An investigation into CLIL-related sections of EFL coursebooks: issues of CLIL inclusion in the publishing market

The current English Language Teaching (ELT) global coursebook market has
embraced content and language integrated learning (CLIL) as a weak form of
bilingual education and an innovative component to include in General English
coursebooks for EFL contexts. In this paper, I investigate how CLIL is included
in ELT coursebooks aimed at young learners, available to teachers in Argentina.
My study is based on the content analysis of four series, which include a section
advertised as CLIL oriented. Results suggest that such sections are characterised
by (1) little correlation between featured subjectspecific content and school
curricula in L1, (2) oversimplification of contents and (3) dominance of reading
skills development and lower-order thinking tasks. Through this study, I argue
that CLIL components become superficial supplements rather than a meaningful
attempt to promote weak forms of bilingual education.