Teaching Language and Content in Multicultural and Multilingual Classrooms: CLIL and EMI Approaches 9783030566142, 9783030566159

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Teaching Language and Content in Multicultural and Multilingual Classrooms CLIL and EMI Approaches Edited by María Luisa Carrió-Pastor · Begoña Bellés-Fortuño

Teaching Language and Content in Multicultural and Multilingual Classrooms

María Luisa Carrió-Pastor · Begoña Bellés-Fortuño Editors

Teaching Language and Content in Multicultural and Multilingual Classrooms CLIL and EMI Approaches

Editors María Luisa Carrió-Pastor Departamento de Lingüística Aplicada Universitat Politècnica de València Valencia, Spain

Begoña Bellés-Fortuño English Studies Department Jaume I University Castellón, Spain

ISBN 978-3-030-56614-2 ISBN 978-3-030-56615-9 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56615-9

(eBook)

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

Introduction Begoña Bellés-Fortuño Part I

1

CLIL and EMI

CLIL vs EMI: Different Approaches or the Same Dog with a Different Collar? María Luisa Carrió-Pastor

13

“How Do I Find the Limit?”: Risk Management in EMI and CLIL at University Monika Wo´zniak and Fiona Crean

31

Part II

English as a Medium of Instruction

EMI Lecturers’ and Students’ Perceptions: Can EMI Contribute to Enhancing Intercultural Competence? Marta Aguilar-Pérez

65

v

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Contents

Focus on Language in CBI: How Teacher Trainees Work with Language Objectives and Language-Focused Activities in Content-Based Lessons Anna Krulatz Understanding Lecturers’ Practices and Processes: A Qualitative Investigation of English-Medium Education in a Spanish Multilingual University Niall Curry and Pascual Pérez-Paredes

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123

The Challenges of EMI Courses in Armenian Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) Zhenya Ter-Vardanyan

157

Improving Second Language Writing Across the Disciplines: Resources for Content Teachers Renia López-Ozieblo

191

Part III

Content and Language Integrated Learning

CLIL and Literary Education: Teaching Foreign Languages and Literature from an Intercultural Perspective—The Results of a Case Study Josep Ballester-Roca and Camilla Spaliviero

225

Meta-CLIL: When Methodology and Aim Meet in Initial Teacher Training Anna Marzà

253

CLIL Assessment: Accommodating the Curricular Design in HE Begoña Bellés-Fortuño

293

Contents

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Essential Framework for Planning CLIL Lessons and Teachers’ Attitudes Toward the Methodology Francisco J. Álvarez-Gil

315

Thinking Skills in Exam Models for CLIL Primary Subjects: Some Reflections for Teachers María Ángeles Martín-del Pozo and Débora Rascón-Estébanez

339

Concluding Remarks on Teaching Language and Content in Multilingual Classrooms: CLIL and EMI Approaches María Luisa Carrió-Pastor

369

Index

375

Notes on Contributors

Marta Aguilar-Pérez is a lecturer at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Her recent research has focused on ESP/EAP and on foreign language education in multilingual classrooms within the internationalization trends in higher education. Francisco J. Álvarez-Gil is a lecturer of English language and linguistics in the Departmento de Filología Moderna, Traducción e Interpretación. Josep Ballester-Roca Professor in the Department of Language and Literature Pedagogy at the Universitat de València (Spain). His research focuses on aspects of reading, literary and intercultural education in multilingual contexts. Begoña Bellés-Fortuño, Ph.D. is a senior lecturer in the Department of English Studies at Universitat Jaume I, Spain, where she lectures English Studies degree students as well as in the degree of Medicine. María Luisa Carrió-Pastor is a professor of English language and the head of the Applied Linguistics Department at Universitat Politècnica

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Notes on Contributors

de València. She is the Coordinator of the Ph.D. program “Languages, Literatures, Cultures and their Applications”. Fiona Crean is a lecturer in Infant and Primary Education and a CLIL Teacher Trainer. She graduated from the University of Zaragoza in Spanish Philology and has a Postgraduate Diploma in Plurilingual Education from the University of Aberdeen. Niall Curry is a lecturer at University of Coventry, he obtained a Ph.D. in Linguistics in January 2020. Débora Rascón-Estébanez is a primary school teacher, part time lecturer. She is a researcher on CLIL, children’s literature and active methodologies. Anna Krulatz is Professor in the Department of Teacher Edu-cation at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway. Renia López-Ozieblo is a L2 teacher and researcher and has been involved in a number of L2 related funded projects, including “Supporting Professional Development, Pedagogy & Language for Curriculum Learning”, the project under which this study was conducted. María Ángeles Martín-del Pozo is M.Sc. Computer Applications in Education, M.Phil. English Linguistics and a researcher on CLIL, EMI, teacher training and language didactics. Anna Marzà holds a Ph.D. in Audiovisual translation. In the Department of Pedagogy, Social Sciences and Language and Literature Didactics of the Universitat Jaume I, she lectures in Teaching of English as a Foreign Language and Integrated Language Teaching. Pascual Pérez-Paredes is a professor at University of Murcia, he also collaborates with the University of Cambridge. Camilla Spaliviero is a Ph.D. student at the Department of Linguistics and Comparative Cultural Studies of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (Italy).

Notes on Contributors

xi

Zhenya Ter-Vardanyan has focused on developing business communication skills for Armenian students. Currently, her research mainly focuses on language teaching methodology, investigation of CLIL and EMI practices in Armenian, Spanish and Swedish contexts. Monika Wo´zniak graduated from the University of Gda´nsk with a Master’s degree in English Philology and earned her European Ph.D. at the University of Jaén.

List of Figures

Focus on Language in CBI: How Teacher TraineesWork with Language Objectives and Language-Focused Activities in Content-Based Lessons Fig. 1

Types of language demands

107

Understanding Lecturers’ Practices and Processes: A Qualitative Investigation of English-Medium Education in a Spanish Multilingual University Fig. 1

Percentages of HE students worldwide (OECD 2020)

127

The Challenges of EMI Courses in Armenian Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) Fig. 1

Perceived linguistic hierarchy of Armenia

163

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xiv

List of Figures

Improving Second Language Writing Across the Disciplines: Resources for Content Teachers Fig. 1 Fig. 2

Confidence levels pre and post writing instruction in the 2018 and 2019 cohorts Normalized compounded score differences between preand post- survey questions (Note The scales are different)

216 217

CLIL and Literary Education: Teaching Foreign Languages and Literature from an Intercultural Perspective—The Results of a Case Study Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 5

Model of literary and intercultural communicative competence Teachers’ answers to question one Teachers’ answers to question two Students’ answers to question three Students’ answers to question four

230 237 239 242 243

Meta-CLIL: When Methodology and Aim Meet in Initial Teacher Training Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4

Themes under “Background as English Learners” (% of cases) Distribution of categories under “Anxiety levels” (% of cases) Students’ qualification of their experience with English courses (in number of students) Methodology or teacher’s attitude helped reduce negative affective issues related to English (in number of students)

266 268 270 272

Essential Framework for Planning CLIL Lessons and Teachers’ Attitudes Toward the Methodology Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 5 Fig. 6

Bloom et al. (1956) and Anderson and Krathwohl (2001) Triptych approach developed by Coyle et al. (2010) Basic concepts put into practice by CLIL teachers Use of L1 during the lesson Content is affected when we use CLIL methodology The efficiency of the CLIL approach

323 324 331 332 333 334

List of Figures

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Thinking Skills in Exam Models for CLIL Primary Subjects: Some Reflections for Teachers Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 5 Fig. 6 Fig. 7 Fig. 8 Fig. 9 Fig. 10 Fig. 11 Fig. 12 Fig. 13

Comparison between the original taxonomy and its revision Example of a natural science exercise Example of a social science exercise Total results of the different categories in each textbook Total frequency of verbs Results of the category Remember Example of a Label exercise Example of a complete exercise Results of the category Understand Example of a Classify exercise Results of the category Apply Example of an exercise requiring the Calculate skill Example of a Create exercise

343 354 354 356 356 357 358 359 360 360 361 361 362

List of Tables

CLIL vs EMI: Different Approaches or the Same Dog with a Different Collar? Table 1

Differences and similarities between CLIL and EMI

24

“How Do I Find the Limit?”: Risk Management in EMI and CLIL at University Table 1

Faculties and degree programmes

41

EMI Lecturers’ and Students’ Perceptions: Can EMI Contribute to Enhancing Intercultural Competence? Table 1

Table 2 Table 3

Breakdown of lecturers, disciplines, experience, students surveyed, academic level courses offered, and percentage of international over national students in class Quantitative results of Part 1 of the survey (Intercultural Competence) Quantitative results of Part 2 the survey (Global Engagement)

73 77 80

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Table 4

List of Tables

Correlation in EMI students’ replies. Items that correlate with another item have a p-value < 0.05.

83

Focus on Language in CBI: How Teacher Trainees Work with Language Objectives and Language-Focused Activities in Content-Based Lessons Table 1 Table 2 Table 3 Table 4 Table 5

Language objectives: Coding categories (based on Lindahl and Watkins 2014) Self-report results Types of learner needs found in the language objectives Correspondence between language objectives and lesson activities Content based lesson: Grading criteria

106 107 108 109 118

The Challenges of EMI Courses in Armenian Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) Table 1 Table 2

CBE students’ expectations for choosing to take a degree in English Examples of CBE students’ experience of studying business subjects in English

167 168

Improving Second Language Writing Across the Disciplines: Resources for Content Teachers Table 1

Summary of findings from interviews

204

CLIL and Literary Education: Teaching Foreign Languages and Literature from an Intercultural Perspective—The Results of a Case Study Table 1

Participants in the research

233

Meta-CLIL: When Methodology and Aim Meet in Initial Teacher Training Table 1

Knowledge of Valencian among 15–24 year olds (Generalitat Valenciana 2016)

254

List of Tables

xix

CLIL Assessment: Accommodating the Curricular Design in HE Table 1 Table 2 Table 3 Table 4 Table 5 Table 6

Types of activities and hours distribution for the subject Networks and Mobile Devices Types of activities and hours distribution for the subject Software Engineering Workshop Competences and learning outcomes for the subject Networks and Mobile Devices Competences and learning outcomes for the subject of Software Engineering Software Assessment type in Networks and Mobile Devices Assessment type for Software Engineering Workshop

301 301 302 303 306 306

Essential Framework for Planning CLIL Lessons and Teachers’ Attitudes Toward the Methodology Table 1 Table 2

Example of CLIL module Example of activity

326 329

Thinking Skills in Exam Models for CLIL Primary Subjects: Some Reflections for Teachers Table 1 Table 2 Table 3 Table 4 Table 5 Table 6 Table 7 Table 8

HOTS and LOTS in Bloom’s taxonomy Category: Remember Category: Understand Category: Apply Category: Analyse Category: Evaluate Category: Create Corpus description

344 345 346 347 348 348 349 353

Introduction Begoña Bellés-Fortuño

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) has been largely studied over the past 30 years (Habermas 1984; Dalton-Puffer 2005; Barwell 2005; Ruiz de Zarobe 2007 among others) and is still attracting interest due to its methodological value in the learning of second or foreign languages around the world. Not without controversy, the term CLIL has always presented fuzzy boundaries regarding the notions of intercultural competence, multiple identities, language immersion, and multilingualism (Dalton-Puffer et al. 2014; Rea and Carbajosa 2014; Ruiz de Zarobe and Cenoz 2015). However, the truth is that the notion of CLIL has enhanced the innovation of classroom pedagogies in content subjects alongside with language learning. CLIL classes, although mostly beneficial, can also have some pedagogical negative effects (Cenoz et al. 2014). Oral interaction can be diminished on the part of students due to the degree of difficulty of the content (Brunton 2011, 2013); students’ self-esteem may be negatively B. Bellés-Fortuño (B) English Studies Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain © The Author(s) 2021 M. L. Carrió-Pastor and B. Bellés Fortuño (eds.), Teaching Language and Content in Multicultural and Multilingual Classrooms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56615-9_1

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affected if they have a low proficient level of the language used alongside teachers’ frustration when not properly trained for CLIL programmes (Seikkula-Leino 2007). CLIL views have been analysed and studied from different agents and views: policymakers, teacher education, classroom teaching, local institutional interests, and researchers. They have all tried to provide solutions and give advice and models of CLIL pedagogies for better content and language learning success in the classroom (Schleppegrell and de Olivera 2006; Teresa 2011; Dallinger et al. 2016). However, when it comes to teacher education or teacher training programmes, the literature is not so abundant. How do we measure the preparedness of teachers towards CLIL programmes as part of the curricula design? Does CLIL teacher training affect the way a lesson is delivered? These and other questions are addressed and discussed in this volume. Other aspects affecting CLIL pedagogies and their participants have to do with intercultural and multilingual issues. In the case of bilingual or multilingual communities, our interest rests on the identification of the features of multilingual programmes around the world; that is, are they all following the same standards? Should CLIL programmes be tailormade depending on whether they are conducted by and addressed to monolingual or bilingual participants? The fact is that in Spain, research on CLIL, although conducted in monolingual geographical areas such as Andalusia (Lorenzo 2008; Lorenzo et al. 2010), has been mostly prolific in bilingual and multilingual areas such as the Basque country (Ruiz de Zarobe 2007; Ruiz de Zarobe and Lasagabaster 2010), Galicia (San Isidro 2010) and Catalonia (Muñoz 2006), and is usually focused on secondary education level. On the other hand, we find the offspring of the already-coined concept English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI). This notion has, at the very least, confused many teachers and lecturers practising CLIL in their classrooms. Are CLIL and EMI rationales the same? Why use two different names for the same concept? Are CLIL and EMI perspectives different? Where can we find these differences? These two concepts are still unclear for some FL medium instruction participants (Cenoz et al. 2014; Cenoz 2015) and this is why some chapters in this volume try to shed some light on this controversy.

Introduction

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The proposed volume aims at delving into the real concept of CLIL to provide an authentic rationale of CLIL as opposed to other EMI practices (Arnó-Maciá and Mancho-Barés 2015; Piesche et al. 2016). The inclusion of CLIL pedagogies in curricula design can not be done exclusively regarding institutional feats, it also needs to take into consideration whether to make CLIL programmes mandatory or elective for both students and teachers. An analysis of students and teachers’ preparedness is necessary. Aspects such as the limited training of teachers and knowledge about FL teaching toned to be faced. Teacher training courses should be the first step before the inclusion of any CLIL programme in a curriculum design. Thus, the volume presented here is divided into three main parts, each of them embracing broad aspects of content-based teaching. Part I: CLIL and EMI (Chapters 2–3) Part II: English as a Medium of Instruction (Chapters 4–8) Part III: Content and Language Integrated Learning (Chapters 9–13) Part I is an attempt to shed some light on the sometimes blurred boundaries between the concepts of CLIL and EMI. Thus, after chapter one, “Introduction”, the second chapter, “CLIL vs EMI: Different Approaches or the Same Dog with a Different Collar?” by M. L. CarrióPastor describes the main differences between the two. The chapter starts with the definition of CLIL and the most relevant studies devoted to the application of this approach to teaching languages and content are described. Then, EMI is also defined and the most important research and findings related to this approach are also discussed. Moreover, the methodologies are compared and the results extracted from several studies are described with the aim of highlighting the differences between the methods and results of these two approaches of language learning. Finally, the differences and similarities between CLIL and EMI are discussed. Chapter three, “‘How Do I Find the Limit?’: Risk Management in EMI and CLIL at University” by M. Wo´zniak and F. Crean, tries to manage the risks associated with integrating English through EMI and CLIL in undergraduate degree programmes in Spain. The authors report on the results of a convenient sample of group interviews

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to lecturers with extensive experience of teaching through English. The results obtained show that despite the initial challenges, lecturers recognize the clear benefits of integrating English for the improvement of their teaching practice. However, the management risk factor under study seems to go far beyond the mere learning of content and is quite relevant in specific subjects; therefore, some doubts seem to arise as to whether an additional language and a more interactive pedagogy are implemented in far too rapidly and without taking into account benefits to the students in the long term. The fourth chapter opens the second part of the book with the question: “EMI Lecturers’ and Students’ Perceptions: Can EMI Contribute to Enhancing Intercultural Competence?” Here M. Aguilar explores local lecturers’ and students’ perceptions after having followed an EMI course at a Spanish university. The impact of the non-mobile internationalized context on the stakeholders’ intercultural competence is analysed, provided that both lecturers and students find themselves in multicultural classrooms. The analysis is carried out through a survey delivered to lecturers and students, where questions regarding components of intercultural competence were addressed. Later, lecturers were also interviewed in order to observe the differences in self-perceived gains in an internationalized context where personal factors play an important role. The author concludes by pointing out the potential of EMI to strengthen intercultural awareness and the need to re-evaluate the objectives of EMI in European universities. The following chapter by A. Krulatz (Chapter 5) takes into account the teacher training perspective, considering content-based instruction (CBI) and CLIL the same approaches. With the title “Focus on Language in CBI: How Teacher Trainees Work with Language Objectives and Language-Focused Activities in Content-Based Lessons”, the paper examines to what extent teacher trainees who have received instruction in pedagogical linguistics incorporate language learning in CBI lessons. The author analyses teacher’s self-reports, focusing on their beliefs about the frequency with which they incorporate various facets of language knowledge in CBI. Although findings seem to coincide with previous research (Fortune et al. 2008; Regalla 2012) and relevant patterns were not found, it is worth pointing out that this study reveals a certain priority towards

Introduction

5

language objectives, especially related to vocabulary acquisition, as well as the accommodation of language-focused activities to reach CBI learning objectives. The next chapter “Understanding Lectures’ Practices and Processes: A Qualitative Investigation of English-Medium Education in a Spanish Multilingual University” highlights the complexity of applying for EMI programmes in multilingual universities. The authors, N. Curry and P. Pérez-Paredes, survey 42 EMI lecturers with issues regarding the development and construction of knowledge in the EMI context; they also conduct focus groups and interviews with 24 of these lecturers. The aim is to examine lecturers’ understanding of the roles of English and their beliefs about learning in EMI. The results obtained shed light on the EMI lecturer’s roles in the classroom and propose support and training to ameliorate EMI practices. Chapter 7, “The Challenges of EMI Courses in Armenian Higher Education Institutions (HEIS)” by Z. Ter-Vardanyan, reviews EMI methodologies in higher education institutions in post-Soviet countries such as Armenia. The study aims to analyse students’ and teachers’ attitudes towards EMI courses in the discipline of Business and Economics using interviews. The author concludes by giving suggestions and possible guidelines on how to improve and enhance EMI course curricula in the Business field. This part closes with Chapter 8, “Improving Second Language Writing Across the Disciplines: Resources for Content Teachers”. This chapter, along with the previous one, is an attempt to improve EMI course curricula and provide resources for teachers. The author, R. López-Ozieblo, identifies, by means of interviews and workshops, several key features of academic writing that could easily be transferred to content teachers. Following an adapted version of the teaching and learning cycle (Callaghan and Rothery 1988), a series of writing instruction modules are developed. Results show that the students’ writing confidence increased and some of the language features taught were included in their written production. One of the main practical outcomes of this paper is the production of videos as teaching materials for content teachers. Part III of the book encompasses CLIL teaching practices both in HE and primary and secondary schools with the firm purpose of improving day-to-day class practices and helping CLIL teachers succeed in their

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endeavour. Some of the chapters included in this part deal with the difficulties and idiosyncrasies of multilingual classrooms in regions where more than one language is official. Chapter 9 opens this part with the title “CLIL and Literary Education: Teaching Foreign Languages and Literatures from an Intercultural Perspective—The Results of a Case Study”, delves into the use of literature in CLIL methodologies. The authors, J. Ballester-Roca and C. Spaliviero, support the idea of CLIL combined with literary education as a means of improving stylistic, historical and intercultural content in FL teaching and learning. The chapter is an attempt to firstly introduce a model of literary and intercultural communicative competence and later to present a case study implemented in three secondary schools in northern Italy. The qualitative research presented includes 13 foreign language and literature teachers and 180 students aged 16–18; the main aim is to observe how foreign literature is taught from an intercultural perspective and to analyse students’ perceptions. The relevant insights of this chapter stay on how teachers focus on the intercultural dimension of literature only in terms of the expansion of the literary canon whereas students appreciate this dimension when it involves interpreting the texts through debates with their peers. The next chapter, “Meta-CLIL: When Methodology and Aim Meet in Initial Teacher Training”. This chapter, written by A. Marzà, is an attempt to provide future Early Education teachers with essential tools to implement CLIL in a multilingual context where the subject is taught in English to a Spanish/Catalan bilingual audience. Through researcher-trainer class observation, tools such as questionnaires addressed to students and the analysis of linguistics autobiographies, the author aims at contributing to the quality standards of CLIL training as well as providing strategies for linguistic policies in the Valencian bilingual region. Chapter 11 that follows, written by B. Bellés-Fortuño, addresses the accommodation of content curricular design to CLIL practices at universities, more specifically in the field of Computer Science. With the title “CLIL Assessment: Accommodating the Curricular Design in HE”, the author invites the reader to reflect on a team-teaching approach where both content and language teachers have to work handin-hand. She states that a dual focus should be taken into consideration

Introduction

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when developing a CLIL syllabus and the teaching goals, the developed competences and the reached objectives need to take into account both content learning and language acquisition goals. The chapter revises controversial issues regarding assessment in CLIL practices to keep a fair balance between language and content evaluation. Chapter 12, “Essential Framework for Planning CLIL Lessons and Teachers’ Attitudes Toward the Methodology”, compares the results obtained in CLIL methodologies when the course is delivered by either trained or non-trained teachers in CLIL practices. The author, F. Alvarez-Gil, advocates the need for teacher training courses in CLIL methodologies since they would guarantee that the teaching objectives are met. To carry out the analysis, a survey was delivered to some primary schools on the island of Gran Canaria (Spain) with the goal of finding evidence of CLIL teacher training. The materials used in class are also analysed as well as the performance of students in their final grades. The last chapter in this part is “Thinking Skills in Exam Models for CLIL Primary Subjects: Some Reflections for Teachers”. The authors, M. A. Martín-del Pozo and D. Rascón-Estébanez, also address CLIL methodologies in primary school. They examine the challenges of CLIL methodologies in the classroom regarding the maximization of content learning, language learning, and content competence acquisition. Although they assume that all factors in the teaching process are relevant, this is, teachers, methods, classroom interaction, and materials, assessment is probably one of the most controversial and challenging traits. A corpus of 30 exam models was gathered, including subjects such as Social Science and Natural Science. The questions and tasks were classified following the categories in Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy (BRT) (Anderson and Krathwohl 2001), which includes six levels of complexity: remember, understand, apply, analyse, evaluate, and create. Some relevant results show that the most assessed thinking skills in the analysed exams correspond to the remember and understand categories in BRT. Some possible ways to reconsider CLIL methodology in the light of assessment tasks are finally provided, along with some recommendations of the importance of implementing HOTS (highorder thinking skills) and how the teaching of low-order thinking skills (LOTS) may be expanded to the teaching of HOTS. The last chapter,

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“Concluding Remarks on Teaching Language and Content in Multilingual Classrooms: CLIL and EMI Approaches”, highlights that the volume is a matter of interest for researchers and teachers as the chapters of the book show the implementation of new methods to teach specific uses of English in different countries and contexts. All in all, the volume explores diverse topics related to CLIL and EMI pedagogies: Teacher education, teacher training programmes, student preparedness for CLIL programmes, curricula design, CLIL in bilingual/multilingual communities, and current CLIL and EMI policies in Europe and around the world, among other subsequent topics. This introduction revisits the study of CLIL and EMI, presenting a rationale for the subject and reviewing existing terminology. The chapters gathered in this volume are an attempt to generate a progressive continuum along primary, secondary, and higher education levels as regards CLIL and EMI programmes. Educational institutions worldwide should not deviate from their main educational goal of offering adequate standards of instruction in their L1 to, on a second instance; prepare the educational community to take on new pedagogical experiences that imply an FL medium across part of the curriculum. This book intends to offer the pedagogical community practical insights; it seeks to be a guide to follow, with updated information on a number of aspects concerning the implementation of CLIL and EMI programmes in education. The editors’ purpose is to present a volume that proves an updated reflection on the whole educational scenario as far as CLIL and EMI is concerned. Acknowledgements AORG/2016/68. Conselleria de Educación, Investigación, Cultura y Deporte de la Generalitat Valenciana, Spain.

References Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives (Complete ed.). New York: Longman.

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Arnó-Macià, E., & Mancho-Barés, G. (2015). The role of content and language integrated learning (CLIL) at university: Challenges and implications for ESP. English for Specific Purposes, 37, 63–73. Barwell, R. (2005). Critical issues for language and content in mainstream classrooms: Introductions. Linguistics and Education, 16, 143–150. Brunton, A. (2011). Is CLIL so beneficial, or just selective? Re-evaluating some of the research. System, 39, 523–532. Brunton, A. (2013). CLIL: Some of the reasons why… and why not. System, 41, 587–597. Callaghan, M., & Rothery, J. (1988). Teaching factual writing: A genre based approach. Marrickville, NSW: DSP Literacy Project, Metropolitan East Region. Cenoz, J. (2015). Content-based instruction and content and language integrated learning: The same or different? Language, Culture and Curriculum, 28(1), 8–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/07908318.2014.1000922. Cenoz, J., Genesee, F., & Gorter, D. (2014). Critical analysis of CLIL. Taking stock and looking forward. Applied Linguistics, 35 (3), 243–262. https://doi. org/10.1093/applin/amt011. Dallinger, S., Jonkmann, K., Hollm, J., & Fiege, C. (2016). The effect of content and language integrated learning on students’ English and history competences—Killing two birds with one stone? Learning and Instruction, 41, 23–31. Dalton-Puffer, C. (2005). Negotiating interpersonal meanings in naturalistic classroom discourse: Directives in content-and-language-integrated classrooms. Journal of Pragmatics, 37, 1275–1293. Dalton-Puffer, C., Llinares, A., Lorenzo, F. & Nikula, T. (2014). “You can stand under my umbrella”: Immersion, CLIL and bilingual education. A response to Cenoz, Genesee & Gorter (2013). Applied Linguistics, 35 (2), 213–218. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amu010. Fortune, T. W., Tedick, D. J., & Walker, C. L. (2008). Integrated language and content teaching: Insights from the language immersion classroom: Evolving perspectives on immersion education. In T. W. Fortune & D. J. Tedick (Eds.), Pathways to multilingualism: Evolving perspectives on immersion education (pp. 71–96). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters Ltd. Habermas, J. (1984). The theory of communicative action, vol. 1: Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Boston: Beacon Press. Lorenzo, F. (2008). Instructional discourse in bilingual settings. An empirical study of linguistic adjustments in content and language integrated learning. Language Learning Journal, 36 (1), 21–33.

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Lorenzo, F., Casal, S., & Moore, P. (2010). The effects of content and language integrated learning in European education: Key findings from the Andalusian sections evaluation project. Applied Linguistics, 31, 418–442. https:// doi.org/10.1093/applin/amp041. Muñoz, C. (2006). Accuracy orders, rate of learning and age in morphological acquisition. In C. Muñoz (Ed.), Age and the rate of foreign language learning (pp. 107–126). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Piesche, N., Jonkmann, K., Fiege, C., & Kessler, J.-U. (2016). CLIL for all? A randomised controlled field experiment with sixth-grade students on the effects of content and language integrated science learning. Learning and Instruction, 44, 108–116. Rea, C., & Carbajosa, N. (2014). CLIL teacher training at the UPCT: Present and future within EHEA. REDU: Revista de Docencia Universitaria, 12(4), 377–393. Regalla, M. (2012). Language objectives: More than just vocabulary. TESOL Journal, 3(2), 210–230. https://doi.org/10.1002/tesj.15. Ruiz de Zarobe, Y. (2007). CLIL in a bilingual community: Similarities and differences with learning English as a foreign language. View[z], 16 (3), 47– 52. Ruiz de Zarobe, Y., & Lasagabaster, D. (2010). CLIL in a bilingual community: The Basque autonomous community. In D. Lasagabaster & Y. Ruiz de Zarobe (Eds.), CLIL in Spain: Implementation, results and teacher training (pp. 12–29). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Ruiz de Zarobe, Y., & Cenoz, J. (2015). Way forward in the twentyfirst century in content-based instruction: Moving towards integration. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 28(1), 8–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 07908318.2014.1000927. San Isidro, X. (2010). An insight into Galician CLIL: Provision and results. In D. Lasagabaster & Y. Ruiz de Zarobe (Eds.), CLIL in Spain: Implementation, results and teacher training (pp. 12–29). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Schleppegrell, M., & de Olivera, L. C. (2006). An integrated language and content approach for history teachers. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 5, 254–268. Seikkula-Leino, J. (2007). CLIL learning: Achievement levels and affective factors. Language and Education, 21(4), 328–341. Teresa, Y. L. (2011). CLIL… not only immersion but also more than the sum of its parts. ELT Journal, 65 (3), 314–317. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ ccro26.

Part I CLIL and EMI

CLIL vs EMI: Different Approaches or the Same Dog with a Different Collar? María Luisa Carrió-Pastor

1

Introduction

This chapter takes into consideration the fact that the way English is being taught has undergone a massive change internationally. It can be observed that English language teaching has changed from teaching English as a foreign language (EFL), then teaching English for Specific Purposes (ESP), after that, Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and, finally, to using English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI). In my view, ESP, CLIL and EMI are based on Content-based Instruction (CBI), an umbrella term that describes classrooms where “students are taught academic content in a language they are still learning” (Lightbown 2014: 3). The author of chapter “Focus on Language in CBI: How Teacher Trainees Work with Language Objectives and Language-Focused M. L. Carrió-Pastor (B) Departamento de Lingüística Aplicada, Universitat Politècnica de València, Valencia, Spain e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 M. L. Carrió-Pastor and B. Bellés Fortuño (eds.), Teaching Language and Content in Multicultural and Multilingual Classrooms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56615-9_2

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Activities in Content-Based Lessons” in this volume adds more information about CBI, as this approach may be considered the precursor of ESP, CLIL and EMI. It should be noted that ESP is always implemented in foreign language classes, meanwhile CLIL and EMI are applied in content classes, but all these approaches include specific content teaching. In this chapter I focus specifically on CLIL and EMI as these are two approaches that have been lately promoted by educational institutions, such as primary education, secondary education and universities. In 2003, some researchers included a third term, which is extensively used in research on European higher education settings, Integrating Content and Language in Higher Education (ICLHE). I here use CLIL and EMI as general terms that embrace integrating content and language in different educational settings, such as higher education, secondary education, primary education, etc. In this chapter, my purpose is to analyse the similarities and differences of CLIL and EMI, as sometimes these approaches have been used in a similar way, and to highlight the positive aspects of both approaches. In this vein, if we think about their definitions, some aspects are similar while others are different. CLIL was described by Marsh (1994: 2) as “CLIL refers to situations where subjects, or parts of subjects, are taught through a foreign language with dual-focused aims, namely the learning of content, and the simultaneous learning of a foreign language”. One of the most popular definitions of EMI is the one by Dearden (2015: 2), who describes EMI as “The use of the English language to teach academic subjects (other than English itself ) in countries or jurisdictions in which the majority of the population’s first language is not English”. It should be noticed that EMI started at tertiary level in universities while CLIL was mainly used in primary and secondary schools. Both approaches wanted to attract students from abroad and prepare their home students to study and work abroad, publish in English, and survive in an increasingly competitive education system. The implementation of both approaches has been supported by governmental policies. Institutions have received economic aid to train teachers in EMI and CLIL practices as well as to attract the brightest

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students, share their knowledge with the widest possible audience and develop their own teaching. Internationalization and globalization are two key terms in EMI and CLIL that are also the initial aims of supporting these approaches. As we live in a globalized world, educational institutions advertise the quality of their teaching methods, describing them as international in the expectation of attracting the best students and graduating the best professionals. With these facts in mind, the most relevant aspects of Content and Language Integrated Learning and English as a Medium of Instruction are described in this chapter. Additionally, the most outstanding differences and similarities are discussed and, finally, the conclusions summarize the most important differences and similarities of these two approaches.

2

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)

Content and Language Integrated Learning is an approach that emerged in the 1990s. One of the best-known definitions is the one provided by Coyle et al. (2010: 1): “a dual-focused educational approach in which an additional language is used for the learning and teaching of both content and language”. It is based on content-based instruction but it involves specifically the integration of language and content instruction. In this approach, English-as-a-second-language students can acquire their academic development while practicing and improving language proficiency (Marsh 1994, 2009; Marsh et al. 2001; CarrióPastor 2007, 2008, 2009c, 2011, 2013). As Carrió-Pastor (2019: 77) points out, “CLIL means the integration of teaching based on focus on form and focus on meaning. Students are trained to know the content of words (meaning) and language (form), thus acquiring language rules and knowledge at the same time”. There are a variety of strategies used in content-based instruction; for example, cooperative learning, task-based learning, case studies, whole language approach, etc. (Crandall 1992). These strategies are also employed in CLIL, as many studies show (Carrió-Pastor 2008, 2009a, b,

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2011, 2013; Carrió-Pastor and Perry 2010; Carrió-Pastor and Romero Forteza 2019). For example, Davison (2005) studies secondary school English in Hong Kong and Australia and argues that the terms language and content are problematic but, at the same time, the combination of content and foreign language acquisition allows students to become competent members of their community. Also, Dalton-Puffer (2005) explains the degrees of indirectness as well as variability in the realization of directive speech acts in six content lessons in Austrian upper secondary schools. The author highlights that CLIL is firmly situated within English as a foreign language lessons and it provides communicative opportunities to language learners. CLIL became progressively very popular as a new approach used in secondary and primary schools, as well as in universities, and it was practised following different approaches: a content subject or a language subject, depending on the needs of the educational centre. Studies by Schleppegrell and de Oliveira (2006), Zwiers (2006), Dalton-Puffer (2007), Coyle et al. (2010), and Lasagabaster (2011), for example, explore several methodological issues related to the use of an L2 as the medium of instruction when teaching content subjects and discuss the effectiveness of the theoretical and practical issues involved when learning and teaching content through an additional language, appealing to researchers and teachers to use this innovative approach in their classrooms to improve student motivation. Some researchers have highlighted the importance of the coordination of language teachers and content teachers (Carrió-Pastor 2008, 2019) to design materials; both teachers can even collaborate in the same classroom. Teachers play a very important role in obtaining positive results, as stated by Carrió-Pastor and Perry (2010: 72). We believe that CLIL should be taught as a single subject being based on close cooperation between content teachers and language teachers. Some researchers into this approach consider that the role of the language teacher is merely that of ‘assistant’ to the content teacher. In our view, both content and language are of equal importance and both the content and language teachers collaborate to produce specific materials which allow different aspects to be focused on.

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There were other aspects that are important for the use of CLIL to improve language acquisition and gain positive results, but also some negative aspects that questioned the quality of the education received by students in CLIL subjects and non-CLIL subjects, focusing on the impact of adding the burden of a foreign language to, in some cases, deficient pedagogy (Bruton 2011, 2013, 2015). Specifically, this author observes that CLIL can be adopted by teachers with very limited training in this approach, or that CLIL can cause a division between students— those that are successful in a CLIL classroom and those that cannot benefit from this approach as they do not have the same foreign language support or they are immigrants and their mother tongue is very different. Also, some researchers point out that some teachers consider a CLIL subject should emphasize conversation and so they focus on simple topics; additionally, some students are not proficient in English and thus teachers tend to design easy activities (Sasajima 2013). Nevertheless, despite some criticisms, this approach has been defended by many researchers (Hüttner and Smit 2014), and proof of this is the many studies on this topic (Carrió-Pastor 2013, 2019; Cenoz et al. 2014; Rea Rizzo and Carbajosa Palmero 2014; Pérez-Vidal and Roquet 2015; Cenoz 2015; Arnó-Macià and Mancho-Barés 2015; Carrió-Pastor and Tamarit Vallés 2015; Yang 2016; Piesche et al. 2016; Dallinger et al. 2016; Lasagabaster 2019; Carrió-Pastor and Romero Forteza 2019). These researchers highlight the support of national governments to CLIL and the benefits of its use; for example, the improvement of foreign language learning as well as content acquisition, the development of motivation in the classrooms, in the case of English, CLIL is also seen relevant for gaining higher professional status, etc. In this volume, the chapters by Marzà, Bellés-Fortuño, Álvarez-Gil, and Martín-del Pozo and Rascón-Estébanez reflect on methodology, assessment and training, and the way CLIL is applied in Spanish educational institutions. CLIL is also considered an umbrella term, covering (Cenoz, Genesee and Gorter 2014: 246) the following educational approaches: “language showers”, CLIL camps, student exchanges, local projects, international projects, family stays, modules, work-study abroad, one or more subjects, partial immersion,

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total immersion, two-way immersion, and double immersion. CLIL can even go beyond school contexts to include everyday activities, provided they take place in an L2/foreign language.

This fact, the versatility of CLIL, entails that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish CLIL from non-CLIL learning, and this implies that there are some practices that are difficult to differentiate from contentbased instruction or languages for specific purposes. In this sense, Cenoz et al. (2014: 247) explain that, “We would argue that this lack of precision makes it difficult for CLIL to evolve in Europe in a pedagogically coherent fashion and for research to play a critical role in its evolution”. Additionally, the role of teachers in developing and applying this approach is crucial but it seems that institutions do not pay much attention to organizing CLIL classes and prefer to involve content teachers even when the class should be taught by content and language teachers. In this vein, Carrió-Pastor (2019: 84) compared the role of language teachers and content teachers in a CLIL classroom. The problems encountered by both content teachers and language teachers when designing a CLIL curriculum that entails collaboration are, on the one hand, the different teaching and research methodologies used by both content and language teachers and, on the other hand, the institutional constraints, the perceived threats behind the sharing of methodologies and information and the hierarchies among disciplines. It has to be added that educational entities contract one teacher with two roles (content teacher and language teacher), and this is important, as politicians may believe that they are improving educational policies when they are actually implementing working restraints. Content teachers seem to teach language and content, but the real problem is that students frequently claim they do not acquire language skills or the content of the subject properly. Currently, this is a problem that Spanish curriculum designers and politicians should think through and provide solutions for.

