The effects of the CLIL approach in young foreign language learners’ lexical profiles

ABSTRACT

The present paper presents a comparative study of the lexical profiles of young content and language integrated learning (CLIL) and traditional English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ written production. The different nature and amount of foreign language input received in these classes may have consequences in learners’ lexical profiles in writing. We scrutinized the writings of 72 CLIL learners and 68 traditional EFL learners for frequency bands of words used, word origin, L1 influence in lexical production, and phonetic spelling, and learners’ vocabulary sizes with the Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT). Learners attended 4th of Primary, were 9–10, had Spanish as their L1. CLIL learners had received 700 hours of English and traditional learners 419. Despite the difference in amount and nature of the input received, very similar results were obtained. The young age of the learners may impose certain cognitive constraints on expression and metalinguistic awareness that might override hours of instruction and the beneficial communicative nature of the CLIL approach.

KEYWORDS:

• Age effects
• CLIL approach
• word frequency and origin
• vocabulary size
• lexical inconsistencies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 In order to avoid confusion, in the present paper, we will use FL acquisition understood in its strict sense to refer to the situation where an FL is learned formally in a classroom context versus naturalistic learning. Accordingly, and unless explicitly said otherwise, whenever we use the acronyms L2 or FL we are referring to the learning that takes place in a formal or school setting. However, the terms learning and acquisition will be used as synonyms.

2 In a very recent research paper, Saito et al. (2015) also found lexical accuracy to be associated with successful L2 communication.

3 Sylven (2010), however, found that reading habit is a better predictor of lexical development than CLIL.

4 Unfortunately, we could not access the CLIL for observation purposes, nor could we conduct survey with the English and science teacher. Nevertheless, informal interviews were indeed conducted with both teachers where they informed the researchers' team about their classes as we have expressed above.

5 Nation's (2001, 76) formulae reads as follows: vocabulary size = N correct answers multiplied by total N words in dictionary (the relevant word list) divided by N items in test.

6 Samples do not meet the normality assumption, so non-parametric tests were conducted.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad [FFI 2010-19334].