Proceedings of the 8th World Conference on Future of Education
Year: 2024
DOI:
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From Early Selective Experimental to Generalised Clil: L1 Code-Switching in The Spanish Secondary Schools
Philippe Dembélé Dembélé
ABSTRACT:
Over the last decades, research has placed CLIL as one of the most acknowledged FL learning approaches worldwide. However, much of these early CLIL programmes may have targeted above average and highly motivated learners. The need to understand the implications of the presence of low-language proficient students, as well as teachers´ use of pedagogical codeswitching functions in generalised CLIL instruction motivated this study. The mix-method approach adopted included ten face-to-face interviews in nine Valencian public secondary schools in Spain, while 31 CLIL teachers also responded to two online surveys. The results have shown that despite the language-based selection criteria used in these voluntary early CLIL experiments, the presence of a substantial number of low-language proficient students implied overreliance on L1 codeswitching, which in turn prevented more than half of the participants from attaining their lesson objectives. Therein, the urgent need not only for more efficient pedagogical code-switching use, but also for greater emphasis on language support structures as essential factors for CLIL instructions involving low-language proficient learners.
keywords: CLIL methodology, language support structures, low-language proficiency, pedagogical code-switching functions, selection criteria