Language and communication in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)

Einführung/Themenschwerpunkte:

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is an educational approach whereby content subjects such as biology or history are taught in a second or foreign language with the aim of improving the language proficiency in that second or foreign language while still learning the content of the respective subject. After more than two decades of CLIL implementation and research in Europe and beyond, it seems clear to both the research and education communities that its objectives and challenges go beyond the improvement of learners’ competence in an additional language. In order to succeed at school, CLIL learners who study different subjects or disciplines in a second or foreign language need to be familiar with the linguistic demands of these disciplines, and teachers need to know what challenges are specifically related to the additional language and which are subject-, mode- or activity-related language issues.

Vertiefung:

Prof. Ana Llinares will first explore and illustrate the role(s) of language in CLIL by introducing some of the approaches scholars have developed and used to study content and language in integration, such as Systemic Functional Linguistics (genres and registers) or Cognitive Discourse Functions (students’ academic development). Aline Bieri will then present her PhD project “CLIL in the Swiss context: The linguistic challenges and implications of teaching a subject such as biology in English” to illustrate the value of CLIL classroom-based research. Sheinvestigates the interface of biology as a subject and its linguistic requirements for students as well as for teachers in a CLIL and a non-CLIL environment with a specific focus on the negotiation of technical terms (technicality) and how they affect the communication in the CLIL classroom (translanguaging).

Bezüge innerhalb der RVL:

• • Gülich: Analyse gesprochener Sprache, institutionelle Interaktionen

• • Weder: Schreiben als soziale Praxis àgenres, academic writing

• • Madlener: Kommunikationsbasierte Ansätze im Fremdsprachenunterricht