Innovation in Language Learning

As an umbrella term for several methodologies, CLIL stands for a plural approach in which teaching contents through an additional language seems to be the key feature. In fact, CLIL can be understood as an approach to education and foreign language teaching rather than (only) a methodology. In the framework of CLIL, the area of methodology remains relatively unexplored by academia since most papers have been devoted to theoretical foundations, implementation issues, students’ performance, or the effectiveness of this approach to meet specific learning outputs.

This paper explores the use of code switching and audiovisual resources in CLIL. The article evaluates the effectiveness of using audiovisual resources in L1 and L2 and the use of code-switching or translanguaging in order to support teachers’ explanations in the classroom. Repeating and rephrasing are two of the most relevant tools to be used by teachers in CLIL in order to guarantee that contents are successfully presented and transmitted to students. Using students’ L1 for repeating or clarifying some concepts might be detrimental as regards classroom dynamics (students will turn into the L1 on a regular basis) but using audiovisual resources in the mother tongue can contribute to support the idea of bilingual education since students will learn vocabulary in both languages. In order to investigate this question, data and information has been collected from schools of Primary Education in the Principality of Asturias.

The paper is not intended to be prescriptive as regards the use of the L1 in the classroom but it aims at filling the gap in the field of CLIL methodology and analyse if code-switching might be considered as a distinctive and representative feature in CLIL. From an academic or an educational point of view, we hardly find any guidance for teachers as regards the use of code-switching and / or audiovisual support in the classroom. In order to contribute to the area being investigated, this research aims to analyse what are CLIL teachers’ attitudes towards code-switching in the region of Asturias (Spain) and what are the main practices as regards the use of L1 and L2 in relation to the use of audiovisual support in the classroom.