Acquiring L2 English Prepositions in an

L1 Dutch Environment:
The Effect of Immersion Through CLIL
Teaching

Master’s Thesis Education and Communication, Utrecht University

Esther Berendse

3467740

Supervisor: Dr. M.C.J. Keijzer

June 2013
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Contents

Chapter 1 – Introduction 3

Chapter 2 – Theoretical Framework 6

2.1 Historical Overview of Language Teaching Methodologies 7
2.2 CLIL in Europe 9
2.3 Language Teaching in the Netherlands 10
2.3.1 CLIL in the Netherlands 11
2.3.2 CLIL Standards 12
2.3.3 Research on CLIL 13
2.4 Implicit and Explicit Knowledge 16
2.5 The Role of Language Input 17
2.6 Implications for Practice 18

Chapter 3 – Research Questions and Predictions 20

Chapter 4 – A Comparison Between English and Dutch Prepositions 21

Chapter 5 – Method 24

5.1 Participants
5.2 Materials 25
5.3 Procedure 27
5.4 Data Analysis 28

Chapter 6 – Results 31
6.1 Demographic Background Information of the Students
6.2 GJT Results 34
6.2.1 Instances of Insecurity 35
6.2.2 Disregarding Prepositions 35
6.2.3 Students Unable to Correct Incorrect Trials 37
6.3 Elicited Production Task 38

Chapter 7 – Discussion 41

Chapter 8 – Conclusion 52

References 56

Appendices 59
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Chapter 1 – Introduction

The past two decades have seen the development of Content and Language Integrated

Learning (CLIL) in secondary schools in The Netherlands as well as elsewhere in Europe. In

CLIL, the second language is used as a medium through which a content-based subject is

offered. Pupils thus acquire the second language not only within the English language

classroom but also through studying content-based subjects. CLIL can be said to be a

functional approach to second language teaching, as meaningful and authentic communication

is believed to be essential to the second language acquisition process, according to Second

Language Acquisition theory (Richard and Rodgers 161). It is believed that “using the

language for content learning will enhance implicit learning of that language, leading to

higher levels of proficiency than can normally be achieved” (Admiraal, Westhoff, and de Bot

76). This implicit knowledge, Krashen argues, is more important than learned knowledge in

acquiring second language proficiency (15). According to him, “fluency in production is

based on what we have ‘picked up’ through active communication” rather than learned

knowledge (Introduction 2). As such, it could be argued that CLIL teaching facilitates

students’ second language acquisition process.

A large and growing body of studies has investigated the effects of CLIL teaching.

Most studies have examined the success of CLIL as well as the differences between

mainstream education and CLIL teaching. Researchers seem to agree upon the positive effects

of CLIL: CLIL teaching appears to have no negative effects (Admiraal, Westhoff, and de Bot

77; Huibregtse in De Graaff et al. 605) and students acquire a higher level of proficiency than

their mainstream education peers (Huibregtse in De Graaff et al. 605; Verspoor and

Edelenbos 11; Admiraal, Westhoff, and De Bot 86-89); in addition, their language use is more

authentic (Verspoor and Edelenbos 11; Verspoor et al. 47). The research to date, however, has

tended to focus on general language proficiency in writing, speaking, and reading. No data is
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currently available regarding the immersion effect of CLIL teaching on the acquisition of

(specific) grammatical features by pupils.

The present study, therefore, seeks to investigate the immersion effect of CLIL on

acquiring a specific grammatical feature. Such an approach is interesting since the role of

grammar has gained a prominent position in the second language classroom nowadays, and

people agree that “without a good knowledge of grammar, learners’ language development

will be severely constrained” (Widodo 122). The grammatical feature under investigation in

this study is English prepositions. Since there are hardly any rules as to when to use which

preposition the only way to learn them is to learn collocations by heart or to simply look up

prepositions in a dictionary. The frequency of input may, therefore, play an important role in

acquiring prepositions. In accord with the so-called “critical mass” hypothesis, learners

exposed to more language input are expected to attain a higher language proficiency level

(Marchman and Bates qtd. in Kimbrough and Eilers 286). Since CLIL pupils are exposed to

more English language input from an early age, it could be expected that they acquire English

prepositions quicker and significantly better than their mainstream education peers, as they

become more entrenched. This thesis attempts to examine the immersion effect of CLIL on

acquiring English prepositions. It aims to first of all explore why CLIL teaching is believed to

be effective. It will also discuss what prior studies have found as to differences between the

quality and quantity of input of mainstream language teaching and CLIL teaching. In

addition, this present study will attempt to answer the following research question through a

data-driven approach: Is CLIL education more effective than mainstream education in

acquiring English prepositions in the context of Dutch secondary school students learning

English?

This thesis is organised in the following way. It first sketches the theoretical

framework for the study and will then go on to review the linguistic properties of Dutch and
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English when it comes to prepositions. It will then discuss the methodology, results, and

discussion of this study. Finally, the conclusion will consolidate the research findings, outline

the limitations of the present study, and propose future directions.

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Chapter 2 – Theoretical Framework

Since it is argued that there are more multilingual people than monolingual people in the

world today (Saville-Troike 8), it is fair to say that foreign language learning is an important

matter. Throughout history, numerous language teaching methods and approaches have been

developed, attempting to bring about improvements in language learning. Professional

organisations, academics, educators, as well as publishers are constantly looking for “the

‘best’ method of teaching a language” (Richards and Rodgers 15). Changes in language

teaching methodology reflect “recognition of changes in the kind of proficiency learners need,

such as a move toward oral proficiency rather than reading comprehension as the goal of

language study” as well as “changes in theories of the nature of language and of language

learning” (Richards and Rodgers 3). Discussions on teaching methodology today demonstrate

“contemporary responses to questions that have been asked often throughout the history of

language teaching” (Richards and Rodgers 3). For example, the question ‘should we teach

grammar?’ has dominated the language teaching field for many years; however, it is no longer

questioned whether we should teach grammar at all, but rather what the most effective way to

teach grammar is (Richards and Renandya 145).

It could be questioned how innovative and effective contemporary teaching

methodologies are. Lange argues that “the latest bandwagon ‘methodologies’ [came] into

prominence without much study or understanding” (qtd. in Richards and Rodgers 15). In

addition, De Bot and Maljers argue that the only true educational innovation in Dutch

secondary schools is CLIL that is integrated in so-called ‘tweetalig onderwijs’ (in De Graaff

and Tuin 132). De Bot and Maljers claim that the language teaching practice in the

Netherlands is still very much focused on outmoded ideologies such as the Grammar-

Translation Method and the Audiolingual Method, which has “hindered a true revolution” (in

De Graaff and Tuin 134, my translation).

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2.1 Historical Overview

This section will adopt a historical approach in briefly reviewing some of the most widely

known language teaching methods and approaches: the Grammar-Translation Method, the

Direct Method, the Audiolingual Method, the Communicative Approach, and, lastly, the

Natural Approach. In comparison with general approaches to language teaching, teaching

methods “tend to have a relatively short shelf life” as they are associated with specific

practices and therefore become outdated relatively quickly (Richards and Rodgers 244).

The Grammar-Translation Method mainly focused on reading and translating and paid

only little attention to speaking or listening skills. This method implied studying grammatical

aspects and translating complex texts. It dominated the European foreign language field from

the 1840s to the 1940s and was originally used to teach Latin and Greek. Opposition to the

Grammar-Translation Method arose in the mid- and late nineteenth century (Richards and

Rodgers 7), which gave rise to the development of new teaching methods such as the Direct

Method. Unlike the Grammar-Translation method, this new method integrated use of the

foreign language in the classroom. Students now had to speak and think in the foreign

language. The Direct Method attempted to imitate the conditions under which a first language

is learned: through implicit input and imitation of the target language. Like the Direct

Method, the Audiolingual Method also actively used the foreign language as a means to

teach; however, the latter focused on drills and practice as it viewed language learning as

habit formation. Since this method only focused on drills and disregarded interaction as a

component of the learning process, questions were also raised regarding its usefulness.

Such concerns related to the authenticity of language learning methods laid the basis

for the Communicative Approach. This approach builds on the notion of “language as

communication” (Richards and Rodgers 159) as it is believed that “linguistic theory need[s]

to be seen as part of a more general theory incorporating communication and culture”

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(Richards and Rodgers 159). In the Communicative Approach, pupils learn a language by

using it as a means to communicate; they thus develop speaking-, writing-, listening-, as well

as speaking skills. Communicative competence is believed to be an important aspect of

communication; however, the learning process also involves practice and error. In order to

achieve communicative competence, authentic and meaningful communication should be the

goal of classroom activities in the Communicative Approach; group activities that involve real

communication are, therefore, stimulated. Instead of learning grammar by means of drills,

such as was common practice in the Audiolingual Method, the Communicative Approach

promotes activities that involve meaningful and authentic language use such as “completing

tasks that are mediated through language or involve negotiation of information and

information sharing” (Richards and Rodgers 165). It could be argued that the language

teaching field has showed some significant progress with the rise of the Communicative

Approach. In one form or another, it is still the predominant approach used in foreign

language classrooms today.

Debates in the second language teaching field nowadays also focus on aspects of the

Natural Approach, which builds on Krashen’s views of language acquisition such as the

Monitor Theory. The approach, developed by Krashen and Terrell, is based on the acquisition

process of first and second languages in informal contexts and attempts to promote implicit

language acquisition. Krashen and Tarrell see the Natural Approach as a model of the

Communicative Approach (Richards and Rodgers 178) and just like the Communicative

Approach, the Natural Approach also sees “communication as a primary function of

language” (Richards and Rodgers 179). The difference is that the Natural Approach spends

almost no time on the theoretical aspect of the language: it does not refer to “grammatical

analysis, grammatical drilling, or a particular theory of grammar” (Richards and Rodgers

178). In addition, it does not focus on explicit correction of errors. Instead of focusing on
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practice and correctness, this approach focuses on language input and exposure.

Comprehensible and meaningful input is therefore believed to be essential: “acquisition can

take place only when people understand messages in the target language” (Krashen and

Terrell 19).

