Received: 16 September 2016 Revised: 28 January 2017
DOI: 10.1111/ijal.12177
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
The effect of content and language integrated
learning programmes' intensity on English
proficiency: A longitudinal study
Jon Ander Merino | David Lasagabaster
University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU),
Vitoria‐Gasteiz, Spain
Correspondence
Jon Ander Merino, University of the Basque
Country (UPV/EHU), Faculty of Arts, English
Studies, Paseo de la Universidad 5, 01006
Vitoria‐Gasteiz, Spain.
Email: jon.merinovillar@gmail.com
Funding information
Spanish Ministry of Economy and
Competitiveness, Grant/Award Number:
FFI2012‐34214; Department of Education,
University and Research of the Basque
Government, Grant/Award Number: IT311‐10
18 © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Accepted: 12 March 2017
Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) is becoming a very
popular approach in Europe and many other parts of the world.
However, due to the novelty of its implementation the number of
longitudinal studies is scant. With this in mind, the overall aim of this
study was to examine the effect of CLIL sessions and their intensity
on the learning of English as a foreign language. Two test rounds
were conducted in a longitudinal study spanning one year. The par-
ticipants were 393 secondary education students enrolled in both
bilingual and monolingual regions in Spain. Our findings revealed a
significant impact of the number of CLIL sessions on students'
proficiency in English.
KEYWORDS
CLIL, EFL, intensity, secondary education
El Aprendizaje Integrado de Contenido y Lengua Extranjera (AICLE)
se ha convertido en un enfoque muy popular tanto en Europa como
en otras partes del mundo. Sin embargo, debido a lo novedoso de su
implementación, el número de estudios longitudinales existentes es
aún reducido. Teniendo en cuenta esta realidad, el propósito de este
estudio es el de examinar a lo largo de un año el efecto del número
de sesiones AICLE, es decir, la intensidad del programa, en el
aprendizaje del inglés como lengua extranjera. Para ello, se examinó
el nivel de inglés de 393 participantes en Educación Secundaria
Obligatoria de tres Comunidades Autónomas de España, dos
monolingües (Cantabria y la Rioja) y una bilingüe (País Vasco). Tras
analizar la competencia lingüística de los estudiantes a lo largo de
un año, los resultados indican que el número de sesiones AICLE
ejerce un efecto significativo en el aprendizaje del inglés.
PA LAB R AS CL AVE
AICLE, intensidad, competencia en inglés, multilingüismo, educación
secundaria
wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ijal Int J Appl Linguist. 2018;28:18–30.
MERINO AND LASAGABASTER 19

1 | I N T RO DU CT I O N

English has an extraordinary presence in several social aspects in Europe, to the extent that it has acquired a status of
extraterritorial language in the continent (Wilton & De Houwer, 2011). Nowadays, the impact of this language on
European citizens lies in its great presence in the media and in popular culture (James, 2000). The significant social
status that this language holds increases the interest in its learning and makes it the most demanded language among
those who learn a foreign language (FL henceforth) (European Commission, 2012). This circumstance impinges on the
school curricula of all EU Member States, as corroborated by the fact that in nearly 90% of secondary schools English
is taught as a FL (EACEA, 2008). This tendency is even increasing, as the more people learn English, the more popular
and useful it becomes, which in turn results in a growth in numbers of learners (Graddol, 2016).
Nonetheless, this interest in English learning does not always meet expectations, since the language proficiency
attained is sometimes below what is desired (Lasagabaster & Ruiz de Zarobe, 2010) and what is required for employ-
ability (Costa & Coleman, 2013). This is the case of Spain, where the command of English clearly lags behind that of
other European countries (European Commission, 2012).
In order to improve FL learning, two main courses of action have been implemented in the Spanish context. The
first action aimed at improving students' proficiency in English was to start the teaching of English at an earlier age
(Muñoz, 2006); in fact, many Spanish schools start teaching English as early as grade 1 (6–7 years old) and some even
in infant education (3–5 years old). However, research studies indicate that an early introduction per se does not auto-
matically lead to better results in the command of the FL (García Mayo & García Lecumberri, 2003; Muñoz, 2006,
2008). The following conclusion by Muñoz (2006: 33) sheds light on the effect of an early introduction of the FL in
formal contexts such as school: “That is, in contexts where opportunities for implicit learning and practice are minimal,
older learners may be quicker to acquire language aspects that involve above all declarative or explicit learning and
memory. Conversely, younger learners may be greatly deprived of their potential advantage when there is not enough
exposure and contact with the language for L2 to proceed in the same way as L1 learning”.
Thus, the lack of satisfactory results linked to the early introduction of the FL has led to the second course of
action, the implementation of content and language integrated learning (CLIL) programmes (Lasagabaster & Sierra,
2010; Juan‐Garau & Salazar‐Noguera, 2015). The core reason for the introduction of CLIL is that the FL is used to
transmit information in real communicative situations and therefore language learning takes place in a more meaning-
ful and efficient way. As Dalton‐Puffer (2011: 185) points out, stakeholders across continents seem to share “the
belief that CLIL is the way to transcend the perceived weaknesses of traditional foreign language teaching”, because
CLIL is believed to boost students' motivation to learn FLs, to foster implicit and incidental learning by centring on
meaning and communication, and to trigger high levels of communication in class, all of which will help to improve
overall language proficiency in the target language (Lasagabaster, 2008). Since CLIL is the educational approach under
scrutiny in our study, the following section is devoted to this educational intervention.

