Teachers’ narratives of resistance to Madrid's bilingual programme: an exploratory study in secondary education

Abstract

This paper looks at secondary teachers’ discourse about Madrid's Bilingual Programme (Spain). Madrid's Bilingual Programme is a large education plan whereby some content subjects are taught in a foreign language –mainly English– following Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and whose characteristics and ubiquity have had an impact on teachers’ daily lives and professional career. By drawing on both Grounded Theory and Positioning Theory as analytical tools, data were collected and analysed from the transcription and annotation of 30 semi-structured interviews with experienced secondary teachers working in CLIL and non-CLIL secondary schools. Our findings point to clear tensions in reconciling these teachers’ personal beliefs and professional motivations within the current organisational and political setting and describe a pattern of resistance towards the Bilingual Programme which manifests discursively through emphatic and emotional verbalisations. The results may be of interest to education authorities, policy makers and researchers