722054

research-article2017
LTR0010.1177/1362168817722054Language Teaching ResearchMartínez-Adrián et al.

LANGUAGE
TEACHING
Article RESEARCH

Language Teaching Research

On self-reported use of
2019, Vol. 23(1) 39­–57
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1362168817722054
https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168817722054
by CLIL learners in primary journals.sagepub.com/home/ltr

education

María Martínez-Adrián
The University of the Basque Country, Spain

Francisco Gallardo-del-Puerto
The University of Cantabria, Spain

María Basterrechea
The University of the Basque Country, Spain

Abstract
The use of communication strategies (CSs) in oral and written second language (L2) production has
been widely investigated (e.g. Muñoz, 2007). As for content and language integrated learning (CLIL)
settings, learners seem to resort to the first language (L1) less often than in traditional foreign
language instruction (e.g. Celaya & Ruiz de Zarobe, 2010). However, few studies have examined
what L2 learners say about their use of CSs by means of questionnaires – e.g. Ehrman & Oxford
(1990), with adult English as a foreign language (EFL) learners – and little is known about the reported
use of CSs by young learners (Purdie & Oliver, 1999), and much less by young CLIL learners. This
study examines learners’ self-reported opinions about the use of CSs (guessing, miming, morphological
creativity, dictionary, predicting, paraphrasing, borrowing, calque, foreignizing, avoidance and appeal for
assistance). An adapted survey (Kellerman, Bongaerts, & Poulisse, 1987; Oxford, 1989; O’Malley &
Chamot, 1990; Yule & Tarone, 1990) was administered to CLIL learners of English in grades 5 and 6
of primary education. Quantitative differences in terms of the type of strategies used were explored.
Analyses showed striking similarities between grades 5 and 6 as well as significant differences in the
use of the different CSs, paraphrasing and appeal for assistance being the most frequent strategies,
whereas morphological creativity and miming obtained the lowest frequency. Findings are discussed in
the light of learners’ age and the nature of CLIL instruction.

Corresponding author:
María Martínez-Adrián, Departmento de Filología Inglesa y Alemana, y de Traducción e Interpretación,
Facultad de Letras, Universidad del País Vasco, Paseo de la Universidad 5, 01006 Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain
Email: [email protected]
40 Language Teaching Research 23(1)

Keywords
communication strategies (CSs), content and language integrated learning (CLIL), children,
learners of English as a foreign language (EFL), questionnaires

I Introduction
Communication strategies (henceforth CSs) refer to all those devices language learners
use to overcome linguistic difficulties encountered when trying to communicate in a
foreign language (FL) with a reduced interlanguage system (Fernández Dobao, 2002).
The first systematic analysis of CSs dates back to 1970s, when Váradi (1973) introduced
some of the types of CS which subsequent researchers would use.
The use of CSs by second language (L2) learners (e.g. Muñoz, 2007) in oral and writ-
ten production has been widely investigated. Recently, the use of the first language (L1)
as a CS during oral production has been researched in content and language integrated
learning (CLIL) contexts, where, compared to their mainstream counterparts, CLIL
learners resort to their L1 less frequently (Martínez-Adrián & Gutiérrez-Mangado,
2015). However, we are in the need of studies that tackle the whole inventory of CSs. In
addition, not many studies have examined what L2 learners say about their CSs in writ-
ten questionnaires; e.g. Ehrman & Oxford (1990), with adult English as a foreign lan-
guage (EFL) learners. To our knowledge, little is known about the use of CSs by young
L2 learners, and much less by young CLIL learners, Purdie and Oliver’s (1999) being the
only study that has addressed this issue with young schoolchildren. The present study
uses an adapted version from Purdie and Oliver’s (1999) survey with young CLIL learn-
ers, whose repertoire of CSs makes up an underexplored area in CLIL research.
The present study investigates young CLIL (where English is the vehicular language)
learners’ reported use of CSs as well as their preferences in the type of strategies employed
during production of the target language. This article is structured as follows: the second sec-
tion presents the theoretical framework and the main findings regarding CSs in mainstream
EFL and CLIL settings in oral and written production and their study through questionnaires.
This section finishes with the research questions posed in the study. A third section describes
the setting and participants, the research instruments employed and the procedure we fol-
lowed. Sections 4 and 5 present the results and discussion respectively, and the last section
concludes the article pointing out limitations and offering lines for further research.

II Literature background
1 Taxonomies of CSs
The study of CSs in L2 acquisition has been approached from two different perspectives:
the psycholinguistic and the interactional perspective. From a psycholinguistic point of
view, CSs are treated as an individual mental response to a problem rather than as a joint
response (Bialystok, 1990; Færch & Kasper, 1980, 1983, 1984; Poulisse, 1993, 1997;
Poulisse, Bongaerts, & Kellerman, 1990). From an interactional perspective, a CS is a
shared enterprise in which both the speaker and the hearer are involved rather than being
only the responsibility of the speaker (Corder, 1978; Tarone, 1977, 1981; Váradi, 1973).
Martínez-Adrián et al. 41

Dörnyei and Scott (1997) provided a review of nine taxonomies of CSs, but three of
them have been the most prevalent in the area: Tarone’s taxonomy (1977), Færch and
Kasper’s taxonomy (1983) and the Nijmegen group’s taxonomy (Poulisse, 1990). For
space constraints, we will devote our attention to the classification developed by Tarone
(interactional perspective) and the one by the Nijmegen group (psycholinguistic perspec-
tive), which both Purdie and Oliver’s (1999) survey and the questionnaire administered to
participants in the present study are built on.1 Tables 1 and 2 show both classifications.

