学者观点｜朱晔：《英语作为附加语言之情境中的课程语言与内容语言融合的学习：理论与实践》评介（SSCI）

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作者：

中国外语战略研究中心\语言研究院  朱晔

来源：

Applied Linguistics, 2019年1月

正文

Introduction

The book is an attempt to combine theory with practice of language across the curriculum (LAC) and content and language integrated learning (CLIL). As the author points out, LAC and CLIL constitute rapidly growing areas of both research and practice in many parts of the world, especially in Asia, Australia, and Europe (p. 1). While LAC arose in the 1970s in the UK as a whole-school approach to academic literacy development for all learners and not just additional language speakers, CLIL is ‘a dual-focused educational approach in which an additional language is used for the learning and teaching of both content and language’ (Coyle et al. 2010) and has attracted many researchers, teachers, teacher educators, and administrators since its first launch in Europe in the 1990s (Marsh 2002), particularly in the field of English as a foreign/second/additional language (EFL/ESL/EAL). As an umbrella term, CLIL has a variety of definitions and encompasses different forms of using language as the medium of instruction. In addition, a multiplicity of terms, including immersion, content-based instruction (CBI), content-based language teaching (CBLT), CLIL, and English medium instruction (EMI), have been used to refer to instructional approaches for the integration of content and language learning, which can be a source of confusion in relevant studies. This may well explain why effective implementation of CLIL in real teaching practice remains a big problem although CLIL is no longer foreign to most EFL/ESL/EAL teachers. Therefore, this book is a timely publication, as it ‘has arisen from an immediate and real need’ according to the author (p. 2). As such, it will contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of CLIL. 

Summary of Content

The book consists of nine chapters divided into two sections prefaced by the introduction of Chapter 1. Part 1 covers the theory-oriented Chapters 2–3, and Chapters 5–9 constitute the practice-oriented Part 2 with ample examples and in-class transcriptions of teacher–student(s) interaction. As a transition, Chapter 4 connects the two main parts.    

Chapter 1 highlights the background, aims, and objectives of the book. To offer a road map, the author outlines different research traditions in LAC and related areas in the past four decades. The key terminologies like CBI, immersion, sheltered instruction, LAC, writing across the curriculum, and CLIL are clearly explained with reference to an elaboration on the historical and educational contexts in which they have arisen. This sets the scene for the subsequent chapters. 

Aiming to engage a wider readership, Chapters 2 and 3 succeed in laying the theoretical foundation for a common metalanguage by critically reviewing and systematically presenting and integrating the most important theoretical resources that can inform teachers and researchers in the field. In Chapter 2, the author investigates relevant language variation theories such as Jim Cummins’ notions of basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS) and cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP), genre theory and register theory of the Sydney School, and the Mahboobian Framework of language variation. Their implications for education are discussed to explore possible ways of using L1 or local, familiar linguistic resources in scaffolding the learning of L2 academic registers. Chapter 3 synthesizes different linguistic theories to analyse how language is used in academic contexts from a functional perspective. In particular, the Genre Egg is introduced to analyse the language demands of academic learning tasks and provides a theoretical framework to examine the features of genres specific to different academic subjects. How text analysis can be conducted by teachers and researchers to inform teaching is also discussed. 

Serving as the linkage of the theoretical-oriented Part 1 and the practice-oriented Part 2, Chapter 4 categorizes and discusses four kinds of disconnects in curriculums and pedagogies in bilingual education settings: intra-curricular disconnects, inter-curricular disconnects, pedagogical disconnects, and disconnects among different research traditions. Although these observations might have been made by experienced teachers themselves, it might be the first time that systematic attention has been paid to critical factors leading to many of the difficulties found in CLIL front-line classrooms. 