2 | CONTENT AND LANGUAGE INTEGRATED LEARNING (CLIL)

CLIL is an acronym which emerged in Europe during the 1990s (Eurydice, 2006). It is a generic term which refers to
several teaching approaches where a language additional to the L1 is used as a means to teach and learn both non‐
linguistic content (NLC) and the additional language concerned. According to Coyle, Hood, and Marsh (2010, p. 1),
“Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) is a dual‐focused educational approach in which an additional
language is used for the learning and teaching of both content and language. That is, in the teaching and learning
process, there is a focus not only on content, and not only on language”. This is the working definition of this article.
One of the main objectives of the implementation of CLIL in many diverse educational systems is the improvement
in the learning of FLs, where a conventional teaching based on a focus on forms is often perceived as ineffective
20 MERINO AND LASAGABASTER

(Lasagabaster & Ruiz de Zarobe, 2010; Dalton‐Puffer, 2011) and where other initiatives such as the early introduction –
as has been stated above – have not yielded the desired results. One of the rationales of CLIL is that the learning of the
FL will be more effective if the focus of teaching does not lie exclusively on forms but also on the NLC that it can
transmit (Wolff, 2007).
The term CLIL encompasses more than a dozen educational approaches of bilingual education and CLIL
programmes vary as much as European sociolinguistic and socioeducational contexts do. Although CLIL refers to
programmes in Europe, which is the context where and for which it was originally developed, sometimes it is used
to allude to other contexts (Banegas, 2016; Wolff, 2007). That is why the term CLIL, instead of being a clearly defined
educational model, usually encompasses a wide range of learning practices by means of an additional language (Nikula,
2007). Therefore, due to this umbrella character of the term CLIL and to the individuality of the approaches, it is
necessary to contextualize CLIL research and to consider educational specificities (Hüttner & Smit, 2014), which is
why the interpretation of results may only be valid for the respective context (Dalton‐Puffer & Smit, 2013).
CLIL is based on the use of the FL as an instrument to transmit the NLC with the purpose of producing realistic
communicative instances in the FL and simulating a natural environment for its acquisition (Coyle et al., 2010). This
implies immediacy and relevance in the learning of the FL, and it occurs in a more effective and significant way than
when it is centred exclusively on forms (Admiraal, Westhoff, & de Bot, 2006; Dalton‐Puffer, Nikula, & Smit, 2010;
Lasagabaster, 2008; Merisuo‐Storm, 2007). Therefore, the purpose of the integration of FL and NLC in CLIL –as well
as in other options of bilingual education – is to take the most of the student's natural ability of acquiring the FL, by
means of authentic and realistic communication.
CLIL is frequently associated with an effective means to learn the FL and, consequently, the expectations are usu-
ally relatively high (Dalton‐Puffer, 2011). In CLIL the FL serves a purpose that becomes explicit in the classroom, since
it works as a means to learn the academic content. There is also a qualitative difference attached to the innovative
nature of CLIL, for the opportunities to use the FL take place by means of dynamisms that are closer to authentic
language usages and thus to a more natural type of learning (Coyle et al., 2010).
On that account and given its potential, CLIL is nowadays a worldwide expanding phenomenon. During the last decade
it has quickly spread especially throughout Europe and Asia, where it is often being established as a preferential educational
approach (Coyle et al., 2010; Smit, 2007; Yang, 2014), while an intense debate has also been taking place in some of the
main applied linguistic journals about the definition of the concept itself (Bruton, 2015; Cenoz, Genesee, & Gorter, 2014;
Dalton‐Puffer, Llinares, Lorenzo, & Nikula, 2014; Hüttner & Smit, 2014; Lasagabaster & Sierra, 2010). Some authors state
that there are differences between CLIL and immersion (Pérez‐Cañado, 2012), some authors consider that there are more
similarities between CLIL and immersion programmes than between different immersion programmes (Llinares & Lyster,
2014), whereas other scholars (Cenoz, 2015) claim that content‐based instruction and CLIL share the same basic features
and cannot be regarded as pedagogically different. In any case, the conclusion to be drawn would be that the terminological
debate should be left behind and researchers should focus on identifying the “features of bi/multilingual education
programmes all over the world, to help researchers carry out comparative studies across contexts” (Dalton‐Puffer et al.,
2014: 217). In this paper the features that make a programme CLIL would be the following: a programme in which the
FL (English) is used as a medium of instruction in some (not all) school subjects in addition to the traditional English as a
FL subject, the syllabus of the subjects taught in English is the same as that of the subjects taught in Spanish (or Basque),
the programme aims for additive bilingualism (in officially monolingual regions) or multilingualism (in officially bilingual
regions), exposure to English mainly takes place in class (English is not present in students' sociolinguistic context because
they study in a non‐English speaking country), and students enter the programme with similar levels of English proficiency.
Last but not least, it has to be considered that the largely positive results obtained in CLIL research have been
questioned due to both selective measures among CLIL participants and purportedly biased interpretations of the
data (Bruton, 2015). In fact, some voices (see Breidbach & Viebrock, 2013, or Rumlich, 2016, among others) have
warned that the positive outcomes of CLIL may be due to other variables that have little to do with the CLIL approach
per se, such as student selection procedures or the fuzzy definition of some CLIL experiences. That is why in the
paragraph above we have highlighted the features of the CLIL programmes considered in this paper.
MERINO AND LASAGABASTER 21

