CLIL students' affectivity in the transition between education levels: the effect of streaming at the beginning of secondary education

Abstract

This study looks into the affective factors influencing students’ experiences in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) at the beginning of bilingual secondary education (at the age of 11–12), when being streamed into two strands with a different degree of exposure to CLIL, depending on their linguistic competence. Results were drawn from 10 structured interviews with students spotted as salient cases in 157 validated questionnaires. Students’ responses to the interviews were analyzed following Grounded Theory. The categories emerging from the analysis are related to students’ values, attitudes and beliefs towards bilingual education, their motivation, perceptions on learning and degree of satisfaction with their strand. Our findings indicate that instrumental motivation plays an important role in these students’ views, which vary depending on the strand: i.e., students in the high-exposure strand seem to see themselves more at ease and in control of their choices, whereas low-exposure strand students experience more ambivalence over the transition.