CLIL for pre-primary education in South America: Curriculum and practice

CLIL for pre-primary education is an area which has not received systematic research attention in South America. Hence, while CLIL with pre-primary learners have gained traction in the continent, its implementation has been limited to private institutions or incipient and local initiatives run in state schools. Against this background, the aim of the chapter is to describe CLIL curriculum development and enactment with pre-primary learners at institutional level. As research publications in the region are scarce, the chapter adopts case study and narrative inquiry to describe experiences located in different South American cities. The chapter also features teachers’ narratives and views as vignettes to describe onsite practice. The chapter is organised as follows: (1) A brief description of pre-primary education in the region, (2) A brief situated description of CLIL in South America, (3) A discussion of CLIL curriculum and practice and how they may inform policy, (4) A critical description of CLIL curriculum illustrated by cases from different Latin American cities, (5) A description of practice illustrated with vignettes written by practitioners, and (6) concluding remarks based on the cases and vignettes presented.