Professional Development of CLIL Teachers

By Yuen Yi Lo

This book investigates how teacher educators can facilitate the professional development of Content and Language Integrated Learning teachers, and discusses the effectiveness of such efforts and factors affecting it. It proposes theoretical models of professional development for Content and Language Integrated Learning teachers, documents empirical evidence showing the effectiveness of the models, and sheds lights on the various methodological approaches for research in the field.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Springer
• Release date: Feb 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9789811524257

Book preview

Part IFundamental Issues: What Is CLIL? Who Are CLIL Teachers?

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020

Y. Y. LoProfessional Development of CLIL Teachershttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2425-7_1

1. Introduction

Yuen Yi Lo¹  

(1)

The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Yuen Yi Lo

Email: [e-mail]

CLIL—Is It Possible to Define or Delineate?

Using an Additional Language (L2) as the Medium of Instruction—Why?

The past three decades have witnessed a growth in the amount of research on different variants of bilingual or multilingual education programmes. While these programmes come with different names and different practices (more discussion in the next section), they do share one core characteristic—the use of students’ (and very often teachers’) second/foreign/additional language (L2) as the medium of instruction (MoI) when teaching and learning non-language content subjects (e.g., mathematics, science, history and geography). To some, this may seem an unnatural practice, as it is intuitive that content knowledge is best or most effortlessly learned through one’s first or familiar language (L1) (Bruton, 2013; Ho & Ho, 2004). Such an assumption has also gathered some support from empirical research on students’ cognitive processing in L1 and L2, which shows that bilingual learners tend to perform higher-order thinking skills (e.g., solving mathematics problems; critical thinking) in their L1 (Cohen, 1994; Luk & Lin, 2015), and that when performing the same task in both languages, their performance in L1 is better than that in L2 (Gablasova, 2014). Hence, such a move to go against the natural way of learning is intended to achieve another more important goal, as perceived by policy makers, educators and other groups of stakeholders—the learning of an L2. In this regard, the assumption that learning content subjects through an L2 could facilitate L2 learning is grounded on second language acquisition (SLA) theories. Along the lines of (comprehensible) input, interaction and output hypotheses (Krashen, 1982; Long, 1996; Swain, 1995), learning content subjects in an L2, when compared with learning the L2 only in isolated L2 lessons, provides more opportunities for students to be exposed to more L2 input, and they are expected to use the language with their peers and teachers more often, resulting in more L2 interaction and output. Perhaps more importantly, these input, interaction and output opportunities tend to be more authentic and meaningful, because teachers and students use the L2 to talk about content knowledge and to complete content subject tasks, instead of falling back on the often contrived L2 learning materials. This can be regarded as an actualisation of communicative language teaching (CLT) or task-based language teaching (TBLT) approaches (Dalton-Puffer, 2007), which aim to promote L2 learning when asking students to engage in purposeful communication or to complete pedagogic tasks with non-linguistic outcomes (Nunan, 2004). An additional advantage claimed for such bilingual programmes is that they give students greater motivation for learning the L2, as the language becomes crucial for their academic achievement (Genesee & Lindholm-Leary, 2013). With the observed positive relationship between motivation and language learning achievement (Dörnyei, 1998; Masgoret & Gardner, 2003), learning content subjects through an L2 can then facilitate L2 learning. As will be discussed later, some of these assumptions may not be seen in actual implementation of some bilingual education programmes. Yet, these programmes are still believed to be innovative, and are seen as compensating for the ineffective L2 teaching methodology in different parts of the world (e.g., Europe, Asia) (Georgiou, 2012; Pérez-Cañado, 2016).

