CLIL & ESP - economiaaziendale.altervista.org

E-tivity 1 - WebQuest – Learning experiences with ESP and CLIL – A. Ferrara

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CLIL & ESP(ALBERTO FERRARA)

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Corso di perfezionamento ed aggiornamento professionale “Discipline e lingue straniere in approccio integrato - CLIL”


INTRODUCTION

The methodological message of the CEFR1 is that “language learning should be directedtowards enabling learners to ACT in REAL LIFE SITUATIONS, expressing themselves andaccomplishing tasks of differents natures.”

Starting from this statement this webquest aims to shed light on the current state of art of the use ofCLIL2 in the learning paths by seeking out some experiences of implementation in Europe but notonly.

In the first paragraph I wrote about the use of CLIL in STEAM showing that a this point in timethere are few cases in European schools involving teachers of a DNL3 in the CLIL methodologywhich fit perfectly the aforesaid CEFR objective.

In the second paragrah I wrote about some experiences, but small and isolated, regarding the use ofCLIL and its relationship with ESP4. In particular, I chose an experience that shows the use of CLILin Business.

English for Specific purposes (ESP) has a long tradition, dating from the 1960s, as a movementdesigned to respond the needs for communication in specific scientific fields and professionalsettings.

The result of this webquest which I carried out underline not only the general importance of using anon language subject to improve both the language profencie and content, but it displays therelevance of using a substantial language path like the CLIL to make this combination trulyeffective and a profoitable collaboration between NL and L teachers, no one of them is self-sufficient.

CLIL reveal the usefulness of adopting authentic situations to foster the acquiring of anotherlanguage, After this webquest I noticed that it is essential using an others subject to promote thelanguage skills, escpecially the communicative ones.

Thanks to this metacognitive aspect the learning process become more significative and morelasting.

Ultimately, tacken for granted the need to strenght the learning of a foreign language these days,this unsatisfactory situation strike me not a little and I think there is a need for more incisiveactions by the bodies in charge to make the CLIL a reality in our schools.

1 Common European Framework of Referance2 Content and Language Integrated Learning3 Discipline Non Linguistic4 English for Specif Purpose



CLIL IN STEAM - CURRENT SITUATION

To figure out the state of art of CLIL I report an extract from an ainterview by Egbert Weisheit5

who points out the challenges and the benefits of teaching Science in English and the lack ofcooperation between science teachers and language teachers in Germany. I do believe that this frame is the same for every other STEM6 subject and for any other country.

But before that I want to underline the essentiality of adopting a combined approach acrossdiscipline through a simple, maybe even trivial, example but I think effective It is deduced froman article on FLUENTU website:1. (https://www.fluentu.com/blog/educator/what-is-clil/)

In CLIL, the subject matter provides the fodder as well as the communicative context in which thetarget language is learned. That means every vocabulary word, phrase and concept is bothimmediately relevant and meaningful. There is a direct context in which the word becomes useful,vivid and alive. In a French cooking class, or a Greek philosophy class, the linguistic strides have abase to grow from.Students learn the words, phrases and concepts as they need them. In fact, in CLIL, studentsoften first feel the necessity of learning the word/concept before they actually discover what itmeans. Students might be thinking, “I have no idea what the professor is saying—I don’t evenknow what tranche means. But I need to learn it if I ever want to make this dish.”

Compare this to a dry vocabulary list, where students first learn the translation of certain words orphrases and then think up scenarios where they can apply them. In many language classes, forexample, students might first learn the French expression Allons-y! (Let’s go!) and later think ofsituations where this could be appropriate. Meanwhile, students in a French cooking class wouldhear “Allons-y! Allons-y! Allons-y! ” as the chef walks around the tables, spurring students tochop, slice and dice faster.

What says Egbert!!2. (CLIL in Germany: Interview with Egbert Weisheit | Onestopenglish)

“There is a broad gap between science teachers and language teachers in the majority of europeancountries schools. They tend not to communicate with each other at all about their work withstudents and their curriculm objectivies. One of the problem is to bridge the gap between theunderstanding of language from the language teachers and from the science teachers.”

He concludes by stating that there are several initiatives on the use of English in teaching anothersubject but they are SMALL and ISOLATE and what's more they do NOT ADOPT a properMETHODOLOGY to achieve both objectives in terms of content and language.