It is also worth noting that in some contexts such as Sweden, no study has verified a positive effect of CLIL on
students' English proficiency (Sylvén & Ohlander, 2014). With this in mind, in the next section we focus on the impact
of CLIL programmes on FL proficiency.

3 | T HE E F F E C T O F C L I L O N F L P R O F I C I E N C Y

In a review on the language outcomes of CLIL programmes in different European contexts, Dalton‐Puffer (2011), after
comparing the results obtained by CLIL and mainstream learners, asserted that: (i) receptive and productive lexicon is
larger overall among CLIL students; (ii) their writing is also better in terms of lexical and morphosyntactic resources,
while they also tend to show a higher degree of accuracy and greater pragmatic awareness; (iii) oral production reveals
the most remarkable differences in favour of CLIL students, as they tend to outperform their peers in all speaking
dimensions, although pronunciation happens to be the least affected of such dimensions. In her review of the CLIL
literature, Pérez‐Cañado (2012) also underscores the same linguistic benefits and incorporates the positive CLIL effect
felt on creativity and risk‐taking. The clear proficiency differential between CLIL and non‐CLIL students has been
proven in studies involving different FLs, not only English (Lorenzo, Casal, & Moore, 2010).
Nevertheless, and as mentioned above, a word of caution should be issued regarding some of the earlier results,
as a group of studies included selected CLIL students and this selection factor could have exerted a greater influence
on the results than the CLIL approach itself. Rumlich (2013: 196–197) carried out a large‐scale longitudinal study and
observed that prospective CLIL and non‐CLIL students' general proficiency in English diverged greatly even before the
implementation of CLIL in favour of the former, “partly due to the preparatory lessons and partly due to the creaming
effect brought about by the biased selection of students for CLIL and non‐CLIL strands upon entry into secondary
school”. It is also worth considering that CLIL students usually have a larger exposure to the FL than their mainstream
peers and, as proven by Rumlich (2013), sometimes may have a higher level of English proficiency even before the
implementation of the programme.
Similarly, it has to be underscored that in some studies CLIL students do not surpass their non‐CLIL counterparts.
Sylvén and Sundqvist (2006) report that in Sweden some studies have shown no differences, which these authors put
this down to the fact that Swedish students have an enormous exposure to English outside school in comparison to
students in other Europeans contexts. This overexposure seems to upstage the purported positive effects of CLIL and
would account for the lack of positive results of this approach in this particular Scandinavian country. Notwithstand-
ing this, the positive impact of CLIL on FL proficiency has been confirmed in several studies carried out in different
European contexts. When comparing cross‐sectional and longitudinal studies, the latter are rather scant (Dalton‐
Puffer & Smit, 2013) and their results indicate that the benefits of CLIL are less evident in the long run. Longitudinal
studies have confirmed better results on the part of CLIL learners (Sylvén, 2010), although the improvement was not
always significant in all stages and in all language skills. Two studies will be mentioned: Admiraal et al. (2006: 91)
observed that CLIL had strong positive effects on reading comprehension and oral proficiency, but it did not affect
“the growth curve in the receptive word knowledge”: Juan (2010) analysed oral fluency and concluded that speech
rate (the number of words produced per minute) was the only measure that exhibited significant improvement in
the CLIL group, whereas no differences were observed in pausing behaviour (average pause duration, percentage
of time speaking or in silence).
Although the time factor can have a considerable impact on FL learning, we are unacquainted with studies that
have focused on the role played by intensity in CLIL programmes. Whereas this is a research topic analysed in EFL
contexts (Serrano, 2010), it remains underresearched in CLIL settings. Serrano and Muñoz (2007) analysed the results
of intermediate adult students in three EFL programme types (extensive, semi‐intensive and intensive) offered in a
language school. The students who reaped more language gains in vocabulary, grammar, listening and reading were
those enrolled in the intensive programme, while those in the regular (or extensive) EFL course made the least prog-
ress. Similarly, in the Canadian context the benefits of intensive instruction were observed when comparing grade 5
22 MERINO AND LASAGABASTER

