| old_uid | 9899 |
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| title | Content and Language Integrated Learning - consequences of teaching through another language than the pupils’ L1 |
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| start_date | 2011/05/02 |
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| schedule | 10h-12h |
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| online | no |
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| summary | Increased internationalization and globalization give impetus to the
learning of foreign languages and the need for multilingual communicative
proficiency. The expressed goal of the European Commission is that all EU
citizens should become proficient in two European languages, beside their
native language. This brings the question of language learning strategies
and teaching methods to the fore, not least since current foreign language
learning in school settings is pointed out as unsatisfactory. Therefore,
the Council of the European Union encourages innovative methods, for
example within different kinds of bilingual education, indeed Content and
Language Integrated Learning, CLIL.
In this talk, I will discuss the results from a completed research
project on CLIL practice and communicative competence, with the aim of
opening up a discussion on language acquisition and teaching practices.
The Canadian immersions are often mentioned as the main source of
inspiration of CLIL, which offers more contact with the target language
by using it for teaching subjects like history, chemistry and physics.
The perspective taken is that language learning is a natural part of the
teaching of subject matter, rather than an add-on. CLIL classrooms are
seen as a kind of language bath, where the learners are surrounded by a
foreign-language bathwater, which somehow is assumed to enhance the
individual outcomes of the foreign language learning. This a rather vague
language learning strategy, and it implicates a limited and passive
notion of the language learning process, i.e. the psycholinguistically
oriented, input-based theories of L2 learning. Theoretically, it does not
really concur with the explicit goal aiming at ‘communicative
competence’, and it is opposed to prevalent sociocultural based theories
of learning and language acquisition, where the hub of ‘communicative
competence’ is the interplay between input, output and context.
Attitudes towards CLIL vary from strong and widespread enthusiasm, to
fears for lowered subject learning and inhibited development in the
native languages (L1). Some ask whether it is really worth the effort.
Concerning research on CLIL education in Europe, there is as yet
insufficient empirical evidence on the efficacy of CLIL and how (or
indeed if) it works in practice. Despite this, CLIL has become widely
established around Europe; it is established in 24 of 33 European
countries, among those Sweden and France.
My research on CLIL provides some insight into this type of education in
its practice in Sweden. I studied classroom practice, student texts, and
teacher and student experiences of instruction in a CLIL class, as well
as in a control class during their three years at secondary school. Thus,
my research gives examples of CLIL education in classroom interaction, as
well as pupils’ linguistic and communicative competence in different
writing settings. The studies are linked to activity analysis (Levinson
1979, Linell 1998), systemic-functional linguistics (Halliday & Hasan
1989, Halliday 1994, Halliday & Matthiessen 2004) and ethnography of
communication/interactional sociolinguistics (Hymes 1962, 1972, Gumperz
1976, 1982, Saville-Troike 1979), i.e. research areas that emphasize the
interplay between language, communication and social situation. I will
give examples from the analysis of classroom interaction and text
analysis which highlight e.g. communicative competence with respect to
variables as language alternation, code-switching, and use of
subject-related language. |
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| responsibles | Soare, Ferret |
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