5 He is a teacher of Biology and Chemistry and a teacher trainer 6 Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (plus Art in other cas)


The gap between DL and DNL is wide in the majority of the EU countries

Through a subject mater the language became meaningful and relevant


EXPERIENCES OF CLIL AND ESP

COURSE OF BUSINESS FROM LA SORBONNE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS3. (CLIL in the Business English Classroom, Dana Di Pardo Leon-Henri, University of Paris IV – La Sorbonne (Paris, France)

This is a study to determine the extent to which studentes in a business english course foundtheir learning enhanced by the use of CLIL.Marsh (2012) assertes that the use of Content and Language Itntegrated Learning (CLIL) inlanguage teaching at the higher education level has the potential to encourage learners to acquirelanguage in an immerson style setting, since the integration of language and content provides asubstantive basis for language teaching and learning. The content provides a motivational andcognitive foundation for language learning because it is of interest and value to the learner.Students learning by doing and using language as a tool of communication and understanding.Hence, CLIL is also a means to assist in the development of analytic and reflective skills. Thereal challenge is to keep students communicating and exchanging in the target language, whileproviding new information and methods to capture ad keep their interest.

In the context of English for Specifc Purpose (ESP) and more precisely, a course with a BusinessEnglish focus, this study aims to analize if and how a CLIL-based approach can be implementedto teach a varity of professional skills, while assisting students in the development of theirmetacognitive ability.

According to Marsh, the objective of CLIL is to promote content and language mastery, andwith ESP students learn a language and then use it as a tool to accomplish concrete tasks withspecific communication skills (Mehisto, Marsh, & Frigols, 2008 p. 11). When compared to morebasic grammar-based teaching methods and rote learning, content-driven activities withinprofessionally oriented courses can prove to be more interesting and collaborative tasks. Byworking together in small groups, students are not obliged to communicate and understandeach other, but they are also required to deal with the potential for disagreements, developnegatiotion strategies and find concrete solutions to their problems.Furthermore, the various stages of the task can be organized that the focus is placed on creativeautonomy through the use of activities such as improvisation and role-play. This willencourage intrinsic motivation (Brown, 1994, p.44) since the learners are (such as stage fright orshyness), which are often related to making mistakes in public. In the case of this study, role-playand improvisations activities were a crucial part fosterd to push their limits and conquer theirfears of the business presentation. For this resaon the student were encouraged to prapare early andpractise to avoid anxiety.


In the context of ESP content provides a motivational and cognitive foundation

- CLIL develop the metacognitive ability

Groups work and Role Play commit learners to cooperate, deal with

disagreement, develop strategies, find solutions enhancing specif

communicative skills


By definition, content-based learning focuses the learner on useful and practical objectives sincethe subject matter is perceived to be relevant to long term goals (Brown 1994 p.220). Learnersare more willing to adhere to a task and related activities when they can percieve the longterm practical usefulness of an assignement.

As Mehisto illustrate, the CLIL methodology encompasses three main goals: content,language and learning skills. In terms of language learning, the integration of all three goals canoffer students a variety of usefull skills, such as language proficiency, cognitive and social skills, aswell as the potential for high levels of academic achievement. Whit regards to lesson planning, Coyle, Hood and Marsh (2010) insist that teachers mustelucidate the interrelationship between content objectivies and language objectivies. For thisreason, they have devised a conceptual representation that makes these connections in the formof a Language Triptych.

The language Triptych was constructed with the objective of taking into account the need tointegrate congnitively demanding content with language learning ad using.Students must be cognitively engaged and encouraged to become aware of their own learningthrough the development of mertacognitive skills such as learnign to learn. Interactive classroomsare typified by group work, student questioning or critical analysis and problem solving. CLILstudents are required to cooperate with each other in order to make use of each other's strenghts andcompensate for weaknesses. They must learn how to operate collaboratively and effectively as agroup.

As teachers, our role is then much more supportive in nature, we facilitate learning by


The SUBJECT MATTER is crucial to make students percieve the relevance of a

task as a long-term goals.


observing the students and guiding them. Students who work in a collaborative way have theopportnity to develpo life skills such as observational and interpersonal skills. This can represent asource of motivation and a safe haven to build confidance and improve communication skills.

In the case of Business English course instead of having to present a purely descriptivebusiness presentation about company, the students were given the task of preparing acollaborative project based on the role play of professional scenario.