and 6 students in intensive classes with their peers in the same grades in non‐intensive classes. In addition, when the
former were compared with students who were three years older and had received a similar amount of hours of
instruction distributed in several years, the intensive group did also outperform them (Lightbown & Spada, 1994).
Since intensity plays such a significant role in EFL contexts, in this paper we intend to analyse whether the degree
of CLIL intensity also influences students' English proficiency significantly.

4 | CLIL IN SPAIN

The popularity of CLIL in Spain is motivated by reasons similar to those previously mentioned for the rest of Europe,
but, above all, due to the widespread belief that it can become the best approach to improve the low FL level achieved
so far (Lasagabaster, 2011). Nonetheless, it is worth noting that CLIL implementation in Spain may vary greatly from
one autonomous community (Spain is made up of 17 autonomous communities) to another. For example, CLIL is com-
pulsory in all primary schools in Navarre, whereas only a few experimental programmes have been implemented in La
Rioja. Similarly, CLIL may differ from one school to the next due to their own peculiarities, such as the subjects taught
in the FL, the number of CLIL sessions per week, and several other factors related to the organization of each school.
The participants in our study were enrolled in three different autonomous communities: (i) The Basque Autono-
mous Community (BAC henceforth), an officially bilingual community in Basque and Spanish; (ii) La Rioja, a monolin-
gual Spanish community; and (iii) Cantabria, also a monolingual community.
In the case of the BAC, in 2010 the Basque Government introduced an experimental education programme with
the aim of developing a “framework for trilingual education” (the so‐called Marco de Educación Trilingüe). This pro-
gramme implied the substitution of the current system for a model in which Basque, Spanish and English would be
vehicular languages (a third of the curriculum would be delivered in each language). The main objectives of this exper-
imental programme were the following: to improve students' knowledge and motivation towards the learning of
English and the co‐official languages, to overcome the linguistic fragmentation resulting from the currently existing
three linguistic models (in which the use of Basque and Spanish as means of instruction varies considerably, English
being only taught as a language subject), and to foster schools' autonomy to make CLIL fit with the circumstances
of their students (Basque Government, 2010). In 2011 nearly 25% of the students in the public Primary Education
and 9% in the Compulsory Secondary Education (henceforth SE) were enrolled in CLIL programmes.
The official curricula of both La Rioja and Cantabria envisage the use of the FL as means of instruction. In La Rioja
there were two official programmes at the time when the present study was performed. One of them was named
“Projects of Linguistic Innovation in Schools and Bilingual Sections”. This programme started in the 2004–05 academic
year as part of a plan of action of the regional government to promote the learning of English or French as FLs. A total
of 46 schools participated in this programme during the year 2008–09. The other official programme was known as
“Bilingual Sections” and this is the one in which the La Riojan participants in the present investigation were enrolled.
These sections require a minimum of two NLC subjects to be taught through the FL, and the FL should not take more
than 50% of the curriculum (Fernández Fontecha, 2010).
In Cantabria, CLIL was implemented through a programme known as “Plan to Promote the Teaching and Learning
of Foreign Languages in the schools of the Autonomous Community of Cantabria”. Under this programme, at least two
school subjects (that is, two school subjects apart from the English language subject: e.g. history and art, or natural
sciences and geography) should be implemented through the FL.

