Content and language integrated learning in Latin America 2008-2018: Ten years of research and practice

Bilingual education, usually a community’s L1 and English continues spreading geographically and across educational systems worldwide. With this expansion, the development of bilingual education approaches is under constant scrutiny. One recent approach is content and language integrated learning (CLIL). European in origin, CLIL can be viewed as an educational or language teaching approach and it refers to the teaching of curricular content and L2 in an integrated manner. This approach has received international attention, yet, how CLIL unfolds in settings outside Europe appears underrepresented in international publications. The aim of this article is to provide a critical review of CLIL in Latin America between 2008 and 2018. We surveyed 64 items (articles, book chapters, and dissertations) published in regional and international outlets: 41 empirical studies, 19 practice-oriented publications, and four reviews. It begins by Dario Luis Banegas, Paige Michael Poole, Kathleen A. Corrales 284 summarizing the CLIL continuum with a focus on contentand language-driven CLIL and CLIL frameworks. It then provides a synthesis of empirical studies and practiceoriented publications about CLIL in different Latin American settings. The corpus is analyzed following these unifying themes: pedagogy, perceptions and beliefs, teacher education, global citizenship, and language development. From this review, it transpires that Latin American CLIL is mostly implemented and examined from a language-driven perspective in private primary, secondary and higher education. Suggestions and implications for further research and practice are included.


Introduction
Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) has emerged in the European (language) education arena as an approach to offer socio-economic mobility, internationalization of higher education, and plurilingualism within the European Union by integrating L2 learning and curriculum content (Coyle, Hood, & Marsh, 2010;Marsh, Maljers, & Hartiala, 2001;Nikula, Dafouz, Moore, & Smit, 2016).
Concerning the evolution of CLIL, Cenoz (2013) suggests that "CLIL is part of regular education. Within this context, a clear distinction can be made between conceptualizing CLIL as a language teaching approach or as an educational approach" (p. 390). These two conceptualizations can be subsumed under a CLIL continuum offering content-driven CLIL models (i.e., teaching a content subject through the medium of an L2) and language-driven CLIL models (i.e., teaching English as an additional language through topics derived from the school curriculum) (Gallardo del Puerto, Basterrechea, & Martínez Adrián, 2020). However, European CLIL is established towards the content-end of the continuum in the quest for narrowing down the scope of CLIL as an umbrella term (Ball, Kelly, & Clegg, 2015), a term criticized for unclear boundaries (Cenoz, Genesee, & Gorter, 2014).
Whatever the model, CLIL, according to Coyle et al. (2010), is anchored in sociocultural theory, cognitive engagement following the revised version of Bloom's taxonomy (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001;Roussel, Joulia, Tricot, & Sweller, 2017), a systemic functional view of language, and genre-based pedagogy (Llinares & Morton, 2017;Llinares, Morton, & Whittaker, 2012). Language is the vehicle for education; therefore, L2 learning must be supported in either content-or language-driven models. The language triptych developed by Coyle et al. (2010) is usually employed to help teachers organize the interface between language and content-knowledge education. The language triptych consists of: (1) language of learning (subject-specific terminology, general academic language), (2) language for learning (language structures and speech acts needed to complete the learning tasks), and (3) language through learning (emergent language needed by learners during the learning process). Furthermore, the need to strengthen content and language systematic integration is channeled through Coyle et al.'s (2010) 4Cs Framework. The framework consists of four contextually related blocks: content (subject matter), communication (language), cognition (thinking skills), and culture (intercultural and global citizenship).
Due to the expansion and ramification of bilingual education in general (Macedo, 2019) and CLIL in particular, it becomes necessary to understand how CLIL is operationalized internationally. Publications on CLIL often examine teachers' and learners' beliefs on CLIL (e.g., Doiz & Lasagabaster, 2017), CLIL pedagogies and teacher education (e.g., Ikeda, 2019;Sylvén, 2019;Tsuchiya & Pérez-Murillo, 2020), global citizenship (Coyle et al., 2010), and language development (e.g., Llinares & Morton, 2017). Through these foci, researchers present a picture that addresses the different facets that contribute to successful and organic CLIL provision. Nevertheless, there is a lacuna in terms of CLIL in other contexts, particularly in Latin America. In the international landscape, how CLIL is enacted and theorized in Latin America remains underrepresented in high-impact journals. Hence, the aim of this review article is to conduct a comprehensive discussion of CLIL in Latin America in the 2008-2018 period to enhance local knowledge production and knowledge democratization (Feldman & Bradley, 2019). In this review, we have refrained from comparing CLIL in Latin America with Europe and other contexts since our aim is to discuss CLIL in Latin America in its own right, in this way allowing a lesser heard voice in the CLIL arena to be considered.
In this review, the year 2008 is our point of departure for two major academic events: (1) the launch of the LACLIL Journal in Colombia, and (2) the CLILthemed Annual FAAPI (Spanish for Federación Argentina de Asociaciones de Profesores de Inglés) Conference held in Argentina (Fernández, 2008).

