7. Exploring Early EFL: L1 Use in Oral Narratives by CLIL and Non-CLIL Primary School Learners

Target language proficiency and reported use of compensatory strategies by young CLIL learners

“…Purdie and Oliver () analysed the self‐reported use of learning strategies by young schoolchildren (ages 9–12) learning L2 English in Australia, an acquisition context defined as naturalistic. These children exhibited a use of CSs which turned out to be lower than the rest of the strategies analysed, a finding that accords with the results in the study by Magogwe and Oliver (), but contrasts with what has been found in young EFL learners during oral production (Gallardo‐del‐Puerto, ; García Mayo & Lázaro Ibarrola, ; Martínez‐Adrián & Gutiérrez Mangado, ; Pladevall‐Ballester & Vraciu, ).…”

“…Some of these studies compare CLIL learners' strategy use to their mainstream EFL counterparts' use in oral and written production in secondary (Celaya & Ruiz de Zarobe, ; Martínez‐Adrián & Gutiérrez Mangado, ) and primary (Agustín Llach, ; Celaya, ; Gallardo‐del‐Puerto, ; García Mayo & Lázaro Ibarrola, ; Martínez‐Adrián, ; Pladevall‐Ballester & Vraciu, ) education. The general finding is that CLIL learners produce fewer borrowings (L1 words without any morpho‐phonological adaptation) in oral (Gallardo‐del‐Puerto, ; Pladevall‐Ballester & Vraciu, ) and written (Agustín Llach, ; Celaya, ; Celaya & Ruiz de Zarobe, ) production and tend to use the L1 as an interactional strategy to a lesser extent than EFL counterparts (García Mayo & Lázaro Ibarrola, ; Martínez‐Adrián & Gutiérrez Mangado, ). Results in the use of foreignising (L1 words morpho‐phonologically adapted to the L2), however, are somewhat contradictory, as its increased use from early stages observed in some studies (Agustín Llach, ; Celaya, ; Celaya & Ruiz de Zarobe, ) is not confirmed by more recent studies (e.g.…”

On self-reported use of communication strategies by CLIL learners in primary education

“…Codeswitching, borrowings and foreignizings were more frequent in mainstream EFL than in CLIL learners, whereas CLIL learners produced a greater number of calques than mainstream EFL students. The study also concludes that the idea that foreignizing is characteristic of higher proficiency learners is not supported by the data obtained, which contradicts most CLIL research on this matter (Agustin Llach, 2014; Celaya, 2008; Celaya & Ruiz de Zarobe, 2010; Pladevall-Ballester & Vraciu, 2017).…”

“…Pladevall-Ballester and Vraciu (2017) compared the longitudinal development of L1 use patterns in the oral production of 5th grade (age 11) and 6th grade (age 12) CLIL and mainstream EFL learners matched for exposure hours. More specifically, the study examined the learners’ use of the L1 in an individual narrative task in terms of content and function words, codeswitching, lexical transfer (i.e.…”

A longitudinal study of primary school EFL learning motivation in CLIL and non-CLIL settings

“…The present study attempts to fill this gap by examining how language learning motivation develops over the course of two academic years in primary school in two types of instruction setting (CLIL and non-CLIL) with equal but limited exposure to the FL and in two types of CLIL subject (science and arts and crafts). As part of a larger study on the effect of CLIL implementation on young learners’ language ability (Pladevall-Ballester & Vallbona, 2016), perceptions and beliefs (Pladevall-Ballester, 2015) and first language (L1) use (Pladevall-Ballester & Vraciu, 2017) in a low exposure context (i.e. one CLIL hour per week and three hours of EFL instruction), the present article exclusively focuses on motivational data and whether and how such limited exposure has any effects on the learners’ FL motivation levels.…”