Table 1. Tarone’s typology of communication strategies (CSs).

Communication strategies
1. Avoidance
a. Topic avoidance
b. Message abandonment
2. Paraphrase
a. Approximation (pipe for waterpipe; from Tarone, 1977, p. 198)
b. W ord coinage (airball for balloon; from Váradi, 1973, as cited in Poulisse, 1990)
c. Circumlocution (when describing a waterpipe, she is uh, Persina, and we use in Turkey a lot
of; from Tarone, 1977, p. 198)
3. Conscious transfer
a. Literal translation (translation of an equivalent Mandarin expression ‘He invites him to
drink’; from Poulisse, 1990, p. 60)
b. L anguage switch (The use of Turkish balon for English balloon; from Poulisse, 1990, p. 60)
4. Appeal for assistance (What is this? What called, from Tarone, 1977, p. 199)
5. Mime (clapping one’s hands to illustrate applause, from Tarone, 1977, p. 199)

Source. Based on Tarone, 1977.

Table 2. The Nijmegen project’s typology of CSs.

Archistrategies Communication strategies

Conceptual 1. A
 nalytic (circumlocution, description, and paraphrase) (this you use
for a baby so, uh, that it can’t uh, make, uh, his clothes erm 3 uh dirty
(from Poulisse, 1990, p. 60)
2. H
 olistic (the use of a superordinate, co-ordinate, or subordinate
term) vegetables for peas (from Poulisse, 1990, p. 61)
Linguistic 3. T
 ransfer (borrowing, foreignizing, and literal translation) (Dutch
etalage for English shop-window or cuffer from French coiffeur; from
Poulisse, 1990, p. 62)
4. M
 orphological creativity (representator for representative; from
Poulisse, 1990, p. 62)

Source. Based on Poulisse, 1990.

In order to tackle the whole inventory of CSs, the following categories from these
well-known taxonomies were incorporated into our questionnaire: Avoidance and
appeal for assistance from Tarone (1977), and linguistic strategies such as transfer,
which is broken down into borrowing, calque and foreignizing, were also adopted from
Poulisse’s (1990) taxonomy.
42 Language Teaching Research 23(1)

2 Research on CSs
Empirical studies on the use of CSs by L2 learners have been devoted to the following top-
ics: classification of CSs, effectiveness of CSs, factors affecting choice of CSs and teach-
ability of CSs. Several factors have been found to affect the use of CSs: proficiency level
in the target language (i.e. Bialystok, 1983; Jourdain, 2000; Liskin-Gasparro, 1996;
Paribakht, 1985; Poulisse et al., 1990; Tarone, 1977); influence of the native language
(Tarone & Yule, 1987; Si-Qing, 1990); personality (Haastrup & Phillipson, 1983; Luján
Ortega & Clark, 2000); learning and cognitive style (Luján Ortega & Clark, 2000;
Littlemore, 2001); gender (Jiménez Catalán, 2003; Wang, 2008); task-related features such
as cognitive demands, time constraints and interlocutor’s role (Poulisse et al., 1990; Khanji,
1993); and L1 strategic behaviour (Poulisse et al., 1990). Among these factors, proficiency
has received the greatest attention. Research has tested the effect of this factor in terms of
frequency and choice of CSs. Less proficient learners have been found to use more CSs
than more proficient learners due to their limited command of the target language
(Fernández Dobao, 2002; Hyde, 1982; Liskin-Gasparro, 1996; Paribakht, 1985; Poulisse
et al., 1990). However, proficiency has a slightly limited effect on the choice of particular
types of CSs. While several authors (Bialystok, 1983; Bialystok & Fröhlich, 1980; Jourdain,
2000; Wannaruk, 2003) have concluded that low-proficient learners tend to make a greater
use of avoidance, mime and L1-based strategies, and more advanced learners tend to prefer
L2-based strategies instead, this is not always the trend observed in research. Poulisse et al.
(1990) found that the impact of proficiency was overruled by the effect of other factors
such as the nature of the communicative task. This trend was also confirmed some years
later by Fernández Dobao (2002). In highly demanding tasks, advanced learners used as
many avoidance and transfer strategies as the low-proficient learners did. All in all, Ellis
(2008) claims that little has yet been discovered about the developmental nature of CSs in
L2 production. Thus, this article will try to contribute to fill this gap by investigating the
use of CSs in two groups of young English learners in a CLIL setting.

