Exploring teaching practices to stimulate meaningful language use in the Frisian trilingual primary school

Abstract

In Frisian trilingual primary schools, Dutch, Frisian and English are taught through content and language integrated learning (CLIL). CLIL is often characterized as an umbrella term, which can be carried out in various ways, and including regional and/or minority languages which are used to different extents in the out-of-school context (Cenoz et al., 2014). Through the planning of meaning-focused communicative tasks (Ellis, 2009a), using different formats (Llinares & Dalton-Puffer, 2015), the students’ language use can be stimulated by co-construction of knowledge. However, little is known about how CLIL is implemented in the Frisian trilingual primary schools and how these practices are related to development in the three languages. 

This paper addresses the following research question: Which meaning-focused teaching practices to stimulate target language use can be observed in the three target language lessons (Dutch, Frisian and English) at the end of the Frisian trilingual primary school (students aged 10 - 12 years), and how are these related to student language development in these languages? Data were collected by event sampling observations of 51 content-lessons in the three target languages in seven trilingual primary schools (n = 165 students), and for which an observation instrument was developed (Tjepkema, 2021) focusing on the CLIL teaching practices. Student language development in the three target languages was assessed using vocabulary and reading comprehension test. Taking a dynamic systems perspective (De Bot et al. 2007), quantitative analysis included the relation between the teaching practices to stimulate meaningful language use in the three languages and student language development in these languages. Results show that higher occurrences of the stimulation of meaningful language use are significantly related only to Frisian language development in terms of vocabulary and reading comprehension. Furthermore, there is evidence for a relation between the stimulation of meaningful language use in the Dutch lessons and Dutch reading comprehension development. However, no relation was found between meaningful use of English in English CLIL lessons and the students’ development of English. 

Implications of our results for CLIL and bilingual education are related to the importance of developing teacher competences to stimulate meaningful language in content-based minority language education. Other implications for future research and policy making in multilingual education systems are discussed.