CLIL subject selection and young learners’ listening and reading comprehension skills

Abstract

This study compares the development of English receptive skills of two groups of Spanish primary school children who were exposed to two different content and language integrated learning (CLIL) subjects, science and arts and crafts (A&C), during two academic years. Participants were also divided into level groups to explore if their level of English at the beginning of the study influenced language development. Science students generally obtained better results than A&C students but such differences became significant only in the case of listening skills after a certain amount of exposure had been accumulated, once the CLIL implementation process was over and all stakeholders had adapted to it. Low achievers improved more than stronger students and benefitted more from Science than from A&C CLIL, particularly in relation to their listening comprehension skills.Este estudio compara el desarrollo de las habilidades receptivas en inglés de dos grupos de estudiantes españoles de educación primaria que fueron expuestos a dos asignaturas AICLE, Ciencias y Plástica respectivamente, durante dos cursos académicos. Los participantes fueron divididos en grupos de nivel para analizar si su nivel de competencia lingüística al inicio del estudio tuvo algún efecto en el desarrollo de las destrezas lingüísticas analizadas durante el estudio. Los estudiantes expuestos a AICLE en Ciencias obtuvieron resultados significativamente mejores en la comprensión auditiva que los que fueron expuestos a AICLE en Plástica, después de haber acumulado exposición a la lengua y una vez que el proceso de implantación AICLE había finalizado y todos los participantes se habían adaptado al cambio de enfoque de instrucción. Los estudiantes cuya competencia lingüística era más baja al inicio del estudio progresaron más que los estudiantes con una competencia lingüística superior, en especial dentro del grupo AICLE de Ciencias y en relación a la comprensión auditiva.Palabras clave: AICLE, aprendices jóvenes, habilidades de comprensión auditiva y lectora, estudiantes con un nivel de competencia lingüística bajo/ alto

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

“…Type of CLIL subject seems to have an effect on the kind of FL motivation related to the immediate learning environment. Classroom experience will obviously be different depending on the CLIL subject taught, which will inevitably determine the nature of the classes, the activities, the learning opportunities, the difficulties entailed and ultimately, the children’s feelings towards the language used (Pladevall-Ballester, 2016). As Pladevall-Ballester (2015) pointed out, almost half of the CLIL arts and crafts learners emphasized they had learnt more English than content in their CLIL classes, which were not found to be too difficult.…”

“…CLIL and non-CLIL learners have similarly high motivation levels in regard to intrinsic motivation, the ‘ideal L2-self’ and instrumental orientations towards EFL, although CLIL learners are descriptively ahead and always show increasing developmental tendencies. Type of CLIL subject has also shown to have an effect on motivation related to learning experience, which points towards the need to carefully consider type of subject when implementing CLIL programmes in primary education (Pladevall-Ballester, 2016).…”

“…This variety of CLIL subjects might also explain the different results among previous studies. The choice of content subject in CLIL programmes has not been extensively studied and is indeed crucial since it determines the kind of activities carried out in class and the cognitive effort the students have to make (Pladevall-Ballester, 2016), which might ultimately influence students’ FL motivation as well.…”

“…The larger study compares the development of English listening and reading comprehension skills (Pladevall-Ballester & Vallbona, 2016), writing skills (Vallbona, 2014) and oral production skills (Bret, 2014) of two groups of primary school children who were exposed to regular EFL and EFL + CLIL sessions, respectively, over a period of 20 months corresponding to two academic years (fifth and sixth grades). This larger study has also examined the effects of the CLIL subject on the participants’ language development (Pladevall-Ballester, 2016), the participants’ perceptions and beliefs about CLIL after the first year of CLIL implementation (Pladevall-Ballester, 2015) and the use of the L1 in the oral production of the participants in both groups (Pladevall-Ballester & Vraciu, 2017).…”

“…The need to study motivational and affective factors in CLIL has been highlighted in previous research (Banegas, 2013; Gabryś-Barker & Bielska, 2013; Lasagabaster, 2011, among others) but longitudinal research on young learners’ language learning motivation in CLIL and non-CLIL settings is particularly scarce. There is also a need to explore if there are differences in FL motivation in different CLIL subjects, as previous research on motivation has not taken this factor into account and the type of CLIL subject might determine the nature of the tasks, the amount of learner’s effort and the kind of language used (Pladevall-Ballester, 2016), which in turn might have an influence on the learners’ motivation. 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).…”