Project: COMMUNICATION IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES - Implementing innovative approaches to foreign language teaching through foreign teachers inclusion into the school curriculum

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Project COMMUNICATION IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES -
Implementing innovative approachesto foreign
language teaching through foreign teachers
inclusion into the school curriculum
LANGUAGE ACROSS THE CURRICULUM and CLIL

• FOREIGN TEACHERS MEETING
• Katja Pavlic Škerjanc, 28/1 - 2009

Operacijo delno financira Evropska unija iz
Evropskega socialnega sklada ter Ministrstvo za
šolstvo in šport. Operacija se izvaja v okviru
Operativnega programa razvoja cloveških virov v
obdobju 2007-2013, razvojne prioritete Razvoj
cloveških virov in vseživljenjsko ucenje
prednostne usmeritve Izboljšanje kakovosti in
ucinkovitosti sistemov izobraževanja in
usposabljanja.
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USING LANGUAGE THE PARADOX

• Language is a system which relates
• what is being talked about (content) and
• the means used to talk about it (expression).
• Linguistic content is inseparable from linguistic
  expression.
• In SUBJECT MATTER LEARNING we overlook the role
  of language as a medium of learning.
• In LANGUAGE LEARNING we overlook the fact that
  content is being communicated.
• Mohan, 1986

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TEACHING FOREIGN LANGUAGES

• Traditionally, language teaching has been
  conceptualised through one major learning route
• GRAMMATICAL PROGRESSION
• with secondary consideration given to
• conceptual/cognitive/cultural progression
• and only lip service to
• content progression.

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FLT SOME DIFFICULT QUESTIONS

• Where is the content (i.e. relevant content) in
  FL? What is relevant content?
• How do we challenge students to think and learn
  new content in FL?
• Why is so little attention paid to some aspects
  of culture?
• Why do we use testing tools as teaching tools?

• The 4Cs Teaching Framework
• CONTENT/subject matter/project/theme
• COMMUNICATION
• /language
• COGNITION/thinking
• CULTURE/citizenship

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USING LANGUAGE TO LEARN -- LEARNING TO USE
LANGUAGE

• A 4Cs teaching framework requires a
  re-conceptualisation of language learning
• from language learning per se
• towards an integrated model which actively
  involves the learner in using and developing
• language of learning,
• language for learning,
• language through learning

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USING LANGUAGE

• demands that teachers systematically plan for,
  teach, monitor and evaluate
• LANGUAGE OF LEARNING - linked to an analysis of
  content (thematic, syllabus) demands - grammar,
  vocabulary, structures, functions
• LANGUAGE FOR LEARNING - builds up learner
  repertoire linked to meta-cognitive skills
• LANGUAGE THROUGH LEARNING - emergent knowledge
  building skill development, cognitive
  development, BICS/CALP (Basic Interpersonal
  Communication Skills/Cognitive Academic Language
  Proficiency)
• (NB LEARNING ABOUT LANGUAGE ? language awareness)

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LAC and CLIL

• Project COMMUNICATION IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES -
  Implementing innovative approaches to foreign
  language teaching through foreign teachers
  inclusion into the school curriculum
• builds its strategies and activities on the
  following two approaches to (F)LL
• LAC - Languages Across the Curriculum
• CLIL - Content and Language Integrated Learning

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Language(s) Across the CurriculumLAC

• Languages Across the Curriculum (LAC) refers to
  the approach/practice through which the study and
  use of languages take place throughout the
  curriculum (cf. Key competences communication in
  mother tongue communication in foreign
  languages).
• Its purpose is to prepare students for the
  intercultural and multilingual demands and
  opportunities of a global society. LAC is
  appropriate at all levels of education.

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Language Across the Curriculum

• The concept of Language Across the Curriculum is
• to give all students the opportunity to apply
  their foreign language skills in other
  disciplines, and
• to learn that knowledge of a second language can
  enhance and deepen their understanding of subject
  matter.
• Language Across the Curriculum extends the
  development of language skills beyond the
  traditional language courses and programs, and
• offers students an opportunity to read and
  discuss relevant texts in more languages than one
  (mother tongue foreign).

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GOALS OF LAC

• The long-term goal of LAC is
• to integrate multiple languages into the teaching
  of all disciplines
• in order to enrich their intercultural and
  international content.
• The short-term goal is
• to enlist the support of teachers and
  administrators
• to expand opportunities for the content-specific
  acquisition and discipline-focused use of
  language and cultural knowledge.

