The CLISS Project: Receptive Vocabulary in CLIL versus non-CLIL Groups

Abstract

Basically, Content and Language Integrated Learning, CLIL, aims at increasing language learners’ exposure to a foreign language by using it as the medium of instruction when teaching ordinary school subjects, e.g. biology and history. It is nowadays a widespread educational approach in Europe and research into CLIL is attracting increasing interest. However, research on the effects of CLIL in the Swedish context is scarce. To remedy this to some extent, the large-scale, longitudinal CLISS project, focusing primarily on CLIL as well as non-CLIL students’ proficiency and progress in written academic English and Swedish in upper secondary school, was launched in 2011. In this article, the CLISS project is accounted for in some detail, and the results from the first round of English receptive vocabulary test are presented. As this test, known as the Vocabulary Levels Test, was administered at the very outset of the CLIL experience for the CLIL students, these results represent baseline data. Findings reveal that already from the start, the CLIL students outperform the non-CLIL ones, and also that the males have a larger vocabulary than the females in both groups of students. Some possible reasons for these results are discussed.

Keywords

• CLIL
• academic language
• vocabulary acquisition
• second language acquisition
• SLA
• Vocabulary Levels Test