The presentation will discuss students´ motivational orientations and current methodological challenges in CLIL classrooms in Spain. It will report on the results from a classroom-based study investigating the relationship between the lexical difficulty of instructional materials, learners´ reading comprehension skills and their motivation to learn a subject in a foreign language.
Since its rise in the European context, numerous cross- sectional studies on Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) have confirmed a positive impact of the approach on learners´ motivation and their engagement in the everyday learning process. In contrast, CLIL pedagogical issues and the effect of instructional materials used in class on students´ attitude towards being thought in a foreign language have not received the same attention. The main objective of this study was twofold. First, the talk will report on the results of the analysis of lexical sophistication of instructional materials used in CLIL classrooms in Spain. The measurements are then compared across learners´ current receptive lexical proficiency. Second, based on the findings from a classroom-based study, after illustrating motivational orientations amongst secondary students enrolled in CLIL programmes, the presentation will examine the relationship between learners‘ reading comprehension skills, focused on word recognition and lexical access, and their motivation as well as intended effort. Results will be discussed in light of empirical research on classroom motivation (Dörnyei and Clément, 2001; Gardner, 2007; MacIntyre, et al., 2008; Dörnyei, 2009) along with well-established Comprehensible Input (Kraschen, 1989) and lexical threshold theories (Laufer, 1992; Notion, 2006; Schmidt, 2001). The conclusions of the study will identify major methodological challenges and rising demand for a thorough examination of CLIL materials, in respect of their lexical sophistication and functional language which, when lying beyond learners´ language competence, might constitute one of the contributory factors explaining increased anxiety levels, and diminishing motivation. Results obtained from various contexts would provide practical implications for publishers and practitioners to develop tools addressing students' linguistic and cognitive needs, simultaneously maintaining increased levels of motivation.
