An investigation into the effect of content and language intergated learning on EFL learners writing motivation and writing performance at yola a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY
--------------------------

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE EFFECT OF CONTENT AND LANGUAGE
INTEGRATED LEARNING ON EFL LEARNERS’ WRITING MOTIVATION
AND WRITING PERFORMANCE AT YOLA

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (TESOL)

Submitted by HO THI NGOC THUY
Bachelor of Arts in English, 2013

Supervisor
LUU TRONG TUAN, Doctor of Philosophy

Ho Chi Minh City, September 2016


STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I certify that this proposal entitled “AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE
EFFECTS OF CONTENT AND LANGUAGE INTEGRATED LEARNING
ON

EFL

LEARNERS’

WRITING

MOTIVATION

AND

WRITING

PERFORMANCE AT YOLA” is my own work.
Except where reference is made in the text of the thesis, this thesis contains
material published elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis by which
I have qualified for or ben awarded another degree of diploma.
No other person’s work has been used without acknowledgement in the main
text of the thesis.
This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in
any other tertiary institution.

Ho Chi Minh City, 2016

Ho Thi Ngoc Thuy

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TABLE OF CONTENT

Statement of authorship................................................................................................ i
Acknowledgement .......................................................................................................ii
Abstract ...................................................................................................................... iv
Table of contents ........................................................................................................ vi
List of tables ................................................................................................................ x

List of figures ............................................................................................................xii
Abbreviations .......................................................................................................... xiii
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................... 1
1.1. Background of the study .................................................................................... 1
1.2. Problem statement ................................................................................................ 1
1.3. Research aims and research questions ................................................................. 3
1.4. Significance of the study ...................................................................................... 4
1.5. Organization of the study ..................................................................................... 5
1.6. Chapter summary ................................................................................................. 6
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................................... 7
2.1. Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) ............................................ 7
2.1.1. Overview of writing teaching approaches ................................................ 7
2.1.1.1. The product approach ....................................................................... 7
2.1.1.2. The process approach ....................................................................... 9
2.1.1.3. The genre-based approach .............................................................. 10
2.1.2. CLIL........................................................................................................ 11
2.1.2.1. Definition of CLIL ......................................................................... 11
2.1.2.2. Characteristics of CLIL .................................................................. 13

vi


2.1.2.3. CLIL frameworks ........................................................................... 15
2.1.2.4. CLIL dimensions and outcomes ..................................................... 22
2.1.3. Comparing product approach, process approach, genre-based approach,
and CLIL ........................................................................................................... 23
2.2. Motivation .......................................................................................................... 26
2.2.1. Definition of motivation ......................................................................... 26
2.2.2. Motivation in writing .............................................................................. 27
2.3. Writing ............................................................................................................... 28

2.3.1. Definition of writing and writing performance ...................................... 28
2.3.2. Writing aspects ....................................................................................... 30
2.4. The relationships between CLIL, writing motivation, and writing performance
................................................................................................................................... 31
2.5. Previous studies ................................................................................................. 34
2.6. Research gaps .................................................................................................... 36
2.7. Chapter summary .............................................................................................. 38
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ............................................................................ 39
3.1. Research site ....................................................................................................... 39
3.2. Research design .................................................................................................. 41
3.3. Data collection ................................................................................................... 44
3.3.1. Participants .............................................................................................. 44
3.3.2. Training procedures of EG and CC ....................................................... 46
3.3.3. Data collection instruments .................................................................... 50
3.3.3.1. Learner Motivation Questionnaires (LMQ) ................................... 50
3.3.3.2. Writing tests ................................................................................... 55
3.3.4. Data collection procedure ....................................................................... 57
3.3.5. Data collection analysis .......................................................................... 60
3.3.5.1. Descriptive statistics of pretest and posttest, and questionnaire .... 60

