taught in English.