The impact of CLIL on English language competence in a monolingual context: a longitudinal perspective

ABSTRACT

This study examines the impact of CLIL on the English language competence achieved by students in primary and secondary education in the monolingual autonomous community of Extremadura (Spain) and extends investigation to a year after the end of the secondary CLIL programme when students were finishing their first year of bachillerato. To compare CLIL and non-CLIL strands effectively, the homogeneity of participants was carefully controlled. This study also looked at ‘type of school’ (public schools vs. charter schools) as a variable having a potential differential effect on students’ L2 achievement. Comparing CLIL and non-CLIL groups in public schools, significant advantages were observed for CLIL pupils at the end of secondary education and were even more marked at the end of the first year of bachillerato. However, when comparing public school CLIL students with charter school non-CLIL students, no statistically significant differences were found in the language competences tested. The public school non-CLIL students showed significantly lower performance on all measures at all levels compared with charter school non-CLIL students. Thus it could be argued that CLIL streams in public schools may help to compensate for the advantage that charter schools typically represent in general academic achievement and English language competence.

KEYWORDS:

• CLIL
• language competence
• types of schools

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 For further information on the MONCLIL project visit the website: https://www.monclil.com.

2 ‘bachillerato’ refers in Spain to the two years of post-compulsory secondary education (ages 16–18) prior to university entrance.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Government of Andalusia (Spain) [P12-HUM-2348]; Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness [FFI2012-32221].