Abstract

It is largely contended that a bilingual approach (i.e. CLIL ) to teaching English as a foreign language has more benefits than the traditional EFL approach. Specifically, due to the use of non-EFL content matter, one main benefit is the students’ cognitive development which in turn leads to more efficient language learning. Working with concepts such as cognitive academic language (CALP) and higher order thinking skills (HOTS), this mixed methods study seeks to investigate and understand the relationship between higher order thinking and academic language production in the output of pupils following a bilingual programme in Romania. It will do so by mapping out which type of thinking skills the bilingual approach prompts in the learners, as different from the EFL one, and to find patterns in the learners’ use of higher order thinking in relation to language production during lessons and purpose built tasks. In this presentation I will focus on some of the findings of this study following the qualitative analysis of the data.