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Throughout Europe, the umbrella term Content and Language Integrated Learning or CLIL is used to refer to the educational option of teaching non-language subjects through a second language (L2). More specifically, this term pertains to “all types of provision in which a second language (a foreign, regional or minority language and/or another official state language) is used to teach certain subjects in the curriculum other than the language lessons themselves” (Eurydice, 2006: 8). In the Anglo-American context, however, the term “immersion” (IM) is being used. Both concepts, CLIL and IM, have in common that subject teaching takes place in a language that does not correspond to the students’ ambient language (i.e., English instead of German in Germany).

The following core features are also shared by CLIL and IM programs (e.g., Nikula & Mård-Miettinen, 2014). First, both share the conviction that foreign/second language competence should not be regarded as a separate skill but one intertwined with students’ cognitive, conceptual and social development, best supported by engaging students in meaningful and cognitively and academically challenging language use. Second, CLIL and IM subjects are timetabled as content and not as language lessons, which also means that teachers are typically content rather than language teachers. Third, CLIL and IM subjects com­plement foreign language instruction rather than serving as its replacement.

However, Nikula & Mård-Miettinen (2014: 2) point out that that demarcating CLIL and IM may simply result in “dead ends” because CLIL and IM as terms have fuzzy boundaries, both when used in academic discourse and as everyday concepts. Nevertheless, IM and CLIL show many differences (see Nikula & Mård-Miettinen, 2014 for a detailed description). First, IM and CLIL differ according to the geographical and sociopolitical context and their dates of origin (starting in Canada in the 1960s and in Europe in the 1990s, respectively). Second, the new language often is a national language in immersion programs (e.g., French in Canada) but a transnational lingua franca in CLIL programs in Europe (e.g., English in Germany). For this reason, CLIL teachers are more com­monly non-native speakers of the instructional language than immersion teachers, i.e., lingua franca users of English themselves. Third, the introduction of CLIL takes place more often in secondary levels, while it is commonplace for IM education to begin at kindergarten or elementary levels (see also Burmeister, 2013; Cenoz, Genesee & Gorter, 2014; Genesee, 1987). Finally, CLIL and IM programs may differ in their intensity: CLIL programs in Europe are often characterized by teaching only one or two subjects in the target language (e.g., history, geography or science), corresponding to 10-30% of the teaching time. In Canada, however, IM programs may only be labeled as such when more than 50% of the teaching time is conducted in the new language. This difference is illustrated below in chapter 2.3.3.