Gema Gayete

This study investigates and compares the functions of the translingual practices performed by young learners and their teacher in primary school CLIL and EFL contexts from the Valencian Community (Spain). 22 7-year-old students from the 2nd year of primary education and their EFL and CLIL science teacher took part in the study. Classroom observations and video-audio recordings were conducted in 8 EFL (6 hours) and 8 CLIL lessons (6 hours).

Given the limited number of studies investigating pragmatics and multilingualism in primary education, the present study analyses the influence of multilingual instruction, referring to pedagogical translanguaging, on multilingual young learners’ pragmatic awareness, paying particular attention to the sociopragmatic dimension of the speech act of requesting. The sample consisted of 28 primary school students from a multilingual school in the province of Castelló (Valencian Community), where three languages (Catalan, Spanish, and English) are used as languages of instruction.

Within the new multilingual situation found in educational settings, the investigation of attitudes towards multilingualism constitutes a key element (Safont, 2007). However, research on teachers’ beliefs towards multilingual education is scarce (Heyder & Schädlich, 2014; Arocena, Cenoz & Gorter, 2015), whereas the investigation of parents’ beliefs has even received less attention (Griva & Chouvarda, 2012; Safont, 2015).

CLIL programmes have been adopted as the main educational approach in multilingual settings, as is the case of the Valencian Community (Spain). In fact, so as to measure the effectiveness of this approach, considerable research has been conducted comparing the outcomes of CLIL with more traditional non-CLIL contexts (Agustín-Llach 2016; Arribas 2016; Canga-Alonso 2015). However, very little is known about the effect of CLIL on the oral production and comprehension of young language learners whose L3 is English.