CLIL, a competence-based coping strategy against foreign language anxiety in higher education

Abstract

This article presents a study carried out in the subject of Didactics of English for Very Young Learners, taught in English to Spanish-speaking students at the School of Education of the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain. Three comparable classes were exposed to different teaching and assessment conditions. Two of them were the research groups, learning under a competence-based CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) paradigm, while the control group did so under a content-based EMI (English-Medium Instruction) model. The participants (n = 76) were asked to answer two questionnaires, which collected their expectations (pre-questionnaire) and final perceptions (post-questionnaire) in regard to their levels of anxiety towards studying in English. The qualitative and quantitative comparison of their answers facilitated results that allowed to discuss and conclude the beneficial effect of CLIL as a competence-based coping strategy to diminish foreign language anxiety among student teachers who face the challenge of learning in a bilingual classroom setting.