In the activities leading up to the final task, the students created language content (script anddialogue). They were encouraged to evaluate their progress and negotiate outcomes, as theybuilt on and shared knowledge, they repacjaged information, while thinking creatively andcritically. The emphasis was placed both on verbal and non verbal communication, as well asinteractive and intercultural communication. The role play involved choosing a partner and scenario, structuring presentation, preparing ascript and finally providing a feedback on the various activities and tasks.

In this way, the core features of CLIL methodology were respected. According to Mehisto someof the core features are as follows:

Multiple focus Supporting language learning in content classes

Supporting content learning in language classes Integrating several subjects

Organizing learning through cross-cultural themes and projects Supporting reflection on the learning process

Safe and enriching learning environment

Using routine activities and discourse Building student confidence to experiment with language and content

Guiding access to authentic learning materials and environments Increasing student language awareness

Authenticity

Letting the student ask for the language help they need Maximizing the accommodation of student interests

Making a regular connection between learning and the students’ lives Using current materials from the media and other sources

Active Learning

Having students communicate more than the teacher



Encouraging students to help set content, language and learning skills outcomes Obliging students to evaluate their progress in achieving learning outcomes

Favouring peer co-operative work Negotiating the meaning of language and content with students

Allowing teachers to act as facilitators

Scaffolding Building on student’s existing knowledge, skills, attitudes, interests and experiences

Repackaging information in user-friendly ways Responding to different learning styles

Fostering creative and critical thinking Challenging students to take another step forward and not just coast in comfort

Co-operation

Planning courses/lessons/themes in co-operation with CLIL and non-CLIL teachers Involving the local community, authorities and employers

With time and planning, it is then possible to design activities that integrate most or all of the abovefeatures. At the heart of these core features is the thinking (cognition) behind the teaching andlearning process. Simply stated, the more powerful the thinking, the greater the learning. In thecase of this study, students were given an outline of instructions; however, they were encouraged tocreate and improvise their scenarios while providing detailed information.

According to Mehisto et al. (2008, p.30), thinking (cognition) is defined as the mental faculty ofknowing, which includes: perceiving;

recognizing; judging;

reasoning; conceiving;

imagining.Cognition is required in lesson planning, but to heighten the intellectual challenge of a particulartask for students, it should also be integrated into the task itself, so as to encourage the learners todevelop their individual metacognitive, critical thinking and problem-solving abilities. Accordingto Flavell (1978), metacognition refers to higher-order thinking that involves active controlover the cognitive processes engaged in learning. It consists of both metacognitive knowledgeand metacognitive experiences. He further explains that it plays an important role in oralcommunication of information, oral persuasion, oral comprehension, language acquisition,memory, problem solving, social cognition and various types of self- control and self-instruction(Flavell, 1979). In due course, the integration of the aforementioned theories in language lessonplanning can bring constructive results on many different levels both for the language learner andteacher.



Pedagogical Focus

This pedagogical intervention was conducted in the academic year 2013-2014, at the University ofLorraine and more precisely, in the Business Administration and Management Department of theInstitute of Technology in Metz, France. At the outset of their two-year program, students mustpossess many different professional, interpersonal and business- related skills. For example,they must be at ease with the use of modern modes of communication (from business softwareto presentation materials, such as tablets). They are required to work efficiently andindependently, but at the same time, they must be capable of communicating with culturallydiverse teams. They need to develop their ability to analyse various situations and defend theirstance on any given subject, as well as acquire strong written, oral and professional skills inEnglish. (BLOG)

ProcedureThe task was given during the second half of the students’ first year studies. The advantagewas that the students already knew each other and they were free to choose their workingcollaborators. The students formed groups of two and sometimes three at the most. One monthbefore the date of their oral presentation, they were given the name of a recently createdinternational company or association. Some of the companies were oriented towards an innovativeproduct or service, while others were based on newer trends such as crowd funding and businessangels. The students were encouraged to meet often outside the classroom, to research theircompany or association, to write a short scenario which would present all of the information relatedto their company, to learn and rehearse their roles, and then finally, to act out their scenario infront of their classmates and the teacher.