5 | RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Based on the literature reviewed above, the following two research questions were put forward:

1. How do CLIL and its intensity – i.e. the number of sessions per week – affect students' overall proficiency in
English?
MERINO AND LASAGABASTER 23

2. Do CLIL and its intensity have a significant effect on the different language skills?

Since language proficiency “refers to the degree of skill with which a person can use a language, such as how well
a person can read, write, speak, or understand language” (Richards, Platt, & Platt, 1992: 204), which is measured
through the use of proficiency tests, in this article overall proficiency in English is the result of the average resulting
from the results obtained in the tests aimed at measuring the four language skills (namely, speaking, reading, listening
and writing).

6 | METHOD

6.1 | Participants
The sample in this study included students at lower SE level in the BAC and in two neighbouring Spanish monolingual
autonomous communities, Cantabria and La Rioja. A longitudinal study spanning one year was carried out to answer
our two research questions. Students were enrolled in grade 7 (11–12 year olds) during the first test round (time 1
(T1)), and in grade 8 (12–13 year olds) during the second round (time 2 (T2)). A total of 393 students eventually took
part at both stages of the study (T1 and T2). The sample was comprised of three research groups:

1. A Non‐CLIL group made up of model D (a linguistic model in which Basque is the means of instruction for all
subjects except Spanish and English) students from eight high schools in the BAC (77 students). School lessons
last 50 or 55 minutes, depending on each school (the same applies for the following two groups).
2. A CLIL‐ group of students from the same eight high schools as non‐CLIL, with an average of 3.4 CLIL sessions per
week (208 students). These students had started receiving CLIL lessons during that academic year, i.e., grade 7.
That is, until grade 7 non‐CLIL and CLIL‐ groups had been having the same amount of input to the FL at school.

3. A CLIL+ group with students from five high schools in Cantabria and La Rioja who had an average of 8.4 CLIL
sessions per week (108 students). As with the CLIL‐ group, it was the first CLIL year for the students in this
research group.

As a result, Non‐CLIL students were exposed to the English language in 11.3% of their curriculum, the CLIL‐ group
in 22.5% and the CLIL+ in 41% (see Table 1). The three research groups had English as a language subject for an
average of 3 to 4 sessions per week (the only exposure to English in the case of the non‐CLIL group), sessions already
included in the aforementioned percentages of total exposure to English. CLIL lessons covered different school
subjects at the discretion of each high school, ranging from core subjects (maths, sciences or physical education), to
elective ones offered in each school (arts and crafts or drama).
All the participants were enrolled in public schools located in urban areas wherein Spanish holds a predominant
position, whilst the presence of English outside school is negligible. In the three contexts English had been part of
the students' curriculum since kindergarten. As for gender, 50.7% of all the participants were female and the remain-
ing 49.3% male.

TABLE 1 Study group characteristics

Study Group Languages in the curriculum Participants CLIL sessions/week English exposure

Non‐CLIL Basque, Spanish and English 77 0 11%

CLIL‐ Basque, Spanish and English 208 3.5 22.5%
CLIL+ Spanish and English 108 8.5 41%
24 MERINO AND LASAGABASTER

For all the BAC students in the non‐CLIL and CLIL‐ groups English represented the L3 (Basque and/or Spanish
being the L1 and/or L2), whereas English was the L2 for the CLIL+ groups from Cantabria and La Rioja. Anyhow, it
has to be noted that research studies confirm that Basque students' English command is not negatively affected by
the presence of an additional curricular language in the curriculum, namely Basque (ISEI‐IVEI, 2012; Lasagabaster,
2000). In fact, results obtained in diverse bilingual contexts show that L3 learners are better FL learners than L2
learners due to a more developed metalinguistic awareness and more efficient learning strategies (Cenoz, 2009;
Jessner, 2006). In any case, the English proficiency achieved at the end of the compulsory education is not sufficient
in any of the three linguistic models currently available in the BAC, the results being equally poor in La Rioja and
Cantabria (Lasagabaster & Ruiz de Zarobe, 2010).