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3.3.5.2. T-tests ............................................................................................. 63
3.4. Pilot study........................................................................................................... 64
3.5. Reliability and validity of tests and LMQ .......................................................... 66
3.5.1. Validity ................................................................................................... 66
3.5.2. Reliability................................................................................................ 67
3.6. Chapter summary ............................................................................................... 69
CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION ............................... 70

4.1. Results in writing tests ....................................................................................... 70
4.1.1. Distribution of the scores ........................................................................ 71
4.1.2. Comparison of mean scores .................................................................... 73
4.1.2.1. The similarities between pretest score of EG and CG ................... 73
4.1.2.2. The differences between posttest score of EG and CG .................. 81
4.1.2.3. The differences between pretest score and posttest score of EG ... 88
4.1.2.4. The differences between pretest score and posttest score of CG ... 92
4.1.2.5. The differences between mean score increase of EG and of CG
after the experiment ..................................................................................... 96
4.2. Results from LMQ ............................................................................................. 98
4.2.1. Learner motivation to write before the treatment ................................... 98
4.2.2. Learner motivation to write after the treatment ...................................... 99
4.2.3. The differences between learner writing motivation before and after the
treatment ......................................................................................................... 101
4.3. Chapter summary ............................................................................................. 102
CHAPTER 5: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .................................................... 103
5.1. Findings ............................................................................................................ 103
5.1.1. The effect of CLIL on learner writing motivation ................................ 103
5.1.2. The effect of CLIL on learner writing performance ............................. 104
5.2. Discussion ........................................................................................................ 106

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5.3. Chapter summary ............................................................................................. 108
CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION ................................................................................ 109
6.1. Summary of findings ........................................................................................ 109
6.2 Limitations ........................................................................................................ 110
6.3. Implications ...................................................................................................... 111
6.3.1. Theoretical implications ....................................................................... 111

6.3.2. Future research implications ................................................................. 113
6.4. Chapter summary ............................................................................................. 113
REFERENCES ....................................................................................................... 114
APPENDIXES ....................................................................................................... 139
Appendix 01: Pre-Questionnaire (English version) ............................................... 139
Appendix 02: Pre-Questionnaire (Vietnamese version) ........................................ 141
Appendix 03: Post-Questionnaire (English version) ............................................. 143
Appendix 04: Post-Questionnaire (Vietnamese version) ....................................... 146
Appendix 05: Writing Rubric ................................................................................. 147
Appendix 06: The topics of pretest and posttest .................................................... 149
Appendix 07: Lesson plan of the traditional approach .......................................... 150
Appendix 08: Lesson plans of the experimental teaching practice ........................ 152
Appendix 09: Pretest, posttest, and questionnaire results of pilot study ............... 159
Appendix 10: Pretest and posttest scores of EG (Class 1) & CG (Class 2) ........... 160
Appendix 11: Scores of Pre- and Post-questionnaire ............................................. 162
Appendix 12: Learners’ essays for pretest of CG .................................................. 163
Appendix 13: Learners’ essays for pretest of EG .................................................. 173
Appendix 14: Learners’ essays for posttest of CG ................................................ 182
Appendix 15: Learners’ essays for posttest of EG ................................................. 191

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I, myself, truly cannot accomplish this thesis without great supporting from
many people whom I owe a substantial debt of gratitude.
First, I would like to express my deepest gratitude for my supervisor, Dr.
Luu Trong Tuan, for his great guide, enthusiastic support as well as useful feedback
in every part of my thesis. Dr. Luu has demonstrated an extremely high degree of

patience, expertise and professionalism in guiding me during time of this thesis
journey.
Second, I extremely appreciate for what my family do to support and
encourage me to complete my paper. There was a period of time that I extremely
demotivated and desperate to keep conducting the study, but luckily they have been
by my side, and offered me their extreme support. The debt of gratitude I owe to
them can never truly be reflected in my words here.
Third, I appreciate my colleagues at YOLA for their great understanding and
support to my workload so that I can arrange time to finish my thesis. Moreover, I
would also like to express my sincere thanks to the students for their voluntary yet
enthusiastic contribution, insightful comments, and valuable information. It is
unfortunate that I cannot acknowledge their willing and kind participation one by
one by revealing their names here; However, it must be emphasized that this study

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would not have been possible and successful if I had not received their help,
cooperation and input.
Finally, I would like to thank some friends of mine who are generous to
share their reference materials, and my best friend who help me proofread my
thesis.

