Effects of the CLIL approach in oral production of english students in the second year of the united general baccalaureate at a high school in Cuenca, Ecuador.

Abstract

The necessity to foster second language oral production has created the imperative need to analyze and explore new teaching methods and techniques in order to develop oral communication skills in the target language. This study investigated the effect of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in second language oral production of Ecuadorian second language learners of United General Baccalaureate (BGU). This study was carried out using one class of second of baccalaureate. A total of 22 study participants took part in this research. In order to gather data, both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed, which allowed the researcher gain a better understanding of the problem under investigation. The study participants took part of a pre-test to determine their level of proficiency in their speaking skills. After three months of CLIL intervention they took a post-test and the results were compared to measure the effect of CLIL approach. In addition, every single CLIL lesson was documented, and a semi-structured survey was also applied to investigate the students’ perceptions to the CLIL approach.  The findings of this research reveals the effectiveness of CLIL in students’ oral production compared with the traditional language learning instruction. At the same time the learners expressed positive opinions towards the new approach.