Content Teachers’ Perspectives from a CLIL Methodology Training Course

The purpose of this study is to explore upper secondary teachers’ perceptions, attitudes, and needs regarding a CLIL methodology teacher training course offered by the Language Centre of the University of Molise in the year 2017-2018. To this end, multiple sources of evidence were gathered from e-questionnaires and observations. The findings point to the need to strengthen training in the areas of micro-teaching and teaching practice and to the importance of practice observation, especially from more experienced CLIL teachers. In this respect, the study suggests to consider a more extensive usage of on-line teaching environments where additional support and valuable resources can be provided throughout the course.


Introduction
A number of studies have described and documented CLIL training pathways and the integration of CLIL in the Italian curricula (Cinganotto 2016;Coonan 2007Coonan , 2012Di Martino, Di Sabato 2012;Serragiotto 2009), as it will be described in more detail in the next section. These scholarly investigations devote particular attention to the perceptions and attitudes of teachers involved in CLIL courses providing a forum for discussion about the sustainability of CLIL and the nature of effective and adequate teacher training. In particular, they aim to provide an investigation of CLIL teacher learning experiences beyond the local and anecdotal level, often combining quantitative and qualitative methodologies to better understand the problems in teacher training, the subject teachers' needs and their attitudes towards the CLIL approach. Although the information is often patchy, there is a lack of long-term data, and not all Italian regions are in the same position, a broad picture has emerged. These results show that the ongoing CLIL implementation in Italy has been quite satisfactory. However, organizational, linguistic and methodological issues often arise due to different factors including administrators' attitudes towards CLIL, teachers' adequate language knowledge, their motivation and beliefs, a given school's technical equipment and the educational environments in which the school may be involved. What has often been reported is that teachers are particularly concerned with their language competence required to deliver the contents foreseen by their discipline in the foreign language of choice.
It is against this backdrop that the assessment of the training course provided by the Language Centre of the University of Molise is reported and reflected upon in this article. It may offer a chance to further ponder the strengths and limitations of CLIL training in Italy, which are well worth considering in other national contexts, too. The Language Centre of the University of Molise has increasingly supported the professional development of teachers by arranging regularly scheduled lectures, seminars and conferences in applied linguistics and language teaching methodology. Tangible and recent examples of such opportunities are the various editions of "La Giornata delle Lingue" since 2015, and the conferences "Sociolinguistica delle varietà: Studi e teoria" (2018) and "Trasversalità delle lingue tra scuola e società" (2018). These initiatives suggest that the intent of the Language Centre is to push the boundaries of pedagogic practice and promote an exchange between scholarly research and school practitioners. In this light, the chance to offer a course as conceptually rooted in both local context and innovative pedagogies as a CLIL methodology teacher training course seemed to be the right occasion to further implement our policy and strengthen relationships with teachers and schools in an area of increasing importance to education in the 21st century. This article was designed as a revelatory case study, since the defined research topic has not been previously studied in the Molise region. In particular, it tries to look into qualitative aspects of teacher education for CLIL in Molise. It is structured as follows: Section 2 reviews literature on teachers' perceptions and needs, in addition to presenting the theoretical framework. Section 3 provides contextual details and presents the research methodology including coverage of the research design, methods of data collection, and respondents. Section 4 presents the research findings. Section 5 discusses the results of the study. Section 6 outlines the future implications for trainers and other stakeholders.