Undoubtedly, apart from the educational reason mentioned above, there are other reasons for using an L2 as the medium of instruction in different educational settings (Tollefson & Tsui, 2018). The first one is political reasons, as in certain places with a colonial history (e.g., Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia), the colonial language was adopted as the default medium of instruction, a practice which persisted until the post-colonial era; or as in the case of the European Union, citizens are encouraged to learn English as a lingua franca with a view of promoting multilingualism and intercultural understanding, and hence unity of the Union (Dalton-Puffer, Nikula & Smit, 2010; Pérez-Cañado, 2012). The second reason is socio-economic, as in Asian countries (e.g., Japan, South Korea and China), English as the medium of instruction (EMI) education is implemented to facilitate English learning, in the hope of enhancing the competitiveness of the labour force in the current era of globalisation (Zhao & Dixon, 2017). It is also the case that in some countries with different ethnic groups speaking different languages (e.g., Singapore and many African countries), one language, very often English, is chosen as the lingua franca and medium of instruction in schools (Probyn, 2009). In some countries (e.g., Wales and New Zealand), recent generations mainly speak English, and so the indigenous language (e.g., Welsh in Wales and Māori in New Zealand) is used as the medium of instruction in some schools to preserve the indigenous language and culture (May & Hill, 2005).

An overview of these various reasons for choosing the MoI demonstrates that very often the decision on MoI is not purely grounded in educational considerations, but serves other agendas (Tsui & Tollesfson, 2004). The implication is probably that in some educational contexts, teachers and students are not ready or well prepared for learning content subjects through an L2. This will be further discussed in Chap. 2.

Different Variants and Terms—Which One to Go for?

The previous section mainly focused on the motives behind the practice of using an L2 as the MoI of content subjects in bilingual education programmes. Owing to these different motives, several variants of bilingual education programmes are in place around the world. These include EMI, content and language integrated learning (CLIL), content-based instruction (CBI), content-based language teaching (CBLT), immersion, English for academic purposes (EAP) and English for specific purposes (ESP). These variants differ in terms of their goals, teacher and student profiles, languages involved and their respective status, educational policies involved, curriculum design and pedagogical practices (Lyster & Ballinger, 2011). For instance, immersion programmes normally refer to the bilingual education programmes which originated in Canada in the 1960s, where Anglophone children learnt content subjects in French, the co-official language in the country. CBI is more often used to refer to instructional approaches that make a dual, though not necessarily equal, commitment to language and content-learning objectives, especially those in the United States (Stoller, 2008, p. 59). CLIL was coined in Europe in the 1990s to refer to its campaign to promote multilingualism (Pérez-Cañado, 2012). Finally, EMI is more commonly found in higher education settings (Airey, 2016). It is perhaps worth noting that among these variants, EMI, ESP and EAP specifically refer to English as the target language. In theory, other languages could be the target language for other variants (e.g., immersion and CLIL), but it has been observed that English is the most common choice, especially in the European CLIL (Dalton-Puffer et al., 2010).

With these different variants of bilingual education programmes, several scholars have directed their research towards identifying the similarities and differences. One early effort was Met’s (1989) work, with various programmes positioned along a continuum according to whether they were content or language driven. With the rapid expansion of CLIL, this continuum has been further discussed and modified in more recent works, such as Lyster and Ballinger (2011), Lin (2016), Airey (2016) and Macaro (2018). Here, I would like to cite Macaro’s (2018) figure to illustrate this continuum (Fig. 1.1).

../images/429085_1_En_1_Chapter/429085_1_En_1_Fig1_HTML.png

Fig. 1.1

A continuum of different bilingual education programmes

(modified from Lin, 2016, p. 148; Macaro 2018, p. 29)

In the continuum, the assumed differences lie in the fact that whether explicit focus or emphasis is put on language per se. Such emphasis can be realised in the expected learning outcomes, instructional practices and assessment of the learning outcomes. For example, in the conventional language for specific purposes (LAP) programmes (very often EAP), emphasis is put on the language-oriented end, as students will be taught some general academic language and typical academic writing skills. Students’ learning outcomes are also measured in terms of their language performance. On the other hand, EMI programmes are placed towards the content-oriented end, because language is often treated as the medium of delivering the content, and students are assessed of their content knowledge in the L2, instead of their language proficiency. CLIL is then placed somewhere in the middle because as its name suggests, content and language are integrated into the programme or lessons, and students are assessed of both their content knowledge and L2 development.

