Mixing it up: an investigation into the impact of a CLIL approach on the attitudes and attainment of a low-attaining Year 9 Spanish class
Hannah Shairp
PGCE Modern Foreign Languages (2014-2015)
email: hannah_shairp@hotmail.co.uk
Abstract
The effects of Content and Language Integrated Learning on lower-attaining students have remained relatively unexplored in the literature, with many studies on CLIL admitting to basing results on students who have been selected in some way. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to look at the effects of a CLIL approach on the attitudes and written attainment of a class of demotivated low-attaining year 9 students of Spanish. A Scheme of work was created, comprising 6 lessons which incorporated aspects of the students’ Geography curriculum; concretely the topic of Latin America.
The results showed an almost unanimous improvement in written achievement from before the CLIL intervention to after. In terms of attitudes, there was evidence that some students enjoyed the CLIL lessons, however for the majority, the difficulty of this approach hindered their interest and thus their motivation for Spanish remained unchanged.
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The full paper is available for download as a pdf file: 137-174-shairph
Citation: Shairp. H.(2016) 'Mixing it up: an investigation into the impact of a CLIL approach on the attitudes and attainment of a low-attaining Year 9 Spanish class ' Journal of Trainee Teacher Educational Research, Volume 7 pp. 137-174. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.86188