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The impact of CLIL intensity and extramural English on the receptive skills of young EFL learners

CLIL intensity and extramural English

ORCiD logo with link | Public University of Navarre (UPNA)
 | Public University of Navarre (UPNA)
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

This article was made Open Access under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license through payment of an APC by or on behalf of the authors, granted by PID2020-113990GB-I00.

Published online: 28 April 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jicb.24021.laz
Abstract
Research on proficiency levels among instructed learners is abundant but still has significant gaps. There is little research with young learners, barely any research comparing different degrees of CLIL intensity, and very few studies considering exposure to extramural English (EE), that is, exposure to English outside of school via informal activities or private lessons. To address these gaps, our study investigates how the intensity of exposure in school and EE impact the reading and listening skills of 219 learners (aged 11–12) of English following high-CLIL (n = 85), low-CLIL (n = 82), and non-CLIL (n = 52) tracks. The results for reading and listening, without considering EE, indicate that the high-CLIL group obtained a significantly higher score in reading, but without significant differences in listening. EE was frequent, particularly among high-CLIL participants, and reading, watching TV, and listening to music positively correlated with scores. Private English lessons were associated with higher scores in the non-CLIL group.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature Review
    • 2.1Effects of CLIL and EFL on language learning
    • 2.2CLIL and receptive skills
    • 2.3CLIL intensity
    • 2.4Effects of extramural exposure on language learning and CLIL
    • 2.5Effects of private English lessons
  • 3.The present study
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Ethical issues
    • 3.3Research instruments
      • 3.3.1Proficiency tests
      • 3.3.2Extramural Exposure questionnaire
    • 3.4Statistics
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Linguistic scores
    • 4.2Extramural exposure
      • 4.2.1Informal extramural exposure
      • 4.2.2Formal extramural exposure
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • References
References (51)
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