​Abstract

This paper describes the practical implementation of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) within a Japanese university’s International Tourism Management department. The curriculum was designed with the intention of enabling students to become active content creators. Drawing on educational philosophies of social constructivism and learner autonomy, the author details the design and implementation of two primary projects: a Walking Tour video and a Research Poster. Through an action research mindset, the process of applying Coyle’s 4Cs framework and the Language Triptyph (Coyle, Hood and Marsh, 2010) to these projects is described. This CLIL-centric approach allowed content to drive the group work towards project goals. The study investigated students’ communicative confidence and their ability to deal with academic language. The author provides his observations as the Instructor as well as a qualitative analysis of student reflection logs. The results indicated that the video project considerably lowered students' affective filter through collaborative peer scaffolding, while the poster project, despite its academic challenge, resulted in student pride that their group work enabled them to conduct research and be able to talk about the process of conducting their research. Finally, a selection of final project work is provided which exemplifies the product students who complete these projects produce. Ultimately, this research suggests that even though CLIL methodologies can be effective in motivating tourism students, educators must keep in mind that hard-CLIL environments might be cognitively and linguistically very challenging for some learners without some degree of scaffolding to support them.