Ideally, the methodology applied in CLIL should be designed by content teachers and language teachers but the main problem faced until now is that in most cases, CLIL is only taught by content teachers who apply

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content methodology and do not pay the attention needed to language matters. It should be noted that, lately, EMI has attracted the interest of researchers that seem to find this new approach more interesting and reliable, although it is mainly applied in universities and in bilingual schools. As a consequence, CLIL is still mainly used in primary and secondary education, but it seems this approach is not so interesting for researchers and practitioners. Furthermore, there is growing interest in a new approach: translanguaging. Caldas (2019: 4) describes it as García (2009) calls all these practices translanguaging as part of a process of self and co-construction within a cultural and linguistic community beyond traditional codes or languages (García and Wei, 2014). Given that identity, values, and practices are not formed in a vacuum, Wei (2011) maintains translanguaging is a shared social practice within a space that allows both language enactment and co-creation.

There are many studies nowadays that focus on translanguaging, i.e. using a multilingual context to improve several languages, but as this is not the main focus of this book, I will not include any more about this approach and proceed with paying attention to the differences and similarities of CLIL and EMI.

3

English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI)

EMI is an approach adopted by educational institutions to include subjects taught in English in the degrees at universities or in secondary and primary education. It has been seen as a product of globalization, a need to speak an international language and as a necessary passport to success for students. Belhiah and Elhami (2015: 7) state that, “The adoption of English instead of the mother tongue as a medium of instruction can thus provide students with ample opportunity to use the language on an everyday basis and in a wide array of communicative situations and capacities”.

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For educational institutions, this is a way to attract more international students and to increase international mobility and academic cooperation (Kyeyune 2003; Doiz et al. 2012). Although EMI usually refers to teaching at the university level, there are also secondary, primary, and even pre-primary schools that teach using the English language. It should also be noted that most private bilingual schools offer EMI classes as it is extremely marketable; many parents consider EMI subjects are better than mother tongue-traditional teaching, feeling it will give their children a head start in life. The adoption of this approach has been supported by many researchers that study its implementation and benefits in several countries. For example, Belhiah and Elhami (2015: 7) explain its implementation in the Gulf, arguing that it could have been beneficial to use English and Arabic; Li and Ruan (2015) report a longitudinal study of changes in the beliefs in Chinese students after studying EAP in an EMI setting at university; Dearden (2015) reflects on the use of EMI in non-Anglophone countries, analysing 55 countries and pointing out some key aspects. One aspect that stands out in this study is the fact that English teachers could be trained in content and then they would be ideal EMI teachers, following the example applied in CLIL, i.e. content teachers are trained in language skills. Also, Margic and Vodopija-Krstanovic (2017, 2018) explain teachers’ perceptions in Croatian universities; Dordevic and Blagojevic pay attention to the attitudes of teachers in Serbia higher education when implementing EMI; Kim et al. (2018) analysed the challenges when implementing EMI in Korea; Bradford and Brown (2017) in Japan; Li and Wu (2018) focused on EMI assessment in Taiwan, Kuchah (2018) in Cameroon, and Du and Jackson (2018) in Hong Kong, and Lin (2020) focuses on EMI master thesis defences in Taiwan universities. It should be noted that in Spain there are several studies that focus on the use of EMI in universities; for example, Dafouz and Camacho-Miñano (2016) centred their study on student academic achievement; Breeze and Dafouz (2017) applied the cognitive discourse function to the analysis of exam answers in an EMI context; Lasagabaster et al. (2018) studied the role of language and team teaching at universities; Doiz et al. (2019) compared students’ view on EMI in Italy and Spain; Macaro et al. (2019) investigated the competencies of

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EMI teachers; and Carrió-Pastor (2020a, b) shows different perspectives of training EMI in Spain, specifically the training of pragmatic competence. Moreover, in this volume, Aguilar and Curry and Pérez-Paredes reflect on the role of EMI in Spain in higher education. Most of the reviewed studies show that EMI is positive for students and for the institutions; the former are highly motivated and the latter perceive that EMI degrees are beneficial for universities, incorporating international value and the dissemination of academic and professional knowledge. The high interest of researchers in EMI supports the way it has been implemented in many educational institutions with the aim of internationalizing degrees and attracting foreign students. It also shows that educational approaches have shifted from CLIL to EMI; thus, students are considered proficient in English and with the new approach they practice it without learning or acquiring language skills. Universities offer EMI degrees for international students or for those students who finished secondary education in a bilingual school; that is, that do not need language support in their content subjects. It should be noted that one aspect that is noticed by most researchers is that a key issue in EMI is the language proficiency of teachers (Belhiah and Elhami 2015; Margic and Vodopija-Krstanovic 2018; Dordevic and Blagojevic 2019). In the following section, I will discuss the differences and similarities between CLIL and EMI with the aim of showing the evolution of these approaches.

4

Discussion: Differences and Similarities of CLIL and EMI

One outstanding characteristic of CLIL and EMI is that they have become so popular that many certifying institutions offer certificates in these skills. The courses or certificates offered are designed for lecturers or other professionals working in a CLIL or EMI context with the aim of helping teachers in bilingual education use specific vocabulary, improve familiarity with some skills associated with language and content, and, finally, to communicate more effectively in English with students from different cultures and nationalities. The main differences are that CLIL

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includes any foreign language learning but EMI only refers to English learning and that CLIL is mainly used in primary and secondary schools and EMI in universities. Taking this into account, the main objectives of this chapter are to study through a literature review whether there are important differences in the implementation of CLIL and EMI, and whether EMI is the second step of CLIL or if they are two approaches that can be applied in different educational stages. Some researchers have discussed the differences between CLIL and EMI; for example, Dearden (2015: 4) explains Whereas CLIL is contextually situated (with its origins in the European ideal of plurilingual competence for EU citizens), EMI has no specific contextual origin. Whereas CLIL does not mention which second, additional or foreign language (L2) academic subjects are to be studied in, EMI makes it quite clear that the language of education is English, with all the geopolitical and sociocultural implications that this may entail. Whereas CLIL has a clear objective of furthering both content and language as declared in its title, EMI does not (necessarily) have that objective.

It is a fact that CLIL was an approach that included language and content acquisition and in the case of EMI language acquisition is not a priority but a consequence of using English as the language of instruction. Also, the use of CLIL in primary and secondary education and EMI in universities seems the most natural evolution if we take into account the needs of students. Theoretically, university students are more proficient in a foreign language as they have been taught English in primary and secondary education, and so EMI could be more adequately implemented in university contexts. On the contrary, CLIL students that are in primary and secondary schools need to be trained in foreign languages as well as in content as they are not proficient in either. Graham et al. (2018: 30) reviewed research carried out on EMI and CLIL from 2008 to 2018 to study the language and content outcomes of the experiments and point out that “the gains are simply a result of more instruction. Additionally, the research instruments used, particularly in the receptive skill studies, were designed to measure general

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everyday language proficiency, or basic interpersonal communicative skills”, explaining that all the research analysis highlighted that CLIL and EMI subjects do as well or better than non-CLIL-EMI subjects. CLIL and EMI approaches are similar in the sense that they are both forms of bilingual education but CLIL means teaching content through any foreign language while EMI means teaching content to students who are proficient in English (at least C1 proficiency level). Another difference is the perception of teachers’ role in both approaches. In both approaches, teachers know they are using a foreign language and thus they practice English while they teach content, but they differ in the aims of the class they deliver. On the one hand, in CLIL, teachers have a dual objective, that is, teaching both language and the subject content. On the other hand, in EMI, the content teachers do not think of themselves as language teachers; they only teach content speaking a foreign language. These differences are important as the methodology used in both approaches should vary and accommodate for students’ specific needs and, at the same time, they present challenges for both teachers and students. Students are supposed to benefit from EMI subjects, and this is true if students are proficient in English as they will improve their English to at least a C1 proficiency level, following the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (2011), and learn to communicate in a specific context in a foreign language. The problem arises when students are not proficient or the English level of the group of students is not homogeneous… then, students are faced with two problems: language proficiency and understanding content. Consequently, those EMI students who are not proficient in English may think they are not proficient in content, demotivating them and discouraging them from acquiring English as well as content. EMI and CLIL are nowadays implemented in the educational system and sometimes teachers and students are not conscious of their differences. This is why I think these approaches should be used depending on the foreign language proficiency of students. If students are not proficient in the foreign language to be used, then CLIL should be implemented to reinforce the acquisition of communication strategies in that language

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and avoid demotivation. If there is a strict control of the language proficiency of students, then educational institutions can offer EMI subjects if they have teachers trained in this approach. The differences and similarities between CLIL and EMI and the proposals stated in this chapter are summarized in Table 1. Furthermore, I think it is not only a matter of dividing CLIL and EMI by educational levels; it also depends on the students enrolled in the subjects or degrees and on the skills of the teachers involved in teaching CLIL and EMI. If these aspects are not seriously considered, then both approaches will produce students who are not proficient in English or in content, discouraging them from using a foreign language. Table 1 Differences and similarities between CLIL and EMI CLIL

EMI

It considers content and language learning

It considers only content learning; the language proficiency of students is taken for granted Students enrolled in EMI subjects should be highly proficient in English –

Students enrolled in CLIL subjects do not need to be highly proficient in a foreign language Taught in primary school (reinforce language acquisition and proficiency) Taught in secondary school (reinforce language acquisition and proficiency) –

Content teachers trained in foreign language methodology teach the subjects Content teachers and language teachers should work together Materials should be designed by content and language teachers Methodology should be designed by content teachers and language teachers Methodology follows communicative approach and content-based approach Assessment of content and language acquisition

Taught in bilingual secondary schools (for students with high language proficiency) Taught in universities (for students with high language proficiency or international students) Content teachers or language teachers trained in content teach the subjects – Materials are designed by content teachers Methodology designed by content teachers as language is not considered a priority Methodology follows communicative approach and content-based approach Assessment of only content acquisition

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Conclusions and Future Directions

After reviewing the literature devoted to CLIL and EMI and discussing their differences and similarities, it seems clear that they are different approaches and should be used in different academic institutions. CLIL should be used in preschools, primary schools and secondary schools, and EMI should be used in universities or bilingual schools with students with high English proficiency. Thus, CLIL could be the first step of bilingual education, combining language and content knowledge, and then EMI could be offered at the university level. Both approaches follow similar methodologies and their objectives are to motivate and improve communication and understanding in English (although CLIL can include any foreign language) so they should be used in a coherent way. From a methodological point of view, both approaches motive students and are a challenge for teachers, who should be trained specifically in CLIL or EMI and have a very good language proficiency. So, there are no important differences in their methodology and the expected results but I think they should be used in different academic institutions or educational stages, taking into account the expected language proficiency of students (B2 proficiency level in CLIL and C1 proficiency level in EMI). The implementation of CLIL and EMI might take several future directions. These may be related to the use of the CLIL approach in primary and secondary education and EMI in universities and bilingual schools. Additionally, the language proficiency of students enrolled in CLIL and EMI should be supervised to be sure they acquire content knowledge. Also, language and content teachers should collaborate in teaching CLIL subjects, including language and content methodologies and teaching strategies. This latter aspect could be very beneficial for the students enrolled in the subjects and could improve the quality of the design of specific material. As a conclusion, many efforts have been made by educational institutions, content teachers and language teachers to implement CLIL and EMI and internationalized education, but their implementation should be supervised, controlled, and planned to obtain the best benefits from these two approaches.

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Dallinger, S., Jonkmann, K., Hollm, J., & Fiege, C. (2016). The effect of content and language integrated learning on students’ English and history competences: Killing two birds with one stone? Learning and Instruction, 41, 23–31. Dalton-Puffer, C. (2005). Negotiating interpersonal meanings in naturalistic classroom discourse: Directives in content-and-language-integrated classroom. Journal of Pragmatics, 37, 1275–1293. Dalton-Puffer, C. (2007). Discourse in contents and language integrated learning (CLIL) classrooms. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Davison, C. (2005). Learning your lines: Negotiating language and content in subject English. Linguistics and Education, 16 (2), 219–237. Dearden, J. (2015). English as a medium of instruction—A growing global phenomenon. Retrieved from https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:4f72cdf8b2eb-4d41-a785-4a283bf6caaa. Doiz, A., Costa, F., Lasagabaster, D., & Mariotti, C. (2019). Linguistic demands and language assistance in EMI courses. What is the stance of Italian and Spanish undergraduates? Lingue e Linguaggi, 33, 69–85. Doiz, A., Lasagabaster, D., & Sierra, J. M. (Eds.). (2012). English-medium instruction at universities: Global challenges. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Dordevic, J. P., & Blagojevic, S. N. (2019). University teachers’ attitudes towards the implementation of English as a medium of instruction in Serbian higher education. Nasledge, Journal of Language, Literature, Arts and Culture, 44, 153–166. Available at https://www.researchgate.net/public ation/338293410_University_teachers’_attitudes_towards_the_implement ation_of_English_as_a_medium_of_instruction_in_Serbian_higher_educat ion/stats. Du, X., & Jackson, J. (2018). From EFL to EMI: The evolving English learning motivation of Mainland Chinese students in a Hong Kong University. System, 76, 158–169. Graham, K. M., Choi, Y., Davoodi, A., Razmeh, S., & Dixon, L. Q. (2018). Language and content outcomes of CLIL and EMI: A systematic review. LACLIL, 11(1), 19–37. Hüttner, J., & Smit, U. (2014). CLIL (content and language integrated learning): The bigger picture: A response to A. Bruton. 2013. CLIL: Of the reasons why… and why not. System 41 (2013): 587–597. System, 44, 160–167. Kim, J., Kim, E. G., & Kweon, S.-O. (2018). Challenges in implementing English-medium instruction: Perspectives of humanities and social sciences

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professors teaching engineering students. English for Specific Purposes, 51, 111–123. Kuchah, K. (2018). Early English medium instruction in Francophone Cameroon: The injustice of equal opportunity. System, 73, 37–47. Kyeyune, R. (2003). Challenges of using English as a medium of instruction in multilingual contexts: A view from Ugandan classrooms. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 16 (2), 173–184. Lasagabaster, D. (2011). English achievement and student motivation in CLIL and EFL settings. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 5 (1), 3–18. Lasagabaster, D. (2019). Motivation in content and language integrated learning (CLIL) research. In M. Lamb, et al. (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of motivation for language learning. London: Palgrave. Lasagabaster, D., Doiz, A., & Pavón, V. (2018). Undergraduates’ beliefs about the role of language and team teaching in EMI courses at university. Rassegna Italiana di Linguistica Applicata, 50 (2–3), 111–127. Li, Ch., & Ruan, Z. (2015). Changes in beliefs about language learning among Chinese EAP learners in an EMI context in Mainland China: A socio-cultural perspective. System, 55, 43–52. Li, N., & Wu, J. (2018). Exploring assessment for learning practices in the EMI classroom in the content of Taiwanese higher education. Language Education and Assessment, 1(1), 28–44. Lightbown, P. M. (2014). Focus on content-based language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lin, Ch-Y. (2020). Pragmatic force modifiers in English-medium master’s thesis defences in Taiwan universities. English for Specific Purposes, 58, 30–42. Macaro, E., Jiménez-Muñoz, A., & Lasagabaster, D. (2019). The importance of certification of English medium instruction teachers in higher education in Spain. Porta Linguarum, 32, 103–118. Margic, B. D., & Vodopija-Krstanovic, I. V. (2017). Uncovering Englishmedium-instruction: Glocal issues in higher education. Bern: Peter Lang. Margic, B. D., & Vodopija-Krstanovic, I. V. (2018). Language development for English-medium instruction: Teachers’ perceptions, reflections and learning. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 35, 31–41. Marsh, D. (1994). Bilingual education and content and language integrated learning: International association for cross-cultural communication, language teaching in the member states of the European Union (Lingua). Paris: University of Sorbonne.

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Marsh, D. (2009). Introduction: Culture, education and content and language integrated learning. In M. L. Carrió Pastor (Ed.), Content and language integrated learning: cultural diversity. Bern: Peter Lang. Marsh, D., Maljers, A., & Hartiala, A. K. (2001). Profiling European CLIL classrooms: Languages open doors. Jyvaskyla: University of Jyvaskyla. Pérez-Vidal, C., & Roquet, H. (2015). The linguistic impact of a CLIL Science programme: An analysis measuring relative gains. System, 54, 80–90. Piesche, N., Jonkmann, K., Fiege, C., & Kessler, J.-U. (2016). CLIL for all? A randomised controlled field experiment with sixth-grade students on the effects of content and language integrated science learning. Learning and Instruction, 44, 108–116. Rea Rizzo, C., & Carbajosa Palmero, N. (2014). CLIL teacher training at the UPCT: Present and future within the EHEA. REDU. Revista de docencia universitaria, 12(4), 377–393. Sasajima, S. (2013). How CLIL can impact on EFL teachers’ mindsets about teaching and learning. International CLIL Research Journal, 2(1), 1–12. Schleppegrell, M., & de Oliveira, L. C. (2006). An integrated language and content approach for history teachers. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 5, 254–268. Yang, W. (2016). ESP vs. CLIL: A coin of two sides or a continuum of two extremes? ESP Today, 41, 43–68. Zwiers, J. (2006). Integrating academic language, thinking, and content: Learning scaffolds for non-native speakers in the middle grades. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 5, 317–332.

“How Do I Find the Limit?”: Risk Management in EMI and CLIL at University Monika Wozniak ´ and Fiona Crean

1

Introduction

This chapter will focus on teaching through English in non-English speaking countries as an example of a teaching innovation in higher education that has gained ground around the world. With internationalization of higher education as the major driving force, the number of programmes taught in or through English will inevitably continue to rise (Dearden 2015; Dearden and Macaro 2016). Teaching through English is implemented through a number of approaches and the main labels used are EMI (English as a Medium of Instruction) and CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning). As with any other innovation process, the implementation of English in education worldwide M. Wo´zniak (B) · F. Crean Universidad San Jorge, Zaragoza, Spain e-mail: [email protected] F. Crean e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 M. L. Carrió-Pastor and B. Bellés Fortuño (eds.), Teaching Language and Content in Multicultural and Multilingual Classrooms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56615-9_3

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requires training and support as it raises concerns and uncertainties, or even resistance, in response to new situations (Klaassen and de Graaff 2001; Doiz et al. 2014a, b). Although many aspects of innovation in education are comparable to innovative endeavours in other sectors, the absence of immediate, tangible benefits makes the measurement of its effects extremely problematic (OECD 2014). The challenge and main concern for educational settings is that failure in innovation may have far-reaching negative consequences for both teachers and students that go far beyond a lack of technological progress, higher effectiveness or purely economic benefits, as in industry or technology sectors. Higher education still primarily relies on traditional teaching and learning methodologies, and innovation in its institutions often means a mixture of creativity, risk-taking and experimentation (Tierney 2014). As a result, Emery and Worton (2014) highlight the challenge for leaders of higher education, which consists of combining innovation with risk awareness. As for the term risk, we follow the definition proposed by Fischhoff et al. (1981): “the probability of an unwanted event”, or a more technical definition of risk as the statistical expectation value of unwanted events (Roeser et al. 2012). Literature on CLIL/EMI often refers to challenges so it is worth clarifying the meaning of risk in comparison to challenge. The Collins English Dictionary defines the latter as “a demanding or stimulating situation, career, object, etc.”. The meaning of challenge focuses then on the effort and determination of achieving the aim and does not entail tackling the unwanted results of the actions. The same dictionary also offers a definition of risk management as “the skill or job of deciding what the risks are in a particular situation and taking action to prevent or reduce them”. In order to properly manage the risk factor in educational settings, the teaching and learning context needs to be analysed to justify risk-taking and the procedures to be implemented carefully planned (Knight et al. 2009). In the Spanish context, the implementation of English as an additional language in CLIL programmes and the required methodological changes and adaptations brought significant changes to these traditional models but, as with any innovation, they also have their challenges and risks (Dafouz et al. 2007; Cots 2013; Ramos-García and Pavón Vázquez 2018).

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Although switching the language of instruction at university level may seem less problematic than at lower educational levels, it also needs due attention and responsible implementation. The present study is a continuation and extension of a project conducted at Universidad San Jorge on the risks associated with teaching innovation projects in higher education. Conducted by an interdisciplinary group of university lecturers, that study found a relationship between the concepts of risk control and responsibility in educational innovation although it highlighted the need for further research into particular contexts to ascertain the nature of this relationship (Antón-Solanas et al. 2016). As some of the innovation projects analysed in that study entailed the integration of English in university content subjects, the present study aims to gain further insights into the day-to-day practice of experienced CLIL/EMI content lecturers. We aim to explore the concept of risk in relation to the design and practical realization of the integration of English in CLIL and EMI programmes as perceived by a convenience sample of lecturers with extensive experiences of teaching through English. The aim is to ascertain the nature of their dealing with the expected benefits and sometimes unexpected challenges and risks of teaching through the medium of English as an additional language in pursuance of the learning aims established in their subjects, degree programmes and institutional policies. After a literature review on content lecturers’ perspectives on content and language teaching and learning, their personal and academic identities in CLIL/EMI contexts as well as the issue of international classrooms, we present the findings of focus group interviews with lecturers who have had extensive experience of CLIL/EMI teaching.

2

Literature Review

Before focusing on the literature related to the main object of the study, it is necessary to clarify the terms used in reference to university programmes in English as labelling can lead to inconsistencies in how we conceptualize what English as a medium of instruction means and how it is enacted (Macaro et al. 2018; Aguilar 2015). It is also necessary to clarify these terms in order to describe the context of this research

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study and to contextualize the different approaches used to teach subject matter through English at our university. EMI has been defined as “the use of the English language to teach academic subjects (other than English itself ) in countries or jurisdictions where the first language (L1) of the majority of the population is not English” (Dearden and Macaro 2016). This approach primarily focuses on content learning outcomes with no language support (Rogier 2012; Arment and Pérez-Vidal 2015). Not limited exclusively to English, CLIL has a more plurilingual dimension and is defined as 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: 1). This term is normally used when referring to primary and secondary education though it is also present in tertiary settings (Dafouz et al. 2007; Fortanet-Gómez 2011; Aguilar and Rodríguez 2012; Airey 2016; Costa 2016). ICLHE (Integrating Content and Language in Higher Education) is another approach focusing on the integration of content and language but is specific to higher education (Costa 2016). While the terms CLIL and ICLHE could be considered synonyms, they are not related to EMI. English is explicit in EMI whereas the terms CLIL/ICLHE take into account the dual aspects of content and language learning (Costa 2015: 128). However, this explicit “dual focus” of CLIL is more difficult to identify in higher education where language learning is normally only implicit as content learning outcomes take precedence (Unterberger and Wilhelmer 2011; Unterberger 2014; Borsetto and Schug 2016). From the literature reviewed, the reality seems to be that these three terms are often used interchangeably in tertiary contexts and that there is confusion as regards what ICLHE and EMI really entail as it is possible to see evidence of language support in tertiary CLIL, ICLHE and EMI assessment initiatives (Francomacaro 2011; Bergman et al. 2013; Ament and Pérez-Vidal 2015; Basturken and Shackleford 2015; Clegg 2015). To date it seems, however, that CLIL is the only approach which provides a grounded theoretical framework and evidence-based research.

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Lecturers’ Perceptions Considerable research has been carried out on tertiary students’ and lecturers’ perceptions of English as a medium of instruction (Macaro et al. 2018); however, not so much attention has been paid to the actual academic outcomes in programmes taught in English, which will depend on how lecturers and students perceive EMI, and there are still many questions to answer (Dearden and Macaro 2016). The first studies focusing on lecturers’ perceptions of the use of English in some Dutch universities highlighted some of the effects EMI had on teaching: reduction in expressiveness; changes in the role of the teacher; more awareness of use of language and learning how to adjust language; more time needed to do tasks and allow students to participate; poorer communication skills; and cultural factors affecting teaching methods (Vinke et al. 1998). Subsequent studies obtained similar results and additionally underlined changes in teaching methods, the use of code-switching as well as the need for more time (Wilkinson 2005), the limited effectiveness of formal lecturers in EMI contexts due to an overload of information, and the frustration of content lecturers resulting from their inability to be spontaneous and express nuances (Airey and Linder 2006). Tatzl (2011) mentions three pillars of effective teaching through English: language proficiency, effective lecturer behaviour and personal attitude. It is worth mentioning, however, that half of the participants of this study were native speakers of English for whom language proficiency did not pose a challenge. He recommends methodology and CLIL courses, whereas Ball and Lindsay (2012) call for more methodological awareness in training programmes for EMI teachers. Werther et al.’s (2014) study of using EMI in Denmark highlights the differences between content teachers depending on their experience teaching through English. They point out that more experienced lecturers tend to focus more on the intercultural and pedagogical challenges EMI entails and less on linguistic factors. On the other hand, lecturers with less experience are more concerned about their linguistic proficiency and being understood by students. One of the risks this study highlights is a negative impact on motivation and academic promotion of

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lecturers who are excluded from EMI programmes. Airey (2011) documents evidence from inexperienced lecturers in Sweden teaching through English and suggests that lecturers need time to adjust to the change, and that the teaching quality of lecturers who only teach occasionally will be lower than that of a lecturer who regularly teaches through English. He highlights that lecturers need to see their role as socializing students into the discourse of the discipline, though the issue of self-confidence cannot be ignored. Considering the role of language in knowledge construction and transmission, the dominance of English in academic discourse is a recurrent concern as it poses the potential threat of domain loss in certain areas of knowledge, although concerns over this issue are not equally shared across countries and languages (Dearden and Macaro 2016). Some recent studies have searched for more generalized insights into teaching through English in higher education in comparative studies with participants from different countries. Dearden and Macaro (2016) investigated the attitudes of university teachers from Austria, Italy and Poland who are engaged in EMI programmes. Next to certain commonalities like the speed of implementation, extra workload or lack of awareness of the need for a more student-centred pedagogy which would support learning through a foreign language, they also found a certain variability in attitudes across countries, especially regarding the status of their home languages and the possible domain loss (English viewed as a threat in Italy versus an apparent lack of anxiety about domain loss in Austria and Poland). In another cross-country study, Dafouz et al. (2016) analysed interviews with university teachers who use English to teach their subjects to non-English speaking students in Finland, the UK, Austria and Spain along three dimensions of the Road Mapping framework (Dafouz and Smit 2016): agents, internationalization and glocalization, and academic disciplines. They show that integrating language and content is a complex and dynamic process that can be represented on a continuum of each dimension, but the different teacher beliefs also include viewing integration as irrelevant or downplaying the role of disciplinary language in favour of numerical information.

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Training EMI/CLIL Lecturers Training is a key issue in the literature and various studies confirm the lack of specific training for EMI contexts (Ball and Lindsay 2013; Tange 2010; Dafouz 2011; Aguilar and Rodríguez 2012; Doiz et al. 2014a; Werther et al. 2014; Guarda and Helm 2017; Borsetto and Schug 2016). Macaro et al. (2018) highlight the fact that there is no benchmark as regards what is understood to be optimum English proficiency in higher education. They also point out the lack of research data related to EMI teacher training programmes, which they posit could be due to two factors: either there are no preservice training programmes or researchers have not felt inclined towards investigating this area. Despite this assumption, some studies have emerged that provide us with information on EMI/CLIL training courses in general and specific contexts. O’Dowd’s (2018) survey on the training and accreditation of EMI lecturers covered 79 European universities, 22 of which were Spanish. The results demonstrated that there is a wide range of training courses; however, the main focus of these courses seems to hinge on the development of communicative skills as almost half of them do not include any bilingual teaching methodology. While having a proficient level in English is essential for lecturers to transmit content, it is not the only factor as pedagogical awareness is even more important than language proficiency (Klaassen and de Graaff 2001; Ball and Lindsay 2013; Cots 2013), which cannot be developed separately from pedagogical and intercultural aspects of teaching (Werther et al. 2014). Guarda and Helm’s study (2017) focuses on a small university in Italy and how shifting the language of teaching affects pedagogy, the students’ needs and the lecturers’ own personal and academic needs. The results show that training needs to include spaces for reflection and discussion regarding the inherent multilingualism of higher education. Their study also reveals that the integration of EMI and the possible inclusion of international students in their university meant that some lecturers were able to enhance their lectures by providing students with examples from different countries and cultures, thereby widening students’ knowledge and perspectives (Guarda and Helm 2017: 11). Other authors have

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also stressed the need to include intercultural communication (FortanetGómez 2011; Borsetto and Schug 2016: 14) as lecturers require the pedagogical and linguistic skills specifically related to teaching in a multicultural environment (Tange 2010: 141).

Identities and Beliefs While the literature reviewed so far provides insights into lecturers’ perceptions of EMI/CLIL and an overview of the training these lecturers receive, studies rarely focus on the role identity plays in contexts where lecturers deliver content in another language or code switch between the home language and English (Dafouz 2018: 450). Dafouz’s study centres on a group of EMI lecturers at a Spanish public university and reveals the fact that young lecturers perceive EMI as a means to enhance their professional identity and that it helps them to resituate their identities as regards their use of the language. Moreover, the practice of codeswitching can contribute to more interactive teaching. Reynolds (2019) reaffirms the relevance of EMI teacher identity by stating that when there is a change in the language of instruction, a reassessment of pedagogical strategies will occur. Kling Soren (2013) confirms the emerging research on teacher professional identity but also reaffirms the lack of a clear definition of the topic and the fact that current studies do not provide a clear explanation of the elements teachers believe make up their professional identity. Miller (2002) proposes four directions that link the key issues of teacher identity to understanding, knowledge and practice. These are the nature of identity itself, the importance of context in teaching, the need for critical reflection, and the integration of identity with pedagogy. Cardelle-Elawar et al. (2007: 586) stress the exploration of teacher identity from a motivational perspective in order to learn about the factors that influence teachers’ sense of purpose, self-efficacy, motivation and effectiveness in the classroom. Their research study brings to light the following aspects:

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• Teacher identity is an ongoing process which will develop and evolve throughout a teacher’s lifetime. • Teacher identity can be viewed from an ecological perspective whereby as the teacher interacts with the social, educational, cultural and political factors of their context, this in turn will resituate their teacher identity. Therefore, in this sense, teacher identity is not a fixed trait but instead reflects the changes that may occur over time in their contexts. • Metacognitive reflective thinking and self-regulation are essential skills to develop teachers’ awareness of their competence. This is a relevant point when it comes to studying tertiary lecturers’ identities in EMI/CLIL contexts as before they can be trained to use new pedagogical approaches, they need to have a grounded insight into how their identities can affect their sense of purpose when it comes to teaching their content through the medium of English. Wilkinson (2018) stresses the fact that a stronger focus on identity in teacher training could help lecturers acknowledge that the shift in language not only affects the content being taught and learned but also how knowledge is constructed through the languages used. As Lasagabaster (2017) and Donaghue (2003) state, it is generally agreed that teachers’ beliefs influence the acceptance of new approaches and play an important role in teacher development. Pajares (1992) provides us with a set of assumptions regarding teacher beliefs and asserts how they strongly affect teaching behaviour and are instrumental in defining, selecting and organizing the knowledge and information presented to students. Johnson (2012) succinctly summarizes these assumptions and asks whether teachers’ beliefs, once crystallized, can be changed. He goes on to affirm that this will depend on how teachers are trained and proposes a reflective, collaborative approach to training in which teachers are encouraged to explore their own individual practice and make decisions on how it can change.

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Methodology

As the purpose of the study was exploratory in nature, we based the data collection on focus groups (Vaughn et al. 1996: 34) in order to gain insights into experienced CLIL lecturers representing a range of academic disciplines to see how they navigate between their teaching goals, expected learning outcomes and institutional policies. Apart from generating data for the study, the two focus groups, consisting of four and three lecturers, respectively, were also a good opportunity for the participants to exchange their experiences and perspectives with colleagues from other degree programmes and faculties. The focus groups were small following Morgan’s (1997) recommendations concerning the size of the focus group in order to enable deeper discussion into the topic and the balanced participation and engagement of all participants, which would not be possible with too many participants. As the participants represented a variety of disciplines and were personally involved in the discussed issues, we expected deep discussions and engaging interactions that would generate data that could not be derived from individual interviews. At the beginning of each focus group, the participants were asked about their preferences for the language of the interviews and all of them felt comfortable enough to participate in English. The researchers transcribed the interviews verbatim and then analysed, coded and interpreted the data within an interpretive framework (Hatch 2002: 179–191).

Participants and Setting For the study, we preselected a group of the most experienced CLIL lecturers in their respective degree programmes to ensure a range of disciplines. The convenience sample consisted of seven participants who are native speakers of Spanish and who integrate the English language within two different models of integrating English that coexist at the university. CLIL is integrated into practically all degree programmes at different levels, though, depending on the faculty, both CLIL and EMI teaching approaches are used. The latter is implemented in the Faculty of Communication and Social Sciences and although it was originally

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aimed at international students, it is now also open to the domestic student population. This is not surprising given that the majority of incoming Erasmus students (78% in the academic year 2018–2019) study at this faculty. As a result, one of the participating lecturers had experience exclusively in EMI with Erasmus students. The Faculty of Health Sciences has a large French student population that study the entire undergraduate degree programme, so some of the participating lecturers have extensive experience with international groups containing French and Spanish students. The years of experience as CLIL/EMI lecturers ranged between 2 and 9 years, and these differences also represent disciplinary variation and the differences with which particular faculties and degree programmes engaged in the CLIL programme (see Table 1). During the focus groups, the participants referred to a wide range of issues, often in some depth. For the purposes of the present paper, we had to restrict ourselves to issues directly related to our research questions though many of the issues raised invite further research. At the time of the focus groups, all participants had completed at least one training course for CLIL lecturers designed and offered by the university. In order for lecturers to teach their subjects in English, the Table 1 Faculties and degree programmes Years of experience as CLIL/EMI lecturer

Faculty/School

Degree (subjects)

Area of the subject(s) taught

Architecture & Technology Architecture & Technology Health Sciences Health Sciences

Architecture

Social Science

2 years

Computer Science

4 years

Health Sciences

Pharmacy, Physiotherapy Audiovisual Communication Audiovisual Communication

Science and Technology Health Science Science and Technology Health Science

6 years

Social Science

2 years

Social Science

9 years

Communication Communication

Physiotherapy Pharmacy

7 years 8 years

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university established an institutional accreditation procedure whereby content lecturers must receive CLIL training and comply with initial language requirements before they can start to teach in English. In order to begin the process of accreditation, all lecturers must achieve a B2 level of English through an internal diagnostic test. The first stage of CLIL training consists of a 16-hour in-class course in which lecturers cover the following aspects: the CLIL approach in higher education, coconstruction of what CLIL entails, planning a CLIL activity, adapting materials, teaching strategies and, as a last step, micro-teaching a CLIL activity. During the course lecturers are encouraged to explore their personal, academic and teaching identities in order to make them aware of the challenges and benefits they may encounter when teaching in English. Once they have completed the course, they have the linguistic and pedagogical support of a CLIL tutor from the Institute of Modern Languages. As part of the programme, each CLIL lecturer has an assigned English language lecturer whose role is to supervise the process in the assigned degree programme and provide individual support in the integration of English in content subjects. As extrinsic motivation, lecturers are given extra credits to compensate for the additional time needed to prepare content and materials. The second stage of the accreditation process consists of accrediting a C1 or C2 level of English through the same internal language test and attending a 24-hour CLIL course in which lecturers cover aspects such as teaching strategies (interactive teaching, flipped learning, new technologies in CLIL contexts); pronunciation for non-native lecturers; motivation in CLIL contexts; assessment strategies; and finally a microteaching session in which lecturers apply what they learned during the course. The final stage of the accreditation process entails accrediting a C1 or C2 of English through an officially recognized English proficiency certificate such as Cambridge Advanced or IELTs (band score 7). Those lecturers who are native speakers or have completed their PhD in English do not have to complete this stage. This is followed by two class observations, which are carried out by two different lecturers from the Institute of Modern Languages. Support is continuously provided by CLIL tutors and carries on even after lecturers have been fully accredited. Some of the participants reported active cooperation with their English language

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colleagues and particularly appreciate the fact that they can work with the same person for many years. However, as one respondent notes, their help is like going to the doctor; they can give you advice but then you have to teach your class yourself. As for the English level of the students, there is no language requirement except for degree programmes such as Translation and Intercultural Communication, where students need a B2 level of English or the Early Child and Primary Bilingual Education degree programme where students require a B1 level. All degree programmes have an ESP subject related to the content of the degree in Year 1 and in some degree programmes this extends to Year 2. The integration of English across the faculties and subjects and collaboration with subject experts is a good occasion for ESP lecturers to access disciplinary language and practices to approach their courses from a more informed perspective (Wo´zniak 2017).

4

Findings and Discussion

The overarching concept that emerged from the qualitative data and weaved through various issues raised in the focus groups was that of awareness. Awareness can take many shapes and forms, from selfawareness, language awareness and intercultural awareness to pedagogical and disciplinary awareness. Self-awareness emerges when lecturers reflect on how their personality and disciplinary traits impinge on the way they deal with content in their first language and a second language. Language awareness refers to the knowledge they acquire by focusing on what English is “doing” in the classroom (Suter Reich and Müller 2016: 26) and the changes this language can have on their teaching practice. Du (2011: 69) in Doiz et al. (2014b: 173) highlights how language awareness is essential when it comes to fostering cultural awareness in order to move from a monocultural framework to the development of intercultural competence. Pedagogical awareness has been mentioned as even more important than language proficiency (Klaassen and de Graaff 2001; Ball and Lindsay 2013: 59). As regards disciplinary awareness, lecturers need to be aware of the different communicative practices students must master in order to comprehend disciplinary concepts (Airey and Linder

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2009). The findings show that thanks to the experience of integrating English, lecturers primarily viewed themselves as more aware of their subjects and the academic content they teach, of themselves as teachers, as well as their students and how they learn. In order to discuss the findings, the three general themes emerging from the data become titles of the sections to follow.

