Tarja Nikula

Exploring translanguaging in CLIL

ABSTRACT After reviewing the concepts of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and Translanguaging, this article presents an exploratory study of translanguaging in CLIL contexts. Employing illustrative extracts from a collection of CLIL classroom recordings in Austria, Finland and Spain, we argue that both pedagogic and interpersonal motivations can influence language choices. We suggest that the L1 should be appreciated as a potentially valuable tool in bilingual learning situations and that there is a need for increased awareness-raising around this question.

Content and language integrated learning

This special issue of The Language Learning Journal is devoted to Content and Language Integrated Learning, frequently referred to by its acronym CLIL in Europe, but also elsewhere of late. CLIL is an educational approach where curricular content of subjects such as biology or history is taught to students through a language that is neither their first language nor the dominant medium of instruction in the respective education system. Science taught through English in Finland, history taught in French in Spain, civics taught in Italian in Australia or health education taught through the medium of German in the UK would be examples of such CLIL settings. The articles included in this and the second special issue, to appear in 2015, are all based on such contexts. In using a language other than the students’ first language for instruction, CLIL obviously shares many features with other types of bilingual education. There have been heated debates in particular about the differences, similarities and definitions of CLIL and immersion (Cenoz, Genesee and Gorter 2013; Lasagabaster and Sierra 2010). Rather than pursuing this conceptual track, we start from the premise that the two overlap in significant respects, especially as regards classroom pedagogical realities (see also Lyster and Ballinger 2011). However, we argue that despite the heterogeneity of CLIL approaches, there are ‘prototypical’ CLIL implementations: these involve use of a foreign language (most frequently, English) rather than the co-official language of the country; teaching by subject specialists, rather than language teachers; classes being timetabled as content lessons and taking place alongside language teaching rather than instead of it. There are other types of provision also labelled CLIL where the choice of this term instead of others such as immersion or bilingual education may well be motivated as much by connotations and associations rather than profound differences in implementation. Given that the origins of CLIL as a form of education reside in Europe, it is significant that we should consider CLIL in the overall context of European trends in language education. In their recent analysis of European policy trends, Williams, Strubell and Williams (2013: 33) note that aside from the EU’s ‘unity in diversity’ policies, the restructuring and de-nationalising of labour markets in the wake of globalisation is ‘re-sorting the relative status of languages’ and pressurising education systems into being more flexible and open to change. Amidst a mosaic of national policy decisions regarding the organisation of language teaching and adjustments thereto (see Williams, Strubell and Williams 2013), it seems that the idea of complementing traditional foreign language classes with other curricular subjects taught through the medium of one of the languages studied, i.e. CLIL, has been welcomed by many as a promising perspective, both at management and grassroots levels. While in some countries (e.g. Spain), CLIL has become part of concerted top-down policy efforts to step up foreign language teaching, others have simply left doors open for local agents to adopt CLIL if they want (e.g. Austria, Germany). Many countries

Linguistic Diversity as a Problem and a Resource — Multilingualism in European and Finnish Policy Documents

Societies in Europe and across the world are under constant pressure to cope with increasing multilingualism and multiculturalism. This development has its roots in different global and local societal and economic processes. On the one hand, globalization is putting pressure on the economy in that more varied language resources are needed in society. On the other hand, immigration is constantly on the increase, giving rise to what Vertovec (2006) has termed super-diversity, a ‘condition distinguished by a dynamic interplay of variables among an increased number of new, small and scattered, multiple-origin, transnationally connected, socio-economically differentiated and legally stratified immigrants’.

‘What’s the Moment Thingy?’– On the Emergence of Subject-Specific Knowledge in CLIL Classroom Interaction

Situated in the European CLIL context where mainstream schools may opt for teaching content subjects through the medium of a foreign or second language, this paper explores secondary school physics classrooms, taught through English in Finland. The focus is on the role of classroom interaction in the emergence of subject-specific knowledge during six consecutive lessons, with particular attention to how one key concept in physics, ‘moment’, is handled. This micro-longitudinal approach shows that while the students are struggling between the everyday and the academic meanings of the word ‘moment’ throughout, there are also clear signs of progression. These signs show, for example, in students moving from the initial stages of confusion relating to the meaning and subject-relevant use of the term ‘moment’, via teacher-scaffolded practice, towards appropriating its subject-specific usages.

Teachers’ perceptions on the changing role of language in the curriculum

Abstract This article is concerned with the role of language(s) in education from the viewpoint of secondary school subject teachers in Finland at the time of transition to a new curriculum. The curriculum highlights the role of language throughout education and makes reference to changes in society that foreground multilingualism. Seven mainstream and CLIL content teachers of different subjects were interviewed and employing qualitative content analysis, the data were scrutinised under four language-related themes: multilingualism, multiliteracy, subject-specific language, and the role of language in knowledge construction. The results indicate teachers as reasonably well aware of subject-specific language of their field and of the value of multiliteracy practices. Multilingualism as the diversity of students’ languages and its impact on pedagogical practices received less attention. Overall, the teachers’ orientation to the language ideological statements in the new curriculum were widely agreed upon even if the ideas still remained somewhat abstract in the transition phase before actual implementation to the praxis.