This paper analyses the role of Spanish bilingual education (in particular, Content and Language Integrated Learning or CLIL programmes) as a tool to promote the acquisition of key competences in addition to the improvement in foreign languages. CLIL programmes have been recently implemented in Spain in comparison to other European countries. However, "CLIL in the last decade has undergone rapid growth in the Spanish educational system" (Lasagabaster and Ruiz de Zarobe, 2010) and has been welcome by educators and researchers in the country.

This paper relies on a previous project which explored the way bilingual programmes influence students’ motivation and academic performance. The results suggested that further research is required in this field, in particular when taking into account that this line generally remains unexplored in European CLIL programmes.

While the first stage of our research focused on performance, motivation, and the possible correlation to be established among these variables as regards the linguistic models of schooling in Primary Education (bilingual vs. non-bilingual education); the current paper goes a step further by analysing the impact and learning outcomes bilingual programmes have on the achievement and development of key competencies of the Spanish curriculum of Primary Education. Therefore, the current research is intended to evaluate what happens in the development and acquisition of non-linguistic competences, namely mathematical and science competences.

This project focuses on public schools of Primary Education located in the Principality of Asturias, an Autonomous Community in northern Spain. Research is delimited to the two main language modalities: regular schools (with tuition only in Spanish) and those educational establishments offering the so-called ‘bilingual programme’ of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports of the Principality of Asturias, with 5 hours of English language per week (compared to the 3 hours per week in regular schools), plus 2 non-linguistic subjects taught through English (usually Science, Arts or Physical Education).

Within this general framework, we draw our attention to the possible effects CLIL programmes are having in the ​​development of the key competences included in the Spanish Organic Law on the Improvement of the Quality of Education (or Ley Orgánica para la Mejora de la Calidad Educativa in Spanish). Our concern is to know what impact is having CLIL in the curriculum development in the Asturian students as regards maths and science competences, since Maths and especially Sciences are the most common subjects taught through English in bilingual programmes in Asturias

The perspective of analysing content linked to linguistic programmes diverts from the usual approaches studying CLIL, where research has been traditionally devoted to language competence. Results show the benefits and good effects of CLIL in the students’ L1 and L2 language competence development: the CLIL approach has a significantly positive effect on students' language proficiency (Lasagabaster and Ruiz de Zarobe, 2010) as also reported in other studies such as Ruiz de Zarobe and Jimenez Catalán (2009) or Ruiz de Zarobe et al. (2010).

Prior studies also underline that the linguistic perspective has received more attention than the content dimension (Lasagabaster and Ruiz de Zarobe, 2010). In the same vein, Coyle, Hood and Marsh (2010) expressed the undoubted CLIL benefits regarding linguistic aspects, but they also noted the need to further investigate what happens to content on subjects taught through English in bilingual programmes, although its development is theoretically guaranteed by the concept of CLIL: “CLIL is a generic term and refers to any educational situation in which an additional language, and therefore not the most widely used language of the environment, is used for the teaching and learning of subjects other than the language itself” (Marsh and Lange, 2000)

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