Such a continuum seems to provide some insights into differentiating those variants of bilingual education programmes. However, the reality is less clear-cut and some recent attempts to compare and contrast these programmes seem to have been in vain [see the attempt by Lasagabaster and Sierra (2010) to compare CLIL and immersion, followed by the critical response of Somers and Surmont (2012)]. The first reason is that there exists a considerable variation even among the programmes bearing the same label, probably because they are implemented in different contexts and hence there are different practices. For example, one point highlighted by Lasagabaster and Sierra (2010) as a characteristic of CLIL, on contrary to immersion, is that the target language is usually a foreign language for the students, which implies that they have very little contact with the language outside the classroom. However, as Somers and Surmont (2012) later responded, this may be true for some contexts but not all (e.g., the case of Dutch and French in CLIL in Belgium). In Hong Kong, the research context that this book is largely based on, the bilingual education programme has also been named differently. There, over 90% of the population use Chinese (Cantonese as the spoken dialect and Standard Written Chinese as the written language) in their daily communication. English, being the colonial language, remains one of the co-official languages and is regarded as a prerequisite for promising academic and career prospects (Li, 2017). Hence, there has been a strong preference among parents and students for EMI schools, especially secondary schools, which enjoy some freedom to decide on their own MoI. In the Hong Kong local context, EMI is always the term used to refer to such practices (even in government documents), although in other contexts EMI is more often used to refer to the practice in higher education (Airey, 2016). In research literature, EMI education in Hong Kong has been identified as an example of late immersion (Hoare & Kong, 2008; Marsh et al., 2000, 2002; Swan & Johnson, 1997), but in recent years, probably due to the rise of CLIL, it has been grouped under CLIL (e.g., Lo & Lin, 2015).

The second reason for the difficulty in differentiating different programmes is the discrepancy between the ideal programme represented by the label and the actual practices. CLIL is one such example. Although its name emphasises the integration of both content and language, whether this is achieved in practice is doubtful. This is due to the lack of conceptualisation of such integration (see some recent attempts to do so in the edited volume of Nikula, Dafouz, Moore and Smit (2016)), and also due to teachers’ beliefs and practices. The latter is especially relevant to the professional development of CLIL teachers, and will be explored in greater depth in the following chapters.

Although it might be more beneficial to identify the characteristics of a particular programme so that more fruitful research can be conducted to inform policies and practices, previous attempts have proved extremely difficult to achieve. Researchers in the field of bilingual education have therefore recently adopted a more inclusive approach by using one term as the umbrella term (very often CLIL) and treating others as variants under this family of programmes. In this way, the daunting task of differentiating different programmes can be minimised, and (perhaps more importantly) the research findings from various contexts can be consulted, so that findings from one context can then inform the research and practices in other contexts. This book will follow this trend of inclusivity, and will adopt CLIL as an umbrella term [as in Cenoz, Genesee, and Gorter, (2014); Dalton-Puffer, Llinares, Lorenzo, and Nikula, (2014)], including programmes like immersion and EMI as variants. My choice of CLIL over other terms reflects my personal hope that content and language can genuinely be integrated in bilingual education programmes, so that the ideal dual goal of content and L2 learning can be achieved.

Research Landscape of CLIL

The popularity and rapid expansion of CLIL in different parts of the world has attracted intensive research efforts. These cover various topics including policy making (Relaño-Pastor, 2018) and stakeholders’ perspectives (Mehisto & Asser, 2007; Pladevall-Ballester, 2015). However, a large proportion of existing empirical studies could be broadly categorised as either product-oriented or process-oriented research (Dalton-Puffer, 2011), which will be briefly reviewed here so as to identify the research gap.

