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El•Gazette 467.qxp_El•Gazette 467 23/10/2019 13:10 Page 21

SPECIAL FEATURE

CLIL advantage Hilderstone College

English Studies Centre
Gill Ragsdale reports the results of a five-
year study from Spain

he effect of CLIL on remained so when all other
students’ linguistic factors were taken into account.
competence grows over Cañado was also able to tests
Ttime, even after students those students who went on to
leave the programme, so finds a Baccalaureate programmes. They
study of Spanish schools by María were now all in monolingual Quality Teacher Development Courses
Cañado at Jaen University. education, yet six months after
The project is unusual both for they had left CLIL students still
its large number of participants showed greater gains in linguistic
(2024 students from 53 schools) competence. Again, productive
and also in being a longitudinal skills such as speaking (both CLIL
study lasting five years. This fluency and pronunciation)
enabled the author to look at the showed the greatest Creative Teaching and Culture
influence of the method on improvements, although all
aspects of linguistic competence language skills improved
over time, and to take account of significantly more for former
a range of other factors that CLIL students than monolingual
might account for such changes students. XXX IJMEFSTUPOFDPMMFHF DPN t JOGP!IJMEFSTUPOFDPMMFHF DPN t
such as socioeconomic class and One other factor, however, also
type of school. had an increasing influence over
The students ranged in age time: type of school. Although Stansted Airport
from 12 year-olds in grade 6 there was no difference between Heathrow Airport London Broadstairs
primary to 16 year-olds in grade 4 public and private schools – Canterbury
Gatwick Airport Dover
secondary. Just under half were in monolingual students from state International
Ashford
Station
Calais
CLIL programmes where at least subsidised ‘concertados’ or Brighton
50 per cent of subjects were independent schools began to France
taught in Spanish and English. catch up at Baccalaureate level.
The remaining 51 per cent were It would be interesting to find out
taught in Spanish, with EFL as a just how concertados are giving
separate subject. CLIL programmes a run for their
All students were pretested for money.
English level, verbal intelligence Assessing the impact of CLIL
and motivation, addressing a has generally proved challenging.
major concern in CLIL research Longitudinal, well-controlled
that primary students in bilingual studies such as this are best
programmes are already ahead on placed to settle the question. In
these factors and are bound to this case, it seems that CLIL
improve more rapidly. In fact, programmes can substantially
Cañado was able to match the improve all measures of linguistic
CLIL and monolingual samples so competence – given time.
that they were equal on these
measures. Any improvements in REFERENCE
linguistic competence would then n Cañado, M. L. P. (2018) ‘CLIL
be due to the teaching and Educational Level: A Longi- Teacher Training Courses at
method. tudinal Study on the Im- Wimbledon School of English
Testing at the pact of CLIL on
end of primary Language Outcomes’ Proud to be the number 1 English language school in the UK*
showed CLIL Porto Linguarum Learn from the best! With 55 years of experience, Wimbledon School of English is one of the oldest schools
students ahead, 29: 51-70 in the UK. We have a team of permanent teachers who are diploma-quali昀ed, highly-experienced and
leaders in the 昀eld of CPD.
especially in On our Teacher Training courses, we aim to help you become an even more inspirational teacher as well as
vocabulary and expand your knowledge and expertise in pedagogical theory and practice.

productive skills, Teaching for the 21st Century Academic Management Teaching with Technology
though the effect, Trinity CertTESOL CLIL Cambridge TKT Teaching Business English
while significant, was fairly Live Online Learning Bespoke Teacher Training Travelling Trainer
modest.
Webinars Short courses Follow-up online courses Closed groups
Tests at 16, the end of
compulsory education, showed
the differences in linguistic
competence between CLIL and
* EL Gazette top performing UK Centre of Excellence based on British Council inspection reports
Spanish-only classes was much
info@wimbledon-school.ac.uk | 020 8947 1921 | www.wimbledon-school.ac.uk
stronger across all measures,
especially productive skills, and
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