Research project

Will CLIL lessons help to engage more students into lesson?

Marta Niewiarowska

Nr 312 502
Summary:
The purpose of this research project is to investigate CLIL influence on childrens
engagement during English lessons. Moreover, this work also aims to check whether or not
children would like those types of lessons.

The first theoretical part presents definitions and advantages of Content and Language
Integrated Learning. In addition, the role of motivation in learning foreign language is
discussed.

In the second empirical part the results of the surveys and teachers observations,
which were conducted in two classes of elementary school, are presented. The main purpose
of the project was to examine the impact of CLIL on the students' engagement in learning
foreign language.

Table of contents

Theoretical part

Justification of the topic

The teaching context.
CLIL education
The role of motivation in foreign language learning

Empirical part

Methods,
Participants
Measures
Procedure
Results

Conclusions

Theoretical part
Justification of the topic.
In my research project, I would like to examine whether or not implementation of
CLIL will have positive impact on childrens engagement during lessons. Since the beginning
of the school year I have observed that my students motivation to learning English is
gradually decreasing. Despite the fact that during lessons the children are provided with lots
of activities (games, songs, movement games, art and craft activities), more and more students
seem to be bored during lessons. That is why I decided I will implement some elements to my
teaching practice. CLIL is one of the teaching areas which I found the most interesting and
worth implementing in Polish primary schools. CLIL has an undeniably positive influence on
the foreign language learning process. It not only develops students oral communication
skills but has enormous influence on learners thinking skills and learning strategies. In
comparison to the traditional way of teaching, it provides students with the required
knowledge and gives them more time to practice foreign language to be better prepared for
the future life.

In my opinion, implementation of CLIL would be beneficial for my students. As far as

children are concerned, it not only may develop their language skills but also be the base to
which pupils may refer to and build their knowledge. CLIL may awaken childrens curiosity
and make the learning process a bit easier. Such lessons will be more involving and
interesting. The multi-stimulating context and much more time spent on learning may
contribute to childrens foreign language development.

The teaching context.

The research project was conducted in the Primary school in Warszawa in September
and October 2016. Two second grade classes and their English teacher (the researcher)
participated in the research. In total, 50 pupils were involved in the research. The pupils who
took part in the research were six, seven years old. Those classes were co-educational and had
English two times a week. One lesson lasted 45 minutes. Children from those classes knew
English at different levels. For most of the students this was the second year of learning
foreign language. What is more, 21 students attended additional English lessons every week.
Most of the children had free access to the internet, films, music, games and books in foreign
language at home. This school has rich traditions and has been operating continuously since
1956. The institution very willingly supports actions which aimed at promoting learning
English. Children may participate in numerous language competitions, act English stories,
create foreign language displays or participate in additional English classes. It is well
presented and tidy, urban, full primary school. Students who attend this school come mostly
from lower and middle-class families. There are minorities and ethnic groups. Learners
parents are very involved in to the school life. What is more, childrens parents also have very
positive attitude to learning English and often supports the learning process at home.

CLIL education.

Nowadays in education the term CLIL is getting more and more popular all around the
world. In her book Discourse in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)
Classrooms Christiane Dalton-Puffer explains that this term refers to situations when a
foreign language is used as a medium of instruction (Dalton-Puffer C. 2007:3). It takes place
when:() pupils learn the content of the curriculum at the same time as they exercise and
improve their language skills (Eurydice 2006:4). The term Content and language integrated
learning was coined in 1994 in Europe but Christiane Dalton-Puffer (2007:2) notes that the
tradition of teaching in other than the mother tongue language is not a new invention and has
its roots in medieval Europe, when Latin was the main language of instruction.

Today content language integrated learning is one of the most exciting innovations in
the present education scene, especially in Europe. According to Mehisto, Marsh and Firgols
(2008:11) the main role of CLIL is integration. In their opinion this integration can be divided
into two types, one describes language learning included in content classes while the second
corresponds to using content form subjects in languagelearning classes. Moreover, it seems
that Content and Language Integrated Learning can be use not only to integrate language and
knowledge. It helps to develop knowledge about different cultures and countries, is a
powerful motivation stimulus and has an influence on building language awareness as well.
Now, these benefits will be discussed in more details.
 Firstly, Content and Language Integrated Learning program has undeniably positive
influence on a foreign language learning process. Discussing CLIL benefits Christiane
Dalton-Puffer (2008:3) shows that it allows students to develop their oral communication
skills, helps to learn subject-specific language terminology and improve overall language
competence. CLIL classes additionally teaches a lot of chunks and colloquial words, which
may be useful in the future. During CLIL lessons children have much more time to
experiment and play with language. Thanks to that they are unconsciously training the ability
to speak freely and at the same time their speech becomes more fluent. As Nikula observed
(2007:203) students gain a higher level of automatization and appropriacy of language. She
also reports that CLIL students, who know many technical terms and general academic
language, have much more space for interaction, so they use a foreign language
spontaneously for face-toface interactions (2007:179-204.). The comparison of CLIL
students and their non-CLIL peers shows that many of the learners who took part in this
program reached higher language levels than the children who had followed the conventional
curriculum (Dalton-Puffer, C. 2008:5 after Haunold 2006). All things considered, Content and
Language Integrated Learning is a perfect program to expand childrens general knowledge
and, at the same time, to develop a foreign language.

