Effectiveness of the implementation of CLIL resources in the chemistry classroom

Abstract

Durante los últimos años mantener una conversación fluida en alguna lengua extranjera se ha convertido en un requerimiento en algunos puestos de trabajo, entre otros ejemplos. Muchas iniciativas han sido desarrolladas en Europa desde los años noventa para preparar a los estudiantes para su futuro y la más popular se conoce como CLIL. Hasta ahora se han realizado muchas investigaciones acerca de los programas de Content and Language Integrated Learning, también conocidos como AICLE (Aprendizaje Integrado de Contenidos y Lenguas Extranjeras), sobre aspectos diversos y en diferentes niveles educativos. En este trabajo se muestra la investigación realizada en las clases de química del Instituto Europa, Bellvitge (Cataluña) para proporcionar evidencias sobre su efectividad. Para poder llevarlo a cabo se han diseñado y usado algunos recursos en inglés con el objetivo de observar si los estudiantes mejoraban su nivel de inglés y si, simultáneamente, aprendían el contenido de las unidades didácticas.Over the past few years, being able to have a fluent conversation in English has become the challenge of many young and, above all, old generations in which studying foreign languages at school was not so common. Nevertheless, in some jobs today it has become a requeriment and something that can close doors and limitate opportunities if you do not have this competence. For that reason, the educational system has realized that something has to be done as early as possible and it has to start from the roots. Many initiatives have been developed in Europe since the 1990s but the popular one was coined as CLIL. Content and Language Integrated Learning programmes have been designed and implemented all over the world in different educational stages. Much research about different aspects of these programmes and also in different contexts have already been done, but much more is about to come in order to improve the method. Therefore, in the present work it is showed the research conducted in the chemistry classrooms of Institut Europa, Bellvitge (Catalonia) in order to provide empirical evidence about the effectiveness of this strategy. To do that, some resources in English have been designed and used in many lessons with the aim of improving the language level of the students as well as learning the content of the didactic units.