2.2 CLIL in Europe

Reactions to the Communicative Approach and the Natural Approach inspired the

development of a new foreign language teaching approach: CLIL. Inspired by the success of

Canadian immersion programmes and because of the need for higher level of foreign

language proficiency by pupils, CLIL began to develop in Europe in the 1990s (De Graaff et

al. 603; De Graaff et al. 604). The term CLIL was adopted by the European Network of

Administrators, Researchers and Practitioners (EUROCLIC) in order to define the nature of

the approach more clearly “midst a plethora of related approaches such as content-based

instruction, immersion, bilingual education and so on” (Coyle 2). Although CLIL shares some

characteristics with content-based instruction, immersion programmes, and bilingual

education, it “[places] both language and non-language content on a form of continuum,

without implying preference for one or the other” (Marsh 58); in other words, it sees language

and content learning and teaching “as integral parts of the whole” (Coyle 2). CLIL gives

“language and non-language subject matter a joint curricular role” (Marsh 58). In short, CLIL

uses the foreign language as a tool for learning a content-based subject but, at the same time,

views it as a goal of the learning process itself.

CLIL is in agreement with the Communicative Approach as it stresses the idea that

proficiency and fluency in the foreign language can best be achieved by using it as a

“functional medium of communication and information” rather than “making it the object of

analysis in class” (De Graaff et al. 606). According to De Graaff et al., the most important
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difference between CLIL and “teaching the subject in the mother tongue” is the fact that the

former involves “additional language learning objectives” and “specific opportunities for

communication and language use” (606).

2.3 Language Teaching in The Netherlands

Traditionally, foreign language teaching in the Netherlands was very limited as it tended to

focus only on written skills. Listening and speaking skills were only considered relevant for

“waiters and sales representatives” (Kwakernaak 29, my translation). Motivation for this was

the desire to give foreign language education the same “intellectual status” that the education

of classical Latin received (Kwakernaak 29, my translation). With the rise of the

Communicative approach in the 1980s, this changed, and oral skills gained in importance in

core goals and exam programmes (Kwakernaak 29). This does not, however, mean that oral

skills have acquired a prominent position within classroom practice.

In informal contexts, a second language is acquired mostly through oral

communication rather than written communication; however, reading and writing remain the

skills most practised in Dutch secondary schools (Kwarkernaak 29; Kwakernaak 30).

Especially in the earlier years, oral skills are very important; foreign language education in

the later years, on the other hand, can zoom in on reading skills as this is important for

students’ higher educational career (Kwakernaak 29). Although the use of the target language

as the language of instruction is a great step towards promoting oral skills, practical

experiences show that the belief that pupils only learn grammar and vocabulary in the

classroom in order to communicate outside the classroom is still very common (De Bot and

Maljers in De Graaff and Tuin 135). In addition, De Bot and Maljers point out that Dutch

second language education still incorporates only little interaction and group work in
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classroom practices (in De Graaff and Tuin 135). In the past decade, the rise of CLIL,

however, has generated significant educational innovation in the Netherlands.

2.3.1 CLIL in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands, CLIL has become a popular teaching practice and is incorporated into so-

called ‘tweetalig onderwijs’ (TTO, bilingual education). TTO originates from 1989 when the

Alberdingk Thijm college in Hilversum decided to offer a more “international form of

education” as a reaction to the need of Dutch parents (De Bot and Maljers in De Graaff and

Tuin 140, my translation). As it was found that CLIL education did not interfere with the

development of Dutch and the level of other subjects taught in English, CLIL began to appeal

to more students in the latter half of the 90s (De Bot and Maljers in De Graaff and Tuin 140-

141). Now, in early 2013, there are 120 Dutch secondary schools that offer pupils Dutch-

English bilingual education (EP “Tto scholen”).

Bilingual education is not imposed upon Dutch schools for secondary education by the

Dutch ministry of education; instead, schools can choose freely whether or not to offer CLIL

programmes and they are relatively free in their design of CLIL curricula, which are

developed through collaboration between language teachers and teachers of non-language

subjects. However, in order to safeguard the quality of bilingual education, CLIL programmes

have to meet several standards and requirements as to the desired level of English of both

students and teachers, the use of authentic English lesson materials, and the central position of

internationalisation within the school policy.

The goals for pupils attending CLIL teaching programmes in the Netherlands are

defined as follows by the European Platform (“CLIL”):

 Development of intercultural knowledge and understanding;

 Development of intercultural communication skills;

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 Improvement of both active and passive language skills;

 Potential to study materials from different (international) perspectives;

 More contact with the target language without having more contact hours;

 Diversity within the lesson methods applied in the classroom;

 Improved motivation of pupils through extra confirmation of language skills.

However, “[f]rom a Dutch perspective, the main goal of CLIL is functional,” De Graaff et al.

point out; that is to say, “to develop proficiency in a foreign language alongside knowledge of

non-language subject area” (607). Regarding the proficiency level, students attending CLIL

programmes are expected to have a higher proficiency level in English than their mainstream

education peers. More concretely, mainstream VWO1 education students are required to have

a B2/C1 level in English at the end of their sixth year, whereas CLIL students are expected to

have a B2 level at the end of their third year already. At the same time, the overall scores of

CLIL students on their final exams are, furthermore, not allowed to divert negatively from the

national average (EP “Standaard” 2).

2.3.2 CLIL Standards

The goals defined above are realised by the implementation of several standards. Regarding

the quantity of English input CLIL pupils receive, at least fifty per cent of the subjects in the

first three classes of secondary education are taught in English. In the higher years, the target

language of most subjects is Dutch since the national final exams are in Dutch as well.

Guidelines stipulate that in the higher years, out of a total of 4,800 (VWO) and 3,200

(HAVO) hours of study load, 1,150 (VWO) and 850 (HAVO) should be in English (EP

1
Dutch secondary education is offered at different levels: VWO, HAVO, and VMBO, with

VWO being the highest level and VMBO-T being the lowest. At most secondary schools,

CLIL is offered only to VWO, that is, pre-university education students.

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“Standaard” 3). The position of the Dutch language is, furthermore, equal to that of English.

In Dutch bilingual education, CLIL is integrated in subjects like Geography, History, Physical

education, and Arts. Although schools can select which subjects to teach in English, this has

to be at least one creative or Physical education subject, one scientific subject, and one social

sciences subject.

As to the quality of input, at least two subjects should be taught by English native

speakers. These native speakers play an important role in the acquisition of the form of the

foreign language by Dutch pupils (EP “Standaard” 3). The ERK level of non-native speakers

of English should be at least B2 for all language skills. Pupils are, furthermore, exposed to

authentic English materials and have sufficient access to materials in English at all times (EP

“Standaard” 3; EP “Standaard” 5).

Bilingual education, furthermore, values internationalisation. The international

orientation of CLIL is reflected in the curriculum by special projects, programmes, and

activities such as exchange programmes, international collaboration projects, English-

speaking excursions, and participation in the European Youth Parliament.

2.3.3 Research on CLIL

A large and growing body of literature has investigated the effects of CLIL. Several

international studies have reported positive results of CLIL regarding foreign language

proficiency while no negative consequences for other subjects have been reported (Admiraal,

Westhoff, and De Bot 77). These results, however, do not necessarily apply to Dutch settings,

as CLIL in the cases analysed in the most international studies “is implemented under

conditions that are different from the Dutch educational context” (Admiraal, Westhoff, and

De Bot 77).
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Admiraal, Westhoff, and De Bot investigate the effect of English as the language of

instruction on the proficiency levels of Dutch students in English. They investigate aspects

such as receptive word knowledge, reading comprehension, and oral proficiency. Although

students who attend the CLIL programme do not have a significantly higher level in receptive

word knowledge, they do show a significantly higher level in reading comprehension (84-86).

In addition, the CLIL group has a higher oral proficiency level as well as a better

pronunciation (86-89).

Several other studies have reported positive effects of CLIL in the Netherlands on the

proficiency level in English. De Graaff et al. bring in Huibregtse who concludes that Dutch

CLIL students attain a significantly higher proficiency level in English than their mainstream

education peers (605); in addition, she points out that this higher proficiency level is not

accompanied by “any negative effects on … academic proficiency in L1 or on other school

subjects” (605). In their study investigating writing skills, Verspoor and Edelenbos also claim

that students who attend a CLIL programme are faster to reach higher levels of proficiency in

the foreign language than mainstream education students, even when general intelligence and

contact with the foreign language outside school hours were taken into account (11). What is

more, Verspoor and Edelenbos note that the language use of CLIL pupils is more authentic

and fluid as they tend to make more use of so-called chunks (11). Verspoor and Edelenbos

thus conclude that CLIL students must learn a foreign language and its grammar implicitly

(11). The positive learning outcomes of CLIL must, however, not be ascribed to the quantity

and quality of input alone; opportunities to produce the foreign language are essential as well,

Verspoor and Edelenbos point out (12). This is in agreement with Marsh who draws attention

to the fact that CLIL does not imply that the more input one receives the better he or she will

become (“Adding Language,” par. 6). According to Marsh, the “essence” of CLIL is

integration of core variables that are “interwoven into the curriculum, and realised through
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classroom practice” (par.4). In their large-scale study, Verspoor et al. also compare the

language proficiency levels of CLIL pupils and their mainstream education pupils in their

earlier years; in addition, they include a control group in that they investigate the proficiency

levels of pupils who attend mainstream education at a secondary school that does not offer

CLIL education. Their main conclusions largely corroborate previous findings. First of all,

Verspoor et al. conclude that students of both educational types make many mistakes in the

initial stages of their language acquisition process, a common aspect of the acquisition

process (47). They also report that grammatical errors by CLIL students are no longer visible

at the end of their third year; the only errors they make are of a lexical nature (62). In

agreement with Admiraal, Westhoff, and De Bot, Verspoor et al. reveal that CLIL students

retain a significant lead on their mainstream education peers, especially with regards to their

writing skills (61). However, whereas the former study did not find a significant difference

with regard to vocabulary knowledge, Verspoor et al. conclude that CLIL students have a

significantly larger vocabulary size (61). However, as the proficiency level increases towards

the end of the lower years, Verspoor et al. show that development begins to level out for both

educational types (61). On the other hand, CLIL students are found to retain their lead that is

impossible to overtake by mainstream education pupils (Verspoor et al. 61). In agreement

with the study of Verspoor and Edelenbos, Verspoor et al. conclude that the foreign language

acquisition process by CLIL students mainly occurs implicitly as they learn the foreign

language with only little explicit attention to grammar (62). Because CLIL students receive

more authentic input, they use relatively more grammatical as well as lexical chunks and

collocations (Verspoor et al. 47). What is interesting, Verspoor et al. point out, is that CLIL

students make more errors in collocations and chunks because they take more risks and their

output is more substantial than their mainstream peers (47). These errors will, however, cease

to exist over time (Verspoor et al. 47).

