Some Lessons Learned: The ReCLes.pt CLIL Project in Higher Education

This paper draws together a number of best practices identified over the course of the national ReCLes.pt CLIL project. Developed by Portuguese Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) associated in the Network Association of Language Centers in Higher Education in Portugal (ReCLes.pt, http://recles.pt), the project promoted pilot teacher training courses in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). Ultimately, 33 CLIL course modules were implemented in six participating HEIs, impacting over 600 students. Over the course of three years to reach this initial long-term goal, the ReCLes.pt CLIL researchers collaborated to review the literature and work through the resulting debates. The resulting overarching course of action is reflected in the teaching manual, written collaboratively and published with the related data-gathering tools for the study partially funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. The best practices focused on in this article include promoting the perspective of FL learners as FL users, the practical implementation of communities of practice and learning, and the development of CLIL modules to include scaffolding and ICT.