3 Research on L1-based CSs in CLIL settings

The use of CSs during oral and written production has been widely investigated in EFL
contexts (Cenoz, 2003; Gost, & Celaya, 2005; Muñoz, 2007; Navés, Miralpeix, &
Celaya, 2005; Poulisse & Bongaerts, 1994; Viladot & Celaya, 2007). More limited
research has been conducted in CLIL contexts in this respect, the majority of studies hav-
ing been conducted with secondary-school learners. In addition, these studies have tack-
led L1-based strategies instead of examining the whole inventory of CSs, limitations that
we will try to overcome in the present article. Given the scarcity of investigations con-
ducted on CSs other than L1-based ones, the review of the studies that we provide below
will illuminate the discussion of the results found in the present survey study. Some of
these studies are longitudinal or pesudolongitudinal investigations of CLIL learners
(Arratibel-Irazusta, 2015; Gutiérrez-Mangado, 2015; Lázaro Ibarrola & García Mayo,
2012; Serra, 2007) and other studies have compared CLIL to mainstream EFL learners
(Agustín Llach, 2009; 2014; Celaya, 2008; Celaya & Ruiz de Zarobe, 2010; Gallardo-
del-Puerto, 2015; García Mayo & Lázaro Ibarrola, 2015; Martínez-Adrián, 2015;
Martínez-Adrián & Gutiérrez-Mangado, 2015).
Martínez-Adrián et al. 43

In the case of the (pseudo)longitudinal studies conducted to date, Arratibel-Irazusta

(2015) investigated the use of the L1 (interactional strategies, transfer lapses – i.e. bor-
rowings and foreignizings – code-switching and discourse markers) in an oral narration
task together with general proficiency in two different age CLIL groups of secondary-
school learners. Older learners were found to outperform younger learners in general
proficiency. However, both groups behaved in the same way in terms of L1 use except
for the production of foreignizings. The comparison of the different categories examined
revealed that discourse markers was the category that presented more L1 use in both
groups. Finally, significant correlations were found between general proficiency and L1
influence. Lázaro Ibarrola and García Mayo (2012) have also examined the use of the L1
(discourse markers and repair sequences) in secondary school learners immersed in a
CLIL context in the Basque Country. They concluded that L1 use significantly decreased
along the 2-year period investigated.
Other longitudinal studies have been conducted with primary school children. Serra
(2007) analysed L1 use in repair sequences by German-speaking primary-school chil-
dren learning Italian or Romansch in a CLIL context. L1 use in repair sequences
decreased as learners gradually attained a higher proficiency in the target language (TL).
More recently, Gutiérrez-Mangado (2015) examined the pseudolongitudinal develop-
ment of two groups of primary-school CLIL and mainstream EFL learners in terms of L1
use in interactional strategies, transfer lapses and codeswitching. In the lapse of the two-
year period explored, mainstream EFL learners were found to use the L1 in these three
categories. In contrast, a decrease in appeals for assistance and an increase in borrowings
were observed in the CLIL learners. Namely, they were found to abandon more coopera-
tive strategies (appeals for assistance) in favor of more uncooperative ones.
With respect to the studies that have compared CLIL to mainstream EFL learners,
Celaya and Ruiz de Zarobe (2010) examined the production of borrowings and foreigniz-
ings in written production by secondary school students in Grades 7 (age 13) and 10 (age
16). CLIL groups in both grades produced fewer borrowings than their mainstream EFL
counterparts in a writing task. However, no clear pattern emerged for lexical creations.
Likewise, Martínez-Adrián and Gutiérrez-Mangado (2015) have compared secondary
school CLIL to mainstream EFL learners as regards L1 use during an oral production
task. This task was analysed both in terms of use of the L1 in interactional strategies and
transfer lapses. A lower use of the L1 and a greater use of the target language during
interaction were found in the case of CLIL learners.
Other studies that have compared CLIL and mainstream EFL learners have examined
primary school children. Celaya (2008) explored lexical transfer (borrowings and lexical
creations) in the written compositions by CLIL vs. mainstream EFL learners at grades 5
(age 11) and 7 (age 13). Results showed a lower percentage of borrowings in CLIL than
in mainstream EFL but similar percentages of lexical creations in both settings. However,
no inferential statistical analyses were carried out to rule out the effect of probability. In
contrast, Agustín Llach (2009) observed fewer instances of L1 lexical influence not only
in borrowings, but also in foreignizings and calques in the writings of Grade 6 (age 12)
CLIL learners when compared to their mainstream EFL peers. Nevertheless, differences
turned out to be significant only in the case of borrowings. These results were explained
in terms of CLIL learners’ higher command of the FLs as well as their more frequent use
of English as a means of communication.
44 Language Teaching Research 23(1)