Previous to this activity, the teacher provided a lesson on the qualities of a successful oralpresentation, including the role of body language and voice projection as well as the use of audio-visual aids in business presentations. During the month leading up to the presentation date, theteacher merely guided the students in their research and answered questions only if


An activity with CLIL must engage and challenge students with authentic problem solving acitivity

withthe teacher act as scaffolding to support them

The pedagogical goals were to acquire modern mode of communication, work

independenlty – to learn how to communicate in a team – to acquire

professional english


necessary. Their scenario, which included an interactive role for the audience, had to be based onone of the following five different business scenarios: a presentation to new shareholders (the audience),

a job interview (the audience is the hiring committee), a conference-type presentation with the new international managers (the audience),

an annual meeting for (some new) executive & administrative employees (the audience), the annual review for the finance department (some new employees & the shareholders).

The students were asked to improvise (and not read notes), to be creative, professional andoriginal. They were encouraged to use humour, but cautioned that the ambiance had to remainprofessional.

From the beginning, it was made clear that all students had to possess a clear and discernible roleand that each one of them would be obliged to speak in an equitable fashion. Students wereinstructed that the scenario presentation was to last between 10 and 15 minutes in duration. Teamwork in problem-solving was encouraged. As with any CLIL-based activity, the overall intent of this activity was to integrate content withlanguage and learning skills. Nevertheless, this activity was a result of much didactic reflectionafter observing the purely descriptive business presentations that were given by the students in thefirst semester. The primary objective was to create a task that would involve a more authenticand professional dimension (the role-play and scenario) to offer the students an opportunityto conceive and design original language immersion settings. Equally important was the need todevelop a framework in which the students would create their scenario while taking risks andboosting their confidence level in public speaking situations.

During the various presentations, the students were offered an opportunity to share their knowledgewith the others who observed the role-plays and discovered the new content (company,organization or association, etc...). In order to heighten the intellectual challenge and encourage thestudents to develop their analytic, reflective and hypothesizing skills, the students were obliged totake an active role in and provide views on learning about how they learn.

Research DiscussionThis study ultimately serves to determine the extent to which students in a business Englishcourse found their learning enhanced by the use of CLIL, the integration of professionalcommunication skills, and finally, the development and analysis of metacognitive skills. At thesame time, the study investigates the students’ impressions on the pedagogical interventionthrough the use of a questionnaire. This questionnaire was originally conceived and created byclosely examining and decomposing the various stages and activities involved in preparing the finalrole-play presentation task. In general terms, the study was designed to answer the followingpreliminary research question: In a BE language environment is it possible to create a pedagogicalactivity founded on a CLIL-based approach to motivate students and teach a variety of professionalskills, as well as help students to enhance English language learning, while developingmetacognitive and problem-solving skills?



Discussion/Interpretation of Research StudyThe findings provide valuable insight into the students’ opinions regarding this pedagogicalapproach to business English teaching. The findings reveal that using CLIL- based activities inthe business English classroom to provide a forum for immersion-style language learning canencourage risk-taking as well as confidence building. A CLIL approach to teaching language notonly enhances language learning, but it also empowers and motivates the learners since theybecome more aware of and thus more in control of the development of their own learningstrategies. since it provided them with an opportunity A large majority of the students expressedthat this activity improved their language learning to learn a great deal of business English,as well as practise and acquire more general English during the various stages of conception andplanning to presentation and observation. The activity also helped some students to ‘come out oftheir shell’ and overcome their shyness. In terms of content and language learning, the studentsagreed that they were intellectually challenged since they learned about many different contentareas (business and administration, verbal and non-verbal communication skills, interculturalthemes and metacognitive skills development). In the same way, the majority supported the ideathat the scenario-based format, while simulating authentic and practical role-plays, had stimulatedcreativity and enthusiasm.

This response demonstrates that the CLIL methodology does indeed have the potential to functionas a catalyst for professional development. The vast majority of students also supported the ideathat the final role-play presentations should have been recorded and filmed so that the scenarioscould have viewed by the other groups of students. This study shows that it is possible to design language learning activities that not onlypromote language learning in an autonomous, peer collaborative and interactive fashion, butalso encourage the development of professional communication skills. Concurrently, thestudy focuses on the importance of the awareness or analysis of one’s own learning andthinking in the professional communication and language learning process.

ConclusionUsing CLIL-based activities in language teaching is a viable didactic approach.

