Content & Language Integrated Learning & immersion classrooms
| Date of Approval: | April 2006 |
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| Website (URL): | http://www.ichm.org/clil/ |
Description
This ReN aims at providing much needed applied linguistic (empirical and methodological) insights into the interactional processes of classrooms where the teaching and learning of curricular content happens in and through foreign or second languages. Such programmes are known by various labels: CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning; Marsh and Marsland (eds.) 1999), foreign language immersion education (Snow 1998) or, in case the medium of instruction is a second language, CBI (Content-based Instruction, Snow and Brinton 1997). We have chosen ‘CLIL’ because it gives equal weight to the two components that define this educational model: content and language.
CLIL is a very topical matter as this educational practice enjoys widespread and increasing popularity in many parts of the world (e.g. Davies 2003, Crawford 2001; Ammon 2002; Marsh, Ontero & Shikongo 2002) and at all levels of education (primary, secondary and tertiary).
The focus of the ReN is envisaged as complementary to already available research in this area which has mainly been concerned with language learning outcomes on the one hand (Swain and Lapkin 1998; Wode 1995) and content subject pedagogy on the other (e.g. Wells 1999, Wildhage & Otten 2003). What has received little attention so far (e.g. Duff 1995) are descriptions of what actually happens when students and teachers communicate on curricular topics in a language which is not their L1 (but see Duff 1995). The ReN will provide new information on this ‘missing link’. The findings will be highly relevant in two ways: first they will examine ongoing language learning processes; second they will explore the complex yet crucial role/s language plays in collaborative knowledge construction, which is mirrored in the range of disciplinary affiliations among the ReN participants (see 5.ii).
The ReN participants do not only span the breadth of disciplines necessary for the research topic (educational, applied linguistic and classroom-based discourse analysis of various types), they have also already carried out empirical research focused on naturalistic classroom data on a range of educational, social and cultural contexts world-wide. As the individual investigations have delivered interesting results with a large potential for exchange and cross-fertilization, a research forum like the proposed ReN will provide the necessary basis for a fruitful interdisciplinary coordination of research endeavours, insightful exchange of findings and dissemination of results.
Convener(s)
Ms. Ute Smit
| Position: | senior lecturer |
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| Affiliation: | University of Vienna |
| e-mail: | ute.smit@univie.ac.at |
Ms. Christiane Dalton-Puffer
| Position: | assoc. prof. |
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| Affiliation: | University of Vienna |
| e-mail: | christiane.dalton-puffer@univie.ac.at |
Ms. Tarja Nikula
| Position: | research fellow |
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| Affiliation: | Academy of Finland & University of Jyväskylä |
| e-mail: | tnikula@campus.jyu.fi |
Publications
C. Dalton-Puffer and T. Nikula (eds.) 2006. Current research on CLIL. Special issue of VIEWS (Vienna English Working Papers), to be downloaded from: http://www.univie.ac.at/Anglistik/ang_new/online_papers/views/current.htm
C. Dalton-Puffer and U. Smit (eds.) 2007. Empirical perspectives on CLIL classroom discourse. Frankfurt etc.: Peter Lang.
Tri-Annual Report
due 2008/09