Apart from the studies that have investigated L1 use in written production, other studies
carried out with young learners have devoted their attention to oral production. García
Mayo and Lázaro Ibarrola (2015) analysed the production of 40 age- and proficiency-
matched dyads in terms of overall L1 use. CLIL learners displayed slightly higher linguis-
tic abilities and were found to resort to the L1 less frequently than mainstream EFL learners,
as they were more fluent and were used to speaking English with a meaningful purpose.
Pladevall-Ballester and Vraciu (2017) compared the longitudinal development of L1 use
patterns in the oral production of 5th grade (age 11) and 6th grade (age 12) CLIL and main-
stream EFL learners matched for exposure hours. More specifically, the study examined the
learners’ use of the L1 in an individual narrative task in terms of content and function words,
codeswitching, lexical transfer (i.e. borrowings, foreignizings) and interactional strategies.
Results revealed no significant differences between the groups in the total number of L1
words. These findings seem to contradict other studies, where CLIL learners made a signifi-
cant lower use of the L1 (Gallardo-del-Puerto, 2015; Gutiérrez-Mangado, 2015; Martínez-
Adrián & Gutiérrez-Mangado, 2015; Martínez-Adrián, 2015). Results also pointed to a
decreasing tendency in the use of borrowings and codeswitching at different testing times in
both groups: findings that contradict previous studies where CLIL learners produced fewer
borrowings than their mainstream EFL counterparts (e.g. Agustín Llach, 2009, 2014). The
results in this study might be accounted for by the fact that, unlike the majority of the studies
that examine the effect of CLIL instruction on the use of L1 patterns, the groups are matched
for exposure hours. However, the increased use of foreignizings observed from the begin-
ning of the study in the CLIL group (and in later stages in the mainstream EFL group) goes
in line with the tendency observed in a considerable number of studies reporting a higher use
of this strategy on account of this group’s higher proficiency (Agustin Llach, 2014; Celaya,
2008; Celaya & Ruiz de Zarobe, 2010).
In a similar vein, Gallardo-del-Puerto (2015) gathered data from primary school
learners performing a peer interaction task. Two groups of CLIL learners in grades 4 and
6 were compared to two other groups of age-matched mainstream EFL learners as regards
their production of codeswitching and transfer lapses in a dyadic story-telling task. Grade
4 CLIL learners produced a lower rate of codeswitching and transfer lapses than their
mainstream EFL counterparts, these differences not being statistically significant though.
In contrast, statistical significance was reached when Grade 6 participants were com-
pared. Codeswitching, borrowings and foreignizings were more frequent in mainstream
EFL than in CLIL learners, whereas CLIL learners produced a greater number of calques
than mainstream EFL students. The study also concludes that the idea that foreignizing
is characteristic of higher proficiency learners is not supported by the data obtained,
which contradicts most CLIL research on this matter (Agustin Llach, 2014; Celaya,
2008; Celaya & Ruiz de Zarobe, 2010; Pladevall-Ballester & Vraciu, 2017).
Martínez-Adrián (2015) also analysed the oral production of 44 age- and proficiency-
matched dyads (21 CLIL, 23 mainstream EFL) in terms of L1 use in appeals, clarifica-
tion requests and metacomments. The results indicated that mainstream EFL learners
produced more instances of L1 use in interactional strategies and that, as in Gallardo-del-
Puerto (2015), greater differences emerged between both types of learners as grade
increased. A qualitative inspection of the results also revealed that there were differences
between groups in their preference for either the L1 or the target language in the case of
Martínez-Adrián et al. 45

appeals and clarification requests. However, metacomments were always produced in

the L1 in both groups, which appeared to support previous classroom observation data
(Gené Gil, Garau, & Salazar Noguera, 2012).
Even though quite recently research has been conducted on the use of CSs by young
learners in CLIL settings, research in this area is still in its infancy and more studies
aimed at the investigation of the whole inventory of CSs are needed.

4 The study of CSs through questionnaires

When one examines research on the use of CSs, the picture that emerges is that studies
have mainly analysed oral or written production and that little is known about learners’
self-reported opinions concerning the use of CS. Some survey studies conducted with
adults have investigated CSs together with other learning strategies (Ehrman & Oxford,
1990). However, as reported in Khan and Victori (2011), questionnaires used to study
learning strategies and/or CSs are considered problematic by some researchers because
they assume a stable aptitude or trait with respect to language learning in general (Tseng,
Dörnyei, & Schmitt, 2006). They have not taken into account that learners may adjust
their strategic approach depending on the situation or task, as some researchers have sug-
gested (Macaro, 2006; Oxford, Cho, Leung, & Kim, 2004). In fact, a call for the admin-
istration of questionnaires that focus on oral communication in conjunction with specific
tasks has been made. Thus, studies triangulating data have been clearly advocated in
recent research (Gao, 2007). In order to fill this gap, Khan and Victori (2011) analysed
the opinions gathered through three different questionnaires administered after the per-
formance of three different linguistic tasks (picture story, art description and informa-
tion-gap). These authors concluded that the instrument was not completely reliable in the
sense that some of the items were prone to multiple interpretations and that these differed
from the interpretation intended by the researcher. Overall, students reported the strate-
gies they typically used rather than the specific strategies used on a task.
In the case of young learners, there is a lack of research investigating their use of
CSs by means of questionnaires. The study by Purdie and Oliver (1999) is one excep-
tion. These authors examined the self-reported opinions on the use of learning strate-
gies by 9- to 12-year-old children learning L2 English in an English as a second
language (ESL) context. In comparison with the rest of strategy types analysed, the use
of CSs were found to be the least frequently used by the learners, which contrasts with
what has been found in young EFL learners during oral production. The study that we
present below will try to add more evidence to the field by investigating the opinions
gathered through a questionnaire administered to young English learners in a CLIL
context. This will allow us to verify the trend usually observed in the case of young
CLIL learners when performing oral production tasks.

5 Research questions
Based on the theoretical background and the findings from the research summarized in
the aforementioned sections, the present study addresses the following research
questions:
46 Language Teaching Research 23(1)

Research question 1: What is the amount of self-reported use of CSs in 5th and 6th
grade CLIL learners?
Research question 2: What type of strategies do 5th and 6th grade CLIL learners
prefer?