This study explored the possibility and effectiveness of using the CLIL approach in businessEnglish teaching. The research showed that using CLIL methodology and peer collaborativetasks can enhance the development of professional communication skills as well asmetacognitive ability through the implementation of an active analytical communicationactivity. In fact, in the context of language teaching, assisting students in the development ofmetacognitive and analytical skills may be beneficial for them not only to improve their linguisticskills but also to empower and inspire them to become lifelong language users and learners.


CLIL empower and inspire to become lifelong users and learners

The findings provided encouraging results in terms of language improvments and

communicatives ability.


Rethinking ESP

Another experience that put in ESP and CLIL was caried out at the Aristotle Univeristy ofThessaonki, School of Journalism & Mass Communications The title is “Rethinking ESP”It wants highlight the main points of convergences between CLIL and ESP, presents the mainfeathures of CLIL pedagogy, and shows how they were implemented in the design of an ESPJournalism course in a Greek university. The 4Cs Framework was used as a basic theoretical toolfor the design of the materials. Attention was paid to both content and language through a multipleauthentic materials through scaffolding.

English for Specific purposes (ESP) has a long tradition, dating from the 1960s , as amovement designed to appeal mostly to adult tertiary students in non-English speaking countriesresponding to their needs for communication in specific scientific fields and professional settings.Although Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), with its dual focus on both contentand language, emerged almost thirty years after the advent of ESP, both movements aredriven by common factors, including the omnipresence of English as the internationallanguage of communication and the demands of world economy. Indeed, some researchers havepointed out the common characteristics shared by both approaches. Johns (1997), although notdirectly referring to CLIL but to Content-based Instruction (CBI), upon which CLIL draws,highlights the common features between the two approaches. The first point of convergence isthat both movements combine language teaching with the contexts and demands of reallanguage use. A difference, however, lies in the fact that CBI is generally addressed to ESL(English as a Second Language) contexts whereas ESP is related to foreign language learning andthus it is more internationally focused, a feature it shares with CLIL. Moreover, ESP mostlyaddresses language issues, that is, it involves teaching the English language necessary forcommunication in specific situations. Both ESP and CLIL can be seen, however, as occupyingplaces on a continuum with ESP standing towards one end as a more language- driven approachand CLIL on the other as more content-driven (Räsänen, 2008).

Table 1 presents some of the key features of CBI, CLIL and ESP allowing, thus, for a comparisonamong the three approaches.


There are points of convergences between CLIL and ESP


MethodologyAccording to the 4Cs Framework (Coyle, 1999) language learning (communication andcultures) is integrated with learning (content and cognition). Effective CLIL is achievedthrough successful understanding of the content, activation of cognitive processing,interaction in a communicative setting, developing language knowledge and skills andincreasing intercultural awareness.

In the first module covering the print media the students had to write news stories for the collegenewspaper which would appear on the School’s website. Basic concepts were first introduced suchas news values, the genre of the news story, newspaper language, story structure (e.g. the invertedpyramid-style) and also the function ofheadlines and lead paragraphs. The students were alsointroduced to lexico-grammatical features of textual analysis, such as nominal groups, connectors,referents and also the use of active/passive voice and modals in specialised discourse.Input was provided through authentic data taken from British and American newspapers, both



quality and tabloid. The analysis provided the students with conceptual knowledge regarding newsstories. This introduction was followed by a task where the students, in groups of four, had to writea news story by applying the journalistic guidelines they had been introduced to and thus they wereable to develop their skills and the competences necessary for the production of a piece of writingbelonging to this genre. This task-based activity draws on CLIL principles in that it pays attention to authenticmaterials, it focuses on output and, through group work, allows for interaction which wouldotherwise be limited in a class of 40 students.

Students were also exposed to the differences in the Greek and Anglo-Saxon writing style, thusallowing for the development of intercultural awareness. CLIL draws upon social-constructivist theories of learning which focus on interactive,mediated and student-led learning (Coyle, Hood, & Marsh, 2010). This type of pedagogyinvolves social interaction among students and teachers and requires scaffolding. Hammondand Gibbons (2005, p. 9) define scaffolding as “support designed to provide the assistancenecessary to enable learners to accomplish tasks and develop understandings that they would not beable to manage on their own”. An important characteristic of scaffolding is that it is temporary. Itaims at building independent learning, thus teacher support should be gradually reduced asthe students become increasingly autonomous in tackling a task. Scaffolding applies to bothlanguage and subject content and involves the cognitive skills required to carry out tasks. Thetheoretical basis of scaffolding lies in Vygotsky’s (1978) notion of the zone of proximaldevelopment, which is best described as the kind of learning which is always challenging yetwithin the grasp of the students, provided they are furnished with adequate guidance andscaffolding. The teacher’s role is to facilitate cognitive challenge within a student’s zone ofproximal development and to gradually withdraw support as learning progresses.

