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Teacher collaboration in CLIL contexts: challenges and good practices

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 Studies in Linguistics,
Culture and FLT
Volume 1 - 2016 · ISSN 2534-9538

Challenges in English
Teaching and Research

Предизвикателства
в обучението и
изследванията на
английски език

Konstantin Preslavsky University of Shumen

Department of English Studies
 Studies in Linguistics,
Culture and FLT
Volume 1 - 2016

Challenges in English
Teaching and Research

Предизвикателства
в обучението и
изследванията
на английски език

Konstantin Preslavsky University of Shumen

Department of English Studies
CHALLENGES IN ENGLISH TEACHING AND RESEARCH is the end result of
a project Challenges in English Teaching and Research (No RD-08-129/8.02.2016)
of the Department of English Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Konstantin Preslavsky
University of Shumen.

Изданието „ПРЕДИЗВИКАТЕЛСТВА В ОБУЧЕНИЕТО И ИЗСЛЕДВАНИЯТА

НА АНГЛИЙСКИ ЕЗИК” е резултат от проекта „Предизвикателства в обучение-
то и изследванията на английски език” (РД-08-129/8.02.2016), Катедра „Англий-
ска филология”, Факултет по хуманитарни науки, Шуменски университет „Епис-
коп Константин Преславски”.

Editors*:
Prof. Roumyana Todorova, PhD (Bulgaria) – Editor-in-chief
Prof. Dr. Habil. Maya Pencheva (Bulgaria)
Prof. Dr. Habil. Anna Bączkowska (Poland)
Prof. Berrin Aksoy, PhD (Turkey)
Assist. Prof. Desislava Cheshmedzhieva-Stoycheva, PhD (Bulgaria)
Assist. Prof. Irina Ivanova, PhD (Bulgaria)
Dr. Antonia Navarro Tejero (Spain)

* The editors bear no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the articles.
© Individual contributions: respective authors
© Developments in English Studies and Research
© Asenevtsi trade ltd., Sofia

ISSN 2534-952X за печатно издание

ISSN 2534-9538 за онлайн издание
ISBN 978-619-7356-07-6 за печатно издание
ISBN 978-619-7356-08-3 за pdf файл
Съдържание

Preface or foreword........................................................................................5
Antonia Navarro Tejero. Mamang Dai’s poetry: challenges in translating
ecofeminism.....................................................................................................7
N. Berrin Aksoy. The importance of a comprehensive method in the
teaching of literary translation..................................................................... 15
Temenuzhka Seizova-Nankova. Valency constructions at work:
a case study................................................................................................... 21
Svetlana Nedelcheva. Phrasal verbs with off may not be hard to pull off.... 42
Irina Stoyanova-Georgieva. „Absolutely“ modifying adjectives in British
and Bulgarian newspapers in comparison with the
British national corpus................................................................................. 57
Aleksandra Aleksandrova. Understanding name-based neologisms............ 65
Irina Ivanova. Teacher collaboration in clil contexts: challenges and
good practices............................................................................................... 78
Dessislava Georgieva Todorova-Hlavacik. Adapting an English language
textbook to the principles and laws of Suggestopedia..................................90
Snejana Obeyd. Challenges in teaching the nominal substitute „same“ and
its Bulgarian projections............................................................................. 101
Radostina Iglikova. Challenge accepted: employing reading comprehension
strategies in training your brain into becoming a better reader................ 108
Deyana Peneva. Challenges in teaching remedial apologies to learners
of English as a foreign language..................................................................117
4 Challenges in English Teaching and Research

Miroslava Tsvetkova. The cognitive approach as a challenge in foreign

language teaching....................................................................................... 125
Polina Mitkova. Teaching conversational implicature to adult language
learners....................................................................................................... 136
Seven Reshadova. Students’ and teachers’ preferences in using different
approaches and strategies in vocabulary teaching and learning............... 150
Desislava Cheshmedzhieva-Stoycheva. Idle, stricken, or retired: challenges
in understanding media discourse on nuclear power ................................ 165
Rumyana Todorova, Zlatko Todorov. Anticipatory mechanisms and
techniques in Bulgarian and British ads and their applications in the
English language classroom....................................................................... 178
Desislava Toneva. Challenges in understanding media discourse on drugs:
use of slang.................................................................................................. 185
78 Challenges in English Teaching and Research

