1
LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF
TWO CLIL CLASSROOMS IN SPAIN:
RESULTS FROM WRITTEN AND SPOKEN DATA
Anne McCabe (Saint Louis University, Madrid Campus)
Ana Llinares, Rachel Whittaker
(Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)
Tom Morton (Birkbeck College, University of London)
Thanks to high school teachers Marcela Fernández (IES Profesor Máximo Trueba)
and Clara Mimbrera and Juan Carlos Frías (IES Joaquín Araujo)
This research has been/is funded by the Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid, the UAM
and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology (09/SHD/017105, CCG06UAM/HUM-0544, CCG07-UAM/HUM-1790, FFI2010-20790/FILO).
2
UAM-CLIL PROJECT
Data: spoken and written production on a topic from the social science
syllabus in 2 state secondary schools:
2005/2006
2006/2007
2007/2008
2008/2009
1º ESO students (12/13-year-olds)
2º ESO students (13/14-year-olds)
3º ESO students (14/15-year-olds)
4º ESO students (15/16-year-olds)
Spoken and written tasks: (@ 22 students average per group/school/year)
1.
End-of-topic group session + whole-class discussion
2.
Composition
3.
Individual interviews (6 students per school)
http://uam-clil.com
3
UAM-CLIL PROJECT: PROMPTS
YEAR 1 : We have been studying the origins of ancient civilizations. Explain why
they started in the places where they did, and how they developed. Include information
on the characteristics of ancient civilizations, why they were so important at that
time and compare them with present day society.
YEAR 2: We have been studying Feudal Europe. What were the characteristics of
rural life in feudal Europe? Refer to the obligations and rights of the peasants. Why did
cities grow? Compare them with the city where you live today. What were the
causes and consequences of the plague?
YEAR 3: Write a composition about “The Modern State: Strong and Weak Monarchs;
Economy and Society”. Make sure you include the following ideas: Describe the
evolution of Philip II and whether you think he was a good or a bad monarch and
why. Focus on how mercantilism influenced economic activity and compare the
way rich and poor people lived at that time and how they live today. Evaluate the
impact of European nations on indigenous civilizations
YEAR 4: Write a composition about the First World War. Try to include the following
ideas: Explain why WWI broke out and in what ways it was different from previous
wars. Explain what happened during the war and why it came to an end. Refer to the
consequences of the Treaty of Versailles and justify whether you agree with its terms
or not.
4
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
• Work on genre and register in educational contexts (eg. Christie
2002; Christie and Martin 1997; Rothery 1994; Veel 2006; McCabe et al, 2007;
Whittaker et al, 2006); analysis of the language of history in L1
contexts (Coffin 2000, 2006a, b; Groom 2004, Veel and Coffin 1996)
• Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004)
• Study of language choice in context: focus on meaning
• Metafunctions: all texts (no matter the mode)
• depict/enact/display/explain some content, whether real, fictional, physical,
mental experience: = Ideational metafunction
• establish and maintain social roles and relationships AND express attitudes
towards content = Interpersonal metafunction
• sequence the first two metafunctions into coherent wholes = Textual
metafunction
5
UAM-CLIL PROJECT: PHASES
Phase I
Phase II
Phase III
Ideational
Function
Textual
Function
Interpersonal
Function
Spoken and written language performance
Lexico-grammatical + Pragmatic/Discursive Features
http://uam-clil.com
6
IDEATIONAL METAFUNCTION
1. Process types: (material, relational, mental, verbal, behavioural, existential)
a. Geography texts: more material, or active, processes
b. History texts: more relational, or stative, processes
Learners: used appropriate language for content
a. construct geography around natural events which occur
and have effects
b. construct history around a description of civilizations at a
particular moment, and human activities then and now.
2. Nominal group complexity: tended to rely more on clauses
(because some cities separated), rather than phrases
(because of the separation of cities), to express
circumstances: L1 writer cohort use nominalizations to
express circumstances, a resource which needs more
development in the L2.
7
TEXTUAL METAFUNCTION:
Successful identification + tracking (Martin & Rose, 2003)
Beginning a composition:
Present
Presume
Feudalism in Europe was a very important historic moment.
Europe grew and new countries were found.
Many people lived in rural places. These people worked
the lands. They lived in small houses in villages near to
forests.
NOM: INF
<CA-T3-30>
8
TEXTUAL METAFUNCTION: FINDINGS
• Across modes:
• little difference in findings of positioning of presenting and presuming
• however, written texts use more variety of tracking devices, including
inference, topic reference and textual reference.
