Dutch secondary school pupils seldom speak the foreign language in class, citing anxiety as a primary factor (Haijma, 2013). Implementing improvisational drama techniques (IDTs), however, could help ameliorate this situation by generating positive affective reactions, such as confidence and joy, and …

In general, teacher educators are considered to be educational specialists whose main task is to communicate content-based concepts to prospective teachers. However, unfortunately, most studies on teacher professional development overlook this specific language-oriented aspect of content-based teaching. …

This small-scale observational study explores how Dutch bilingual education history teachers (BHTs) focus on the L2 component in their CLIL-lessons. We observed and rated eight BHTs on five language teaching categories. Results show that Dutch BHTs focus more strongly on using the L2 to teach subject …

Many studies have suggested that personal practical knowledge is essential for professional development. Recently, there has been growing recognition of the importance of teacher educators’ personal practical knowledge of ‘language’ for student learning development. However, the need for teacher educators …

The role of subject teachers in content and language integrated learning (CLIL) has received little attention, since most research focuses on language learning results of students. This exploratory study aims to gain insight into the perceptions of Dutch bilingual education history teachers by comparing …

This paper describes teacher educators’ understanding of language for classroom communication in higher education. We argue that teacher educators who are aware of their personal practical knowledge of language have a better understanding of their students’ language use and provide better support for …