Sato Takanori

Abstract This study investigated the relationship between foreign language (FL) oral proficiency development and teachers’ pedagogical practices in content and language integrated learning (CLIL). A one-group pretest-posttest design was employed to analyze changes in Japanese university students’ FL proficiency over time, alongside classroom observations and interviews that captured their teachers’ classroom pedagogies in CLIL courses. The results generally indicated that students improved their capacity to achieve communicative goals but failed to exhibit progress in oral linguistic competence. The former outcome was attributed to predominantly meaning-focused instruction, the use of dialogic pedagogy, and ample opportunities to practice FL speaking. In contrast, the absence of explicit language instruction and limited practice of fluency development tasks was perceived to lead to the latter outcome. These findings not only contribute to understanding the effects of CLIL on FL learning, but also shed light on the specific pedagogy-related factors that contribute to FL proficiency development.

Assessing the content of learners’ compositions is a common practice in second language (L2) writing assessment. However, the construct definition of content in L2 writing assessment potentially underrepresents the target competence in content and language integrated learning (CLIL), which aims to foster not only L2 proficiency but also critical thinking skills and subject knowledge. This study aims to conceptualize the construct of content in CLIL by exploring subject specialists’ perspectives on essays’ content quality in a CLIL context. Eleven researchers of English as a lingua franca (ELF) rated the content quality of research-based argumentative essays on ELF submitted in a CLIL course and produced think-aloud protocols. This study explored some essay features that have not been considered relevant in language assessment but are essential in the CLIL context, including the accuracy of the content, presence and quality of research, and presence of elements required in academic essays. Furthermore, the findings of this study confirmed that the components of content often addressed in language assessment (e.g., elaboration and logicality) are pertinent to writing assessment in CLIL. The manner in which subject specialists construe the content quality of essays on their specialized discipline can deepen the current understanding of content in CLIL.

Abstract The benefit of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) for second language (L2) development has been addressed by second language acquisition theory and investigated by empirical studies. However, previous studies have not demonstrated the effectiveness of CLIL precisely as most of their study participants took CLIL and non-CLIL courses concurrently. Additionally, existing studies have focused on the effectiveness of CLIL in primary and secondary education and rarely addressed it in higher education. The present study considered the limitations of the previous studies and investigated the development of L2 English productive skills (i.e., speaking and writing) through CLIL conducted in a university in Japan. This study employed a pre-experimental pretest-posttest design, in which all participants received CLIL instruction for four months undertaking the pretest and posttest. The results showed that their productive skills improved significantly. The analysis of pretest and posttest scores also revealed the specific areas of productive skills that benefitted from CLIL, such as Task Achievement (speaking and writing), Coherence and Cohesion (writing), and Grammatical Range and Accuracy (writing). However, this study revealed that the degree of improvement was small, and that vocabulary and critical thinking skills did not improve significantly. This study’s findings provide empirical evidence for the effectiveness of CLIL itself on L2 development in higher education.

Abstract Although some second language (L2) pedagogical approaches recognize critical thinking (CT) as an important skill, its assessment is challenging because it is not a well-defined construct with varying definitions. This study aimed to identify the relevant and salient features of argumentative essays that allow for the assessment of L2 students’ CT skills. This study implemented a convergent mixed-methods research design, collecting and analyzing both quantitative and qualitative data to collate the results. Five raters assessed 140 causal argumentative essays written by Japanese university students attending Content and Language Integrated Learning courses based on five criteria: Task Achievement, Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy, and CT Skills. A standard multiple regression was conducted to examine the relationships among these criteria. Additionally, raters’ written verbal protocols were collected to identify the essay features to be considered when assessing students’ CT skills. The results indicated that raters’ judgments of students’ CT were closely linked to Task Achievement. Furthermore, their assessments were affected by the essay’s relevancy to the question, content development, logicality, and quality of ideas. This study’s findings help to conceptualize CT as a construct and should be incorporated into the assessment criteria of various L2 educational contexts.