Does the teaching of physical education in a foreign language jeopardise children's physical activity time? A pilot study

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to design and validate a tool to observe the teaching of physical education (PE) through a foreign language (L2) and to measure the engaged time and language learning aspects of children’s physical activity in PE classes where a content and language integrated approach (CLIL) was used. A first draft of the tool was tested for validity by experts, revised and then tested in a pilot study by three trained observers to 613 minutes of video-recordings of 15 different CLIL teachers conducting real PE classes. The results of the pilot study indicated that motor-engaged time in PE lessons applying the CLIL approach was, on average, 41.86%, which is lower than what is generally recommended by educational authorities for PE classes. Non-parametric tests indicated that this shortfall in the amount of physical activity time may be accounted for by the excessive use of language support materials such as flashcards to facilitate communication or the types of physical activity involved in the lessons. It is suggested that this imbalance in physical activity time vs. L2 language learning could be addressed by either extended the duration of PE-in-CLIL classes or by providing more focused training for PE-in-CLIL teachers.