A Deep-CLIL Approach to Developing English for Mining Materials in Higher Education
Keywords:
Deep-CLIL; English for mining; materials development; content and language integrated learning; deep learning; higher educationAbstract
The increasing demand for English communication in the global mining industry requires higher education institutions to provide instructional materials that integrate disciplinary knowledge, language development, and professional competencies. However, English courses in mining-related programs remain largely generic and insufficiently aligned with students’ academic and workplace needs. This study aimed to develop and validate deep content and language integrated learning (deep-CLIL)-based English for mining materials for higher education. Employing a design and development research (DDR) approach, the study involved 106 undergraduate students from five Indonesian universities, 15 interview participants, and three expert validators. Data were collected through questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and expert validation checklists and were analyzed using descriptive statistics and thematic analysis. The needs analysis identified strong demand for contextualized mining content, particularly mining operations, geological exploration, environmental management, and occupational safety. Speaking emerged as the highest-priority language skill. Students strongly supported project-based learning, authentic workplace tasks, collaborative learning, and critical-thinking activities. These findings informed the development of the deep-CLIL framework, which extends the conventional CLIL 4Cs (content, communication, cognition, and culture) by explicitly integrating deep learning principles to promote meaningful knowledge construction and workplace readiness. The resulting materials comprised 10 thematic units incorporating authentic mining scenarios, collaborative projects, reflective learning, and performance-based assessment. Expert validation demonstrated very high validity across all dimensions (overall M = 4.80), confirming the quality and feasibility of the developed materials. The study contributes a theoretically grounded and empirically validated framework that offers practical guidance for developing discipline-specific English materials in higher education.
https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.25.8.47
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Copyright (c) 2026 Maulina Maulina, Andi Rachmawati Syarif, Rahmat Nasrullah, Mark Ren D. Villaflor
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