Objects to Learn about and Objects for Learning 1

3The Role of Artifacts and Gestures in English Language Learning

3.1. Introduction

This study attempts to show how the use of artifacts and gestures in additional language (AL)¹ teaching could extend dialogic exchanges with beginner-level English language learners and improve both fluency and communicational quality. The research study described in this article was designed and implemented using the Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)² approach. Influenced by sociocultural and (socio-)interactionist perspectives on language teaching, this approach considers language use, context, content and language learning to be closely related. The CLIL experience described in this article is the result of a series of plurilingual empirical studies that took place in Tahiti, French Polynesia. In this paper we focus on CLIL in an English as an Additional Language (EAL)³ elementary school setting. Our research activities with CLIL have been the subject of several publications (see Gabillon and Ailincai 2013, 2015a, 2016, 2017, 2020; Gabillon 2019, 2020).

The participants in the study were pupils aged 9–10 years whose initial language (IL)⁴ was mainly French⁵. Elementary schools in French Polynesia implement the French national curriculum with some adjustments to suit the local context. The language of school instruction is French. In French Polynesia, EAL was first introduced in elementary education in 2006 as a pilot project in a few schools. Since then, it has been gradually ...