Students and teacher's perceptions and motivation in a Galician Plurilingual High Schoola study in CLIL Physics and Chemistry

Abstract

In the last couple of decades, foreign language education and its policies has become one of the key points encouraged by the European Union (Milan Summit, 1985; Maastrich Treaty, 1992; CEFR, 2001) so to cater to the multilingual and plurilingual reality in the member states. In order to accomplish this, several initiatives have taken place in the last couple of years such as CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning). In Galicia, CLIL has been introduced by the Plurilingual Decree 79/2010 and the Orde do 12 de maio de 2011. However, despite its ever increasing number of plurilingual centres (Villar, 2016, 2017), no CLIL research on motivation and perceptions in Galician plurlingual high-schools has been carried out. This doctoral dissertation studies the perceptions and motivation regarding CLIL in three CLIL Physics and Chemistry students’ groups (N=61) and their CLIL teacher in a plurilingual high-school located in a city in Galicia. The main results of the study show that using English in the CLIL classroom motivates students because of its instrumental (Gardner and Lambert, 1972) and extrinsic (Deci & Ryan, 2000) value while the CLIL teacher shows to be overall intrinsically motivated.