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GOALS OF LAC

• Cross-cultural and multilingual inquiry leads to
  a more complete learning experience and provides
  a basis for comparative understanding unavailable
  when students and teachers are limited to the use
  of resources in only one language.
• Learners develop a deeper and more precise
  understanding of a new language and culture by
  studying
• how that language and culture address precisely
  defined topics about which they have already
  established a certain familiarity in their native
  language.

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RATIONALE OF LAC

• Understanding of a given culture and its
  documents and artifacts is greatly enhanced
  through a knowledge of its language.
• A curriculum that includes materials in multiple
  languages provides
• access to a wider range of perspectives,
• encourages greater depth of exploration, and
• opens the door to greater understanding.
• The use of materials in multiple languages
  significantly enhances any and all disciplinary
  inquiry.
•  

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Language(s) Across the Curriculum approach

• enhances intercultural competence
• encourages students and teachers to venture
  beyond their own cultural and linguistic borders
  in order to gain additional perspectives and
  additional knowledge
• bridges existing curricular and disciplinary
  boundaries,
• creating a more integrated learning environment ,
• energizing the disciplines in new ways
• by integrating the use of multiple languages into
  disciplines across the curriculum, reinforces the
  centrality of language study at all levels of
  education.

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Content and Language Integrated Learning - CLIL

• CLIL refers to any dual-focused educational
  context in which
• an additional language is used as a medium in the
  teaching and learning of non-language content.
• It is an umbrella term covering aspects of
• Language Across the Curriculum
• Bilingual Education
• Content-based instruction/learning

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CLIL by other names ( collected by Steve Darn)

• Content-based Instruction (CBI)
• Content-based Language Instruction (CLII)
• Content-based Language Teaching (CBLT)
• Integration of Content and Language
• Content and Language Integrated Classrooms
• English-enriched Content Teaching
• Content-enriched English Teaching
• English-focused Content Teaching
• Content-focused English Teaching
• Content-centered English Teaching
• English-centered Content Teaching
• Content-driven English Teaching
• English-driven Content Teaching
• English-sensitive Content Teaching
• Content-sensitive English Teaching
• Content-oriented Language Learning
• Content-infused Language Teaching
• Theme-based Language Teaching
• Topic-based Language Teaching

• Teaching Content Through English
• Teaching English Through Content
• Foreign Language Medium Instruction (FLMI)
• Teaching Through Foreign Languages (TTFL)
• Teaching Content in a Foreign Language (TCFL)
• Dual-focused Language Instruction
• Content-support ELT
• Adjunct / Linked Language courses
• Integration of Languages and Disciplines (BILD)
• Four-handed foreign language instruction
• Learning with Languages
• Learning through an additional language
• Foreign Language Immersion Program (FLIP)
• Plurilingual Instruction
• Foreign Languages Across the Curriculum (FLAC)
• Extended Second Language Learning
• Language-enhanced Content Instruction
• Integrated Curriculum
• Bridge Program

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How does CLIL work?

• Knowledge of the language becomes the means of
  learning content.
• Language is integrated into the broad curriculum.
  
• CLIL is based on language acquisition rather than
  language learning. Language is seen in real-life
  situations in which students can acquire the
  language. This is natural language development.
• The subject matter determines the language needed
  to learn.
• CLIL is long-term learning. (e.g. Students become
  academically proficient in English after 5-7
  years in a good bilingual program.)
• Fluency is more important than accuracy. Learners
  develop fluency by using FL (e.g. English). to
  communicate for a variety of purposes
• Reading is the essential skill.

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Research tells us that (collected by Steve Darn)

• It takes 5-7 years for students in a quality
  bilingual program to become academically
  proficient in English.
• Language acquisition is cyclical, not a linear
  process.
• Learners acquire best when they create, discover
  and construct their own meanings.
• Language is a means, not an end, and when
  learners are interested in a topic, they will be
  motivated to acquire language to communicate.
• Fluency precedes accuracy and errors are a
  natural part of language learning.
• Learners develop fluency in English by using
  English to communicate for a variety of purposes.
  
• Reading is essential for developing academic
  English skills.