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2.4 Implicit and Explicit Knowledge

One of the most controversial issues in the second language teaching field concerns the value

of teaching a language and its grammar explicitly in class. Explicit knowledge “consists of the

facts that speakers of a language have learned” states Ellis (95). It is “held consciously, is

learnable and verbalizable, and is typically accessed through controlled processing when

learners experience some kind of linguistic difficulty in using the L2” (Ellis 95). Implicit

knowledge, on the other hand, “is held unconsciously, and can only be verbalized if it is made

explicit. It is accessed rapidly and easily and thus is available for use in rapid, fluent

communication” (Ellis 95). As Ellis points out, there is a general consensus that competence

in a second language is “primarily a matter of implicit knowledge” (95).

The question, thus, is whether aspects such as grammar and vocabulary should be

taught explicitly at all. Although young children are not taught grammatical rules of their

mother tongue explicitly, they are able to form grammatical sentences. On the other hand,

although learners of English in secondary schools are often taught grammar rules explicitly,

they still do not acquire the foreign language on a native level. Krashen suggests that this can

be explained by the fact that explicit grammar teaching does not bring about acquired

knowledge which is “needed to participate in authentic communication” (qtd. in R. Ellis 167).

The question is to what extent learners use their consciously acquired knowledge in

performance. According to Krashen’s Monitor Theory, “learning never turns into acquisition”

(83) and conscious knowledge only plays a “limited role” in second language performance

(16). He claims that learned knowledge only has one function: that as a monitor or editor (15).

Foreign language utterances are initiated by acquired knowledge rather than conscious or

learned knowledge, which only alters the output (Krashen 15). CLIL thus heavily ties in with

Krashen’s theory as it promotes implicit language acquisition: Verspoor and Edelenbos and

Verspoor et al. also found that the language acquisition process in CLIL occurs primarily
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implicitly (11; 62). Because CLIL uses language as a medium to learn, grammar is implicitly

used when speaking or writing. Difficult grammatical structures are not left ‘until later,’

which is often the case in the mainstream education curriculum. The unconscious knowledge

pupils acquire is important as this generates higher levels of language proficiency: “our

fluency in production is based on what we have ‘picked up’ through active communication”

(Krashen Introduction 2). In CLIL programmes, this language fluency is believed to be more

important than accuracy. Verspoor et al. point out that making mistakes is natural and

necessary to the language acquisition process; errors become less frequent over time and only

have to be corrected when they become entrenched (47).

2.5 The Role of Language Input

It is widely believed that frequency is an essential part of language acquisition: language

learners analyse the input they receive and eventually, “practice makes perfect” (Ellis

“Frequency Effects” 178). Since CLIL students consistently receive more input than their

mainstream peers, it could be suggested that they acquire the English language better. This is

supported by Kimbrough and Eilers who concluded that learners of English who are “more

consistently” exposed to language input perform better in the language (286). These effects

are largest among younger children, Kimbrough and Eilers reported, and diminish after a

certain critical mass of input has been reached (286). In addition, the effects are largest for

language features learned “item by item,” such as vocabulary acquisition (Kimbrough and

Eilers 286).

As to the role of language input, Krashen hypothesises that language acquisition takes

place when a language learner receives natural input that contains “i+1” and focuses on

meaning, not form (21). In other words, acquisition only takes place when the learner
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understands input that is “a little beyond” his or her current level of competence (Krashen 21).

Krashen points out that this input will be automatically arrived at when communication is

“successful” and when there is sufficient input that is being understood by the learner (22).

Krashen’s Input Hypothesis thus relates to acquisition rather than learning: a learner must first

understand meaning and acquires the structure of the utterance as a result (21). Although early

speech may not be grammatically correct, Krashen argues, “[a]ccuracy develops over time as

the acquirer hears and understands more input” (22). In other words, language fluency and

correctness cannot be taught, but emerge over time.

2.6 Implications for Practice

As European Framework guidelines for CLIL teaching and prior studies (Verspoor et al.;

Verspoor and Edelenbos; Admiraal, Westhoff, and De Bot) have shown, CLIL programmes at

Dutch secondary schools stimulate implicit learning as they offer more and more qualitative

input in the target language than mainstream curricula and focus on communication rather

than correctness. Moreover, pupils are encouraged to produce English as often as they can,

which implicitly boosts their proficiency in the foreign language. Because pupils learn

implicitly, they are more fluent in the foreign language than their mainstream education peers.

Research on the effects of CLIL indicates that this type of education is effective in acquiring a

foreign language in a formal setting. For example, CLIL students, when tested both at the end

of the earlier years as at the end of the later years, have a higher level of proficiency in

English than their mainstream VWO peers.

Based on the positive outcomes of CLIL, several suggestions can be offered to foreign

language teachers. Naturally, mainstream students should be exposed to as many authentic

input as possible. Language teachers should therefore use the target language as the language

of communication during class as often as possible. In addition, instead of teaching single

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words, teachers could draw attention to the larger chunks in which words occur as these are

very important in acquiring fluency (Verspoor et al. 47). In addition, grammar should be

taught more implicitly. Teachers should not only draw specific, in other words explicit,

attention to rules, but give students the opportunity to use the language actively, allowing

them to discover grammar rules for themselves and correct their own mistakes. Moreover,

more attention should be drawn to testing communicative skills rather than testing

grammatical competence as a goal in itself. Rather than tests that deal explicitly with

grammatical structures, grammar-integrated speaking-, writing-, reading-, or listening tests

could be used to assess students on their language skills. In other words, teachers should focus

more on the communicative effect of utterances and less on correctness. After all, Verspoor et

al. found that if students are exposed to sufficient language input and are provided with

enough opportunities to use the foreign language, any errors will disappear over time (47).

Last but not least, as to all the implications described above, teachers should implement these

suggestions from the very first year onwards.

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Chapter 3 – Research Questions and Predictions

This thesis attempts to examine the immersion effect of CLIL on acquiring English

prepositions. Chapter 2 already explored why CLIL teaching is believed to be effective and

what prior studies have found as to differences between the quality and quantity of input of

mainstream language teaching and CLIL teaching. In the pages that follow, this thesis will

attempt to answer the following research question through a data-driven approach: Is CLIL

education more effective than mainstream education in acquiring English prepositions in the

context of Dutch secondary school students learning English?

Since several studies have reported positive effects of CLIL on the proficiency level in

English (Huibregtse in De Graaff et al. 605; Verspoor and Edelenbos 11), it could be expected

that CLIL teaching will have a positive influence on the acquisition of prepositions. The

quality and quantity of input CLIL students receive could facilitate the acquisition process of

English prepositions significantly. In addition, immersion in the CLIL classroom could

support CLIL students to acquire the language implicitly, which could help them gain a lead

on their mainstream peers with regards to the knowledge of English prepositions.

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Chapter 4 – A Comparison Between English and Dutch Prepositions

In acquiring a second language, “cross-linguistic influence,” that is to say, transfer of prior L1

knowledge to the L2 system, has been found to occur (Saville-Troike 19). Two main types of

transfer may occur: positive transfer and negative transfer. The first occurs “when an L1

structure or rule is used in an L2 utterance and that use is appropriate or ‘correct’ in the L2”

(Saville-Troike 19) and the latter “when an L1 structure or rule is used in an L2 utterance and

that use is inappropriate and considered an ‘error’” (Saville-Troike 19). Since English and

Dutch are both West-Germanic and thus typologically related languages, they have several

features in common, which stimulates positive transfer from L1 to L2 by Dutch learners of

English. Both languages have, for example, a rather similar sound system which assists Dutch

learners of English to into producing and perceiving English sounds. Both languages,

however, differ greatly with regard to grammatical features such as word order and tense.

Dutch learners of English therefore tend to negatively transfer L1 knowledge into English

quite regularly, which results in ungrammatical English utterances (Saville-Troike 19).

Besides word order and tense, the feature under investigation in this thesis, prepositions, also

poses problems for Dutch learners of English. Whereas native speakers use prepositions

correctly and unconsciously, learners of English often have problems with English

prepositions due to various reasons.

First of all, English and Dutch often have completely different prepositions; for

example, “over tien minuten” in Dutch is “in ten minutes” in English. As a result, negative

transfer from Dutch to English often occurs by Dutch pupils. In addition, an English

preposition often has multiple translations in Dutch: “over the years,” “over the table,” and

“over 400 euros” translate into three prepositions in Dutch: “over,” “op,” and “meer dan.” In

short, a one-to-one translation is often not possible since a specific Dutch preposition cannot

consistently be translated into one and the same preposition in English.

 22

There are, furthermore, also problems that simply have to do with the English

language itself, as Lindstromberg points out. The prepositions “at” and “by” are often rather

similar in meaning; in addition, expressions such as “at random” and “by chance” have a

similar meaning, which could result in the “cross-association of words” (Lindstromberg 5).

Many English prepositions are in fact similar in meaning in some circumstances whereas they

are not interchangeable in others: “by/at the seaside” but “*by random” or “*at chance”

(Lindstromberg 5). In addition, prepositions are, in general, pronounced rather softly and are

not stressed, which makes it difficult for learners of English to notice and differentiate

prepositions. For example, as Lindstromberg points out, learners might have difficulties

discriminating the prepositions “on” and “in” since they are “phonologically [as well as]

orthographically small and similar” (5).

In addition, problems may also have to do with the spatial representation of

prepositions. Bowerman argues: “[a]lthough all languages make categorical distinctions

among spatial configurations … they do not do so in exactly the same way” (144); in other

words, the classification of spatial relationships is language-specific. Whereas English uses

the same preposition in “on the shoulder,” “on the wall,” and “on the napkin,” Dutch

describes these spatial relationships with three different prepositions: “op de schouder,” “aan

de muur,” and “om de servet” (Bowerman 146). As illustrated, Dutch differs from English

with regards to the “classification of ‘on’ relationships” (Bowerman 146). In contrast to

English, Dutch is “sensitive” to the manner in which objects are attached, Bowerman points

out (146). For example, the choice of prepositions in Dutch depends on whether the contact

between two objects involves a horizontal surface or vertical surface and whether it is

“attached by one or more points” (Bowerman 146). Dutch pupils who are learning English

will thus have to learn the English categorisation of spatial relationships through experience

just like L1 learners do.

