Jingzi Huang

Assessing the Integration of Language and Content in a Mandarin as a Foreign Language Classroom

Abstract Recent initiatives in second language education incorporate goals of learning content and culture and assume that they will be integrated with language learning. But research shows that integration is problematic, and that it must therefore, be adequately assessed to guide future work. We describe an approach to the systematic assessment of integration based on knowledge structures and informed by systemic functional linguistics and ethnography. This has been applied in English. Can it be extended to Chinese? Using the data of student writing in an elementary Mandarin course, we illustrate how knowledge structures can bridge language and culture and can offer an analysis of groupings of lexical and grammatical features of Mandarin discourse. Since ethnographers have claimed that certain knowledge structures are cross-cultural, there are important implications for future research in integrative assessment in other languages and cultures.

A functional approach to evaluating content knowledge and language development in ESL students’ science classification texts

This article investigates the use of a functional approach to discourse analysis – knowledge structure analysis, which focuses on meaning, form, and function simultaneously – to evaluate both writing development and content learning. The study examined written texts in science, produced by 35 ESL students in Canada in grades 8 to 10 with limited to intermediate English language proficiency, in which they constructed scientific classifications. By examining and comparing two pieces of writing produced by the same students on the same topic at different learning stages, the study reveals the progress they made in integrating language and content at the discourse level. It also raises new questions about the integration of language and content teaching in all subject areas.

Activities as a vehicle for linguistic and sociocultural knowledge at the elementary level

This paper reports on a content-based elementary Chinese as a foreign language programme. It focuses on classroom language activities that are designed and implemented to serve the dual goals of language development and cultural learning. From a sociocultural perspective, it investigated how classroom activities are organized to integrate culture/content and language learning for young beginners. Two themes are highlighted in the discussion: (1) initial teacher planning vs. curriculum as experienced; (2) graphic organizers and language product. The result of the study throws light on the possibilities of a wide range of systematic form-function relations in the classroom, the integration of language and content learning, and on further directions for intentional planning in any other second or foreign language teaching programmes. It also reveals potential for implementing content-based foreign language instruction at the elementary level even in a situation where the teacher is still working on her own language proficiency.

Patterns of Oral Choice and Evaluation across Secondary Content Areas.

ABSTRACT Our study focuses on Choice and Evaluation, two of Mohans knowledge structures to uncover how teachers and students across content areas developed disciplinary knowledge through classroom talk. Participants included in-service teachers and their students in rural and urban secondary schools in the Eastern and Western US. Through Choice and Evaluation, we examined opportunities for students across four disciplines to build up their knowledge of content matter or field. Findings revealed that teachers of math and science built students’ field knowledge through classroom exploration, eliciting Evaluation in dialogic patterns involving Choice, while social studies and language arts teachers helped students implicitly use Choice/Evaluation through projects based on their previous experiences. The essential role of student background knowledge in enabling participation across different types of oral exchanges is shown. This study uncovers tendencies across classrooms and makes linguistically informed suggestions for teachers in the disciplines.