This study investigates pupils' anxiety and enjoyment in the classroom when learning a second or foreign language. The particularity of this study lies in the comparison of two target languages (English and Dutch) in two educational contexts (CLIL and non-CLIL) at different instruction levels (primary and secondary education). While most research on content and language integrated learning (CLIL) focuses on English as a target language, the Belgian context calls for a comparison with the language of the "other" community, in this case Dutch.Audrey De Smet, Laurence Mettewie, Benoit Galand, Philippe Hiligsmann, Luk Van Mensel 48 Data were collected from 896 pupils in French-speaking Belgium through a selfreport questionnaire measuring pupils' anxiety and enjoyment in the classroom, along with background characteristics. Results indicate that while CLIL pupils experience significantly less anxiety than their non-CLIL counterparts, English learners report significantly less anxiety and more enjoyment than Dutch learners. This suggests an important role of the target language for emotional engagement in the classroom and calls for further investigation into the role of target language perceptions. Finally, the interactions with instruction level reveal that while primary school pupils report stronger emotions, the effects of CLIL and English are much larger at secondary level.
Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) programs are increasingly popular throughout Europe, but are sometimes accused of inducing a selection bias in the pupil population, both through selection mechanisms of the schools themselves and self-selection of the pupils (and/or their parents). As a result, the outcomes of the CLIL approach may be artificially promoted, and, at the same time, such a selection bias can contribute to an elitist education model, which arguably runs counter to the aims of the approach. This paper looks into a number of background variables of both English and Dutch CLIL learners in Francophone Belgium and compares them to their non-CLIL counterparts. Results from a logistic regression indicate that there is indeed evidence of selection: the socio-economic status of the pupils appears as the main predictor of whether a pupil is in a CLIL or a non-CLIL track, whereas other, more personal, variables such as non-verbal intelligence play a minor (or additional) role. Moreover, Dutch CLIL programs appear to be more selective than English CLIL programs in this context. We conclude that CLIL (and particularly Dutch CLIL) in French-speaking Belgium, although a priori open to anyone, is particularly attractive to a socially privileged public.
Besides being promoted as a way to improve target language proficiency, Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is also believed to positively impact socio-affective variables such as language attitudes and motivation (European Commission, 2014). Yet, few extensive empirical studies exist on these aspects in CLIL. The present contribution aims to address this gap in the literature by investigating language attitudes and motivation in CLIL on a large scale across two target languages (English and Dutch) and two instruction levels (primary and secondary). Questionnaire data were collected from 896 pupils in French-speaking Belgium measuring their language attitudes in terms of perceived easiness and attractiveness of the target language and their motivation in terms of expectancy for success, task value and cost. Results of the MANCOVAs show pupils report more positive attitudes and higher motivation in CLIL compared to non-CLIL and in English compared to Dutch. However, these differences mainly appear at secondary level, suggesting more favorable profiles develop after the fifth grade, which is the onset of formal foreign language instruction for non-CLIL pupils. Moreover, the effect sizes indicate that the target language (English vs. Dutch) plays a more crucial role than CLIL vs. non-CLIL regarding language attitudes and motivation.
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