Page 15 - VII Congreso Internacional Sobre Educación Bilingüe

Exploring Extremaduran Primary-school Teachers’ Beliefs: beyond linguistic and pedagogical competence
Irene Castellano Risco
English Department, Universidad de Extremadura, Badajoz, Spain
ircastellano@unex.es
Abstract
In the last few decades, we have foreseen the sudden emergence of the Content and Language Integrated Learning approach in Europe. The implementation of this approach has drawn the attention of different research fields, attempting to explore and identify its main implications on the teaching practice and on the different agents taking part in the teaching-learning process. Considering the speed with which the approach has spread, it is essential to gather information about its actual situation and stakeholders’ current needs and teachers’ beliefs may constitute an informative source of information. In this respect, an emergent and quite prolific branch of research has focused on the main thoughts, problems, concerns, and difficulties CLIL stakeholders (teachers, students, parents, and/or school staff) may encounter (see, for example, Pena Díaz & Porto Requejo, 2007; Alejo-González & Piquer-Píriz, 2010 or Brady & García Pinar, 2019).
This study aims to present a qualitative piece of research on the possible impact of CLIL training and experience on CLIL teachers’ beliefs. Four CLIL primary- school teachers in Badajoz (Spain) were interviewed with a 19-item open-ended questionnaire adapted from Pérez-Cañado (2021), Alejo González and Piquer Píriz (2010) and Ortega-Martín et al. (2019). The questionnaire was built upon five areas of interest: (i) background to elicit information about the informants; (ii) participants’ training, (iii) methodology employed in the classroom, (iv) beliefs
13