ABSTRACT
In the European context, research focusing on various perspectives of content and
language integrated learning (CLIL) has grown rapidly in the last decade. Most
studies concern CLIL where English is the language of instruction, which is also the
case in the present article. In some countries, these investigations show very positive
results (Dalton-Puffer 2007; Isidro 2010; Lasagabaster 2008). For instance, in the
Spanish context Nave´s and Victori (2010) found not only that CLIL students
outperform their non-CLIL peers on a number of language proficiency measures in
several grades, but also that eighth grade CLIL students outperformed ninth grade
non-CLIL students on all of the measures tested. In Finland, Nikula’s (2005) report
showed that CLIL students, in contrast to students learning English as a Foreign
Language, are looked upon as competent language users by their teachers, also
showing signs of being confident in their use of English. Germany is another country
where benefits of CLIL have been demonstrated, for instance, on linguistic accuracy
(Klippel 2003; Zydatiss 2007). In Sweden, results from CLIL research are not equally
chapt r is to show that some explanati f
chapt r gives an overview of these factors in four European countries: Finla
CONTENT AND LANGUAGE INTEGRATED LEARNING
encouraging. Washburn (1997) found that CLIL students did not gain as good
competence in the subjects studied as their non-CLIL peers. Sylve´n (2004)
investigated lexical proficiency and concluded that it was the amount of exposure
to English outside of school that was of importance for students’ vocabulary
development rather than CLIL in school. Moreover, classroom interaction is more
limited in CLIL classes than in non-CLIL classes (Lim Falk 2008).
