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    The implementation of Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) whereby curriculum content are taught through a foreign/second language started in Europe in the mid 1990s, supported by the EU policies to promote multilingualism. Since then, the approach has spread into different parts of the world, with different modes of realization depending on the local contexts. At the same time, the changing research scene around CLIL has been influencing its practice. While CLIL research started out as strongly language driven, during the last decade more attention has been directed to the very notion of integration and its implications for teaching and learning. Particularly important in this process has been to gain a deeper understanding of what CLIL means from subject teachers’ perspective - what is their role with regard to language teaching? This has meant shifting the emphasis from language competence in its own right to its subject-specific nature and inherent connection to knowledge building practices typical for the disciplinary area. These practices need to be considered from multiliteracy perspective because apart from language, subject-specific meaning making also happens through other semiotic resources. In this presentation, the implications of this broader take on language for CLIL subject teachers will be discussed, with suggestions on how to increase subject-specific language awareness and support learners in the process of acquiring language for academic purposes.