Difficulties in Content and Language Integrated Learning: The Case of Math

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to identify difficulty types encountered by Content and language Integrated Learning (CLIL) learners in foreign language setting as relevant to university students’ ability to understand math lectures that are taught in English. Using a self-reported questionnaire as well as interviews, the current study presented evidence to support the identification and comparison of difficulty types perceptions held by students as drawn upon epistemological, personal, pedagogical and discourse sources. The analysis concluded that pedagogical difficulties influenced deeply and with varying degrees students’ learning of mathematical CLIL. The analysis of results, in contrast, showed those students’ perceptions on epistemological, personal, and discourse sources of difficulty types as infrequent. The findings of this study might be of pedagogical help and significance to textbook designers, researchers, tutors and those interested in communicative competence in general and ESP in particular