Can CLIL be the key to dealing with cultural aspects in vocational curricula?
CLIL is a tool for intercultural learning. Expressing yourself in a language other than the mother tongue is one path towards intercultural development. However, there are few terms in current usage which are as ‘slippery’ as culture. It is a term misused by scientists and politicians alike, and it remains a term which can be understood in many different ways. The prominence of ‘culture’ in any scientific CLIL programme will depend on its overall aims. The potential for CLIL to enhance constructive ‘intercultural understanding’ may be considerable, but equally, there is a risk that over-generalisation of specified cultural traits could hinder individuals’ abilities to become more aware of the dynamics which cultural, and thus linguistic, experience may introduce in human interaction. (Marsh, Marsland & Stenberg, 2001, p.19.) Intercultural communication is not just a matter of dealing with ‘foreigners’ or people from the ‘outside’. It is not true that communication breaks down more easi