Product-oriented research tends to focus on students’ learning outcomes or achievement, particularly when comparing the learning outcomes of students studying in CLIL and those studying through their L1. The main objective of this line of research is to evaluate the effectiveness of CLIL. However, there seem to be different foci of evaluation in research conducted in different contexts. In immersion and EMI, probably owing to its longer history, a significant body of research has examined students’ achievement in L1, L2 and content subjects, to determine whether the more advanced development of L2 comes at the expense of L1 and/or content subject achievement. Mixed results have been obtained. Immersion programmes, especially the Canadian French ones, have been shown to facilitate students’ L2 learning, especially concerning receptive language skills, which are comparable to native speaker level. Furthermore, immersion students’ achievement both in content subjects and in their L1 is comparable to that of their non-immersion counterparts (see Lazaruk (2007) for more comprehensive reviews). Hence, it has been argued that immersion programmes are suitable or effective for students of all backgrounds and levels (Genesee & Lindholm-Leary, 2013). However, empirical studies in EMI contexts have yielded inconclusive results. For example, in Hong Kong, where EMI secondary education has been in place for several decades, recent large-scale studies suggest that while EMI students showed some improvement in their English development, they also suffered in their academic achievement, particularly in subjects like science and geography [Marsh et al., (2002); Hong Kong Education Bureau, (2006); see Lo & Lo (2014) for a meta-analysis]. In European CLIL programmes, most product-oriented research has focused on students’ L2 development, which, in general, echoes the positive findings in other contexts [see Perez-Canado (2012) for a review]. However, limited attention has been paid to the students’ academic achievement, which is believed to be an important gap for European CLIL research to fill (Cenoz et al., 2014). Without this element, the evaluation of content and language integrated learning may not appear complete.

Grounded in solid SLA theories, the inconclusive and sometimes conflicting results of different CLIL variants (i.e., immersion, EMI, European CLIL) are intriguing. This calls for more process-oriented research to look into the actual teaching and learning processes in CLIL classrooms, which in turn may help to explain the results of product-oriented research (Lo & Macaro, 2012; Nikula, Dalton-Puffer & Llinares, 2013). Such research mainly focuses on the interaction patterns in CLIL lessons to examine how content and language are integrated or co-constructed between teachers and students. For instance, two studies conducted by Lyster (Lyster, 2007; Llinares & Lyster, 2014) investigated what immersion and CLIL teachers focused on in their lessons and how they provided feedback on language errors. Lyster (2007) then argued for the need to counter-balance content and language teaching in immersion lessons, which resembles the ideas proposed by CLIL researchers. In Hong Kong EMI contexts, Ng and her colleagues (Ng, Tsui & Morton, 2001) compared the space for learning in science lessons conducted in English (L2) and Chinese (L1). They concluded that the space for learning in the former seemed to be limited, owing to the teachers’ questioning techniques. In a similar vein, my own research (Lo & Macaro, 2012), adopting the initiation–response–feedback (IRF) framework, observed a noticeable drop in both the quantity and quality of teacher–student interaction when the MoI changed from students’ L1 to L2 part of the way through their secondary education. Based on the socio-cultural theory and concepts of languaging, which refers to the process of making meaning and shaping knowledge through language (Swain, 2006), Lin and Wu (2015) illustrated how a science teacher engaged students in co-constructing some abstract scientific concepts, in both L1 and L2. In European CLIL research, Dalton-Puffer (2007) and Nikula (2007) also adopted the IRF triadic framework to examine functions of teacher and student talk, and how students negotiated their identities, while Morton (2010) and Morton and Jakonen’s (2016) conversation analysis revealed how teachers and students constructed knowledge through turn-by-turn analyses. Regardless of the theoretical underpinnings of these classroom discourse studies or the educational settings examined, two important observations were common to all these studies. First, interacting in an L2 in content subject lessons tends to involve some difficulties for both teachers and students, and hence they need to adopt some other strategies to tackle them. Secondly, teaching content subject in an L2 does not mean translating what one would do in L1 into L2; instead, it requires an extra set of knowledge and strategies related to L2 teaching and learning. As Dalton-Puffer (2013) noted, content and language integrated teaching is not a theoretical question, but a pedagogical one. Hence, recent CLIL classroom discourse research has paid more attention to content and language and whether it is or can be integrated into lessons (e.g., Nikula et al., 2016; Lo, Lin & Cheung, 2018).

The findings of this process-oriented body of research in CLIL raise an important question related to CLIL teacher preparation and professional development. With the rapid spread of CLIL in different parts of the world, there have been concerns about whether and how teachers are prepared, both psychologically and pedagogically, for CLIL teaching (Bonnet & Breidbach, 2017; Lyster & Ruiz de Zarobe, 2018). Undoubtedly, as with the implementation of CLIL, there are different training programmes for CLIL teachers in different educational contexts. However, it should be noted that a large number of CLIL teachers are, in fact, content subject