PROJECT SUMMARY

The ADiBE project brings together key figures with ample experience in the field of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) from six countries (Spain, Austria, Finland, Germany, Italy, and the UK). It aims to fill a much-needed niche affecting catering to diversity within CLIL programs across Europe and to work towards an inclusive, innovative, and reflective society by offering research-based evidence and concrete resources to improve language learning and make bilingual education a more inclusive reality for all. Its objective is three-pronged: to identify difficulties and best practices in catering to diversity in intercultural and content integrated language learning and teaching; to produce and implement project -, task-, and ICT-based activities to make CLIL accessible to all types of achievers; and to design and pilot teacher training modules to empower practitioners to step up to this important challenge. The ultimate aim is to contribute to the integration of all students, regardless of their socioeconomic status, educational background, or achievement level and to making CLIL accessible to all.

More specifically, the objectives of the ADiBE project are:

1. To design, validate, and apply reliable instruments (questionnaires, interviews, and observation protocols) to identify the key difficulties and determine the most outstanding practices which are being implemented in northern, central, and southern Europe to cater to diversity in Secondary Education CLIL programs.
2. To design and pilot project- and task-based activities incorporating the use of ICTs and telecollaboration for foreign language and content subjects taught through that FL in Secondary Education.
3. To make these activities available through OERs and publish a guide to exploit them in the CLIL classroom.
4. To design and pilot a teacher training module incorporating the findings of the study and the sample activities in order to equip teachers to cater to diversity in CLIL classrooms.
5. To draw up online pedagogical video guides where the key figures in CLIL who participate in this project provide tips based on the outcomes of the project for teachers, students, teacher trainers, and authorities to contribute to making CLIL accessible to all.

ADiBE addresses three main target groups, whom it seeks to reach and benefit:

1. A diversity of Secondary Education institutions which have incorporated CLIL, especially those where language learning and teaching is a challenge because of cultural, cognitive, social, or financial adversity.
2. Teacher education institutions (both universities and teacher training centers) as carriers of pedagogical innovation and reform at secondary schools through professional development of both pre- and in-service teachers.
3. Educational authorities, who will be able to use the data, activities, and modules stemming from the project to guide future legislative decisions on the expansion of fully bilingual schools, pedagogical decisions on the practical development of CLIL programs with different types of achievers, or organizational decisions on the successful integration of immigrant students and latecomers to the program.