Content Teaching and Learning One of the pertinent concerns related to English-taught programmes is whether students learn academic subjects equally as well as in their L1 (Dearden and Macaro 2016: 459; Macaro et al. 2018). In our study, the first association that our respondents had in relation to teaching in English was the additional effort and workload needed to prepare new materials and adapt old ones to integrate the English language appropriately and not so much on the students and their learning outcomes. Among our respondents, obvious attention was given to language and its limitations that may affect teaching and the students’ future professional career (especially in the health sector), and despite the twofold focus on CLIL and the support provided by assigned language specialists, lecturers seem to concentrate on content learning as their responsibility. The issue of language was naturally weaving through the different topics discussed although, somewhat surprisingly, it did not occupy as prominent a place as we had expected. The CLIL training focuses on the integration of language and content but English was primarily viewed as the means to teach content with little or no explicit attention to language learning. This would indicate that despite the university’s policy, training and support through CLIL, the actual approach pursued in classes is EMI rather than CLIL. Anything that prevents you from delivering your content well is a risk. They need to know minimum things to start building a bigger future. They have to leave this university with the foundations and then to start building from there but if you don’t give them all the foundations… I have to balance delivering the content or […] how to implement English,

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[…], I mean this is always coming in the second option unfortunately, I mean, that’s the reality. (Health Sciences)

Lecturers need to be aware of their “responsibility to ensure that the message comes across in English-medium instruction” so they use several tools such as confirmation checks, reminders and redundant information next to adapting materials to the new situation (Klaassen and de Graaff 2001: 286). All these adaptations, required by the integration of an additional language, slow the pace and thus entail the risk of reducing content. This inherent difficulty in the integration of English is often mentioned by university teachers (Costa and Mariotti 2017) so our participants also had to address this issue in their subjects, but they generally saw it in a good light as an opportunity to revisit and update their academic content and assessment criteria. The integration of English, apart from changing the format from a lecture to more interactive, student-centred approaches with students’ experience and learning in the centre (Cummins 2005: 18), changed their idea of the content they teach. Greater awareness of this aspect inspired a re-examination of the academic content in order to better adapt it to the integration of an additional language, student interaction and the slower pace of delivery. However, clear differences were found between hard science and social science in the treatment of the contents, in line with other studies (Costa and Mariotti 2017). Science and technology lecturers realized that a great amount of the content was rather superfluous and unnecessary for an undergraduate student. They became more critical and selective about the academic content, which made them focus on the most important issues. In this case, the initial threat or risk became an opportunity to reduce content overload, as one of the participants pointed out: I realised that at the beginning I prepared too many materials, but many things can be left out, we should focus on a few key things and prepare more challenging tasks. But it can depend on the subject. (Science and Technology)

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The content of each of my subjects has been designed by me, so it’s me who decides what is necessary and what is not. I have the right to reduce the content. (Science)

The participants were in agreement that reducing the content was probably welcomed by the students as this meant that they would study less but they also viewed the reduction of content delivered in class as a pretext to foster a culture of autonomous learning and students’ independence and responsibility for the management of their own learning. Although students might miss some content in computer science, they gain the skill to ‘self-teach’ (autonomous learning) as specified in the learning outcomes. In the long run, this is more important than learning details or facts that they will soon forget or will not be relevant any more as things change very quickly. (Science and Technology)

However, it is worth noting that not all participants were open to revisiting the contents of their subject and cutting down some of the material. In this respect, clear differences were found between science and technology and social science. Deleting some of the content proved to be difficult, or was considered inappropriate or even impossible for social sciences, and making students learn on their own at home was not always perceived as a valid solution. I can’t reduce or move my content, but I also don’t want my students to study at home what they should be learning in class. I don’t feel comfortable with that. (Social Science)

Adaptations to teaching methods and materials are necessary for the gradual integration of content and language, but the participants emphasized the challenge of finding the limit and avoiding the risk of excessively simplifying and infantilizing university students. These points inspired debate over lecturers’ responsibility to provide their students with all the content knowledge they need as future professionals and generated doubts with regard to the criteria lecturers apply to decide what is actually necessary and what is not, as these excerpts show.

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How do you find the limit? (Social Science) Being more selective about the content is a kind of trick we can use and it works for us but it’s not beneficial for the students. Students have the right to receive the content specified in the ‘resultados de aprendizaje’ (learning outcomes) in class. (Social Science)

Our findings show that lecturers of science and technology subjects became more selective about their content and recognize the need to reach a compromise as regards what is actually achievable and what is not. They were more open to the idea of reducing their content and found the most relevant content was easier to identify than in social sciences. Social science lecturers were more prone to dilemmas over how to establish the limit of the adaptations of the content and how to adapt it without depriving students of anything, although they centred on the challenges and found it difficult to name the real risks in content reduction apart from students’ ignorance of some of the under-delivered topics related to their future professional activities. The issue of responsibility was particularly important for the lecturers who were preparing their students for work in the health sector and the public health risk involved, which goes beyond the learning outcomes at university and for which a slower pace or lack of time cannot be an excuse and causes dilemmas. For me it’s just a never-ending conflict trying to manage the use of English with delivery and everything that is supposed to be delivered in terms of content because when you are using English automatically everything slows down, in some cases dramatically… (Health Sciences)

The participants noted that they gained a wider vision of their content and their classes are more internationally oriented. This international dimension is reinforced by the presence of international students in class from whom lecturers can elicit international examples that promote dialogue with and among students (Guarda and Helm 2017: 11).

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Higher Order Thinking The participants acknowledged the benefits of the shift towards more learner-centred approaches and their growing awareness of what they do in class and how their students learn. They noticed, however, that apart from slowing down the classes, language limitations also affect higher order thinking. De Wit (2011) highlights that the education offered in English by non-native speaking lecturers to non-native speaking students runs the risk of diminishing the quality of education since the quality of English is not given proper attention. Given that the cognitive demands of university programmes are high, resorting to a simplified use of language in class—owing to their own and students’ deficiencies in language proficiency—was viewed as a factor that hindered higher order thinking and makes it difficult to maintain the cognitive challenge and engage all students. English is a limitation, because when […] you struggle a little with English because you are not so fluent, and students aren’t so fluent to judge some details or to give appropriate meaning to everything they want to say. (Health Sciences) We lose the ability to really go into some details, because they don’t have the language to do that, even I may not have the language to do that. (Science and Technology)

This issue is particularly important to address if we consider that CLIL is supposed to promote higher order thinking skills whereas teachers perceive it as a limiting factor. That is certainly an issue that needs to be given more attention in teacher training and support. On the other hand, social science lecturers highlighted the gains of introducing an additional language and its cultural underpinnings to foster new ways of thinking and discovering the conceptual world expressed through a different language. Discovering conceptual differences between L1 and L2 seems particularly important in light of the risk of the Englishization of higher education (Hultgren 2014) or even “imprisonment in English” (Wierzbicka

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2014: 64): “In a globalized world in which English has become, effectively, the first ever global lingua franca, it is increasingly easy to forget that the whole world doesn’t think in English”. This brings us to the risk of imposing Anglo-Saxon values globally (Kirkpatrick 2011) or treating them as human universals and undermining equally valid cultural assumptions and values; for example, speakers of different languages may understand the term cooperation differently (Wierzbicka 2014). Given that CLIL teaching relies heavily on cooperative learning, such a conceptual bias may be a source of misunderstandings, or even resistance, in multilingual classrooms.

Teacher: Personal/Academic Image The participants highlighted the positive impact that teaching through English had on them as making them more aware, and thus better, teachers. Training activities offered by the university had a positive impact on their teaching practice; for example: The CLIL courses have opened my mind to a lot of new things that I have never thought about. (Health Sciences)

The participants reported that teaching through a foreign language was a source of anxiety at the beginning of the process. Although the initial anxiety associated with being observed and evaluated by their students wore off after some time, some of the lecturers still felt self-conscious about the fact that students’ opinions of their academic expertise may be affected by their level of English and performance in class. In this respect, a clear division was found between social and health sciences as these concerns were mainly reported by social science participants. Health science and technology lecturers were more open to being observed by their students even if their English was not perfect. This is in line with Kling’s findings (2015) where experienced lecturers of applied natural sciences reported that their personal image as teachers was not affected by the fact of teaching through English.

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The presence of international students and the dialogistic nature of CLIL classes was highly appreciated and exploited in the classroom as it helps to overcome lecturer insecurity and also makes the class more internationally oriented by eliciting examples from very different international contexts and experiences; thus the teachers also learn from the students.

Overaction Despite the participants’ initial concerns about how language proficiency can influence student perspectives of their professionality, they all agreed that such feelings wear off with time. The more experienced the lecturers, the less attention they paid to their language concerns, though they underlined limitations in using humour in class and the need to compensate for these drawbacks with expressiveness and creativity. Maybe you need to be like more open-minded, more expressive, of course, because you don’t have the clauses to express them in a different way. It’s a very good way to get integrating…like connect with other people from any country, even if the sense of humour is slightly different, of course. (Social Sciences)

Creativity The topic of creativity and new original ideas generated many doubts. The participants agreed that to integrate the additional language, as in any innovative endeavour, they needed to be imaginative and creative. Some of them, however, did not feel “gifted” enough and put in doubt the idea that not everybody can generate creative ideas, particularly throughout whole semesters. How can I be creative during the whole semester, in 40 classes? You do what you can, but it’s a challenge. (Health Sciences)

Generally, science and technology lecturers found it more difficult to be creative but highlighted the need for time to put their creative ideas into

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practice, time they do not have. They also underlined the importance of selecting the right content for the integration that would invite interaction and highlighted the fact that it is sometimes difficult to make purely scientific facts more attractive. The issue of creativity was discussed not only in reference to lecturers. The respondents recognized that students in more senior years appreciated innovative, student-centred methods more than those in their initial years at university. They also noted that many students still expect a very traditional university system with the teacher giving them everything, and not all are prepared for the effort required to be creative and innovative. One of the points raised was the implementation of an innovation in a very traditional culture, or “mould” as expressed by the participants, and the risk that the new model, which works in other countries and cultures, may simply not fit. In this respect, the participants also mentioned basic organizational issues such as the length of classes, which last 100 minutes in our university, and the layout of the classrooms, which simply do not invite cooperative learning, movement or participation in debates, even with keen students.

Students Despite some students’ resistance to innovation and more studentcentred approaches in favour of traditional lecture-based classes, cooperative learning, in which students take advantage of each other’s strengths and compensate for weaknesses, was found particularly helpful, especially when their level of English was not good enough to complete a given task independently. The lecturers reported paying more attention to their students’ progress, checking their knowledge and understanding more often, and their growing awareness of the different speeds of learning. As a result, their shared impression was that the integration of English made them more emphatic. Cultural differences among disciplines and students’ cultural background (Airey and Linder 2006) and the necessity to face students’ different learning styles were other issues that were raised. Our participants did not note significant differences between local and international

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students as regards their level of English, though they commented that some of the local students were more resistant to the use of English, especially those with lower levels. In the case of Spanish students, one of the major problems the lecturers had to cope with was their unwillingness to speak in class. Despite lecturers’ efforts to use interactive methods that would enable the integration of different language skills, they often felt helpless in the face of students’ resistance to speaking in class and preference for written work. A large contrast was particularly visible in groups with both local and international students, where the latter were more open to dialogue and discussion and thus a dialogistic atmosphere was much easier to create. The participants emphasized the need to take into account the Spanish context and students’ previous experience at school where students are seldom required to speak in public, which leads to a feeling of anxiety and embarrassment (Crean et al. 2018). All this is reinforced when a foreign language such as English comes into play and the student is the main actor. Despite lecturers’ efforts to make the classes more student-centred and interactive, they did not know how to deal with students’ uneasiness about speaking in public in English, but even more so about their unpleasant comments regarding other students’ English being “too good”. This kind of typical cultural handicap in Spain […] I always notice that some people, even having a good level of English, are afraid of showing themselves because it’s a kind of embarrassing somehow, which is ridiculous, of course, but it’s…I think it’s something that has been very strongly…ah…in our culture for many, many years […] there’s some kind of Spanish embarrassment. (Social Sciences) Students are making comments about other students’ good accents, like “what she’s pretending to do?” It’s a cultural thing. (Health Sciences)

5

Conclusions

This small-scale study sought to investigate the nature of risk management in CLIL/EMI degree programmes at a university in Spain. Our

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findings generally support many of the findings in previous literature on university programmes in English in that the implementation of English-taught programmes entails an additional workload for lecturers and a need for pedagogical support that goes far beyond improving their English proficiency. The results obtained show that despite initial challenges and uncertainties, lecturers recognize the clear benefits of integrating English for the improvement of their teaching practice, language and self-awareness, along with the resulting professional and personal development. Although the risk factor can extend far beyond the mere learning of content and is quite salient in specific subjects, the lecturers are willing to take the risk to pursue the opportunities created by integrating an additional language. However, they also signal the dichotomies as regards their professional identity, resistance and engagement from different student profiles. Doubts arise, however, if we seek to respond to the needs of highly globalized higher education and want to insert innovation in still too-traditional frames. This particularly refers to two areas: whether innovative solutions are implemented too hastily in contexts where a formal lecture framework still exists and might be expected by the students, and whether the innovative strategies used in class to find the balance between language and content are merely “tricks” to quickly overcome critical incidents without considering the students’ benefits in the long run. This brings us to the recurring question about whose responsibility it is to develop the English competency of students and if content lecturers have any role to play even if they feel that their main concern is content teaching and not the students’ English competency (Airey 2012; Dearden and Macaro 2016). Teaching through English as an additional language made the participating lecturers more aware as teachers, also in relation to their teaching practice in general, regardless of the language they use in class. Despite initially associating teaching through English with an additional effort and workload, the CLIL programme served as a catalyst for the professional development of university teachers and interdisciplinary collaboration with English language lecturers and as a motivating factor. Over the years, lecturers developed efficient ways of taking advantage of the opportunities that CLIL brings and tackling the problems and challenges encountered along the way; for example, the simplification

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forced by language limitation and applying more active pedagogies to ensure comprehension. Some of the challenges became a pretext for reexamining teaching practices and becoming a more aware and, in the end, better teacher, although the right balance between content, language and cultural complexities is sometimes time-consuming or hard to find. Risk-taking in English-taught programmes at the university level is approached as a responsible endeavour in terms of previous planning and implementation as well as the awareness of the implications of teaching through English for the teachers and students involved. Risk control and responsibility are closely connected with teachers’ growing awareness, which helps them to make more responsible choices and better anticipate and control the risks involved. Teachers are willing to take the risk to pursue the opportunity, but they underline that a supportive institutional culture is crucial to share their successes, tackle the challenges and minimize the risks in a joint effort. As a result, some of the strategies used to find the balance between language and content are only tricks to efficiently overcome any problems that arise without considering what really benefits students in the long run. Therefore, managing the challenges and juggling the benefits and risks associated with teaching through English in each context need to be further considered in professional development programmes, also for more experienced lecturers. We acknowledge that although our data has added to the existing evidence on the critical issues related to the implementation of English through CLIL and EMI programmes, such a local-scale study based on a single institution may be seen as a limitation. Another clear limitation is basing the study on lecturers’ own perceptions, so their actual on-the-job performance needs to be analysed as a next step of the research. Acknowledgements The authors sincerely thank the lecturers who participated in this research for their generosity and time as without their contributions this article could not have been developed.

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Wilkinson, R. (2018). Content and language integration at universities? Collaborative reflections. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 21(5), 607–615. Wo´zniak, M. (2017). ESP in CLIL degree programmes. ESP Today, 5 (2), 244– 265.

Part II English as a Medium of Instruction

EMI Lecturers’ and Students’ Perceptions: Can EMI Contribute to Enhancing Intercultural Competence? Marta Aguilar-Pérez

1

Introduction

As European universities seek to internationalize their courses and programs, English-Medium Instruction (EMI) is becoming a bourgeoning strategy undertaken by many higher education institutions to attract mostly international but also national students. Within this trend, many lecturers and students in non-English-speaking countries find themselves teaching and studying content courses in English in increasingly internationalized classrooms at their home university. This new scenario may place lecturers and students out of their comfort zones because of their lack of proficiency to teach or study in English or because of their lack of experience in performing efficiently in multilingual and culturally diverse classrooms (Teekens 2003; Soria and Troisi M. Aguilar-Pérez (B) Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 M. L. Carrió-Pastor and B. Bellés Fortuño (eds.), Teaching Language and Content in Multicultural and Multilingual Classrooms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56615-9_4

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2014; Byram 2014, 2019). Indeed, EMI students in international classrooms at their home university may have to work with classmates coming from different educational backgrounds who are equipped with different learning styles and tacit, or overt, beliefs as to what appropriate class behavior is. At the same time, EMI lecturers with a western background may also need to cope with international students who are used to a teacher-fronted lecturing style where student participation is virtually absent and students always work individually. Research on EMI has mostly focused on opportunities and challenges like disciplinary knowledge development and English language development and while Intercultural competence (IC) development is acknowledged as a (usually secondary) learning outcome (Pulcini and Campagna 2015; Macaro et al. 2018), EMI cannot be narrowed down to internationalization, first because internationalization encompasses much more than just teaching through the medium of English (Knight 2008) and, second, because as Klaassen warned: It is often assumed that the integration of foreign students with local students will automatically take place, once put together in the same process. This, however, is an illusion. The process has to be guided and coached and may require alternative working methods from the ones that are used in a regular situation. (2003: 140).

Apart from studies that explore the development of foreign language and IC skills as outcomes of study abroad experiences (Cots et al. 2016; Kinginger 2013; Köylü 2016), other studies have also pointed to the potential of an Internationalization at Home (IaH) experience (Crowther et al. 2000; Salisbury 2011; Beelen and Jones 2015; Arnó-Macià and Aguilar-Pérez 2019) as a key driver of intercultural competence, where non-mobile local students are in contact with non-native speakers of English. At the same time, given the close relationship between learning a foreign language and learning its culture and thus improving one’s intercultural competence (Byram 2014; Candel-Mora 2015; Earls 2016), it has also been traditionally assumed that foreign language teachers play an important role in boosting their students’ IC. Heeding EMI

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lecturers’ intercultural awareness and implementing in-class and out-ofclass actions that promote interaction between international and local students in the home campus seems necessary so that learning in international classrooms is ensured and local students make the most of their local internationalization experience (Aguilar 2018), yet further knowledge is needed about how IC is catered for in internationalized EMI classes where lecturers’ interest seems to lie in teaching content, refusing any accountability for teaching English (Airey 2012). If we understand that the integration of internationalization implies “developing the culture, attitudes and practices that enable international and cross-cultural perspectives and approaches to permeate all aspects of university life” (Jones 2013: 162), a more qualitative exploration of the intricacies of the impact of EMI on the domestic campus is needed to know if and to what extent EMI actually acts as a driver of IC for local students and lecturers. Following Wächter’s claims (2003) that IaH rests on two pillars, namely, understanding internationalization beyond mobility, and teaching and learning in culturally diverse settings, the potential of an IaH experience to increase exposure to cultural diversity (and culturally different “Others”) to both mobile and non-mobile students (Urban and Bierlein Palmer 2014) cannot be ignored. Along these lines, the aim of this study is to explore the beliefs held by local lecturers and students participating in an international EMI course with regard to their IC development and to what extent academic staff, one of the key drivers of change (Almeida et al. 2018), incorporates IC-enhancing practices. This research thus borrows from three main bodies of research, viz. EMI, intercultural competence, and internationalization at home.

Intercultural Competence and Internationalization at Home Intercultural competence, defined as “an individual’s ability to communicate and interact across cultural boundaries” (Byram 1997: 7) or “the appropriate and effective management of interaction between people

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who, to some degree or another, represent different or divergent cognitive, affective, and behavioral orientations to the world” (Spitzberg and Chagnon 2009: 7), has traditionally been studied alongside the development of foreign language skills as outcomes of study abroad experiences (Cots et al. 2016; Kinginger 2013; Messelink et al. 2015; Byram and Dervin 2008). Student mobility is known to enhance the development of IC alongside the so-called transversal skills like the ability to work in teams, flexible thinking, and problem-solving capacity (Coleen 2018), particularly if accompanied by interventions. By and large, the concept of IC as consisting of beliefs, attitude, and behavior dimensions (Byram 1997) of open-mindedness, respect or ethno-relativism has been contended (for its western-biased standards) and revisited after acknowledgment that other interacting physiological, affective, and emotional aspects must be taken into consideration to understand why speakers are not always rational (Spencer-Rodgers and McGovern 2002; Spitzberg and Chagnon 2009). Recently, emphasis has been placed on the need for higher institutions to be inclusive, offering similar internationalization experiences to all students and staff (De Wit et al. 2015; Jones 2016; Almeida et al. 2018; Byram 2019). However, the need to understand internationalization beyond mobility was necessary not to exclude those students who are not exposed to intercultural learning and an international experience, so internationalization at home (IaH), initially defined as any internationally related activity excluding outbound student and staff mobility (Crowther et al. 2000), was later redefined as the purposeful integration of international and intercultural dimensions into the formal and informal curriculum for all students within domestic learning environments (Beelen and Jones 2015). Regarding the impact of an IaH experience on students’ IC, evidence was found (Soria and Troisi 2014) that intercultural awareness and competence after a home-campus experience can be higher if compared to a period of study abroad. In order to distinguish formal from informal internationalization, Leask (2015: 9) introduced the concept of the internationalization of the curriculum as “the process of incorporating international, intercultural and global dimensions into the content of the curriculum as well as the learning outcomes, assessment tasks, teaching methods, and support services of a program of study.”

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While Jones (2013: 172) mentions student diversity as one of the ten indicators to implement internationalization, many voices have been raised to warn that student diversity alone may not guarantee IC development. Along the lines of Klaassen (2003), De Wit (2011), and Beelen and Jones (2015) also refer to the misconceptions of internationalization, two of the most widespread being that teaching in English equals international education and that more incoming foreign students equals more internationalization. In other words, for EMI courses and other activities to be called internationalization at home, they have to reach all students and be purposeful: “it is evident that teaching in English or learning a foreign language does not automatically lead to international perspectives. Nor do home students learn automatically from incoming international students nor do international staff internationalize teaching and learning by their mere presence” (Beleen 2016: 58). The case has been made by Trede et al. (2013) that even with wellplanned international programs, lecturers neither include intercultural pedagogies nor purposefully seek to develop intercultural competence and global citizenship among their students.

EMI and Internationalization at Home In order to gain an understanding of the benefits of delivering international competences at home, more evidence is required on the variables affecting EMI implementation in European higher institutions. As stated above, when EMI brings about the presence of domestic and international students in the classroom, some unresolved cultural misunderstandings may arise that can impact on the teaching and learning. One of the difficulties EMI lecturers may encounter is that interactive teaching may become difficult when Asian students in class, not used to this teaching style, remain silent. Lack of awareness among European lecturers that participation is a culturally constructed notion that can differ in Confucian-heritage cultures (Murray and McConachy 2018) can lead to unfair and unequal situations, in particular when student participatory behavior, understood as interacting and asking

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in class, feeds assessment. The cultural standards of acceptable classroom behavior in EMI need not be western, however. For example, Bradford (2016) analyzed the challenges of EMI implementation from the Japanese perspective. Some of the Japanese EMI teachers in her study seem to separate the language from its westerner culture, aligning with the epistemological assumption identified by Airey (2012) whereby language/communication and disciplinary content can be separated, because lecturers believe that “it is possible to separate EMI from its dominant culture(s) and teach in English using a more traditional Japanese pedagogic approach” (Bradford 2016: 346). Her lecturers do not think mixing students with different backgrounds and having passive and participatory behaviors in the same classroom are negative because adjustment to different learning styles is one of the twenty-first-century skills that students in EMI classrooms should be developing. On the part of the students, research revolves around L2 learners’ aspirations to present themselves as global citizens in English as a lingua franca communication (Sung 2014: 1; Jenkins 2003) and so students usually embrace working in multicultural and multilingual groups because of the purported intercultural benefits. In a Spanish tertiary education context, students following an ESP course are also seen to be aware of the existence of intercultural and international teams and meetings, worldwide negotiations, and the implications of working in a globalized world, so they welcome the inclusion of IC in their foreign language courses syllabi, and associate IC with foreign language learning (Candel-Mora 2015), while another study with Swedish students found they rate the internationalization of their curriculum at home to be even more beneficial than international mobility alone (Rosner and Christensen 2016). From the viewpoint of the multiple identities juggled by that lecturers and students in EMI (Bradford 2016), and within the transformational process that internationalization is said to bring about, it has been argued that because English as an international lingua franca is not exclusively tied to its national and cultural base, students and lecturers may link the use of English with a non-parochial, cosmopolitan posture, or citizen identity. For example, Sung (2014) found that ESL students deployed hybrid identities of both global and local models,

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somehow adapting global elements to suit local needs (known as glocalization). An underlying outcome of speaking English for the students in his study is that it allowed them to relate to the global world, expressing their identity of a sophisticated, modern citizen through English, while surfing and negotiating between the two identities. In this sense, it could be argued that just as L2 speakers often appropriate English in order to meet their localized needs and pursue their localized interests (Canagarajah 2005) so may students and lecturers choose EMI with an internationalization aim to pursue their localized needs and interests (e.g., higher employability). Nevertheless, the reality in some European universities may be that the non-mobile students in EMI courses are not experiencing activities under the concept of IaH, nor are they placed outside their comfort zones in the way of disorienting dilemmas (Coleen 2018) that mobile students are, so their chances of undergoing the transformative process after contact with culturally different “Others” are slim. Against this backdrop, Robson et al. (2018) state that empirical research is necessary to gain more insights into how IaH is being operationalized across European higher education institutions. Hence, it seems pertinent to study the role of lecturers in courses that have the potential to raise international awareness and IC, like EMI and ESP instruction. Are EMI teachers prepared and willing to tackle IC? Do EMI students perceive their IC has developed as an outcome of following an EMI course? This study seeks to explore the implementation of IC in EMI at a Spanish university, exemplary of southern European universities, by means of the following two research questions: RQ-1. What are EMI lecturers’ and students’ perceptions regarding their IC after having followed an EMI course? RQ-2. To what extent is EMI a driver of IC and what factors seem to interact?

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This Study

Context The context of this study is a southern European university where the internationalization trend is lagging compared with northern and central European universities (Wächter and Maiworm 2015) and the majority of university students do not participate in a study abroad program. If we endorse Beleen and Jones’s claim (2015) that a few EMI electives cannot be considered IaH, it follows that the context of the study is far from an internationalized institution. In the context of the study, two main types of EMI courses at bachelor’s level have been identified: (i) courses and bachelor’s degree programs taught in English that are addressed to local students, with 90–100% of the students being local (henceforth national EMI ), and (ii) courses, elective or mandatory, within a program with more than 25% of international or Erasmus students (henceforth, international EMI ). At the master’s level the same could be said, with the only difference that in national EMI programs fully taught in English, foreign students come from South America and some from the Middle East (e.g., Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan). The EMI courses participating in this study were 6 credit-bearing courses (4 contact hours per week over a semester), except for one course (EMI-1), which was 4.5 credit-bearing (3 contact hours per week over the semester) and the English for Specific Purposes course also studied as a reference (see Table 1).

Tools Two instruments were used to gather information—a survey and a semi-structured interview. In order to identify and gauge lecturers’ and students’ perceptions of their self-perceived IC development, a survey was administered at the end of the academic year 2018–2019. The survey, inspired by Soria and Troisi (2014), enquired into their openness, respect and curiosity and teaching/study behavior, key components of intercultural competence in Byram’s (1997) three-dimension model of IC (beliefs, attitude, behavior ). Given that Soria and Troisi (2014)

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Table 1 Breakdown of lecturers, disciplines, experience, students surveyed, academic level courses offered, and percentage of international over national students in class % TeacherNo. of Foreign course Experience students students code Discipline (years) surveyed Level in class EMI-1 EMI-2 EMI-3 EMI-4

EMI-5 EMI-6 EMI-7

EMI-8

EMI-9

EMI-10

ESP

Electrical Eng. Project Management Electrical Eng. Nuclear Eng./Energy Tech Electrical Eng. Electronic Eng. Thermal Engines & machines Industrial Organization & Management Industrial Organization & Management Industrial Organization & Management Academic & Professional Oral Communication

10 10

6 4

BSc BSc

50 75

9 5

14 9

BSc MSc

40 15

2 17 15

– – –

BSc MSc MSc

20 +60 +60

3

–

BSc– MSc

15

6

–

MSc

90%

1

–

MSc

90%

11

18

BSc

39%

found that sometimes previous international experiences and attitudes were indicators of IC development, in the introductory part of the survey, brief biographic information was requested. The survey consisted of two main parts. The first part tackled their perceived interculturality (openness, curiosity, behavior) while the second enquired into their international and global engagement. At the end, a couple of questions were added, following Sung (2014) and Leask (2009), with the aim of gathering information about the impact of the international experience. Sung

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reports on the relationship between endorsing a global citizen identity and being influenced by intercultural experiences, and Leask’s holistic view of IaH envisions it as a “dynamic interplay of teaching and learning processes, content, and experiences in and out of the classroom” (2009: 208). I therefore also included questions in the survey regarding contact with foreign students in and out of classroom. The survey for lecturers and students was very similar—with very few questions appearing in only one of the surveys and a few questions being reworded (i.e., students were asked about Erasmus study abroad experiences while lecturers informed of their participation in international research projects or conferences). The survey, anonymous and optional, consisted of 5-Lickert scale items (1, completely disagree to 5, completely agree) plus a few openended questions (biography). Closed items were statistically analyzed (using MatLab software), calculating the mean, standard deviation, significant differences (One-Way ANOVA), and looking for any existing correlations (Pearson’s correlation) between one item and another. As open questions usually received one- or two-word answers (yes-no; number of years/months), they were also analyzed quantitatively. Within the student and lecturer cohorts, a class of ESP (English for Specific Purposes) course in the same school of engineering also answered the survey as a reference to determine if significant differences emerge due to different lecturer profiles, i.e., a content specialist versus a language specialist. In the study, only national students replied. Foreign students were discarded so that their study abroad participation did not interact with domestic students’ internationalization at home experience. The second tool was a short semi-structured interview that three EMI lecturers agreed to hold separately. The interviews (which aimed at establishing a dialogue so that they could voice their opinions regarding their international engagement and their overall lecturing experience) were recorded, transcribed, and thematically analyzed. Having previously scrutinized the lecturer’s replies in the survey in order to be familiar with them, the researcher was able to plunge into the main themes that seemed worth elaborating on in the interview, in order to obtain indepth, personalized information that was otherwise impossible to elicit in the survey. The interpretation of already existing previous concepts

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was in this way interpreted inductively, letting the data “inform” the researcher.

Participants All the students and lecturers studied and taught EMI (and ESP) courses at the same school of engineering when they participated in the study. A total of ten EMI lecturers (2 females, 8 male) answered the survey, three of whom were interviewed. Except for one, the youngest, the lecturers had taught in English for several years and taught engineering-related courses (see Table 1). A female ESP lecturer also answered the survey. As for students, all of whom were local and bilingual, 33 EMI students and 18 ESP undergraduate students participated in the survey, totaling 51 students. Only students from four of the courses participated because the five remaining courses were not being offered in the second semester of that academic year, so it was impossible to survey those students. All EMI and ESP courses were international EMI courses (i.e., with more than 25% of foreign students), with the exception of EMI-4 and EMI-8, which were rather national EMI courses (15% of foreign students).

3

Results

The Survey First the results of the quantitative analysis for EMI students, mostly following an international EMI class, are going to be explained. The three open-ended questions in the biographical part of the survey for EMI students were analyzed, leading to the following results. As for the quality of in-class contact, the breakdown of students’ responses shows that 42.4% of them report never or seldom interacting with foreign students in class, while 54.4% of them claim they sometimes or always (i.e., in every class) do; the remainder did not answer. Secondly, 48.5% of the students say they have never met with international students outside class, but 48.5% claim having had out-of-class contact. Among those

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that reported having had out-of-class contact, some mention sporadic meetings (for team projects, during the breaks or after class) and a few of them mention playing basketball or going to the gym frequently. Finally, 72.7% of EMI students had already had some extensive or intensive previous overseas experience—most of them on an Erasmus exchange for a semester in northern European countries—so around one-third (27.2%) had never had such an experience. When we look at the ESP cohort, we find that 100% of students say they interact with foreign students in class, 50% had occasional out-of-class contact and 50% had not. The figures for overseas experience are almost identical to EMI students (72.2% have an intensive or extensive overseas experience and 27.7% do not). Next, the results from the first part of the survey aimed at gauging stakeholders’ IC will be presented (items 1–18, Table 2). The first outstanding result is that all students’ self-perceived IC is quite high; in general, EMI and ESP students rate themselves highly in the beliefs and attitude categories of IC (e.g., items 1–7: I like, I adapt, I value…) and do not think EMI is challenging for them. As for the items inquiring into their behavior (items 8–13), their ratings are on the whole lower: students do not seem to proactively look for knowledge, ask foreign students questions or observe or analyze other behaviors. By and large, they report their unwillingness to change their behaviour, stating that the incoming students should adapt to their national culture. Thus, some tension is identified between stated beliefs and reported behavior, that is, between their self-assessed highly international portrait on the one hand and their expectations that international students in class adapt to the local culture on the other. Finally, all students think that their English and intercultural skills have developed as a result of the course but EMI students do not clearly attribute their self-perceived gain in IC to the EMI lecturer whereas ESP students clearly do. EMI lecturers’ replies regarding their perceived IC are also found in the first part of the survey. The ESP lecturer’s replies will be left aside unless some of her replies can be used as a reference to help us better understand the EMI lecturer cohort. In terms of biographical data, it must be mentioned that eight (out of ten) lecturers had an academic experience abroad and most of them had received a national education:

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Table 2 Quantitative results of Part 1 of the survey (Intercultural Competence) EMI Item students ESP students EMI lecturers 1. I am an open person

Mean: 4,1 St Dev: 0,83

Mean: 3,8 St Dev: 1,09

2. I like cultural differences

Mean: 4,6 St Dev: 0,49

Mean: 4,3 St Dev: 0,60

3. I tend to adapt to different cultural norms when I am abroad or surrounded by foreign people 4. I sometimes judge cultural differences (e.g., “I dislike/like this behavior”)

Mean: 4,06 St Dev: 0,65

Mean: 4 St Dev: 0,90

Mean: 3,09 St Dev: 1,18

Mean: 3,06 St Dev: 1,16

5. I like being in such a highly culturally diverse classroom

Mean: 4,3 St Dev: 0,81

Mean: 4,3 St Dev: 0,69

6. It’s a challenge for me to be in such an international classroom

Mean: 2,5 St Dev: 1,20

Mean: 2,3 St Dev: 1,40

7. I value this course more positively than other national courses because of its cultural diversity 8. I looked for information about the different cultures (as represented by students’ nationalities) 9. I ask Erasmus students about their domestic cultural habits, contrasting them with my Spanish/Catalan ways (university norms, lecturing styles)

Mean: 3,6 St Dev: 1,11

Mean: 4,2 St Dev: 1,01

Mean: 2 St Dev: 1,11

Mean: 2,5 St Dev: 1,09

Mean: 2,9 St Dev: 1,38

Mean: 2,7 St Dev: 1,36

Mean: 4,10 Std Dev: 0,88 (ESP lecturer: 5) Mean: 4,6 Std Dev: 0,70 (ESP lecturer: 5) Mean: 4,5 Std Dev: 0,53 (ESP lecturer: 5) Mean: 2,1 Std Dev: 0,99 (ESP lecturer: 1) Mean: 4,1 Std Dev: 0,99 (ESP lecturer: 5) Mean: 3,2 Std Dev: 1,14 (ESP lecturer: 1) Mean: 3,8 Std Dev: 0,92 (ESP lecturer: 3) Mean: 2,6 Std Dev: 1,58 (ESP lecturer: 5) Mean: 2,4 Std Dev: 1,51 (ESP lecturer: 5)

(continued)

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Table 2 (continued) Item 10. I try to approach Erasmus students, trying to establish a conversation with them 11. I often listen, observe, analyze, or interpret different behaviors among my international classmates/students 12. I sometimes changed my behavior (communicative behavior, body language, etc.) in this classroom in contrast with more “national” classrooms 13. I think that it is incoming students (Erasmus) that have to adapt to our Spanish/Catalan culture 14. Speaking and being with Erasmus classmates is enriching for me because I practice & develop my English 15. Speaking and working with Erasmus/foreign classmates is enriching for me because my intercultural skills have improved & my intercultural awareness has been raised 16. The teacher in this course has helped me increase my intercultural communicative skills 17. Speaking, working and being with Erasmus students in this class has not helped me in any way

EMI students

ESP students

EMI lecturers

Mean: 3,03 St Dev: 1,04

Mean: 3,6 St Dev: 0,91

n.a.

Mean: 3,2 St Dev: 1,21

Mean: 3,89 St Dev: 0,75

Mean: 2,9 Std Dev: 1,29 (ESP lecturer: 5)

Mean: 2,7 St Dev: 1,16

Mean: 2,8 St Dev: 1,20

Mean: 3,1 Std Dev: 1,20 (ESP lecturer: 3)

Mean: 2,6 St Dev: 0,95

Mean: 2,6 St Dev: 0,69

Mean: 4,1 St Dev: 0,84

Mean: 4,5 St Dev: 0,61

Mean: 3,3 Std Dev: 0,95 (ESP lecturer: 1) Mean: 4,3 Std Dev: 0,82 (ESP lecturer: 4)

Mean: 3,9 St Dev: 1,03

Mean: 4,2 St Dev: 0,66

Mean: 3,7 Std Dev: 1,49 (ESP lecturer: 4)

*Mean: 3,2 St Dev: 1,09

*Mean: 4,3 St Dev: 0,68

n.a.