Methodology
We formulated the following criteria to determine which publications would be reviewed. The publications had to (1) be in the public domain, (2) be available online and set in the 2008-2018 period, (3) be contextualized in Latin America, regardless of level (e.g., primary or secondary) or type (e.g., formal, state, private) of education or authors' nationality and affiliation, (4) be empirically grounded or informed CLIL implementation accounts (including reviews), and (5) focus on English as the additional language in CLIL due to our background in English language teaching. With these criteria, we surveyed the public domain in the following order: 1. Journal articles published in regional journals such as LACLIL Journal, Profile, AJAL (Argentinian Journal of Applied Linguistics), Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal, GiST Education and Learning Research Journal, MEX-TESOL. These journals were manually examined. 2. Journal articles published in international journals such as ESP Journal, or Language Learning Journal, using key words such as "CLIL + (a Latin American country, Latin America, Central America, South America)." 3. Repositories from Latin American universities: We concentrated on bachelors, masters, and doctoral dissertations. 4. Conference proceedings from the region (e.g., FAAPI Conference Selected Papers). 5. Book chapters in local, regional, and international volumes.
Last, we took the broadest possible road by Googling "CLIL + (a Latin American country, Latin America, Central America, South America)." Table 1 summarizes the 64 publications reviewed categorizing them according to publication type and country as described in this paragraph. Upon examination of geographical distribution, Argentina (24 publications) and Colombia (19) lead the number of contributions to the CLIL literature. However, it should be noted that in the case of Argentina, eight belong to one author in particular.  Argentina  20  3  1  Brazil  5  0  1  Chile  1  0  2  Colombia  18  0  1  Costa Rica  1  0  1  Cuba  1  1  1  Ecuador  1  0  0  Honduras  0  0  1  Mexico  2  0  1  Panama  0  0  1  Peru  0  0  1  Total  49  4  11 The items were classified to show the extent to which CLIL publications in Latin America have a tendency towards empirical studies, reviews, or reflective/practice accounts. We identified the following contributions: 40 empirical studies, 19 practice-driven outputs, and four reviews. Regarding the latter, we found reviews on: CLIL in Argentina (Banegas, 2011), CLIL in Brazil (Coelho Liberali & Megale, 2016Pimentel Siqueira, Landau, &Albuquerque Paraná, 2018), andCLIL in Colombia (McDougald, 2009). They trace CLIL research and practice, discuss benefits and challenges from a descriptive stance and do not engage in critiquing research methods or pedagogies.
In this article we concentrate on the 41 empirical studies and the 19 practice/ reflective accounts. The remainder of the review is organized as follows: (1) empirical studies, (2) reflective and practice accounts, and (3) common themes, and implications across empirical and practice outputs. The common themes emerged from content analysis (Selvi, 2020). This method contributed to summarizing and synthesizing the corpus as we identified recurrences in themes, contexts, findings, and research methods.

