Learning English or learning in English?

The British Council's SearchEnglish web site has a link to an article published in the Guardian Weekly recently on the topic of content and language integrated learning (CLIL), which is basically lecturing college course subjects in English and expecting that students, to whom English is a foreign language, would learn both the subject and the foreign language without language classes. The lectures are given by subject specialists (native speakers or lecturers to whom English is a foreign language?). Wow, how trendy! And how economical!

Is this a promotion of English as a second language in the new borederless Europe? A promotion of English as the lingua franca of modern times? A neo-colonial project in which English plays again the main role? Or is it just a way to provide new jobs for the increasing number of jobless, young, English speaking academics (native or non-native)?

At the same time, the number of students entering tertiary education with their English on A2 or B1 is on the increase at least in Slovenia as a result of "modern" trends in elementary and secondary education. How on earth are these young people going to cope with subject specific academic English which is 2-3 levels above their level of foreign language proficiency? Genre and variation studies have been showing us the subtle and less subtle differences between general English and discipline specific Englishes. There are things we've learnt about language and about foreign language teaching in discipline specific contexts. How can language teachers ignore that in the name of a new educational non-linguistics-based trend?