"Learning English has become a bonus side-effect from going to school!" Analyzing English language development and students’ attitudes under the influence of CLIL and individual learner-related factors in the Swiss context

This study explores Swiss high school students’ English writing competence and overall proficiency in order to analyze how Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and individual learner-related factors affect English language development over the course of one semester. Additionally, the study is interested in students’ attitudes towards the English language and language learning in general, but also towards the CLIL program more specifically. The participants of the study were four first year high school classes from a Swiss Gymnasium. The data were gathered using a pre-, during- and post-test design. Results suggest that both the CLIL and non-CLIL group developed in terms of their written competence during this first semester, which is first and foremost due to the factor of time. While the CLIL group outperforms the non-CLIL group in several complexity, accuracy and fluency measures, only two of the eight measures taken into account in the analysis were of significant statistical difference. A closer look at students’ overall proficiency development indicates that three factors are significant predictors for successful development, namely pre-test proficiency, average engagement with English outside of school and the CLIL program. This finding also suggests that the amount of time and the ways students engage with English outside of school are more important than the question of whether they belong to the CLIL group or not. The qualitative part of this study revealed that students’ motivations towards the English language but also towards the bilingual program are high and that the non-CLIL group significantly improved their attitudes towards English since starting high school.