Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) Pedagogy in Nepal: Secondary-Level English Teachers’ Lived Experiences

In an increasingly knowledge-driven and multilingual world, Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) offers a promising approach to developing learners’ language proficiency and subject knowledge simultaneously. This study explores secondary-level English teachers’ lived experiences of conceptualizing CLIL and interpreted the meanings they attributed to its relevance and use in English language classrooms. The study used a qualitative hermeneutic phenomenological design, grounded in the interpretive paradigm. Five experienced secondary-level English teachers were selected through criterion-based purposive sampling. Data were generated through in-depth interviews and informal interactions and were analyzed through coding, categorization, thematic clustering, and the interpretation of meaning units. The findings revealed six interrelated conceptualizations of CLIL: a dual-focused educational approach, an integrated learning pedagogy, an umbrella term, a holistic view of education, a contextual learning pedagogy, and a motivational tool. Participants linked CLIL to language proficiency, subject knowledge, transferable skills, engagement, confidence and real-life learning and identified technological, institutional and socio-cultural constraints. The study adds context-sensitive knowledge by positioning CLIL as an adaptable and holistic pedagogy linked to constructivist learning theory, post-method thinking, and Nepal’s complex multilingual educational realities.