 23

Although pupils are generally able to learn numerous prepositions that express time or

place by heart, they experience more serious problems with English collocations: words that

are often combined together. Prepositions in collocations often receive a special meaning and

collocations in general are, therefore, “hard to guess” (McCarthy and O’Dell 6). As a result,

Dutch pupils often use collocations incorrectly as they apply incorrect prepositions to a verb

or noun. For example, Dutch pupils often say “*He is engaged with Sarah” instead of “He is

engaged to Sarah” or “*I voted on Obama” instead of “I voted for Obama.” Since collocations

come naturally to native speakers and since they make speech sound more fluent and natural

they are good predicators of (near-)native fluency.

 24

Chapter 5 – Method

The purpose of this study was to investigate the immersion effect of CLIL teaching on

acquiring English prepositions in an ESL classroom by Dutch secondary school pupils. In

general, Dutch pupils find English grammar rather hard, which is why it seemed interesting to

investigate the immersion effect of CLIL on acquiring grammatical structures. Since there are

hardly any rules as to the use of prepositions, it was decided to use this grammatical feature in

particular for this study.

5.1 Participants

The participants in this study were 80 secondary school pupils within an age range of 12-19.

Students were either in their first year or in their sixth year of O.R.S. Lek en Linge, which is a

regional, public comprehensive school in the rural area of Culemborg. This school attracts

students from Culemborg as well as students from other local areas such as Geldermalsen,

Tricht, Buren, and Beest. Lek en Linge has offered CLIL teaching since 2002. The team of

CLIL teachers mainly consists of Dutch teachers who have taken intensive courses in English

in order to maintain a high level of English and they are certified as proficient through

Cambridge. In addition, there are three English native speakers and, regularly, there are native

speaker trainees as well. The CLIL groups under investigation in this study both receive

English lessons from a native speaker.

First graders had an age range of 12-13 (mean age 12,39) and sixth formers of 17-19

(mean age 17,57). As illustrated by Table 1, the students were divided over four groups: a

6TVWO (CLIL) group of 13 pupils, a 1TVWO group of 29 pupils, a 6VWO group of 16

pupils, and a 1VWO group of 22 pupils. There was a roughly equal distribution of gender

within the first-year TVWO group and the sixth-year mainstream group: 14 females and 15

males in the first group and 7 females and 9 males in the latter group. Within the first-year
 25

mainstream education group, however, there were visibly more females than males: 16

females in contrast to 6 males. In addition, within the sixth-year TVWO group there were

more males than females: 8 males in contrast to 5 females. It should be noted that the

mainstream group consisted of 5 additional students; however, their tests were disregarded as

they were obviously not filled in seriously and might therefore have influenced the outcomes

of the study negatively.

Students were not given the choice to participate as the study was carried out during

their regular English classes, which were mandatory for them. By means of a brief

questionnaire preceding the grammatical judgement task (GJT), it was found that TVWO

students enjoyed their English classes significantly more than their VWO peers. This might

have influenced the results, as the former group could have been more motivated in

participating than the latter one.

Table 1: Distribution of gender across all groups under investigated

Group Females Males Total

1VWO 16 6 22

1TVWO 14 15 29

6VWO 7 9 16

6TVWO 5 8 13

5.2 Materials

In each group, one grammaticality judgement task in which students had to judge sentences

on a binary scale: (‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ or ‘I do not know’) was administered. As part of

the GJT, students had to correct the sentences they believed were incorrect. By asking
 26

students to underline the incorrect part in a given sentence, students could not simply guess

but had to think about their answers. In addition, such a design can be informative in showing

when students disregard a sentence based on grounds other than the preposition. In short, the

production component was deemed to make the GJT more reliable. In addition, an Elicited

Production Task was administered to assess the use of prepositions by students. Students were

asked to produce a written piece relating something about their last shopping experience in

order to evaluate the quality and quantity of their use of prepositions. Lastly, a brief

questionnaire was administered before the GJT to collect more background information on all

the students. These questions focused on aspects such as motivation, interest, and proficiency

in English. The questionnaire can be found in Appendix A; the GJT and the production task

can be found in Appendix B; the Elicited Production Task can be found in Appendix C.

The GJT consisted of 40 sentences: 30 sentences focusing on the use of prepositions

and 10 fillers to distract students from the actual feature under investigation. All sentences

were equally split into correct and incorrect sentences and all sentences were randomly

shuffled. All sentences containing prepositions could, in turn, be divided into three main

categories: 10 sentences focusing on time prepositions, 10 sentences focusing on place

prepositions, and 10 sentences that tapped into English collocations. The first category

consisted of prepositions that dealt with the days of the week, time of the day, etcetera. See

(1) below for an example.

1. George is leaving Monday at noon.

The second category consisted of prepositions that dealt with position as well as direction.

See (2) below for an example of the first and (3) for an example of the latter.
 27

2. *In our house, there is a large painting at the wall.

3. They strolled along the beach watching the sunset.

The third category tapped into common English collocations containing prepositions. See (4)

below for an example.

4. *She apologised about the mistake.

Lastly, the fillers dealt with matters such as English tenses, word order, and English plural

formation in order to distract students from the actual feature under investigation.

Prepositions were, thus, assessed in every conceivable form.

In the Elicited Production Task, students had to relate something about their last

shopping experience since this was expected to elicit quite some prepositions. In order to

promote the use of prepositions, several prompts were presented, such as ‘when and where

did you go shopping?’ and ‘how did you get there?’ In order to give students the opportunity

to write down as much as possible, they did not necessarily have to answer in full sentences

but were allowed to write down short phrases instead.

5.3 Procedure

Each group took part in one session of 30 minutes. All sessions took place during regular

English classes. The tests in both the first-year groups and the sixth-year TVWO group were

administered in two weeks’ time; however, due to miscommunication, the test was

administered 2,5 weeks later in the sixth-year mainstream education group, that is, on their

penultimate day of school. The wrong group of students, that is, another CLIL group instead

of a mainstream education group, was tested initially. The language of instruction was
 28

English in the TVWO classes and Dutch in the mainstream education classes. Groups first

received instruction as to why they were asked to participate and what they were going to do.

Students were told they were to participate in a MA study that would investigate the

difference in language proficiency between TVWO students and mainstream education

students. Students knew they would not get a mark for the test but that the point was to test

their intuitions about the sentences, so as to reduce anxiety levels. It was stressed that students

had to correct sentences they believed were incorrect since this was an important aspect of the

study. Because the concept ‘grammatical’ was not clear to many first-year students, this was

explained as well. Students were also told that an initial hunch usually is the best one, and that

they had to judge the sentences immediately after reading. Lastly, they were told they had to

do the assignment individually and finish it within twenty minutes. Since some sentences

consisted of rather difficult words, first-year students were allowed to ask the meaning of

words unknown to them during the task; this was done in English in the TVWO group since

this was their standard language of instruction. Whereas about half of the students needed the

full 20 minutes, the other half did not need that much time.

When the twenty minutes were over, students received instruction about the Elicited

Production Task. Students were told that they would have 5 minutes to complete the task,

which proved ample time as all students finished the task fairly quickly. It was stressed that

they did not necessarily have to write down full sentences but were allowed to write down

phrases; this was illustrated by means of a Dutch example (see Appendix C). Students were

also told that they had to answer at least the eight prompts in the assignment (see Appendix

C), but that they were free to write down anything they wanted.

5.4 Data Analysis

 29

Data of the GJT was analysed by the administrator on the base of 13 different categories (see

Table 2 below). The first column of Table 2 indicates the category; the second column

indicates whether the trial was correct or incorrect; the third column indicates whether the

student believed the sentence to be correct or incorrect; the fourth column indicates whether

the student corrected the trial he or she believed to be incorrect correctly or incorrectly; the

fifth column signifies what the category implies in terms of preposition knowledge; the last

column indicates whether the student’s answer was believed to be incorrect or correct by the

administrator. In order to inspect students’ performance with respect to prepositions, data was

entered into SPSS. Categories 1, 4, 11, 12 were recoded as variable 1 (correct), whereas

categories 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13 were recoded as variable 0 (incorrect). In order to inspect

instances of insecurity by students, only category 13 was taken into consideration and recoded

as a variable. In order to investigate how often students rejected a sentence in the GJT on

grounds other than the preposition, categories 9 – 12 were recoded as a variable as well.

Lastly, categories 6 and 7 were recoded as a variable in order to assess the mean number of

times students knew something was wrong with the preposition but did not know how to

correct that or corrected it wrongly.

Table 2: Categories on the base of which data in the GJT was analysed.

1 Trial + Pupil + Student understands that preposition is +

correct.

2 Trial + Pupil - Correction Student does not understand that preposition -

- is correct; he/she corrects it wrongly.

3 Trial + Pupil - Correction Student does not see that preposition is -

+ correct; he/she comes up with a correct
alternative.

4 Trial - Pupil - Correction Student understands that preposition is +

+ wrong; he/she corrects it correctly.

5 Trial - Pupil + Student does not understand that preposition -

 30

is wrong.

6 Trial - Pupil - Correction Student understands that preposition is -

- wrong, but he or she corrects is wrongly.

7 Trial - Pupil - No Student does understand that preposition is -

correction wrong, but he or she does not know how to
correct it.

8 Trial + Pupil - No Student does not see that the preposition is -

correction correct, he or she also does not give an
alternative.

9 Trial - Pupil - Correction Student does not recognise incorrect -

+ preposition. Instead, he or she focuses on
another aspect in the sentence and corrects
this correctly.

10 Trial - Pupil - Correction Student does not recognise incorrect -

- preposition. Instead, he or she focuses on
another aspect in the sentence and corrects
this correctly.
11 Trial + Pupil - Correction Student understands that preposition is +
- correct. He or she focuses on another aspect
in the sentence and corrects this wrongly.
12 Trial + Pupil - Correction Student understands that preposition is +
+ correct. He or she focuses on another aspect
in the sentence and corrects this correctly.
13 ‘I don’t know’ -

Data of the Elicited Production Task was analysed by first of all counting the number of

prepositions that were used. The number of errors made in preposition use was subtracted

from this total number in order to arrive at a raw index of preposition use. As such, there

would be no maximum score, but a higher figure would indicate a better command of English

prepositions.
 31

Chapter 6 – Results

This chapter presents the results of several (independent and paired sample) t-tests that were

carried out in order to determine whether any significant difference could be found between

Dutch CLIL students and mainstream education students in their performance with respect to

English prepositions on the basis of a Grammaticality Judgement Task including a correction

format and an Elicited Production Task in which students were asked to relate something

about their last shopping experience, as this was expected to elicit a considerable number of

prepositions (see section 5.2).