• In writing:
• demonstrated proper positioning of given and new participants
• however, writers did at times miscue the reader, e.g. by presenting new
participants as given
• Development:
• miscues diminished over the four years
• reference through nominal, as opposed to pronominal, means increased
• by year 4, students were using more presuming reference in later positions in
the clause, demonstrating greater development of ideas.
• greater amount of direct reference to something in the text = increase in
cohesion
• decrease in reference to situational context (1st and 2nd person pronouns)
Resources for participant identification and tracking are a part of the linguistic
system which can be explicitly focused on through subject
INTERPERSONAL METAFUNCTION
APPRAISAL Theory in SFL
• Halliday’s Interpersonal Metafunction (Halliday & Matthiessen,
2004), developed by Martin and White in Appraisal Theory
(eg. Martin 2000, Martin & White 2005)
• ATTITUDE is concerned with feelings, either construing
emotional reactions (AFFECT), assessing people’s
behaviour (JUDGEMENT) or valuing things (APPRECIATION).
• ENGAGEMENT has to do with sourcing attitudes and the
play of voices around opinions in discourse.
• GRADUATION has to do with grading phenomena, either
through softening or sharpening (FOCUS) or through
intensification or amount (FORCE).
10
APPRAISAL: ANALYSIS
historical
recount
historical
argument
well, the reign of Philip the second eh pass
three stages that was first ah.. Spain live
years of crisis, later there were a triumph and
finally the decline the decline of Spain
I'll start talking about the monarch Phillip II.
Phillip II was the monarch of Spain,
in his saverenies reing past 3 important steps:
first, Spain live years of Crisis, 2nd triumph
and finally the Decline of Spain.
biographical recount
Some say
that he was a bad monarch
and others he was good,
but in my opinion I think
is both.
historical
We can see that
argument
he was a bad monarch
because he left a lot of people fighting against
because eh.. he thinks that the Spaniards
England,
should..
also because he doesn't let spaniars study in
foreign universities,
because he think that the Spaniards should but in the other hand he conquered the New
study and stay in Spain but also I think it
Lands (the Americas)
's good because he conquer a lot of new
lands such as the Americas and.. and also and created 'La Armada Española'
he create the Armada Espa– ñola that was
very powerful that was very pow- very
that at the beginning was very good.
powerful and fight with a lot of countries
but he the Armada eh le- no that doesn't
win against the Englands
I think both because he.. he was a bad
monarch monarch because he.. he.. he left
a lot of people eh.. fighting against the..
England but.. and also because he don't let
the Spaniards eh.. study in foreign
universities.
APPRAISAL: SOME FINDINGS
• Development over the four years
• discipline-appropriate use of AFFECT in year 4: e.g. countries
presented as Emoters, e.g. when Germany wanted to expand
• countries as participants are targets of JUDGEMENT, and their
behaviour is evaluated positively or negatively.
• more expressions of SOCIAL ESTEEM (e.g. the king at that time was
very very powerful) in Years 1 and 2 (= horizontal discourse)
• in later years: more expressions of SOCIAL SANCTION (e.g. he was
arrogant, they were a little bit unfair) = historical argument.
• Year 4: greater use of tokens of SOCIAL VALUATION = a more
dispassionate recorder voice when writing historical accounts
• ENGAGEMENT: = more EXPANSION in later years (ATTRIBUTE, ENTERTAIN)
• higher use of ENGAGEMENT in small group interaction
• more FORCE (with expressions such as very or extremely) than FOCUS
(through expressions like really or something like that) in both
contexts, but FOCUS emerges only in small group interaction.
CONCLUSIONS
• the choices from the systems adequate with respect to the prompts,
which demonstrates the importance of prompt design in CLIL contexts
• the systemic-functional perspective on CLIL learner language allows
for study of both the language and the content represented through it,
from an integrated perspective.
• this can help CLIL teachers explain their students’ achievement in
linguistic terms, and in relation to the demands of different school
disciplines
Some references & project publications
13
Alexander, R. (2008). Towards Dialogic Teaching: Rethinking Classroom Talk (4th ed.). York: Dialogos.
Bernstein, B. (1999) Vertical and horizontal discourse: an essay. British Journal of Sociology of Education 20/2: 157-173.
Christie, F. (2002). The development of abstraction in adolescence in subject English. In M. Schleppegrell & C. Colombi (Eds.)
Developing advanced literacy in first and second languages (pp. 45-66). Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Christie, F. (2010). The ontogenesis of writing in childhood and adolescence. The Routledge international handbook of language,
literacy and language teaching (pp. 146-158). Oxon, U.K. and New York: Routledge
Coffin, C. (2000) Defending and challenging interpretations of the past: the role of argument in school history. Revista Canaria
Estudios Ingleses 40: 135-153.
