VIETTESOL INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION 2025

Delivering subject content in English is a critical specific objective of the upcoming national project to make English the second language in schools. Although the 2018 general education curricula for English and experiential and career-oriented activities at high school level are designed with the similar thematic content, little research on whether the integration of both accomplishes educational objectives for developing students’ quality and competence has been done. This paper aims to investigate and clarify targeted qualities and competences students are expected to acquire through these CLIL lessons. Data were collected from a mixed questionnaire with open and close-ended questions completed by 43 student participants. The results suggest that this approach not only increases learners’ attributes such as self-responsibility, global awareness and commitment to sustainability but also improves 21st century skills including critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration and communication. Another finding is that the real-world application of English as a medium significantly enhances motivation and engagement among students. These results recommend that CLIL in experiential and career-oriented activities, once maintaining the balanced dual focus on content objectives and language outcomes, should be broadly adopted.