Teaching and Learning Mathematics in a Non-native Language: Introduction of the CLIL Methodology in Italy

The recent reform act for the Italian upper secondary school has ruled the gradual introduction, from the 2012-2013 school year onwards, of the CLIL (content and language integrated learning) methodology in the Licei and technical schools. While CLIL clearly offers students great opportunities for developing their skills and abilities in a foreign language, used as the medium of instruction, the impact of CLIL on the teaching/learning process, for the non-language subject contents, still needs to be investigated. The paper focuses on the training of mathematics CLIL teachers. Then, we try to identify the areas of competence that are necessary for CLIL teachers in general and mathematics CLIL teachers in particular. Our analysis is supported by the outcomes from a questionnaire. In the analysis, we make mainly use of the text linguistic perspective.