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ABSTRACT
At YOLA, writing skill is one of important skills to help YOLA learners
pursue their academic goal at university. However, their writing performance is not
as high as they should be with writing score as in the last position after three other

skills. According to an annual study of quality control at YOLA (2014), the results
showed that learners are not motivated to learning writing.
Thus, this paper entitled “An investigation into the effects of Content and
Language Integrated Learning on EFL learners’ writing motivation and writing
performance at YOLA” was conducted with aims to evaluate the effectiveness when
applying a new educational approach, Content and Language Integrated Learning CLIL, in enhancing YOLA learner motivation to write and their writing
performance. This study was based on the hypotheses that writing English essays is
taught under CLIL, learners’ writing motivation to write would be increased, and
writing performance would be enhanced. To achieve those aims, there were two
research questions that researchers faced with to examine how CLIL influence to
learners’ writing motivation and how writing performance is enhanced under CLIL
treatment.
Data were collected from 40 intermediate-level learners of the two classes at
YOLA English language school in Ho Chi Minh City for 12 weeks in the form of
experimental teaching with pretest and posttest to measure their performance and
questionnaires to find out their motivation on the learning process of writing. In this
experimental study, data were collected at two stages along with two different
IELTS courses: (1) Participants wrote an essay at the beginning of the course as
pretest writing samples, and completed pre-questionnaire, (2) At the end of the
course, they submitted their writing as posttest writing samples as well as finished
post-questionnaire.
Keywords: Writing motivation, writing performance, EFL, CLIL

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1: Summary of the Language Triptych (Coyle, 2007a; Coyle et al., 2010; as
cited in Leung, 2013) ................................................................................................ 19

Table 2.2: Typical features of four approaches......................................................... 26
Table 3.1: Levels and Pass/fail criteria of IELTS program at YOLA ...................... 42
Table 3.2: True Experiment and Quasi-Experiment ................................................. 44
Table 3.3: Quasi-experimental design of this study (Source. Creswell, 2012)......... 45
Table 3.4: The homogeneity and distinctions between 2 chosen classes ................. 47
Table 3.5: Treatment for EG and CG 49
Table 3.6: The 5-point Likert scale of this study ...................................................... 56
Table 3.7: The interventional procedure ................................................................... 60
Table 3.8: Timescale of the intervention and assessments. ...................................... 61
Table 4.1: Pretest score of EG................................................................................... 73
Table 4.2: Pretest score of CG .................................................................................. 73
Table 4.3: Posttest score of EG ................................................................................. 74
Table 4.4: Posttest score of CG ................................................................................. 74
Table 4.5: Descriptive Statistics of pretest results .................................................... 75
Table 4.6: Independent Samples Test of two groups’ pretest results ....................... 77
Table 4.7: Group statistics of writing factors of pretest score .................................. 79
Table 4.8: Independent Samples Test of writing factors of pretest score ................ 81

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Table 4.9: Descriptive Statistics of posttest results................................................... 83
Table 4.10: Independent Samples Test of posttest results ........................................ 84
Table 4.11: Group Statistics of writing factor of posttest results ............................. 85
Table 4.12: Independent Samples Test of writing factors of posttest results ........... 87
Table 4.13: Descriptive Statistics of pretest and posttest of the experimental group
................................................................................................................................... 90
Table 4.14: Paired-Samples T-test of the experimental group before and after the
treatment .................................................................................................................... 91
Table 4.15: Paired Samples Statistics of pretest score and posttest score of EG