*Mean: 2,1 St Dev: 1,21

*Mean: 1,21 St Dev: 0,46

n.a.

Legend: The asterisk * means statistically significant differences; n.a.: questions that were not present in the lecturer survey

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only one had an international doctorate and another one had attended an international school in primary and secondary education. When it comes to analyzing EMI lecturers’ replies in the first part of the survey, we see that their responses tend to resemble those of the students: their interculturality is rated highly but they deploy an ethnocentric attitude when they report not making much effort to look for information about their foreign students, ask, observe, or analyze their behavior. Though lecturers seem to feel that EMI is more challenging for them than it is for students, they tend to think that international students must adapt to the national culture and so they do not change their lecturing behavior to adapt to an international audience. It could be argued that students and lecturers report being ethno-relative (adapting to the other’s culture) when they are abroad (as guests) and yet show a rather ethnocentric attitude when they are the hosts. Like students, EMI lecturers feel their English has somehow improved and tend to think that their IC has improved thanks to lecturing in English (mean: 3.7)—although lecturers’ replies greatly vary (std deviation: 1.49). It is worth pointing out that EMI lecturers’ attitude sharply contrasts with the ESP lecturer’s attitude, who reports having a pro-active attitude and behavior, i.e., she asks students, observes, interprets, and analyzes them and she does not think foreign students should adapt to the national culture. As for the second part of the survey on international engagement (items 18–26, Table 3), EMI and ESP students’ replies are quite similar in terms of the international experiences they have had, with quite equidistant or “lukewarm” replies (means around 3), except when they are asked about the EMI lecturer’s role in boosting their IC. When EMI and ESP students are compared in the whole survey, we find statistically significant differences in only four items: ESP students think their lecturer has helped them increase their IC (item 16 ), feel more empowered and prepared for an international experience like an Erasmus exchange after the ESP course (item 19 ), feel more empowered and less scared to travel or study abroad (item 22) and fully disagree with the statement that speaking and working with foreign students in class has not helped them in any way (item 17 ). Thus, unlike their EMI counterparts, ESP students feel their teacher has contributed to their enhanced IC and value the frequency but also the quality of the interaction (i.e.,

Mean: 3,2 St Dev: 1,47

*Mean: 3,0 St Dev: 1,10

Mean: 3,5 St Dev: 1,16

22. I now feel more prepared, more empowered, or less scared to travel/study abroad as an outcome of following this course

23. I have always followed international or global mass media

Mean: 3,2 St Dev: 1,16

Mean: 3,1 St Dev: 1,53

21. I often travel abroad for cross-cultural experience or (informal) education OR I often present papers & participate in intl conferences, etc.)

*Mean: 4,1 St Dev: 0,72

*Mean: 3,1 St Dev: 1,01

19. I think that participating in this course has in some way prepared me for a future intl experience (Erasmus program or working for an international company) 20. I have developed a friendship with a student or lecturer from a foreign university or institution

Mean: 3,3 St Dev: 1,19

*Mean: 3,8 St Dev: 0,90

Mean: 3,00 St Dev: 1,06

Mean: 4,2 St Dev: 0,77

Mean: 4,2 St Dev: 1,11

18. I have participated in at least one intl event/one mobility program in my academic life

ESP students

EMI students

Item

Table 3 Quantitative results of Part 2 the survey (Global Engagement) EMI lecturers

Mean: 4,4 Std Dev: 0,52 (ESP lecturer: 5) Mean: 3,7 Std Dev: 1,34 (ESP lecturer: 4) Mean: 3,9 Std Dev: 1,10 (ESP lecturer: 5) Mean: 3,1 Std Dev: 1,52 (ESP lecturer: 5)

Mean: 3,8 Std Dev: 1,55 (ESP lecturer: 5) n.a.

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Mean: 3,5 St Dev: 1,17

Mean: 3,4 St Dev: 1,06

n.a.

n.a.

25. I am happy with my national identity

26. I would rather feel more cosmopolitan or international in the future

• Lecturers only: In this course I undertake actions to help students increase their IC (mixing, making them interact, supportive atmosphere, etc.)

• Lecturers only: It’s not my duty to cater for my students’ intercultural skills

n.a.

n.a.

Mean: 3,8 St Dev: 1,13

Mean: 4,2 St Dev: 0,66

Mean: 3,7 St Dev: 0,82

ESP students

EMI lecturers Mean: 2,7 Std Dev: 1,25 (ESP lecturer: 3) Mean: 3,7 Std Dev: 1,06 (ESP lecturer: 3) Mean: 3,5 Std Dev: 1,51 (ESP lecturer: 1) Mean: 3,0 Std Dev: 1,41 (ESP lecturer: 5) Mean: 3,0 Std Dev: 0,67 (ESP lecturer: 1)

Legend: The asterisk * means statistically significant differences; n.a.: questions that were not present in either the student or lecturer survey

Mean: 3,2 St Dev: 1,09

EMI students

24. I will try to follow international or global mass media more often

Item

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speaking and working with foreign students in class), along the lines of Aguilar (2018). The self-perceived international engagement of EMI lecturers, the second part of the survey, also partly aligns with the students’ replies. Lecturers report having international academic experiences of different kinds, travelling quite often to attend conferences and have similar replies in terms of identity. Because they state they have always read the global media, they are not willing to be more active in the global media in the future. Their self-perceived IC is believed to have increased as an outcome of their EMI, though again the mean must be taken cautiously because of the high standard deviation (reflecting very different answers from lecturers in this item). Most importantly, when asked if they undertook any actions to boost their students’ interculturality (for example, by making students mingle and interact), EMI lecturers seem neutral though their replies differ so much from lecturer to lecturer (std dev: 1.41) that the mean (Mean: 3) is not informative. This result could be interpreted along the lines that the personal, idiosyncratic factor can determine the actual lecturing performance or that they were undecided or ambivalent. Likewise, the mean (3) for the last item (It’s not my duty to cater for my students’ intercultural skills) is also neutral and undecisive though in this case the EMI lecturers’ responses were more similar (std dev: 0.67). In contrast, the ESP lecturer fully disagreed with the latter statement and fully agreed with the former, resonating with studies (Chao 2013; Byram 2014) that claim that students’ IC can be enhanced in an English as Foreign Language environment and that FL teachers are better prepared to integrate IC in their lessons. In order to probe what factors may have a bearing on a perceived strengthened IC and gather in-depth information for the second research question, it was necessary to determine if there was any correlation between one item and another in the EMI students’ answers. Using Pearson’s correlation, a considerable number of items that correlated with another were found (Table 4). If the factor is positive, the correlation is also positive, i.e., when the score of an item increases, the score in the other item will also increase. If negative, when the score in one item increases, the score in the second item decreases. The items are presented

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Table 4 Correlation in EMI students’ replies. Items that correlate with another item have a p-value < 0.05. I adapt to culture—like being in a diverse classroom It is a challenge—like being in a diverse classroom It is a challenge—judge cultural differences I value this course—like being in a diverse class I value this course—judge cultural differences I value this course—it is a challenge Being with Erasmus NOT help—it is a challenge Being with Erasmus NOT help—like being in a diverse I developed my English—it is a challenge My IC has increased—I developed my English Teacher help increase my IC—I approach Erasmus This course prepared me—like being in a diverse class Feel + empowered—it is a challenge Feel + empowered—this course prepared me I ask Erasmus—looked for info about Erasmus culture I listen, observe—I value this course I listen, observe—I ask Erasmus I listen, observe—I approach Erasmus I developed friendship—I ask Erasmus I developed friendships—I approach Erasmus I developed friendships—I listen, observe Erasmus must adapt—I listen, observe I approach Erasmus—I ask Erasmus Often travel abroad—participated in intl event Often travel abroad—this course prepared me Participated in intl event—I am open Happy with national identity—teacher helped increase IC Will follow global media—always followed global media

(0.426 & p = 0.013) (0.433 & p = 0.012) (−0.364 & p = 0.037)* (0.374 & p = 0.032)* (−0.446 & p = 0.009) (0.529 & p = 0.002) (−0.431 & p = 0.012) (−0.443 & p = 0.01) (0.366 & p = 0.036)* (0.407 & p = 0.021) (0.405 & p = 0.020) (0.441 & p = 0.012) (0.383 & 0.031)* (0.457 & p = 0.009) (0.385 & p = 0.027) (0.546 & p = 0.001) (0.45 & p = 0.009) (0.412 & p = 0.017) (0.55 & p = 0.001) (0.524 & p = 0.002) (0.381 & p = 0.029) (−0.428 & 0.013) (0.607 & p = 0) (0.494 & p = 0.004) (0.448 & 0.01) (0.504 & p = 0.003) (0.376 & p = 0.031)* (0.426 & p = 0.015)

Legend: The asterisk * means the correlation is little/ hardly significant because value is close to 0.05

according to similar concepts in order to facilitate interpretation and the most outstanding results will be summarized below. As can be seen, the more the students report adapting to different norms, the more they like being in a culturally diverse class (where maybe they can develop their openness and tolerance) although, interestingly, this finding is also related to their viewing EMI as a challenge, resonating with Coleen (2018) in that for activities to be regarded under the proper concept of IaH, they should place students in “disorienting”

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situations that are conducive to enhanced IC—thus implying that the EMI courses fulfilled this requirement. This finding is coherent with the idea that EMI requires an ethno-relativistic and tolerant stance, and also aligns with the correlation between positively valuing the course and the multicultural classroom, and not judging differences. In a very congruent way, the more they state that being with international students in class has not helped them, the less they like these multicultural classrooms and the more difficult they find EMI, which implies students have either not interacted with international students, remaining in their national “bubble”, or they have had difficulties in leaving their comfort zone and overcoming the challenge—maybe because they have not been “pushed” by their EMI lecturer. Additional knowledge about students’ feelings and beliefs is achieved when we see that for them developing their English is closely associated with their IC development, which also relates to the appraisal of the EMI course as a preparation for a future international experience. Students who feel more empowered after the EMI course also feel it is good preparation for their future international experiences. Following the order of the correlations identified (Table 4), developing a friendship logically correlates with having a pro-active attitude and behavior toward foreign students (i.e., those with an open attitude stand more chances of making a friend) just as those with previous experience and involvement in international experiences regard themselves as open people, acknowledge the course is good preparation, and ask, observe, and analyze foreign student behaviour without judging it. Not surprisingly, the more national students think it is Erasmus that have to adapt to their national culture, the less open and interested in listening and observing they are. Finally, previous international experience and having an open and pro-active personality seems to favor their positive appraisal of the EMI course and their perception of increased IC, hinting at the sound idea that those with an already existing international profile (travelling, following global media) seem to be the ones to better rate EMI, the course acting as a reminder, or a boost, of their IC. In other words, students’ perception of an increased IC seems related to their already existing previous internationalized biography. They seem to acknowledge that studying in an international classroom has contributed to increasing their IC because of the opportunity to

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approach international students and interact with them, although they acknowledge EMI challenges them. Other predictors of IC and positive appraisals of an EMI course where teachers do not seem to promote IC are open personality and the feeling of having overcome the difficulty inherent in EMI. In the case of the stakeholders in this study, where both EMI students and lecturers agree that IC was not particularly catered for in their class and where students do not feel the teacher has helped them increase their IC, probably because they could not identify any task explicitly guided by the lecturer (items 16 and 17), it is interesting to note that students feel their IC (and English) has improved as a result of speaking and working with international students in class. Because students could not be interviewed, it remains unknown if working in multicultural groups requires in their opinion more effort to be tolerant and respectful for cultural differences like study or work habits, for example. From the results obtained in this study, it could be argued that a methodology and a teaching style that rest upon teamwork activities and group oral presentations should be prioritized in EMI in order to facilitate interaction and communication that could be conducive to enhanced IC.

Interview with the Lecturers As said above, in the survey the lecturers’ replies about their actions to promote IC were imprecise, so the six most experienced lecturers were invited to be interviewed, three of whom agreed. These three lecturers were interviewed with the specific aim to find out if they made their students work in groups, creating a learning environment that encouraged speaking, reasoning, and discussing disciplinary content in English in their classes. Qualitative data consisted of interviews of three EMI lecturers— EMI-6, EMI-7, and EMI-9. Thematic analysis and interpretation of the transcribed surveys led to five overriding themes. The first was they had never reflected on the impact of EMI on the local students’ IC. They suggest that it was more on the students’ or that it was a given: “I see (.) it’s interesting (.) what you say (.) yes yes (.) I see what you say

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about cultural understanding (.) but nowadays young people travel a lot, but yes, you’re right now that I think about this” (EMI-9). The second finding was that their lessons were mostly learner-centered and interactive, based on teamwork. While this could be an appropriate pedagogy for enhancing IC, it turned out that this was the same methodology they used in L1. For this reason, they did not consider this to be any conscious adaptation to integrate national and international students, acknowledging that domestic students tend to team up together and that intercultural contact is at the most only working at a functional level. Only one lecturer, EMI-9, said that he interspersed interactive sessions with more teacher-fronted lessons, but on the whole all lecturers reported making their students work in teams in order to help Asian students who seldom participate: “ I’m always trying to make things attractive and I show this open-mindedness uhm (.) when I lecture to locals or to international (…) I always try to avoid this, having Chinese students, for example, who are not participatory (.) and what I do is always work in teams (.) then this doesn’t happen” (EMI-6). However, none of the interviewed lecturers mentioned making any conscientious effort to make teams multicultural, leaving to students to decide who they team up with. Thirdly, EMI lecturers think that national and international students are not so different, so little accommodation is necessary. The EMI lecturers interviewed think that nowadays local students are very similar to foreign students, with a global stance acquired though travelling and online connectivity. As EMI-9 says: “It’s western (.) eerr (.) westernization sure, it’s not a purposeful decision, it’s unavoidable, people’s behaviour is basically the same, cultural differences are not so important.” By accepting a certain homogenization, implicitly embedded in a western set of values, these EMI lecturers do not seem to anticipate any unequal, unfair, or un-ethical considerations when it comes to teaching and, most importantly, assessing students from an eastern background, for example. Overtly interested in the content they deliver, they highlight they do not change content by any means when lecturing in an international class, except for very few aspects: EMI-9: I teach what I have to teach, nooo no (.) the truth is that I don’t distinguish(.) it is true that Asian students are more silent but

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they’re also hard workers and, and they are more motivated students (2) Weeell (.) what I’ve being doing these last years in international classes is give instructions in a written document (.) very clear and structured instructions to make sure they understand the tasks. Interviewer: Why do you do that? Do you do that for the local students or for the international ones? EMI-9: Some of the local students’ English is awful but we’ve also got foreign students with poor English uuhhm (.) what I do is try to give everything in written, thorough and clear instructions eeerr I think some don’t understand me.

Thus, the few accommodations they make result from their willingness to cope with students’ linguistic hurdles rather than from cultural awareness. Similarly, two lecturers (EMI-6 and EMI-7) say that they only somehow change content in international classrooms when students come from very different educational backgrounds (mechanical, electrical, chemical engineering) so then they need to first establish some common ground by revising the fundamentals: “So in this case (.) yes (2) I change content (err) but it’s not because of the language, it’s always the background” (EMI-6). Fourthly, EMI lecturers feel that their IC was already high before the start of the course under study—they have lectured in English for several years—but they acknowledge that lecturing in international classrooms has helped them improve their English, aligning with the survey (mean 4.3, item 14 for English skills and mean 3.7, Item 15 for IC development). Thus, for them EMI has been a driver of IC and more fluent English. As EMI-7 lecturer accepts, “For me it [embarking on EMI] was an important decision. I got in contact with other universities, traveled more often and met other people from European universities. It was key to my, my (.) interna(.) internationalization.” Finally, they use the word “culture” in the various different meanings the word can encapsulate. EMI-9 lecturer, for example, does not separate language from the disciplinary culture and the enculturation he has acquired as a member of the community, and he establishes an interesting connection between English language, lecturing style and the disciplinary language that you acquire in management and industrial engineering. Thus, he claims that no change in lecturing style is necessary, making no reference to any methodological strategy that

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allows students from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds to interact: There’s no (.) no extra change but it’s the, this discipline, management, is basically international and influenced by the Anglo-Saxon culture because all books and studies come from the US and you read everything in English. The approach is completely the same everywhere”. And he goes on prioritizing the common, global shared ground in their discipline:”I don’t think there is any change between our lecturing style in our country and abroad. I think everybody is doing the same (2) well (.) in Asian countries I’m not so sure, in Malaysia I don’t know, don’t know, in Korea and China it’s more rote learning, I think (3) but aside from these places (.) everyone in our discipline is doing the same eerr, no (.) no, I don’t see major differences, right.

Nevertheless, culture can take on a national meaning, as EMI-6 lecturer illustrates by claiming that language and culture should be separated. When this lecturer was asked if he thought that since he lectured in English his teaching behavior also had to be “Englishized,” he used a technical term—decoupling —to explain why he does not give up on local culture, linking this with his “glocal” identity (Sung 2014): I always try to take a stakeholder analysis, I take into account the point of view of all stakeholders, and I do the same with my students… but honestly, even foreign students (.) they are happy to know something more about the local culture so I think that having a message that is super decoupled from the local culture that is super global or and so eerr (.) I think international students like it (3) decoupling language and culture is not good (.) I think (.) aaand yes (.) (4) many international students (.) they want to mingle with locals, they want to learn, learning Spanish (.) maybe not Catalan, right? (2) absolutely yes (.) for them it’s a benefit, so they interact with the locals and locals interact with internationals. I also explain local examples, not only international examples, examples of local companies from Catalonia, there are very good examples that can be shown so I use them. (2) It’s a mix (3) honestly (.) My values are global but I don’t forget the local because I think that it’s rich.

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This lecturer is questioning the inextricable link between a particular language and culture (Risager 2006) and, as in other studies (Sung 2014; Bradford 2016), he deploys an attitude that has been identified among speakers of English as a lingua franca (Jenkins 2003), arguing that ELF is not exclusively tied to its national and cultural base. In short, the analysis of the transcribed interviews confirmed that the faculty did not proactively anticipate or prepare the impact of the student composition on their lectures, nor did they think they had to. These EMI lecturers expect international students to attend their classes with some readiness to adapt to and learn about a different culture because it is part of their international/Erasmus experience, along the lines of the in Rome do as Romans do proverb, assuming that domestic students/lecturers need not change their behavior because international students will. This belief, rooted in the Erasmus mobility perspective rather than in the host non-mobile domestic student perspective, reflects no awareness of the IC or IaH experience for domestic students. However, while in the survey these EMI lecturers show a certain amount of agreement with the statement It’s not my duty to cater for my students’ intercultural skills, in the interviews lecturers refuse any accountability for IC development, as it is the case when it comes to their responsibility for teaching disciplinary English in EMI (Airey 2012; Arnó-Macià and Mancho-Barés 2015). Rather, they seem to feel it is not necessary to promote IC, either because they think local and international students are very similar or because, in their opinion, university teaching and learning are roughly the same across the planet, with the possible exception of Asia—a stereotypical view of Asian learning as being rote learning.

4

Conclusions

In this chapter I have tried to explore lecturers’ and students’ beliefs with regard to their IC, whether they believe that their EMI experience has helped them develop their IC or if other factors also play a role. Given that the point has been made that EMI courses do not always per se constitute IaH (De Wit 2011; Beelen and Jones 2015) because sitting next to a foreign student and following a course taught

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in another language will not automatically lead to heightened interculturality, I wanted to find out if and to what extent EMI courses in the studied university can be regarded as drivers of intercultural competence. While it could be argued that national EMI courses have other purposes than IC development, higher expectations could be held from an international EMI classroom regarding students’ IC. From the results obtained in this study, we find that the answer to the first research question (What are EMI lecturers’ and students’ perceptions regarding their IC after having followed an EMI course? ) is that, for both stakeholders, EMI has somehow contributed to their perceived heightened IC. Teachers report a heightened IC thanks to EMI and yet ‘decouple’ language from culture. In the case of the EMI students, their enhanced IC has not been driven by, or thanks to, their lecturer—in contrast with ESP students, who attribute their increased IC development to their language specialist lecturer and rate the active role of their teacher highly—but rather by the mere presence of international students in class and the opportunities to approach foreign students and interact with them. As already documented in research (Trede et al. 2013), the lecturers in this study do not use explicit pedagogies that purposefully aim to develop IC. The significant differences found between ESP and EMI students in the survey—both cohorts equipped with a similar international background—and the fact that the ESP lecturer acknowledges IC promotion as one of her duties and consistently tackles it in class reinforce these findings. One would expect EMI students to reply that being in a class where the lecturer does not actively aim to promote their students’ IC has not helped them in any way and yet this result is not found. EMI lecturers do not feel responsible because nobody holds them responsible for the development of IC or the implementation of IaH. However, as the EMI lecturers in this study resort to teamwork and interactive pedagogies (also used in L1), a learning environment is created such that EMI students with initiative and other idiosyncratic traits, as seen below, can make the most of the international situation and subjectively value the possibility of studying in multicultural classrooms. As for the second research question, to what extent is EMI a driver of IC and what factors seem to interact ?, the study of the correlations and the analysis of their previous international experience hints at some

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factors that seem to be closely related to self-perceived gains in IC. Openness and ethno-relativism seem to be important personality traits, but it was found that stakeholders’ self-perceived ethno-relativism is lower when they are non-mobile domestic students. Besides personality, previous international experiences, friendships (resonating with ArnoMacià and Aguilar-Pérez 2019), and a learner-centered methodology that pushes students to interact seem to revive and boost intercultural competence, both in students with previous international experience (72% of the students), who may take the lead to interact with foreign students, and those without (around 27%). Nevertheless, while the lecturer is actually setting the appropriate learning environment that may lead to interaction, (s)he does not place students out of their comfort zone by forcing multicultural teams. This means that it may ultimately depend on every student, on their personality or their intrinsic motivation to interact with international students to seize the opportunity. The quality of this contact, or interaction, is decisive to be considered an important driver of IC. Undoubtedly, the challenging opportunities that studying in an international classroom offers can be grasped or missed—in the same way that study abroad may not always result in increased IC if international students do not interact with the national students—the so-called “Erasmus cocoon” (Papatsiba 2006). These findings substantiate claims that personal and psychological factors come into play in IC development (Spitzberg and Chagnon 2009). All this leads us to reconceptualize EMI and its role in internalization. Bradford (2016) pointed to the lack of a clear strategy among policymakers who do not seem to know if they should aim at “simply an English-medium extension or replication of an existing program, or (...) a program that ultimately seeks to incite change throughout the entire university,” p. 350). A well defined strategy should be coherent with the intrinsic reasons for the introduction of EMI in European universities (Pulcini and Campagna 2015) since EMI could entail more than a shift in the language of instruction in which the academic and professional practices of the engineering discipline are carried out. The problem Bradford addresses questions how internationalized students may become in a university that implements “cosmetic” IaH actions like international

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and national EMI courses. One also wonders to what extent institutions can contribute to the internationalization of their members with a considerably high presence of national EMI courses and where lecturers in international EMI courses are not held responsible for IC, as in the setting of this study. For this reason, institutions may need to rethink their pedagogical intent regarding international experiences. Studies on the effects of study abroad (Byram and Feng 2006) report that after a stay abroad, sojourners’ newly acquired IC somehow dissipates over time, though the stay leaves a permanent mark. Maybe for students who have already been on an Erasmus exchange, attending an international EMI course serves as a reminder that brings their IC to the surface again, vivid and present, and for those students who have never been abroad, following an EMI course may well pave the path for a future international experience. Yet, we cannot trust that a few EMI courses, as pointed out in the literature, can fully replace a study abroad experience and the fully transformational process involved in IC and so the answer to the question in the title of this chapter is in the negative: EMI alone does not suffice to enhance interculturality among students and may need to be supported by informal actions as well as other formal actions if institutions want internationalization to reach all students. ESP courses and EMI training that sensitizes lecturers toward IC and interactive lecturing can be good examples.

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Focus on Language in CBI: How Teacher Trainees Work with Language Objectives and Language-Focused Activities in Content-Based Lessons Anna Krulatz

1

Introduction

Content-based instruction (CBI), also referred to as content-based language teaching (CBLT) or content and language integrated learning (CLIL) depending on the context in which it is implemented, comprises a range of pedagogical approaches in which “non-linguistic curricular content such as geography or science is taught to students through the medium of a language that they are concurrently learning as an additional language” (Lyster and Ballinger 2011: 279). In this chapter CBI is used as a generic term for content-based approaches. CBI is associated with numerous benefits for learners, including increased learner motivation and cognitive development, heightened intercultural awareness, attainment of academic Language proficiency, and improved educational and job opportunities (Lightbown 2014). A. Krulatz (B) Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 M. L. Carrió-Pastor and B. Bellés Fortuño (eds.), Teaching Language and Content in Multicultural and Multilingual Classrooms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56615-9_5

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Nevertheless, the implementation of CBI is not without challenges. In fact, the key premise of CBI, namely, the dual focus on both content and language, is also one of the central difficulties CBI teachers face. As research findings attest, teachers often struggle to strike the right balance between the amount of attention devoted to content and language (Stoller and Grabe 1997), and content specialists in particular find it challenging to fulfil their role as language experts in the CBI classroom (Lightbown 2014). Additionally, existing studies suggest that language is not attended to systematically in CBI classrooms, and that focus on language tends to be limited to vocabulary and verbs (Fortune et al. 2008; Regalla 2012). Although existing textbooks and other resources for CBI teachers outline a plethora of language support types that teachers can incorporate, ranging from word to discourse level (e.g., Dale and Tanner 2012; Lindahl and Watkins 2014; Ball et al. 2015), it has been argued that teachers who are not trained in pedagogical linguistics may not be able to understand the important role language plays in communicating academic content or recognize the language needs of learners (Bailey et al. 2007; Regalla 2012). Aiming to contribute to the existing body of research, the present study investigates how teacher trainees who had received training in pedagogical grammar include language in CBI lesson plans.

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Background

The Role of Language in CBI In CBI classrooms, students learn nonlinguistic, academic content through the medium of a new language they are acquiring. The language required to access academic content is decontextualized, abstract, and more dense than nonacademic language. Cummins (1984) captured this distinction in his concepts of basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS), or casual, everyday language, and cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP), or academic language. For instance, the former utilizes a limited set of nonspecialized words while the latter tends to use words that are morphologically complex and employs a high proportion

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of nouns and adjectives (Nagy and Townsend 2012). However, academic language extends beyond the word level to sentence level (e.g., word order and sentence types) and discourse level (e.g., genres and cohesion). As Gottlieb and Ernst-Slavit (2014: 5) postulate, “academic language necessitates more than knowledge of single words to describe complex concepts, thinking processes, and abstract ideas and relationships.” Although it is generally agreed that CBI programs should integrate both language and content (Lyster 2007; Cammarata 2010), different CBI models do not uniformly perceive the extent and ways in which language should be addressed in instruction. CBI programs can be situated along a continuum from content-driven (e.g., immersion) to language-driven (e.g., language classes with thematic units) (Met 1999). Likewise, the concept of language in CBI varies widely, “from being represented as predominantly language functions […] or composed of functions, structures, and vocabulary…” (Bigelow et al. 2006: 45) to an extensive menu of academic language demands (Lindahl and Watkins 2014). Functional grammar (Halliday 1985; Lock 1996), which emphasizes the correspondence between forms and meanings, has been an influential framework in conceptualizations of language in CBI. Functional grammar postulates that speakers select specific language structures and vocabulary depending on their communicative goals. In CBI contexts, this implies that teachers have to be able to identify the various structures employed to perform particular language functions (e.g., describing, comparing, summarizing) that learners need in order to work with specific academic content. Approaches such as the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA) (Chamot and O’Malley 1994; Chamot 2005) and TESOL’s (1997) Standards for Pre-K -12 Students center academic language instruction on the concept of language functions. Other models for integrating language in CBI have been proposed as well. For instance, Snow et al. (1989) identified three sources of language objectives, namely, the ESL curriculum, the content area curriculum, and learners’ communicative and academic needs, and divided the language objectives into content obligatory (i.e., those necessary to access the content of the lesson) and content compatible (i.e., those that are

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used across a range of academic disciplines). Short (2002) understood language as consisting forms, functions, and language learning strategies, while in the Connections Model (Bigelow et al. 2006), language structures comprised grammar, vocabulary and text organization, including discourse patterns and paragraph organization. A more expansive understanding of language is found in the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) (Echevarría et al. 2017), which places language objectives, along with content objectives, as one of its core sub-categories, referred to as features. In the SIOP, language objectives are related to the key topics of the lesson, promote academic language development, support the development of both receptive and productive language skills, and encompass four domains: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Echevarría et al. (2017) suggest that language curricula, including government standards for English as a second language and content areas as well as instructional materials, can serve as sources of language objectives. Different types of language objectives should include key vocabulary, language functions, language skills, grammar, lesson tasks, and language learning strategies. Finally, Lindahl and Watkins (2014) proposed a model for supporting academic language objective development, which they referred to as the language objective (LO) menu. The tool is intended to scaffold teachers through the process of identifying the language demands of the learners and selecting language objectives and strategies or activities that go in tandem with a lesson’s content objectives. The menu consists of six areas of academic language demands and examples of possible learner needs: reading comprehension (e.g., contextual clues, identifying main idea), vocabulary (e.g., abstract words, idioms), word study (e.g., cognates, prefixes), functional language (e.g., interrupting, being humorous), grammar (e.g., capitalization, parts of speech), and writing and conventions (genre, sentence variation). Lindahl and Watkins (2014) underscored that academic language knowledge is complex, and they intended the tool to support teachers in recognizing and working with academic language suitable for the content area of their lessons.

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Teachers’ Challenges with CBI Although CBI has been recognized as an effective approach to instruction in various contexts, its implementation is not without challenges. From the teacher perspective, these range from lack of preparation and therefore low confidence to teach specific content knowledge, as when language specialists are expected to teach content areas, to, conversely, insufficient expertise in language, as when content teachers are required to act as language experts (Cloud 1998; Lightbown 2014). Teachers also report challenges balancing content and language and struggle with issues pertaining to teacher identity in cases when CBI principles do not align with their vision or philosophy of teaching (Cammarata 2010; Tedick and Cammarata 2012). As lack of language skills can inhibit learners’ ability to access content in CBI, one of the major concerns in CBI teacher preparation is training teachers to support language development. Research suggests, however, that teachers often face difficulties in formulating language objectives, lack metalinguistic knowledge and understanding of language functions, or are unable to identify students’ language needs and feel pressured to act as language models for their students (Cammarata 2009, 2010; Bigelow 2010). Research also revealed that teachers’ understanding of academic language is often restricted to challenging content area vocabulary and phrases (Gottlieb and Ernst-Slavit 2014), and that, consequently, CBI teachers tend to limit their language objectives to “difficult words” and ignore other language needs of learners (Fortune et al. 2008; Regalla 2012). It has been suggested (Regalla 2012) that the underlying cause is teachers’ inability to “understand the role that language plays in […] communication of the academic content” (213), or incapacity to think linguistically, i.e., recognize that second language (L2) learners have specific linguistic needs in order to be able to work with academic content (Bailey et al. 2007). Among other skills, teachers need the knowledge of language structures, discourse patterns, language and literacy development, language variation, and basic linguistic analysis to foster the language development of L2 learners (Fillmore and Snow 2000).

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As Regalla (2012) and Tedick and Cammarata (2012) point out, the issue may originate in teacher preparation programs, which fail to adequately address integrated content and language teaching. For instance, while “subject-specific or generic elementary programs reinforce teachers’ views of themselves as content teachers alone […] language preparation programs reinforce teachers’ view of themselves as language teachers alone” (Tedick and Cammarata 2012: 548). Similarly, Regalla (2012) concluded that because her subjects did not receive systematic instruction in pedagogical linguistics, they failed to demonstrate the linguistic skills necessary to construct language objectives that extend beyond the knowledge of vocabulary.

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Language Objectives: More Than just Vocabulary

Although teaching key vocabulary is important, academic language demands in CBI contexts extend beyond the knowledge of vocabulary to include word study, reading comprehension, functional language, grammar, and writing and conventions (Lindahl and Watkins 2014). Several learner needs can be identified within language demands. For example, word study can include knowledge of prefixes and suffixes, grammar knowledge can comprise parts of speech, subject–verb agreement and word order, while reading comprehension entails the ability to identify context clues and text features. CBI teachers’ potential inability to formulate language objectives that extend beyond vocabulary knowledge is worrisome because, as Lindahl and Watkins (2014: 202) note, “academic language has multiple layers beyond simply the vocabulary of any one content area” and therefore, teachers (2014: 198) “must formulate objectives that address those demands.” Previous research has identified inadequate training in pedagogical linguistics (Fillmore and Snow 2000; Regalla 2012) and teachers’ lack of in-depth metalinguistic knowledge of the target language (Bigelow 2010) as the underlying causes. Aiming to contribute to the existing body of research, the present study investigates how teacher trainees who had received extensive instruction in pedagogical grammar work with language objectives

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in CBI lesson plans. Specifically, the study raised the following research questions: 1. What are the teacher trainees’ beliefs about their own ability to integrate various facets of language knowledge into CBI lesson plans? 2. What is the range of language demands and learner needs present in the language objectives written by the teacher trainees? 3. Do the activities in the lesson plans correspond to the language demands and learner needs listed in the lesson objectives? 4. Is there a relationship between the teacher trainees’ self-reported language teaching practices and the types of language objectives selected for the lesson plans?

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Methodology

Rationale This chapter examines how pre-service teachers work with language objectives when developing CBI lesson plans. While previous research suggests that teachers may be unable to select language objectives beyond vocabulary due to a lack of linguistic awareness resulting from insufficient training in educational linguistics (Fortune et al. 2008; Regalla 2012), teachers who have been trained to think linguistically can be expected to identify the language needs of learners and select objectives and activities that match those needs (Bailey et al. 2007). The present study investigates the extent to which pre-service teachers who had completed a BA-level course in pedagogical grammar are capable of working with language objectives in a CBI context. At the time the study was conducted, the course in pedagogical linguistics the teacher candidates had taken was a required, first-year, 30-hour course that covered types of grammar (descriptive, prescriptive, pedagogical), key topics in English grammar (e.g., parts of speech, articles, prepositions, tenses, modals), and the place of grammar instruction in communicative language teaching. In the second year of their program, the teacher candidates took a 30-hour course (ten three-hour-long sessions) on CBI

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that examined the main premises, advantages and disadvantages of CBI, introduced examples of lesson plans and activities that integrate a range of academic subjects and English as a Foreign Language (EFL), and gave an overview of CBI lesson design principles including writing content and language objectives. One of the ten course sessions focused entirely on lesson planning, presenting a rationale for formulating specific lesson objectives, and supplying numerous examples of “good” and “bad” objectives followed by opportunities to practice. The final assessment consisted of two drafts of a grade-level-appropriate lesson plan that integrated a topic from a selected content area (e.g., science, social studies, mathematics, arts) into an EFL lesson. The students were required to list specific content and language objectives drawing on the language demands listed in the language objective menu (Lindahl and Watkins 2014). The data collected from this project were used to examine the effectiveness of the instructional design and inform pedagogical decisions for the future renditions of the course.

Participants Forty-six pre-service teachers, 34 females and 12 males, participated in the study. The participants were enrolled in a language teacher-training program at a major public university in Norway and were required to take a 30-hour course on CBI as a part of their training. All participants were in the second year of their program, majored in English, and had taken a 30-hour course in pedagogical linguistics. Additionally, they had had between six to nine weeks of school-based practicum experience prior to being enrolled in the CBI course and completed another three weeks of practicum while the research project was in progress. The participants were selected through convenience sampling. All participants signed an informed consent form and were able to withdraw at any point during the study. Each participant was assigned a number to anonymize the data.

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Data and Analysis

This study employed a mixed-methods design. At the beginning of the module, the participants filled out a written self-report consisting of 36 five-point Likert scale statements about various CBI pedagogical practices (Dale and Tanner 2012: 15–17). Fourteen of the statements included in the analysis concerned the frequency with which the participants believed they would integrate language in their teaching. The statements were related to vocabulary building and other facets of language knowledge (concrete and abstract language, activating prior language knowledge, context awareness, textual organization, genre awareness). The participants were instructed to select one of the following options for each of the statements: (4) always, (3) often, (2) sometimes, (1) occasionally, (0) never (see Appendix 1). Overall average scores and standard deviations were calculated, as well as average scores and standard deviations for items pertaining to (1) vocabulary building versus (2) other aspects of language knowledge. In addition, qualitative data consisting of written CBI lesson plans were analyzed for evidence of the pre-service teachers’ ability to incorporate language objectives into their teaching. The summative assessment in the module entailed designing a grade-level appropriate, content-based EFL lesson. The teacher trainees were instructed to select a grade level and a content area of their choice, specify the theme/topic of their lesson, include both language and content objectives, and describe a sequence of logically organized content-driven activities with clear step-by-step procedures and instructions given to learners and following the intothrough-beyond model (Brinton and Holten 1997) (see the assignment criteria in Appendix 2). The researcher identified language objectives and corresponding activities in each lesson plan. Language objectives were coded according to language demands and possible learner needs using the categories from the LO menu (Lindahl and Watkins 2014) (see Table 1). Seven additional learner needs not found in the LO menu emerged from the data: arguing/expressing opinions, persuading, following instructions, making a hypothesis, passive voice, tenses, and imperatives.

