Pros and cons of CLIL in contemporary foreign language classrooms: suggestions from an Italian ‘happy ending’

After more than 20 years of experimentation and practicing in Italy, CLIL can be looked at as a proper teaching method and no longer as some kind of short-run project. Still, planning a CLIL path properly involves many elements, means and strategies which must be constantly monitored and adjusted to both the needs of the students and the didactic aims of the teachers. It can be thus said that CLIL represents one of the latest evolutions of cooperative learning, where cooperation implies the relationship between the teachers involved as well as between the teachers and the students. In most part of the CLIL experiences carried out in Italy, English remains the target language, though projects in some of the other major European languages have been run in many schools, especially those where foreign languages represent the main topic in the curriculum. Therefore, the analysis will focus on a concrete example of a CLIL path, involving several high schools of Italy and of other European countries; approved for two editions by the EU because of the effectiveness of its implementation; and yet still not widely acknowledged.