Chapters 5–9 discuss the day-to-day challenges confronted by classroom teachers, school administrators, government policymakers, parents, and students. Although no perfect solution is offered, this book provides a systematic and critical review of the resources available in the diverse research literatures to address teachers’ pressing needs. Chapter 5 discusses how to do curriculum mapping and bridging pedagogy in LAC and CLIL contexts to address the curricular and pedagogical disconnects, focusing on how content teachers and language teachers can collaborate to carry out needs analysis and systematic planning of the curriculum and pedagogy. Chapter 6 explores how language-aware content teachers can design content assessment tasks with language support, how to cater for learner diversity with a differentiated approach to materials development, and how to prepare students for high-stakes examin-ations in different academic subjects. Chapter 7 is devoted to pedagogical and programme design issues concerning how to integrate content learning with language learning. The key theories underpinning different conceptualizations of how content learning and language learning can be integrated are discussed first. Then the author discusses the principles underlying diverse programme models and terms. An analytical framework to classify and design existing and new programme models is proposed in the end. Chapter 8 provides critical perspectives through reflecting how LAC and CLIL are often situated in contexts where there is inequality in access to the dominant linguistic and cultural capitals, where the L1/local languages of the students are usually neglected or viewed unfavourably in relation to the L2 in mainstream society and where students and teachers are usually positioned as knowledge recipients rather than knowledge makers. Based on a brief review of the existing literature in the field, Chapter 9 takes the reader into future directions for research in four areas: assessment in CLIL; discipline-specific thematic patterns and generic cognitive discourse functions; the interplay of L1, L2, and multimodalities in scaffolding CLIL; and teacher identity and pedagogical content knowledge in CLIL. 

Analysis and evaluation of the book

The book is to be recommended for its comprehensive and systematic theoretical construction. I particularly like the clear exposition and elaboration of key theories, such as Cummins’ notions of BICS and CALP, the Sydney School’s genre and register theory, and Mahboob’s three-dimensional framework of language variation. The book has inspired me to examine the principles of CLIL and its potential to improve the quality of CBLT in an L2, especially in the context of China, where the teaching of subject courses in English is rapidly spreading but there is not enough understanding of the conditions required for the success of such an approach. Without a solid theoretical and practical understanding, teachers and policymakers will fail to grasp both the challenges and opportunities presented by CLIL in China or countries or regions alike. In light of this, I consider the book to be both timely and successful in providing an accessible review of the theoretical perspectives on CLIL for researchers and teachers. 

Another recommendable feature is that it is written with the practitioners’ needs in mind. In Part 2, the author includes many real-life examples from CLIL teachers. No matter how familiar they are with CLIL, many teachers will find the examples relevant to their own classrooms. 

In addition to a Chapter Overview at the beginning of each chapter to give the reader the main gist of the chapter, every content chapter ends with Chapter Summary Points and End-of-Chapter Discussion Questions, which will facilitate a deeper understanding of CLIL theories and practice while actively engaging the readers to critically reflect on and discuss the crucial content. The thoughtful questions raised at the end of each chapter will provoke profound reflection among readers. 

Notwithstanding the recommendable features, the book could have provided more diverse examples and answered more practical questions concerning how to carry out CLIL for students at different age levels with different linguistic and cultural backgrounds and learning different content subjects. Not to mention the learner differences in age and linguistic and cultural backgrounds, the examples, plentiful as they are, mostly rest in the area of science, which inevitably will increase difficulty when teachers of other subjects intend to carry out CLIL instruction in their own subject. I cannot help wondering to what extent the examples can be used as reference by non-science teachers. In order for more teachers of various subjects to find the book useful, future efforts to collect primary data from other different content subjects with students of different age levels and linguistic and cultural backgrounds need to be made. 

Despite the above critique, the book represents a perfect encounter between theory and practice. Given its solid and lucid theoretical delineation in combination with explicit examples, the book is instructive, informative, and inspirational. In this sense, it is a welcome addition to the existing literature regarding LAC and CLIL.

References

Coyle, D., P. Hood, and D. Marsh. 2010. Contentand Language Integrated Learning. Cambridge University Press.

Marsh, D. (ed.). 2002. CLIL/EMILE the European Content Dimension. University of Jyvaskyla.

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