III Methodology
1 Setting and participants
The present study was carried out in a CLIL context in a middle-size town in the
Autonomous Community of the Basque Country with 146 Basque–Spanish bilingual
EFL learners (85 males, 61 females; age range 10–12) in 6 intact classrooms: 3 in
their 5th (n = 75) and 3 in their 6th (n = 71) year of primary education, respectively.
The learners had been exposed to Spanish and Basque since birth and/or early child-
hood in the school. They belonged to an instruction model in the Basque school
system in which the school subjects are taught through Spanish and Basque (i.e.
partial immersion); in this school English is gradually introduced as a vehicle for
instruction (CLIL proper) from 3rd year of primary education, and taught by 3 co-
ordinated content teachers. In 5th and 6th years learners are exposed to English in
the classroom context for 5 to 7 weekly hours in 1-hour lessons scheduled as English
as a school subject (2 to 3 hours in 5th year and 3 to 4 hours in 6th year – also by 3
co-ordinated language teachers), as well as in content lessons such as science, arts
and crafts or physical education (2 to 3 hours in 5th year and 3 to 4 hours in 6th year).
Lessons scheduled as English are gradually reduced throughout the academic year,
while lessons scheduled as CLIL are gradually increased in these two grades, as fol-
lows: In 5th year English takes up 3 hours of instruction in the first term, and 2 hours
in the 2nd and 3rd terms, while CLIL takes up 2 hours in the first term – 1 hour a
week of science and one hour of physical education – and 3 hours in the subsequent
terms – 2 hours a week of science and 1 hour of arts and crafts. In the case of 6th
year, English takes up 4 hours in the first term and 3 hours in the following terms,
while learners receive 3 hours a week of CLIL instruction in the first term in science
– 2 hours – and physical education – 1 hour – and 4 hours in the following terms; 3
hours of science and one hour of arts and crafts.
All participants had been exposed to English since preschool in a classroom setting.
At the moment of data gathering 5th year learners had received 714 hours of exposure
(162 hours of CLIL lessons), and 6th graders 884 hours (291 hours of CLIL lessons);
59% of the learners received exposure extramurally, with an average of 2 hours of extra
lessons per week in the past few years. Table 3 summarizes the participants’ mean previ-
ous FL contact in terms of onset age of exposure, length of exposure and FL proficiency
level at the moment of testing. As far as their English proficiency, both groups were
considered beginner learners, although the older group had reached a slightly better com-
mand of the language. According to a proficiency level test administered to both groups
at the beginning of the study, 5th year students were in the A2-, and 6th year ones in the
A2 level, according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages
(CEFR; Council of Europe, 2001).
Martínez-Adrián et al. 47

Table 3. Participants.

Onset age Length of Hours of Hours of content English proficiency level

exposure to exposure and language according to the Common
English to English integrated learning European Framework of
(CLIL) exposure Reference (CEFR)
5th year 3.93 6-and-a-half 714 162 A2–
academic years
6th year 4.28 7-and-a-half 884 291 A2
academic years

2 Data collection, instruments and procedure

At the outset of the study, the learners were asked to fill in a biographical questionnaire on
language(s) spoken for social use and at school, on the amount of time learning English (at
school and/or extramurally), and a proficiency level test, consisting of the reading, listen-
ing and writing sections of the Cambridge English Flyers (Cambridge English, n.d.).3
After filling the background questionnaire and the proficiency level test, the partici-
pants underwent – with the help of the corresponding teacher during regular lessons – a
self-report questionnaire adapted from Purdie and Oliver (1999) consisting in 40 state-
ments (in Spanish) that surveyed on learning strategies in general, out of which 11 rand-
omized items focused on CSs. The data presented here focuses on the latter. The
instrument employed was a survey adapted from several taxonomies, given ‘[…] the
diversity of strategy types suggested by descriptive taxonomies to be found in the litera-
ture’ (Kellerman, Bongaerts, & Poulisse, 1987, p. 100). The survey included conceptual,
linguistic and interactional strategies.
From Purdie and Oliver (1999) – who in turn based their questionnaire on Oxford
(1989) and O’Malley and Chamot (1990) – the following strategies were selected: guess-
ing, miming, morphological creativity, dictionary, predicting and paraphrasing.2
Strategies such as transfer, which falls into borrowing, literal translation and foreigniz-
ing – included in the taxonomy by Poulisse (1990) (see Table 2) – were also included in
the survey. Finally, strategies such as avoidance and appeal for assistance included in the
classification by Tarone (1977) (see Table 1) were adopted. A five-point Likert-type
scale was used, in which the minimum score for each item was 1 (I strongly disagree)
and the maximum 5 (I strongly agree). Table 4 summarizes the distribution of categories
with their corresponding items.

3 Data analysis procedure

Data were analysed in three different rounds: for the whole participant sample and for Grade
5 and Grade 6 separately. In each of these data sets, mean scores (1–5) and standard devia-
tions (SD) were calculated both for each CS and for the whole set of strategies.
Kolmogrov–Smirnow tests were run to verify the normality of distribution of the
samples, which were not found to be normal. Friedman tests were computed to investi-
gate if there were any differences among the means. Subsequently, the mean scores of
48 Language Teaching Research 23(1)

Table 4. Distribution of communication strategies (CSs).

