ESP@school: CLIL Art

This study concerns the practical application of English for Special Purposes (ESP) in Italian high schools in the specific experience of a CLIL Art class, examining its strengths (appealing, cross-cultural, flexible), but also some drawbacks. A CLIL Art class fosters an aesthetic mode of thought, promotes love for art and stimulates a deep awareness of World Heritage, enhancing cultural identity and offering an opportunity to develop the transversal themes of citizenship that are among the objectives of the High School reform in Italy. From a linguistic point of view, the study shows how all the communicative skills can be enhanced through CLIL Art classes by incorporating a wide variety of activities to be carefully planned from the perspective of enabling effective cooperation between the subject teacher and the language teacher, who have to be willing to take on a significant workload. This requires teamwork, planning, linguistic competence, awareness of objectives and the strategies needed to achieve the expected results, as well as continued checking, adjusting and possibly modifying the methodology on the basis of evaluation and assessment. CLIL Art is a highly ambitious project, but the potential benefits in terms of both specific and transversal areas of competence justify the efforts made.