Age and type of instruction (CLIC vs. traditional EFL) in lexical development
Supporting Agencies
- This research was funded by grant no. FFI 2010-19334 by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Competitiveness.
Abstract
The present paper compares the vocabulary development of a group of CLIL and of traditional EFL learners along three years. The observation that a CLIL approach might provide with larger benefits in the long run vocabulary is the starting point of this study. We had learners in the two groups complete a letter writing task. These writings were then scrutinized for L1 influence in the form of borrowings and lexical creations. The frequency of the words in the letters was also object of analysis. Results revealed that CLIL learners perform slightly better but non-significantly better than traditional EFL along the three years. Furthermore, the evolution of L1 influence and word use also followed an expected improvement pattern as learners went up grade. However, our results do not provide evidence of a growing CLIL advantage with increasing experience. The young age and low proficiency of learners in the present study might be blocking this possible advantage found elsewhere.
Downloads
The works published in this journal are subject to the following terms:
1. The Publications Services at the University of Murcia (the publisher) retains the property rights (copyright) of published works, and encourages and enables the reuse of the same under the license specified in item 2.
2. The works are published in the electronic edition of the magazine under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike 4.0.
3.Conditions of self-archiving. Authors are encouraged to disseminate pre-print (draft papers prior to being assessed) and/or post-print versions (those reviewed and accepted for publication) of their papers before publication, because it encourages distribution earlier and thus leads to a possible increase in citations and circulation among the academic community.
RoMEO color: green