6.1 Demographic Background Information of the Students

Before the outcomes of the GJT and the free use of prepositions are reported, Table 3 below

first of all lists some background information on all the participants that took part in this

study. In particular, it indicates whether students enjoyed their English classes; how difficult

they considered English to be; how they rated their own L2 proficiency; whether they were

also interested in Anglophone culture; and how much contact they had with the language

outside of their school hours. In addition, it indicates students’ average grade for English and

whether they though that TVWO students had a better command of English than mainstream

VWO students.

Students were asked to provide a rating from 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest and 5 the

highest for the first five questions. For the sixth question, that is, whether students thought

that TVWO students had a better command of English than mainstream VWO students,

students were presented with a multiple choice question consisting of three options: there is

no difference at all, TVWO is better than mainstream education, or TVWO is much better
 32

than mainstream education. As for the question ‘how much contact do you have with the

language outside of your school hours,’ students were asked to elaborate on their multiple

choice answers in order for the administrator to check the validity of their choice. The

numbers presented in Table 3 below are the mean ratings and standard deviations. Level 3

mostly involved watching English films, playing games in English, or reading English books.

Level 4 also included students watching the English news regularly as well as students

producing English at home in their spare time; this involved such things as chatting in

English, writing poems, speaking English to parents or family members or helping them with

their English, etcetera.

Table 3: Demographic background variables (and standard deviations) for all groups under

investigation

Enjoy Difficult Self- Culture Contact Grade TVWO

assessed interest outside better?
proficiency school

VWO1 2.95 2.82 3.14 2.36 3.14 7.70 1.00

(n=22) (0.90) (1.37)
(1.04) (0.90) (0.47) ( 0.77) (0.54)

TVWO1 3.88 3.07 3.86 3.34 4.17 7.55 1.38

(n=29)
(0.73) (1.13) (0.52) (1.04) (3.25) (0.65) (0.56)

VWO6 2.94 2.56 2.81 2.87 3.25 6.59 1.38

(n=16) (0.85) (1.26) (0.91) (1.09) (0.45) (0.76) (0.50)

TVWO6 3.92 2.54 3.62 3.62 4.08 8.04 1.62

(n=13)
(0.28) (0.88) (0.51) (0.51) (0.28) (0.75) (0.51)

What is striking in these results is that, already at the first grade level, TVWO students

indicated that they enjoyed their English classes significantly more than their VWO peers,
 33

assessed by an independent samples t-test: t(49) = -4.061, p < .000. This difference in the

extent the students enjoy their English classes remains visible throughout the years, rendering

a significant difference between TVWO6 and VWO6 as well: t(18,753) = -4,343, p < .000.

Similarly, both 1TVWO and 6TVWO students are significantly more interested in

Anglophone culture in general than their mainstream peers (t(28,856) = -3.011, p < .005 for

year 1 and t(22,103 = -2.419, p < .05 for year 6) and have significantly more contact with the

language outside of their school environment: t(49) = -8.682, p < .000 and t(25,432) = -6.093,

p < .000 for year 1 and year 6 respectively.

Interestingly, based on the results in Table 3, it can be concluded that neither the first-

years nor the sixth formers think that English is easy, as compared to their mainstream peers.

Only 1TVWO students consider English to be slightly easier than their mainstream

counterparts. However, it needs to be pointed out that this difference was not significant.

Despite the minimal differences in how difficult students perceive English to be, the first-year

TVWO students did believe they were better at English than their VWO peers: t(46,458) = -

2,456, p < .05. Interestingly, that all groups think that TVWO students in general have a better

command of English than mainstream VWO students, although this is not significant. Over

the years, this tendency does, however, grow slightly stronger, as indicated by the results in

Table 2. What is also interesting is that TVWO students in all years believe TVWO students

in general to be better in English than their mainstream peers believe. What is more, both the

first and the sixth year TVWO students significantly rated their own English language

proficiency higher than the VWO students did: t(48,113) = -3.011, p < .005 for year 1 and

t(27) = -2.837, p < .01 for year 6. Objectively, the first-year TVWO students do not yet show

this superior language proficiency in the sense that their average grade for English is not

significantly high (in fact, it is a little lower on average) compared to the grade obtained in the

mainstream parallel group. However, by the sixth form, the TVWO students are markedly
 34

better at English than their mainstream counterparts, as evidenced by a substantially higher

mark for English on average: t(27) = -5,133, p < .000. It is finally interesting to point out that,

while initially quite high in the first form, the mark for English in the mainstream education

group drops considerably from 1VWO to 6VWO. In short, as opposed to the TVWO group

the mark for English does increase throughout the years, but decreases in the mainstream

VWO classes under investigation here.

6.2 GJT Results

The data in Table 4 below presents the students’ performance with respect to prepositions; the

table lists the mean scores (and standard deviations) on the Grammaticality Judgment Task. It

should be noted that the maximally obtainable score in this task was 30, discarding the 10

fillers that were also included in the test. For the sake of this analysis, only the total score of

recoded 0 (wrong answer) and 1 (correct answer) variables was taken into consideration (see

section 4.4).

Table 4: Mean scores (and standard deviations) on the grammaticality judgment task

Mean score SD
(max=30)
VWO1 (n=13) 11,62 2,53
TVWO1 (n=26) 13,42 2,59
VWO6 (n=13) 16,69 3,50
TVWO6 (n=10) 25,50 1,72

Based on the results in Table 4, it can be concluded that both the VWO and TVWO students

improve significantly from their first to their final year. In mainstream VWO alone, the sixth
 35

formers outperformed their younger peers, as assessed by an independent samples t-test: t(24)

= -4.238, p < .000 and the same picture emerged for the TVWO students: t(34) = -13.558, p <

.000. What is more, the TVWO students were significantly better at evaluating the

grammatical content of the sentences in this task than the VWO students. While this is

perhaps not surprising in the case of the sixth formers: t(18,298) = -7.925, p < .000, it is

remarkable that already in the first year the TVWO students outperform their mainstream

peers: t(37) = -2.066, p < .05.

6.2.1 Instances of Insecurity

As described in the method section, students could choose between correct, incorrect, or I

don’t know when evaluating the sentences in the GJT on their grammaticality. A t-test was

carried out in order to determine whether there was a significant difference between the

frequency of the ‘I don’t knows’ used by the groups under investigation. Table 5 below

details the number of times students in all years and all types of education circled the ‘I don’t

know’ option on the grammaticality judgment task.

Table 5: mean number of times (and standard deviation) the ‘I don’t know’ option was

selected in the GJT.

Mean number of times SD

VWO 1 (n=22) 3.14 3.68
TVWO 1 (n=29) 1.41 2.16
VWO 6 (n=16) 2.50 3.46
TVWO 6 (n=13) 0.85 0.80
 36

Several trends can be distilled from this table. First of all, all students appear to become more

confident through the years: the 1VWO students used the ‘I don’t know’ option more than

their 6VWO peers and the same is true for the two cohorts of TVWO students. At no point,

however, was this decrease in use of the ‘I don’t know’ option significant. Within one year

cohort, the TVWO students used the ‘I don’t know’ option less often than the VWO students.

Although this difference was not actually significant in the sixth form, it was near significant

in the first-years (established by means of an independent samples t-test): t(31,807) = 1.952, p

= .060.

6.2.2 Disregarding Prepositions

It was evidenced that students often rejected a sentence in the GJT on ground other than the

preposition (see section 5.4). This comprised students who did not recognise the incorrect

prepositions and focuses on another aspect instead (which was actually correct) and students

who understood that the preposition was correct, but focused on another aspect (which was

actually correct as well). Table 6 below presents the mean number of times students rejected a

sentence in the GJT on grounds other than the preposition.

Table 6: mean number of times (and standard deviations) students rejected a sentence in the
GJT on ground other than the preposition

Mean number of times SD

VWO 1 (n=22) 4.09 2.49
TVWO 1 (n=29) 3.69 1.89
VWO 6 (n=16) 3.19 2.34
TVWO 6 (n=13) 3.38 1.56
 37

As can be seen in Table 6, first-year TVWO students were less quick to reject a sentence on

grounds other than the preposition it contained, but only marginally so. In other words, the

difference between the VWO and TVWO students in their first year was not significant. In the

6th form the scores were in fact so close together that the VWO and TVWO groups can even

be said not to be different at all.

When investigating the occurrences of students rejecting a sentence on ground other

than the prepositions, some interesting findings can be reported. It should, however, be noted

that no statistics were run on these figures. The findings reported below are based on careful

observation: occurrences were tallied and divided by the number of students in each group.

First of all, it can be concluded that across the four groups and years, students focused mostly

on tense, vocabulary (which entailed nouns as well as verbs), and the insertion or deletion of

words, phrases, or additional prepositions. Within the first year, 1VWO students focused

considerable more on word order than 1TVWO students. 1TVWO students, on the other hand,

focused considerably more on vocabulary as well as spelling than their mainstream peers.

Both VWO and TVWO students focused equally on tense. On the whole, numbers declined

over the years. Remarkably, 6TVWO students paid noticeably more attention to vocabulary

compared to their 1TVWO as well as 6VWO peers. Another great difference can be found in

students focusing on tense: 6VWO students focused considerably more on tense than their

6TVWO peers.

6.2.3 Students Unable to Correct Incorrect Trials

As a part of the GJT, students had to correct incorrect trials. Table 7 below presents the mean

number of times students knew something was wrong with the preposition but did not know

how to correct it or corrected it wrongly.

 38

Table 7: mean number of times (and standard deviation) students knew something was wrong
with the preposition but did not know how to correct that (left that open) or corrected it but
the correction was wrong

Mean number of times SD

VWO 1 (n=22) 0.86 1.55
TVWO 1 (n=29) 1.27 0.96
VWO 6 (n=16) 1.12 1.59
TVWO 6 (n=13) 0.23 0.60

As shown in Table 7 above, 1TVWO students more often found themselves in a situation

where they did know something was wrong with the preposition (evidenced by them

underlining the incorrect preposition in the sentence), but did not know how to correct it or

produced an incorrect alternative. The difference in scores was, however, not statistically

significant. Also interesting to note is that the situation was reversed in the sixth formers: the

TVWO students were less often found to be able to point to the error but unable to correct it

than their mainstream peers, even significantly so: t(22,363) = 2.514, p < .05.

