English for Occupational Purposes: The Case for CLIL

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English for Occupational PurposesThe Case for
CLIL

• Associate Professor, Dr.
• Glenn Ole Hellekjær
• Department of Teacher Education and School
  Development,
• University of Oslo, Norway

2
Overview

• Vocational students and English
• Why CLIL for vocational students?
• CLIL in practice
• Pitfalls to avoid
• A CLIL research study

3
My point of departure

• Background as an English teacher, lower and upper
  secondary-gt Norways first CLIL History class in
  1993
• Taught a number of ESP courses and done research
  on ESP
• Project coordinator for the new, Norwegian
  language syllabi in 2005
• Teacher Educator at the University of Oslo - had
  to introduce lectures on vocational English
• Norwegian EFL instruction and teacher education
  have long neglected the practical and
  occupational aspects of English and English
  teaching

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• What do Dutch vocational students need to be able
  to do in English?

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Needs

• Reading proficiency- instructions, manuals etc?
• Oral proficiency for international workplaces?
• Academic proficiency- basis for further
  education?
• Is current EFL instruction providing this?
• If no, why not?
• Is CLIL a solution?

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What is CLIL?

• CLIL is an umbrella term describing the
  teaching of non language subjects such as
  History, Geography or Physics in a foreign
  language, with both language learning and content
  learning as goals.
• Bilingual instruction
• Extended language learning
• Content based language instruction
• TCFL- teaching content in a foreign language
• FLAC- foreign languages across the curriculum
• Foreign language/English medium instruction
• Immersion

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The Case for CLIL

• Extend language instruction into other subjects
• Uncrowding the timetable - find room for more EFL
  instruction
• Have your cake and eat it too?

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2. Teaching to the interests of vocational
students

• Norwegians call it yrkesretting
• Brinton, Snow Wesche (1989), proponents of
  English for Specific Purposes (ESP) note that for
  successful language learning to occur, the
  language syllabus must take into account the
  eventual uses the learner will make of the target
  language, p. 3
• in its overall purpose and in its
  implementation, content based instruction aims at
  eliminating the artificial separation between
  language instruction and the subject matter
  courses that exist in most settings p. 2
• CLIL teachers are asked to view their teaching
  in a new way, from the perspective of truly
  contextualizing their lessons in using content as
  a point of departure p.2

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3. Language acquisition

• Brinton, Snow Wesche (1989) claim that
  probably the strongest argument for
  content-based bilingual courses comes from
  research in second language acquisition (p 3).
• What is language aquisition?
• Krashen - input is all that is needed
• Swain and others- input becomes intake when new
  words and structures are noticed

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CLIL-an optimal situation for language acquisition

• What immersion has taught us is that
  comprehensible subject matter teaching is
  language teaching -- the subject matter class is
  a language class if made comprehensible. In fact,
  the subject matter class may be even better than
  the language class for language acquisition. In
  language classes operating according to the
  principle of comprehensible input, the teachers
  always face the problem of what to talk about. In
  . . . subject matter classes the topic is
  automatically provided, it is the subject matter.
  Moreover, since the students are tested on the
  subject matter, not the language, a constant
  focus on the message is assured. Krashen 1985,
  p.16

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Other advantages?

• Norway- traditional EFL instruction with its
  cognitive approach has failed many vocational
  students
• Using language acquisition systematically -
  through CLIL- can vary EFL teaching and improve
  language learning for vocational students who
  often have long histories of failure

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What about the weaker students?

• Many vocational classes are very hands on
• this closeness between language and
  practice/objects/tasks enhances language
  acquisition
• To my knowledge vocational schools have not
  experienced language learning problems with CLIL
  classes because of the hands-on nature of many
  CLIL classes
• Students even experience success in language
  learning
• Canadian research on immersion - students with
  learning disabilities benefit as well

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Subject matter learning

• Genesee - early immersion students and late
  immersion students with core French instruction
  throughout the elementary grades experience no
  lags in achievement as a result of receiving
  academic instruction in French.
• There is some evidence that late immersion
  students with limited prior exposure to French
  experience some underachievement in academic
  subjects, but that this is rectified rather
  quickly (p. 43).