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Table 1 Language objectives: Coding categories (based on Lindahl and Watkins 2014) Language demand

Possible learner needs

Example

Reading comprehension

Building background knowledge Context clues Summarizing Basic oral vocabulary Content-compatible terms Content-obligatory terms Cognates Compound words Prefixes, roots, and suffixes Describing things Making suggestions Expressing opinions Question formation Parts of speech Tenses Genre awareness Organization Topic knowledge

Identify main ideas in a text about the Vikings

Vocabulary

Word study

Functional language

Grammar

Writing and conventions

Describe a landscape using at least three key words Recognize and define cognates in English and first language Provide arguments for and against the death penalty Talk about past events using correct tenses Use written notes to narrate a story

Once the language objectives were coded and corresponding activities identified, each activity was then classified according to how well it would allow learners to attain the corresponding language objectives using the following codes: (1) corresponds, (2) partially corresponds, (3) doesn’t correspond.

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Findings

Self-Reported Ability to Integrate Language Knowledge into CBI Lessons The mean self-report score for all participants was 2.64, indicating that, on average, the teacher trainees believed that they integrated various components of language knowledge in their teaching sometimes or often. The mean score for the items associated with vocabulary knowledge was 2.72, and for the items associated with other language demands 2.61.

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Table 2 Self-report results All items

Vocabulary

Other language demands

M = 2.64 SD = 0.64

M = 2.72 SD = 0.76

M = 2.61 SD = 0.65

It can therefore be concluded that, on average, the participants believed that they focused on vocabulary learning to a similar extent as on other aspects of language knowledge. Table 2 provides an overview of these results.

Language Objectives and Language Activities As the lesson plan instructions did not specify the required number of language objectives, the lesson plans varied with respect to the number of language objectives included, ranging from one to three (M = 1.78). A total of 82 of language objectives were identified in the lesson plans and coded using the language demands and learner needs from Lindahl and Watkins (2014). The data show that the teacher trainees included various components of language knowledge in their CBI lessons (Fig. 1). 3.66% 9.76% 36.59%

23.17%

26.83%

Vocabulary Writing and conventions

Grammar Reading comprehension

Fig. 1 Types of language demands

Functional language

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As can be seen, about a third (36.59%) of language objectives focused on some aspects of vocabulary knowledge, followed by grammar (26.83%) and functional language (23.17%). Writing and conventions constituted 9.76% of the objectives, while reading comprehension was the least common language demand present in the lesson plans (3.66%). None of the objectives focused on word study. The language objectives stated by the teacher trainees were characterized by a wide range of learner needs within each of the language demands (see Table 3). For instance, vocabulary objectives focused on context-compatible and context-obligatory words as well as basic oral vocabulary, while grammar objectives pertained to the sub-categories of grammar such as tenses, parts of speech, complete sentences, imperatives, passive voice, and question formation. Functional language objectives contained the biggest variety of language needs, including describing Table 3 Types of learner needs found in the language objectives Language demand

Learner needs

Percentage (%)

Vocabulary

Context-compatible words Context-obligatory words Basic oral vocabulary Tenses Parts of speech Complete sentences Imperatives Passive voice Question formation Describing things Asking for information Making a hypothesis Expressing opinions Comparing/contrasting Discussing Explaining Following instructions Persuading Talking about events Topic knowledge Organization Summarizing Identifying main idea Inferring N/A

21.95 13.41 1.22 10.98 9.76 2.44 1.22 1.22 1.22 8.54 2.44 2.44 2.44 1.22 1.22 1.22 1.22 1.22 1.22 7.32 1.22 2.44 1.22 1.22 0

Grammar

Functional language

Writing and conventions Reading comprehension

Word study

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Table 4 Correspondence between language objectives and lesson activities Corresponds (%)

Partially corresponds (%)

Doesn’t correspond (%)

64.63

20.73

14.63

things, asking for information, making a hypothesis and expressing opinions. However, the scope of the language demands pertaining to writing and conventions and reading comprehension was less extensive, with writing and conventions comprising the sub-categories topic knowledge and organization, and reading comprehension comprising summarizing, identifying the main idea, and inferring. Overall, the most common learner needs to identified in the language objectives were contextcompatible words (21.95%), context-obligatory words (13.41%), tenses (10.98%), parts of speech (9.76%), describing things (8.54%), and topic knowledge (7.32%). As the next step in the analysis, the language objectives were paired with corresponding activities, and the activities were assessed for the level of correspondence to the language objectives (Table 4). The majority of the activities (64.63%) corresponded well with the stated language objectives, while 20.73% corresponded partially, and 14.63% did not correspond. In many cases where the objective and the activity corresponded to each other, language objectives were very specific, using almost identical wording as the activity in which learners were supposed to meet the objectives, as in Example 1. Example 1 Language objective (Vocabulary/Content obligatory terms): Match these names to shapes: triangle, square, rectangle, pentagon, and hexagon. Activity description: Students fill out a graphic organizer in which they match shapes and their names as the teacher introduces them orally and visually. The category “partially corresponds” was assigned to lesson objectives that were very general and therefore difficult to identify in a specific language task, or cases when a specific language demand was implied in an activity, but the main focus of the activity was on content. For

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instance, some lesson plans contained language objectives that corresponded to the language-focused activities but were broad and general, as Example 2 illustrates. Example 2 Language objective (Grammar/tenses): Use modals can, may, will. Activity description: Students list ideas that can help reduce emissions, e.g., Drivers can drive fewer miles each week. In other lesson plans, the activities tended to have an implicit focus on the identified language demand. This usually meant that the teacher assumed that learners would either enter the classroom equipped with specific language knowledge and apply it in a content-focused task or acquire the needed language knowledge inductively from the provided input. In such cases, the activities were often intended as an opportunity to apply language knowledge while communicating, yet the main goal of the activity was working with specific academic content, as illustrated in Example 3, where learners are expected to acquire past tense forms from written input and be able to produce them correctly in the second part of the activity. Example 3 Language objective (Grammar/Tenses): Use simple past to describe a past event. Activity description: Students read texts about World War II events and then produce and describe timelines of main events. The category “doesn’t correspond” was assigned to the cases when the language demand was not correctly identified, when there was a discrepancy between the objective and what learners were expected to do, or when there was no corresponding activity at all. In Example 4, the objective calls for students to use modal verbs, yet the language task requires students to use the present simple tense. Example 4 Language objective (Grammar/Parts of speech): Use the correct modal verbs in short sentences. Activity description: Students write short sentences in which they describe how a body organ works.

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Likewise, Example 5 illustrates another case of a lack of correspondence between an objective and an activity. Here the language objective focuses on persuasive language, yet the task requires students to write a description. Example 5 Language objective (Functional language/Persuading): Persuade someone to change their point of view about global warming using figures and data to support your argument. Activity description: Write a short essay in which you present different views on global warming. Finally, a few of the lesson plans contained additional language-focused activities that did not match any of the language objectives. For instance, one lesson plan listed the following language objective and a languagefocused activity: Example 6 Language objective (Vocabulary/Basic oral vocabulary): Use simple English vocabulary and phrases tied to family members. Activity description: Students review key words (family, mum, dad, grandmother, grandfather, brother, sister, baby) and then describe their own family. In addition, however, this lesson included an explicit, teacher-led review of the various forms of the verb “to be,” yet corresponding language knowledge was not listed as a language objective. Similarly, another lesson plan listed an activity that required the use of comparative and superlative forms of adjectives. The use of comparatives and superlatives was scaffolded, but there was no corresponding language objective.

Relationship Between Self-Reported Beliefs and Types of Selected Language Objectives Pearson’s r correlations between the results of self-report and the types of language objectives were calculated. There was no significant effect of the relationship between self-reported score on vocabulary teaching practices and the selection of language objectives (r = −0.033, n = 82,

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p = 0.770). Similarly, the effect size of the correlation of self-reported teaching practices pertaining to other language domains and the selection of language objectives was negligible (r = −0.080, n = 82, p = 0.477). Therefore, it can be concluded that what the teacher trainees believed about the frequency with which they focus on various aspects of language knowledge in CBI was not correlated with the types of language objectives they selected for their lesson plans.

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Discussion

This paper set out to examine how CBI teacher trainees who had received instruction in pedagogical linguistics work with language objectives. Teacher trainees’ self-reports about CBI teaching practices and written CBI lesson plans served as the sources of data. Average scores for selfreport items pertaining to the teaching of vocabulary and other language skills were calculated for each participant, while the lesson objectives were analyzed thematically using the LO menu categories from Lindahl and Watkins (2014). Based on the self-reports, it can be concluded that the participants believed that they focused on vocabulary learning and other aspects of language knowledge to a similar degree. Contrary to previous research (Fortune et al. 2008; Regalla 2012), the findings of this study suggest that the participants possess some linguistic skills necessary to identify language objectives that do not focus exclusively on vocabulary. Although lesson objectives pertaining to vocabulary knowledge were the most frequent type of language objectives, other language demands represented in the lesson plans included grammar, functional language, writing and conventions, and reading comprehension. Nevertheless, the participants did show a stronger inclination for selecting language objectives of certain types, most prominently contextcompatible words, context-obligatory words, tenses, parts of speech, describing things, and topic knowledge, while other learner needs such as basic oral vocabulary, imperatives, passive voice, comparing/contrasting, persuading, and identifying the main idea were sparsely represented. Other possible language needs listed in the LO menu (Lindahl and

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Watkins 2014), for instance, being humorous, singular vs. plural, punctuation, figurative language, and contextual clues, were not found in the lesson plans at all. Likewise, no objectives were focused on language study (e.g., prefixes and suffixes, compound words). This could be due to the fact that the participants believed that the content area and topics that they selected for their lesson plans did not require other types of language objectives. However, it is also possible that the teacher trainees lacked the necessary linguistic knowledge to identify other types of language needs. To further determine the teacher trainees’ ability to focus on language in CBI settings, the language objectives were matched with specific language-focused activities in each lesson plan to determine the degree of correspondence. The majority of the activities matched the objectives well, suggesting that most of the teacher trainees were able to not only identify the language skills necessary for a given lesson but also design specific activities that support the development of those language skills. Nevertheless, there were also instances of partial or no matches, and it can thus be concluded that the teacher trainees could benefit from additional opportunities to practice and receive feedback on selecting appropriate language-focused activities that promote specific language objectives. There was no statistically significant correlation between teacher trainees’ beliefs about the frequency of implementation of teaching practices that support the development of vocabulary and other language domains and the actual language objectives they selected for their lessons. In other words, whether a teacher trainee had a high or low self-report score related to the importance of teaching practices that support vocabulary development or practices that support the development of other language domains was not correlated with the type of language objectives they selected for their lesson plan, suggesting that the teacher trainees may have low levels of awareness of their own language teaching practices. The participants in this study had taken 30 credits in pedagogical grammar before enrolling in the CBI course. They were able to formulate language objectives that expanded beyond the level of vocabulary and phrases—the lesson plans they submitted also contained language

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objectives that aimed to support the development of other language domains such as grammar, functional language, reading comprehension, and writing and conventions. Nevertheless, very few of the lesson plans focused on the last two categories, and there was no single instance of a language objective that addressed word study (e.g., prefixes and suffixes, cognates, or sound patterns). Similar to Regalla (2012: 222), who concluded that the teacher interns in her study would benefit from “more explicit instruction in the writing of language objectives,” the teacher trainees in the present study would doubtless benefit from more extensive opportunities to engage with the LO menu (Lindahl and Watkins 2014) when designing learning objectives and activities to support language development. Although an entire three-hour CBI course session was devoted to lesson planning, and the teacher trainees participated in activities that focused on writing content and language objectives, there is some evidence in the lesson plans that the participants were not able to draw on the full range of language demands and learner needs from the LO menu, that they had some challenges identifying language-focused activities that allow learners to meet the stated language objectives, and that they lacked some basic awareness about their own language teaching practice. Future renditions of the course should therefore devote more time to the role of language in CBI, including extensive opportunities for in-depth work with the LO menu, instructor and peer feedback, and reflection. It is important to acknowledge that this study had some limitations. Most importantly, as the study was not experimental in nature and there was no control group, no causality between training in pedagogical linguistics and the teacher trainees’ ability to formulate language objectives and select matching activities can be established. Future studies should aim to compare groups of teacher trainees with different educational backgrounds to identify the most successful teacher education curricula and practices. In addition, as the study was exploratory in nature and served mostly to inform instructional decisions for a teacher preparation course, the generalizability of its findings is questionable. The study utilized a relatively small convenient sample consisting of 46 teacher trainees enrolled in one teacher preparation course taught by one instructor. It is possible that the same curriculum delivered in a different

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instructional context (different teacher trainees, a different university teacher) would render different results. The results presented here should therefore be interpreted with caution, and future studies with teachers and teacher trainees are needed to determine the impact of training in pedagogical linguistics on their ability to integrate language objectives into CBI.

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Conclusion

Although content-based instruction programs are spread along a continuum from language-driven to content-driven (Met 1999), language development remains a central premise and defining feature of CBI (Tedick and Cammarata 2012), as well as of CLIL and English Medium Instruction (EMI). It has been postulated that CBI teachers should “plan systematically for language growth while ensuring that students develop skills in using language for meaningful purposes and for cognitive growth” (Met 1991: 294). Findings from research (e.g., Dalton-Puffer 2007; Llinares and Morton 2010), however, suggest that CBI’s potential for language learning is not being fully reached. Content teachers’ ability to support language learning is often limited to key vocabulary and phrases while other language demands are overlooked (Fortune et al. 2008; Regalla 2012; Gottlieb and Ernst-Slavit 2014). Therefore, it is crucial that CBI teachers are trained to deliver CBI instruction that focuses on language to a greater extent than on content. As Regalla (2012: 210) argued, “[t]eachers who are not trained to think linguistically may not be able to design language objectives beyond vocabulary.” In order to identify and support the language needs of their students, teacher trainees may need instruction on educational linguistics as well as “more explicit instruction in the writing of language objectives” (222). To “[help] teachers become more aware of the academic language present in their content-area lessons” (Lindahl and Watkins 2014: 202), Lindahl and Watkins (2014) designed an extensive LO menu consisting of six language domains and possible learner needs. The menu enables teachers to identify academic language demands of learners and supports

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teachers in selecting appropriate language objectives that address those demands. While previous training in pedagogical linguistics may serve as a stepping-stone to utilizing the LO menu, it is not sufficient. As with every instructional design tool, content teachers and teacher trainees need opportunities to practice using the LO menu when designing CBI lessons. As the results of this study suggest, teacher trainees who had taken a course in pedagogical linguistics are unable to take full advantage of the LO menu and tend to cluster their objectives and activities around a few common-sense categories such as key vocabulary, tenses, parts of speech, describing things, and topic knowledge. In addition, teacher trainees need support in selecting language-focused activities that match the learning objectives they have identified, and they need opportunities to reflect on and increase awareness of their own thinking about language teaching in CBI. Arguably, CBI teachers need a range of skills and competencies to be successful in their jobs, including proficiency in the target language, content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and skills, and content-language interface skills (Horn 2011). CBI’s potential for developing language competence can only be fulfilled if CBI teachers have expertise in the language issues related to teaching and learning as well as instructional design tools such as LO menu that can inform the process of consciously selecting appropriate language objectives and matching activities. Teacher education programs need to provide teacher trainees with opportunities to practice effectively using such tools and increase their awareness of the academic language needs of learners.

Appendix 1 CBI pedagogical practices: Self-report (based on Dale and Tanner 2012). Vocabulary learning 1. 2. 3. 4.

In my classes, learners use a personal vocabulary file actively. I help my learners learn and use subject-specific terminology. I discuss ways of learning words in my class. I use a variety of activities to help my learners to recycle vocabulary related to my subject.

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Other language domains 5. At the start of a lesson or topic, I find out what language related to the topic learners already know. 6. I use a number of strategies or activities to help learners improve their reading and listening skills. 7. I help learners notice how language is used in my subject; for example, we look together at the grammar or we work on the vocabulary for the subject. 8. I help learners notice the similarities and differences between English and their first language. 9. I use speaking frames and graphic organizers to support learners’ speaking. 10. My learners learn to speak about my subject for different audiences, informally and formally. 11. My learners learn to write different types of texts in my subject. 12. I use writing frames or graphic organizers (e.g., diagrams, tables, model texts) to help my learners organize their writing. 13. When learners write for me, they know what the aim is, who their audience is, and the text-type they are writing. 14. I help learners move from concrete to abstract language in their writing.

Appendix 2 See Table 5

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Table 5 Content based lesson: Grading criteria Criterion The lesson is centred around one theme in a content area (e.g., social studies) and it has a title that clearly reflects it The grade level is specified and the topic, objectives, and all activities are grade level appropriate Content objectives are stated and are measurable. There are explicit references to the Norwegian curriculum. Language objectives are stated and are measurable. There are explicit references to Part II in Dale and Tanner (2012). All needed materials are listed. There is a reasonable amount of creativity involved (i.e., no reliance on a textbook) There is a sequence of logically organized content-driven activities focused around a single theme/topic that add up to 1.5 hours of instruction The lesson plan follows the into-through-beyond design: – Into activates students’ background knowledge and prepares them to learn new language and content. All activities are creative and engaging (i.e., not just a teacher-centred mind map) – Through introduces new content and language. Students are engaged and work collaboratively – Beyond is not just a homework assignment. Students apply what they have learned in new, creative ways The lesson plan contains sufficient amount of detail (i.e., if it was given to a substitute teacher, he or she would be able to teach the lesson without further assistance) The lesson plan is written in grammatically correct academic English, including correct punctuation and capitalization The lesson plan follows the required format /template TOTAL (out of 30 points; 15 points required to pass)

Points (1–3)

Comments

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References Bailey, F., Burkett, B., & Freeman, D. (2007). Mediating the role of language in teaching and learning: A classroom perspective. In B. Spolsky & F. Hult (Eds.), The handbook of educational linguistics (pp. 606–623). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Ball, P., Kelly, K., & Clegg, J. (2015). Putting CLIL into practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bigelow, M. (2010). Learning to plan for a focus on form in CBI: The role of teacher knowledge and teaching context. In J. F. Davis (Ed.), World language teacher education: Transitions and challenges in the twenty-first century (pp. 35–56). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Bigelow, M., Ranney, S., & Dahlman, A. (2006). Keeping the language focus in content-based ESL instruction through proactive curriculum planning. TESL Canada Journal, 24 (1), 40–58. Brinton, D. M., & Holten, C. (1997). Into, through, and beyond. English Teaching Forum, 35 (4), 11–23. Cammarata, L. (2009). Negotiating curricular transitions: Foreign language teachers’ learning experience with content-based instruction. Canadian Modern Language Review, 65 (4), 559–585. Cammarata, L. (2010). Foreign Language teachers’ struggle to learn contentbased instruction. L2 Journal, 2(1), 89–118. Chamot, A. U. (2005). CALLA: An update. In P. A. Richard-Amato & M. A. Snow (Eds.), Academic success for english language learners (pp. 87–101). White Plains, NY: Pearson-Longman. Chamot, A. U., & O’Malley, J. M. (1994). The CALLA handbook: Implementing cognitive academic language learning approach. New York: AddisonWesley. Cloud, N. (1998). Teacher competencies in content-based instruction. In M. Met (Ed.), Critical issues in early second language learning: Building for our children’s future (pp. 113–124). Glenview, IL: Scott Foresman/AddisonWesley. Cummins, J. (1984). Bilingual education and special education: Issues in assessment and pedagogy. San Diego, CA: College Hill. Dale, L., & Tannner, R. (2012). CLIL activities with CD ROM . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dalton-Puffer, C. (2007). Discourse in content and language integrated learning (CLIL) classrooms. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

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Echevarría, J., Vogt, M., & Short, D. J. (2017). Making content comprehensible for english learners: The SIOP model (5th ed.). Boston: Pearson. Fillmore, L. W., & Snow, C. (2000). What teachers need to know about language. McHenry, IL, and Washington, DC: Delta Systems and Center for Applied Linguistics. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED444379.pdf. Fortune, T. W., Tedick, D. J., & Walker, C. L. (2008). Integrated language and content teaching: Insights from the immersion classroom. In T. W. Fortune & D. J. Tedick (Eds.), Pathways to multilingualism: Evolving perspectives on immersion education (pp. 71–96). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. Gottlieb, M., & Ernst-Slavit, G. (2014). Academic language in diverse classrooms: Definitions and contexts. Thousand Oaks, CA.: Corwin. Halliday, M. (1985). An introduction to functional grammar. London: Edward Arnold. Horn, B. (2011). The future is now: Preparing a new generation of CBI teachers. English Teaching Forum, 3, 2–9. Llinares, A., & Morton, T. (2010). Historical explanations as situated practice in content and language integrated learning. Classroom Discourse, 1(1), 46– 65. Lightbown, P. M. (2014). Focus on content-based language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lindahl, K., & Watkins, N. (2014). What’s on the ‘LO’ menu? Supporting academic language objective development. The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 87 (5), 197–203. Lock, G. (1996). Functional English grammar: An introduction for second language teachers. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Lyster, R. (2007). Learning and teaching languages through content: A counterbalanced approach. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Lyster, R., & Ballinger, S. (2011). Content-based language teaching: Convergent concerns across divergent contexts. Language Teaching Research, 15 (3), 279–288. Met, M. (1991). Learning language through content: Learning content through language. Foreign Language Annals, 24 (4), 281–295. Met, M. (1999, January). Content-based instruction: Defining terms, making decisions (NFLC Reports). Washington, DC: The National Foreign Language Center. Nagy, W., & Townsend, D. (2012). Words as tools: Learning academic vocabulary as language acquisition. Reading Research Quarterly, 47 (1), 91–108. Regalla, M. (2012). Language objectives: More than just vocabulary. TESOL Journal, 3(2), 210–230.

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Short, D. J. (2002). Language learning in sheltered social studies classes. TESOL Journal, 11(1), 18–24. Snow, M. S., Met, M., & Genesee, F. (1989). A conceptual framework for the integration of language and content in second/foreign language instruction. TESOL Quarterly, 23(2), 201–217. Stoller, F.L., & Grabe, W. (1997). A six-T’s approach to content-based instruction. In M.A. Snow & D. M. Brinton (Eds.), The content-based classroom: Perspectives on integrating language and content (pp. 78–94). White Plains, NY: Addison-Wesley Longman. Tedick, D. J., & Cammarata, L. (2012). Content and language integration in k-12 contexts: Student outcomes, teacher practices, and stakeholder perspectives. Foreign Language Annals, 45 (S1), 28–53. TESOL. (1997). ESL standards for pre-K12 students. Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

Understanding Lecturers’ Practices and Processes: A Qualitative Investigation of English-Medium Education in a Spanish Multilingual University Niall Curry and Pascual Pérez-Paredes

1

Internationalization, English-Medium Instruction, and Beliefs

This chapter investigates how the internationalization process by way of English-medium Education in Multilingual University Settings (EMEMUS) is unfolding in a Spanish university context. Broadly, English-medium instruction (EMI), like content and language integrated learning (CLIL), can be defined as “the use of the English language to teach academic subjects in countries or jurisdictions where the first language (L1) of the majority of the population is not English” (Dearden N. Curry (B) Coventry University, Coventry, UK e-mail: [email protected] P. Pérez-Paredes Universidad de Murcia, Murcia, Spain e-mail: [email protected] Cambridge Language Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK © The Author(s) 2021 M. L. Carrió-Pastor and B. Bellés Fortuño (eds.), Teaching Language and Content in Multicultural and Multilingual Classrooms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56615-9_6

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2015: 4). A typical differentiating factor between CLIL and EMI is the role of language teaching, and typically EMI has “no explicit language learning aims” (Madhavan and McDonald 2014: 1). However, separating language and content in EMI contexts has proven challenging owing to EMI instructors’ low language proficiency (Dearden 2015), instructors’ lack of language awareness and training (Dearden et al. 2016), the varied English language skills among students (Macaro et al. 2018), and broader linguistic difficulties among students and instructors (Vu and Burns 2014). Moreover, following Ortega (2014), in many cases where research on EMI addresses language issues, it typically takes a simplistic and uncritical position of seeing L2 speakers as deficient and a cause of problems in EMI contexts. The complexity of the sites where multilingual universities struggle to provide EMI programs is extraordinary and requires further attention and theorization beyond such a simplistic view (Macaro et al. 2018). In fact, in their systematic review, Macaro et al. (2018: 69) identify a number of outstanding problems and questions in the field of EMI, of which one has been the inspiration for this chapter, namely: Do different HE institutions (e.g., private and state) experience different levels of success in implementing EMI? If so, why? As there remains a need to investigate the implementation of EMI policies in a range of higher education institutions, this study focuses on state-funded education and investigates teacher beliefs about EMI in a Spanish state-funded higher education institute. A well-established means of accessing and understanding the impact of policies on education, such as an EMI policy, pertains to the study of teacher reflections and beliefs (c.f. Fives and Gill 2014). While the value of studying teacher beliefs is widely recognized, critiques remain surrounding both conceptual and methodological inconsistencies in such studies (Skott 2014). Conceptually, definitions of beliefs have been argued to refer to perceived truths, affect, and cognition. For some they are socially bound and directly linked to practice (Skott 2014). As such, the conceptual inconsistencies make it difficult to compare and contrast studies on teacher beliefs. Moreover, Borg (2015) argues that contemporary research on teacher beliefs lacks purpose. Such a view is also reflected in Skott (2014) wherein the methodological weaknesses in studies of teacher beliefs indicate that teachers’ professional practices

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are not often theoretically situated. Rather, they appear fragmented and add little to the understanding and development of teachers in contexts like EMEMUS contexts. While it is imperative that we continue the important work in the context of teacher beliefs, following Borg and Alshumaimeri (2019), we must endeavour to question current understandings of teacher beliefs and move beyond initial descriptive accounts toward more theoretically and practically impactful research. To address the needs identified thus far, this paper adopts Dafouz and Smit’s ROADMAPPING framework (2016, 2020) to analyze the practices and processes of EMEMUS lecturers at a Spanish university. These practices and processes can be understood as “the teaching and learning activities that construct and are constructed by specific English-Medium education in multilingual University settings” (Dafouz and Smit 2016: 407). Such practices and processes are intrinsically linked to the understanding of beliefs as, following Skott (2014), “beliefs are expected to significantly influence the ways in which teachers interpret and engage with the problems of practice” (p. 19). Therefore, by adopting the ROADMAPPING framework (2016, 2020), this research can offer a better understanding of EMEMUS lecturers’ approaches to managing content and language in their EMEMUS teaching from an emic perspective and systematically address issues in EMEMUS while theoretically positioning and interrogating teacher beliefs. The analysis is based on the tagging and analysis of two interviews according to the ROADMAPPING framework and the results of a detailed survey of 42 EMEMUS lecturers. Our analysis explored the development and construction of knowledge in the EMEMUS context by examining lecturers’ understanding of their teaching practices and processes. The findings of this study are manifold. For example, this study reveals that at a micro level, EMEMUS lecturers’ beliefs appear to at times both support and impede the internationalization process at this Spanish university. More broadly, this study allows for further commentary on EMEMUS lecturers’ practices and perceived roles in language provision. Reflecting on the findings of this study, this paper also considers more macro perspectives to better understand the larger institutional practices and processes surrounding internationalization and EMEMUS. Theoretically, our study informs our understanding of the

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ROADMAPPING framework, outlines our methodological processes for accessing this information and highlights the role of internationalization and EMEMUS practices in non-English-speaking countries.

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English in International Higher Education

English-medium instruction in higher education (HE) is an arguably unstoppable phenomenon (Dafouz and Smit 2020) that has been discussed widely in the context of globalization processes (Dafouz and Smit 2016). Increased student and staff mobility, international collaboration, and the role of English as the international lingua franca have all contributed to the Englishization of universities, at least in Europe (Lanvers and Hultgren 2018). However, universities worldwide approach their policies to attract international students very differently. The number of international students in HE worldwide, according to the OECD’s (2020) latest update at the time of writing, varies from 21.5% in Australia to 3.2% in Norway and Spain, 0.6% in Mexico, and 0.2% in Brazil. Further differences can be found when specific areas of education are considered. For example, in business, administration, and law, the percentage of international students is 36.2% in Australia, 32% in New Zealand, and 30.2% in the UK. In Spain, however, the percentage of international students does not seem to be affected by the specific field of education. As shown in Fig. 1, most areas remain well below 5%, with health and welfare leading the different fields with 5.5%, and education at the bottom with 1.8%. Spain, in terms of percentage, appears to enroll the fewest international students according to 2017 data. The HE systems in countries such as Italy 5.3%, Portugal 6.4%, Germany 8.4%, France 10.2%, and Austria 17.2% seem to attract a higher percentage of students from other countries. While Austria, Germany, and France have traditionally been strong countries in the HE international scenario, and their languages, German and French, considered languages of science and education, the languages of the south of Europe, such as Italian, Portuguese and Spanish, have not played such a major role, at least in the twentieth and

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Fig. 1 Percentages of HE students worldwide (OECD 2020)

the beginning of this twenty-first centuries. Despite the pervasiveness of Spanish as a global language, neither Spain nor Mexico seem draw in international students.1 Figure 1 illustrates how the largest flow of international students seem to favor Anglo-speaking countries such as Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. However, it is of note that these countries do hold a longer tradition of international education. Anglospeaking countries have developed different strategies to strengthen their position as attractive destinations. New Zealand has published their new International Education Strategy in which the International Student Wellbeing Strategy plays a prominent role. New Zealand authorities claim that this strategy was developed to ensure that student wellbeing is at the heart of their international education sector. Part of this policy is recognition of the fact that international students do not speak English as 1The percentage of graduates between 25 and 34 years does seem to have an impact on these figures—44.26% of the population in Spain hold a HE degree, 40.46% in Austria, 46.94% in France, 51.39% in Australia, and 50.75% in the United Kingdom. Only Germany, 32.28%, falls below 35%.

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their L1: “[International students] are in unfamiliar surroundings, often have English as a second language, and are far from family and social networks [we want to ensure] that international students feel welcome and safe, enjoy a high-quality education and are valued for their contributions to New Zealand” (New Zealand Government 2018: 14). The UK, through the 2019 International Education Strategy: global potential, global growth, however, has decided to emphasize the benefits of their education system based on the pre-eminence of English as a global language. [The UK has] strong historical links with many countries around the world. Underpinning these benefits are positive cultural relationships and the widespread use of English as the global language of business. Many UK education providers are already exporting successfully. Leaving the EU gives the UK the freedom to pursue an independent trade policy that reflects its unique strengths. (HM Government 2019: 18)

International education varies greatly worldwide (Dafouz and Smit 2020), and Dafouz and Smit (2016) coined the term “English-Medium Education in Multilingual University Settings (EMENUS)” to capture the diversity of HE contexts where English is used as a language of both instruction and learning, in systems where languages other than English play different roles. Dafouz and Smit (2020) argue that while EMENUS is a phenomenon that takes place globally, a “north-south divide” (p. 14) characterizes the European region as universities in the Nordic countries lead the implementation of programs in EMEMUS. These authors note that the Spanish HE International strategy suggested that by 2020, 30% of all degree programs be offered in English with the aim “to consolidate a strong and internationally attractive university system which fosters incoming and outgoing student and staff mobility as well as the internationalization of curricula and of research activities for the sake of a more globally oriented workforce” (2020: 29). This national-level policy was influenced by the global trends in the early years of the 2000s and has had an impact on institutions and, at the micro level, on classrooms, teachers, and students. It is the practices and processes of those in the classroom that are the focus of this chapter.

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Dafouz and Smit (2020) have noted how the practices and processes “associated with understanding and implementing EME are as varied as the myriad of agents, settings and languages involved” (p. 30). To address this variety, Dafouz and Smit (2016, 2020) developed ROADMAPPING as a theoretical framework where practices in EMEMUS can be captured, analyzed and theorized. The framework is integrated by six different dimensions that have been identified as contributing to underlying theoretical underpinnings in sociolinguistics, ecolinguistics, and language policy research (Dafouz and Smit 2020). These dimensions are seen as social phenomena that are discursively constructed. The dimensions identified in Dafouz and Smit (2016) are the roles of English, academic disciplines, language management, the role of the agents, practices and processes, and, finally, internationalization and glocalization. The roles of English dimension acknowledges the complexities involved in HE settings where more than one language is used for communication. The presence of various linguistic repertoires can potentially give rise to friction or co-existence as well as the process of, among others, dynamic identity negotiation at different levels (micro, meso, macro). As for the academic disciplines dimension, the implementation of programs in EMEMUS challenges previous beliefs and practices in mainstream academic literacies by way of engaging in new norms, values and ways to construct knowledge. The language management dimension takes stock of the variety of policies that, at different levels, regulate and manipulate the use of languages; English in this case. ROADMAPPING also acknowledges the roles played by individual and institutional agents by examining how social structures impact the implementation of programs in EMEMUS. The internationalization and glocalization dimensions note that HE institutions are subject to increasing pressure to decipher the emerging new roles of universities in an ever-increasing globalized society that is also undergoing major social and political changes. How institutions navigate these tensions is ultimately the product of either explicit or implicit processes in different universities. Finally, the dimension that will be further explored in our research is practices and processes. This dimension understands social practices as cultural conceptions that are key elements in our study of programs in EMEMUS.

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[Practices and processes are] thus concerned with the administrative, research and educational activities that construct and are constructed by EMENUS realities […] allowing for dynamic analyses at all levels, for example classroom discourse, teacher professional development or stages of internationalisation. (Dafouz and Smit 2020: 60)

Digging deeper into practices and processes, there is a specific focus on the socialization of learning and cultural facets to education. A further dimension appears to capture processes and practices that respond to the uniqueness of the EMEMUS learning context. This refers to consideration of learner needs, both linguistic and pedagogical, as well as cognitive, mental, and physical activities (Dafouz and Smit 2020: 56–67). This dynamic and complex understanding of EMEMUS is of great interest as it is instrumental in “problematising simplistic divides between language and content” (Baker and Hüttner 2017: 1). ROADMAPPING has been extensively used to explore EMEMUS on a national scale (Brown and Bradford 2018) and in international contexts (Baker and Hüttner 2017) to examine teacher beliefs on the integration of content and language across sites (Dafouz and Smit 2016), or, among other areas, to understand teacher identity in the design of professional development programs (Dafouz 2018). Baker and Hüttner (2017) found that the participants in EMEMUS “share a complex understanding of the diverse roles of English and other languages involved in these multilingual sites” (p. 13). They also found in lecturers and students a “superficial orientation [to the role of English in EMEMUS as an] unambiguous, monolithic entity” (p. 13). The use of ROADMAPPING allowed them to tap into the contextual patterns that make up the perceived ideal language policy and the positioning of other languages as relevant to teaching and learning the discipline. As a theoretical framework, ROADMAPPING allows us to take facets of the EMEMUS and internationalization processes and see them clearly within their wider interconnected ecosystem.

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Interview and Survey Data and Analysis

This chapter presents a largely qualitative analysis that forms part of a larger study on EMEMUS which involves the detailed survey of 42 EMEMUS lecturers, and focus groups and interviews with 24 of these lecturers. Mainly derived from the detailed analysis of two specific interviews, the data is used here to investigate and better understand the internationalization process by way of EMEMUS practices and processes in a Spanish university context. The survey data is used to set this analysis in greater relief, and to better understand and access the macro practices and processes at the Spanish university. At the Spanish university being studied, the role of English has generated an important question and challenge for teaching, with more and more teachers needing to teach their subjects through English. With this wide-reaching need for EMEMUS recognized and supported, our study aimed to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges the institution and teachers face and the barriers to successful implementation of EMEMUS, and provide direction for development and support. The interviews took a semi-structured format and were framed within the context of the EMI policy at the institution. All the lecturers were familiar with EMEMUS and the remit of English at their institution, more generally. There were several questions that were discussed with each participant through the prism of EMEMUS. However, the lecturers were encouraged to discuss items beyond the original broad interview questions. The interviews lasted about 30 minutes and the following questions were used to guide them: 1. Could you tell me a little about your own use of English, both professionally and everyday life? 2. What are the main differences in your opinion between teaching in English and Spanish? 3. Do you think teaching content and teaching language require different teaching approaches? How do you balance the two? 4. How do you think students find studying in English? Are they well prepared?

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5. If a student is having language and not content problems in your classes, what do you do? How do you address it? 6. Do you find academic English and academic Spanish to be similar? Very different? Do you translate? Is it easy to do that? 7. Do you use technology in the clasroom? If so, how and why do you use it? For this chapter, an analysis of two of the interviews is presented with interviewees, Encarna and Carlos. These two interviews were chosen as Encarna represents a lecturer with experience of teaching in EMEMUS. She is also an educationalist and therefore represents a very specific type of lecturer; one who has a keen interest in pedagogy and internationalization. The second interviewee, Carlos, is soon to be an EMEMUS lecturer in law. He faces particular problems with teaching that are not shared by other disciplines, i.e., the translating and teaching of heavily contextualized Spanish law into English. He does not have previous experience of teaching in English or EMEMUS. These two interviewees were chosen for analysis in this paper as they represent two very different case studies of lecturers that co-exist within the same EMEMUS and under the same policy. Each interview was transcribed, and each utterance was coded according to the ROADMAPPING framework (Dafouz and Smit 2016). In certain instances, a single line of dialogue could hold two tags. In such cases, utterances were attributed with primary and secondary tags that reflect the ROADMAPPING dimensions. This is not surprising as the interconnectedness of the branches of ROADMAPPING is well-established (Dafouz and Smit 2016, 2020). What this means in practicality is that some examples of practices and processes are embedded within roles of English, academic disciplines, language management, agents, and internationalization, and vice versa. In order to understand how their practices and processes interplay with the internationalization process, the interviews were thematically analyzed identify overarching themes. These themes were broadly identified as: • learning and social constructivism in EMEMUS and • reflexive and adaptive teaching for EMEMUS.