6.2 | Instruments and procedure

Two test rounds were conducted during the implementation of this research study, the first test round (T1) taking
place in the final term of the 2010–11 academic year, and the second one (T2) after a full year, that is, at the end
of 2011–12.
English reading, writing, listening, speaking and the overall proficiency in this language were assessed during both
test rounds. The standardized Key English Test (KET) (Cambridge ESOL, 2008) was used to measure the students'
listening, reading and writing skills. This test is focused on level A2 of the Common European Framework of Reference
for Languages. The speaking test was based on the story entitled “Frog, where are you?” (Mayer, 1974), a wordless
picture book in which participants were asked to describe what they were seeing in a series of pictures during three
minutes. This last instrument has been widely used in previous studies not only in the BAC (Martínez Adrián &
Gutiérrez Mangado, 2009; Villarreal & García Mayo, 2009), but also in many other different contexts (Hüttner &
Rieder‐Bünemann, 2010; Strömqvist & Verhoeven, 2004).
The KET was evaluated by an only rater in accordance with the instructions given by the designers of the test.
The speaking test was assessed by two raters who independently rated students' coherence (coefficient of intraclass
correlation (IC) = 0.82), grammar (IC = 0.75), fluency (IC = 0.75) and pronunciation (IC = 0.72). The subcompetence
of vocabulary was also assessed by means of a checklist which included key items and possible synonyms that the
participants should have included in their productions. These five subcompetences were worth 20 points each, for a
total of 100 points.
Before running any analysis, the data set was graphed with a boxplot and it was also standardized in order to
check for cases deemed to be outliers. The few participants who contributed outliers (lying over 1.5 Interquartile
Ranges below the first quartile) were removed, since they were not considered representative of the target
population.

7 | RESULTS

7.1 | Intensity and students' overall English proficiency

As far as our first research question (How do CLIL and its intensity – i.e. the number of sessions per week – affect
students' overall proficiency in English?) was concerned, Table 2 displays the data obtained in the different language
skills and the overall proficiency in T1 and T2 and the difference between both rounds. The overall proficiency (100%)
was the result of adding the scores of the four language skills by giving a value of 50% to reading and writing, and 25%
to listening and reading respectively.
As shown in Table 2, during the first test round (T1) the non‐CLIL group obtained the lowest results and the
CLIL+ group the highest (except for speaking in T1). A one‐tailed analysis of variance (ANOVA) and two planned
contrasts (C1 and C2) revealed significant differences in the overall proficiency in English according to the study
MERINO AND LASAGABASTER 25

TABLE 2 Results in English skills and overall proficiency by study group

T1 T2
Proficiency Group Mean SD Range Median Mean SD Range Median

Reading and writing (35 pts.) Non‐CLIL 10.18 4.19 15 11 12.46 6.31 30 12
CLIL‐ 18.48 7.37 31 20 21.21 7.02 30 23
CLIL+ 19.47 5.97 25 19 23.98 5.29 24 25
Total 17.41 7.29 31 18 20.58 7.47 32 22
Listening (20 pts.) Non‐CLIL 7.87 3.93 13 7 8.25 4.60 19 6
CLIL‐ 13.73 4.06 17 14 13.93 4.52 19 15
CLIL+ 14.54 3.21 16 15 15.48 3.68 16 17
Total 13.13 4.38 17 14 13.58 4.86 20 15
Speaking (20 pts.) Non‐CLIL 3.31 2.62 9 3 4.82 3.47 12 5
CLIL‐ 7.01 3.52 16 7 8.44 3.40 16 9
CLIL+ 6.28 2.97 15 6 9.60 3.01 18 10
Total 6.09 3.46 16 6 8.15 3.67 20 9
Overall proficiency (100 pts.) Non‐CLIL 30.35 12.71 46 31 35.97 18.49 70 32
CLIL‐ 52.83 19.05 75 56 58.41 19.32 83 63
CLIL+ 53.95 14.07 66 53 65.46 14.02 67 68
Total 50.05 18.43 78 53 57.68 19.71 86 60

group. One‐tailed analyses were used since, based on previous research (see sections 3 and 5 above), we wanted to
test the directional hypothesis that CLIL could have a positive effect on EFL proficiency. The first contrast (C1. non‐
CLIL vs CLIL‐) showed significant differences between a lack of CLIL (non‐CLIL) and a reduced exposure to CLIL
(CLIL‐) in favour of the latter (with a large r effect size; r = 0.60). The second contrast (C2. CLIL‐ vs CLIL+) revealed
no significant differences between a reduced CLIL exposure (CLIL‐) and a higher exposure (CLIL+). These results
need to be considered because they indicate that at the beginning of study there were statistically significant differ-
ences between the Non‐CLIL and the CLIL groups, whereas no differences were found between the CLIL‐ and the
CLIL+ groups.
In order to measure and compare the evolution of the three cohorts from T1 to T2, the CLIL effect on the overall
proficiency over one year was measured by means of a repeated measures ANOVA with two contrasts (C1. Non‐CLIL
vs CLIL‐ and C2. CLIL‐ vs CLIL+). As shown in Table 3, the analyses reflected a significant effect of time on the
proficiency in English. This means that, regardless of the study group (Figure 1), results were significantly better at
T2 than at T1. Moreover, a statistically significant interaction between the variables time and group was observed.
This indicates that the evolution from T1 to T2 was different according to the study group. No statistically significant
differences were observed between the evolution of Non‐CLIL and CLIL‐. However, the contrast between CLIL‐ and
CLIL+ (C2) showed that the evolution of CLIL+ students was significantly higher than that of their CLIL‐ counterparts
(with a small r effect size: r = 0.27).
As far as research question 1 is concerned, there is a noticeable contrast between the cross‐sectional results
(T1) and the longitudinal ones (evolution from T1 to T2). In fact, when comparing the results at T1, both CLIL
groups showed significantly higher scores than the non‐CLIL group. At that stage, no differences were found
between the scores attained by CLIL‐ and CLIL+, that is to say, a lower or higher number of CLIL sessions did

