A brief CV

Gina Oxbrow is a lecturer in Modern Languages (English major) and the Associate Dean for International Relations and Gender Equality for the Faculty of Philology at the University de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, where she has been teaching since 1989. She holds degrees in ‘Spanish Language and Literature’ with French (University of Leeds, UK) and ‘English Language and Literature’ (‘Filologia Inglesa’, Universidad de La Laguna, Spain), the RSA Diploma in TEFLA (International House, London), and completed her PhD dissertation in 2003 on the effect of integrated training in indirect learning strategies on writing skills development. Her research interests include the implementation and design of CLIL methodology teacher training programmes, integrated training in language learning strategies, reflective teaching, the role of metacognition in second language acquisition, intercultural competence, and motivational issues in language learning and teaching contexts. She is a member of the nationally funded MON-CLIL (2014-2018) and ADiBE (2020-2022) research groups in coordination with the Universidad de Jaén, and has published articles in several prestigious national and international journals on a range of related topics.

The CLIL ‘Overspill’: Addressing Motivational Issues and Diversity in the EFL Classroom

Despite the ever-growing body of sturdy empirical research evidence highlighting the link between increased motivation and improved learning outcomes in CLIL contexts, there now seems to be a need to explore the multi-layered nature of learners’ motivational profiles, along with a range of intervening individual and contextual variables, in order to maximise learning potential for all types of learners. This has become more evident in our local university context which is characterised by notable diversity in the EFL and EMI classes offered by the Faculty of Philology at the ULPGC in terms of entry-level proficiency and motivational types. We shall attempt to address this supplementary need for further exploring the drive to learn English as a Foreign Language (EFL) based on Dörnyei’s (2009) ‘Motivational Self System’ (MSS), factoring in the individual variables of motivational type, previous experience (CLIL and non-CLIL backgrounds) or overseas experience and learner expectations, along with contextual variables such as teaching methodology, as a means to explore the diversity of our learners’ motivation and its relationship with heightened learning success, particularly in terms of lexical availability.