writing factors ........................................................................................................... 92
Table 4.16: Paired Samples Test of pretest score and posttest score of EG writing
factors ........................................................................................................................ 93
Table 4.17: Paired Samples Statistics of pretest and posttest of CG ........................ 95
Table 4.18: Paired Samples Test of CG pretest and CG posttest .............................. 95
Table 4.19: Paired Samples Statistics of CG writing factors .................................... 96
Table 4.20: Paired Samples Test of CG writing factors between pretest and posttest
................................................................................................................................... 97
Table 4.21: The comparison between mean score increase of EG and of CG.......... 99
Table 4.22: Learners’ assessments of their writing motivation after the treatment
................................................................................................................................. 102
Table 4.23: Paired Samples Test of pre-questionnaire and post-questionnaire items
................................................................................................................................. 103

xi


LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1: The 4Cs conceptual framework by Do Coyle (2006) ............................. 18
Figure 2.2: The Language Triptych, by Do Coyle (2006) ........................................ 20
Figure 2.3: The CLIL Pyramid, in accordance with Oliver Meyer (2010) ............... 22
Figure 4.1: Mean score of pre-questionnaire .......................................................... 101

xii


ABBREVIATIONS

CG: Control Group

CLIL: Content and Language Integrated Learning
EFL: English as a Foreign Language
EG: Experimental Group
IELTS: International English Language Testing System
LMQ: Learner motivation questionnaires
M: Mean
SD: Standard Deviation
TOEFL ibt: Test of English as a Foreign Language Internet-based Test
TOEIC: Test of English for International Communication
YOLA: YOLA English School

xiii


CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1. Background of the study
Throughout up and down cultivations, English has become the most important
and most popular language over the world, and spread its’ influences on many
different aspects of human lives including economy, politics, and education.
Therefore, learning and teaching English at non-English speaking countries have
turned into be more active than ever. Nowadays, there is a new trend in Vietnamese
education that is many students pursuing their academic knowledge in English
speaking countries (Ho, 2015), which makes writing much more important to
master to obtain academic achievements. Moreover, Schnee (2010) wrote ‘writing
has been identified as a threshold skill for employment and promotion.” However,
Olander (2007) acknowledged writing as an enormously complex activity that needs
time, efforts, teacher’s instruction, and practice.
1.2. Problem statement
In learning English, writing, especially academic writing is one of the four

language skills which needs to master (Ho, Nguyen, Le & Chiem, 2011). Maier
(2011) proved that be good at writing “make us better persuaders, better story and
better thinkers” (as cited in (Ho, Nguyen, Le & Chiem, 2011). Writing will improve
our thinking ability, and enhance language use in communication both in written
and spoken. However, English learners often consider writing skill as “being the
last language skill to be acquired … for foreign/ second language learners” (Hamp-

1


Lyons & Heasly, 2006) since most of them seem not very interested in or eve afraid
of writing (Pell, 2004) which affects leaner writing performance leading to low
motivation to write (Lee, 2005).
Meanwhile, “a sense of competency achieved through seeking out and
overcoming challenges” is one of three psychological needs to help English learners
enhance their motivation (Noels, 2001, as cited in Lo & Hyland, 2007). As a result,
low writing scores can lead to low learners’ motivation to write. Payne (2012)
claimed “students’ motivation to write contributes to their success as writers in
college courses” which can be understood that academic writing performance can
be affected by writing motivation. Moreover, Pajares (1996) wrote that writing
motivation is a significant factor in writing competence (as cited in Payne, 2012). In
additionally, Troia et al. (2012) showed “motivation plays a prominent role in
writing development and performance”. Thus, it seems that low writing motivation
can affect back to writing performance in a vicious cycle.
This is also the problem of YOLA students since many writing teachers at
YOLA have commented that most of their students are not motivated to write,
which was showed in the result of an annual survey to guarantee the quality control
of writing teaching and learning at YOLA (Source: YOLA school, December 2014).
The researchers asked randomly 5 students per each level from 5 levels of IELTS
(International English Language Testing System) courses including IELTS Entry,

