International Networking and Collaboration

Visiting Scholars and Researchers

Working CLIL member institutions welcome visits from scholars and researchers interested in sharing their work and perspectives on any aspect of CLIL/bilingual education.  We endeavour to organize seminars for the wider teaching public so that more teachers can benefit from our visitors’ expertise. Below are those who have visited us on short mobility programmes and longer research stays.

Incoming 

2023 – 2024

Prof. Ramiro Durán Martínez - University of Salamanca, Spain

Bionote: Ramiro Durán Martínez is an associate professor in the English Studies Department at the University of Salamanca. He has collaborated in international teaching placement schemes and participated in postgraduate courses in English Language Teaching and Bilingual Education. He has published several books and papers in these fields, and he is currently engaged in research projects in the area of bilingual education and attention to diversity.

During his visit from 1st June to 31st July, 2024, Prof. Durán Martínez was involved in the following activities:

  • Analysis and discussion with members of CETAPS about the EByAD Project (Bilingual Education and Attention to Diversity), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Innovation and Science. The theoretical review, instruments and methodology applied in the project were analysed. In addition, a comparative analysis of the reality of bilingual education and attention to diversity in Spain and Portugal was carried out.
  • Contact with Portuguese schools to gain insight into the teachers’ perceptions on the attention to diversity in bilingual education via focus groups/interviews. To complete this objective, a script was developed prior to the interviews/focus groups. Afterwards, the categorisation of the responses was discussed with Working CLIL members.
  • Collaboration with the Working CLIL strand at CETAPS in the planning and development of resources aimed at increasing pre-service and in-service teachers' knowledge of the implications of attention to diversity in bilingual education. As a major outcome of this collaboration, Professor Ellison and Professor Durán have jointly produced a book chapter entitled The CLIL Teacher: Identity, Knowledge and Teaching Strategies.
  • Participation in the elaboration of a bibliographical review on topics such as inclusion, attention to diversity, bilingual teaching, migrants, integration...
  • Familiarization with the SPOC (Small Private Online Course) CLIL in Higher Education   designed by CETAPS Working CLIL members. This course will serve as a reference to the open educational resources created by the EByAD Project.
  • Analysis of the different existing possibilities to make an application for a research project on the possible use of the CLIL approach to support students studying in Portugal who are unfamiliar with the language of the country.

Dr Pilar Gerns Institute for Culture and Society (ICS), a centre for interdisciplinary research at the University of Navarra, Spain

Host institution: FLUP – University of Porto

Bionote: Pilar Gerns is a German and Spanish postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS), a centre for interdisciplinary research at the University of Navarra, Spain. As a research member of the group Public Discourse, she is investigating different topics related to language and discourse analysis. She holds a BA in Philosophy from the University of Navarra, a BA in English Studies from the UNED, a MA with honours in Teaching Social Science and Foreign Languages in Secondary School from the University of Santiago de Compostela and a PhD cum laude from the Univ. of Navarra.

From January 2023 to January 2024, she carried out a postdoctoral research stay under the supervision of Prof. Maria Ellison at the University of Porto and forms part of the CETAPS group. As part of it, she has offered two accredited courses on bilingual education (CLIL) to secondary school teachers and she is conducting a field project with different bilingual schools, co-financed by the European COST agency (CA21114 CLILNetLE), is a European research and innovation network through which different experts examine some of the current challenges related to the issue of disciplinary literacy in bilingual/CLIL education

2019

Dr Gema Alcaraz-Mármol (PhD) University of Castila –La Mancha

Host institution: FLUP – University of Porto

Date: 1 – 5 April 2019

Bionote: Dr Gema Alcaraz-Mármol obtained her PhD in Applied Linguistics at the University of Murcia in 2011. She currently works as an associate professor and researcher at the Department of Modern Languages of the UCLM (University of Castilla-La Mancha). Her lines of research include CLIL, second language acquisition and corpus linguistics, within which she has published over 40 articles in journals, conferences, and book chapters. Furthermore, she has been involved in several research projects with the University of Murcia ad the University of Castilla-La Mancha. She has also been a visiting scholar at the Applied Linguistic Department of Victoria University (New Zealand), Swansea University (Wales) and the Department of English Studies in Sussex University (United Kingdom).

Seminar: Implementing CLIL: Some Methodological Insights and Assessment Tips

Dr Ignacio Fernandez Portero (PhD) University of Extremadura

Host institution: FLUP – University of Porto

Date: 11 February – 15 March

Bionote: Ignacio Fernández Portero is a scholar from Spain. He holds a PhD in English Language Teaching from the University of Extremadura (2017) and two Master’s degrees, one in Teacher Training for Secondary Education (2011) and another in Research in the Humanities (2011) from the University of Extremadura. His areas of expertise are bilingual education, special education needs and curriculum design.

Seminars:

  • Supporting Special Educational Needs in Every EFL Classroom
  • English Language Teaching in Inclusive Classrooms

Dr Ignacio Fernandez Portero visited FLUP in order to develop a comparative research study on English as a Foreign Language Teaching and Special Educational Needs in Spain and Portugal.

2018

Cynthia Yanin Pimentel Velázquez University of Córdoba, Spain

Host institution: FLUP – University of Porto

Date: 2 May – 2 August

Bionote: Cynthia Pimentel has been a lecturer in the Department of English and German Philology at the University of Córdoba (Spain) since 2016. Previously, she was a teacher of English as a foreign language in the Language School of the University of Córdoba (UCOIdiomas) for five years. She has also been a teacher trainer within the “Plurilingualism Promotion Plan” of the University of Córdoba since 2015 and a teacher trainer in courses for state secondary school teachers, among which, we find: “Linguistic and Methodological Update for Teachers in Bilingual State Secondary Schools”.

She received a BA in English Philology from the University of Córdoba in 2010 and a MA in English for Professional Qualification (specialty in Plurilingualism, Intercultural Communication and Curriculum Planning) in 2014 and an MA in Secondary Education (specialty in Foreign Language Teaching: English) in 2017. She is also currently pursuing a Ph.D degree at the University of Córdoba within the program “Languages and Culture”, research line “English Linguistic Studies”; her research focuses on an analysis of the tasks and activities present in secondary education coursebooks used in CLIL programs. She was an international visiting researcher at the University of Porto (Portugal).

Her interests concentrate on bilingual education programmes/ CLIL, the creation and analysis of teaching materials in bilingual schools, English teaching methodology, second language acquisition and English Phonetics and Phonology.

Since 2018, she is part of the research grup HUM-1021: AtenciĂłn a la diversidad y educaciĂłn bilingĂĽe (AD-EB) (Attention to diversity and bilingual education).

Seminar: Key Competences in  Materials Design in CLIL:  a Pluriliteracies Approach

Cynthia Pimentel visited FLUP to advance her PhD studies into pluriliteracies and CLIL, and to conduct research for her doctoral study Coursebook Provision for Literacy Learning Opportunities in Science in Bilingual Secondary School Contexts in Andalusia.

Outgoing

Dr Maria Ellison University of Porto

Host institution: Facultat d’Educació, Psicologia i Treball Social. Dept. de didàctiques especifiques, University of Lleida, Catalonia

Date: 13-17 February, 2017

Dr Maria Ellison was an invited lecturer on CLIL under the auspices of Convocatòria del programa d’ajuts per afavorir la internacionalització de la UdL mitjançant l’estada de professorat d’institucions.

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Institutions and associations

As a result of international networking, Working CLIL members have established links and collaborated with Institutions of Higher Education and Associations outside Portugal, some of which have research centres specialising in CLIL/bilingual education (see below).