Vocabulary learning at primary school: comparing EFL and CLIL

Abstract

Comparative studies on CLIL (Content Language Integrated Learning) often show an advantage in favor of CLIL vs. non-CLIL students. However, oftentimes studies are difficult to interpret because the hours of instruction between the groups under comparison tend to be quite different. This study focuses on a single group of students (n=22) aged 8 who were exposed to EFL instruction in the Fall term and to CLIL instruction (Science) in the Winter term. The major objectives are to analyse the vocabulary in the materials that were used in class and to examine gains in productive lexical knowledge. Results show that students were exposed to a greater amount of words and to more abstract and technical vocabulary in the CLIL materials and that they made significant progress in vocabulary learning in both contexts. The study also reveals that learning English through Science proved to be a more challenging experience than learning the foreign language in the English class.