Teacher collaboration in clil contexts:

challenges and good practices
Irina Ivanova*

Abstract: Teaching a subject in a foreign language requires a specialist pedagogical

expertise from both subject and language teachers whose collaboration is vital for achieving
success in CLIL classrooms. Different models of collaboration between teachers in class
might be used and experimented with in different lessons, so that the most suitable models
be found for each specific teaching and learning context. The article discusses some issues
and good practices in teacher collaboration, lesson planning and team teaching in different
CLIL contexts. The discussion is based on lesson plan analysis and lesson observations
conducted in four European countries under an Erasmus+ project.
Key words: CLIL, teacher collaboration, lesson planning, team teaching

Introduction
Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), which is probably the fastest
growing teaching paradigm in Europe in recent years, has become a much
sought-after epitome of innovation, progressive thinking and development in
education, to the extent that “teaching through one single language is seen as
second rate education” (Lorenzo 2007: 35). Although as a form of bilingual
education CLIL is descendant of North American teaching models, such as
the French immersion programmes and Content-based instruction (CBI), it
is a distinctly European phenomenon as it is deeply rooted in the European
Union policies and needs for plurilingualism and intercomprehension (Munoz
2007; Wolff 2005). Stemming from the ideas of integration, globalisation and
modernisation of education, CLIL is defined as “a generic term to describe all
types of provision in which a second language (a foreign, regional or minority
language and/or another official state language) is used to teach certain subjects
in the curriculum other than the language lessons themselves” (Euridice 2006:
8).
Unlike immersion programmes and CBI, however, which give priority to
language education, CLIL sees language as a vehicle through which content is
learnt. As Coyle points out, its distinctiveness lies in that it integrates language
and content along a continuum, in a flexible and dynamic way, without an
implied preference for either (Coyle 2006, 2007). Perez-Canado, summarising
recent recearch on CLIL in Europe, points out that the main differences between

* University of Shumen, Department of English Studies, Shumen, Bulgaria

 Teacher collaboration in clil contexts: challenges and good practices 79

CLIL and bilingual education can be found

in the lesser command of the language of instruction which CLIL teachers evince in
general, in the later starting age and lower amount of exposure to the target language
in this type of program, in its use of abridged rather than authentic materials, in the
fact that the content taught is taken from academic subjects or disciplines rather than
from everyday life or the target language culture, in the greater absence of immigrant
students within them, and in the comparatively meager amount of research into its
effects, as opposed to those of immersion (Perez-Canado 2012: 318).
Research shows that different forms and models of CLIL are being widely
implemented in Europe and adapted to a variety of educational and linguistic
contexts, so that it is difficult to present a general model of CLIL common
to all educational contexts (Euridice network 2012). Back in 2007 Coyle, for
example, listed 216 different CLIL programmes, which varied in terms of
their compulsory status, intensity, age of onset, starting linguistic level, or
duration. The most common type of CLIL programme seems to be based on
the combination of a foreign language (English being the most widely taught
language across Europe) and a subject, such as History, Geography, Science
(depending on teachers’ qualifications), particularly in secondary education (see
Perez-Canado 2012). The conceptualisation behind the variety of different CLIL
programmes is based on the integration of the 4 Cs – content, communication,
cognition, and culture (Coyle 2007; Coyle, Hood, Marsh 2010) which define
both teaching aims and learning outcomes, and the interrelation of BICS (Basic
Interpersonal Communicative Skills) for less cognitively demanding tasks, and
CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency) – for the more demanding
language required for academic school study (see Cummins 2001).
Irrespective of the particular language or subject, however, the success of CLIL
implementation depends on the collaboration of the language and the subject
teacher, who work together towards creating a form of instruction which is most
conducive to students’ learning.
Teacher collaboration is seen as a necessary prerequisite for teachers’ personal
professional development. What is more, collaboration in instructional teams
within a school or across several schools is considered important for improving
students’ achievement levels (see Ronfeldt, Farmer, McQueen, Grissom 2015).
Collaboration is a broader term which involves different forms of teacher
interaction, one form of which, particularly relevant to our discussion, is team
teaching. By definition, team teaching involves “a group of instructors working
purposefully, regularly, and cooperatively to help a group of students learn”
(Buckley 2000: 4). CLIL as an interdisciplinary approach naturally entails
teacher collaboration in preparation and teaching of the lesson, although only
some of CLIL contexts are characterised by consistent team teaching practices.
There are different models of team collaboration. According to Sandholtz
80 Challenges in English Teaching and Research