• Stoller (2004)? improved language abilities and
  content-area knowledge gains
• Short (1994)? retention of vocabulary and content
  concepts

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The Benefits of CLIL (Steve Darn)

• CLIL
• Introduces the wider cultural context
• Prepares for internationalisation
• Enhances the school profile
• Improve overall and specific language competence
• Prepare for future studies and / or working life
• Develop multilingual interests and attitudes
• Diversify methods of teaching and learning
• Increase learner motivation

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The CLIL Lesson (Steve Darn)

• There is no such thing as a CLIL lesson, but
  lessons often follow a pattern
• Processing the text
• Organisation of knowledge
• Language identification
• Tasks for learners

• CLIL teachers are
• Subject teachers who can also teach language
• Language teachers who can teach content
• Competent in the target language
• Properly trained and involved in INSET (
  in-service education training)
• CLIL teachers are good at
• identifying the core language of a subject
• working with texts and words
• designing tasks and projects
• using technology

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The L2 vocabulary development (Maria Xanthou,
University of Cyprus)

• Vocabulary development is central to language
  acquisition (Zimmerman,1997).
• An effective approach deep vocabulary learning,
  activating prior knowledge, learning vocabulary
  in context, active processing, recalling new
  words, being provided multiple exposures to new
  vocabulary allowing incremental vocabulary
  learning ? CLIL satisfies these learning
  conditions.

• Educators need to use an effective approach in
  promoting L2 vocabulary development. Searching
  for the prospect of an effective approach to
  vocabulary learning, a deeper knowledge about how
  people learn words needs to be sought.
• Therefore, in what follows, what vocabulary
  learning involves is described.
• Learning target words through word pairs is
  discussed and their relation or not to deep
  comprehension is examined.
• The importance of activating prior knowledge is
  stressed and learning vocabulary in context is
  presented as an approach taking this principle
  into consideration.
• The importance of active processing when learning
  L2 vocabulary as well as being provided multiple
  exposures to a word are raised and the subsequent
  need of approaching an incremental vocabulary
  learning process is expressed.
• Learning a subject through the medium of the L2
  seems to be an approach satisfying the
  aforementioned learning conditions.

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The L2 vocabulary development (Maria Xanthou,
University of Cyprus)
A view of the structure of the mental lexicon,
illustrating a lexical entry (Radford et al,
1999 233)
Mental Lexicon
A lexical entry consists of its lemma and its
form information. Lemma information involves
meaning and syntax e.g. the meaning of the lemma
take is to obtain possession and the syntactic
category is verb. Form involves morphological
information e.g. the 3rd singular becomes takes
and phonological forms this lemma can take in
speech. CLIL environments expose the learner
repeatedly to both the semantic form of the
target word and its morpho-phonological form
strengthening this relationship.
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The lexical entry in the mental lexicon (Jiang,
2002 619)
Similarly Jiang (2002) explains that when a root
word enters the mental lexicon, this lexical
entry involves two components the lemma
component and the lexeme component. The first
includes semantic and syntactic information
whereas the second contains morphological and
formal information. Traditional approaches do
not seem to offer all the information required
for learning a target word. The data of this
study (vocabulary pre-test) revealed that primary
school children confuse L2 words with others that
are phonetically or morphologically similar e.g.
they confused coal with goal, plain that is a
large area of level country with airplane, hut
that is a roughly-made house with hat, plants
with plans, destruction with instruction, heat
with hit and head with hate, trunk with drunk,
parade with pirate, poultry with poetry, cypress
with surprise, etc.
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Learning vocabulary in context

• Context morphological, syntactic, and
  discourse information in a given text ( Nation
  and Coady, 1988 102)
• When learning a language ? consider all systems
  of language discourse, semantics, phonology,
  pragmatics (Rutherford, 1987, Nation, 2001)
• Comprehension of discourse ? when students make
  meaningful connections between vocabulary and the
  contexts in which it is found
• CLIL is rooted on learning new vocabulary in the
  environment of meaningful context.
• CLIL methodology provides content-based language
  environments where contexts demonstrate the
  pragmatic value of target words.

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Learning vocabulary in context

• Providing several exposures to new words enables
  knowledge of the words to grow. A single
  exposure not enough for learning a new word.
• Nation (1990) ? Learners need to be involved in
  5-16 repetitions in order to learn a new word.
• Herman et al (1987) ? The probability of learning
  a word from context after a single exposure is
  only 0,05. Repeated encounters with target
  words can expand word meanings and illustrate new
  associations with that word.
• Rott (1999) examined the effect of exposure
  frequency on intermediate learners incidental
  vocabulary acquisition six exposures produced
  significantly more vocabulary knowledge than two
  or four exposure frequencies.
• A content-based approach provides recurring
  exposure to new vocabulary.
• Robinson (2005) explored CLIL teaching ?
  frequent repetition of the key vocabulary.