The Impact of Age and Exposure on EFL Achievement in Two Learning Contexts: Formal Instruction and Formal Instruction + Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)

Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals

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Age Differences; English (Second Language); Second Language Learning; Second Language Instruction; Course Content; Language of Instruction; Grammar; Teaching Methods; Interdisciplinary Approach; Accuracy; Academic Achievement; Spanish; Romance Languages; Secondary School Students; Receptive Language; Expressive Language; Listening Comprehension; Writing Evaluation; Communicative Competence (Languages); Educational Benefits; Comparative Analysis; Cloze Procedure; Language Tests; Foreign Countries

10.1080/13670050.2017.1373059

1367-0050

This study investigates the role of biological age and L2 exposure on the achievement of two groups of Catalan-Spanish intermediate learners of English in secondary school (Group A, Formal Instruction (FI), N = 50; Group B, FI + CLIL, N = 50) regarding receptive and productive L2 skills as well as grammatical knowledge. Learners were matched for hours of exposure (1.330-1.400) in a first comparison, and secondly, for age (13-14 years old). When matched for number of hours of exposure, results confirmed the older learners' advantage in FL contexts, as non-CLIL students (2 years older) significantly outperformed CLIL learners in listening comprehension and in two measures of writing: accuracy and coordination index. When matched for age, the group with extra L2 exposure (FI + CLIL) was significantly better than the non-CLIL group in reading comprehension and in several dimensions of writing: lexical richness, linguistic and communicative competence. These findings illustrate the language learning potential of a partial CLIL programme in an EFL context. A threshold of 300 CLIL hours may need to be surpassed for CLIL learners to reap the benefits of additional exposure across L2 skills.

As Provided

2020

EJ1249757