Purdie and Oliver Guessing Si no entiendo algo en inglés, trato de adivinar lo que
(1999) quiere decir.
Miming Si no sé cómo decir algo en inglés, uso las manos para
mostrar lo que quiero decir.
Morphological Si no sé cómo decir algo en inglés, me invento palabras
creativity nuevas.
Dictionary Si no entiendo lo que significa algo cuando leo en
inglés, lo miro en el diccionario.
Predicting Cuando alguien me habla en inglés, trato de adivinar lo
que va a decir justo a continuación.
Paraphrasing Si no sé cómo decir algo en inglés, uso otras palabras
que significan lo mismo.
Poulisse (1990) Borrowing Cuando no sé decir algo en inglés, lo digo en euskera
o castellano.
Calque Cuando no sé decir algo en inglés, traduzco palabra
por palabra del euskera o castellano (por ejemplo, ‘my
favorite plate’ en vez de ‘my favorite dish’.
Foreignizing Cuando no sé decir algo en inglés, adapto la palabra
del euskera o castellano al inglés (por ejemplo, ‘go to
the bosqu’ en vez de ‘go to the forest’.
Yule and Tarone Avoidance Cuando no sé decir algo en inglés, evito referirme a
(1990) ello.
Appeal for Cuando no sé decir algo en inglés, pido ayuda a otra
assistance persona (profesor, compañero, mamá, papá, …).

each of the individual strategies were compared to the mean score of the whole category
of CSs (Wilcoxon tests) so as to verify which strategies significantly differ from the aver-
age use of CSs. This analysis would render three different degrees of strategy use –a ‘low
use’ for those strategies whose means are significantly lower than that of the whole cat-
egory, an ‘average use’ for those strategies whose means do not significantly differ from
it, and a ‘high use’ for those strategies presenting mean scores significantly higher than
that of the whole set of CSs. Regarding significance, an alpha level of .05 was used for
all statistical tests. However, p-values below .01 and .001 were also indicated.

IV Results
In this section we will present the results as regards the whole sample (Table 5) and for
each specific age group separately (Table 6 for 5th year and Table 7 for 6th year). These
tables display strategy use organized in descending order, that is, individual strategies are
ordered top-down from highest to lowest means. For the sake of clarity, highest means
(those found to be significantly superior to the average overall use of CSs) are shaded in
dark grey, and lowest means (those found to be significantly inferior to the average over-
all use of CSs) in light grey. Intermediate means (those not found to be significantly
different from the average overall use of CSs) are not shaded.
Martínez-Adrián et al. 49

Table 5. All participants.

Strategies Mean SD Z Significance
Appeal for assistance 4.57 .62 −9.413 < .001
Paraphrasing 4.09 .96 −6.494 < .001
Dictionary 3.80 1.13 −4.175 < .001
Borrowing 3.75 1.33 −3.907 < .001
Guessing 3.66 1.32 −2.862 < .01
Calque 3.39 1.21 −.569 > .05
Predicting 3.16 1.28 −1.964 < .05
Avoidance 3.07 1.30 −3.531 < .001
Foreignizing 3.01 1.40 −3.464 < .001
Miming 2.74 1.36 −5.725 < .001
Morphological creativity 2.24 1.27 −8.730 < .001

Table 6. Grade 5 participants.

Strategies Mean SD Z Significance
Appeal for assistance 4.59 .66 −6.381 < .001
Paraphrasing 4.21 .90 −4.580 < .001
Dictionary 3.85 1.06 −3.055 < .01
Borrowing 3.64 1.44 −1.543 > .05
Guessing 3.58 1.41 −1.356 > .05
Calque 3.50 1.26 −1.098 > .05
Foreignizing 3.23 1.43 −.923 > .05
Predicting 3.20 1.31 −1.431 > .05
Avoidance 3.00 1.34 −2.899 < .01
Miming 2.94 1.46 −2.994 < .01
Morphological creativity 2.35 1.35 −5.861 < .001

Table 7. Grade 6 participants.

Strategies Mean SD Z Significance
Appeal for assistance 4.56 .58 −6.909 < .001
Paraphrasing 3.97 1.01 −4.606 < .001
Borrowing 3.87 1.20 −4.002 < .001
Dictionary 3.75 1.20 −2.766 < .01
Guessing 3.74 1.23 −2.728 < .01
Calque 3.28 1.17 −.374 > .05
Predicting 3.13 1.24 −1.271 > .05
Avoidance 3.13 1.27 −2.121 < .05
Foreignizing 2.79 1.36 −3.927 < .001
Miming 2.54 1.24 −5.107 < .001
Morphological creativity 2.13 1.20 −6.450 < .001
50 Language Teaching Research 23(1)

1 All participants
When we considered the whole sample, learners reported a moderate-to-high use of
these strategies, with a mean of 3.39 (SD = .56). As for the results of the different
individual strategies for all participants (Table 5), a non-parametric Friedman test of
differences among repeated measures rendered a Chi-square value of 332.52 which
was significant (p < .001), revealing that there were significant differences among
the various strategies. As for the comparisons of the means for each individual strat-
egy with that of the general category, Wilcoxon tests reached statistical significance
in all comparisons made except when the strategy calque was involved in the com-
parison. Participants reported using the strategies guessing, borrowing, dictionary,
paraphrasing and appeal for assistance to a larger extent than the rest. Paraphrasing
and appeal for assistance were the ones which obtained mean scores above 4. On the
contrary, predicting, avoidance, foreignizing, miming and morphological creativity
were reported to be less frequently used. Miming and morphological creativity were
the two least used CSs with a mean score below 3.