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A new Finnish study

• Jäppinen 2005
• 669 Finnish students aged 7 to 15. 335 of these
  were taught in English, French, or Swedish.
• Mathematics and Science
• The main conclusion of the study is that a
  demanding and language-enriched environment has,
  in general, a positive effect on the Finnish
  mainstream learners cognitional development (p.
  163).

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Foreign language proficiency

• Genesee - Evaluations of late immersion
  students French language proficiency have tended
  to find the same pattern of results as in the
  case of early total immersion students namely,
  they score consistently better than English
  control students on all measures of French, and
  they are more likely to attain native levels of
  proficiency in comprehension skills and less than
  native levels in production skills or in their
  mastery of discrete aspects of French, be they
  phonological, lexical, or syntactic (p. 49).

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Swains Output Hypothesis

• explains that immersion students do not perform
  as well as they might because
• Immersion students get functionally restricted
  input
• Immersion students do not get sufficient
  opportunity to speak or write the foreign
  language
• Immersion students do not get sufficient feedback
  on language quality
• Immersion students do not get challenged to use
  the foreign language in increasingly demanding
  tasks and situations.

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Implications of the Output Hypothesis

• Input is not enough- which means CLIL is not
  enough without EFL support
• Swain, among others, claims that a word or
  structure is not learnt until it is noticed--gt
  for instance by using it
• EFL instruction must therefore supplement and
  enhance language input from CLIL instruction to
  develop language proficiency by getting the
  students to use the language for increasingly
  demanding tasks while providing the students with
  feedback and support
• Team teaching
• Systematic cooperation between EFL and content
  classes

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Potential pitfalls

• Organizing teaching and cooperation between
  content and EFL classes and teachers
• Finding enough teachers
• Assessment
• Avoiding conflicts with L1 teachers
• Assuring quality

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Setting up and organizing

• Plan ahead-
• Find textbooks and learning materials
• Find teachers!!!!
• Inform all parties
• Whole school policy needed
• Staff
• Administration
• pupils and parents - must pull together

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Teaching and organizing

• Start slow-
• Theme based modules
• Sheltered instruction
• Adjunct instruction
• Develop cooperation between EFL teachers and
  content staff
• Work with language learning strategies, study
  skills, reading skills - using a foreign language
  is cognitively demanding so compensate!
• Accept that teaching is slower to start with,
  that initial goals must be pared down - teach
  smarter
• Discuss assessment!

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Teachers

• Do not start with too few teachers, enthusiasts
  get worn out
• Content teachers especially need language
  courses, classroom discourse is particularly
  important
• Remember, CLIL is hard work to start with!
• Parity of esteem is necessary in the
  cooperation between EFL and content teachers

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Assessment

• Trials at the University of Maastricht Language
  Centre show that language and content teachers
  use different evaluation criteria. Therefore.
• Discuss assessment in good time!!
• Decide whether the target language has to be used
  for assessment in all CLIL subjects and learners?
  Receptive knowledge can be enough.
• My suggestion- use separate grades for content
  and language, or write evaluation guidelines that
  all parties agree upon

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Potential quality issues

• Teaching without consideration for the use of a
  foreign language
• Reliance on too few CLIL teachers who feel
  unsupported
• Conflicts with L1 teachers
• Believing CLIL is a panacea! Do not expect near
  native levels of proficiency, but expect
  improvement
• Full immersion is not necessary, a few subjects
  will do fine!

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CLIL research

• 217 students from 7 upper secondary schools
  (General Studies branch)
• 178 students had EFL instruction only, 25
  Foundation Course, 17 3 or 5 lessons in second
  year, 56 Advanced English Course
• 39 students had a single CLIL subject Modern
  History or Physics taught in English
• Tested with an IELTS Academic Reading Module (24
  out of 38 points required)

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RESULTS
The EFL sub-sample
Band 6 level
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The CLIL sub-sample
Band 6
27

• CLIL students quickly learn to read for overall
  meaning, to tolerate uncertainty and vagueness
• Better able to adjust reading strategy to reading
  purpose
• Able to guess/deduce word meaning from context--gt
  expanding their vocabulary in the process
• The same is the case for proficient readers in
  higher education, and for extracurricular readers