Exploring the lexical profile of young CLIL learners

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of the lexical profile of the written assignments completed by a group of young CLIL learners. Participants in the study were attending 4th grade of Primary and had received around 714 hours of exposure to English. Results revealed lexical profiles which are characteristic of young learners of foreign languages with high frequency words being the most common. We also observed that learners show frequent instances of phonetic rendering, but little L1 influence for borrowings and relexifications. This can be a sign of the typical oral approach in CLIL classrooms. The young age, low proficiency, and short CLIL experience of the learners are taken into account in the interpretation of the findings. CLIL instruction revealed a positive effect on the initial development of lexical competence. The paper closes with a section that includes some suggestions for how to enhance lexical development within CLIL tuition.