IELTS Foundation, IELTS 5.5, IELTS 6.5, and IELTS Advanced as well as 7 levels
of TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language Internet-based Test) courses

2


consisting of TOEFL Entry, TOEFL Foundation, TOEFL 60, TOEFL 70, TOEFL
80, TOEFL 90, and TOEFL 100. The result of the survey showed that most of
YOLA learners are not interested in writing counting to 87 percent of 120 learners
surveyed.
Moreover, the data analysis of an annual quality control (Source: YOLA School,
December 2014) showed that writing performance of YOLA learners is not high in
comparison with other language skills. The researcher realized that mean score of
writing was 4.38, which was much lower than the other three language skills (mean
of Listening = 5.57, mean of reading = 5.76, and mean of speaking = 5.89). Besides
assessing the mean score of writing skill at YOLA, teaching writing approach
should also be examined. Reviewing the training, and guiding materials for teachers,
they are encouraged to apply process approach to teaching and learning writing with
full of steps of process approach such as brainstorming, organizing ideas into
categories, writing the first draft, editing, rewriting, and proofreading.
1.3. Research aims and research questions
The study has the two aims:
1. To examine the effect of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)
on EFL learners’ writing motivation.
2. To unfold the effect of Content and Language Integrated Learning on EFL
learners’ writing performance.

3

To achieve the aims mentioned above, the study is therefore guided by the
following research questions:
1. How does CLIL influence to EFL learners’ writing motivation through the
treatment of CLIL?
2. How does CLIL enhance EFL learners’ writing performance under the
treatment of CLIL?
1.4. Significance of the study
This research has a threefold contribution as follows:
First, this research extends English writing performance literature by
investigating the effect of CLIL on EFL learners’ writing performance since those
previous studies on EFL learners’ writing performance have focused on other
writing teaching approaches such as Genre-based Approach (Henry & Roseberry,
1998; Burns, 2001; Byram, 2004; Kim, 2007; Rahman, 2011; Xuan, 2014), Process
Approach (Kang, 2006; King, 2008; Bayat, 2014; Alodwan &

Ibnian, 2014),

Product Approach (Adeyemi, 2008; Tangpermpoom, 2008), Process-Product
Approach (Pasand & Haghi, 2013).
Second, this research also expands CLIL research stream as this is placing
CLIL in English writing classroom context whereas the prior researches on CLIL
has had a tendency to look at CLIL in language teaching education in general (Gil,
2010; Coyle & Marsh, 2010; Dale, Vander & Tanner, 2010; Uemura, 2013) or in
Physical teaching (Hansen-Pauly, et al., 2009; Zindler, 2013).

4


Last, this research can be considered to be among the first to test the effect of
CLIL on EFL learners’ writing motivation and writing performance in Vietnamese

educational context. The results of this study were shown that CLIL affects writing
motivation and writing performance positively. Meanwhile, other works have
focused on CLIL in the contexts of Western (Dalton-Puffer, 2007b; Perez Vidal,
2009; Gil, 2010; Pokrivčáková, 2013; Bozdoğan & Karlıdağ, 2013) and other Asian
countries such as Iran, Saudi, Hong Kong and Japan (Jawhar, 2012; Pinner, 2013;
Leung, 2013; Yamano, 2013).
1.5. Organization of the study
The study contains 6 main chapters including (1) introduction, (2) literature
review, and (3) methodology, (4) data analysis and interpretation (5) findings and
discussion, and (6) conclusion. The first chapter describes background of the study,
problem statement, research gap, research aims and questions, why the researcher
needs to conduct this study, and finally its structure. The second chapter presents
previous studies, research gaps, general background of CLIL, overview of writing
teaching approaches, writing motivation, and writing performance as well as
analyses the relationship between CLIL and writing motivation and writing
performance. The third chapter discusses background of the research such as setting,
data collection, training procedures of EG and CG, and data analysis in which
validity, reliability, pilot study, and T-tests are also described. The fourth chapter
reports the results of the study, data analysis, and their interpretation. Major
findings, and contributions of the study are presented in the chapter 5. In the last

5


chapter, limitations, implications of the study and recommendations for further
research related to this topic are also included.

