An Outdoor CLIL Treasure Hunt with Undergraduates: Investigating Evidence of Urban Regeneration in Milan (Italy)

The opportunity for Italian universities to enhance multilingualism through the activation of CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) pilot programs (Ministry of Education, 2015 and National Recovery and Resilience Plan, 2021) has led to implementing an innovative outdoor CLIL module integrating Urban and Social Geography contents with English language aimed at forty undergraduates (CEFR B2) attending the bachelor’s degree in ‘Human Sciences of the Environment, Territory and Landscape’ at the University of Milan. Our primary aim was to get students to play an active role in their learning, therefore, alongside Geography and English language scaffolding, students were guided in an outdoor exploratory treasure hunt in search of the urban regeneration signs joining past and present in the Milan Portello Area (the former Alfa Romeo factory area). The findings all pointed to identify the outdoor CLIL project as an innovative way to promote learners’ autonomy, personal growth, and content acquisition in a foreign language with greater engagement and motivation compared to traditional front classes. Also, in the university environments, discussing the surrounding world through geography and in a language different from the students’ can be seen as a positive signal of openness and appreciation for cultural and linguistic diversity.