期刊名称：Latin American Journal of Content and Language Integrated Learning
印刷版ISSN：2011-6721
电子版ISSN：2322-9721
出版年度：2018
卷号：10
期号：2
页码：189-216
DOI：10.5294/laclil.2017.10.2.2
出版社：Universidad de La Sabana
摘要：In recent years, the issue of using bilingual education has come to the public’s
attention. A widespread belief is that students in bilingual classes achieve a higher competence
in the language, but that they lag behind in subject-specific knowledge when compared to
fellow students in traditional (i.e. monolingual) classroom settings. Nevertheless, by evaluating
knowledge gain in a short teaching unit, previous studies have shown that bilingual students
rarely experience drawbacks. Although there are a variety of different opinions, the present
study aims at detecting how subject-specific knowledge is influenced by bilingual biology lessons.
The study was conducted at a grammar school in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany,
with 13- and 14-year-old students. To assess differences in students’ knowledge gain, test and
control groups were used, in which students were taught 12 identical biology lessons in a bilingual
and a traditional classroom. The unit consisted of basic characteristics seen in (social)
insects. Both classes took a knowledge test before and after the unit. We hypothesised that
there would be a higher increase in knowledge for the bilingual class compared to the monolingual
class. Results suggested a slightly higher knowledge gain in bilingual students, but no
significant differences were revealed.