The following tasks were planned as a sequence of scaffolding that would facilitate both contentand language learning in the second module focusing on the broadcast media. Students were giventhe opportunity to watch a news-in-brief programme videotaped from a British channel. After thepresentation they were asked to fill in a table with similarities and differences between newswriting for the print media (e.g. the press) and news writing for the broadcast media (e.g. TV). Itshould be noted here that the students were already familiar with story structure and writing stylefor the print media and they had produced news stories for the college newspaper during theprevious weeks. The teacher facilitated the process by eliciting previous knowledge from thestudents and guided them through the task by pointing out specific characteristics of broadcastwriting and the structure of the broadcast news story (e.g. climax-cause-effect or lead-body-concluding part).The next step involved the actual writing of a news story for television. The students were given astory that appeared on a British newspaper and were asked to convert it into a broadcast news storyby taking into consideration the table they had filled in with relevant information. At this point thevideo was played once more.

By this time students were sufficiently exposed both to the language and journalistic conventionswhich are appropriate for copy writing and were ready to move on to the final stage, thepresentation of a news-in-brief TV programme which was recorded at the School’s electronicmedia laboratory. During this stage the students had the opportunity to internalize their newknowledge, to synthesize their previous work and to accomplish independently a real-life task. It isworth pointing out that, based on classroom observation, the students seemed to be highlymotivated, especially in anticipation of the recording at the studio.



CLIL is by nature dynamic and student-centred, requiring students to take on a more activerole and become responsible for their own learning (Coyle, Hood, & Marsh, 2010). In thisway CLIL classes build on both the students’ previous knowledge and the internalization ofnewly-acquired knowledge through tasks that focus on active negotiation of meaning.In an attempt to explore active learning in the ESP class we used collaborative group work andproject work, thus helping students engage in meaningful exchanges that would facilitateacquisition of the target language and internalization of content knowledge. The students weredivided in groups of four; we made sure that every group included at least one Erasmus student, sothat the students would converse only in English. At the same time a cultural element wasincorporated, in a natural way, in the groups since the involvement of the exchange studentsbroughtin intercultural understanding and awareness in the classroom. Each group was assigned one of thefollowing topics: On-line vs Print Newspapers, Social Media and Internet Addiction, Trash TV inEurope, and Censorship in the Media. The students researched their topic by conductingWebQuests on a template prepared by the teacher at the School’s computer laboratory. TheWebQuest incorporated an oral presentation where the students delivered a five-minute talk ontheir topic to the rest of the class following a set of questions and guidelines posted on theirWebQuest. Marsh (2004) highlights the importance of WebQuests as both scaffolded learningstructures and authentic tasks which are used to motivate students’ investigation of a topic, todevelop individual expertise and to promote student participation in a group process thatallows new information to develop into more sophisticated knowledge. The project workreceived very positive comments from the students, who mentioned that they had enjoyed theprocess and had gained considerable knowledge not only on the topic they were researching butalso on how to conduct research on the Internet, to use and evaluate sources and prepare an oralpresentation, skills they had been introduced to at the beginning of the course.

2.2. Evaluation of the courseThe success of the course was reflected in the student evaluation, in which students gave a positiverating to acquiring new knowledge in their fields of study (score 3.9 on a 5-point scale, SD=.7,n=53), to engaging in real-life tasks (score 4.2, SD=.8) and to interacting with each other in English(score 3.9, SD=.7).

3. ConclusionThe design of the ESP course outlined here presents an attempt to incorporate elements of the CLILapproach to an otherwise language-centred programme. As a general reflection on the experience itcould be noted that the implementation of CLIL-based activities seems to contribute to the courseobjectives and to enhance student motivation. Furthermore, it seems that learning becomes moreeffective as students are more engaged in real-life tasks and work collaboratively to producepieces of work that the professional community expects. On the whole, it appears that ESPcourses would benefit from the implementation of the core principles of CLIL.


