Teaching physical education under Clil: Solving professional dilemmas encountered when conducting action research

© 2014, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. All rights reserved. This article discusses the solution of professional dilemmas found when conducting Action Research on Physical Education teaching under a CLIL (Content Language Integrated Learning) approach. CLIL is a teaching approach that uses foreign language as a tool to enhance the learning process. The participants of this study are 26 primary school students. We present data gathered by implementing diaries, video recordings and an external observation. In the results we identify two dilemmas: 1) appealing tasks versus effective tasks and 2) balanced tasks versus unbalanced tasks dilemma providing evidence to describe them. In the discussion we explain the process of solving the professional dilemmas and we examine how this process affects the teaching of Physical Education. Finally, we rethink the nature of the problem in order to establish a framework that facilitates the teaching of Physical Education under CLIL.