This paper addresses the symposium’s questions about lessons that can be learned from plurilingual contexts, and how we can understand CLIL in a multilingual world. It examines examples of how two Australian teachers, one primary and one secondary, introduced and reinforced language relevant to a unit which they were teaching through CLIL pedagogy using Spanish and Italian, with Science and the Humanities. Building on themes covered by other contributors in this symposium on what is particular of CLIL in English majority language settings, of special interest in this paper are instances of when students work across languages—the target language of instruction, as well as an additional language—as they engage with teachers’ instructional discourse. Beginning with a brief overview of CLIL as a pedagogical approach, we then document how two CLIL teachers draw on different language resources to provide comprehensible input about new content to scaffold students’ understanding and use of those concepts and related language items (e.g., Creese & Blackledge, 2010; Cross, 2016; Garcia & Wei, 2014). Highlighting how the use of multiple language resources within such contexts has potential to benefit learners’ integrated focus on both content and language, whilst also having potential to detract from those aims, we conclude by considering issues this raises for professional learning and knowledge base of teaching for teachers working in such contexts in attempting to find a balance. A related key argument is on the need to recognise the potential broader repertoire of linguistic resources that students bring to CLIL learning, including home/background languages other than English, even within English dominant settings.

Creese, A. & Blackledge, A. 2010. Translanguaging in the bilingual classroom: A pedagogy for learning and teaching. Modern Language Journal 94, pp. 103-115. Cross, R. (2016). Language and content 'integration': The affordances of additional languages as a tool within the same curriculum space. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 48(3), 388-408. García, O., & Wei, L. (2014). Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.