Empirical studies
The 41 empirical studies were analyzed to identify their focus, context, and research methodology, as shown in Table 2. In some cases (e.g., Curtis, 2012a, b), publications have been combined as they report on the same study. A critical analysis of the empirical studies summarized in Table 2 reveals that these studies have been mostly carried out by teacher-researchers implementing language-driven CLIL in their own teaching contexts (e.g., Mariño Avila, 2014). Other studies have been conducted by researchers involved in CLIL implementation through broader projects (e.g., Amado Valdivia, 2012;Porto, 2016). From a critical perspective, Latin American CLIL research tends to be qualitative, case-study based (e.g., Tavella & Banegas, 2016), and descriptive-exploratory of wider benefits and drawbacks in CLIL implementation (e.g., Corzo Zambrano & Robles Noriega, 2011).
The studies included the following data collection instruments: questionnaires and surveys (20), interviews (20), classroom observations (10), teaching and learning artefacts (17), including lesson plans, coursebooks and interactions as evidence of learning as in Keogh (2017), journals (6), and tests (6). The data collected through these instruments was subjected to thematic analysis (e.g., Lara Herrera, 2015), content analysis (e.g., Banegas, 2014b), and descriptive statistics (e.g., Castillo, 2008). While CLIL research is expected to report on linguistic and content/cognitive gains, Latin American CLIL has so far reported on learners' general progress in L2 language development without rigorous analysis of specific linguistic performance. In this sense, Latin American CLIL research is at an embryonic stage and it calls for the inclusion of researchers to help teacher-researchers refine their methodological frameworks and to enhance collaboration.

Reflective and practice accounts
Similarly to the empirical studies, the foci and contexts of the 19 reflective and practice accounts were identified, as presented in Table 3. Like the empirical studies, the reflective and pedagogical accounts also concentrate on language-driven CLIL as it related directly to their context. We identified: (1) reflections on how CLIL is defined (e.g., Rodríguez Bonces, 2012), (2) suggestions for how it can be implemented (e.g., Ravelo, 2014), (3) descriptions of CLIL within program curricula (e.g., Fernández, 2009), (4) descriptions of implementations of CLIL in specific classrooms (e.g., Pistorio, 2010) or materials, lesson plans, or pedagogical sequences for future implementations (e.g., Czischke Alvarez, 2013), and (5) frameworks for including CLIL in teacher education (Hillyard, 2011;Pistorio, 2009). Overall, within the 2008-2018 timeframe, the reflective and pedagogical accounts are essentially descriptive, anecdotal at times, with little critical comparison to how these experiences relate to those occurring within (and outside) the region. They also lack a critical review of how CLIL research and theoretical underpinnings may be challenged in practice or how practice could be theorized from context-responsive pedagogies.

Common themes
In this section, we offer a critical review of Latin American CLIL under five broad themes: (1) CLIL pedagogy, (2) CLIL perceptions and beliefs, (3) teacher education, (4) global citizenship, and (5) language development. These themes emerged from the literature search and analysis of commonalities in terms of the publications' foci.