6.3 Elicited Production Task

Table 8 below presents the findings of the free elicited writing assignment (see section 5.2): it

indicates the raw index of preposition use in these assignments. This index was arrived at by

subtracting the number of errors made in preposition use in this assignment from the total

number of prepositions that were used. As such, there is no maximum score, but a higher

figure does indicate a better command of English prepositions. To provide more information

regarding this index, Table 9 below shows the (raw) mean number of times prepositions were

used in the production task by both groups of learners, followed by the mean number of errors
 39

that were produced. The third column, finally, translates this mean number of errors to

percentage of errors vis-à-vis the mean number of preposition usages.

Table 8: mean preposition index (and standard deviations) on the free elicited writing
assignment

Mean preposition index SD

VWO 1 (n=22) 2.73 1.49
TVWO 1 (n=29) 4.86 2.46
VWO 6 (n=16) 5.00 1.67
TVWO 6 (n=13) 7.08 2.47

Table 9: mean number of times (and standard deviations) prepositions were used by learners,
mean number of errors (and standard deviations) produced, percentage of erroneously
produced prepositions.

Number of Number of errors Percentage of

preposition used produced erroneously
produced
prepositions on the
production task
VWO1 (n=22) 4.73 (1.78) 2.00 (1.11) 42.28%
TVWO 1 (n=29) 6.28 (2.69) 1.45 (1.09) 23.09%
VWO6 (n=16) 5.50 (1.46) 0.44 (0.63) 8%
TVWO6 (n=13) 7.54 (2.60) 0.46 (0.66) 6.1%

The trend that emerges in Table 8 clearly resembles that of the GJT: all students show a

marked progression, with VWO6 students outperforming students in VWO1: t(36) = -4.415, p

<.001 and TVWO6 students being significantly better than TVWO1 students: t(40) = -2.696,

p < .05. Furthermore, the TVWO students outperform their mainstream peers, both at the
 40

sixth form level (t(27) = -2.696, p < .05) but also again in the first grade: t(49) = -3.598, p <

.005.

In general, first formers clearly translated prepositions directly from Dutch; they wrote

down phrases such as “*with the car” instead of “by car” and “*by the Sting” instead of “at

the Sting” in both the mainstream group and the CLIL group. 1TVWO students, however,

elaborated more on the details of their shopping experience and, therefore, used more

prepositions. In comparison with their first-grade peers, most sixth formers used prepositions

such at “by” and “at” described above correctly; in other words, sixth formers did no longer

negatively transfer prepositions from Dutch to English. Sixth formers in general used a

variety of prepositions and these were rather the same across both groups: mostly “in,” “at,”

“with,” and “by” occurred. 6TVWO students did use more prepositions of time, such as

“before,” “after,” and “during” as they elaborated more on their shopping experience than

their mainstream counterparts as they described how their day proceeded more detailed.

Whereas 6VWO students were clearly answering the prompts given in the assignment (see

section 5.2) and wrote down rather short sentences, 6TVWO students wrote more freely and

used more complicated structures and linkers, which is why their writing appeared more

authentic in general. Although they did not use different prepositions than their mainstream

peers, neither 6VWO students nor 6TVWO students used noteworthy collocations including

prepositions, they did use more prepositions and their prepositions were more mixed in their

writing.
 41

Chapter 7 – Discussion

The present study was designed to investigate the immersion effect of CLIL teaching on

acquiring prepositions in an ESL classroom by Dutch secondary school pupils. Prepositions

are interesting to look at since using them fluently without much deliberation makes speech

more authentic and natural. Interestingly, Dutch and English have very different prepositions

and prepositions in English are often similar in meaning in some circumstances whereas they

are not interchangeable in others, which might be very confusing for learners of English. In

short, there are hardly any rules as to when to use which preposition the only way to learn

them is to learn collocations by heart or to simply look up prepositions in a dictionary.

Although a large body of studies has reported and commented on the positive effects of CLIL,

most of these studies have tended to focus on general language proficiency skills such as

speaking or writing. In reviewing the literature, no data was found on the effect of CLIL

teaching on acquiring specific grammatical features. This study was, therefore, designed to

investigate the effect of CLIL on acquiring prepositions. Through a data-driven approach, the

present study investigated whether CLIL education is more effective than mainstream

education in acquiring English prepositions.

The present results are significant in at least two respects. Regarding the question of

whether CLIL education is more effective in teaching English prepositions than mainstream

education, this study first of all found that CLIL students in both the first and the sixth year

were significantly better at evaluating the grammatical content of sentences in the GJT than

mainstream students (see section 6.2). This finding could also suggest that CLIL students

acquire prepositions quicker than mainstream education students since CLIL students score

significantly higher on the GJT in the first grade already. However, this explanation should be

interpreted with caution since in order to be admitted to TVWO, CLIL students already need

to have a quite high CITO score, including the language component. In other words, it may
 42

well be that the CLIL students under investigation were always better from the outset and

they did not acquire anything fast anyway. It can, thus, only be suggested that the acquisition

process of CLIL students goes faster than mainstream education students based on students’

knowledge at the end of their first year. What is more, this study found that CLIL students

were significantly better than VWO students at the Elicited Production Task, both in the sixth

form level as in the first grade (see section 6.3). In other words, TVWO students produced

more accurate prepositions than VWO students. There are several possible explanations for

these results.

First of all, the results of this study (see section 6.1) showed that TVWO students in

the first year as well as in the sixth year enjoyed their English classes significantly more than

their mainstream education peers. In addition, the TVWO students under investigation

showed a significantly higher interest in Anglophone culture compared to their mainstream

peers (see section 6.1). Another finding was that TVWO students had more contact with

English outside their school hours than their mainstream education peers (see section 6.1).

One of the issues that emerges from these findings is that TVWO students might have been

more motivated to participate in the study which might have influenced the results.

Interestingly, there are similarities between the attitudes expressed by the students in this

study and those described by De Bot and Maljers. As De Bot and Maljers point out in their

article, CLIL education began to appeal to students in the latter half of the 90s (In De Graaff

and Tuin 140-141); the results described above show that this trend is still visible among

students today. This study confirms that motivation and interest are correlated with the

difference in educational types. There are several possible explanations for this outcome. First

of all, because of the specific goals set for CLIL teaching in the Netherlands (recall section

2.3.1), students may well experience English classes differently than their peers. In addition,

the first-year CLIL students under investigation in this study indicated to particularly like
 43

their native teacher, which contributes to these results as well. Naturally, it might be expected

that CLIL students in general are more interested in the English-speaking world since they

deliberately chose to attend the CLIL programme, rendering a higher proficiency level almost

by definition. It could be questioned to what extent the higher level of motivation and interest

plays a role in the acquisition of prepositions by students; however, it could be argued that it

contributes to the higher levels of speaking and writing skills in general as focused on by prior

studies (Admiraal, Westhoff, and De Bot 61; Verspoor and Edelenbos 11).

Another important finding was that CLIL and mainstream students considered English

to be as difficult; only first-year CLIL students considered English to be slightly easier than

other students, although this difference was not significant (see section 6.1). Perhaps related

to this issue, but distinct at the same time, is that CLIL students in both the first year and the

sixth year significantly rated their own English language proficiency to be higher than the

mainstream students did (see section 7.1). It seems possible that these results are due to

TVWO students enjoying English more than mainstream students. Interestingly, however, is

that this superior language proficiency is not reflected in the average grades for English of the

first-year CLIL students as these were not significantly high compared to those of the

mainstream education students (see section 7.1). In other words, first-year CLIL students

consider themselves to be better than mainstream education students although their average

grade is in fact lower. This rather contradictory result can be explained by the CLIL standards

being much stricter than the mainstream education standards; in other words, CLIL students

have to put considerably more effort into their work in order to be awarded with the same

grade mainstream students are being awarded with. The result may, however, also be

explained by first-year CLIL students, unjustly, having a relatively high opinion about

themselves. It could also be explained by the fact that first-year students are still rather young

and simply find it more difficult to provide an accurate self-rating of their own language
 44

proficiency compared to sixth formers. What is more, CLIL students under investigation

believed that TVWO students in general have a better command of English than mainstream

education students think they have (see section 7.1). In any case, mainstream VWO students

still believed that TVWO students have a better command of English, which is in agreement

with earlier studies that described the higher level of proficiency by CLIL students (see

section 6.1) (Verspoor and Edelenbos 11; Verspoor et al. 61; Admiraal, Westhoff, and De Bot

86-89; Huibregtse in De Graaff et al. 605). Interestingly, students’ self-assessment is in

agreement with the actual outcomes of this study. What is surprising is that the average mark

for English in the mainstream education group dropped considerably over the years (see

section 7.1), which could indicate a cohort effect in that the 6VWO class under investigation

consisted of relatively weak (language) students. On the other hand, it should be noted that

first graders overall tend to be more studious pupils than sixth formers, which might explain

why the mark dropped for English: first graders still spend more time on their (English)

homework than sixth formers; in addition, coursework generally increases in 6VWO, which

means less time is available for each individual subject. The fact that this is not true is for the

6TVWO group is because of their overall greater quantities of English input.

Since English prepositions are rather hard for Dutch pupils due to various reasons

(recall Chapter 2), it is striking that first-year CLIL students already have a significantly

better command of prepositions than mainstream students. This result could be explained by

the fact that the input CLIL students receive plays an important role in their language

acquisition process (Kimbrough and Eilers 286; Krashen 21). In agreement with Kimbrough

and Eilers (286), this study suggests that learners of English who are exposed to more

language input do better in language courses. However, whereas Kimbrough and Eilers

argued that this effect diminishes over time (286), the present study suggests that the effect of

input remains to exist over time. Compared to mainstream education, at least fifty per cent of
 45

the subjects are taught in English in the lower years (recall section 2.3.2). Although in the

higher years, this percentage might drop, CLIL students still receive a large quantity of

English input. A large quantity of input is, however, not enough to explain the higher levels of

proficiency of CLIL students (Verspoor and Edelenbos 12; Marsh “Adding Language,”

par.6). The quality of input also plays an important role in explaining the results. Krashen

argued that language acquisition takes place when the learner receives input that is natural and

is somewhat beyond his or her current level (21); since the students in this study were taught

by native speakers, the quality of input can be expected to meet Krashen’s standards. CLIL

students in general are taught by at least two native speakers; in addition, the level of non-

native speakers is at least B2 for all language skills (recall section 2.3.2). What is more, CLIL

students are exposed to and have access to authentic materials in English at all times (recall

section 2.3.2). Taken together, these findings support strong recommendations for CLIL

education teachers to safeguard the quality and quantity of input and for mainstream

education teachers to improve both the quality and quantity of input.