(2000), there are three main configurations: 1) two or more teachers loosely
sharing responsibilities; 2) team planning, but individual instruction; and 3)
joint planning, instruction, and evaluation of learning experiences. Maroney
(1995) identified 5 team teaching styles (TT styles) depending on teachers’
strengths and competences and students’ needs. These involve:
• standard TT: both teachers actively share in instruction;
• collaborative TT: similar to standard TT, yet students learn solely
in group formats, sometimes referred to as Total Collaborative
Learning;
• complimentary/ supportive TT: one teacher is in charge of
content teaching, the other focuses on reinforcement activities
or skill building;
• parallel TT: students are divided at random and each teacher is
responsible for the learning of their group;
• differentiated TT: similar to parallel TT, yet students are
grouped according to learning needs/ levels.

These models refer to team teaching in general and are not directly applicable to
CLIL contexts in which the language and content teachers should additionally
negotiate their roles and plan their participation in the lesson. In doing so
they should rely mainly on their experience and intuition as there are no clear
guidelines or models to follow. Teacher training is offered by some pre- and in-
service institutions around Europe but since educational policies and stakeholder
expectation differ in different countries, there is no unified training provided.
Currently almost all EU states implement some form of CLIL with varying
degrees of success in compulsory education (Eurydice Network 2012) and there
are also a lot of extra-curricular activities and a variety of educational projects
aimed at CLIL development and implementation.

Background
The discussion of good practices and problematic aspects in team collaboration
and team planning and teaching is based on lesson plan analysis and lesson
observations made under the Erasmus plus project Schools: Future labs, which
took place in 2015-2016 in both state and private secondary schools in four
European countries: Bulgaria, Greece, Poland, and Romania. The project,
which is still in progress, involves representatives of policy makers (Ministries
of Education), higher teacher training institutions (Universities), teachers of
languages and subjects from the state and the private sector and the students
in the respective secondary schools. What makes the project stand out among
other CLIL-related projects, is first of all, its STEM (Science, Technology,
 Teacher collaboration in clil contexts: challenges and good practices 81

Engineering, and Mathematics) orientation, second – the choice of language –

German and Spanish, studied as first foreign language in the selected schools,
and third – the use of Mobile labs, providing students with hands-on experience
in learning-by-doing.
The schools participating in the project provide different contexts for CLIL
implementation. In Bulgaria there is one smaller private school with German as
a first foreign language and a big comprehensive school with Spanish as a first
language. Both schools are in Sofia. From Romania there are two state schools
– one in the capital and one in a smaller town with students whose first foreign
language is Spanish in the first school, and German – in the second. The only
participating school in Greece is a big private school in Athens, where German
is taught in small classes as a first foreign language. The school in Poland is a
community school with small classes studying Spanish as a first language.
The lesson observations were carried out with the aim of monitoring the process
of implementing the project programme. By the time of the obserbations all
students had already had a series of lessons in the respective subject (Physics,
Chemistry, or Biology) and had had some experience working with the mobile
labs purchased for the purposes of the project. The observed lessons were
planned in advance, following the CLIL observation checklist produced under
the project. The checklist is organized into 4 groups of indicators related to: 1.
Lesson structure, design, and outcomes; 2. Teaching and learning strategies; 3.
Content, language, and communication; and 4. Classroom and Learning process
management/ Mobile Labs.

Analysis and discussion

As an educational approach CLIL is concerned mainly with the classroom
and the teaching and learning processes taking place in its immediate context.
However, the process of planning which remains hidden for the observer is
equally important for achieving success in class. Therefore, bottom-up research
– from planning to its realization, is the best approach in the situation.