CLIL pedagogy
Under this theme we conflate CLIL rationale and design, including projects, ideas, lesson plans and materials, and CLIL implementation, that is, experiences actually put into practice including lesson plans, materials, teaching and learning strategies, and assessment practices.
A critical examination of the conceptual framework underpinning all publications reviewed shows that the works of EU-based experts (e.g., Coyle et al., 2010;Marsh et al., 2001) are used for CLIL definitions and pedagogical frameworks such as the 4C's in, for example, Garzón-Díaz (2018). This feature reveals that Latin American CLIL acknowledges the European origin of CLIL and selects those early definitions which understand CLIL as an umbrella term for different models of integrating content and L2 learning. This feature is found not only in studies between -2010(e.g., Pistorio 2009) but also in more recent studies (e.g., Keogh, 2017), which may signal that while European CLIL has narrowed down the scope of CLIL to learning content through an L2 (Ball et al., 2015), Latin American CLIL gravitates between the language-driven and, to a lesser extent, content-driven approaches. Upon scrutiny of the focus of each publication, we identified 37 studies which explore CLIL as a language-driven approach for teaching English as a foreign language (e.g., Czischke Alvarez, 2013), and 20 studies which examine CLIL implementation for the teaching of content such as history (e.g., Lara Herrera, 2015;Ravelo, 2013), science (e.g., Gamero-Calderón, 2017, Garzón-Díaz, 2018Leal, 2016), geography (e.g., Costa-Rau, 2016), math (e.g., Corzo Zambrano & Robles Noriega, 2011), first aid (e.g., Finardi, Silveira, & Alencar, 2016), business (e.g., Gardner, 2009) or ELT methodologies (e.g., De la Barra et al., 2018).
Thus, CLIL, as implemented in Latin America, seems to be compatible with different approaches that highlight the need to provide learners at different levels with authentic, purposeful and engaging learning experiences which connect L2 learning with the curriculum and broader social imperatives such as global citizenship (see Section 5.4). In complying with such needs, there are publications which offer details around CLIL lesson planning (e.g., Banegas, 2016;Helver, 2015), materials development (e.g., Bettney, 2015;Zhyrun, 2016), and rubric-supported assessment (e.g., De la Barra et al., 2018;Leal, 2016) as an integral part of the learning process. These publications share the criteria that these aspects of CLIL need to be driven by (1) authenticity of tasks and multimedia input (e.g., Banegas, 2018, Porto, 2016 and (2) language scaffolding (e.g., Castillo, 2008;Keogh, 2017). The lesson plans and materials particularly feature the use of graphic organizers and visuals such as pictures or photographs and collaborative tasks that lead to a major project (e.g., Castellani et al., 2009).
According to the publications reviewed, CLIL has been explored in different settings and educational levels. In the state sector, we identified one instance in primary education in Argentina (Porto, 2016) and seven in secondary education (e.g., Helver, 2015). In the private sector, we found 10 experiences in primary (e.g., Pueblas Miranda & Pérez, 2012), and five in secondary education (e.g., Costa-Rau, 2016). There are 15 instances set in higher education, all of them linked to ESP courses (e.g., Montoya & Salamanca, 2017;Tavella & Fernández, 2017), and five instances of CLIL implementation in English language teacher education (e.g., Argudo et al., 2018). Last, two publications draw on private language schools (e.g., Ravelo, 2013).
According to the articles reviewed, CLIL is thus implemented in private education due to learners' daily in-school exposure to English and advanced L2 language level. Such practice may reinforce the view of CLIL and bilingual education as elitist (Coelho Liberali & Megale, 2016) and the view that CLIL success, and bilingual education in general, depends on learners' high English language proficiency in order not to oversimplify content (Ball et al., 2015). Even when CLIL finds traction as a language learning approach, its preeminence lies in private bilingual education learners' advanced English language proficiency.

CLIL perceptions and beliefs
Content and L2 teachers' and learners' beliefs on CLIL have been examined in seven empirical studies. In four studies (Costa-Rau, 2016;Curtis, 2012aCurtis, , 2012bMcDougald, 2015) teachers believe that CLIL can be a meaningful approach for learners' development of language skills and subject-matter knowledge. Additionally, Finardi et al.'s (2016) study has similar findings but warns about challenges related to context and materials. In Tavella and Banegas (2016), the teachers view CLIL as an opportunity for language recycling (i.e., practicing previous language through different topics and tasks) provided the content is selected by the learners. Teachers across the Latin American region are concerned with their lack of content knowledge and overall preparation thus favoring language-driven CLIL. They signal that even when CLIL can become a source of professional development given the opportunity to develop materials, they need specialized training and support in scaffolding content and language.
Regarding learners, studies with primary (Barrios Núñez, 2017), secondary (Lara Herrera, 2015), and higher education students (Núñez Asomoza, 2015) show that they believe that CLIL can help them improve their CALP (cognitive academic language proficiency) and operate in English across a wide range of contexts. Notwithstanding, they have reported struggling with understanding content due to their limited language proficiency, academic writing and vocabulary, and feel that teacher preparation and materials are critical elements that need further attention within CLIL implementation.
In sum, CLIL is perceived as a meaningful language learning approach for improving L2 proficiency and for recycling prior language knowledge rather than incorporating new language; however, its success depends on teacher preparation, context-responsive materials, and learners' English language proficiency.