Literature Review
An increasing number of academic studies have been published worldwide focusing on CLIL teachers' performances, their specific professional characteristics and competences (Alonso, Grisalena, Campo 2008;Butler 2005, and others), on teachers' opinions, beliefs, attitudes, experiences, and concerns (Cammarata 2009;Coonan 2007;Hunt 2011;Pavón Vázquez, Rubio Alcalá 2010;Pena Diáz, Porto Requejo 2008;Pérez Cañado 2016, and others), on their evolving teaching knowledge about CLIL (Lopriore 2018), and on the need for professional development and training (Banegas 2012;Hillyard 2011;Hunt, Neofitou, Redford 2009;Pistorio 2009, Lorenzo, Casal, Moore 2009Dalton-Puffer 2008;Lasagabaster, Sierra 2009;Mehisto, Asser 2007, and others). More specifically, prior investigations into teachers' beliefs reflect the growing acceptance of CLIL among teachers, but also highlight that most teachers are still concerned about their own language skills and the confidence necessary to plan and carry out this kind of teaching. This issue applies also to the Italian context. For example, secondary school mathematics teachers were asked about their attitudes towards different aspects of CLIL (Favilli, Maffei, Peroni 2013), and they reported a number of difficulties related to their linguistic ability. A more recent article by Costa (2017) on the profile of content teacher trainees in terms of their relationship with English as an additional language also revealed some insecurities regarding their mastery of English.  Martino and Di Sabato (2017) found regarding the Italian context, insisting on the need to focus on the CLIL teacher, particularly in those settings in which multilingual language proficiency falls short of EU language policy expectations.
To date, there is no concrete data on the current state of the art of CLIL in Molise. There have been several and valuable initiatives to implement CLIL programmes and provide CLIL training, as reported by Perniola and Serragiotto (2014). However, these initiatives have not been investigated or documented in any systematic way to successfully implement CLIL training locally, for example, considering the environment in which the CLIL action takes place (involvement and support of stakeholders), the personal information about the teachers, their language abilities and methodology needs. This article intends to fill this gap by reporting the opinions and needs of a group of in-service teachers involved in a CLIL course, whose main objective was to provide participants with an introduction to the CLIL approach, classroom language and management strategies to better integrate content and language in the teaching of a school subject. The analysis of e-questionnaires, which were sent to the teachers at the end of their training experience, together with the background research carried out throughout the course, will hopefully help us, University CLIL trainers on this specific occasion, improve our knowledge about teachers' needs, beliefs and expectations, and this in turn will help us support them in the integration of the CLIL curriculum in their secondary school context and in the reflection upon its potential benefits, conflicts and impediments, which is crucial for an effective long-term implementation of CLIL in Italian schools. This article follows the line of research proposed in the previously mentioned study by Ruiz-Garrido and Fortanet Gómez (2009), who recommend a careful needs assessment and a rigorous evaluation to ensure the effectiveness of CLIL methodology training: it is necessary to make sure the teachers are provided with the support and the training they need. Needs analysis, by means of interviews, questionnaires, language audits, tests, and class observation, can provide information about the wants of (and what is lacking for) teachers (184).

Course Organization
In response to a ministerial call, the Language Centre of the University of Molise has been awarded funding for arranging and teaching a CLIL methodological course targeted at upper secondary teachers in the Molise region. The CLIL training programme emphasised the core characteristics of CLIL (Marsh et al. 2010). In particular, the first phase of the course included an introductory module concerning the theoretical foundations and a historical overview of L2 learning theories. This module addressed the methodological principles of language teaching by providing basic knowledge of the main language teaching methods, both in diachronic and synchronic terms. Moreover, it covered the crucial nodes of defining a language, and what it means to teach and to learn a language was also introduced. Critical elements related to linguistics and language teaching were then discussed. Finally, the key concepts related to the Common European Framework of Reference were introduced and, focussing on the latest language teaching methods, with particular attention to the humanistic ones, the main points of the language teaching/learning process were discussed. Two other modules followed to provide the cross-curricular methodological knowledge needed as a basis for the practical and research-action oriented activities envisaged in the second phase. In particular, the second module focussed more specifically on the CLIL teaching techniques to be used in the teaching practice, while the third was based on CLIL lesson planning.
In the second phase of the course, participants (see below 3.3) were given the chance to simulate and experiment with CLIL teaching with the guidance of both linguistic and disciplinary tutors, as well as to become familiar and evaluate current secondary CLIL textbooks. In addition to designing and planning lessons, trainees were also asked to evaluate and reflect upon the effectiveness and appropriateness of their own teaching and that of their peers in a peer teaching setting. These simulated classrooms provided participants with the opportunity to explore difficult situations and improve their lesson plans. During the preparation of the lessons, trainees were joined by subject tutors who observed together with the language experts the simulated lessons. In the final phase, trainers further practiced their lessons at their local schools while being observed by CLIL methodology and language experts. On completion of the course, the teachers were asked to discuss the teaching sequence implemented throughout the course. Course modules and components are summarized in table 1:

