Effects of input on written proficiency in L2 English and Dutch: CLIL and NON-CLIL learners in French-speaking Belgium
(2017) Learner Corpus Research (LCR) — Location: Bolzano (4.October.2017)
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- Authors
Hendrikx, Isa 
- Abstract
- The present study falls within the framework of an interdisciplinary project on Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in French-speaking Belgiumi. It explores the effects of input on written proficiency in immersive (CLIL) and non-immersive (non-CLIL) language learning settings using various input measures. Several studies (e.g. Zydatiß 2007; Lorenzo & Moore 2010; Jexenflicker & Dalton-Puffer 2010; Gené-Gil, Juan Garau & Salazar-Noguera 2015; Martínez 2015; Bulon, Hendrikx, Meunier & Van Goethem forthcoming) compare the language proficiency of learners in CLIL and non-CLIL settings using global measures of complexity, accuracy and/or fluency, typically referred to as CAF (Housen, Kuiken & Vedder 2012; Norris & Ortega 2009). However, few studies on CLIL have controlled for the possible effect of L2 exposure (Saladrigues & Llanes 2014), while time spent on learning a second/foreign language has been recognized as one of the most important factors for successful acquisition. The amount and quality of target language (TL) input has become a focus of interest for many SLA researchers (e.g. Kinsella 2009 and Moyer 2009 on formal and informal contact; Llanes & Muñoz 2009 and Pérez-Vidal & Juan-Garau 2011 on study abroad; Long 1983 on formal instruction; Johnstone 2007 on length of instruction). The present study seeks to investigate 1) the written proficiency of CLIL and non-CLIL secondary school pupils and 2) the contribution/impact of various input measures to explain potential differences in proficiency between immersive and non-immersive pupils. Since CLIL programs aim to provide more target-like and input-rich environments than non-CLIL programs, we can expect a more native-like acquisition of the target language, i.e. a more native-like level of syntactic complexity and lexical diversity in the writing of CLIL pupils. The analysis is based on a corpus of written data in the form of 378 e-mails on similar topics. The participants are 5th year French-speaking secondary school pupils in CLIL and non-CLIL settings, learning Dutch (CLIL n=124; non-CLIL n=85) or English (CLIL n=86; non-CLIL n=83) as a foreign language. Besides the effect of CLIL education, the input measures used to investigate the potential impact of L2 input on the learners’ written proficiency are based on Muñoz’s work (2011; 2014) and are derived from extensive questionnaires: 1) length of target language (TL) exposure in years and 2) current informal contact with TL, a composite measure consisting of frequency of internet use in the TL, frequency of TL (productive and receptive) use outside school and frequency of contact with native speakers outside school. The texts were analyzed in terms of morpho-syntactic complexity and lexical diversity using different software programs. In addition, the pupils’ IQ (Raven test-score) is included in our analysis to detangle the effect of this cognitive variable from the impact of CLIL and the input measures. A comparison of the complexity scores found for the texts written by CLIL and non-CLIL pupils showed that the Dutch texts written by immersive pupils were more complex for all measures but type-token ration (TTR), a measure of lexical diversity. As for the English texts, the immersive pupils wrote more words, more sentences and obtained higher MTLD scores (measures for textual lexical diversity), while non-immersive pupils wrote longer words. So, while there is a more clear-cut difference in written proficiency between CLIL and non-CLIL learners of Dutch, this is less the case for learners of English. At the time of writing the present abstract, the various analyses involving the impact of the input measures are being performed but preliminary results indicate that for Dutch, CLIL remains a significant predictor for all the complexity measures selected. Also the pupils’ IQ shows a significant relationship with lexical diversity and morphological and syntactic complexity. This is probably due to our sample; we found greater differences in IQ between the CLIL/non-CLIL learners in Dutch compared to English, which can also be related to a possible selection bias (see for instance Thomas & Collier (2002)). Furthermore, current informal contact with the target language is significantly related to lexical diversity and text length (in number of words). For English we found that CLIL and the number of years spent learning the target language are significant predictors for morpho-syntactic and lexical complexity. However, current informal TL contact does not appear to have an impact on the pupils’ writing complexity in English. A potential explanation is that since English is an international – and omnipresent – language, both CLIL and non-CLIL learners of English have a frequent contact with the language, in consequence this variable is less distinctive. Dutch, on the other hand, as a noninternational language, is probably less frequently used in informal contexts (e.g. on the internet), therefore the non-CLIL learners are exposed less to Dutch, and CLIL has a greater impact on the acquisition of L2 Dutch.
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Citations
Van Mensel, L., Bulon, A., Hendrikx, I., Meunier, F., & Van Goethem, K. (2017). Effects of input on written proficiency in L2 English and Dutch: CLIL and NON-CLIL learners in French-speaking Belgium. Learner Corpus Research (LCR), Bolzano. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/177986