Teacher education
Several empirical and practice-based articles focus on CLIL within teacher education. Banegas (2012) argues that teacher education programs, especially in Argentina, should be re-evaluated to include CLIL modules that promote critical CLIL practice and which should be created through input from all stakeholders (educators, administrators, etc.). Two studies which focus on CLIL modules within existing teacher education programs are Banegas (2018) and Argudo et al. (2018). Banegas (2018) finds that CLIL can increase motivation of pre-service subject teachers who need to improve their English while learning their subject content. At the end of a CLIL-ESP module, teachers had not only improved their language skills but also their content knowledge demonstrating that CLIL-ESP modules could be a valuable component of pre-service teacher education programs. Likewise, Argudo et al. (2018) evaluates whether a particular EFL program for pre-service teachers truly complies with the principles of CLIL, finding that teachers do not develop enough language proficiency to actually learn the content they will teach in English.
Concerning, practice-based contributions, Hillyard (2011) andPistorio (2009) review teacher development models and necessary competences for teachers to successfully implement CLIL and call for the creation of stronger preand in-service teacher development opportunities in various parts of the world, including Latin America. Banegas (2016) presents one idea for teacher development through the designing of CLIL materials by teachers who may not have been originally prepared for teaching with CLIL. Based on this experience, the author suggests allowing teachers to participate in materials design as a way of decreasing top-down policy and allowing teachers to become "agents of change" by creating more context-responsive materials. In Colombia, Montoya and Salamanca (2017) describe the implementation of a CLIL training program as an internationalization tool for university professors of different disciplines. This program included a component of English language development, training in CLIL methodologies and the design of activities, and an implementation in the classroom.
Similarly to the conclusions from teacher perceptions and beliefs, in general, for CLIL to be implemented successfully, teachers must be exposed to training and professional development through which they learn how to adequately combine content and language teaching and learning in the classroom in a way that is specific to their teaching-learning context. The need for professional development in CLIL is not exclusive to Latin America; it is a frequently cited challenge around the world (Mahan, Brevik, & Ødegaard, 2018;Pérez Cañado, 2018;Yi Lo, 2020).

Global citizenship
Four empirical studies (Garzón-Diaz, 2018;Porto, 2016Porto, , 2018Zhyrun, 2016) and three reflective and practice accounts (Helver, 2015;Liendo, 2012;Rojas Gonzáles & Liviero, 2013) were analyzed for their focus on some facet of global citizenship in relation to CLIL. In general, there are two articles that explore ways of incorporating local culture(s) into the English classroom (Helver, 2015;Zhyrun, 2016) through different activities and the creation of context-specific material. There is also one study that presents examples of pedagogical tasks for incorporating a multicultural focus in an English for medical purposes course with the goal of students using English as a lingua franca to communicate with and attend to patients from cultures different from students' own (Rojas González & Liviero, 2014). In the same way, Liendo (2012) presents suggestions for developing intercultural communicative competence in pre-service teachers and translators in their EFL courses.
Two articles present projects carried out with secondary school students, Helver (2015) to incorporate intercultural competence through EFL lessons focused on linguistic rights of minority groups and Garzón-Diaz (2018) to develop scientific citizenship by using CLIL as a tool for raising students' cultural awareness in science class. Similarly, Porto (2016) presents data collected from a virtual intercultural project with primary school students in Argentina and Denmark aimed at developing ecological citizenship in the EFL classroom.
Finally, at a more general level, Porto (2018) argues the case for Michael Byram's (2008) theory of intercultural citizenship in language education as a way to expand CLIL both theoretically and pedagogically through the example of an intercultural telecollaboration project between Argentinian and UK undergraduate language students.
Overall, it is clear that CLIL is being used as a vehicle not only to develop content and language knowledge but also to develop learners' global citizenship competences through a variety of materials, curricula, and project models.