Methods
This study followed a mixed methods approach to collect varied empirical data from multiple data sources. The aim was to find out if the training programme designed for the in-service CLIL teachers and carried out from May 2018 to January 2019 was perceived to have been effective in helping the trained teachers improve their methodological skills and understanding as well as increase their motivation and ability to invest these skills locally. More precisely, the research questions were the following: 1. How do teachers evaluate the training programme? 2. How do teachers assess their methodological competencies? 3. How can these findings be interpreted to implement the CLIL methodology course both locally and nationally?
To gather qualitative data sixteen sessions of teaching practice observations were conducted using a modified version of a feedback form commonly employed by Teaching House and other training agencies to assess teachers' classroom practice. The teaching practice observations were useful to understand the challenges teachers face in their classrooms. Previous additional data were collected through the instructional simulations, during which the same feedback form was used by trainees to evaluate their peers' teaching practice. More generally, the qualitative research paradigm was useful: -To engage with the training process over time within the teaching context. -To understand teachers' conceptualisation and implementation of the CLIL approach. -To hear the voices of trainee teachers in terms of knowledge, practice, assumptions, attitudes, concerns and beliefs. Data derived from both classroom observations and instructional simulations helped to identify areas of improvements and were used to design questions to be asked to informants (DeMunck, Sobo 1998) in the structured e-questionnaire which was submitted in January 2019. The questionnaire consisted of twenty-one items. The first twelve items were designed to seek feedback about the level of satisfaction with the course usefulness, teaching, teaching material, hosting premises and services. The remaining items were meant to elicit information concerning self-assessment of acquired CLIL competences, interest towards further CLIL training opportunities as well as preferences and recommendations for course improvements.
The questionnaire combined open-ended questions and closed questions answerable on a 4-point Likert scale (1 = unsatisfactory, 4 = very satisfactory). For open-ended questions, an optional space was provided to elaborate on the answer. This open part is crucial for a survey of this kind as it greatly contributes to improving the interpretation of its overall results and provides additional valuable data. After filling in the e-questionnaires, a target group of teachers were invited for follow-up interviews and asked to explain or complete their answers, where necessary.

Survey Group Profile
The participants of this study were sixteen in-service upper secondary teachers working at different types of schools located throughout Molise. The subjects involved were: Arts (1), Food Science (1), History (4), ICT (1), Economics (3), Law and Economics (4), and Mathematics (2). Nine teachers out of sixteen had a language competence (B2) below the recommended level (C1). Although it was not scientifically possible to generalise the findings of this study to the educational context of the region, the available results are significant in terms of added knowledge, offering us an insightful perspective on how a selection of teachers from different school environments and disciplinary needs and constraints respond to the challenge of CLIL training. Given that the target population is small and the combination of individual characteristics can provide distinctive individual profiles, data have been stripped of all personal identifiers in order to preserve the participants' anonymity.

Findings
In this section the results are presented according to the main areas of interest in our questionnaire: usefulness, teaching, teaching material, methodological competence, training needs and training shortcomings and possible improvements (see Appendix). A preliminary question (Q1) about the language competence certification possessed was included to better understand the connection between language skills and training needs identified by the respondents.

Usefulness
In Q2, course participants were asked to evaluate the appropriateness of the course in relation to overall aims and professional needs. All surveyed teachers rated as "satisfactory" the Consistency of the course contents with the prefixed aims. The Compliance of the training experience with the initial expectations was also considered "satisfactory" by 80% of the teachers and "not totally satisfactory" by the remaining respondents. As for as the Applicability at school of the topics covered during the course was concerned, 90% of the teachers rated it as "satisfactory" and the remaining ones as "very satisfactory".