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For the supplementary survey data, the participants were 42 academic staff teaching a wide range of courses that can be categorized into business (19), education (7), physics (5), and biology (3), with 5 law lecturers who were not teaching through English at the time of the surveys and interviews, and 3 who did not specify. The average years of teaching experience was 16.5, and most of the staff had more than 9 years of teaching experience. Half of the teachers have taught in English at university. Twenty-six of the 42 participants rated their English level at C1 and 11 of them at C2; only 5 reported to be at B2 level. Among all the participants, only 3 lecturers have taken an EMI course, among whom one reported to be taking an online course, one was taking a course offered by their faculty, and the other one did not specify. For the survey, participants were asked 60 questions that spanned the following themes: • • • • • • •

use of English perceived language competence differences across languages and disciplines general pedagogy pedagogical approaches when teaching in English training needs and use of technology

Overall, the focus in this chapter is a presentation of the qualitative analysis of the practices and processes identified in the interviews and a reflection on the tagging process to inform future EMEMUS studies. In presenting the results in the subsequent sections, both the micro and the macro level practices and processes are identified and discussed. As the focus of this paper is on the qualitative analysis, the survey data is used only to reflect the views of Encarna and Carlos in their wider macro context.

4

Encarna and Carlos: Practices and Processes

After tagging the interviews, practices and processes were found to be a frequent feature of both Encarna’s and Carlos’ discourses. For Encarna,

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of the 154 primary and secondary tags applied to her interview, 47 pertained to practices and processes. Overall, practices and processes account for 37% of Encarna’s primary tags, 17% of her secondary tags, and 31% of all of her tags, rendering them the most common aspect of ROADMAPPING identified in her interview. Similarly, practices and processes were also a frequent feature of Carlos’ interview. Of the 131 primary and secondary tags applied to Carlos’ interviewm, 63 reflected practices and processes. In total, practices and processes account for 57% of Carlos’ primary tags, 24% of his secondary tags, and 48% of all of his tags. As with Encarna, this means that practices and processes are the most common aspects of ROADMAPPING identified in his interview. However, it should be noted that the questions outlined in the methodology section do guide the discussion in the direction of practices and processes. While there are many ways in which these data could be analyzed, the purpose here is to consider how Encarna’s and Carlos’ accounts of practices and processes impact upon and/or respond to the internationalization process and the effective support of EMEMUS. In analyzing the interviews, it appears that in the reflections on practices and processes there are facets of both lecturers’ work that reflect behavior conducive to EMEMUS implementation and internationalization, and there are facets that do not. At this micro level of analysis, practices, and processes have been subdivided into two categories in order to make both lecturers’ engagement with effective EMEMUS and internationalization processes clear: 1) learning and social constructivism in EMEMUS and 2) reflexive and adaptive teaching for EMEMUS. Let us first begin with a consideration of their practices and processes pertaining to learning and social constructivism.

Learning and Social Constructivism in EMEMUS In EMEMUS, it is well-established that social constructivist approaches to learning are crucial for the development of knowledge and the ability to effectively communicate that knowledge through English (Dafouz and Smit 2020). Encarna very clearly acknowledges the value of socialized learning in the following example.

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So, as I have told you that my teaching is based on task-based learning, and they are all the time working together, and working with and presenting things, and discussing things for them is very challenging.

In this example, she accounts for her students’ practices. Importantly, she acknowledges the problems her students face when working through English and a solution she supports, i.e., they struggle to communicate and therefore should work together to improve. Such an approach represents long-standing core tenets within the field of social constructivism, such as those supported by Bandura (1977, 1986), who argued that learning takes place in a social context. Moreover, recognizing more recent advances in concepts like interthinking, not only is the social facet key but also the co-constructedness of knowledge plays an important role in social constructivist approaches to learning (Littleton and Mercer 2013). Her focus on “working together” reflects her use of interthinking approaches, and the clear value she places on the socialization of learning. In a similar example, she refers to students working together to help support one another’s learning. So, I always try to listen to everybody, trying to force them to speak in my class and to try to…and always trying to help each other.

Again, in this example, the role of community is very clear. She encourages her students to help one another. Such an approach to community building has been seen to facilitate effective learning, where students develop learning relationships with one another (Haneda 1997; Carpenter and Murphey 2007). While Carlos has less experience of EMEMUS, he does have some previous experience in other institutions. He too recognizes that the main benefits from EMEMUS practices in the law classroom will only happen if local and international students engage in activities where they collaborate and work together.

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I must say I’m quite excited about this whole thing, because my wish, my dream will be for my students, the Spanish students and international students that came here to be able to work in groups, and to have [unclear], competitions…

A challenge of this analysis is to identify the extent to which the will of both lecturers is indeed to create a community. Smit (2013) identifies that community building is an important aspect of teaching in EMEMUS. She finds “that all participants, students and teachers alike, engage in, and jointly develop their community specific lingua franca practices over time” (p. 24). Moreover, she finds this to be effective in creating inhibition in language use irrespective of English language proficiency levels, as the students become more used to functioning in English for educational purposes (p. 22). That said, the community constructed was bound by academic discipline where the students’ studies were part of a shared community of practice. While this study is concerned with addressing and understanding beliefs as practices and processes and their role in the internationalization process, a future study to investigate other dimensions of their practices, such as classroom practices and academic discipline, would be valuable. There are further examples that address social and community approaches to teaching and learning in Encarna’s interview. For example, in her discussion with her students, she attempts to make herself a language model, reflecting the concept of the near-peer role model, which serves to give learners more tangible and accessible evidence of their capacity for language learning (Dörnyei 2009; Ruddick and Nadasdy 2013; Curry 2019). This is constructed in the following example. The others they – I always encourage them to say that in the way you want, and I always use myself as an example of someone that is not very good at speaking English. And I would say my English is a kind of English-ish, and I don’t know the majority of the terms, and I don’t have a very big lexicon in English, so don’t be worried if you don’t know a word.

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Furthermore, Encarna talks explicitly about “active learning” tasks and methods, as in the following utterance. Since I started to teach at the university, I have been very focused on implementing all my classes, active learning tasks and active learning methodologies.

This creates a very clear connection to social constructivism, where active learning pertains to learning through action and engagement and is underpinned conceptually by theories such as the Vygotskian socio-cultural theory (Mattar 2018). More broadly, Encarna recognizes the importance of the learning environment. She talks regularly about the value of a personal learning environment and she sees her role as one that creates a safe-speaking environment for second-language users. She talks about creating an English-speaking space for her students, “So, in the first days I try to create a natural space for speaking in English.” In her attempt to create a space conducive for learning, her practices reflect that which is well-established in the theory, i.e., that communicative contexts that allow for lots of interaction are central to communitybased learning (Carpenter and Murphey 2007). In fact, such a view reflects the value of communities of practice for effective learning, as seen in Van Compernolle and Williams’ study (2012) in which university students learning French develop sociolinguistic competence through their acculturation within a learning community. While in many ways both Encarna’s and Carlos’ reported practices and processes demonstrate the qualities of an agent of internationalization and EMEMUS, there is also evidence of practices that challenge effective EMEMUS implementation. For example, while Carlos identifies the importance of collaborative and cooperative work, he thinks that there is a lack of willingness to engage in communication between local and international students. Spanish local students are perceived as potentially reluctant to engage in activities using the English language. The interaction with Spanish students, and I hope they are not shy, I hope they really want to talk, etcetera, but probably it will be… It’s already

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difficult in Spanish to make that talk in class, and probably it will be more challenging in English.

This view is expanded later in the interview when Carlos goes on to assert that there is the widespread idea that Spanish speakers do not seem to be able to speak competently, in English. But it was what [unclear] for me, what this was, it was a more important priority, was that they realised that they could do it, which is something, and I don’t know whether that’s the case in other countries, but I think in Spain we have the feeling that we will never be able to speak in English, so it’s kind of a complex.

Although Carlos did not position himself as particularly embracing this idea of Spanish students having a lower level of English, being himself a clear example of a successful lecturer and researcher that uses English in international forums, it is interesting that he understands that Spanish speakers, as a homogenous group of speakers, are positioned hierarchically lower in the scale of L2 competence against the backdrop of an imaginary global society. It would be interesting to probe into how EMEMUS lecturers understand the divide between language practice (what people do) and language ideology (what people think about how things should be done) as discussed in Spolsky (2004). Spolsky (2004) suggested that “language ideology or beliefs designate a speech community’s consensus on what value to apply to each of the language variables or named language varieties that make up its repertoire” (p. 14). From this perspective, it may seem that, judging from Carlos’ statement, the Spanish group is particularly harsh when judging their own abilities to use English as a lingua franca. However, this consensus may also affect how others’ social practices are conceptualized. Carlos identified a particular group of international students as not willing to play an active role in the lessons. I have had difficulty with [nationality] students, for example, but it was more a cultural thing than a linguistic one [unclear]. They wouldn’t talk, and they wouldn’t participate, but I know that they were following the

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course, and they were even asking for more [readings?], etcetera, but it’s probably more a cultural difference.

Carlos is revisiting here his previous experience as a lecturer in different higher education institutions. He seems to imply that the nationality of students defines their behavior and their interaction within EMEMUS lessons. This alignment ties in with Spolsky’s (2004) association of major languages worldwide with ethnolinguistically homogeneous countries, or at least with predominant discourses in those countries that favor the relevance of one of the languages in those territories over the others. Drawing on this view of the role of language in lecturers’ and students’ practices and processes, Dafouz and Smit (2020) identify that effective EMEMUS presupposes a culture wherein translanguaging processes are supported and embedded within the wider learning culture. However, in Encarna’s interview there is evidence to suggest that she does not support translanguaging in her role as an EMEMUS lecturer. In the following example, she talks about her teaching of bilingual classes. However, she says that these classes are only in English. Therefore, she does not permit the reflexive use of linguistic repertoires by students that are required for the facilitation of translanguaging. The main difference probably is that in my bilingual classes, nowadays I only teach in English because of my… Well, in the degree, in the master’s, I teach some classes in English and some classes in Spanish.

In further discussions, she talks about creating an English-only environment with her bilingual students. Encarna:

Even in the corridor, always that I identify someone from the bilingual group, I turn into English. Interviewer: And how did you create that requirement? Encarna: I said it in the first day. This example quite clearly reflects Encarna’s approach to the use of Spanish in the EMEMUS classroom. That is, she does not permit the use of Spanish or facilitate translanguaging. Throughout the interview,

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Encarna regularly reports on translation processes as harmful, difficult, as risking important and meaningful losses, and as being linguistically fraught. Take, for example, the following utterance by Encarna where she likens the use of Spanish, English, and translation to a destructive process. So, when you’re translating phrase by phrase from the Spanish into English, you’re trying to make with a hammer, to put into a hammer in your Spanish, to try to combine them into English patterns, and it doesn’t work.

Encarna’s approach to bilingualism reflects English and Spanish as “two solitudes” (Cummins 1994) as Spanish is not used as a supportive resource to scaffold the learning of both content and language in English (Doiz et al. 2013). Her reflection on her processes and practices seems to show that she sees translanguaging as a contaminant (Creese and Blackledge 2010) despite ample evidence supporting the claim that the use of multiple languages is both cognitively beneficial (Garcia and Wei 2014) and an effective support for students in EMEMUS (Fujimoto-Adamson and Adamson 2018). Therefore, while the implementation of a social constructivist approach by Carlos and Encarna supports EMEMUS and the internationalization of the university, Encarna’s stance on translanguaging and Carlos’ view of student unwillingness to collaborate across cultural groups reflect practices that may be negatively impacting this internationalisation process.

Reflexive and Adaptive Teaching for EMEMUS Compared to traditional language classrooms, EMEMUS bring with them an array of unique challenges. EMEMUS lecturers must often respond to students with different pedagogical approaches to language teaching. This may be owing to the requirement to balance the needs of a multilingual classroom with expert content knowledge in their respective disciplines (Dafouz and Smit 2020). This is evident in Carlos’s interview, where his prior beliefs include his previous experience as a student and researcher outside of Spain. His discourse is dominated by

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the need to favor the local students’ exposure to activities where they engage with other students, locally, nationally, and internationally. His previous experiences with “competitions” seem to be crucial. We have actually done it. We do it in our classes, in the practical part of the subjects, but now this year we have done it for the first time abroad. And we have big – two groups of students, and we open a call for all of them to participate. They have to show a certain level of English –C1 or C2 – and we participated with them in international [over speaking]. In Madrid, I mean in this one. They performed very well [over speaking]. That was – it was quite an effort for everyone.

Competitions and contests for law students seem to be an important tool in his EMEMUS teaching strategy. So too are technologies. Carlos adopts here a pragmatic stance by identifying technologies, such as presentation software, as tools to present well-structured lessons, as well as videos and internet content as an opportunity to offer extra English language input. I think that’s why we use PowerPoint and essentially videos on the internet that we show, for example, our discussion on the European Council, but we used the videos of the European Commission that shows how a discussion actually [takes place?].

In Encarna’s reflections on her own practices and processes, she discusses her approach to managing and mitigating the linguistic and the learning needs of her students of education. In many ways, her approach reflects effective means for facilitating EMEMUS and internationalization, with the following examples demonstrating her commitment to developing metacognitive skills in her students. I know I have news from other places when our student says, oh, I am sorry, I don’t understand this example. So I always try to listen to everybody, trying to force them to speak in my class and to try to…and always trying to help each other.

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These reflections demonstrate Encarna’s recognition of the importance of metacognitive skills such as help-seeking, which are known to support learner autonomy and effective learning strategies (Newman 1998; Schworm and Gruber 2012), specifically in EMEMUS (Menéndez et al. 2018). Further examples of metacognitive developments include awareness raising and self-monitoring, as in the following example. The first presentation they do is a small presentation in small groups, for a small group of people, and in the last presentation, it’s also in the same way. So it’s can you feel the difference between your first presentation, and this presentation? And the majority of them feel the difference in terms of confidence, especially in terms of confidence.

Beyond these examples, Encarna regularly draws attention to the importance of learning skills for her EMEMUS students, which positions her practices and processes as contributing to the effective implementation of EMEMUS and the internationalization of the university. Notably, Encarna’s expertise in education is arguably central to her engagement in these practices. Alongside her dedication to developing learners, Encarna exhibits strong content knowledge in the field of education, as can be seen in the following examples. I am teaching one-and-a-half courses – the main course about educational technology, that is called Resources and ICT in Education; and one part of the other course that is organisation, school organisation. Basically, my courses are about how to implement the resources and ICT in education, is how to implement and how technology is impacting education and basically in primary school, but also in the teacher professional development.

As well as further content areas, Encarna also discusses assessment protocols, projects, and teaching methods regularly in the context of supporting the delivery of subject knowledge. This reflects the expectations on the professional EMEMUS educator to effectively deliver subject knowledge through English (Dafouz and Smit 2020).

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Furthermore, when considering the transition to teaching in English, Encarna claims that she does not change her pedagogical approach. So I try to work with my students with something called task-based learning, so as my task-based learning is less and less based on lectures, I don’t feel so…the difference between teaching in English and teaching in Spanish so big.

She discusses taking a task-based approach, which is also what she does in Spanish. While initially this appears contrary to Dafouz and Smit’s (2020) claim that EMEMUS students require a change in approach, it emerges later in the interview that Encarna does change facets of her teaching approach for each language. For example, when discussing her use of a specific debate format, the Lincoln-Douglas style, she acknowledges that this would be too cognitively challenging for her students to conduct in English. So maybe they are, and I have to say that in my English classes, there are some techniques that I cannot use, for example, in Spanish I do the debate called Linc-…they’re in a Lincoln-Douglas style, that is very precise with times and so on. But I know that my students cannot have this speed for thinking and for…

Furthermore, she makes explicit reference to the importance of formality in Spanish. So in Spanish – and I always said remember that you are in a formal situation and you must defend your things, and present your things in a formal way.

However, this same expectation is not extended to English, as the following example makes clear. In English I am more relaxed with that, and I know that they cannot be formal on non-formal in English, and they are… The English they have…

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This example indicates two important and somewhat conflicting implications for EMEMUS. Firstly, this, like the previous examples, exemplifies Encarna’s attempt to respond to her students’ needs from a pedagogical perspective, reflecting characteristics of effective EMEMUS lecturers. Second, however, this simplification of expectations in English indicates a lack of attentiveness to the linguistic needs of the learners (Dafouz and Smit 2020). Further examples of Encarna’s reduction of the role of English occur where she asks students to supply transcripts after delivering presentations. And I have asked them for – make them for give me the transcription of the media, because I want to be sure that I have listened to everything they want to say, or they have said, because of their accent or whatever they can make some mistakes, and I can understand and other things.

In this example, she mitigates potential language problems that could occur surrounding pronunciation by allowing students to submit a transcription of their presentation. While this may appear accommodating to students, as she attempts to reduce the negative impact of language on assessment, it also presents a potential disservice. EMEMUS students require very specific language support (Fujimoto-Adamson and Adamson 2018), and by mitigating the importance of pronunciation and spoken delivery, the students do not receive specific teaching to improve these particular linguistic competences. Similarly, she acknowledges that in assessing students, she pays more attention to argument than language accuracy. Answering, and for looking to their arguments, so I don’t use these kind of advanced language protocols.

This once again moves to reduce the importance placed on language as opposed to facilitating the development of relevant linguistic competencies. Carlos similarly discusses the lack of attention to language during EMEMUS lessons. During his training period, he was impacted by a particular lecturer’s stance that content should prevail over the linguistic medium of expression.

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And I remember a French professor who was actually teaching at Cambridge for many years and he said, “French people don’t speak French either, probably. So just tell me what you want to tell me, and put French words, but at the end I will revalue you for it for the content of your work.”

While it may be unrealistic to expect Encarna and Carlos to perform the duties of both content and language specialists, Brown (2017) proposes co-teaching by language and content experts as a means to integrate language development within the EMEMUS curriculum. Though this may be impractical or infeasible in all contexts, learners’ language needs arguably need to be attended to, if we wish to support the development of EMEMUS, effectively. Further examples emerge in Encarna’s interview that show her lack of capacity and training to effectively respond to her students’ language needs. The following example shows how Encarna, aware of her lack of ability to give detailed feedback on language, tries to give more generic feedback on language. And so I always try to give them some feedback, but general feedback about language, something like please use the grammar correct, or please be careful when you use this or that.

Although language is not traditionally considered the remit of the EMEMUS lecturer (Madhavan and McDonald 2014), here Encarna shows that owing to the lack of integrated linguistic support, she must respond in some way to her students’ language needs. However, her lack of training in doing so is in direct conflict with the requirements for effective development of EMEMUS. This reflects Dearden et al. (2016), who find that EMEMUS lecturers typically lack language awareness and training as well as the general challenges surrounding language pedagogy in EMEMUS identified in Vu and Burns (2014). Similar training needs emerge in Carlos’ interview when he identifies an existing inertia not to use technology among the faculty, which limits the value technology can afford in supporting the linguistic development of students. Far from complying with standard uses, he tries to make use of current tools such

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as interactive quizzes. Interestingly, he seems to be aware of a technology divide between staff and students in terms of the preferred channels of communication. A case in point is the use of email by students, which seems to be a problem in the law degree program and, most probably, throughout the university. Overall, in terms of Encarna’s and Carlos’ practices and processes pertaining to teaching, there is clear evidence of their roles as facilitators of EMEMUS and agents of internationalization. They prioritize the development of learning skills that are integral to student success in EMEMUS. Moreover, reflexive teaching for the learner groups in Spanish and English, and local and international groupings is evidenced in their approach to respond to their students’ needs. However, they also exhibit some practices and processes that could act as barriers to effective EMEMUS implementation. In terms of support for the linguistic needs of students, their interviews demonstrate a tendency to reduce the impact of language deficits on student assessment, and Encarna explicitly acknowledges her lack of capacity to effectively respond to students’ language needs in detail. Carlos similarly identifies a lack of willingness of lecturers to use technology to help support their teaching through English. In order to facilitate effective EMEMUS and the internationalization of the university, it is imperative that the students’ subject knowledge and linguistic needs are met. Therefore, the approach to managing language issues and the lack of integrated language support may prove problematic.

5

Practices, Processes, and the Wider Perspective

While the previous section offered an in-depth investigation into the practices and processes of two EMEMUS lecturers, the discussion centered on what Dafouz and Smit (2020) identify as micro level practices and processes. However, they also recognize that by analyzing the micro level, it is possible to shed some light on the more global facets of the internationalization processes in different institutions. With this in mind, and drawing on both the interviews and the survey data,

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this section offers a brief discussion of the emergent macro level practices and processes and what these tell us about EMEMUS, the broader ROADMAPPING criteria, and the internationalization process at this Spanish higher education institution. Encarna and Carlos both adopt practices that help support effective internationalization processes, and many of these are shared by the lecturers who were surveyed. For example, through analyzing the interviews, it became clear that both Encarna and Carlos adopt social constructivist approaches to learning, and this adoption reflects effective internationalization practices and processes (Littleton and Mercer 2013). Such an approach is also reflected more widely in the survey data, where 95% of lecturers claim to regularly encourage student participation and 76% of lecturers claim to make use of group work in their teaching. While such a value for the socialization of learning is a strength for the institution, there is less explicit evidence of specific aims and structure that can guide the development of a learning community. This may be a valuable direction for the institutions’ EMEMUS policy as, following Van Compernolle and Williams (2012), it may support the development of an international community. In terms of supporting learning for the EMEMUS, both Encarna and Carlos demonstrate the need to respond to specific learner needs. Again, this is reflected in the survey data, where 73% of lecturers see writing in Spanish for higher education to be very different to writing in English. Therefore, they see a wide gap between literacy practices in Spanish and English and alter their approaches accordingly. In fact, 92% of the lecturers do this by using slides, notes, and handouts to help students follow classes in English, and 76% of lecturers use group work as an opportunity to process new information and language in English. One final consideration in terms of these shared practices is the use of technology. While Carlos signals that there is an institutional reluctance to use technology, looking more broadly at the survey, this perspective does not appear to hold. According to the survey data, 71% of lecturers think that language and learning technologies are important when teaching in English, 93% feel comfortable with technology in the classroom, 79% consider such technology useful for teaching in English, and 88% of lecturers think language and learning technologies are beneficial for their

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EMEMUS students. Therefore, while some lecturers fit Carlos’ description as reluctant to use technology, this is by no means the majority. That being said, technological intervention alone does not appear to be the panacea to EMEMUS challenges. While it would valuable to delve further into these discreet practices and processes, what they tell us is that there is a shared institutional behavior that sees value in the socialization of learning and that recognizes the importance of responding to specific learner needs in the EMEMUS (Dafouz and Smit 2020). There are also institutional behaviors that conflict with effective internationalization processes. While Dafouz and Smit (2020: 57) identify that the “nature of [EMEMUS] groups often demands different pedagogical approaches,” Encarna claims she does not change her pedagogical approach, and only 40% of the lecturers surveyed claimed that they change their teaching approach when teaching in English. Furthermore, only 50% of lecturers think learner needs require specific consideration when teaching in EMEMUS. These results are quite low given how important reflexive and responsive teaching is positioned in the literature (Dafouz and Smit 2020). Moreover, although Encarna recognizes the value of developing learner autonomy and metacognitive skills that support EMEMUS learners (Menéndez et al. 2018), this is not a widespread view, as only 33% of lecturers surveyed incorporate metacognitive strategies like reflective practices into their teaching. These inconsistencies indicate that teaching practices in this EMEMUS are not always shared throughout the institution and beliefs about necessary interventions for EMEMUS teaching are not consistent. This may be owing to a lack of clarification of what EMEMUS means for this institution and, importantly, this may negatively impact the internationalization process. Therefore, following Dafouz and Smit (2020), there is a potential for the results of this and larger studies to reveal effective EMEMUS and internationalization practices and impact both local and national educational policies. For Encarna, there are further macro insights that emerge. Her opinions about the use of English in teaching and learning are not hers alone. Like Encarna, the survey participants held many views on the importance of teaching in English—81% of participants enjoy teaching in English and, furthermore, they see English as having inherent value for their and

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their students’ careers. For example, 83% of lecturers think that teaching in English will help their career, and 93% of lecturers consider English to be valuable for their students’ futures. This presents some insight into the goal of the institution being the production of bilingually educated graduates with high employability. However, this macro perspective, which privileges the English language, appears to conflict with the known advantages that translanguaging offers EMEMUS (Garcia and Wei 2014). Moreover, if the broad perspective of the institution supports this view of bilingualism as excluding translanguaging, it raises questions about the overarching institutional EMEMUS policy and its communication to and its enactment by the lecturing staff. Further analysis into the agents and roles of English in the ROADMAPPING framework may help address these issues. Moreover, while lecturers do see value in teaching and learning in English, this does not come without issues. Mixed abilities seem to be a problem in this EMEMUS, with only 23% of lecturers not experiencing issues with mixed language ability in the classroom. This is in keeping with the literature (Macaro et al. 2018). Moreover, in the context of language provision, the emerging story appears to be one of doubt or confusion. While traditional definitions of EMEMUS indicate that language is not within the remit of the EMEMUS lecturer (Madhavan and McDonald 2014), both Encarna and Carlos identify the relevance of language. However, the hierarchy of content over language in Carlos’ interview and the lack of skills to fully address language concerns in Encarna’s interview highlight that these practitioners still see language as a lesser part of their work. Importantly, that is not to say it is not part of their role. Looking at the survey, the lack of certainty surrounding the place for language in the lecturers’ practices is amplified. For example, 38% of the lecturers feel they need to support their students with the development of their English, while 30% are unsure as to whether they ought to. Similarly, only 36% of the lecturers feel that they have the skills to support language learning, while 33% are unsure if they can do it. Only 23% of the lecturers feel that they can teach and explain language points, while 40% are unsure. Furthermore, 33% of lecturers feel they need support to teach in English and 24% are unsure. What this tells us is that some lecturers see supporting language as part of their role while others do not. However, for the most

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part, they are unsure. Overall, 55% of the lecturers find teaching in English to be challenging, which may explain some of this uncertainty. Therefore, the issue of language provision is unclear to the lecturers but they have to engage with it to some degree nonetheless in their classrooms. The lack of clarity surrounding their remit as EMEMUS lecturers reflects a broader issue in the institution, which may need to address the need for both content and language provision more clearly. This may be better supported by collaboration between language and content experts, as Brown (2017) suggests. However, this would need top-down institutional support and enhanced critical awareness about the role of language, multilingualism, and literacies in education. Recalling Carlos’ view of nationality as key in defining student behavior in EMEMUS lessons, his beliefs and language ideologies appear to be impacted by wider phenomena in language policy. In fact, this view is largely shared by the other lecturers surveyed, where only 30% of lecturers expressed no worries about their students’ ability to understand English in the classroom. These views of Spanish speaker language competence appear to tie in with Spolsky’s work on language ideology (2004) and this identification of a country with a language, a homogenous group of speakers and, apparently, an overall approach to learning, calls for further examination and an analysis of the implications. The EMEMUS landscape is not an exception and should not escape this analysis. Not only do “most countries have language education policies that define foreign-language teaching” (Spolsky 2004: 48) but these policies impact classroom language teaching “as well as the thinking of language teachers and pupils about language pedagogy and learning.” Evans and Fisher (2010: 491) argue that the impact of language policies is influenced by processes of mediation and appropriation. In particular, they showed how the KS3 Framework for Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) in the UK “does not explicitly engage with central pedagogical questions, assumptions and decisions that ultimately every language teacher faces and that define” how languages need to be taught and learnt. Based on the evidence provided by school agents interviewed, they argue that teachers [are] mediators of the [language policy] in terms of its translation into policy and practice in the language classroom but that this mediation

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is itself influenced by different mediating factors such as prior beliefs and understandings of language pedagogy, training, resources and interaction with colleagues.

This finding seems to suggest that teachers’ beliefs may determine actual classroom practices. In the survey data, 33% find it hard to incorporate language pedagogy and traditional pedagogy into their practices and 36% are unsure of how to approach this. Moreover, for Carlos and the other lecturers surveyed, prior beliefs can include previous experience as a student and researcher outside Spain and, overall, global, national and institutional policies appear to shape the internationalization process at this institution.

6

Conclusion: Accessing Internationalization Through ROADMAPPING

In concluding this chapter, it is worth reflecting on the use of ROADMAPPING in this analysis. ROADMAPPING was adopted as a means to theoretically position and interrogate teacher beliefs, and its six dimensions offered an emic approach with interdisciplinary grounding for the investigation of how the internationalization process in a Spanish university context is impacted by EMEMUS. ROADMAPPING served as an effective means to analyze and organize the data. However, there emerged over the course of the analysis facets of the interviews that did not fit neatly within the six dimensions. For example, the use of language brokering and translation technologies for addressing language provision by the students emerged. This raised questions of the need to expand on some dimensions of ROADMAPPING to include the role that language technologies, as opposed to educational and language learning technologies, may play in internationalization processes and EMEMUS. Nonetheless, for the purposes of exploring practices and process, ROADMAPPING allowed for the study of micro level practices and processes in terms of learning and social constructivism and reflexive and adaptive teaching in EMEMUS, as well as offering macro

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level insights into broader institutional practices and processes. This also allowed for the identification of the challenges the EMEMUS lecturers face as well as potential directions for informing policy at this Spanish university and beyond. Methodologically, the analysis and subsequent annotation of the interviews using ROADMAPPING has proved both useful and feasible. We would argue, however, that further analyzes should explore the units of analysis either below or above the sentence or the utterance and, possibly, the use of clustering to probe into the relationships between the annotation codes. Triangulation with corpus research methods (Egbert and Baker 2019; Pérez-Paredes 2020) seems a good option to enhance the ecological validity of the results and to smooth researcher biases (Baker 2006). In terms of beliefs, ROADMAPPING allowed us to position teacher beliefs within a larger ecosystem wherein their beliefs are understood in terms of their practices and processes (Skott 2014). These are in turn considered in terms of their capacity to facilitate or impede the internationalization process, and as such are theoretically positioned and given purpose. The study of beliefs has been problematized as being conceptually inconsistent (Skott 2014), lacking purpose (Borg 2015), and uncritical (Borg and Alshumaimeri 2019). However, by situating EMEMUS lecturers’ beliefs within ROADMAPPING, this study responds to these criticisms. This also allows for systematic reviews to compare studies on beliefs more effectively, provided the same framework is applied to other studies, e.g., Dafouz and Smit (2016). Finally, returning to Macaro et al. (2018), this study was inspired by the following questions: Do different HE institutions (e.g., private and state) experience different levels of success in implementing EMI? If so, why? Macaro et al. (2018) call for research on different institutions to help create a clearer and larger image of the current state of EMEMUS. Our study investigates the practices and processes that impact the internationalization process by way of EMEMUS within a Spanish public university. Through the analysis, a number of themes emerged that indicate how this institution is effectively implementing EMEMUS, for example, through social constructivist approaches and learner-centered teaching, and factors which may inhibit its success, for

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example, a resistance toward translanguaging and limited language provision. ROADMAPPING was an important choice in moving to address Macaro et al.’s (2018) question. Its adoption will allow this research to be directly compared with future studies that use ROADMAPPING as a shared theoretical framework. Moving forward, there are several emerging paths worth considering. Methodologically, it is worth considering further expansions and interrogations of the ROADMAPPING framework to address the concerns raised earlier in this section. Furthermore, more studies are needed that investigate the remaining five dimensions of ROADMAPPING, and further research is needed that compares the results of such studies across different institutions. Acknowledgements We would like to thank Cambridge University Press, for funding this research, Dr Emma Dafouz, for reading an earlier version of this chapter, the reviewers, for their help in improving this work, and the lecturers who participated in this study.

References Baker, P. (2006). Using corpora in discourse analysis. London: Continuum. Baker, W., & Hüttner, J. (2017). English and more: A multisite study of roles and conceptualisations of language in English medium multilingual universities from Europe to Asia. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 38(6), 501–516. Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Upper Saddle River, NJ: PrenticeHall. Bandura, A. (1986). Social functions of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Borg, S. (2015). Researching teacher beliefs. In B. Paltridge & A. Phakiti (Eds.), Research methods in applied linguistics: A practical resource (pp. 487– 504). London: Bloomsbury. Borg, S., & Alshumaimeri, Y. (2019). Language learner autonomy in a tertiary context: Teachers’ beliefs and practices. Language Teaching Research, 23(1), 9–38.

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The Challenges of EMI Courses in Armenian Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) Zhenya Ter-Vardanyan

1

Introduction

In the wake of the Bologna Declaration and other international initiatives, English-medium instruction has been increasingly adopted by higher education institutions in different geographical areas where English is not the official language. Surveys have shown more and more European HEIs to be adopting the trend towards English-medium instruction, which, as stated by Dearden (2015: 2), embraces “the use of the English language to teach academic subjects in countries or jurisdictions where the first language (L1) of the majority of the population is not English”. According to the research from the European Association for International Education, the number of BA programmes in English being offered by European universities has increased 50-fold in Z. Ter-Vardanyan (B) Yerevan Brusov State University of Languages and Social Sciences, Yerevan, Armenia Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden © The Author(s) 2021 M. L. Carrió-Pastor and B. Bellés Fortuño (eds.), Teaching Language and Content in Multicultural and Multilingual Classrooms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56615-9_7

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the past eight years (Bothwell 2017). The growth of EMI in Europe is well documented (e.g. Hultgren et al. 2015), witnessing a 239% increase in English programmes in BAs and MAs from 2389 in 2007 to 8089 in 2014 (Wächter and Maiworm 2014). As noted by O’Dowd (2015), only 7% of 70 European universities did not offer courses through EMI. Such a rapid expansion of EMI programmes has engendered the exploration of topics concerning the nature and quality of the teaching and learning process (Björkman 2011; Airey 2015), issues regarding domain loss, diglossia and language shift (Vila and Bretxa 2014; Salö 2015), the objectives and effectiveness of language policies (Hultgren 2014; Saarinen and Taalas 2017), the varieties and ownership of English (Kuteeva 2014, 2019), and opinions on the growth of EMI (Hultgren 2015; Lasagabaster 2015; Soler-Carbonell 2015). The exponential growth of EMI programmes is being significantly attributed to the desire for the universities to “internationalise” (Knight 2013), to seduce foreign students in order to augment revenue (O’Dowd 2015) and the desire to rise in international university rankings (Rauhvargers 2013). In this regard, Walkinshaw et al. (2017) note that “EMI policies are mainly adopted for marketing reasons, internationalization and/or financial benefit”. Given the difficulties EMI poses at both institutional and classroom levels, academic staff not only need expertise in their discipline but also the ability to communicate the subject knowledge effectively through English. Along with the observations where EMI is employed, serious pedagogical issues arise about the implementation of EMI courses and the quality of teaching and learning (Coleman 2006). In some cases, the limited knowledge of English of the EMI lecturers is ground for complaint among the students (Chang 2010); in other cases, subject comprehension is hindered by the students’ lower level of English (Evans and Green 2007; Airey and Linder 2008), thus resulting in the implementation of “translanguaging” strategies for effective communication (Kuteeva et al. 2015). Even if research literature on EMI is replete with various studies conducted in different countries, there is still a paucity of research investigating EMI in Armenia. Alongside other former Soviet Union countries, the Republic of Armenia (RoA) remains largely underexplored in the field of EMI mainly for historical reasons. Since 1991, after

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Armenia declared its independence from the Soviet Union, legislative and practical steps have been taken to modernize the educational system. Major reforms have been introduced with regard to the management and financing of general education and addressing issues concerning the curriculum, pedagogy and assessment (Zolyan et al. 2008). Commencing from the late 1990s, Armenian policymakers have sought to reorganize Armenia’s language policy and language teaching mainly based on the European standards (Council of Europe 2009). Having joined the Bologna Process in 2005, Armenia started the harmonization of its higher education system for integration into the European Higher Education Area (Tsaturyan et al. 2017). Thereafter, Armenian HEIs have increased the number of EMI courses in different academic disciplines such as Business and Economics, Medicine and International Law, among many others. As of May 2016, HEIs in Armenia offer 23 BA, 35 MA and 58 PhD programmes entirely taught in English in various academic disciplines, and approximately 500 BA and MA courses taught in English (“English Programmes in Armenia”, 2016). Irrespective of the increasing number of English programmes, EMI, it is claimed, has not received enough consideration in Armenia, where there is still a dearth of research into the matter. Given the diversity of educational contexts and the complexity of EMI programmes and practices, it is necessary to develop a clearer understanding of Armenian EMI and make it available to the international audience. The context of this study becomes even more significant if we take into account that the language of instruction (English) is different from the language of communication (mother tongue) outside the learning environment of students in Armenia. Furthermore, taking into consideration the recent immersion in EMI in Armenia, the use of English in EMI programmes clearly requires an in-depth investigation. If, on the one hand, more efforts are required for a more efficient instruction in English, there may be a negative impact on learning academic subjects through EMI on the other; hence, there might be a need for reconsidering and revising the methodological approaches in the English language instruction in the Armenian context. As Hellekjær (2004, 2009) notes, students in EMI courses may encounter major challenges when it comes to performing at

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their best academically because of the language barrier (Shohamy 2013), as well as the disciplinary and academic problems (Airey 2012; Hellekjær 2013). In EMI research literature, the word “disciplinary” relates to a specific field of academic study (see Airey 2011, 2015) With this background in mind, I aim to reveal any challenges encountered during English-medium instruction in Armenia and delineate suggestions for improving EMI courses. It is worth mentioning that EMI in Armenia was first mapped in 1991 when the American University of Armenia (AUA) opened its doors on September 21, the same day that the Armenian Parliament declared its independence from the Soviet Union. For this particular reason, this study concentrates on the AUA. The use of English as the language of instruction at AUA is intended to offer a global education in Armenia, thereby “attracting an international faculty and student body” (“American University of Armenia”, n.d.). This university context is a typical example of internationalization at home (see Nilsson 2003), where teaching and learning is carried out through an additional language or L2/L3, which is typically English. The overarching reason behind the choice of this university is that almost 93% of AUA students are RoA citizens, mainly coming from Armenian secondary school sectors where academic subjects are basically taught through L1. When encountering a transition from L1 instruction to EMI in a non-anglophone country, students are most likely to face a series of problems and challenges. The inherent complexity of studying academic subjects in English is further aggravated by the fact that students are learning the subjects in a language that is typically not their L1. This university setting is deemed as an EMI setting because the majority of students and teachers have English as a foreign language (see Hellekjær 2010: 11; Macaro et al. 2018: 37). The empirical data of the present study stem from two different stakeholders: (1) in-depth interviews conducted with students at the Manoogian Simone College of Business and Economics (CBE) at AUA, and (2) email interviews conducted with CBE teachers. Since Business Studies is the area most likely to adopt EMI (Macaro 2018), this study focuses on Business and Economics courses taught in English. Given the lack of EMI research in Armenia, as well as difficulties of Business Studies in English, my research questions (RQ) are as follows:

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1. What are the students’ expectations for taking EMI programmes in Armenia? 2. What challenges do the students encounter in EMI courses? 3. What are the teachers’ beliefs towards EMI and the challenges of teaching EMI courses? The research questions are mainly inspired by a study conducted by Bolton and Kuteeva (2012), who investigated students’ and teachers’ attitudes to English and Swedish as a medium of instruction at a major public university in Sweden. Before proceeding to the interpretation and discussion of the empirical results of this study, I delineate the perceived linguistic hierarchy of Armenia, with particular reference to the English language in education. Then, I briefly sketch the settings of the present study. Finally, I interpret the interview data and summarize the main findings of this study. Some final suggestions follow thereafter, and I conclude with final remarks.