2 Grade 5 participants
Analyses computed with Grade 5 students also revealed a moderate to high use of CSs,
with a mean score of 3.45 (SD = .56). With respect to the analysis of the different CSs
(Table 6), the Chi-squared value rendered by the non-parametric Friedman test of differ-
ences among repeated measures was of 137.52 (p < .001), indicating that there were
significant differences among the various individual strategies. As for the comparisons
of the means for each individual strategy with that of the general category, Wilcoxon
tests reached statistical significance in all comparisons made except when the strategies
predicting, foreignizing, calque, guessing and borrowing were involved in the compari-
son. Three strategies were found to be used the most, namely dictionary, and above 4,
paraphrasing and appeal for assistance. Unlikely, avoidance, and below 3, miming and
morphological creativity yielded the lowest mean scores.

3 Grade 6 participants
Analyses computed with Grade 6 students indicated that the use of CSs as a whole
remained moderate to high, with a mean score of 3.32 (SD = .55). As regards the dis-
tribution of the different CSs (Table 7), the Friedman test of differences among repeated
measures rendered a Chi-square significant value of 202.90 (p < .001), which revealed
that there were significant differences among several individual strategies. As for the
comparisons of the means for each individual strategy with that of the general cate-
gory, Wilcoxon tests reached statistical significance in all comparisons made except
when the strategies predicting and calque were involved in the comparison. On the one
hand, guessing, dictionary, borrowing, paraphrasing and above 4, appeal for assis-
tance displayed statistically higher means than that of the category. On the other hand,
avoidance and below 3 foreignizing, miming and morphological creativity attained the
lowest frequency of use.
Martínez-Adrián et al. 51

V Discussion
This study aimed to investigate young CLIL learners’ reported use of CSs as well as their
preferences in the type of strategies employed during production of the target language.
It was found that these learners exhibit a moderate-to-high use of these strategies, results
that differ from those of the child sample of Purdie and Oliver (1999), in which they
reported a lower use of CSs. This difference may be due to the fact that apart from the
CSs included in their study, following the idea that the taxonomies found in the literature
are far from homogeneous (Kellerman et al., 1987), we also included others such as
appeal for assistance, a strategy reported to be used the most frequently in our study –
findings in line with those reported in Victori and Tragant (2003) – and which has prob-
ably affected the difference in the use of CSs in general. In addition, our study was
conducted in an EFL context, whereas in Purdie and Oliver, the participants were learn-
ers of L2 English in a naturalistic environment. A logical corollary is the higher use of
this type of strategies in the EFL context, as previously found in other studies conducted
in similar environments (i.e. Fernández Dobao, 2002; Poulisse et al., 1990).
Before examining the type of strategies preferred by these learners, it is worth clarify-
ing that in our study a broad categorization scheme was adopted, even though it is our
interest to report the main contrasts. The most preferred strategies were appeals for
assistance and paraphrasing and the least, morphological creativity. In this respect, the
use of paraphrasing and morphological creativity were also found to be the most and the
least frequently used strategy in the study conducted by Poulisse et al. (1990). Research
has shown that together with avoidance, L1-based strategies (borrowing, calque and
foreignizing) are more frequent in low proficient learners. However, these CLIL learners
exhibit a tendency to use more conceptual, i.e. L2-based strategies (not typically the
focus of investigation, as compared to L1 influence, in CLIL studies), which are gener-
ally attributed to more advanced learners, such as paraphrasing (second most frequently
used strategy). On the other hand, L1-based strategies such as foreignizing or other strat-
egies widely employed by low-proficient learners such as avoidance, are used less fre-
quently, with statistically lower means than the mean of the whole category, a finding
which aligns with previous research that has examined oral production in CLIL settings
(i.e. Gallardo-del-Puerto, 2015; Martínez-Adrián, 2015; Martínez-Adrián & Gutiérrez-
Mangado, 2015). This may indicate that these CLIL learners risk more as they may feel
more comfortable in using the target language and resort to strategies more characteristic
of advanced learners, which seems to suggest that their educational context – a CLIL
program – is positively affecting their rate of development in strategy use. The input
characteristics the learners are exposed to in a content-based language teaching context
seem to be a factor affecting their use of more advanced CSs. Teachers in these input-rich
contexts paraphrase frequently, reformulating their own and the learners’ utterances, or
scaffolding (Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976) the learners’ messages to make meaning come
through and avoid communication breakdowns. On the basis of their answers, the learn-
ers in the study might be mimicking the teachers’ behavior. In addition, the fact that these
learners immersed in a CLIL setting use the FL as a means of communication might lead
them to be able to manipulate concepts in the target language to a larger extent. In sum,
the effect of proficiency is suggested to be overruled by the effect of CLIL in this respect.
52 Language Teaching Research 23(1)