TABLE 3 ANOVA and contrast tests in the overall proficiency in English

ANOVA and contrasts df Statistical value (Effect sizes) Sig.

Time effect (T1 ‐ T2) 1, 295 F = 140.29 p < 0.001

Interaction time*group 2, 295 F = 12.86 p < 0.001
C1. Non‐CLIL v CLIL‐ (SE = 1.18) 295 t = 0.02 (r < 0.01) Non‐sign.
C2. CLIL‐ v CLIL+ (SE = 0.86) 295 t = −4.85 (r = 0.27) p < 0.001
26 MERINO AND LASAGABASTER

FIGURE 1 Progress in the overall proficiency in English by study group [Colour figure can be viewed at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]

not reveal any effect. By contrast, when comparing the improvement of the three cohorts after a year, not only
was it observed that the CLIL‐ participants progressed less than the CLIL+ participants, but that the former also
made progress in an almost identical degree to those in the Non‐CLIL group (once their different starting points
were considered). These results expose the relevance of two variables when analysing the impact of CLIL on the
learning of EFL. The first one, in view of the contrast between the cross‐sectional and the longitudinal studies here,
is the effect of time. The second variable to consider is the quantity of CLIL sessions in a programme, given the
differences between CLIL‐ and CLIL+ groups in the present study, for a higher amount of CLIL produced a greater
improvement in the FL.

7.2 | Intensity and the different language skills

In order to check research question 2 (Do CLIL and its intensity have a significant effect on the different language
skills?), the differences in language skills were longitudinally examined. In addition, the interaction between that effect

TABLE 4 ANOVA and contrast tests (T1‐T2) in the English skills

Dependent variable ANOVA and contrasts df Statistical value (Effect sizes) Sig.

Reading and writing Time effect 1, 369 F= 111.70 p < 0.001

Interaction time*group 2, 369 F= 5.29 p < 0.01
C1. Non‐CLIL v CLIL‐ (SE = .53) 369 t = −0.61 (r = 0.03) Non‐sign.
C2. CLIL‐ v CLIL+ (SE = .43) 369 t = −2.89 (r = 0.15) p < 0.01
Listening Time effect 1, 361 F= 7.70 p < 0.01
Interaction time*group 2, 361 F= 2.12 Non‐sign.
C1. Non‐CLIL v CLIL‐ (SE = .33) 361 t = 0.38 (r = 0.03) Non‐sign.
C2. CLIL‐ v CLIL+ (SE = .25) 361 t = −2.05 (r = 0.11) p < 0.05
Speaking Time effect 1, 314 F= 288.68 p < 0.001
Interaction time*group 2, 314 F= 29.71 p < 0.001
C1. Non‐CLIL v CLIL‐ (SE = .22) 314 t = 0.26 (r = 0.01) Non‐sign.
C2. CLIL‐ v CLIL+ (SE = .18) 314 t = −7.36 (r = 0.38) p < 0.001
MERINO AND LASAGABASTER 27

and the study group was also analysed. Once again, this was done by contrasting the evolution between Non‐CLIL and
CLIL‐ on the one hand (C1), and the evolution between CLIL‐ and CLIL+ (C2) on the other hand. Table 4 shows that
the tendency was similar in all the language skills.
As shown in Table 4, the contrasts (C1) showed no significant difference between the evolution (from T1 to T2) of
non‐CLIL and CLIL‐ in any of the language skills. Conversely, the three contrasts between CLIL‐ and CLIL+ (C2)
revealed that the evolution of the latter was significantly higher in all the skills measured, i.e., Reading and Writing,
Listening and Speaking. These results concur with those previously found in the participants' overall proficiency.

