Carmen Pérez-Vidal

Subject realization in the syntactic development of a bilingual child

The present article reports on the findings of a case study of bilingual first language acquisition in Catalan and English. It first presents a general overview of a childs syntactic development from the age of 1;3 to 4;2 and then focuses on the question of subject realization in the two contrasting languages he is acquiring simultaneously. In this case, Catalan is a null subject language in opposition to the overt subject properties of English. Such data allow us to provide evidence on a key issue in bilingual acquisition research: the question of language separation in the early stages of acquisition. The data available suggest the absence of any major influence of one language on the other. In other words, our subject seems to be acquiring word order patterns which are different in the two adult systems in a language-dependent manner from the beginning of his production in both languages.

Languages for All in Education: CLIL and ICLHE at the Crossroads of Multilingualism, Mobility and Internationalisation

Within the European strategy towards multilingualism, which has guided linguistic policies in recent years, ‘Languages for all!’ is the prevailing motto. This idea has been extremely well captured by one of the central planks in the strategy, the Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) approach at primary and secondary educational levels, which has quickly become popular both top-down and bottom-up. CLIL has its natural continuation at university level, where the preferred term used is Integrating Content and Language in Higher Education (ICLHE). This chapter underlines the instrumental role played by such approaches in the promotion of internationalisation as a position and as a de facto situation. In doing so, it is argued, they are central in meeting the language demands of education, the preparation for mobility being part and parcel of them. CLIL and ICLHE can help students ‘learn to learn’ in multilingual academic settings, and perhaps eventually work in multilingual settings. And for those who do not get to travel, ‘internationalisation at home’ might be a foreseeable objective.

Does gender have an impact on the potential benefits learners may achieve in two contexts compared: formal instruction and formal instruction + content and language integrated learning?

This study focuses on the degree of influence of one individual factor, namely gender, on the level of English competence attained in two different groups of intermediate-level Catalan Spanish adolescent learners of English as a foreign language: the first group (Group A) is 1 year younger and follows formal instruction (FI) and in parallel content and language integrated learning (CLIL) instruction (FI + CLIL). That is, the group receives some ‘extra’ hours which are CLIL hours. The second group (Group B) follows a FI only programme. Data were elicited both for receptive and production skills, except speaking, and were statistically analysed using a pretest–posttest design over one academic year. Results obtained, contrary to expectations, confirm that female participants are better than male participants in both contexts of acquisition although not in all skills and domains analysed.

CLIL in Context: Profiling Language Abilities

This study seeks to investigate the effects of the Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) approach on young EFL learners’ productive and receptive skills in a school located in Barcelona (Catalonia). The school had carefully designed and made provisions for a successful CLIL programme before its implementation. For the purpose of the study, two different groups (N = 50 each) of Catalan/Spanish bilingual learners aged 13–15 were analysed longitudinally over one academic year. One received formal instruction (FI) in English as a foreign language as a school subject, in addition to a Science subject taught with a CLIL approach and in which English was the medium of instruction (experimental group). The other received FI only (control group). Data were elicited both for receptive and productive skills, except speaking, and were statistically analysed quantitatively and also qualitatively using a pretest-posttest design. Results obtained confirm the effectiveness of the CLIL programme, however not in all domains and to the same degree. Concerning receptive skills, the CLIL group improved their reading competence significantly more than the control group, as was expected, but not their listening competence. As for productive skills, our findings show a significant improvement in the case of the CLIL group as the participants’ writing, and accuracy in particular, significantly progressed and so did their general lexico-grammatical abilities. This is in contrast with findings in previous studies.

Practice Makes Best: Contrasting Learning Contexts, Comparing Learner Progress.

Undoubtedly, different learning contexts offer different opportunities for foreign language practice. This article focuses on context effects, and reports on the findings of the Study Abroad and Language Acquisition (SALA) project, which has examined in depth the impact of two learning contexts, SA within the European Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students (ERASMUS), and formal instruction (FI), on the progress made by advanced level higher education (HE) English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. The differential context effects on learners’ EFL relative gains in oral and written skills are thus measured. Following a description of the European multilingual policies in the HE Area (HEA), each context is characterised from a second language acquisition perspective. When such effects on oral skills are analysed for the dimensions of Fluency and Accuracy, higher gains seem to accrue in the SA context than in the FI context in both dimensions, with the exception of phonological perception. When written skills are examined, for Complexity, Fluency and Accuracy, in a similar vein, benefits accrue to a larger extent after the period spent abroad, except for Complexity. To conclude, the overall superior effect on learners’ linguistic progress of the SA context over the FI context is discussed.

How long is long enough? L2 English development through study abroad programmes varying in duration

The current study analyzes the oral production of advanced learners of English who have Catalan and Spanish as their first languages. Subjects participated in study abroad (SA) programmes in English-speaking countries as part of their undergraduate studies. A role-play task was used to elicit speech from learners prior to SA and upon arrival from SA. We analyze two groups of learners who participated in a three-month stay (N = 33) and a six-month stay (N = 14). Their oral production is measured on the basis of syntactic complexity, and overall accuracy and fluency. Native speakers of English (N = 24) performed the same role-play task so as to provide a baseline. Statistical analyses show a significant advantage of the three-month stay in the target language country over the six-month stay in terms of accuracy and fluency, areas in which, nevertheless, native speakers outperformed both groups at pre- and post-test, regardless of length of stay (LoS).