Coffin, C. (2006) Learning the language of school history: the role of linguistics in mapping the writing demands of the secondary
school curriculum. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 38/4:, 413-429.
Goom, B. (2004) An analysis of a children’s history text. En J. Foley (ed.) Language, Education and Discourse (pp. 120- 142). London:
Continuum.
Halliday, M.A.K. (1989). Spoken and written language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Halliday, M.A.K. & Hasan, R. (1976) Cohesion in English. London: Longman.
Hallliday,, M.A.K. & C. M. Matthiessen (2004) An Introduction to Functional Grammar. 3rd ed. revised by C.M. Matthiessen. London:
Arnold.
Llinares, A., Dafouz, E, & R. Whittaker (2007) A linguistic analysis of compositions written by Spanish learners of social sciences in
CLIL contexts. In Wolff. D. & Marsh, D. (eds.) Diverse Contexts, Converging Goals. Content and Language Integrated Learning
in Europe. Volume 4: Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
Llinares, A. & T. Morton (2010) Historical explanations as situated practice in Content and Language Integrated Learning. Classroom
Discourse 1/1: 65-84.
Llinares García, A. & R. Whittaker (2006) Oral and written production in social science in Vienna English Working Papers, 15/3: 28-32.
Llinares Garcia, A. & R. Whittaker (2007) Talking and writing in the social sciences in a foreign language: a linguistic analysis of
secondary school learners of geography and history. In Lorenzo, F, S. Casal, V. de Alba & P. Moore (eds.) Content and Language
Integrated Learning: Methods and Practice (pp. 83-91). Logroño, Spain: RESLA.
14
Llinares Garcia, A. & R. Whittaker (2009) Teaching and learning history in secondary CLIL classrooms: from speaking to writing. In
Dafouz, E. & M. Guerrini (eds.) CLIL Across Educational Levels: Experiences from Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Contexts
(pp. 73-89). London/Madrid : Richmond/Santillana.
Llinares, A. & R. Whittaker (2010) Writing and speaking in the history class: data from CLIL and first language contexts. In DaltonPuffer, C. T. Nikula & U. Smit (eds) Language Use in Content-and-Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). AILA Applied
linguistic series (AALS). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishers.
Llinares, A. & R. Whittaker (2011) Functions of language in CLIL secondary classes: a systemic functional approach. In Escobar, C y
L. Nussbaum (eds.) Learning in a Different Language. Barcelona: U. Autónoma de Barcelona.
Martin, J.R. & P. White (2005) The Language of Evaluation. Appraisal in English. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave.
Martin, J.R. & Rose, D. (2003) Working with discourse. London: Continuum
McCabe, A.., M. O’Donnell and R. Whittaker (eds) (2007) Language and Literacy. Functional Approaches. London:
Continuum.
Mercer, N. (2000) Words and Minds: How We Use Language to Think Together. London: Routledge.
Morton, T. (2009) Integrating language and content in secondary CLIL history: the potential of a genre-based approach. In CarrioPastor et al (eds) Content and Language Integrated Learning: Cultural Diversity. Bern: Peter Lang
Morton, T. (2010) Using a genre-based approach to integrating content and language in CLIL: the example of secondary history. In
Dalton-Puffer, C., T. Nikula, & U. Smit (Eds) Language Use In Content-and-Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). Amsterdam:
John Benjamins.
Rothery, J. (1994) Exploring Literacy in School English. Write it Right Project. Erskineville: Disadvantaged Schools Program,
Department of School Education.
Veel, R. & Coffin, C. (1996) Learning to think like an historian: the language of secondary school history. In R. Hasan & G. Williams
(Eds) Literacy in Society (pp. 191-231). London: Longman.
Whittaker, R. (2010) Using SFL in Content and Language Integrated Learning. National Association for Language Development in the
Curriculum Special Issue: Learning language, learning through language and learning about language: the contribution of
Systemic Functional Linguistics.
15
Whittaker, R & A. Llinares Garcia (2009) CLIL in social science classrooms: analysis of spoken and written productions. In Y. Ruiz
de Zarobe & R. M. Jiménez Catalán (eds.) Content and Language Integrated Learning. Evidence from Research in Europe (pp.
215-234). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Whittaker, R., A. Llinares & A. McCabe (2011) Written discourse development in CLIL at secondary school. In Roy
Lyster & Susan Ballinger (eds.) Content-Based Language Teaching: Convergent Concerns Across Divergent
Contexts Special issue of Language Teaching Research.
Whittaker, R. M. O’Donnell and A. McCabe (eds) (2006) Language and Literacy. Functional Approaches. London: Continuum.