Teaching
In Q3, course participants were asked about the teaching. The trainers' Knowledge of the contents was rated as "satisfactory" by 80% of the trainees and "very satisfactory" by the remaining 20%. Clarity when speaking was also considered "satisfactory" by most of the teachers (90%) and "very satisfactory" by 10%. Classroom management: Organisational and relational skills was evaluated as "satisfactory" (80%) but a few teachers considered it "not totally satisfactory" (20%). Finally, Organicity and sequentiality during topic presentation was rated as "satisfactory" by 80% of the teachers and "very satisfactory" by the remaining ones. Despite these positive findings, some critical issues regarding the assessment of teaching are expressed in the open-ended questions and better clarified in the follow-up interviews.

Teaching material
In Q4, trainees were asked about the teaching material used throughout the course. 80% of the surveyed teachers rated as "satisfactory" the Quantity of teacher materials, while the remaining respondents evaluated it as "not totally satisfactory". Similarly, 80% of the surveyed teachers rated the Quality of teacher materials "satisfactory", while the remaining 20% expressed a less positive evaluation of "not totally satisfactory".

Hosting premises and services
In Q5, trainees were asked to evaluate the organisational aspects, including administrative personnel and equipment. What is interesting to note is that while the surveyed teachers' responses to the items on hosting premises tended to be different ranging from "unsatisfactory" to "very satisfactory"; as far as the assistance from nonteaching staff was concerned, teachers rated it as "satisfactory" and "very satisfactory".

Self-assessment of acquired CLIL competences
In Q6, trainees were asked to assess their learning outcomes, namely the skills and knowledge acquired during the course. Although the questions pertain to rather different aspects of professional knowledge and skills, most of the respondents rate them as 'satisfactory' (80%) and 'very satisfactory' (20%), which may be considered as a positive self-assessment of the competences gained during the 120 hours of training. Despite this positive evaluation, regarding the respondents' CLIL competences, more personalised views emerge from the responses to the open-ended questions (Q8 and Q9), which call for more extensive and detailed feedback to improve methodological principles and procedures.