8 | C O N CL U S I O N S

CLIL has only become a full‐fledged field of research in the 2000s and longitudinal studies are in dire need (Dalton‐
Puffer & Smit, 2013; Heras & Lasagabaster, 2015; Lasagabaster & Doiz, 2015; Pérez‐Cañado, 2016; Sylvén &
Ohlander, 2014). Thus, in this paper we have aimed at analysing the effect of an underresearched area (the effect
of CLIL intensity) through a longitudinal study. According to Serrano (2010: 100), “It is certainly surprising that not
much research has been done on intensive instruction, considering the impact that the time factor can have on L2
learning”, which is why we have focused on the impact of the intensity of CLIL programmes.
In summary, the results on the first research question show that the more intensive the exposure to CLIL lessons,
the better students' command turns out to be. CLIL yields better results in English proficiency, yet when the group
scores were analysed longitudinally, no differences emerged between non‐CLIL learners and learners with a reduced
amount of CLIL (CLIL‐), despite the fact that CLIL students (when cross‐sectionally examined) surpassed their non‐
CLIL counterparts both at T1 and at T2. Instead, longitudinally significant benefits were only found among those
students with more CLIL sessions per week (CLIL+). The effect of CLIL intensity is therefore evident, as those students
who were participating in the most intensive programmes benefited most from the CLIL experience.
It should be mentioned, nonetheless, that CLIL+ leaners in the present study had two curricular languages –
Spanish and English – in their curriculum, that is, one less than the learners in the other two groups who had to deal with
three languages: Spanish, Basque and English. However, previous research comparing students in conventional and
bilingual education tracks carried out in the BAC had produced similar results in the FL, and sometimes even favourable
to the bilingual groups (Cenoz, 2009; ISEI‐IVEI, 2012; Lasagabaster, 2000). Based on these previous research studies,
the presence of an additional language (the FL being L2 or L3) was not expected to have influenced directly the higher
scores by the CLIL+ learners. Therefore, it can be concluded that these higher scores by CLIL+ learners are due to their
greater exposure to the FL as an instrumental language rather than to English being an L2 instead of an L3. At a time
when FL learning is an asset in the job market (especially English), our results indicate that students learning English
in CLIL‐ programmes in bilingual areas may be at a disadvantage when compared to CLIL+ students in monolingual
regions. Since English has become a remarkable cultural capital, bilingual programmes in the two co‐official languages
may have an additional challenge ahead if they aim at trilingual proficient speakers by the time students reach the end
of compulsory education. In any case, further research is needed comparing the learning of the FL in bilingual and
trilingual programmes in different bilingual contexts.
One of the most striking results of this study concerns the lack of statistically significant differences found when
the progress made by Non‐CLIL and CLIL‐ was compared. Although the comparison of their results in T1 and T2 from
a cross‐sectional perspective reveals that the CLIL‐ learners significantly surpass their Non‐CLIL peers, the analysis of
their respective improvement over time does not bear the expected results. In fact, the improvement undergone by
both groups is similar once their different starting points are considered. Our results therefore seem to indicate that
CLIL will only produce a significant EFL improvement when it is part of a high intensity programme.
As for the second research question, it was expected that the benefits reaped by the implementation of CLIL
programmes would be observed in the different language skills measured, i.e., listening, speaking, reading and writing.
This was confirmed by our results which showed that the tendency in favour of CLIL students was similar in all the
28 MERINO AND LASAGABASTER

language skills, in accordance with results obtained in CLI programmes implemented in different European contexts
(Dalton‐Puffer, 2011; Lasagabaster, 2008; Sylvén, 2010). These results also concur with those of studies undertaken
in traditional FL programmes and in which the limited hours of instruction per week in a non‐intensive time distribu-
tion proved ineffective when it came to fostering the acquisition of the FL concerned (Netten & Germain, 2004).
Further research should also aim at analysing whether CLIL intensive programmes help to enhance group cohe-
sion, since Hinger (2006) found out that concentrated instruction in an intensive Spanish class for German‐speaking
students led to a significantly higher level of group cohesion. These results led the author to conclude that group
cohesion “seems to grow naturally in intensive foreign language settings as opposed to the traditional standard format
course” (Hinger, 2006: 115). Since Hinger's study was carried out in an EFL setting, the effect of CLIL intensity on
group cohesion becomes an issue that deserves to be investigated.

ACKNOWLEDGEMEN TS
This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness: (research project name FFI2012‐
34214) and the Department of Education, University and Research of the Basque Government (research project name
IT904‐16).

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How to cite this article: Merino JA, Lasagabaster D. The effect of content and language integrated learning
programmes' intensity on English proficiency: a longitudinal study. Int J Appl Linguist. 2018;28:18–30. https://
doi.org/10.1111/ijal.12177