Implicit language learning could also be a major factor causing the lead of CLIL

students. Verspoor and Edelenbos attributed the rate of acquisition by CLIL students to the

fact that they learn the foreign language implicitly (11). In addition, Verspoor et al.

concluded that the foreign language acquisition process by CLIL students mainly occurs

implicitly since they receive only little explicit attention to grammar (62). As De Graaff et al.

argued, fluency in the foreign language can best be achieved by using the language as a

“functional medium of communication and information” rather than by “making it the object

of analysis in class” (606). The latter is the case in mainstream education: students mainly

focus on the form of language and learn grammatical structures explicitly. Since CLIL

students learn a language mostly implicit as a result of a sufficient level of quality and

quantity of input, they acquire unconscious knowledge. According to Krashen, this

 46

unconscious knowledge plays a crucial role in foreign language proficiency, whereas learned

knowledge only plays a limited role in language performance (16). It could thus be assumed

that TVWO students are indeed faster to reach higher proficiency levels in English, as

Verspoor and Edelenbos argue (11), because implicit language learning accelerates the

acquisition process. This explains why mainstream education pupils, who learn a language

explicitly and acquire mostly learned knowledge rather than acquired knowledge, show a

reduced command of prepositions.

The findings of this study thus suggest that CLIL students have a higher command of

English prepositions. What is more, a qualitative analysis of the Elicited Production Task

suggest that the language use of TVWO students is more authentic in the sense that it

resembles more closely that of native speakers than mainstream education students. First of

all, the TVWO students made more use of (correct) prepositions in their writing (recall

section 6.3), which might indicate that they take more risks in their writing as suggested by

Verspoor et al. (47). Especially 6TVWO students elaborated on the details of their shopping

experience and, as a result, used more prepositions in general and also more prepositions on

time in contrast to mainstream students. Interestingly, whereas the CLIL students under

investigation used more prepositions, they did not make more errors than the mainstream

students. The present results differ, therefore, from the findings of Verspoor et al., which

showed that CLIL students make more errors in their language output because they take more

risks and their output is more substantial (47). It should be noted that in case of the first-year

TVWO students under investigation, the amount of prepositions might have been related to

the fact that they had recently gone on a school trip to Newcastle and visited shops there.

Students were clearly motivated to write about this experience. Mainstream education

students, on the other hand, merely responded to the prompts they were given (see Appendix

C). The higher quantity of prepositions could be ascribed to the authenticity of input CLIL
 47

students receive. In addition, this might also explain the more natural language use of CLIL

students as they entwined prepositions more freely in their writing. However, whereas prior

studies of Verspoor and Edelenbos as well as Verspoor et al. found that CLIL students make

more use of collocations (11; 47), this study did not report such an effect. In addition, CLIL

students used mostly the same prepositions as mainstream education students. Since all

students had to write about the same topic and were given prompts, it is to be expected that

they use fairly the same prepositions. The fact that the TVWO students under investigation

did not produce more errors than mainstream education students provide support for the

hypothesis that focusing on fluency instead of accuracy is seminal (Verspoor et al. 62,

Krashen 22): they show that CLIL students, who have not received explicit attention to errors

all the time, produce significantly more accurate prepositions than their mainstream peers. As

pointed out by Verspoor et al., making mistakes is natural, especially in the initial stages of

the language acquisition process (47). Mainstream education teachers should, therefore, not

focus purely on accuracy.

This study also found that students become more confident through the years: as

6TVWO and 6VWO students used the option ‘I don’t know’ less than 1TVWO and 1VWO

students respectively, although not significantly so (see section 6.2.1). This could be

explained by the fact that first-year students opted ‘I don’t know’ more often since the

sentences in the GJT were rather difficult for them. They often did not understand parts of a

sentence which lead them to choose ‘I don’t know.’ This study also found that TVWO

students were more sure of themselves than their mainstream peers, although this was not

significantly different in the sixth form but near significant in the first grade. These findings

must be interpreted with caution: whereas the number of ‘I don’t knows’ could reflect genuine

ignorance, it could also reflect insecurity or a lack of interest as it is very easy to say ‘I don’t

know.’ First of all, it could be argued that the lower usage of the option ‘I don’t know’ by
 48

TVWO students reflect a higher knowledge of the language. This accords with earlier

observations, which showed that TVWO are better at assessing the grammaticality of

sentences and produced more correct prepositions in their writing (see section 6.2 and 6.3). It

could be argued that because of their acquired unconscious knowledge, CLIL students were

able to evaluate sentences more easily in contrast to mainstream students who acquired

primarily learned knowledge. Since this learned knowledge is believed to only play a

significant role (Krashen 15), mainstream students might have more difficulty evaluating the

sentences. The present finding could, however, also reflect the lower motivation level of

mainstream students to participate in this study: since the tests were administered on their

penultimate day of school, mainstream students could have been less motivated to participate

actively and could therefore have opted ‘I don’t know’ more often.

As to the ability of students to correct incorrect trials in the GJT, the results of this

study surprisingly showed that 1TVWO students more often found themselves in situations

where they were able to underline the problem in the sentence, but did not know how to

correct it or produced an incorrect alternative (see section 6.2.3). This seems to suggest that

first-year mainstream pupils are better at correcting incorrect trials than their TVWO peers.

Although this result may seem counterintuitive and contradictory to previous results at first,

the TVWO students in general were better at picking out incorrect prepositions than their

mainstream VWO peers. Strikingly, this situation reversed in the sixth formers. In the sixth

year, mainstream students knew significantly more often that something was wrong with the

sentence but did not know how to correct it or corrected it wrongly. Although previous

findings (recall section 6.2) reflected the increased knowledge base of the 6TVWO students

as well as that of the 6VWO students since they may well notice more incorrect prepositions

in their final year than in their first, 6VWO students are more often unable to correct these

errors as opposed to 6TVWO students. This further supports the idea that grammatical errors
 49

cease to exist (Verspoor et al. 62) and accuracy develops over time (Krashen 22) in a CLIL

learning environment. When interpreting these results, it should, however, be noted that the

GJT in the 6VWO class was administered on their penultimate day of school; in other words,

students might have been less motivated in this group to write down the correction at all

although they might have known the answer.

This study also found that VWO and TVWO students in all years rejected a sentence

on grounds other than prepositions roughly as much (see section 6.2.2). Only TVWO students

were a little less quick to do this, although only marginally so. Although it is difficult to

explain this result, it might be related to the fact that students often tend to think that

something has to be wrong with a sentence when set a task like a Grammaticality Judgement

Task and therefore look for things that are in fact correct. For instance, practice has showed

the administrator that students begin to hesitate when successive sentences all turn out to be

correct; as a result, students start thinking that one of the sentences has to be incorrect or an

incorrect sentence must show up soon. On the other hand, the 6TVWO students in this study

also often underlined aspects in the sentence different from the prepositions as a result of fine-

tuning the sentence. These sixth formers often replaced or added words in order to make the

sentence sound more authentic; for instances, “*We strolled over the beach while watching

the sunset” instead of “*We strolled over the beach watching the sunset.” It should, however,

be noted that the rather difficult words in the GJT might have caused especially first-year

students to reject sentences on grounds other than the prepositions. Although it was expected

that first-year students would focus on aspects other than the prepositions more often than

sixth formers given the fact that they had more difficulty understanding some sentences, this

was not reported. It could be argued that first graders and sixth formers focused on other

elements equally as much, although for different reasons. This study found that 1VWO

students in general focused more on word order than 1 TVWO students; this finding reflects
 50

the fact that in the first year of mainstream education, grammar teaching focuses greatly on

word order (recall Chapter 3) and is, furthermore, taught explicitly in contrast to TVWO

where there is not as much as an emphasis on explicitly teaching grammar. As a result, VWO

students were more conscious of word order than TVWO students. First-year TVWO

students, on the other hand, focused more on vocabulary and spelling. The finding could be

explained by the fact that TWVO students are exposed to more authentic input and, therefore,

have a greater vocabulary knowledge. This would be consistent with research of Verspoor et

al. which showed that CLIL students have a significant larger vocabulary size (61). It should

be noted that the high number of students focusing on spelling can be attributed to sentence 7

in the GJT (see Appendix B). The spelling of the word ‘per cent’ seized almost every

student’s attention. It was also found that 6VWO students paid much more attention to tense

in contrast to TVWO students. Once again, this can be explained by the approach towards

grammar teaching. Explicit grammar teaching causes mainstream students to focus explicitly

on tenses.

Overall, the findings of this study suggest that, although Dutch pupils find English

prepositions difficult, their knowledge improves significantly over the years. CLIL teaching

proved to be significantly effective in acquiring prepositions by Dutch pupils: already in the

first grade, CLIL students have a higher level of proficiency than mainstream education pupils

and they retain this lead until their final year. Although the results of this study proved to be

significant, caution must be applied because of the small sample size. In addition, it is unclear

to what extent course books teach prepositions to students. Although the high level of English

prepositions by CLIL students can be explained by these students acquiring a foreign

language implicitly as a result of the quantity and quality of English input they receive, it

could well be the case that, in addition to this, CLIL course books focus more on prepositions

than mainstream education course books in order to promote authentic language use by CLIL
 51

students, in which case CLIL students would have a lead on their mainstream education peers.

A further study with more focus on the differences in content between CLIL course books and

mainstream education course books is therefore suggested. The results of this study, however,

do lend further support for the hypothesis that immersion in CLIL teaching plays a positive,

significant role in the foreign language acquisition process. Mainstream education teachers

should, therefore, attempt to adopt CLIL teaching practices into their teaching. Instead of

explicit grammar teaching, mainstream teachers should try to draw implicit attention to

grammar; in addition, they should speak the target language as much as possible, give

students the opportunity to produce the foreign language actively, and test communicative

competence rather than grammatical correctness as a goal in itself.

