To fear or not to fear CLIL : some remarks on the role of anxiety in a CLIL classroom

Abstract

This study aims to explore the relationship between content and language integrated learning (CLIL) and language learning anxiety, namely the impact of CLIL on students’ anxiety in different cultural contexts. As a part of a larger research project, this study is conducted at the secondary school level in the Netherlands, Germany, and Poland and includes students enrolled in CLIL programs. The participants completed a questionnaire based on scales already used by Gardner (1985), Schmidt and Watanabe (2001) and Lasagabaster and Doiz (2017), which is a measure of affective factors. The learners’ responses were measured on a 5-point Likert scale covering the range: strongly disagree; rather disagree; don’t know; rather agree; strongly agree. The responses were transformed into numerical values ranging from 1 to 5 for statistical analysis, thereby allowing the comparison of anxiety over time and among the participants under investigation.