Secondly, this approach is very useful in preparing students to live in multilingual and
multicultural society. At present, languages became part of our everyday life. CLIL can open
the child to other cultures, teach tolerance and train to live in linguistically diverse
communities. CLIL program allows students to gain required content of the curriculum and at
the same time shows them that, no matter in which language, knowledge is always the same.
Moreover, children learn how to discuss with other people and respect their opinions. In short,
Content and language integrated learning is considered to be helpful in teaching children
tolerance and respect for other nations.

Thirdly, CLIL not only helps to develop a foreign language or general knowledge, it
may as well improve learners thinking skills and learning strategies. As Mehisto, Marsh and
Frigols noted in their book CLIL enables children to develop meta-linguistic awareness.
During lessons students have an opportunity to contact with a different language and to
compare it to their mother tongue language. This situation enables pupils to build their
knowledge about these languages and develop learning strategies. Content and language
integrated learning builds highly stimulating environments, where children have a possibility
to study content through different perspectives (Dalton-Puffer 2008). Despite higher levels of
difficulty students are eager to solve tasks. They discover that there is not only one correct
answer to the teacher questions and the tasks can be solve in many different ways. Thanks to
CLIL pupils show higher tolerance of frustration and are not afraid to make mistakes.

Taking everything into consideration, today Content and Language Integrated

Learning is one of the most promising approach in the educational scene. In comparison to
the traditional way of teaching, it provide students with the required knowledge and gives
them more time to practice foreign language to be better prepared for future life.

The role of motivation in foreign language learning.

It is a known fact that in foreign language learning, as in every field of life, motivation
is necessary to attain success. To help children achieve success, teachers should not only focus
on the subject that they teach, but also develop childrens talents and motivation. Even the
most brilliant children may have learning problems if they do not believe in themselves.
Fortunately, more and more attention is paid to the role of motivation. A motivated student
learns faster and more efficiently, is active and willing to work. The earlier the teacher starts
to work on developing childrens motivation, the better results in learning they will achieve.
In their book Psychology for Teachers, Williams, and Burden draw attention to the fact that
the motivation has a dynamic nature. It means that motivation is the spark which encourages
students to start the task, as well as the energy to continue the learning effort. Therefore, the
teacher role is not only to make the task or activity interesting, but also to maintain the
students interest and commitment for the whole learning process. Among many there are a
few very important factors which have an enormous influence on childrens motivation in the
foreign language learning process.

First of all, children have to know the goal of learning a foreign language. It is
necessary to explain that learning a foreign language will not only give them chances to pass
exams or finish school, but it also will have huge impact on their future life. In her research
Impact of learning conditions on young FL learners motivation, Jelena Mihaljevi
Djigunovi reports that more than eighty percent of children believes that it is good to know
English. Today, when there are no barriers, people can surf in the Internet, travel around the
world and make friends with others from different countries, children should know that a
foreign language is not only a school subject but it may open the world for them too.
 Secondly, learning conditions may as well affect childrens motivation. Teachers
attitude and qualifications, the intensity of teaching or size of group are important factors in
the learning process. As the study shows the smaller groups of children learn foreign language
together the better results children achieve (Djigunovi, 2009). In such cases the teacher has
much more time to focus on individual children and adjust tasks difficulty to the learners
level.
In their study Motivating Language Learners: A Classroom-Oriented Investigation of
the Effects of Motivational Strategies on Student Motivation Marie J. Guilloteaux and Zoltan
Drnyei suggest that the teachers motivational practice has a highly positive correlation with
learners. For example children will stay more motivated over a period of time if they think
that the teacher is well prepared and cares about them. Furthermore, a good teacher should
continually pay attention to his or hers behaviors, be kind and helpful, because when students
have confidence in the teacher, they are more willing to work harder.

Thirdly, teachers ought to remember that people and the society in which we live have
an enormous influence on childrens motivation in language learning. As Jelena M.
Djigunovi shows in her research, in Croatia were tourism is the most important source of
national income and the society consider knowing foreign language as very important,
students are more motivated to learn languages (Djigunovi, 2009). Of course not only society
affects childrens motivation. The attitude of parents, siblings and peers is perhaps even more
significant. If a parent is critical of the language and does not support the child, it is highly
likely that the student will lose all enthusiasm he or she had for learning foreign language. But
on the other hand, if the childs peers like learning languages, there is much grater possibility
that the child will be more motivated to continue learning.

As far as CLIL is considered, CLIL program has a huge impact on learners

motivation. Students, who took part in such lessons, were not afraid to use a foreign language
even if they made mistakes. This happened mainly because pupils had more intensive
exposure to the language than children who had not participated in these lessons. During
CLIL lessons students have more time to practice their vocabulary and skills. They see their
progress, are confident and more motivated to continue learning. Using a foreign language for
real practical purposes makes pupils more focused on their work. By showing them that
knowing languages is useful students are higher motivated to continue learning (Eurydice
2006). What is more, as Mary Chopey-Paquet notices in her report, challenging CLIL
environment have a positive influence on childrens motivation, they are determined and more
willing to work harder (Chopey-Paquet, 2010:239247).