Language development
Language development has been particularly observed in five empirical studies and two reflective and practice accounts. One area that has been predominantly reviewed is vocabulary development. Castro García's (2017García's ( , 2018 studies found that students' receptive vocabulary knowledge was stronger and more uniform in content-driven CLIL courses as compared with those of traditional EFL courses. This positive result was also tied to students' motivation for learning English (Castro García, 2018). Gardner (2009) describes the process of designing vocabulary lists for four CLIL business English courses and suggests the best way to determine the words is to look at students' needs.
Other studies look at English development in general. Banegas (2013b) highlights the connection between motivation and language learning in language-driven CLIL, finding that students perceived they developed their language skills (speaking, reading, listening, and writing) because they found the topics and materials relevant. In a similar study, Banegas (2014a) demonstrates that using learners' suggestions systematically and coherently to develop lessons and materials allows for improved language learning because the teacherlearner negotiation stimulates discussion on learners' motivations, needs, and interests. Additionally, García Herreros Machado (2017) describes an adapted immersion model found to take advantage of the content of different areas in order to support student foreign language development in English. A final article analyzed content-driven CLIL as a way to develop pre-service teachers' oral competences. De la Barra (2018) concludes that the use of CLIL-based assessment tools helps to raise teachers' content and language awareness in a content class.
Overall, research related to language gains in CLIL in Latin America relies heavily upon teacher and student perceptions, with the exception of vocabulary, and has been tied to other sociocultural aspects such as motivation and relevance of content. As discussed above, Latin American CLIL research still needs to provide robust evidence of language development at the level of language systems (e.g., syntax) and skills (e.g., writing).

Conclusion
In this article, we conducted an extensive review of CLIL in Latin America between 2008 and 2018. For an entire region, the overall corpus size is relatively small. Based on our experiences, we believe there is much more CLIL being done in Latin America. However, much of this work is not published and, as seen in this review, the empirical research is limited. Despite this shortcoming, drawing on the publications scrutinized, we conclude that CLIL is predominantly language-driven in Latin America, and it is predominantly found in private education institutions with learners with advanced proficiency in English. When it is implemented in other settings, learners' English proficiency is highlighted as an issue. Additionally, more teacher preparation is necessary for CLIL success.
We believe that our review is an example of Chapman and Ainscow's (2019) call for research that promotes equity, social learning, and local knowledge creation within specific settings. Through this review, it may be concluded that CLIL in Latin America has adopted a broader pedagogical perspective; nonetheless, we observed a tendency for CLIL research to be carried out through action research or mixed methods usually by teacher researchers focused on their own practices. Thus, the studies tend to be small-scale and connected to contextspecific pedagogical implementation. On the other hand, practice-based accounts are generally descriptive and lack an analytical and critical stance. In this regard, both Latin American CLIL research and practice should strive for rigorous frameworks that connect the region with global conversations about CLIL. America to engage in more sophisticated and finely tuned studies that examine language and content gains not only through case studies but also through studies with larger samples and triangulated data collection and analysis that examine specific language skills or language systems (e.g., syntax). In this way, Latin American CLIL researchers can better contribute to the global conversation on CLIL and highlight the unique applications occurring in the region and create a path for stronger future research.
While Latin American CLIL is still in its infancy, we envisage sustained expansion as a default approach for bilingual or English-medium education. Nevertheless, its growth depends on concerted efforts for a clear and unequivocal agenda built on robust research capacity and teacher preparation.