Urban vs. rural CLIL: an analysis of input-related variables, motivation and language attainment

ABSTRACT

The present article carries out an in-depth analysis of the differences in motivation, input-related variables and linguistic attainment of the students at two content and language integrated learning (CLIL) schools operating within the same institutional and educational context, the Spanish region of Extremadura, and differing only in terms of the social milieu: rural vs. urban. The results show that the CLIL learners in the urban school (n = 27) had started earlier, had had greater formal support outside school (i.e. private English lessons) and had attained a higher level of English (grammar, passive and active vocabulary) than their rural colleagues (n = 21), while their motivation and extramural exposure (i.e. informal contact with English) were not found to be dissimilar. Of the variables considered, social milieu (urban vs. rural), used here as a proxy of socio-economic status, explained most of the variance in language attainment results.

KEYWORDS:

• Content and language integrated learning (CLIL)
• linguistic achievement
• rural/urban divide
• socio-economic status (SES)

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the comments and suggestions made by the anonymous reviewers of this paper and by our colleague Fiona MacArthur that have improved the quality of our findings. Any remaining mistakes are our own. We are also grateful to Miguel González Velasco for helping us with the statistics.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Rafael Alejo http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6140-9104

Notes

1. ‘Multilingüismo y multiculturalidad como factores positivos en el desarrollo cultural, afectivo y cognitivo del alumnado. Investigación sobre los efectos lingüísticos y psicosociales de las experiencias de inmersión (proyectos bilingües) y de no inmersión (alumnos inmigrantes) en el sistema educativo extremeño' Junta de Extremadura, [PRI08A127].

2. For a detailed account of the main features and the development of CLIL in Extremadura, see Alejo and Piquer-Píriz (2010, pp. 228–233).

3. Although the Spanish National Institute of Statistics establishes a clear-cut division of areas into urban (10,001 inhabitants or more), intermediate (between 2001 and 10,000 inhabitants) and rural (2000 inhabitants or less), other more in-depth analyses propose more elaborated views, based on the idea of a ‘continuum' which, in our opinion, are closer to reality. For example, according to the criteria of theOrganisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and EUROSTAT (Statistical Office of the European Communities), Extremadura is a ‘mostly rural region' (Sancho Comíns & Reinoso Moreno, 2012, pp. 612, 615). Sancho Comíns and Reinoso Moreno elaborated their own classification of rural and urban areas in Spain using as their main source the Regional Programmes for Rural Development and concluded that the whole of Extremadura is rural except for four towns that are urban areas: Badajoz, Cáceres, Mérida and Plasencia (Sancho Comíns & Reinoso Moreno, 2012, p. 619).

4. The Spanish educational system comprises 4 years of compulsory education at Secondary School (ages 12/13–15/16) after 6 years of Primary Education (ages 6/7–11/12).

Additional information

Funding

This research has been carried out with the support of the Extremaduran Government [PRI08A127].