2

Background to the Present Study

The Republic of Armenia is an ethnically homogenous state (97.8% Armenians) located at the crossroads of Eastern Europe and Western Asia in the southern Caucasus. Armenian is the official language of the country, and is spoken as L1 by the majority of its population. Despite being a monoethnic state, Armenia does not strive for monolingualism. On the contrary, it promotes societal multilingualism in the country. Since its independence in 1991, Armenia has embarked on a challenging path of state-building by carrying out major reforms in all levels of education. In the context of these reforms, major changes have taken place in foreign language education regarding the teaching programme, pedagogy, training and materials. Commencing in 2001, when Armenia became a member of the Council of Europe (CoE), the language education policy in the country was adjusted to the principles of CoE language policy aimed at developing plurilingualism, language diversity, mutual understanding, democratic citizenship, and participating actively in a multilingual society.

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In an attempt to follow the CoE language policy principles and to develop multilingualism in Armenia, a 4-language structure was introduced in the new secondary programme: two main languages (Armenian and Russian) and two further languages for communication (foreign languages). The rationale for foreign language learning in Armenia is clearly summarized in the Country Report as follows: The foreign language is the basic means to contact with non-Armenian speakers, and it is an additional means to communicate with the civilization of other countries and peoples, to perceive their best values and to express them in Armenian, as well as to make Armenian-language culture available to other peoples. (Zolyan et al. 2008: 52)

Foreign language teaching in Armenia is aimed at enhancing the learners’ communicative and interactive skills in the multicultural world. The Language and Intercultural Education Policy, as stated by Fljyan (2016), is one of the major targets of the education policy of Armenia. Due to the rapid increase in mobility opportunities of the learners, language policymakers modified major policy issues in favour of linguistic and intercultural diversity in the country. Regarding the languages of Armenia, below is a tentative perceived linguistic hierarchy (see Fig. 1), inspired by a visual representation of the perceived language hierarchy in Sweden (Hult 2012: 242, based on Josephson 2004: 128). This perceived linguistic hierarchy places Armenian on top of the pyramid, followed by the main foreign languages (Russian and English), and other foreign languages (French, German, Italian, Spanish, Persian). The national minority languages, which are officially recognized by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, are placed at the bottom of the linguistic hierarchy. Overall, the linguistic hierarchy points towards a shift from societal bilingualism to societal multilingualism in an officially monolingual country. Without question, Armenian is the dominant language of education in Armenia. In the educational field, the status of Armenian as obligatory was confirmed by the State Program on Language Policy in 2002. Due to the special role that Russian has had in the Armenian society, it is taught from Grade 2 onwards as the default first foreign

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Fig. 1 Perceived linguistic hierarchy of Armenia

language (Hovhannisyan 2016). In addition to Russian, three other foreign languages—English, French or German—are introduced from Grade 3 as a second language in the school sector. With regard to the regulatory system and school curriculum, these European languages have the same status. However, in relation to demand, English occupies a predominant position. As stated by the Country Report, almost 68% of school learners study English as a second foreign language compared with 18% who study French and 14% German (Zolyan et al. 2008). In contrast with school education, a much wider range of foreign languages is available in the higher education sector, but here the demand for English is even much greater. According to the Country Report, both applications and places for English outnumber all other languages in the major universities of the country (Zolyan et al. 2008). Apart from being a compulsory subject in HE, a centralized English/Foreign language examination is required to enter most universities in Armenia. Moreover, the TOEFL certificate is a requirement for admission to almost all post-graduate programmes in the country. The increasing use of English at the university level is attributed to the international agreements between foreign universities and mobility programmes in HE. Even though there is no internationalization strategy

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at the national level in Armenia, internationalization and mobility in HE is regulated by the Law on Higher and Postgraduate Education of RA, as well as the “Procedures on Academic Mobility of Higher Educational Institution Students” (European Commission, 2017). In recent years, Armenia has widened the access of students and staff to academic mobility programmes, in particular within the frames of EU-funded TEMPUS, ERASMUS MUNDUS and Erasmus+ projects. Consequently, Armenian HEIs expand international cooperation with European universities, thereby resulting in a significant growth of English-taught programmes.

3

The Settings of the Present Study

The present study concentrates on the Business Studies offered by Manoogian Simone College of Business and Economics (CBE) at AUA, which is a leading business school in Armenia catering for local and international students and business communities for the past 20 years. CBE offers four MA programmes: Master of Business Administration, Master of Science in Strategic Management, Master of Science in Economics, and one BA programme in Business (“Manoogian Simone College of Business & Economics”, n.d.). Applicants whose primary language is not English are required to demonstrate English language proficiency results for admission to the university. Some of the applicants may receive a waiver if they meet the criteria of the English Language Proficiency Test Waiver policy. Others must submit official score reports either from TOEFL iBT (79 or higher) or IELTS academic tests (6.5 or higher). Moreover, the applicants must prove a math proficiency level through SAT or ACT exams. The participants in this study are CBE students whose L1 is Armenian. The students constitute 25 BA and MA participants. The proportion of females to males is 84 to 16% aged between 17 and 27. The first language of the majority of the teaching staff at CBE is Armenian (n = 41), and only a small proportion of teachers (n = 6) have Spanish, Greek, French, Uzbek, Georgian and Farsi as their first languages. In this study, I concentrate on seven teacher participants whose L1s are Armenian (n =

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6) and Georgian (n = 1). The number of the teachers represents 16.6% of the total academic staff at CBE. Therefore, the findings of the interviews cannot be considered as generalizable but rather as indicators of CBE teachers’ beliefs about EMI.

Methodology In this study, I set out to investigate CBE students’ and teachers’ experience with EMI and reveal their opinions of the move from L1 instruction to the increased use of EMI. As noted in the introduction, I want to tackle three main questions: (1) the students’ expectations for taking EMI programmes in Armenia, (2) the challenges CBE students encounter in EMI courses, and (3) CBE teachers’ opinions of EMI and the challenges of teaching EMI courses. Data collection strategies include semi-structured email interviews with CBE students to find out their expectations of taking Business Studies in English and any challenges encountered during EMI courses. Given the major advantage of the email interview as a convenient and practical alternative to face-to-face interviews, overcoming the hindrance of geographical barriers (Walker 2013), I conducted email interviews with 25 students and 7 teachers enrolled in EMI courses at CBE. Both students’ and teachers’ interviews were delivered in English. In accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union (Regulation 2016/679), all participants were informed about the details of the research and were assured that all data would be treated anonymously and confidentially. They were also given consent forms with the option of withdrawing from the research two weeks after giving interviews. The interviews were interpreted and then analysed based on qualitative content analysis, where the textual content is analysed through “a searching-out of underlying themes in the materials” (Bryman 2004: 392). This study begins with a deductive coding procedure defining four categories of analysis, which are introduced in the next section. These categories are refined to create subcategories for more efficient analysis. In the latter case, an inductive coding procedure was adopted.

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This procedure allowed latent meanings to emerge from the interview data. After obtaining the frequency counts of the relevant sub/categories, I proceeded with the interpretation of content. Interview data are presented and discussed by providing teachers’ and students’ statements on the benefits and challenges of EMI. In order to preserve the anonymity of the participants, teachers and students are identified by letter T and S, respectively, followed by a number.

Results: Students’ Experience with English-Medium Instruction The findings of this study have been reported in relation to the themes outlined by RQ1 and RQ2 and the themes identified in the data. Student interview questions were divided into four categories: (1) students’ expectations for choosing to take a degree in English, (2) challenges encountered during EMI courses, (3) incidental language learning due to exposure to English, and (4) students’ perceptions of their teachers’ level of English. In addition, the students were invited to make additional comments concerning Business Studies in English. In this research, key interview results will be reported, with a focus on the questions that illustrate the students’ expectations, their experience of using English in Business Studies and the challenges encountered during EMI courses. Secondly, the findings will examine the perceived challenges of implementing EMI in relation to course delivery, assessment practices and learning, and how these issues are addressed in CBE context. Finally, the findings will explore teachers’ perceptions of EMI improvement in Armenia. Due to the limited space, only some examples of each category will be presented.

Students’ Expectations for Choosing to Take a Degree in English The students showed generally positive attitudes to studying in English and its potentially favourable outcomes. According to the coding results (see Table 1), a total of 14 out of 25 students provided their expectation of improving English language skills and/or maintenance as one of

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Table 1 CBE students’ expectations for choosing to take a degree in English Expectations of taking Business Studies in English

N

Examples

(a) improve language skills

15

(b) English as part of their academic profession

4

(c) future careers and professional prospects

3

(d) quality education in a well-established university

4

I wanted to improve my English, both conversational and professional… (S1) I wanted to understand English very well and speak English fluently… (S15) Business needs English. English is the global language of business. That is why I chose to pursue my higher education in English. (S2) In Armenia, the knowledge of English is a prerequisite for almost any high-paying job. (S21) Inasmuch as AUA is an accredited US university, I decided to apply there to get a taste of studying in a more or less US environment, but in my country. I was expecting to get a qualified education and improve my language skills. (S24)

the reasons to take EMI courses. Considering these findings, the CBE students’ point of view is in line with Taguchi’s (2014) conceptualization of the improvement of the English language through EMI as a by-product. One of the ideas that came out on several occasions (n = 4) during the study has to do with students’ acceptance of English as part of their academic profession, some of them acknowledging that “English is the language of business”. Yet other students’ (n = 3) expectations of taking Business Studies in English are connected to the perspective of English as an important language for professional careers and future prospects. These participants estimate that studying in English will result in better opportunities when entering the labour market. Some students (n = 4) had no choice but to learn English in order to pursue their desired profession in a well-established university and get a quality education. In line with Lourenço and Pinto’s findings (2019), EMI promotes CBE students’ competences in English as useful in a globalized job

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market, thereby contributing to their professional growth and success, providing them with a more international outlook and, consequently, giving them more opportunities to work in a glocalized world. On the one hand, English is deemed as a personal resource allowing students to be professionally mobile and make progress in the job market. On the other hand, English is perceived as a strategic language to enhance and respond to the internationalization of various academic activities (Lourenço and Pinto 2019: 10).

The Challenges Encountered During EMI Courses The second objective of my research is to reveal students’ experience of studying business subjects in English. It should be mentioned that mostly negative responses were given for the experience of studying in English. Most students (n = 20) found it quite challenging (e.g. “a challenging process”, “hard ”, “very difficult ”, “not an easy experience”, etc.) to study business subjects in English at the beginning of the programme, whereas only a few of them (n = 5) had a positive experience (see Table 2). English-medium instruction caused greater difficulties in understanding the course content and inhibited the students from expressing themselves fluently in class. The dominant theme of the interview data was the participants’ difficulty in understanding and using the terminology (n = 11). As the data analysis shows, the students’ difficulties in EMI courses are largely attributed to the use of a plethora of unfamiliar technical vocabulary in Business Studies. Table 2 Examples of CBE students’ experience of studying business subjects in English Positive experience

Negative experience

I had a very good experience of studying in English. (S18) As before AUA I took a TOEFL test, I do not find studying business subjects in English difficult. (S24)

Studying at AUA is a challenging process… (S2) At the beginning it was hard. Studying an unfamiliar subject especially in English. It was horrible. (S25)

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The first 2 months were challenging since the terms were not familiar to me and some time was needed for adaptation. (S23) I had to translate a lot of terms and expressions, that’s why reading and comprehending the information took much time. (S25) Most of the time, I had difficulty in understanding and remembering economic terms. ……since these terms were mainly business or economic terms, it was more complicated. (S3)

The students’ limited knowledge of specialist vocabulary prevented them from quickly and fully comprehending the business textbooks at the beginning of the course. Since Business Studies contains specialized vocabulary, students find it difficult to understand when reading specialized texts and hearing these words in speech. This argument becomes even more valid when taking into account the fact that academic performance in a specific discipline is challenging even in the native language at the university level, requiring students to understand highly specialized forms of both written and spoken discourses quite different from everyday situations (Cummins 2000). In terms of terminology, the first semester was more difficult, since there were many new words to learn. But the difficulty was not because of English, even if we were to study the same business terms in Armenian, the beginning would have been difficult, since we should get used to the vocabulary used in our profession. (S10)

When it comes to understanding the lectures containing specialized vocabulary, the listeners have to process incoming information as soon as it is uttered. Unlike readers, listeners have less control over the flow of incoming messages and cannot pause to reflect on various parts whenever necessary. This results in the lack of subject comprehension, which, in turn, is exacerbated by a fast speech rate. In my interview data, only two students experienced some concerns about the lecturers’ rapid style of presentation. In fact, the rate of lecturer speech has had an effect on the lecture comprehension of CBE students. The learners found following the lectures or discussions challenging

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because of the great amount of data processing of the incoming information required in a very short period of time, as well as making meaning of complex structures and predicting the meanings of unfamiliar words. Understanding lectures is not always easy for me because of the lecturer’s pace of speech. I could not often comprehend what the professor was saying because of his fast speech. (S15) When the professor starts speaking fast using some specific professional terminology, it was difficult to catch on the material. (S2)

As a solution to such issues, the students managed to compensate for their language shortcomings through hard work and perseverance. Their progressive acquisition of technical vocabulary, as with other aspects of academic literacy, owed more to the sheer weight of practice—a relentless diet of reading and listening—than to the application of specific teacherpresented strategies. Sometimes I read the paragraph more than once or listen to something again to understand the meaning. (S15) I had to read several times, rehearse longer for presentations to gain confidence in my knowledge and skills. (S23)

The final challenge facing the students during the first year was to understand and conform to the culture and conventions of a new institution and discipline. The students’ induction into university life required them to adjust to a new student role and its attendant responsibilities, novel methods of learning and teaching, unfamiliar forms of assessment and grading, and the particular requirements and expectations of the community they had chosen to enter, such as specialized methodologies, discourses and referencing conventions. Some students (n = 6) faced difficulties because of the “transition from a native language-learning environment to a foreign one (English)”. It was challenging in terms of participating in class discussions. Since during school we mostly study grammar and don’t practice using the new

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learned words, it is a bit hard at first to actively participate in discussions without making errors. Even if you have decent score for TOEFL, that still needs improvement. (S1) It was a bit hard to do a lot of reading and write papers in a language I have never used to do before. All my studies were in Armenian. (S16)

In reality, the sudden transition from L1 to EMI creates some obstacles for class participation (n = 5) because the students are not used to “constant exposure to English” (S7). Moreover, day-to-day exposure to the EMI environment complicates the learning process, thereby making the students “obtain the culture from the new educational environment” (S9). Constant exposure to the English language, coupled with the English textbooks, as well as students’ preference for English as the language of mediation in the business domain, has some drawbacks. As noted by several students (n = 4), among the disadvantages are the difficulties “to read and comprehend unfamiliar subjects in their mother tongue” (S15), “finding appropriate words in the native language” (S8), thus giving rise to obstacles “when working in Armenia” (S25).

Incidental Language Learning Due to Exposure to English In order to better understand the language benefits of EMI courses, it is necessary to clarify which aspects of EMI the students were capable of achieving over the period of one year based on their subjective judgements. With regard to overall group tendency, English speaking skills were identified as the most achievable aspect of language skills required in EMI (n = 12). In addition to speaking skills and listening skills (n = 4), students improved reading skills, in particular, concerning professional texts (n = 4) and writing skills (n = 2), whereas only a few participants (n = 3) noted no improvement of the English language during EMI courses. Most of the time we had to speak English, read English books, write in English, which greatly contributed to English language development. (S3)

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The improvement of English language skills is largely attributed to the use of English as the language of instruction at CBE. Apart from that, using L1 during EMI courses was highly discouraged due to the code of conduct policy, which contributed to developing the English language. Since our teacher spoke only English and did not allow the other students to speak Armenian, every day we spoke English, which helped me to improve my speaking skills. (S2) Using Armenian during lessons was highly discouraged . It was against the code of conduct policy. Thus, students expressed their thoughts, ideas or misunderstandings in English. (S4)

As for the correction of the English mistakes, CBE students assume that “it’s not reasonable to expect from economics lecturers to correct students’ English mistakes” (S8) because the students attend those courses “to learn economics and not English” (S10). In addition, some students do not want to experience “how the teacher corrects someone else’s English rather than concentrating on the business course topic fully” (S11, S12) (cf. Airey 2012: 74). Surprisingly, one of the students stated that if “the teacher were to correct English mistakes during the Economics course, the whole course would suffer” (S11). Actually, CBE students noted that “some instructors make linguistic mistakes themselves” (S12), hence there is no necessity “to focus on the English language” (S14). Regarding the written language, academic papers require more effort since “they should be double-checked and corrected” (S16). When CBE students have meetings with the professors during office hours, the teachers comment on students’ English, mostly related to the written English, such as “how to paraphrase sentences so that they will be grammatically correct” (S18). When it comes to the assessment of the academic papers, the students usually get “grade deductions for not wellstructured English” (S22). Thus, some professors offer “to give draft versions of the paper earlier and receive feedback on that” (S23).

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Students’ Perceptions of Their Teachers’ Level of English Turning now to students’ perceptions of their lecturers’ English, I would like to highlight students’ positive and negative attitudes towards CBE lecturers’ English. Many students (n = 17) were positive about the teachers whose traits of English they perceived as akin to the traits of native-like English (e.g. accent, fluency and pronunciation). Teachers have mostly obtained international degrees abroad , so obviously they have strong English skills. Some of them sound like native English speakers. (S23)

The students appeared to evaluate teachers’ English positively in terms of how close their English was to native English. However, in other cases (n = 8), teachers’ limited knowledge of English gave ground for complaint since it resulted in “delivering economic knowledge with difficulties”, thus “complicating the process of learning”. Many times the teachers were not good enough in teaching in English and this was complicating the process of learning. (S4) At AUA some teachers could hardly speak English. They couldn’t speak better than me. As a result, they delivered economic knowledge with difficulties. (S16)

Even if the students mentioned that some lecturers had a foreign accent (e.g. “some professors have Armenian or other accents”, “…we will ignore the fact of language accent”), the students do not deem it as a hindrance to subject comprehension as long as the teachers “conduct the class in a more efficient way and use structured sentences” (S22). Well, the Armenian professors did not speak English as well as a native would, but everything was still ok. (S10)

As stated by Dearden (2015), the acquisition of language proficiency by teachers is one of the most relevant challenges to be addressed in the implementation of EMI in many European settings. With regard

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to this, CBE students (n = 4) even suggested having “language courses for the professors with limited knowledge of English” (S1) who have been hired from “other Armenian universities” (S4). Nevertheless, those students did not regard the language courses as an insult to the instructors’ professionalism but rather as an opportunity “to grow professionally and develop their language skills” (S6). Although a small percentage of students consider that the language competence of EMI teachers should be improved, satisfaction with the teaching quality at CBE appears to be significantly positive overall. The results of the present study do not match those observed in previous research in which students harshly criticized their lecturers’ English (e.g. Byun et al. 2010; Jensen et al. 2013), but complies with the findings of some others (e.g. Suviniitty 2009).

Results: CBE Teachers’ Beliefs Towards EMI and the Challenges of Teaching EMI Courses After the interpretation of students’ interviews, I will turn to CBE lecturers’ subjective judgements on EMI. The lecturers feel that teaching business subjects in English is “quite essential for competitive education” (T1), “appropriate, as well as comfortable” (T3, T5) taking into account the fact that “English is the language of business” (T5), and “all the terms and concepts are mostly sourced from the English-speaking business world (US, EU)” (T7), as well as “the literature is in English” (T6), thus making it easier for students to “relate lectures to the readings” (T7). Concerning the advantages of EMI, CBE professors think that studying business subjects in English is significantly beneficial for their students since it “gives them a sense of confidence to converse in English” (T2), provides a “higher level of education because of the main textbooks and teaching materials being in English” (T4), “all the research they engage in requires knowledge of English” (T7), thereby making it easier for the students “to read any text related to business and economics in international journals, books and articles” (T6). Most importantly, the teachers claim that English-taught programmes make AUA students “more competitive in local and global markets” (T1) by providing a

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“higher level of education in the glocalized world” (T5), where local and global needs meet and merge, collide and conflict, and new culturally and linguistically hybrid “thirdness[es]” (Mauranen 2001: 51) emerge. Studying business subjects in English makes the students more competitive in local and global markets; more importantly it gives access to the latest knowledge, which first of all comes in English, and unfortunately quite often not available in Armenian. (T1)

Almost all interviewed lecturers (n = 5) think that teaching business subjects in English helps to develop both subject knowledge and English language skills (T1, T6, T7) since the students “do their homework assignments in English and participate in class discussions” (T4), during which they “pick up new terms, expressions and business slang” (T5). Two of them emphasized the acquisition of only the subject knowledge given the past evaluations according to which “the students gained substantial knowledge on the subject matter” (T2), as well as highlighting the idea that “most of the students are already good at English” (T3). Concerning the challenges CBE students encounter during EMI courses, the professors mentioned spoken business discourse as one of the drawbacks of learning business subjects. During Business Studies, speaking is more challenging for the students than writing or reading professional texts. The same refers to listening comprehension, even though “the students do not speak about it” (T1). This issue mainly stems from the language proficiency level of the students. As noted by Hellekjær (2017), less proficient listeners mostly concentrate on the word level cues so as to build understanding of the subject content, and some even translate what they hear to their L1. This implies that interruptions longer than 30 seconds to ponder the meaning of unfamiliar words or specialized vocabulary may lead less proficient listeners to lose track of what is being talked about (Buck 2001). Therefore, CBE lecturers should employ particular strategies in order to promote less proficient listeners’ participation in Business Studies— make use of clear discourse markers, include visuals of different kinds and encourage the listeners to negotiate meaning (Airey 2009; Lynch 2011).

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In order to tackle listening comprehension issues, less proficient listeners use such strategies as pre- and post-reading of the professional text (n = 4), lecturer help (n = 3), and highlighting relevant sections during the lecture (n = 2), thus making extra efforts to acquire knowledge of the discipline properly. Vocabulary knowledge in spoken discourse, as mentioned by CBE lecturers, is significantly important both in top-down and bottom-up processing of information. A challenge mentioned by CBE lecturers several times refers to Academic English words, as well as terminology specific to Business Studies. In line with Airey’s study (2009), understanding or describing concepts in English is “very challenging for many first year students in both oral and written communication” (T6), while “for the third year students it gets much easier to do so” (T5). During exams, they encounter problems with understanding academic English words (terminology). (T1) The main challenge students are having is the technical vocabulary of the subject(s). (T4)

What remains a challenge for many students, as expressed by T5, is speaking and writing “in Armenian” in English words. The students say “I passed that subject” when they really mean “I took that class”, or misusing “to be acquainted with smth” in the meaning of “to know smth superficially”, and the like. This problem derives from “the secondary education system, where they largely teach “artificial English”, focusing too much on grammar, old/classical texts and not focusing enough on modern texts, phraseology, “live” English, etc.” (T5). As for the solutions to such problems, T5 suggests having Business English courses in the first year of the studies in order to improve students’ English language skills, as well as to learn specialized business vocabulary. Despite having English proficiency pre-courses as well as English writing courses at CBE, one of the lecturers mentioned that the students “need to improve their English themselves” (T1). Regarding better subject comprehension, the lecturers “extend office hours conducted in English” (T2). If the learners encounter problems

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with English materials, one of the lecturers “conducts office hour sessions during which the materials are also explained in Armenian” (T4). In most cases, the students are asked to translate the terms into Armenian. As further explained by T7, this way the students “generate a better understanding of the term”. Extremely rarely, the professors might use a Russian translation of the terms. The most challenging aspect for the lecturers teaching business subjects in English refers to the explanation of the subject material to “the students with low English proficiency” (T1), or “a weak student who has difficulty in understanding English for Business” (T2), as well as motivating the students to “involve more actively in the learning process” (T4). Most of the lecturers (n = 5) do not deem it challenging to teach business subjects in English, given “the long time spent in the US” (T5), “extensively using English at the workplace” (T6, T7), or “having pursued international degrees abroad” (T3). With regard to the “E” in EMI, the teachers were asked how much time of the class was conducted in English. The majority of the teachers mentioned that only English is used during EMI courses. As the courses are comprised of international students, CBE teachers do not deem it a good idea “to use the native language during the classes, since foreign students do not know Armenian” (T2), so it is not reasonable to spend time explaining materials to the students in Armenian. However, in some cases CBE teachers have to explain a term or a phrase in Armenian or very rarely in Russian, Spanish or French due to the nature of the term to be explained (T5, T6, T7) in order to facilitate subject comprehension. In contrast to class hours, the instruction during the office hours is “roughly 50/50 in Armenian and English” (T5). Interestingly, the poor competence of lecturers in L2 teaching, which leads to code-switching and using the native language in EMI courses (see Lasagabaster 2017), is in stark contrast to the proficiency of CBE teachers delivering EMI courses at CBE. Another challenge for CBE teachers that surfaced on several occasions concerns “the lack of business vocabulary in the Armenian language” (T6), thereby making it difficult to find “Armenian equivalents of the English words specifically in auditing subjects” (T1). In order to tackle

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this issue, the teachers “work with linguists to come up with new Armenian words in the discipline Business and Economics” (T6). Lack of EMI teacher preparation is also mentioned by CBE teachers (n = 3) as a “challenge to EMI courses in Armenia”. Given the exponential growth of EMI programmes in Armenian HEIs, the lecturers stress the necessity for more EMI training and international workshops in Armenia in order to share experiences and learn about pedagogical interventions in international contexts. It is worth mentioning that the teachers raised this issue in connection with the overall EMI environment in Armenia, without putting particular emphasis on AUA. Based on the Staff Training Plan September–December 2018 (see “Staff ” section of AUA website), AUA offers seven courses on WordPress, Google Drive, Negotiations, Public speaking and the like; however, no EMI training is provided for the teachers. In a study of EMI training courses for teachers, O’Dowd (2015) found significant divergence between the importance attributed to offering academic subjects through English and the attention being paid to the training of the teachers. While teacher training for EMI courses is often overlooked in different geographical areas, it constitutes the key to the success of planning professional development programmes in EMI environments (Airey 2012). In contrast to Banks’ (2018) study, where EMI teachers prioritize language training over pedagogical, CBE lecturers appreciate training on pedagogical interventions in the European and US contexts. However, unlike CBE teachers, EMI teachers at a Portuguese university feel the need for more training in English and internal pedagogical training (Lourenço and Pinto 2019). Finally, a few lecturers (n = 2) find it reasonable to modify the workload and administrative tasks to enable them to prepare for the lessons properly.

4

Discussion

In this section, I provide some answers to the RQs presented in the introduction. In relation to RQ1, CBE students’ motivation for enrolling in EMI programmes is closely related to linguistic outcomes and future career and professional prospects. Overall, the data interpretation of the

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present study highlights students’ positive reactions to the gains of EMI. The students in this study consider that the most relevant aspects of learning business content through English are improving speaking and listening skills and, to a lesser extent, reading and writing skills. In contrast to the study conducted by Muñoz (2001), this study revealed more progress in the spoken discourse than in the written. Similar to Aguilar and Muñoz’ study (2014), the current results reveal that less proficient students obtain higher gains in listening skills than those with a higher command of English. In line with the conceptualization of EMI as a pedagogical approach where academic subjects are taught through English as a common language for students from different backgrounds (see Smit and Dafouz 2012; Macaro et al. 2018), the improvement of students’ English proficiency via EMI courses is seen as a by-product (Taguchi 2014) due to the lack of control for language learning. As stated by Aguilar (2017: 726), “some incidental language learning is expected due to exposure but without any specific language learning goals”. However, the truth of the belief of tangible results of language improvement via EMI courses has not been proven, thus more observatory research is necessary (e.g. Macaro et al. 2018). Leaving aside the positive aspects of EMI, this study has identified some drawbacks and shortcomings that should be taken into account. Regarding RQ2, one of the substantive challenges in EMI implementation is identified as the lack of subject comprehension due to the use of a plethora of specialized vocabulary. Students’ difficulties in specialized vocabulary learning may partly indicate their degree of unpreparedness for business subjects taught in English, which is one of the substantive challenges in EMI implementations (Doiz et al. 2013). Since EMI courses deal with academically specific content (Suzuki et al. 2018), the students are required to acquire technical terminologies (i.e. content-obligatory language; Lightbown 2014) in order to actively participate in classroom discussions and interactive activities. At the beginning of EMI courses, CBE students struggled with fully participating in group discussions due to their language problems (Chang et al. 2015; Suzuki et al. 2018). Meanwhile, some of them managed to solve such affective problems, gaining confidence in engaging with various

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interactive tasks in EMI courses (n = 4) in a relatively short period of time through sheer practice and extra work. Although CBE students encountered a number of challenges in Business Studies, they did not perceive that studying in English hampers the learning process or slows down the acquisition of business content. Concerning RQ3, this study indicates that CBE teachers do not feel strongly that teaching business content through English presents any specific challenges. Not surprisingly, then, teaching business subjects in English was the least challenging aspect reported by CBE teachers. Working with English textbooks and preparing the lesson plans were also deemed as the least difficult aspects; motivating the students and explaining the business content to students with a low proficiency of English were perceived more challenging yet none of these challenges were difficult for the whole sample overall. CBE teachers believe that EMI is beneficial to their students primarily because studying in English makes them more competitive in the globalized world, provides them with a high level of education and facilitates their entry in the job market both globally and locally. CBE teachers tend to attribute the reasons for introducing EMI to the aspirations they have for their students, especially in helping them “function in a globalized world”. The individual and professional benefits of EMI, in particular the promotion of students’ employability and mobility, are the key aspects potentiated by EMI. Concerning the challenges of EMI, CBE lecturers assume that the biggest constraint is the inadequate English proficiency of some students, thereby complicating the process of subject comprehension. When explaining the subject content to students with a lower level of English, CBE teachers apparently feel a greater need to check their students’ understanding of the business content because of the suspicion that these students might not have understood the discipline’s content properly. While CBE teachers are pointed out as having more difficulty in explaining business content to the students with inadequate English proficiency level, the students are noted for having “major challenges with business/economics terminology” (T4, T7), “listening and speaking skills” (T1, T6), as well as “inadequate English preparation in secondary education system, where they largely teach “artificial English” (T5).

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This study also found some tensions over the issue of teaching and learning content/language, because, on the one hand, CBE lecturers do not consider themselves to be language teachers, as the main focus is on the business content (n = 3), on the other hand CBE students do not find it reasonable to concentrate on language learning, because “those were not language courses” (S11). Overall, CBE lecturers see themselves as pure EMI teachers, whereas some of them regard themselves as economists or businessmen, who also teach Business Studies. This finding is also corroborated in the studies conducted by other EMI researchers (Jacobs 2007; Airey 2012).

5

Pedagogical Implications

As the data analysis has shown, the most important source of lecture comprehension difficulties found in the present study was due to a plethora of specialized vocabulary. As suggested by Hellekjær (2017), on the one hand, one way of working with specialized vocabulary issue would be for lecturers to devote some time going through key business terms and concepts as a pre-lecturing exercise, or explaining unknown concepts and terminology during or after the lecture. On the other hand, the use of exercises in which the students get used to the terms and concepts in relevant contexts would be another key way to tackle such issues. Airey and Linder (2006) also propound the strategy of creating extra space for clarification questions with regard to subject comprehension, whereas Hellekjær and Wilkinson (2003) assume that writing papers or giving presentations in English will be quite efficient for assessing both language quality and content. The above-mentioned strategies are implemented in EMI courses at CBE in order to facilitate lecture comprehension. While CBE textbooks introduce major terms and concepts, the teachers devote some time to the explanation of unfamiliar terminology during EMI courses or office hours. Nevertheless, the students in the first and second years still have difficulties related to understanding and using terminology. In fact, the language of Business Studies is “foreign” to novice learners because they have not been exposed to the specific terminology before. Learning to

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communicate in business contexts depends, to a great extent, on the size of a learners’ specialized vocabulary (Hsu 2011). Therefore, in order to contribute to the acquisition of specialized vocabulary more easily, a language course should be designed to facilitate content subject learning. The course “Freshman English I” constituting an obligatory course in GE-F (General Education Foundation) at CBE is very supportive in sharpening first year students’ “oral and written communication skills in the English language” (“Gen Ed Courses”, 2015), however it is not sufficient for developing students’ knowledge of terminology. Since language learning is a constant developmental process, ongoing English courses should be provided as an integral part of any EMI programme (Kirkpatrick 2017). Therefore, another GE-F course (“English as a Foreign Language-Specialized Course in Business”) could be designed for BAB faculties in order to enhance and accelerate the acquisition of specialized terminology, which most CBE students have encountered and may encounter in their Business Studies, and which would allow a smoother transmission from foundation to course programmes.

6

Conclusion

This research explored English-medium instruction at CBE in order to better understand the under-researched concept of EMI in Armenia. The main objective of the present study was to identify the students’ subjective statements on their expectations for taking Business Studies in English and the perceived disadvantages; in particular, the challenges encountered by CBE students and teachers. The current analysis mainly targeted open-ended items from semi-structured interviews and followed an inductive approach to coding responses in order to quantify the group tendency. Most of the students had expectations of language improvement through attending EMI courses in Business and Economics (i.e. by-product) while others indicated English improvement for future studies and career prospects. With regard to the perceived disadvantages, most students encountered challenges with the specialized vocabulary, which hindered understanding the subject content and prevented them from expressing themselves fluently in class. Even if EMI teachers

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explain content-specific vocabulary during the class or office hours, EMI students face challenges because they do not know the specialized vocabulary or the basic words surrounding the content-specific vocabulary. This scenario reveals that incidental vocabulary acquisition does not contribute to subject comprehension. Therefore, helping EMI learners study more effectively in EMI courses and facilitating specialized vocabulary acquisition should be the major focus of Business Studies. In this case, both EMI teachers and students will overcome any challenges concerning specialized vocabulary, thereby ensuring the Business Studies run more smoothly and efficiently.

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Improving Second Language Writing Across the Disciplines: Resources for Content Teachers Renia López-Ozieblo

1

Introduction

This paper describes a teaching and learning (T&L) project on scaffolding academic English writing development across disciplinary fields in a tertiary institution in Hong Kong. In this institution, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, English is the medium of instruction and a second language (L2) for most teachers and students. The aims of the T&L project were to identify the literacy needs and requirements of content teachers and provide them with the necessary resources to address them, considering time constraints and varying levels of English proficiency and literacy. To identify these needs, and, in particular, issues related to improving students’ written English in content subjects, the T&L project first identified the context, higher education in Hong Kong, and then collected R. López-Ozieblo (B) Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 M. L. Carrió-Pastor and B. Bellés Fortuño (eds.), Teaching Language and Content in Multicultural and Multilingual Classrooms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56615-9_8

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data from interviews with teachers and workshops, and from students’ surveys and assignments. The interviews and workshops confirmed that most teachers (80 individuals, representing all faculties) needed to evaluate students’ written assignments but that only 10% followed a rubric to evaluate their language component (as opposed to their content). Teachers highlighted a number of recurrent issues in students’ writing and their inability to resolve these, due to time constraints and lack of resources or knowledge. Students’ responses reflected a rather low confidence in their ability to write academic English and to understand the language requirements of assignments. Students’ assignments confirmed the language issues identified by teachers but also highlighted the good key writing practices found in the top graded essays. Based on the data gathered, the project developed a series of short (maximum ten minutes) presentations and exercises on writing instruction (WI) that could be delivered as independent modules. These were first trialled in 2018 with a multidisciplinary group of students taking a content subject with an evaluated writing requirement. A L2 WI pedagogy was designed based on systemic functional linguistics (Halliday 1993), following a teaching and learning cycle (TLC) (Callaghan and Rothery 1988) that focused on the deconstruction and construction of the specific text genre, argumentative (Hirvela 2017), identified as one of the most challenging. Students’ self-reported confidence levels in their writing capabilities were tracked through two knowledge surveys (Nuhfer and Knipp 2003) at the beginning and end of the trial period. In addition, final grades were compared to those of the previous cohort. Our results showed that there was an increase in students’ confidence in their writing abilities and that their grades had improved in relation to those of the previous cohort. After the trial the WI modules were presented to content teachers from eight faculties in a series of professional development workshops. Teachers were given editing access to the content to allow them to adapt and deliver it to their own students if necessary. Based on comments from the workshop participants, the modules were revised and trialled again in 2019 with students of the same subject as the previous year. The second trial modified the approach to the writing instruction, reducing

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the involvement of the students with less in-class individual and codeconstructing time. Although there was evidence of the 2019 students’ writing having improved, the increase in their confidence levels was not as marked as in the previous cohort. This suggests that the effectiveness of the writing instruction is enhanced if students are more involved in the joint deconstruction process. This introduction is followed by a brief description of content and language integrated learning (CLIL) and English-medium instruction (EMI), Sect. 2. Next, we review the issues students encounter when faced with having to produce output in written academic English in content subjects, Sect. 3. All students, native (L1) and non-native (L2) speakers, find this a challenge. Section 4 details the objectives of our study and the process followed to gather the data (following Forest and Davies’ Toolkit 2016). Section 5 describes the development of the project and the findings from each step. Section 6 gives an account of the qualitative and quantitative outcomes analyzed to assess the effectiveness of the writing material in two classroom trials. We conclude with some final observations.

