Effectiveness of language and content learning approaches—Results of a systematic review

Abstract

The comparative school performance studies of the 2000s have shown the strong connection between language learning and subject learning. Since then, teaching models that integrate language and content objectives have received much acclaim in educational politics and practice, to better promote school performances. However, a comprehensive empirical evaluation of the effectiveness of such approaches has not yet been carried out. The paper presents the research synthesis of a large-scale systematic review on the effectiveness of such models in classrooms at primary and secondary school level in comparison to regular content teaching. Out of 3016 documents, the search identified 55 international intervention studies. After quality assessment, 53 studies were included in a research synthesis without meta-analysis. In the result, the review comprises findings on 30 language and content learning approaches. Within the sample, Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP), Reciprocal Teaching (RT), Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR), Scaffolding according to Gibbons, and translanguaging have been tested in several studies; for 25 other approaches, only one study was identified in the sample. Most studies (n = 38) show better, or at least comparable effects in some areas of learning. The synthesis provides a comprehensive picture of the international state of research on the effectiveness of content and language learning in primary and secondary education and give insights into the quality of empirical evidence for the different teaching models.