Planning the lessons – good practices, challenges, and recommendations

The lesson plans for the observed lessons and those preceding (and following)
them were uploaded on the Moodle platform of the project. All plans followed
the same mutually agreed template which reflected the main stages of a
CLIL inquiry based on doing experiments and working with the mobile labs,
starting with a trigger stage, forming and stating a hypothesis, experimentation
(processes/results) for verification of the hypothesis, followed by a conclusion
and transfer, generalisation and application of the results. Before planning for
the stages, the teachers had to think about the prerequisites or requirements for
82 Challenges in English Teaching and Research

the present lesson, and briefly outline its content in terms of the studied subject
matter. This was important in order to ensure continuity and make the effect of
learning more lasting.
The first challenge for the subject and language teachers was to plan a lesson
together – something they have never done before. Agreeing and negotiating the
content of the lesson in terms of the subject matter, the nature and the amount of
language work, the time students need for conducting the experiments, and the
time they need to describe and analyse the results, made the planning process
extremely demanding. The template itself was also new to teachers – it follows
the stages of an experimental enquiry, and so should have been more familiar
to subject teachers, which was not necessarily the case, since traditional subject
teaching in participating countries is done primarily in a lecture mode with
little involvement or active participation of the students. Reviewing the plans
one has the impression that they were not used as an active tool for channeling
and facilitating teachers’ thinking about the lesson, but were written later when
the decisions about the lesson content and structure were already made.
The subject teachers had the leading role in choosing or deciding on the lesson
content. Their decisions were usually motivated in the first place by their
knowledge of what subject matter is taught in the respective subject (Physics,
Chemistry, or Biology) to students of that age, and second, by the options
presented by the mobile lab. Once the topic was chosen, the subject teacher
decided on the experiments and activities to be done with the mobile lab. Then
the experiment(s) were planned by both teachers who had to choose appropriate
tasks and target language (key terms and communication patterns) for each
stage of the lesson.
Some teachers found the trigger stage (the first stage in the plan template)
challenging, as they were not sure about its purpose and meaning. Its aim in
general is to trigger students’ interest by providing a context through revision
of studied material, previous or background knowledge, or providing input
related to the topic in the form of reading/listening/visual material. The trigger
should then lead to forming a hypothesis which in turn has to be tested through
experiments with the mini laboratory equipment. Experiments take the central
part of the lesson. They are time-consuming and require careful, clear and
staged instructions, and close monitoring and assistance (when needed) by the
teachers. Once the experiments are finished, the students have to summarise the
results and formulate conclusions which confirm or repudiate the hypothesis.
The final stage of the lesson should be dedicated to transferring the obtained
knowledge to real-life contexts, making generalisations and finding examples
of application of the findings to local or wider contexts.
The second challenge to the teachers was to formulate the aims of the lesson,
which were to be planned with respect to the 4 Cs (Content, Communication,
 Teacher collaboration in clil contexts: challenges and good practices 83

Cognition, and Culture), so that they reflect students’ benefits in terms of the 4
Cs. The aims were not always phrased as aims, and were not differentiated for
each phase of the lesson.
Other sections of the plan which posed difficulties for the teachers were those
specifying student and teacher activity, which were presented as separate
columns in the plan template. The review of the plans leaves one with the
impression that teachers should plan for a greater student involvement, a finding
in line with research finding that student participation decreases in the CLIL
classroom (see Dalton-Puffer et al. 2008).
Whereas student activity section is more descriptive – describes what students
do at each stage of the lesson (which should correspond to the tasks in the
worksheets), teacher activity section should reflect the variety of teacher roles
(e.g. facilitator, manager, monitor, assessor, etc.) during the lesson with a clear
focus on students autonomy and the ways the teacher/teachers scaffold students’
cognitive development and language acquisition. In some plans there was very
little or no variety in the description of teacher activities. What is more, in the
cases when the lesson is to be co-taught by both teachers, their participation
and the exact role they have in each activity should be clearly specified. This is
particularly important if teachers do not have any experience in team teaching,
which was the case in all schools involved in the project.
Another problem, identified in the review of the lesson plans, was that planning
interaction patterns (social forms of work) did not always reflect the nature of
the tasks. Getting students to discuss something in pairs or to brainstorm ideas
in a whole-class format depends on the respective task objectives. However, in
some plans the variety of patterns was not justified by the nature of the activity.
As a rule, language teachers are more used to having a variety of interaction
patterns in a lesson, and they should be able to suggest the appropriate ones and
negotiate their use with the subject teachers. The chosen formats should create
the most favourable conditions for achieving task results, should be specified
for each stage and justified in the objectives section. This is in line with the
requirement to plan for a balance between teacher-led and student-initiated and
controlled activities.
The section which specifies the use of materials and mobile labs should contain
a clear indication of reference to these materials – all handouts/ worksheets
meant to be used in the lesson should be numbered.
There are two sections in the plan template which refer to the study and use
of language, both CALP and BICS. CALP is related to both subject specific
vocabulary and grammar structures (patterns, speech acts, performatives/ action
verbs, and the patterns they require) used for cognitive processing of the studied
material. The subject teacher should negotiate the selection of CALP language
84 Challenges in English Teaching and Research

