2 —
Language skills

"If you just communicate, you can get by. But if you communicate skillfully, you can work miracles."
—
Jim Rohn

As is pointed out by Dalton Puffer (2008:4), general statements regarding the effect of CLIL on language learning gains are unsurprisingly positive, and it it is “often observed that by way of CLIL students can reach significantly higher levels of L2 than by conventional foreign language classes”. This researcher also points out that, while students with special linguistic gifts can achieve a high proficiency even in the average FI classroom, for “the broad group of students whose foreign language talents or interest are average”, CLIL can significantly enhance their language skills (Dalton Puffer (2008:5).

According to Dalton Puffer (2008: 5), recent research has highlighted the following regarding language skills in the CLIL classroom:

Favourably Affected Skills	Unaffected Skills (or those for which research is non existent or inconclusive)
a) receptive skills b) vocabulary c) morphology d) fluency e) creativity, 1isk-taking, fluency, quantity f) emotive-affective factors	a) syntax b) writing c) informal/non-technical language d) pronunciation e) pragmatics*

*Recent research indicates that pragmatics by actually be favourably affected. For a brief overview of the pragmatic gains that can be expected in each learning context (Jennifer Ament, UPF), click here.

Evidently, by exposing students to a greater amount of spoken language, as well as potentially increasing the amount of reading they will do in the target language, passive language skills are favorably affected. Furthermore, concerning speaking skills, CLIL students have been seen to display greater fluency, quantity and creativity, as well as higher risk-taking (Mewald 2004, Rieder and Hüttner 2007, Naiman, 1995).

A correlation has also been observed between time and quantity on some aspects of English morphology (Dalton Puffer,2008; Zydatiß, 2006), including processes such as third person –s, irregular past tense and modals.

Regarding vocabulary, research has shown that some of the greatest gains in the CLIL classroom come from the student’s larger vocabularies of technical and semi-technical terms. That said, it should be noted that this advantage is restricted to the technical nature of the content course vocabulary, while more general, informal language does not appear to improve to the same extent (Sylvén 2004).

"If you just communicate, you can get by. But if you communicate skillfully, you can work miracles."
—
Jim Rohn

Student Videos

1 — In what way has EMI instruction benefitted your language acquisition? How has this differed from your normal formal instruction language classes?

2 — What would you like teachers to do in order for you to get the most of your EMI course?

3 — In what way can you best prepare yourself to get the most out of EMI concerning the language?

Expert Videos

Jennifer Ament

— Universitat Pompeu Fabra

"When students enrol in EMI programmes, they already have a certain level of English, so they’re usually at intermediate or higher, and this really helps them because it sort of creates the possibility for more language improvement."

"If we look at EMI in this way, as a period of intense and increased exposure over a four year period, or two years, or whatever it may be; we can see that this creates a very positive environment for language learning."

Ester Oliveras

— Universitat Pompeu Fabra

"They learn the technical terms in accounting that will be useful to them in their professional life."

Advice

Dalton Puffer (2008: 6) also points out that “the causality of CLIL in the enhanced vocabulary size of students has also been relativized by Sylvén’s (2004) study, with results showing that in a comparison of CLIL students and peers, reading habits are a stronger predictor than participation in CLIL for student performance”.

This suggests that in order to improve your vocabulary in the CLIL classroom, one of the best things that you can do is read as much as you can!

Activities

Listening inside the classroom

Listening outside the classroom

Reading inside the classroom

Reading outside the classroom

Speaking inside the classroom

Speaking outside the classroom

Writing inside the classroom

Writing outside the classroom

Further info

— Dalton-Puffer, C., 2008. Outcomes and processes in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL): current research from Europe. na.

— Hüttner, J. and Rieder-Bünemann, A., 2007. The effect of CLIL instruction on children’s narrative competence. View [s], 15(3), pp.41-46.

— Mewald, C., 2004. Paradise lost and found: a case study of content based foreign language education in Lower Austria (Doctoral dissertation, University of East Anglia).

— Naiman, N. ed., 1978. The good language learner (Vol. 4). Multilingual Matters.

— Sylvén, L.K., 2004. Teaching in English or English Teaching? On the effects of content and language integrated learning on Swedish learners´ incidental vocabulary acquisition.

— Zydatiß, W., 2006. Bilingualer Unterricht= höhere Sprachfähigkeit: Konsequenzen für die Bewertungspraxis an deutschen Schulen. J.-P. Timm (Hg.): Fremdsprachenlernen und Fremdsprachenforschung: Kompetenzen, Standards, Lernformen, Evaluation. Festschrift für Helmut Johannes Vollmer. Narr, Tübingen, pp.373-388.