Explicit plurilingualism in co-taught CLIL Instruction: Rethinking L1 Use

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019. Language studies framed within sociocultural perspectives have claimed that the use of the first language (L1) in foreign language (FL) instruction settings can facilitate FL learning. This study inquired into the functions of L1 use in the oral production of Catalan/Spanish bilingual primary school learners (N= 20) and teachers (N= 2) of co-taught Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) science sessions. Eight complete lessons that were taught by means of both the L1 (Spanish/Catalan) and the FL (English) were audio recorded and transcribed. The identified functions were quantified and classified into different interactional strategies so as to know which ones were mostly used by which participants. The direction of interaction between addressees and addressers was also analyzed to investigate if the lessons were teacher or student centred. The main findings indicated that this specific co-teaching model did not fulfill the objectives of CLIL approaches but L1 use was shown to be a beneficial tool serving the purpose of coping with CLIL linguistic and cognitive demands. Finally, pedagogical implications are discussed with regard to CLIL and collaborative teaching methodology.