with the language teacher, and make sure it corresponds to students’ cognitive
and language level. BICS refers to communication and interaction and is less
cognitively demanding than CALP. However, if the proficiency level of students
is not high enough, it might pose additional difficulties in communicating
during the experimental stage, which can lead to increased mother tongue use
and unmotivated code-switch. Both sections in the plan should contain samples
of the way teachers scaffold students’ understanding of the new content and
develop their communication skills. These samples are indicative of the way
teachers plan to teach the content of the subject and at the same time work on
improving students’ language skills.
To sum up, the main recommendations related to planning the lessons are as
follows:
• Lesson plan should use clear sequencing and numbering of
activities and corresponding worksheets. Although the stages
were clearly outlined, the activities for these stages were not
always specified. In some cases, the procedures and tasks
should be described in more detail.
• Language and subject teachers should work together in planning
lesson activities and preparing materials. Their plans should
contain a clear distribution of their roles and responsibilities in
the lesson.
• In planning the teaching of key vocabulary in STEM lessons
and developing students’ BISC and CALP, it is important not
only to introduce but also to practise and consolidate key verbs
and structures which are central to understanding and using
science discourse.
• The duration of each stage or sub-stage in the lesson which was
missing in some of the plans should be clearly indicated in order
to ensure appropriate time distribution for achieving lesson
aims. It is not necessary to do everything that has been planned
(and included in the worksheets) – it is better to be flexible and
adapt to students’ needs, especially at the consolidation stage.

Teaching the lessons - good practices, challenges, and recommendations

Research in CLIL has provided abundant evidence that there is a lack of cohesion
around CLIL ‘pedagogies’, and that different models and their constituent
dimensions have contributed to the emergence of a range of methods, materials
and curriculum organisation which respond to educational settings in different
countries (see Coyle 2007).
The lessons taught and observed under the project were no exception to this
 Teacher collaboration in clil contexts: challenges and good practices 85

finding. The initial aim of the project was to provide language tuition to subject
teachers, so that eventually they can teach the subject in the foreign language
– German or Spanish respectively. However, due to increased work load and
time constraints not all participating subject teachers attended the language
courses or learnt the language to the level necessary to give them confidence
to teach their subject in the foreign language. It was agreed that in the process
of project implementation the teachers can experiment with different forms of
collaboration and co-teaching. The idea was for the language teacher to provide
more support at the beginning, and then gradually withdraw and give the leading
role to the subject teacher.
Lesson observations in different schools revealed the following models of
teaching:
• lessons taught in the target language by the language teacher
alone without any involvement of the subject teacher, with
occasional translation of terms into students’ mother tongue
provided by the language teacher;
• lessons taught mainly by the language teacher with subject
teacher assisting groups of students during the experiment and
providing guidance to groups and individual students in their
mother tongue;
• lessons taught mainly by the language teacher in target language
with the subject teacher intervening at times to provide input or
explanation in students’ mother tongue;
• lessons taught by both teachers speaking target language and
mother tongue in turns or simultaneously;
• lessons taught by the subject teacher alone mainly in students’
mother tongue with terminology given in the target language in
worksheets;
• lessons taught by the subject teacher alone in the target language
with occasional translation of terminology, with the language
teacher present but not intervening.

The choice of a teaching model in each school depended on several main

factors:
• the willingness and desire of the language teacher to experiment
with something new /a subject lesson with the use of a mobile
lab/, based on teacher’s personal qualities, self-esteem and risk
taking;
• the language level of the students – in some schools the students
86 Challenges in English Teaching and Research

had begun to study the language a few months before joining

the project, and their language level was not high enough to
understand a lesson in the foreign language;
• subject teacher’s willingness and readiness to teach the lesson
in the target language which s/he is currently studying;
• both language and subject teachers’ willingness to cooperate in
planning and teaching the lesson together.

