Discourse in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) Classrooms

The label CLIL stands for classrooms where a foreign language (English) is used as a medium of instruction in content subjects. This book provides a first in-depth analysis of the kind of communicative abilities which are embodied in such CLIL classrooms. It examines teacher and student talk at secondary school level from different discourse-analytic angles, taking into account the interpersonal pragmatics of classroom discourse and how school subjects are talked into being during lessons. The analysis shows how CLIL classroom interaction is strongly shaped by its institutional context, which in turn conditions the ways in which students experience, use and learn the target language. The research presented here suggests that CLIL programmes require more explicit language learning goals in order to fully exploit their potential for furthering the learners’ appropriation of a foreign language as a medium of learning.

Table of Contents:
1. Acknowledgements; 2. Transcription conventions; 3. 1. Introduction; 4. 1.1 What CLIL is and why one should study it; 5. 1.2 The relationship of language and content; 6. 1.3 A constructivist and participatory understanding of learning; 7. 1.4 Research questions and goals of this study; 8. 2. The classroom as a discourse space; 9. 2.1 School lessons: The speech event; 10. 2.2 Roles and scripts: Ritual aspects of classroom talk; 11. 2.3 Classroom registers and activity types; 12. 2.4 Whole class interaction and the IRF-cycle; 13. 2.5 Classroom talk as conversation; 14. 2.6 Speech acts and the management of interpersonal relations; 15. 2.7 Genre aspects of classroom talk; 16. 2.8 A multi-perspectival approach; 17. 3. The study: Setting, methods, data; 18. 3.1 The sociolinguistic and institutional context of CLIL in Austria: A sketch; 19. 3.2 Research concept; 20. 3.3 Methodological reflections: The researcher and the field in qualitative classroom-based research; 21. 4. Content teaching, meaning making and the construction of knowledge; 22. 4.1. Introduction; 23. 4.2. Cornerstones in the analysis of knowledge construction; 24. 4.3. Classroom practices; 25. 4.4. Summary and conclusions; 26. 5. Questions in the CLIL classroom; 27. 5.2. Typologies of classroom questions; 28. 5.3. Quantitative overview of findings; 29. 5.4. Classroom practices; 30. 5.5 Questions and the handling of communication breakdowns; 31. 5.6 Discussion of findings; 32. 6. Academic language functions; 33. 6.1. Introduction; 34. 6.2 Definition; 35. 6.3 Explanation; 36. 6.4 Hypothesizing and predicting; 37. 6.5 Conclusions on academic speech functions; 38. 7. Passages of politeness: Classroom directives; 39. 7.1. Introduction; 40. 7.2. Conceptual background of the analysis; 41. 7.3. Quantitative overview of the findings; 42. 7.4. Classroom practices; 43. 7.5. Discussion of findings; 44. 8. Conversationalists in the classroom? Repair, feedback and correction; 45. 8.1. Introduction; 46. 8.2. Conceptual framework; 47. 8.3. Classroom practices; 48. 8.4 The question of face-threat and other factors in repair realization; 49. 8.5. Conclusions; 50. 9. The CLIL classroom as a language learning environment; 51. 9.1 Introduction; 52. 9.2. Theoretical approaches to second language learning; 53. 9.3 Stakeholder notions of second language learning; 54. 9.4 Theory mapped onto practice: communicative competence in the CLIL-lesson speech event; 55. 10. Conclusions, implications and prospects; 56. Notes; 57. References; 58. Index