To sum up, it has been proven by many researchers (Drnyei, 1998, Gardner, 1985,).
that motivation plays a huge role in language learning. Motivation is a force which gives
children power to learn. Of course, unmotivated children can still learn foreign language, but
the process will be longer and not so effective.

Empirical part

Aims of the research:

The research aimed at answering the following questions:

o Will the combination expand childrens engagement during the foreign language lessons?
o What do children think about such lessons?

Methods

Participants

The research was conducted in Szkoa Podstawowa im. Ks. Juliana Chrocickiego in
September and October 2016. Two second grade classes 2c and 2f were involved in the
research. In class 2c there are 26 students and in class 2f there are 24 students. In those classes
children are not at the same age, the majority of them are 7 years old but there are also some
6-years-old students. Each class has English two times a week. During the research project the
classes were taught by the researcher who used during CLIL lessons. In the classes the
researcher conducted five lessons (45 minutes per each).
Measures

The researcher used the following research instruments:

- The questionnaires - Investigating the learners opinions about the lessons and the
CLIL education
- The teacher ( the researcher) journal - where the researcher noted her observations
abut lessons

Procedure

Five story-based CLIL lessons delivered by the researcher

In order to investigate the research problems five CLIL lessons were designed. The lessons
plans were adapted from Curricular Content. Resources for Primary (Calabrese, Rampone,
2005). Those lessons were conducted in both classes and lasted for 45 minutes.

Taking notes and reflections during the CLIL lessons.

The researcher kept journal, in which she noted down her reflections on the students
behaviour and engagement in the lessons.

The questionnaire for children Smiley questionnaire

The main aim of the smiley questionnaire was to investigate childrens opinions about the
conducted lessons and different activities. The form of the questionnaire was especially
adjusted for young children and was conducted in Polish. The smiley questionnaire took place
in October 2016 and contained four questions. The first question was designed to investigate
whether or not children liked the lessons conducted by researcher. The aim of the second
question was to find out if children liked to work with original English story-books. Another
question examines if children liked art activities. The following one was an attempt to answer
the question if students would like those kinds of lessons to repeat. There were three possible
answers to all questions and each were represented by a different picture: smiling face, moody
face and sad face.

Results

The results were based on the questionnaires and the research journal and were showed in the
form of a graph.

The above figure presents the results of the childrens questionnaire. It contained four
questions. The results show that almost all students liked the CLIL lessons. Three quarters of
pupils enjoyed those lessons very much, ten people quite liked it and just two students did not
like them. The story activities were liked very much by the children, but there were also five
students who did not prefer this type of activities. The most enjoyable activities turned out to
be the art exercises, almost all children liked them. Taking conducted lessons into
consideration forty seven students answered that they would like those lessons to repeat. Only
two students did not like those lessons at all.

Conclusions
 The aim of the research project was to examine whether or not implementation of
CLIL will have positive impact on childrens engagement during lessons.

As the students questionnaire results showed the positive impact hypothesis was
confirmed. From the beginning the pupils were very eager to work and they wanted to
participate in all tasks. All types of activates were liked by over 70% of children. Moreover,
the art activities turned out to be the their favourite. It can be interpreted that during normal
English lessons pupils very rarely have art education. As a young learners, children enjoy all
activities which are funny, creative and require movement. The story-based activities were
also truly liked by the learners. Furthermore, 95% of children responded affirmatively to the
question if they would like those lessons to repeat. This number can be caused by novelty,
creativity and friendliness of the CLIL based lessons. To sum up, the questionnaires results
revealed that students evaluated this approach positively.

Today, nobody denies that the earlier children begin learning English the more benefits
and opportunities for the future they gain. Such students are more confident in using foreign
language, gain more native-like accent and perform better on tests. To give students even
more chances to develop their foreign language take implementing the story-based CLIL in to
consideration. On the basis of the data obtained in the research project it can be assumed that
combination is truly beneficial for students. By integrating content and language teachers may
present children that learning foreign languages is not just another boring subject which has to
be learnt but it is a tool for learning more about the surrounding world. Its rich and practical
context develop childrens language skills, especially speaking and listening, increase
vocabulary and is suitable for all learning styles.
Bibliography:

Calabrese, I., Rampone, S. 2005 Curricular Content. Resources for Primary. Oxford: OUP

Chopey-Paquet, M. 2010. CLIL in French-speaking Belgium. Transforming paradox into potential. In

Dutch crossing, vol. 34 No. 3, November, 239247

Dalton-Puffer, C. 2008. Outcomes and processes in Content and Language Integrated Learning
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Perspectives for English Language Teaching. Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 139-157

Dalton-Puffer C. 2007. Discourse in CLIL Classrooms. (Language Learning and Language Teaching
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European Comission. 2011.European Survey on Language Competences.

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