Course expectations, training evaluation, interests and course improvements
As mentioned in the 'Methods' section, the e-questionnaire included four open-ended questions which gave teachers the chance to clarify the course strengths and weaknesses, as well as to provide suggestions for improvements and further training opportunities. When the surveyed teachers were asked about what they found more useful and beneficial in the course (Q7), the "teaching practice" was the most widely mentioned aspect. The teachers also pointed out the importance of "learning new teaching methods" and "methodologies to use in a CLIL lesson" and "the knowledge of some teaching methodologies that have turned out to be useful and well-integrated with my own personal teaching approach". Other beneficial components mentioned by the respondents were the "positive climate" and "the constructive rapport with other teachers" and "the opportunity to learn from each other's practice". This question also allowed teachers to express their opinions on CLIL benefits more generally. According to some of them, CLIL lessons provide an opportunity to produce a methodological revolution in order to facilitate the development of linguistic skills and the increased motivation of students towards their subjects: "my students greatly enjoyed the lesson and the opportunity to practice the English language. They were very motivated".
In Q8, secondary school teachers were asked to describe their difficulties during the training programme and the way to deal with them. Almost all of the trainees admitted to finding the training programme challenging, primarily because of the intensive schedule. The surveyed teachers agreed that time was an issue, but they also indicated that for them such a professional development course is "useful" and "can be considered essential at school". One of the interviewed respondents explained that "the dedicated teacher makes time for learning even though we're always very busy". However, a less intensive and demanding timetable would had been more adequate for trainees who have family and work commitments and have not been engaged in full-time study for some time. Another teacher explained that she was concerned about the language level required to interact with the trainers and teach CLIL lessons, and considered it crucial to be corrected while speaking English in class. Another troubling aspect was the lack of suitable CLIL materials. Due to this lack of availability of adequate CLIL materials, some teachers admitted they had to face the daunting task of adapting authentic materials in their lessons or designing original ones to meet their students' needs. For this reason, these teachers perceived the work overload both for teachers and sometimes learners critically. These difficulties in class also strongly resonate with findings in Q9 of feeling unconfident when teaching due to the lack of immediate feedback from trainers.
More specifically, in Q9 trainees were asked to better clarify their negative evaluations and course expectations, as well as to express their suggestions for improvements. Almost all the surveyed teachers reported that the course was well taught and stimulating. Regarding teaching, as expressed in Q3, it was considered "satisfactory" in terms of content knowledge and delivery of instruction, but as far as the course instructors communication approach is concerned, it should be noted that trainees would have preferred to build a more personal rapport with the trainers and supervising teachers through more focused feedback and direct interaction. In particular, they admitted that the challenging practical components of the course were exacerbated by insufficient guidance from both tutors and experts and limited hands-on sessions: Like most teachers, I had no clue what I was doing when I started out. When I thought of my topic for the CLIL lesson, I thought it would require a complete mastery of the foreign language to teach effectively. I was not confident in teaching it. I believe my stress came not only from my lack of expertise to teach CLIL, but also from the limited hands-on practice time. More regular teaching practice and discussion with the supervising teachers and peers would have helped me improve my methodology and feel more prepared. To overcome what the respondents perceived as a scarcity of handson opportunities and limited feedback, several solutions were proposed. According to the surveyed teachers, it would have been beneficial to gain more teaching practice through model class videos on-line or off-line, to include on-line small group communication of teaching practice and personal or group teachers' teaching reflection without time and space limitation and to arrange regularly scheduled teaching practice throughout the whole programme, not only at the end of it, to better integrate theoretical knowledge with classroom teaching.
In Q10, trainees were asked to indicate possible areas of further training. The teachers' answers regarding their interest in attending other courses or workshops addressing CLIL methodology oscillated from "not interested" to "very interested", which seems linked to the fact that some of them would not have the chance to teach CLIL in their classes in the near future due to school administration issues. Approximately half of the surveyed teachers want to continue their CLIL training, but have not made specific proposals to do so. The indications for further training are concise and make rather vague references to "lesson planning" and "material design in my teaching area". However, it seems that teachers are more interested in the strictly methodological dimension and feel no need for further language and interactional preparation.

Overall Evaluation of the Course
On the whole, the questionnaire results reveal a favourable climate towards the programme. Half of the respondents considered the course "satisfactory", the other half evaluated it as being of "good" quality.