The observations identified a number of positive aspects and good practices

in the teaching models demonstrated in the schools. It can be said that the
covered content was suitable for students’ needs, interests, and cognitive level
both in terms of the subject matter and the target language. The students were
motivated to explore and make discoveries in the science domain and teach
teachers provided suitable scaffolding for developing students’ CALP and BICS
skills. Although some of the topics were familiar to the students as they were
studied in the respective subject classes, it had a positive role in the classes
where the target language proficiency was not high.
The lessons were based on interesting, motivating, and innovative material
which appealed to different students’ cognitive/ learning styles and intelligences.
In most lessons there was a variety of activities and interaction patterns, which
shows that the teachers together managed to change the traditional routine of
teaching in a frontal way only.
Most observed lessons successfully incorporated the use of mobile labs for
providing hands-on experience to support learning of subject matter knowledge
and target language, and the teachers tried to provide a smooth transition
through the 5 steps of STEM inquiry: trigger – hypothesis – experimentation –
verification/ conclusion – generalisation/ transfer.
Cooperation between subject and language teachers facilitated their mutual
learning; language teachers had a good array of methodological tools, and the
subject teachers were willing to use these tools in their teaching and try to speak
the foreign language.
The teachers had a good rapport with the students and created a good working
environment. They motivated and encouraged learners to explore the topic,
experiment, discuss and report their findings. They also praised students for
their efforts and results which was very important as the students were involved
in a new type of lesson they were not familiar with. The most important factor
for achieving success was the teachers’ willingness to face the challenges of
working together and co-teaching with another subject/ language teacher. The
cooperation was extended beyond the classroom, as the teachers were open and
willing to discuss the lessons with the observers and with other teachers from
 Teacher collaboration in clil contexts: challenges and good practices 87

their school and the other schools involved in the project.

Observing students at work, revealed that they had the intrinsic motivation to
study the subject matter in a foreign language and to work with the mobile
labs. Moreover, they had a positive attitude and respect for their teachers and
were ready to work with them in this new type of lesson. Students actively
contributed to the good working atmosphere by being cooperative and willing
to work in teams and pairs. Most of them demonstrated good enough command
of the target language both in terms of BICS and CALP.
Along with the good practices observed in the lessons, some issues and
challenges for the teachers had been identified, which were discussed with the
teachers after the observations.
One of the main problems seemed to result from poor planning of the subject
and the language teacher’s part in the lesson. Clear role and responsibilities
distribution would have helped avoid confusion and overlapping. When both
teachers teach the lesson, there needs to be a balance between their participation
and clear transitions between their activities.
Another issue was language use. As Coyle, points out “whilst the ‘C’ representing
communication takes into account linguistic elements such as grammar, it
also includes a wider interpretation of communication for learning which
accommodates issues such as the use of the mother tongue and codeswitching”
(Coyle 2007: 552). However, code switching (when present in the lessons) was
not always motivated and balanced. In principle, classroom language should be
the target language, not students’ and teachers’ mother tongue.
Another issue is that the teachers should not talk simultaneously in two different
languages as this distracts students and disrupts their work. The subject teachers
speaking L1 should limit their talking time and modify the manner in which
subject matter is presented (e.g. being as detailed as possible and requiring full
sentences in response). In this way there will be more time for target language
focus and practice.
In some fragments of lessons taught mainly by subject teachers in L1, the
language teacher’s role was simply to provide language support through
unnecessary translation. This should be avoided, as it distracts students and
makes their task less challenging.
As for the students, there should be more interaction among them while doing
the experiment or task. Students need to be given enough time for speaking
the target language, especially when they describe the experiment and present
their findings and conclusions. This is in line with Coyle’s observation that
promoting interactivity also has repercussions for classroom learning cultures
where learner – learner interaction and specific scaffolded teacher support may
88 Challenges in English Teaching and Research

not be in the usual repertoire or classroom routines of either teachers or learners

(Coyle 2007). Both teachers should step back and let students work, discover,
and think for themselves. They should facilitate, guide, and monitor students
at work rather than engaging them in listening to theoretical input or giving
additional instructions while they are working.