ESP benefit from implementation of the core principles of CLIL


SURVEY ON REACTION OF STUDENTS ON CLILLaw and Business Students’ Attitudes towards Learning English for Specific Purposes withinCLIL and Non-CLIL Contexts Candela Contero Urgal

4(https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334001909_Law_and_Business_Students'_Attitudes_towards_Learning_English_for_Specific_Purposes_within_CLIL_and_Non CLIL_Contexts/link/5d12950f299bf1547c7f3732/download)

English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses are offered in most undergraduate programmes inSpanish universities. A good example of this is the University of Cádiz, where the Department ofFrench and English Philology is the second largest in this institution, with approximately 50% of itsteaching staff committed to delivering ESP courses.

This has been thought as a way to foster the internationalization of the students' curriculum. It is afact that students getting into university in recent years are enjoying a progressively moreinternational environment, as some of them have already participated in bilingual or plurilingualacademic programmes. They may also have a minimum level of the Foreign Language (FL)certified. Nevertheless, having acquired a certain level of the FL, students may show somereluctance to having ESP courses when their studies are not directly related to linguistic content.As the rejection level in bilingual programmes seems to be less than in monolingual programmes,we wonder whether Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is offering our students aunique opportunity through which learning ESP can become a motivating challenge.

The survey was conducted during the last sessions of the course under the name “Basic LegalTerminology in English” which is located in the Spring semester of the fourth year of the LawDegree. Students were given a list of nine statements.


According to this research there is a relevant difference in the perception of ESP course in

students depending if it was with CLIL metodology


ResultsThe results obtained from our study can be classified into the following threemain topics: (1) skillsexpected to be developed by the students in an ESP course; (2) students’ positive attitude towards anESP course which has already been delivered; and (3) students’ awareness of the usefulness of ESPin real life.

The surveyed students were asked whether they were expecting to develop law-related orlanguage-related skills throughout this legal English course, as this course seems to helpstudents acquire cross curricular competences.

Law students’ expectations towards the skills to develop intheir ESP course.

Business students’ expectations towards the skills to developin their ESP course

The participants in the survey were given a list of statements so as to identify their degree ofagreement with them by using a Likert scale. Such a scale ranged from 1 to 5, where 1 was “strongly disagree”, 2 “disagree”, 3 “neutral”, 4 “agree” and 5 “absolutely agree”.

They noticeably saw the application of their legal English course in their own life. Results weremore driven towards total agreement when in previous studies most business studentsappreciated a clear usefulness of the ESP course they were taking part in in their real life.

Figure 5. Business students’ and Law students’ opinions towards the application of ESP in real life.



Discussion and ConclusionsCLIL resources used in class are expected to be authentic. It is the ESP teacher that can fosterauthenticity in class so as to combine the effectiveness of both teaching approaches. The finalresults of our survey demonstrate students’ attitudes towards learning ESP are ratherpositive. . As we explained in the introduction to this paper, students’ attitudes were not thatpositive at the beginning of the course, in which certain preconceptions of what the ESP coursewould consist of lead students be rather skeptic towards this module of their degree. One of thecauses which might have provoked this skepticism is the scarcity of information offered tostudents regarding the course’s competences to be developed and goals to be achieved. If studentsare convinced from the very first lesson of the purpose for the inclusion of that course in the lastphase of their undergraduate studies, they will probably be taking the course in a much morepositive attitude. The reason why this survey was compared to the results obtained in a previousstudy conducted in the Business and Administration Degree within the same institution is that thebusiness students were also studying ESP. However, this ESP course had the characteristic ofbeing located within the framework of a CLIL context. Students immersed in a CLILprogramme are certainly more used to the integration of content and language in a natural way.This suggests they are more accustomed to acquiring and using a FL in an authentic context inwhich the connection between the teaching goals and their real life is highly perceptible. Thatmade the data obtained in this prior study more positive regarding the students’ attitudestowards the course. The generation of an authentic context in which the acquisition of a FL isfacilitated is recommended both within CLIL and non-CLIL contexts. Developing a positiveattitude towards an ESP course canbe stimulated by a clear recognition of the competencesexpected to be acquired by the students. This can be done by means of teaching strategies whichcan be used by the ESP teacher both within CLIL and non-CLIL programmes in order to fosterauthentic exposure to the FL, therefore creating a real necessity and willingness in the students tolearn.


Students are most accostomed to acquire and using an authentic context in which the conection between the teaching goals and their life is highly

perceptible

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