 52

Chapter 8 – Conclusion

This thesis has investigated the immersion effect of CLIL teaching on acquiring English

prepositions. CLIL teaching integrates language learning and content learning, as the foreign

language is used as a tool for learning a content-based subject but is viewed as a goal of the

learning process itself at the same time. The present study was designed to determine whether

CLIL education is more effective than mainstream education in acquiring English

prepositions in the context of Dutch secondary school students learning English.

This study showed that the first-year as well as sixth-year CLIL students under

investigation have a significantly better command of English prepositions than their

mainstream peers. First of all, CLIL students proved to be significantly better at evaluating

the grammatical content of sentences in the Grammaticality Judgement Task than their

mainstream peers; in addition, results showed that first-year as well as sixth-year CLIL

students used significantly more correct prepositions in the Elicited Production Task. The

following conclusion can thus be drawn from the present study: CLIL teaching is significantly

more effective in acquiring prepositions by Dutch pupils than mainstream education.

The results of this study support the idea that implicit language learning occurs in the

CLIL classroom as a result of immersion. Although the first graders under investigation had

only received eight months of foreign language education, they already showed a significantly

better command of English prepositions than mainstream students. These findings suggest

that the quality and quantity of input first-year CLIL students receive facilitate the acquisition

process of English prepositions. Immersion assists students to acquire the language implicitly;

this implicit knowledge helps them to gain a lead on their mainstream peers in the first-year as

well as in the sixth-year. As argued by Krashen and Ellis, competence in a foreign language is
 53

a matter of implicit language knowledge rather than learned knowledge (15; 95). In agreement

with this, De Graaff et al. have argued that fluency in the foreign language can best be

achieved by using the language as a “functional medium of communication and information”

instead of by “making it the object of analysis in class” (606) as is often done in the

mainstream education teaching practice. Because of the quantity of authentic and natural

input CLIL students receive, it could be suggested that their language use is slightly more

authentic and natural, as is reflected in the use of correct prepositions in their free writing.

Although CLIL students used fairly the same prepositions as mainstream students, they did

include more prepositions in their writing and mixed prepositions more in their writing, which

made it sound more native. CLIL teaching did, however, not lead to a higher use of

collocations or a greater variety of prepositions by CLIL students. As has been pointed out by

Verspoor and Edelenbos as well as Marsh, the positive learning outcomes of CLIL should not

be ascribed to the quantity and quality of input alone (12; “Adding Language,” par.6). CLIL

students also tend to benefit from the large quantity of opportunities to produce the foreign

language: for instance, they also produce English in courses other than English. In short,

CLIL renders positive learning outcomes: in their first year of higher education as well as in

their final year, TVWO students under investigation in this study retain a significant lead on

their mainstream peers with regards to their knowledge of English prepositions.

It must, however, be pointed out that the findings in this thesis are subject to at least

three limitations. First of all, an issue that was not tested in this study was the general

language proficiency of students. It might have been the case that the TVWO students under

investigation possessed greater levels of language aptitude in general, which could in turn

have explained their higher scores on the GJT and Elicited Production Task. What is more,

tests were administered in the 6VWO group on the penultimate day of school in the period

before the final exams. As a result, 6VWO students might have been less motivated to
 54

participate in the study compared to the 6TVWO students, which might have influenced the

results. Lastly, since this thesis did not analyse the content of English course books, it is

unclear to what extent course books taught the students under investigation English

prepositions and whether this might have explained the higher level of command of English

prepositions by CLIL students.

Overall, the current findings add to a growing body of literature on the learning

outcomes of CLIL teaching. In addition, this thesis adds substantially to teachers’

understanding of language teaching. Taken together, this thesis has some implications for

teaching practices. In general, reading and writing are the skills most practiced in Dutch

secondary schools despite the fact that a second language is acquired mostly through oral

communication in informal contexts (Kwakernaak 29-30). CLIL teaching imitates the

conditions under which a second language is learned naturally and this has proved to be

significantly effective, and is in fact underscored by the results of this study. Although the

increased use of the target language as language of instruction in recent years tends to

promote oral skills, it is still widely believed that students learn grammar in order to

communicate outside the classroom (De Bot and Maljers in De Graaff and Tuin 135). In

short, the difference between CLIL and the mainstream education practice is too great. The

mainstream foreign language education teaching practice should learn from the CLIL

teaching practice. First of all, using the target language as a language of instruction should be

the rule rather than the exception. Students should be exposed to more authentic input and

should receive more opportunities to perform language output themselves in order to boost

implicit language learning. In addition, teachers should provide feedback on language

production but should not only be focused on accuracy; instead, they should focus more on

the communicative competence of students. When these suggestions are taken into
 55

consideration, not only will the level of English increase by mainstream education students,

they will most likely become to enjoy the subject more (recall section 5.1).

This study has thrown up some questions in need for further investigation. Further

work needs to be done to establish how students’ knowledge of prepositions develops over the

years. The results of this study could suggest that CLIL students maintain a lead on their

mainstream education with regards to their command of English prepositions; however, it

would be informative to administer tests in at least two third-year classes as well in order to

examine this. It would hence also be interesting to examine whether the acquisition process of

prepositions perhaps levels out at the end of students’ lower years. It would, furthermore, be

interesting to investigate the difference between the best 10 per cent students in the VWO

classes with the weakest 10 per cent students in the TVWO class. It would also be interesting

to analyse the content of VWO as well as TVWO course books. What is more, it would be

interesting to investigate the role of individual learner characteristics, such as working

memory capacity and cognitive control in general, in the acquisition process of prepositions.
 56

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 59

Appendices

Appendix A: Questionnaire

Questionnaire

Naam: man / vrouw

Leeftijd:

Klas: tto / geen tto

1. Op een schaal van 1 (heel stom, moeilijk, helemaal niet) tot 5 (heel leuk,
makkelijk, heel veel)…..

1 2 3 4 5
Hoe leuk vind je het vak Engels?

Vind je het vak Engels moeilijk?

Hoe goed denk zelf dat je in het vak Engels bent?

Ben je geïnteresseerd in de Engelse taal en cultuur in het

algemeen? (Buiten het schoolvak om)
In welke mate kom je in aanraking met de Engelse taal buiten
school? (Denk aan TV, films, schrijven in het Engels, etc.).
Leg uit:

2. Wat is je gemiddelde cijfer voor Engels? (Indien bijvoorbeeld een 7,5: omcirkel dan
het streepje tussen 7 en 8)

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10

3. Denk je dat leerlingen die tweetalig onderwijs volgen Engels op een hoger niveau
beheersen dan leerlingen die geen tweetalig onderwijs volgen?
a. Geen verschil
 60

b. TTO hoger niveau

c. TTO veel hoger niveau

4. Heb je nog iets toe te voegen aan deze enquête? Wil je nog wat kwijt?
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Appendix B: Grammaticality Judgement Task and Production Task

Is this sentence correct or incorrect?

In deze opdracht moet je de gegeven zinnen beoordelen op hun grammaticaliteit: zijn de

zinnen grammaticaal geformuleerd of niet? Je hoeft dus niet te letten op spelling en
punctuatie. Je hebt steeds 3 opties waaruit je kunt kiezen bij het beoordelen van de zinnen:
correct, incorrect, of ik weet het niet. Indien je denkt dat een (gedeelte van een) zin incorrect
is, onderstreep je dit gedeelte en verbeter je het. Meestal is je eerste antwoord goed, dus geef
na het lezen van iedere zin direct antwoord. Je krijgt 20 minuten voor de opdracht, maar
waarschijnlijk zul je niet zoveel tijd nodig hebben. Het is wel belangrijk dat je alleen werkt.
Natuurlijk krijg je hier geen cijfer voor.

Een voorbeeld:

She bought her dress at a bridal store.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

(She bought her dress) in a bridal store

1. The brown bears found on Kodiak Island are very large.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

2. George is leaving Monday at noon.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

3. Harry didn’t get any birthday presents yesterday.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

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4. I stood in line for thirty minutes.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

5. I have never seen a dolphin in my life.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

6. The teacher asked us to comment to the story.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

7. Concert ticket prices have risen with 5 per cent.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

8. She is already a hour late.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

9. By six o’clock, I had finished my homework.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

10. They strolled over the beach watching the sunset.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

11. At the end, everything worked out.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

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12. My mother is on a plane to Brussels.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

13. Lady Gaga is playing on the radio.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

14. The children were sitting behind the TV watching a show.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

15. I couldn’t stop laughing about him; he was such a fool.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

16. We spent over $200 on food this week.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

17. When did you gave up smoking?

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

18. In our house, there is a large painting at the wall.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

19. My father shouted: “go into the kitchen immediately!”

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

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20. I speaked at my father’s retirement party last year.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

21. Before 1300, English was not seen as a prestigious language.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

22. At your left side, you can see the Big Ben.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

23. My aunt suffers from diabetes.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

24. As usual arrived James too late.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

25. Susan will arrive on the afternoon.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

26. Just wait a second; I’ll be there in a minute.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

27. I bought two pairs of jeans, because my old ones are too short.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

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28. She apologised about the mistake.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

29. What are you doing over the weekend?

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

30. Traditionally, people kiss each other at New Year’s Eve.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

31. I will be back by 8 o’clock.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

32. Because banks are closed at Saturdays, we couldn’t exchange money.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

33. Who are the people on this picture?

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

34. Unfortunately, my train is delayed. I’ll see you over an hour.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

35. It was difficult to get on the train since there were so many people.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

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36. Susan is engaged to Edgar.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

37. Apples are more healthy than chips.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

38. Unfortunately, that bag is too expensive. I can’t afford it.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

39. I voted on Obama.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

40. I’m comparing the book to the film.

Incorrect Correct Ik weet het niet

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Appendix C: Elicited Production Task

Tell me about your last shopping experience

Je gaat nu in het Engels een stukje schrijven waarin je vertelt over de laatste keer dat je bent
gaan winkelen. Geef antwoord op de volgende vragen:

 Wanneer en waar ben je gaan winkelen?

 Met wie ben je gaan winkelen?
 Hoe ben je daar gekomen? (auto, fiets, bus)
 Wat kocht je? Waar kocht je dit? Waar lag deze winkel?
 Heb je wat gegeten? Waar?
Je hoeft niet in volledige zinnen de antwoorden; je mag ook deelzinnen opschrijven.

Een voorbeeld: Afgelopen weekend in Utrecht met m’n moeder. Met de trein. Een jurk bij
H&M gekocht. Aan de Oude Gracht. Bij de Douwe Egberts op het Neude koffie gedronken.