Conclusion
To sum up, there is still a lot of work to be done by both subject and language
teachers in order to overcome the difficulties inherent in CLIL implementation.
The observations confirmed the fact that teaching a subject in a foreign language
requires a specialist pedagogical expertise from both teachers. Language
teachers might need to learn to talk in an especially comprehensible way, to teach
a lot of academic vocabulary, to help learners listen in a foreign language, and
give them feedback, to help learners speak the target language when working
in groups or pairs, read more complex subject texts, and write summaries or
conclusions. Subject teachers who use the target language can get advice on how
to do these things from the language teachers while thinking about and planning
the lesson together. Language teachers can advise subject teachers on their own
language use, on the language demands of their subjects and on the kinds of
language support and practice which the subject teachers can incorporate into
their lessons. Subject teachers do not simply need to improve the level of their
language – they need to be familiar with and use foreign language teaching
methodology, especially the principles and practice of communicative language
teaching and task-based learning. Finally, different models of collaboration
between teachers in class might be used and experimented with in different
lessons, so that the most suitable models be found for each specific teaching and
learning context. This collaboration can be effected and further supported by the
“construction of communities of CLIL practitioners” (Coyle 2014:556), where
“participants engage in ‘co-exploring’ theories of practice which are rooted in
what they do and why, yet also guided by knowledgeable others who signpost
relevant practice already in the field for critique” (ibid). Further research in the
area is needed and working together on projects is one way forward to building
much needed evidence and reflecting on it to overcome challenges.

References:
Buckley 2000. Buckley F. Team-teaching: What, why and how? Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Publications, 2000.
Coyle 2006. Coyle D. “Content and Language Integrated Learning. Motivating Learners
and Teachers. 2006. <blocs.xtec.cat/clilpractiques1/files/2008/11/slrcoyle.pdf>.
Coyle 2007. Coyle D. “Content and Language Integrated Learning: Towards a Connected
Research Agenda for CLIL Pedagogies”. International Journal of Bilingual Education and
 Teacher collaboration in clil contexts: challenges and good practices 89
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90 Challenges in English Teaching and Research

Adapting an English language textbook to the

principles and laws of Suggestopedia
Dessislava Georgieva Todorova-Hlavacik*

Abstract: The article aims to describe the application of Suggestology in the pedagogical
practice – Suggestopedia/Reservopedia. An overview of “suggestion” as a communicative
factor and as a psychological basis for the science of Suggestology is presente together
with the main principles, means and laws of Suggestopedia. Some characteristics of the
suggestopedic textbook and my work in remodelling the original textbook “Energy for
Bulgaria, for the 6-th grade” into a new stopedically adapted version are presented.
Key words: suggestion, suggestology, suggestopedia, suggestopedic textbook

Introduction
Teachers of foreign languages often have an idea about the teaching/learning
process formed on their experience of studying foreign languages themselves.
When teachers are informed and exposed to varieties of different methods they
become more aware of their personal values and beliefs about the educational
process. By being clear on their own assumptions teachers may choose to teach
differently. Thus, the knowledge of various alternative methods will help them
in modifying their current practices.
One humane method which deserves attention because it has proven to be
effective for teaching many subjects including foreign languages is the method
called Suggestopedia. It is based on the Suggestology science, and its founder
is the Bulgarian scientist, psychotherapist and psychiatrist – Prof. Dr. Georgi
Lozanov M.D., who in the 1950s began his search for safe ways to uncover
the reserves of the human brain (mind) through suggestion and thus created
the science of Suggestology. Doctor Lozanov was the director of the Research
Institute of Suggestology founded by the Ministry of Education and the Bulgarian
Science Academy in 1966, for the period of 20 years (1966-1985). He founded
and directed the Center of Suggestology and Personal Development at the
University of Sofia, an International Center of Desuggestology in Vienna and the
International Center for training and specialization of teachers in Viktorsberg,
Vorarlberg, Austria (Lozanov 2005b: 129-131), (Lozanov 2009: 216-219). In
1978 UNESCO international committee of twenty experts conducted a research
on the Suggestology method, evaluated it as a higher form of education for
different subjects and ages.

* BA student in the Department of English Studies, University of Shumen, Shumen, Bulgaria

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