It should be noted though, that even if they are immersed in a CLIL context, learn-
ers report making an extensive use of appeal for assistance, which contrasts with
what has been previously found in CLIL research with respect to this strategy (see
Martínez-Adrián, 2015; Martínez-Adrián & Gutiérrez-Mangado, 2015). In this case,
their younger age may be affecting their choice of this particular strategy to a larger
extent. This finding would be in line with previous studies that investigated the use of
the developmental nature of learning strategy use. In this respect, Victori and Tragant
(2003) examined EFL students’ reported use of strategies longitudinally. In their
open-ended questionnaire, they found that social strategies were reported to be used
quite abundantly at the age of 10, but four years later, at age 14, they nearly disap-
peared from learners’ answers.
When comparing 5th and 6th grade learners, results show similar tendencies in the
overall frequency use of CSs for both ages. However, more significant differences were
found in a wider range of strategy types used within 6th graders. As for choice, 6th grad-
ers ranked higher than 5th graders in their reported use of borrowing and guessing. In
this respect, previous studies examining the oral production of primary school learners
have also attested a greater use of borrowings in 6th graders than in younger graders
(Gutiérrez-Mangado, 2015). On the contrary, foreignizing ranked lower in grade 6 than
in grade 5, a general trend reported in previous CLIL research where this type of strategy
has not been found to be characteristic of more proficient learners (Arratibel-Irazusta,
2015; Gallardo-del-Puerto, 2015).

VI Conclusions
In conclusion, this article has revealed a moderate-to-high use of CSs in formal acquisi-
tion context learners even when immersed in a CLIL setting in which a greater focus on
meaning and communication exists. However, even if CLIL is not associated with lower
levels of CS use, as happens in naturalistic acquisition settings (Purdie & Oliver, 1999),
it does seem to be linked to CS selection. CLIL is suggested to overrule the effect of
proficiency as learners immersed in this type of meaning-oriented classrooms tend to
favor the use of L2-based strategies, which are more typical of learners with a higher
proficiency, rather than avoidance and L1-based strategies, which typically characterize
low-proficient learners.
In terms of pedagogical implications, further research should explore the teacha-
bility of CSs (see Dörnyei, 1995) and how strategy training could affect their use. In
this vein, research has examined what type of strategies good language learners use
(Lennon, 1989; Naiman, Fröhlich, Stern, & Todesco, 1978; Reiss, 1983; Rubin,
1975). On the other hand, further investigation into FL learner strategy use seems
timely. In this context, the present study has shown that, although CLIL learners
report using some strategies which are more typical of more advanced learners, they
state that they still resort to their L1, a finding which is in line with previous produc-
tion data-based studies on L1 use in EFL (Cenoz, 2003; Gost & Celaya, 2005; Muñoz,
2007; Navés et al., 2005; Poulisse & Bongaerts, 1994; Viladot & Celaya, 2007) and
CLIL (Arratibel-Irazusta, 2015; Gutiérrez-Mangado, 2015; Lázaro Ibarrola & García
Mayo, 2012; Serra, 2007) settings. Research has alternatively shown that the use of
Martínez-Adrián et al. 53

the L1 can be a useful resource in bilingual educational contexts (see Gené Gil et al.,
2012; Martínez-Adrián, 2015; Williams, 2002) so the typical penalization of L1 use
in classrooms should be reconsidered when learning the language in CLIL programs.
While we wait for further research to address this issue, FL teachers could benefit
from taking cognisance of learner strategy use. Teachers should know, for instance,
that social strategies are more typical of younger children whereas paraphrasing
seems to be more characteristic of higher levels of proficiency. Future research
should also shed more light on the effect of CLIL on CS use by comparing learners
immersed in these educational contexts to mainstream EFL learners so that some of
the potential effects of CLIL suggested in this article are proven experimentally. This
would also enable a better comparison with findings from production data-based
studies on L1 use comparing CLIL to mainstream EFL learners (Agustín Llach,
2009, 2014; Celaya, 2008; Celaya & Ruiz de Zarobe, 2010; Gallardo-del-Puerto,
2015; García Mayo & Lázaro Ibarrola, 2015; Martínez-Adrián, 2015; Martínez-
Adrián & Gutiérrez-Mangado, 2015). Similarly, triangulation (as in Khan & Victori,
2011) of the self-reported opinions analysed in this study with oral data would be
desirable in order to verify the reliability of learners’ self-reported use of CSs.
Additionally, given the dynamic nature of the process of L2 acquisition, longitudinal
studies (as in Victori & Tragant, 2003; Serra, 2007), analysing self-reported opinions
over time would also be advisable.

Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article: The authors would like to acknowledge the grants awarded by the Spanish
Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (FFI2012-32212) and (FFI2016-74950-P), the University
of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) (UFI 11/06) and the Basque Government (IT904-16).

Notes
1. The questionnaire by Purdie and Oliver (1999) already included some of the categories of the
taxonomies by Tarone (1977) and Poulisse (1990).
2. Note that ‘paraphrasing’ (conceptual strategy) and morphological creativity (linguistic strat-
egy) form part of the classification by Poulisse (1990) and Tarone (1977). The strategy ‘mim-
ing’ is also included in Tarone (1977).
3. http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/exams/young-learners-english/flyers

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