1.6. Chapter summary
The first chapter discussed about background of the study, problem that
learners deal with when they write, how the previous research studied about to solve

this problem, research aims and questions, the significance of this study, and finally
organization of the study.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
In all over the world, variety of approaches has been invented and developed
to help language teachers in teaching writing depending on their view of how
writing should be taught, in what way learners should do to improve their writing
skill, and the crucial features of a piece of writing. A new approach to teach writing
has been developed from the foundation of the prior approaches. CLIL cannot stand
itself far from this flow of development; therefore, to have a better understanding of
CLIL, the researcher reviews some typical writing approaches that have the most
common features with CLIL in this chapter. There were also prior studies which
were reviewed and the research gaps were also presented.
2.1. Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)
2.1.1. Overview of writing teaching approaches
2.1.1.1. The product approach
A product approach is “a traditional approach in which students are
encouraged to mimic a model text, usually is presented and analyzed at an early
stage” (Gabrielatos, 2002). A product approach is concerned with the final product
of writing. The product approach focuses its study on model texts in order to get
students familiarize with the conventions of writing. Brown (1994) stated that
teachers focus on the final writing paper, and evaluate it against the criteria of
vocabulary use, structures of grammar, sentence organization, and rhetorical
patterns, as well as the content. The normal procedure for teachers to conduct the

7

product approach is to attempt to make the student familiarized with the
conventions of writing through a given model, before assigning a piece of writing,
and then return the writing paper for further revision.
The product approach engages the teaching writing process through four
sequential stages: familiarization, controlled writing, guided writing, and free
writing (Steele, 2004). Product Approach Model consists of four stages including (1)
Model texts are given to learners, and then the features of the genre are highlighted.
(2) Tasks of controlled practice of the highlighted features, usually in isolation, are
given to learners to be familiar with. (3) Organizing ideas is an important task in
this stage. (4) This is the end result of learning process with product approach. In
this stage, learners use linguistic knowledge, and skills to produce the product in
which is to show their fluency and competent use of language. Furthermore, the
product approach helps free learners from worries when writing by providing them
with knowledge of grammar, vocabulary, and writing structure through a given
writing model. Moreover, learning conventions of writing through a given model,
then practicing it controllably before doing free practice helps to build up learners’
self-confidence, and create an error-free piece of writing.
Besides the advantages, this approach has limits itself. First, due to writing
based on the given model, learners might have no sense of audience and/or purpose
of their writing. Nunan (2000) claimed learners form a false assumption that writing
is just for teachers to assess, not an useful skill to master to communicate with

8


others people. Additionally, learners feel much discouraged and lose most interest
in writing when doing the writing tasks without motivation and target audiences in
mind. Second, the product-based approach prevents learners from creativity in
writing. Instead of being instructed and given time to practice how to write

creatively, learners are taught to reproduce language pattern provided by teachers.
In other words, learners do not take the centered roles in learning process. This
leads to the result that they lose the ability of self-writing with no prior texts or
patterns, which is a big troublesome for language learners to succeed in academic
fields.
2.1.1.2. The process approach
The process approach is an approach that focuses mainly on the process of
writing rather than on the products themselves (Silva & Matsuda, 2001; Onozawa,
2010; Bae, 2011). That means learners produce a final written product based on
thinking process (Brown, 2001). According to Steel (2004), the process approach
model includes eight stages (i.e., Brainstorming, Planning/structuring, Mind
mapping, Writing the first draft, Peer feedback, Editing, Final draft, and Evaluation
and teacher’s feedback). The advantages of the process approach can vary in
different ways. First, the process approach focuses on the process that writers go
through in composing texts (Nunan, 1991), and let learners have a chance to think
when they write (Brown, 2001). Second, Nunan (1991) also confirmed that the

