In January 2024, the European Centre for Modern Languages (ECML) launched its 7th medium-term programme of activities, “Language education at the heart of democracy”. This article looks at the progress of the  “CLIL teaching materials for developing 21^st century competences”project.

The project’s overall aim is to create CLIL teaching materials for different language and subject combinations that help secondary school learners develop 21st-century competences. These are needed to engage critically with the kind of global challenges addressed through the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

After one year, the project team has composed  a first draft of a teacher’s guide and teaching materials for each one of the United Nations' 16 sustainable development goals.

The teacher’s guide has a triple aim:
(1) to clarify for teachers what competences they need to be able to promote 21st-century competences in CLIL learners studying materials relating to the United Nations’ sustainability goals;
(2) to explain the pedagogical principles underlying the developed teaching materials;
(3) to offer a set of guidelines (template) so that teachers can develop their own teaching materials based on the sample materials offered in the teacher’s guide.

The team is in the process of fine-tuning the teacher’s guide and teaching materials and will share them with a group of teachers, pedagogical advisors and teacher educators at the ECML workshop scheduled in September 2025.

Lies Sercu

• New video by Lies Sercu on the project: Project "CLIL teaching materials for developing 21st-century competences" (youtube.com)

Experts: Lies Sercu, coordinator (KU Leuven, Belgium), Alberto Fernández Costales (University of Oviedo, Spain), Julia Hüttner (University of Wien, Austria), Eva Olsson (University of Göteborg, Sweden)

The project’s main aim is to create CLIL teaching materials for different language and subject combinations that will help secondary school learners to develop the 21^st century competences needed to engage critically with the type of global challenges addressed through the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

At the end of the meeting the following results were attained:

• an ordered list of UN sustainability goals: which topics will work best with the age groups targeted by the project, i.e. 15-18 year-olds
• an ordered list of 21^st century competences and European competences for democratic culture to be developed via the teaching materials
• a list of criteria to be observed when developing quality CLIL materials
• sample lesson scenarios that integrate the teaching of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the 21^st century competences and a foreign language
• a decision on topics and languages for which teaching materials will be developed between February-May and June-September 2024
• a decision on the template for lesson development (learner materials) and a description for teachers
• a provisional structure for a teacher’s guide

The project "CLIL teaching materials for developing 21st century competences | CLIL-Lehrmaterialien für die Entwicklung von Schlüsselkompetenzen des 21. Jahrhunderts" (2024-2026) is one of the eight projects conducted within the framework of the ECML Programme 2024-2027 "Language education at the heart of democracy". The current programme focuses primarily on activities to support and further develop the wellbeing, resilience and competences of all those working in the field, so that they in turn can empower their learners. In this way, it aims to transform language education into a vibrant force at the core of democratic ideals.