Resumen de English vowel and consonant discrimination skills in primary school CLIL and EFL

Lucila María Pérez Fernández , Esther Gómez Lacabex

• The contribution of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) to L2 phonological development has scarcely been explored. The present study tested the ability of two groups of Spanish primary learners of English in two differentiated pedagogical approaches to discriminate British English vowel and consonant phonemes. 320 schoolchildren aged 8-10 in an EFL (n=149) learning context and in a CLIL context (n=171) took part in a computer-aided AXB discrimination task which tested British English vowels and consonant phonemes in CVC words. We found no statistically significant differences between CLIL and EFL learners as regards their English vowel and consonant discrimination skills. These findings suggest that increased exposure to English through CLIL may not necessarily lead to enhanced phoneme discrimination at this stage of development. Further research is needed to explore whether long-term CLIL exposure yields cumulative benefits for phonological perception.