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This paper investigates the effects of Content and Language Integrated Learning, CLIL for short, on both the attainment of the subject matter, mathematics in our case, hence the content aspect of CLIL. The second axes of research focuses on the effect of CLIL on the learners' proficiency vis-à-vis the language of instruction, epitomized here by English--hence the linguistic aspect of CLIL education. This paper adopts a multiple approach methodology to deal with the research questions at hand. I concluded on the basis of field work, this includes data coding and analysis, questionnaire design and analysis, an administered mathematical test, and the teacher's continuous assessment of his students, that CLIL education is more effective than traditional educational systems in helping learners to achieve high proficiency levels in the target language (English) and to attain high levels of competence in the subject matter (mathematics). I believe these results might be explained by an existing of a covert tradeoff between the brain mechanisms involved in learning both mathematics and languages as well as by the pedagogical opportunities, provided by CLIL environment, and which echo, to a great extent, L1 acquisition environment.

Mainstream classical psychological theories have often favoured a conception of cognitive functioning and development based on uniformity and standardisation. This conception, as we will explain below in more detail, was proven to be fundamentally limited on almost every aspect of it. In contrast, this article adopts a pluralistic and a coalitional conception of cognitive functioning and development. It is pluralistic because we conceive cognitive development to take multiple and variable pathways, and to be operating through various forms of variability: i) intrapersonal, ii) interpersonal, iii) inter-contextual and iv) inter-cultural variability. It is coalitional too in that several processes and factors (indigenous and/or exogenous) combine together to form complementary networks which enable the individual to solve complicated tasks that require high cognitive efforts. This synergistic dynamism ensures the maintenance of networking among the different parts of our cognitive systems. Before addressing the theoretical foundations of the present pluralistic and coalitional approach, it is necessary to rethink some foundational principles of some of the most famous classical theories such as Piaget’s unidirectional theory or “unitary theory”. This review will pave the way for us to unfold the principles of the present approach at hand. We envisage that these principles are the key to the understanding of changes over the development and evolution at different time scales not only in the cognitive and conceptual systems but also in other juxtaposed systems of the humanities. In this regard and as an expansion of this model, we propose, a new line of research, for researchers to carry this model with the aspiration to find the same principles, and may be more, in other fields such as anthropology, sociology, educational sciences and psychopathology. The coherent elements between these disciplines are the cross-board recurrence of some systems (the cognitive, the conceptual, the linguistic ….etc.), cross-board nested time scales, and cross-board emergence of cultural phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]