Foreign Language-Medium Studies in Tertiary Education. Opportunity for Language Attainment and Gateway to European Mobility Content and Language Integrated.

Foreign Language-Medium Studies in Tertiary Education. Opportunity for Language Attainment and Gateway to European Mobility

Content and Language Integrated Learning in Tertiary EducationHeini-Marja Järvinen, University of Turku

Vaasa University of Applied Science

September 10-11, 2007

Contents

Is CLILL a viable option for improving tertiary-level students’ language skills?

So, you see, the orbit

of a planet is elliptical

What’s an orbit? What’s a

planet?

What’s elliptical?

Language is a problem in language-medium instruction Tella, Räsänen & Vähäpassi (eds) 1999: Teaching through a

foreign language: from tool to empowering mediator national, external evaluation of 15 polytechnic & university

level English-medium programmes

Räsänen, 2000: Learning and teaching through English at the University of Jyväskylä Part of an international evaluation of quality of teaching,

international & Finnish students & teaching staff at the U of Jyväskylä

Hellekjär & Westergaard, 2002: An exploratory survey of content learning through English at Scandinavian universities Questionnaires to Scandinavian universities, 2 Shools of

Economics and Business, one polytechnic 20 returns from Norway, 10 from Denmark, 12 from Sweden

and 10 from Finland

Findings

The use and role of language of instruction was not considered, it was downplayed, even ignored.

Both staff and (undergraduate) students have language problems

Students had problems in understanding lectures academic spoken skills academic writing study skills

Lecturers had problems with oral fluency

Definition of content and language integrated learning (CLIL)

CLIL refers to situations where subjects, or parts of subjects, are taught through a foreign language with dual-focussed aims, namely the learning of content, and the simultaneous learning of a foreign language. (David Marsh)

Students’ language skills can be improved by

Offering separate courses in content-specific and academic English and study skills in speaking for academic purposes academic writing

Offering CLIL courses with a special focus on language in content instruction

(content teacher) content and language teacher collaborating (sheltered

courses)

What are some characteristics of CLIL and CLILL in particular?

orbit

Well, Kepler was not a CLIL teacher…

Content and language integrated teaching rely on making content comprehensible in many ways, e.g. visual. Let’s look at the language component next …

Language enhancement in CLIL Comprehensible input seems to be important for

comprehension skills. Challenging spoken and written output may be necessary

for further development of language proficiency. Interaction with peers & in groups can create dynamic

ZPDs & offers opportunities for negotiation of meaning and form

Content-specific language is necessary for content learning (CALP)

So are general & content-specific thinking skills & related language, content-specific discourse, vocabulary & concepts

Content in higher education is typically context reduced and cognitively demanding (Quadrant 4)

What the content teacher can do

Teacher Talk vs. Student Talk

Adjust teacher talk Allow Ss more time to speak Elicit student talk Provide more thinking time

Sometimes the teacher knows the answers…

T: Who is the greatest composer?

S: Beethoven

T: Wrong. Bach.

T: Name me one Russian composer.

S: Tchaikovsky.

T: Wrong. Rimsky-Korsakov. (Quoted in Edwards & Westgate 1994)

Open-ended questions to trigger higher-order thinking

What is the difference between … and ….? Explain why… What would happen, if… What’s another example of…? How could ….be used to….? What is the counter argument for? What are the causes of…? How do you

know?

Giving and receiving feedback

Explicit correction Elicitation Clarification request Metalinguistic clues Recasts Repetition

Lyster & Ranta 1997

T:36% S:0 %

T:23% S:43%

T:11% S:20%

T:14% S:26%

T:10% S:0 %

T:6% S:11%

Activating background information: the role of advance organizers Activating background knowledge triggers

hypothesis formation, predicting and inferencing.

The following words are among the key words in a text we are going to study:

anvil, hammer, stirrup What do you think the text is about?

hammeranvil

stirrup

Use of visual aids

Realia, graphs, charts, photos, objects, Authentic material, illustrations, maps,

demonstrations, photos, video clips Outlines Time lines Flow charts Mapping Graphs Venn Diagrams

Graphic organisers

Graphic organisers provide a structure for the presentation of the content.

’Gapped’ graphic organisers can be used as advance organizers, note-taking devices and tests, for example.

Graphic organisers help structuring the content and processing the content in different ways

Turning graphic organisers into oral or written language is a way of producing challenging output.

Semantic webs

Cause and effect

One cause-several effects

A fishbone cause-effect diagram (multiple, complex causes)

Cognitive academic needs

Thinking skills - speech acts, text formats General skills: identify – classify/define – describe – explain –

conclude/argue – evaluate,Specific skills (Physics): defining – classifying – making inductions/stating

laws – describing states and processes – working with graphs, diagrams, tables, etc. –

interpreting – writing reports. (Mohan, Abuja, Thűrmann)

Questions to elicit higher-order thinking What is the difference between photosyntesis

and respiration? (comparison/contrast) Explain why antibiotics cannot cure common

colds? (analysis) What would happen if water boiled at 60

degrees Celsius? (prediction/hypothesizing) How would you argue that the Earth is not

flat? (rebuttal to argument) What are the causes of the tides? How do

you know? (analysis of cause and effect)

Words, words,

the importance of words

A taxonomy of the words in science

Level 1: Naming words1.1 Familiar objects, new names (synonyms)1.2 New objects, new names1.3 Names of chemical elements1.4 Other nomenclature

Level 2: Process words2.1 Capable of ostensible definition (e.g., being shown)2.2 Not capable of ostensible definition

Level 3: Concept words3.1 Derived from experience (sensory concepts)3.2 With dual meanings, i.e. everyday and scientific: for example. ’work’.3.3 Theoretical constructs (total abstractions, idealisations and postulated

entities)Level 4: Mathematical ’words’ and symbols

Wellington & Osborne 2001: 20

Commonly used but difficult words in science

abundant adjacent concept conception

contract convention converse disintegrate

diversity emit factor incident

liberate linear negligible retard

spontaneous stimulate tabulate valid

From Pickersgill & Lock 1991

Pickersill & Lock (1991) used multiple choice tests to gauge the meanings of 30 non-technical words. 108 males & 89 females, aged 14 – 15. No gender differences were found. Below are the words that showed to be the most difficult.

Interaction of all kinds is important

Discussion

Cooperative group work

Task-based learning

Discussion

Collaborative concept mapping

Critical reasoning in scienceConstructing an argument

Which of the following arguments is the best piece of evidence that matter is made up of particles and why?

a.Air in a syringe can be squeezed.

b.All the crystals of any pure substance have the same shape.

c. Water in a puddle disappears.

d.Paper can be torn into very small pieces.

Using DARTs for discussionDART= directed activities related to text)

A muddled sentence DART

A B C D E F G

A

An

Both

atom/s

element/s

compound/s

molecule/s

mixture/s

cannot

is

is the

and

can

made up of

element/s

not

be

smallest

broken

one

a

particle

two or more

are

pure

type/s of

of a/an

atoms

down

pure

chemically.

element.

molecule.

particle/s.

atom/s.

compound.

physically.

substances.

An atom cannot be broken down chemically.

An element is made up of one pure substance.

Language teacher

Vocabulary – concepts Textual: Nominalisations and noun-verb

combinations in legal English, EN-participles in Chemistry texts, nominals in academic writing, verb forms in medical texts

Discourse & genre: problem-solution patterns, rhetorical patterns, move-structures in professional genres, disciplinary variation

Social: language and ideology, cross-cultural and intercultural aspects of language use

Word tree

Word inferencing

Thank you