9


process approach encourages learners to take part in collaborative group work to
enhance their motivation and to develop positive attitudes towards writing.
However, the process approach also consists of some limitations itself. First,
it pays less attention to linguistic knowledge, and a little significance on a final
product (Reid, 2001). Second, the process approach is considered being unrealistic
since it emphasizes too much on multiple drafts that may fail students when they are
requested to write with a single draft limit (Leki, 1992).
2.1.1.3. The genre-based approach
CLIL not only has the same learning focus on linguistics as the product
approach, brainstorming and writing by steps like the process writing, but it also

considers writing as social and cultural practice like Genre-based approach (Hasan
& Akhand, 2010). Paltridge (2004) claims that using the Genre-based approach to
teach writing emphasizes “the teaching of particular genre students need for later
social communicative success” (as cited in Hasan & Akhand, 2010), and focuses
more on readers and on the conventions that a piece of writing needs to follow
(Munice, 2002). Badger & White (2000) are similarly supportive to Paltridge. They
wrote that the advantages of Genre-based approach are that it acknowledges that
writing occurs in a social situation and is reflection of a particular purpose.
Furthermore, Kim (2006) the genre approach brings together formal and functional
properties of a language in writing instruction, and it acknowledges that there are
strong associations between them. Actually, it is crucial for both writing teachers

10


and learners to understand how and why linguistic conventions are used for
particular rhetorical effects (Bhatia, 1993, as cited in Kim, 2006).
There are some limitations that can be found in the Genre-based approach.
First, Swales (2000) mentions that a genre approach over-focuses on the reader
while paying less attention to learner expression (as cited in Hasan & Akhand,
2010). Moreover, this approach both places too much focus on conventions and
genre features, and is less useful for learners to discover the texts’ true messages;
therefore, the second limitation of genre approach is learners’ role which is largely
passive as it was stated in the study of Badger & White (2000). They pointed out the
negative aspect of genre approach that undervaluing skills needed to produce texts
is limiting learners’ creative thoughts about content, and overlooking natural
processes of learning and learners’ creativity.
2.1.2. CLIL
2.1.2.1. Definition of CLIL
The expression “Content and Language Integrated Learning”, abbreviated to

CLIL, has been established over last years in the European discourse as umbrella
term (cited in Gil, 2010). Wolff (2003) called it as other terms such as Bilingual
Content Teaching, Bilingual Subject Teaching, or Content-based Language
Teaching. However, the term CLIL is now most commonly used in teaching and
academic research. During the process of developing and positioning CLIL
alongside bilingual education, CLIL has been defined variously in different studies.

11


Marsh (2002) defined it as a dual-focused educational innovation in which an
additional language is used to teach and learn a non-language subject. In addition to
definition of Marsh (2002), the most commonly used definition of CLIL has been “a
dual-focused educational approach in which an additional language is used for the
learning and teaching of both content and language” (Maljers, Marsh & Wolff 2007;
Mehisto, Marsh & Frigols 2008; Coyle, Hood & Marsh 2010). Additional language
which can be varied from different countries can be a target language (L2) or a
foreign language (FL). This study will be conducted in the context of an English
language center in Vietnam; therefore; additional language in this research will refer
to English. Moreover, CLIL is an innovative methodological approach to develop
the proficiency of not only language but also non-language subject (cited in Bower,
2013). On other words, CLIL can also be considered as a means of teaching and
learning English through study of specialist content (Graddol, 2006). More
specifically, “CLIL [...] is a broad, flexible type of L2 language teaching through
non-linguistic content” (cited in Gil, 2010). Moreover, Dalton-Puffer (2007) has
stated a new term for CLIL when defining it as referring to “educational settings
where a language other than the student’s mother tongue is used as medium of
instruction”.

12