Using CLIL to enhance pupils’ experience of learning and raise attainment in German and health education: a teacher research project

Abstract

This paper describes and evaluates an action research project carried out by a teacher in an English comprehensive school, where a class of 13-to 14-year-olds was taught personal, social and health education and German through contentlanguage integrated learning (CLIL) over a six-week period. The purpose of the study was to explore how CLIL would influence both motivation and attainment by giving learners the opportunity (i) to experience language learning with a broader, more applied purpose; (ii) to experience success in TL interactions; and (iii) to use linguistic structures in a more 'natural' context. The findings of the study were mixed with regard to motivation, as pupils struggled to equate their continued lack of confidence after a short period of CLIL with their increased academic success. With regard to attainment, the most able pupils exceeded their previous achievements by at least one National Curriculum level, although little improvement was noted in the levels of the less able pupils. This could be attributed to the short time frame of the study, and the resulting lack of confidence referred to above. This research is also evidence of the developing role of practitioner-research in the academic community, the validity and importance of which is also discussed. Introduction and definition of CLILCLIL or content-language integrated learning is a rapidly expanding concept in language learning in Europe (Smit 2008). It draws on immersion techniques prominent in Canada since the 1960s (Cummins 1998;Cook 2001a), but also on the broad range of approaches to bilingual teaching and learning that have existed across the world for centuries (Coyle 2007). Over recent years, CLIL as a concept has developed a range of different meanings (Lorenzo 2007;Seikkula-Leino 2007;Smit 2008), which can lead to the term being ambiguous. In this study, 'CLIL' is understood to be an approach to teaching and learning that employs a foreign language (FL) as the principle medium of instruction for a content-based subject. Key to the approach referred to here is that equal importance is attributed to the linguistic and the topic-based aspects of instruction (Marsh 2002). This reflects Lorenzo's (2007) view that effective topic-based teaching should strive to teach content as effectively as in a first language (L1) context, while not neglecting the linguistic achievement of learners. CLIL differs from immersion teaching, where the goal is for learners to become equally fluent in both the target language (TL) and their mother tongue (Seikkula-Leino 2007). The goal of CLIL is to produce competent and confident TL users, while at the same time teaching subject content. It is also worth noting that the form of CLIL employed in this project is what Clegg (2003: 89) would refer to as 'language led', in that it was carried out in a languages department rather than in a content subject department. The projectThe aim of this pilot project was to use CLIL to teach personal, social and health education (PSHE) in tandem with German through...

Motivation and Gender Effect in Receptive Vocabulary Learning: An Exploratory Analysis in CLIL Primary Education

“…Among them, we should note the ideas that in many cases the CLIL students are already motivated towards the foreign language before they enroll to this type of instruction or that the requirement of using a language unknown to the learner might cause a decrease in motivation as a result of a loss of self-esteem (Cenoz, Genesee, & Gorter 2013, p. 14-15). An example of this is highlighted in a study by Mearns (2012), who found higher levels of motivation towards German as a foreign language of a group of CLIL secondary graders but, on the other hand, that "speaking in front of the class" activities affected their levels of confidence. The most able students exceeded their previous results, but little improvement was perceived in the less able pupils.…”

The motivational dimension of language teaching

“…Doiz, Lasagabaster & Sierra (2014) built on an earlier study by Lasagabaster (2011) to compare the L2 motivation of 393 Spanish secondary school students of English divided into CLIL and non-CLIL groups in the first and third school years; they found the former to have significantly higher intrinsic motivation, instrumental orientation and interest in the L2 (though also higher anxiety levels). Mearns (2012) reports motivational gains from an experiment with English secondary school learners of German in the UK. Huang (2011) used Spada & Fröhlich's (1995) Communicative Orientation of Language Teaching Observation scheme to compare the behaviour patterns of the same 26 Taiwanese six-year-olds in two content-based language instruction classes and two direct language instruction classes, and found they participated more actively in the former.…”

Motivationfororfrombilingual education? A comparative study of learner views in the Netherlands

“…In the context of CLIL specifically, motivation has been mentioned to varying degrees as one of the major benefits of the approach (Nuffield 2000;Morgan 2006;Merisuo-Storm 2007;Seikkula-Leino 2007;Lasagabaster and Sierra 2009;Mearns 2012;Ruiz de Zarobe 2013). As highlighted by Koster and van Putten (2014) in relation to bilingual education in the Netherlands, the use of the target language (TL) for an applied purpose (the learning of subject content) and real-life communication within the CLIL classroom can provide learners with a degree of relevance and authenticity, as well as with proximal learning goals that can further contribute to positive attitudes and motivation.…”