Discussion
This teacher survey elicited important information about which parts of the course worked and which did not. The results from the e-questionnaire implemented by the follow-up interviews revealed an overall positive assessment of the course by most participants, which creates a solid ground for a sustainable continuation of this programme at the Language Centre of the University of Molise. In the respondents' opinions, the course mostly facilitated mostly the development of methodological skills to implement CLIL. The teachers also recognised the need to change established habits which might be used in the L1 when teaching the same content in L2. They made a remarkable effort to shift from teacher-centred to learner-centred methods as demonstrated by the variety of classroom activities and interaction models employed in their lessons. Moreover, as many interviewed teachers reported, despite the scarcity of time devoted to teaching practice and reflection in the formal context of the course, they managed to develop their CLIL teaching knowledge and skills collaboratively and to share ideas about what to teach and how to teach through CLIL. Their commitment to the success of their CLIL lessons generally meant that they spent more time on planning the structure of their lessons and they worked hard at creating resources and activities that would achieve effective learning outcomes and that would motivate and engage learners, as one of the teachers reported during an interview: We spent hours and hours with the other teachers planning lessons, adapting materials, adjusting things. […] It was difficult, but we all experienced a special feeling of collaboration and trust.
This sheds light on the significant advantages of cooperation among teachers of non-linguistic areas for mutual improvement and on the importance of promoting a more dynamic and creative relationship between peers in teacher training contexts. It was particularly visible during observations that teachers expressed spontaneous enthusiasm towards the CLIL method, although some of them showed signs of anxiety due to their lower language competence and/or perceived insufficiency of teaching practice. However, during the followup interviews, these teachers, who knew their linguistic skills were limited and/or CLIL teaching experience was scarce, confirmed that learning to adapt content and methods for CLIL classes, as well as to pay more attention to lesson planning, helped them to feel more confident. More generally, what is evident from the teachers' responses and attitudes during the classroom observations is that they became more aware of the primary importance of the methodological skills within the CLIL context. This seems to be in contrast with previous studies where concerns about the teacher's linguistic competence were highlighted as the most significant priority among teachers (see for instance, Vilkancienė and Rozgienė 2017; Barbero, Damascelli, Vittoz 2015;Ludbrook 2017). The resulting scenario underlines an important aspect of CLIL teacher training in Molise and elsewhere: although the improvement of non-linguistic area teachers' language proficiency should be documented to better trace a profile of the current situation regarding language mastery, it may be tentatively assumed that CLIL linguistic courses seem to be exerting positive effects on teachers' language level and confidence. For this reason, it is of great importance to obtain adequate support from the training agencies and authorities which favour the provision of ongoing methodological development. The obtained results are a clear indi-cation that the attendance at the course inspired teachers to develop their methodological competence and embrace innovative conceptions of teaching as well as the will to adapt the CLIL approach in their different teaching areas. As concerns the "rediscovery" of unused teaching methods, the most mentioned didactic strategies that emerged from the data analysis included cooperative learning and scaffolding activities to facilitate collaboration among learners and support reflection and task completion.
Although the majority of participants were positive in their evaluations of the course and their own learning outcomes, a series of deficiencies were found. One of the main needs identified by trainees was the possibility of doing more teaching practice to translate the theoretical and methodological education into hands-on experience. This is in line with the teachers' insistence on the necessity of finding a balance between theory and practice in the modules. As the responses to the survey items about the "Self-assessment of acquired CLIL competences" indicate, teachers' estimation of their knowledge, language and pedagogic skills were rated as being "satisfactory", calling for extensive counseling work and constructive feedback to facilitate professional growth and development. The training aimed to give the teachers a taster of the methods and materials rather than an exhaustive coverage of the CLIL approach and its theoretical underpinnings. However, the results point to the need to devote a larger amount of time to micro-teaching, teaching practice, and classroom observation of more experienced teachers to allow trainees to build their confidence as CLIL teachers. In this respect, it is also important to consider a more extensive usage of on-line teaching environments where additional support from CLIL experts and resources are available to trainees throughout the course.

Conclusion
In this small-scale research in Molise, trainees' attitudes towards CLIL training have been rather positive. The study gives evidence that the CLIL methodological course offered by the Language Centre of the University of Molise in the year 2017-2018 proved to be highly motivational and allowed teachers to achieve satisfactory training. However, more teaching practice and an explicit and personalised feedback would consolidate teachers' expertise and may help to boost their confidence. The research tools used to gather data provided the flexibility needed to come to insightful conclusions and practical recommendations. Despite these encouraging results, further research on a much larger scale will be required to measure more closely secondary teachers' learning expectations, needs and out-comes in the Molise region and elsewhere. More importantly, future pedagogical initiatives should be guided by empirical evidence such as that stemming from this study and possible replications of it. In other words, these findings should be taken into account to design and set up specific methodological CLIL courses. It is only by placing research at the service of pedagogy through "evidence-based practice" (Coyle 2011) that we will guarantee that teachers can confidently implement CLIL teaching and promote the advantages CLIL entails for both foreign language learning and subject knowledge.
To reach these aims, it is also important to stress the need for more cooperation and dialogue among training institutions in Italy about, for instance, the appropriate amount of course credit to be assigned to teaching practice and the availability of financial resources to be invested in blended teaching instruments.