CLILNetLE Training School in Perugia Fosters Teacher–Researcher Dialogue on Bi- and Multilingual Disciplinary Literacies

Perugia, Italy – 23–26 September 2025.

The CLILNetLE Perugia Training School, hosted at the historic Palazzo Gallenga Stuart of the University for Foreigners of Perugia, brought together teachers, teacher educators, and researchers from across Europe to collaboratively explore aspects of bi- and multilingual disciplinary literacies (BMDLs) and develop practical teaching and research materials for Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) classrooms. Over four days, participants engaged in a series of collaborative workshops, a school visit, and roundtables, aimed at bridging research and practice within bi/multilingual education.  

Fostering Teacher–Researcher Collaboration

The event opened with a guided tour of the Palazzo Gallenga Stuart and welcoming addresses by CLILNetLE Action Chair Julia Hüttner and Vice-Chair Ana Llinares. Participants were then introduced to the BMDLs framework developed within the CLILNetLE Action, which served as the conceptual foundation for the training school activities.

At the heart of the Training School was its emphasis on collaboration between teachers and researchers. Participants worked across three thematic strands—Cognitive Discourse Functions (CDFs), Extramural Learning, and Multisemiotic Resources (MSRs). Each strand brought together a balanced mix of teachers and researchers, which offered space for dialogue across professional boundaries. Teachers brought practical classroom experience and pedagogical insights, and researchers contributed theoretical and analytical perspectives, to co-design pedagogical and reseach materials and explore how different dimensions of BMDLs are enacted in practice. On the last day of the training school, the participants from all three strands came together and presented their work in a conference-style poster session to facilitate cross-strand knowledge exchange.

The Training School also featured the AI Pluriliteracies Workshop, which introduced participants to emerging technologies supporting language and content integration, and the Applying the CEFR for CLIL Workshop, which introduced newly developed descriptors for CEFR B1 and B2 levels with a focus on disciplinary language in History, Mathematics and Science.

School Visit

A central component was the visit to Liceo Classico e Musicale "Annibale Mariotti", a leading secondary school in Perugia, on the third day of the training school. This visit allowed participants to observe CLIL in action. Each strand focused on a distinct, yet complementary, aspect of classroom practice: how teachers use and elicit CDFs, how technology supports CLIL learning inside and beyond the classroom, and how multilingual and multimodal resources contribute to knowledge building. Training school participants also had the chance to converse with teachers and students at the Liceo Classico e Musicale "Annibale Mariotti" about their CLIL experiences. Following the visit, participants reflected collaboratively on the classroom observations and further refined the pedagogical and research materials developed earlier in the training school.

A Shared Vision

The event culminated in a final roundtable involving teachers, researchers, and education stakeholders, where the importance of pedagogical and policy frameworks that recognise the intertwined nature of language and knowledge-building in today’s linguistically diverse classrooms was foregrounded. The Perugia CLILNetLE Training School achieved a much-needed yet rarely realized initiative by fostering true collaboration between teachers and researchers and laying the groundwork for future joint projects.

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