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CLIL and EMI

CLIL approaches originated in the mid-90s in Europe as part of the European Commission language policy to encourage Europeans to speak their mother tongue plus two other European Union languages (Brown and Bradford 2014). It was implemented in many schools and higher education institutions as an approach to teaching content subjects that was believed to motivate the learning of a foreign language (L2), encourage its use in a real context and allow institutions to open up their educational offerings to international students (Cenoz et al. 2014). The term CLIL refers to approaches that focus on both language and content (Marsh 2008) although it is widely used today to include teaching where English is the medium of instruction (Lo et al. 2018). By CLIL we understand […] an approach to education that integrates language and content learning; planning for, fostering, and assessing both, though the focus

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may shift from one to the other. CLIL is also a method of teaching which draws heavily on constructivist and socio-cultural notions of learning to provide students with opportunities for meaningful input and output in L2 and meaningful engagement with content. (Brown and Bradford 2014: 331)

One of the theoretical approaches followed by CLIL practitioners is grounded on the TLC (Callaghan and Rothery 1988), a process of joint deconstruction and construction of texts between teacher and students often implemented in genre-based pedagogy to develop disciplinespecific literacy (Lo et al. 2018). The TLC begins with the teacher setting the context, explaining the function of specific texts, oral or written, within the discipline, and providing samples and other information to build students’ knowledge of the field. Then a model text is selected and deconstructed, highlighting the function of the various linguistic elements employed to make meaning. Based on the model, teacher and students co-construct a new text, using the linguistic features previously analyzed, and finally students are asked to write a text by themselves (Polias and Forey 2016). This project followed an adaptation of this approach to develop and implement the writing instruction.

3

Writing Academic English

Writing is not only an individual cognitive process (Flower and Hayes 1981) but also a social act through which writers co-create meaning with their readers (Cotos 2014). The interaction between the writer and the reader is discipline-specific and reflects the “ideals, beliefs, values, goals, practices, conventions and ways of creating and distributing knowledge” (Costley and Flowerdew 2016: 3) of that particular community of practice. Although disciplines might share genres, these have their own patterns “shaped by the purpose of their functions” (Forest and Davies 2016: 14). This is apparent not only in the linguistic elements of discipline-specific texts but, as Sword (2012) reported, also in other elements such as their length (medical articles are on average 9 pages long, legal articles 43); number of authors (medical: 9.6, legal: 1.4) and

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the number of citations (medical: 29, legal: 152). A novice writer in the discipline might not even be aware of these linguistic, strategic and rhetorical norms expected by that academic community (Cotos 2014). Recognizing that there are discipline-specific writing needs, a movement to provide students with “sustained writing instruction within the disciplines, beyond that which can be provided in a first-year composition course” (Forest and Davies 2016: 16) started in secondary schools in the UK, and later spread to other countries and into higher education. This recognizes that writing effectively is an ongoing effort by both students and educators, which develops through the academic life of the student and requires active teaching and feedback. One such teaching method is that of genre-based pedagogy, which raises students’ awareness of the goals shared by readers and writer and of the relationship between form and function (Hyland 2002).

L2 Writing Genre-based writing pedagogy has been endorsed by various L2 approaches, including English for Specific Purposes (ESP), Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), and the North American New Rhetoric. This last takes a multi-modal, process-based approach, advocating the transfer of acquired knowledge from one genre to another and encouraging reflection on the values transmitted through the specific genre (Johns 2011). ESP and SFL are the two most popular approaches, both linguistic and focusing on the text and the language register (Cotos 2014). ESP developed English for Academic Purposes (EAP), which has been adopted mostly in universities (Johns 2011), and which follows a communicative approach based on the linguistic and social demands of each discipline (Hyland and Hamp-Lyons 2002). SFL posits that the structure and language of texts vary from culture to culture, believing them to be grounded in the specific social context (Halliday 1999). The classroom needs to be transformed into a social space, where students are made aware of how language shapes meaning in their disciplines (Byrnes 2013). Thus, instructing L2 writers involves being aware of students’

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sociocultural backgrounds, identities and expectations (as well as proficiency) to ensure that there is a shared understanding of the context and the genre being developed (Tardy 2011). Writing starts with reading and the analysis of sample texts to develop an understanding of how language construes knowledge (Byrnes 2013). Specifically, SFL explores the relationship between form and function and how meaning is realized through three metafunctions: ideational, interpersonal and textual (Halliday 1999). Ideational metafunctions develop meanings related to expressing and developing ideas; interpersonal ones are used to convince the audience, interacting with them; and textual metafunctions are used to organize the text coherently. Each can be communicated with various tools at text, paragraph, sentence, or word level. A TLC approach helps teachers identify the key language features for each function through the deconstruction of texts, giving students the knowledge to construct following these previously analyzed models. This approach has been successfully implemented in schools in Australia (Humphrey 2017). Despite criticisms of the complexity of SFL, in particular its metalanguage (Bourke 2005), institutions and teachers have taken its core ideas and used them to improve writing in discipline-specific subjects (Pessoa 2017). Aside from deconstructing model texts and constructing new ones, students learn from the deconstruction of their own texts. This can take the form of joint deconstruction or, when time and resources are insufficient, guided deconstruction in the form of feedback. Feedback can be direct or indirect; the latter is also referred to as metalinguistic feedback if the errors are highlighted and codified (Ellis 2009) without actual corrections provided. Students are then expected to review their work and produce subsequent drafts to benefit from the feedback (Hyland and Hyland 2006). One specific type of text that both L1 and L2 novice writers struggle with is that of argumentation (Hirvela 2017). Students need to learn to make claims, rather than just rephrase information from sources, to allow opposing voices to come through their texts, and cite them adequately, and to ensure readers are addressed and aligned with the author’s argument (Pessoa 2017). Most content subjects have evaluated written assignments, often argumentative, yet students are often unaware

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of the linguistic requirements of the discipline or of the genre. They are likely to be penalized for this lack of knowledge, which they are expected to have developed, even though the evaluating criteria do not explicitly refer to language issues. Content teachers, in particular those working in a foreign medium of instruction, ought to be aware of this and provide students with writing resources.

4

The Project

This project sought to understand the writing needs of students at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), one of Hong Kong’s largest universities, and to then develop writing instruction resources for content teachers that could also be used independently by students. The materials were tested in a multidisciplinary content subject, revised, presented to teachers, revised again, and finally tested for a second time with a consecutive cohort of the same subject albeit with some changes. The final objectives of the study were: • To offer professional development opportunities and resources to teachers at the institution with the focus on supporting teachers developing their understanding of the disciplinary literacy of their subject. • To support content teachers to help learners more effectively through the explicit teaching of language for curriculum learning.

Overview of the Project The project began with a data-gathering exercise following the steps suggested by Forest and Davies (2016) in their toolkit to explore writing needs in a specific context. In this case, it was multidisciplinary L2 writing within a higher education institution in Hong Kong, the PolyU. Forest and Davies suggest collecting as much information as possible from formal and informal sources, such as syllabuses, writing assignment instructions and the assignments themselves, feedback from teachers and

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students, and rubrics or reports by the institution. The wider the pool of sources, the better the understanding of the needs. Once the information has been reviewed and assessed it is likely that specific issues will become more obvious and merit further analysis (Forest and Davies 2016: 21). At the same time, information about the institution and its practices must be gathered to understand the lines of power, how information is disseminated and who would be the beneficiaries of a project such as this (idem: 23–25). The first step in the data-gathering exercise was to research the wider Hong Kong context and, specifically, the writing needs within PolyU. This was achieved through collating primary and secondary sources of information, including interviews with possible collaborators, collected formally by interview and informally by conversation. Colleagues from three departments agreed to participate in the project—English (ENGL), Rehabilitation Sciences (RS) and Logistics and Maritime Studies (LMS), indicative of the variety of disciplines the university offers. We also sought the collaboration of two university bodies that serve the other faculties—the English Language Center (ELC), which focuses on developing students’ English proficiency, and the Education Development Center (EDC), which promotes teaching excellence. Staff at these departments were asked to share their views on students’ writing and also to provide documentation as well as past essays from students. Through the ELC’s project on English Across the Curriculum, we were also able to collect essay samples from other faculties, including Applied Social Sciences (APSS), Chinese Culture (CC) and the Institute of Textiles and Clothing (ITC), and to gain their insights on students’ writing throughout the whole institution. Most of the essays were either endof-term assignments or final- year projects of over 1500 words. Most of these required students to develop their own views on a specific issue, analyze existing literature on the subject and provide references. The essays were analyzed to confirm the writing issues identified by teachers’ comments and identify good practices. After identifying model texts and the features that made them so, the research team sought to provide good-practice examples to illustrate them. Six writing instruction modules were developed, together with online exercises, and these were presented to students throughout the

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course of a 2018 semester in a content subject delivered by the principal investigator. Once the value of the writing instruction had been confirmed, both qualitatively through evaluation of the assignments and quantitatively though a students’ survey of confidence levels in their writing, the modules and the approach were shared among teachers. EDC arranged two workshops with teachers from a range of faculties that included over 70 staff. In addition to these workshops, we also ran a writing workshop, mainly for students, and an RS-specific workshop. After the workshops, the materials were revised and trialled with a second cohort of the same subject in 2019.

5

The Process

The sub-sections below detail each step of the project, starting with the findings on context. Section 6 describes the quantitative results of the student surveys and the improvements in relation to the writing instruction provided, and also provides samples of students’ writing.

The Context The Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong (HK) was a British colony until 1997. English was the only official language until 1974, when Chinese (Cantonese) was also given official status (Flowerdew 1999). Most people were, and still are, primarily Cantonese speakers, albeit with a heightened understanding of HK’s role as a trade and financial centre and the value of English skills. The colonial government allowed secondary schools to decide on their medium of instruction (MoI) until 1998, and most opted for English. The new government then implemented a Chinese mother-tongue MoI policy for primary school and the first three years of secondary school, allowing schools to choose their MoI from the fourth year on if they had the resources. Some secondary schools were allowed to continue to use English as the MoI and Chinese MoI schools could teach some of the curriculum in English.

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In 2010 the policy was revised, offering more flexibility to schools as regards their MoI (Lo and Lin 2018). Until the 1990s, tertiary institutions where English was and still is the main MoI (although some universities accept bilingual teaching) admitted just 2% of the population (Flowerdew 1999). By 2016, universities were offering funded places to 18% of the population (Fleming 2016), a figure that has not changed much since 1999 (Flowerdew 1999). As most students study in Chinese MoI schools, at least at primary level, many undergraduates struggle to follow content subjects in English. While they complete their academic studies successfully, their English proficiency remains low and limits them in their professional lives, where written English is needed (Evans and Green 2007). In 2012/2013, HK higher institutions, aware of the need to compete internationally but also to align themselves with the educational system in China, restructured university studies to last four years instead of three. The first-year syllabus was redesigned to provide general education subjects that would improve students’ critical thinking and lifelong learning as well as enhance their global communication skills (Shek et al. 2015). With the implementation of the four-year curriculum, the PolyU also developed a general education framework (Hong Kong Polytechnic University 2012). Effective communication was addressed through proficiency subjects, in both English and Chinese, and through Cluster Area Requirement (CAR) content subjects set up to enhance students’ reading and writing capabilities (Shek et al. 2015). English proficiency subjects were offered by the ELC, as both compulsory subjects for students with low public exam results in the language and electives focusing on academic English. The ELC has also developed resources for content teachers, including CAR teachers, taking responsibility for the language element of those subjects, including the design of appropriate rubrics, providing feedback to students on their written drafts and carrying out the final evaluation. These subjects are taught using English as the MoI but the content and the language are addressed in parallel sessions by different teachers. Not all subjects receive ELC support (most non-general education framework subjects and some CAR subjects do not), therefore content teachers find themselves playing a key role in the language development

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of students, even if it is only by providing oral input in English. Since the 90s, universities have been developing English courses, from basic proficiency to academic English, to support both faculty and students but the reality is that many students struggle with the demands of having to communicate in academic English. In particular, the Hong Kong students’ difficulties in writing effectively in English have been expressed by the students themselves, teachers, researchers and external examiners. Already two decades ago, Hyland (1997), in a study of 1600 undergraduates across universities in Hong Kong, confirmed the need for support courses on written English for academic purposes (EAP). These were particularly beneficial to first- and second-year students who ranked writing as their main difficulty, followed by speaking, technical terms, listening, reading and assignments. Ten years later, a second survey on EAP, with 5000 undergraduates, carried out by Evans and Green (2007) at the Hong Kong PolyU, corroborated Hyland’s findings and specified that the main writing issues reported were style, coherence and cohesion and expressing ideas in correct English (p. 8). A later study by Tso and Ho (2018), involving 216 undergraduates following a writing course at Hong Kong City University, validated the benefits of EAP and identified further writing difficulties in referencing and paraphrasing, with the added risk of accidental plagiarism (Li and Flowerdew 2007). Tso et al. (2016) noted that by the time students reach tertiary level, they are expected to have mastered linguistic accuracy and need just to develop their academic skills, specifically: writing clearly and objectively by providing a focused point of view, avoiding emotive language and employing hedges; improving text organization, linearity and consistency; and avoiding wordiness (pp. 3–7). Very often, the difference between Hong Kong students’ L2 academic writing and that of L1 speakers can be isolated to specific linguistic elements, such as cohesive devices or the use of the writer’s own voice, confirming the need to explicitly educate students in these aspects of writing. For example, Bolton et al. (2002), in a comparison of L1 academic texts and HK students’ essays from the International Corpus of English, observed an overuse of certain connectors—“so”, “and”, “also”, “thus”, “but”—which appear with less frequency in L1 academic texts. Other studies have identified a tendency among HK student writers to misuse connectors with

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logical functions, such as “therefore” (Milton and Tsang 1993), and those presenting alternative viewpoints, such as ‘on the other hand (Crewe 1990). Zhao (2019), comparing the voices of non-Western L2 writers with those of L1 writers, concluded that the main difference was the frequency of hedges and boosters as well as the use of the first person. These are fairly easy-to-teach nuances. The difficulties students experience have been confirmed by teachers. A recent study on feedback provided by content teachers at HKPU on students’ writing (Hyland 2013) indicated that teachers were aware of the importance of feedback but some struggled to provide it. Language was seen “not merely [as] a mechanistic device for transcribing or delivering thought [but] it also has a profound effect on how it is received” (p. 245). Despite acknowledging its importance, lack of time and an unclear concept of its effectiveness (Lee et al. 2015, found that HK secondary students tended to be distracted by the grade and not read feedback comments) meant that it was not always provided. Overall, teachers in the humanities and social sciences reported providing more detailed feedback, encouraging students to “evaluate ideas and make connections between things they had read” (p. 246) while feedback in science subjects focused on the content. Thus, although English is the medium of instruction in this institution, the pedagogical approach cannot always be categorized as CLIL. At the PolyU, content teachers might not consider that providing language instruction is their job, or lack the time to do so within their lessons (Hyland 2013). At the same time, students admit to struggling with English for academic purposes, specifically written English (Evans and Green 2007). In order to support both teachers, to integrate language instruction into their content classrooms, and students, to improve their written academic English, this project next evaluated the specific needs of both stakeholder groups.

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Findings from the Interviews Seven formal interviews were recorded with staff from ENGL, LMS and RS. These were structured interviews through which we sought to understand students’ writing difficulties. Key findings from the interviews are provided in Table 1. From the interviews and talks with students, it became obvious that these disciplines shared the same basic issues, which could be organized into three main areas: (a) understanding the literacy requirements of the assignment; (b) knowing the academic language required; and (c) being able to organize the text. Additional talks, not formally recorded, were carried out with members of ELC and EDC to better understand the institutional requirements, formal and informal collaborations, flows of power, reporting needs and potential stakeholders in this project. From these talks it was confirmed that the institution was working towards systematizing rubrics across disciplines and providing content teachers and students with virtual writing tools (launched just before this project ended). L2 content writing was considered to be an ongoing issue, with many content teachers not having the skills, knowledge or time to include writing instruction in their classes.

Findings from Students’ Essays A detailed linguistic analysis of 51 student assignment samples was conducted by the research team using the interpersonal meaning-making system in systemic functional linguistics. The assignments had been graded by content teachers and these grades were made available to us. Twenty-four A-graded assignments (those scoring over 88%) were chosen as sample texts for modelling purposes. Model texts were deconstructed, seeking those elements that made the texts outstanding, specifically looking for examples to illustrate good practices in the areas identified by teachers as being problematic. The common key features these texts used to develop ideational, interpersonal and textual functions are listed below, with examples from students’ writings (extracts have not been

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Table 1 Summary of findings from interviews Key comments from teacher interviews

Department

Teachers texts that

ENGL ENGL ENGL RS ENGL

‘are legible and comprehensible’ ‘can be read and understood. This is key’ ‘are simple, clear sentences’ ‘are about clear message delivery’ ‘provide clear tense and consistency, communication, accuracy of grammar’ ‘…the beginning [of the sentence] would …give information to really make the logical flow clearer to readers’ Common ‘students tend to write overly long and errors convoluted sentences, thinking this is what in “formal” academic writing should be’ students’ ‘it is much better if [students] just produce simple writing sentences with meaning rather than all these long sentences with six subordinate clauses’ ‘repetition of informal oral English patterns – slang’ ‘commas instead of full stops’, few headings and markers – so issues with coherence and organisation’ ‘grammar is a huge area for errors’ ‘lexico-grammatical problems are constant’ ‘logic is an issue, as is cohesion, planning and use of topic sentences’ Other ‘confidence is low in terms of writing skills’ comments ‘language is not assessed or stressed as much as we would like’ ‘I can’t teach them to write a good essay, I don’t have time…’ ‘students’ strength is to follow good examples. They will pick up a good structure from these’ ‘while content is more important, students need to spot formulaic features from model samples’ ‘teachers must show students there is a link between content knowledge and language features’ ‘there is always room to improve writing skills’

RS

RS

ENGL

LMS RS

RS ENGL ENGL LMS RS ENGL RS LMS RS

LMS

modified and might contain other non-model linguistic features as well as the model ones highlighted in italics): • A strong paragraph structure is important to organize the text. Example (1) illustrates a good paragraph from a Results section with

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three well-defined functions (definition, elaboration and evaluation of topics). The writer first defines the main theme, CSA (central sleep apnoea) treatment, then elaborates the theme through a summary of the literature review and finally provides a quick conclusion. Example (1) Paragraph structure Main theme (definition) Nocturnal supplementary oxygen is the application of O2 when sleeping, aiming to tackle desaturation in CSA patient (Nakao, Ueshima, Yasuno, & Sasayama 2016). Elaboration From the search in PubMed, there are a number of studies on the effect of nocturnal supplementary oxygen on CSA patients. Among them, a systematic review is chosen due to its level of evidence. From this systematic review by Bordier, Lataste, Hofmann, Robert, & Bourenane (2016), regardless of short term (1 night to < 1 month) or long term (1 month to 1 year) use, NOT has been shown to be effective in reducing Apnoea-Hypopnea Index (AHI) with percentage decrease ranging from −28% to −84%. Meanwhile, duration with SaO2 < 90% has also significantly decreased in patients receiving NOT. Conclusion (evaluation) At the same time, among all the studies in the review, there has been no adverse effect observed in the course of administering NOT (RS student).

• Adequate lexico-grammar features (spelling & vocabulary) are essential to develop meaning, but also to convince the audience and structure the text. Students are expected to spell check their writing but the need for academic and discipline-specific vocabulary needs to be stressed. The writer in (1) makes good use of both. • Good nominalization is a practice that allows writers to introduce more formal terms, enhance cohesion and evaluate themes, as can be seen in example (2), thus contributing again to the three metafunctions: (2) The worries raised by the migration of refugees to European countries for safety affect the results of local elections (Co-constructed sample with ENGL students).

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• A clear evaluative stance where the authors’ voice is modulated according to the writers’ level of authority is essential to interact with the audience at the right level, see (3). (3) Facing the over utilization of airport slots, increasing demand of airport traffic, and the upcoming airport slots from the third runway, there is a need that HKIA should revise the current slot mechanism into a more effective and advantageous one […] (LMS student). • Clear topic sentences and specific features such as repetition and substitution are employed to enhance cohesion, see (4) for an example where repetition is used to connect two sentences and (5) where determinant pronouns are employed instead. (4) [The] Gini coefficient is a well-established index for indicating the rich and poor gap within an area, if one having a number of closer to 100, it means it has a very wide rich and poor gap that the whole wealth of the city was concentrated on one person and vice versa (Dorfman 1979). In the year of 2009, Hong Kong was rated the first with highest Gini coefficient of all countries (Cagape 2009) […] (APSS student). (5) Various studies have found that women tend to be in worse health then men […] (Dahlin & Härkönen 2013). This is because women are more aware of their health conditions [….] (Courtenay 2000). Another claim is that this gender gap in health is mostly because women have higher morbidity (Case & Paxson 2005) (ENGL Student). • Short sentences, communicating one clear idea per sentence, is also a good practice at this level to enhance overall readability, see (6). (6) Fast drying behavior aids in eliminating the dampness sensation of clothing. After humidity is transported from inner fabric layer to outer one, it should leave the fabric surface as quickly as possible. If the rate of moisture evaporation is lower than that of transportation, there will be moisture build-up and a rise in the humidity level within the fabric structure (ITC Student).

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Material Development Once the key writing issues to be addressed had been identified, together with some good examples from students’ A-graded assignments, the team developed short presentations to provide basic writing instructions covering these issues. The writing instruction materials followed an adapted TLC. It had been identified that teachers lacked the time to deconstruct a text in detail and then co-construct it with students. Therefore, the material was split so that the presentation deconstructed text extracts and focused on key features and then a series of simple online exercises were provided for students to practice construction. The texts selected were samples from students’ assignments. The material was presented as both PowerPoint presentations and videos so that it could be used by teachers in class, involving students in the deconstruction or independently interpreted by students. To evaluate the effectiveness of the material, the research team created a questionnaire to assess the level of confidence students had in their writing abilities. The questionnaire was based on knowledge surveys (Nuhfer and Knipp 2003) employed at the beginning and end of a teaching intervention to assess whether there has been an improvement in students’ confidence, as a proxy measure of their perceived level of knowledge. Questions take the format: “how confident are you that you can…”. The answers are chosen from a 1 to 3 continuum, where 1 corresponds to: “I do not know how to do this”; 2: “I have a rough idea but I would need to check some resources or ask around to do this” and 3: “I know how to do this without much difficulty”. The questions were divided into five sections, covering language issues but also overall confidence in the writing process, including the assessment criteria (the questionnaire is available at https://englishpolyu.wixsite.com/renialopez/ academic-writing): 1. Demonstrating knowledge of the topic you are writing about (questions 1 to 6). 2. Language use (questions 7 to 13). 3. Structuring the text (questions 14 to 20).

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4. Evaluating knowledge and your research (questions 21 to 27). 5. Understanding the assessment criteria (questions 28 and 29).

First Implementation Trial The writing instruction material was tested with students in a regular classroom environment. The subject chosen was a Humanities subject open to students from all faculties, mostly years 1 and 2. The testing was carried out during the second semester of the 2017/2018 academic year, with a cohort of 33 students. This was one of the general education CAR subjects that students could take to fulfil the institutional English writing requirements. This specific subject did not receive the support of the ELC and so it was felt that writing instruction would benefit students. Unfortunately, this also meant that a control group was not available as the writing instruction was delivered to all students who attended class. The principal investigator had taught the subject previously and was aware of a number of writing issues, the main one being plagiarism. Six short presentations grouped into 10-minute modules were delivered throughout the semester during the scheduled lecture time—two hours long. The sessions were video recorded and made available to students. The language instruction was well integrated within the subject from a logistical point of view—the virtual board presented the subject and language content under the same page. The writing instruction was presented as an essential part of the subject and was formally structured into the sessions through the schedule in the virtual board. The presentations were highly interactive, encouraging students to analyze samples from the assignments of the previous cohort, and so the deconstruction process was partly shared between teacher and students. However, due to time constraints it was not possible to do this with all the examples and a compromise had to be found by giving students time to go online and attempt four to five deconstruction exercises based on what they had just heard. The construction phase was incorporated into the regular assignment of the course, a 2500-word final term paper, which was broken down into four parts to be delivered throughout the semester.

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This allowed the markers (one for content, two for language and a parity marker) to provide content and language feedback that was to act as the co-construction element of the TLC, amending the cycle to one of student construction/teacher deconstructing feedback/student construction. Students were asked to write their next assignment after reflecting on the feedback provided, which focused on the contents of the writing instruction the students had already received. The four assignments also developed accordingly, first focusing on elements related to register then on summarizing and paraphrasing and finally on evaluating the issue discussed. See author (under review) for a detailed description of the classroom implementation. Pre- and post-writing instruction knowledge surveys were conducted at the beginning and end of the semester to investigate students’ confidence in demonstrating topic knowledge, language use, structure and evaluation through writing and research and understanding of assessment criteria. Only 20 students completed both pre- and post- KS, restricting the quantitative analysis accordingly. The results, described in the “Outcomes” section, indicated an overall increase in confidence levels. These were not so marked for the “Structuring the Text” section, which led the team to review that specific material.

Findings from Workshops with Staff Once the material had been reviewed, the team shared it with other stakeholders. Both EDC and ELC were identified as key bodies within the institution to disseminate knowledge and good practices to teachers, and so their help was sought to organize three workshops. These were attended by a combined total of 72 staff, of all levels and from eight faculties, all but three of them teachers of content subjects. The other three staff were English proficiency teachers. Most participants (all but one) confirmed their subject had an evaluated written component, whether exam questions, essay, final year project, or other. However, only 10% indicated they had rubrics specific to the evaluation of language. This had been confirmed by some of our interviewees, who pointed out that if there were rubrics, these were very basic.

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Although the main target of the KS questionnaire were students, staff at workshops were also asked to complete it (while thinking about the confidence levels of their students) to begin the reflection process and provide a starting point to the discussion. Participants were next asked to brainstorm, in multidisciplinary groups, the main difficulties students had when writing assignments. Their conclusions corroborated the issues identified through the interviews, including: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

Lack of confidence Text is not reader-oriented Descriptions with no analysis Using graphs with no explanation or comment Grammar issues Awkward switches between active and passive voices Lack of vocabulary Use of informal language Paraphrasing which sometimes risks plagiarizing Spelling issues, lack of proof reading No referencing Texts that read like “Google translate” text (machine translation of Chinese text into English which, although usually intelligible, reads strangely to a native speaker due to semantic, syntactic and pragmatic errors) 13. Issues with the flow or/and development of ideas 14. No beginning, middle or end to essays 15. Writing complicated sentences: giving several ideas in one sentence The presentations, in a mix of PowerPoint and video format, as well as the implementation method, were shared at the workshops. These sought to raise teachers’ awareness of writing issues and, most importantly, to present examples of how to deconstruct texts and develop teachers’ understanding of academic language, and provide them with specific tools to explicitly teach this language. The examples were multidisciplinary as we sought to focus on the commonalities rather than

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the differences between disciplines. Based on the feedback from staff, the material was later modified to include comments from workshop participants and eventually made into short videos. These presentations (available at https://englishpolyu.wixsite.com/renialopez/academicwriting) include topics on register, nominalization, summarizing and paraphrasing, cohesion, structure and evaluation. Each video provides links to exercises and additional references.

Second Trial The following academic year (2018/2019), the revised material was trialled with a new cohort of the same subject, this time with 52 students. The main changes to the material were those related to structuring the text. However, there were fundamental differences in the delivery of the modules. Students were not asked to co-deconstruct with the teacher, the delivery of the content was not interactional, and no time was provided in class to carry out the exercises but students were asked to do them in their own time. Overall the writing instruction was presented as an addon rather than an integral part of the subject. In both years the rubrics, evaluation criteria and assignments remained the same. The evaluators in the second year were the content and parity evaluators of 2018, for content, and a third evaluator for the language. All the material was available on the virtual board. A total of 33 students completed the preand post-writing instruction surveys. The results, detailed in the next section, were not as good as with the previous cohort. We believe this is mostly due to the enhanced importance given to the language component in 2018 in terms of time spent on it in the classroom and student involvement.

6

Outcomes from the Trials

In both cohorts most students responded very well to the constructfeedback-construct cycle, taking the feedback into consideration when writing the next assignment. In the 2019 cohort (52 students), all

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students read the feedback provided after the first assignment, 96% read it after the second assignment and 88% after the third assignment. This contrasted with the 44% that did not read the feedback provided in the evaluation of the last assignment (data for the 2018 is not available). In most cases students incorporated some elements of the feedback into the new text, improving with each assignment. Most of the improvements were modest but they indicated an awareness that should develop with practice. The average grades of the two cohorts, compared to those of 2017 which had not received writing instruction, also increased, although as other elements had also changed, this cannot be taken as a reliable measure of success.

Qualitative Analysis: Improvements in Key Writing Features The first assignment asked students to focus on their register, to avoid informal expressions, contractions or acronyms. It also stressed the need for clarity and for short but complete sentences each expressing one idea. Some students, such as student A, writing about digitalization in Germany, presented their ideas as bullet points; see example (1). (1) Assignment 1: Student A Technology 1. There is still an obvious digital technology gap between Germany and other leading economies. 2. The majority of companies have already initiated important processes for the digitalization of production and services, while others still believe that digitalization is not important for them. 3. How to educate the workers in every field to adapt to the digitalization is a quite challenging problem.

The second and third assignments asked students to expand on the topic selected and summarize a number of sources, paying particular attention to how the text from the sources was paraphrased and cited

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and to how ideas were linked. The writing instruction also discussed the use of nominalization and how to connect the ideas through it and by the repetition of key words, relevant connectors or pronouns. Student A further developed his topic as follows. (2) Assignment 2: Student A A powerful, secure and widely available digital infrastructure is the foundation of any digital economy and society. (Schweer, D., & Sahl, J. C. 2017) The digitalization not only makes contributions to the security of the digital market but also make connections between German and the whole European (sic) which will form a strong digital market and help more technological start-up companies grow up.

Student A is obviously paying attention to the writing instructions. In this extract we can observe the correct use of the nominalized “digitalization” to connect two sentences, and although the first sentence contains an incorrectly formatted citation, this has been incorporated into the text as requested. There is still an issue with the second sentence where we find a confusing sub-clause and three different ideas. The feedback for the second assignment turned students’ attention to the correct formatting of in-text citations and references (texts had to contain at least one in-text citation following APA formatting), and also to providing clear themes at the beginning of paragraphs; see example (3). (3) Assignment 3: Student A Digitalization has been identified as the major trend which will change the society and the economic landscape in the future. Digitalization is different from the previous industrial revolutions which refers to “the changes related to the application of digital technology in all aspects of human society” (Stolteman & Fors, 2004, p. 689). Besides, digitalization is also known as the process that offers (sic) more advantages over normal product via digital technologies and in-turn makes (sic) the products into digital variants.

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Throughout the semester Student A’s writing improved because he followed the writing instruction. In this extract we can clearly see the repetition of the key nominalized term “digitalization”, which he uses as the opening theme to the paragraph and then to connect the various ideas. Sentences have been simplified although sub-clauses are still being used, and the formatting of the citation has also improved. An increased use of connectors, pronouns and other cohesive elements was also observed in other students; see example (4) on Brexit. (4) Assignment 3: Student B Since the leavers won the Brexit referendum back in 2016, the British government has been suggesting a number of Brexit plans. However, it seems that not only did these plans fail to satisfy the British, they also gave rise to increasing public anger towards the government and the issue of Brexit (Mueller & Karasz 2019). In view of this, the British government has been constantly asking for extensions on the official date of leaving the European Union. Given that the British side was forced to stand firm in the first few Brexit conferences with the European Union, the hesitant attitude that the English are currently presenting confuses the European Union (Eaton 2019). This therefore turns the relationship between the both sides into an impasse.

The fourth assignment required students to discuss an issue, evaluating contradictory views from different sources. Some of the focus of the writing instruction had included: presenting others’ voices vs. the student’s voice; using hedges and boosters; avoiding the unnecessary use of the first person pronoun; and avoiding emotional evaluations. Overall, we found good illustrations of all of these, as illustrated by the extract below where others’ voices are well labelled. See example (5) on immigration. (5) Assignment 4: Student D As Bell’s statistic report (2019) suggests, immigration increases the crime rate in different European countries. As the author says, the immigrants are the minority in society. They are more likely to be deprived and attacked

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by the local due to their skin colour and languages. The idea is mutual to the outcome of McDonald’s research (2018) […].

With the 2019 cohort more attention was paid to structural issues; this included overall text formatting as well as section, paragraph and sentence structure. Simple issues relating to headings and subheadings were also addressed and improved, as can be seen in assignments 3 and 4 of Student E, illustrated by examples (6) and (7), also on immigration. (6) Assignment 3, Student E, no headings, no title Massive growth in the immigrant population in Germany since 2012 has caused debate. The two articles hold the view that immigrants bring socio-economic benefits and done little harm to society.

(7) Assignment 4, Student E, headings and a title Germany should introduce immigrants to the country Introduction: From the year of 2015, Germany was stated to be into the crisis of migration (sic), thousands to millions of refugees rushed into Germany seeking asylum or protection, wanting to start a new life there.

Overall, it was clear that those students who were interested in improving their writing did so. This was confirmed not only through their essays but also by the questions posed in class and by email about their writing. The questions often developed into one-on-one sessions where joint deconstructing of the student’s text took place, after which students provided a new version. These were completed in all cases even though students knew they would not be evaluated.

Quantitative Analysis: Increase in Confidence Levels Students completed a questionnaire both pre and post the writing instruction. The questionnaire measured their confidence levels on

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Means 2018

1

2

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Means 2019

4

5

1

2

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Fig. 1 Confidence levels pre and post writing instruction in the 2018 and 2019 cohorts

various writing elements using a scale of 1 to 3. The aggregated mean confidence level of all the questions under each section indicated that confidence levels had increased for both cohorts, from the pre-writing instruction (pre) surveys to the post-writing instruction (post) ones. Higher improvements were recorded in the 2018 cohort that the 2019 cohort (see Fig. 1). 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Demonstrating knowledge of the topic I am writing about. Language use. Structuring the text. Evaluating knowledge & your research. Understanding the assessment criteria.

When the five areas and the specific questions within them were analyzed, it was obvious that there were even more differences between the two cohorts. This second calculation took the difference between each question’s pre- and post- answers and then added them all up for each question and normalized them as a percentage1 based on the total number of respondents (to account for the larger group in 2019). Overall, the increase in confidence of the 2018 cohort was higher, almost 1 As

the answers ranged from 1 to 3, the maximum difference between a pre and post survey was 2. In the 2018 cohort there were 20 respondents, therefore the total of the compiled differences could not be higher than 40 (20 × 2 = 40). This was taken to calculate the percentage of the actual total difference recorded for each question. In the 2019 cohort there were 33 respondents, so the divisor to calculate the percentage was 66 (33 × 2).

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twice as high as that of the 2019 cohort. Having identified “Structuring the text” as an area in need of improvement, the writing instruction provided additional instruction on this in 2019, resulting in a slight improvement in confidence levels from the 2018 cohort. However, confidence in all the other areas fell, specifically in “Language use”; see Fig. 2. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Demonstrating knowledge of the topic i am writing about. Language use. Structuring the text. Evaluating knowledge & your research. Understanding the assessment criteria.

There were two main differences between the two cohorts. One was size—the 2018 cohort was smaller (33 students) than the 2019 one (52 students). More significantly, however, the overall level of student involvement in the deconstruction of texts was lower in 2019. This meant that students did not work with the teacher in the deconstruction and the majority of them did not carry out the exercises. While the 2018 cohort completed the exercises in class (if they were present), the 2019 students were not asked to do this and most exercises were completed by an average of four students (except for the evaluation exercise, completed by 14). Although overall confidence levels had improved, these were not as marked as with the 2018 cohort. Differences between pre- and post- scores 2018

Differences between pre- and post- scores 2019

Fig. 2 Normalized compounded score differences between pre- and postsurvey questions (Note The scales are different)

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From the qualitative (the essays themselves) and quantitative (confidence levels) results, we conclude that writing instruction following a TLC, or any other type of cycle where feedback and a chance to integrate it is given to students, did help those students who were interested in improving their academic writing. It seems that the more interactive co-deconstruction approach is more effective, and that pushing students to think about the writing instruction contents through simple exercises also enhances their awareness and confidence levels.

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Final Observations

At the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where the main MoI is English, teaching could be thought to conform with CLIL methodology, as in other Hong Kong secondary and tertiary institutions (Lo and Lin 2018). However, our findings indicate that although staff and students at this specific institution equate effective writing skills with academic success (Hyland 2013), there is little implementation of a true CLIL methodology where language and content are both the teacher’s focus. In particular, academic writing was identified as a problematic area for students who, notwithstanding the additional language tuition received by the English Language Centre, still struggle to master it. Despite the lack of time in content classrooms to address language issues, teachers recognize the value of good writing. Thus, this project developed a series of short modules, in video format, that teachers can either view themselves to develop their own knowledge or share in class with students. The trial implementation conducted as part of this project seems to indicate that better outcomes are achieved when writing instruction is integrated into the logical flow of the classroom dynamics and involves students as much as possible. We believe the feedback process to be essential to the learning cycle and encourage content teachers to collaborate with trained language educators to develop a successful cycle. All the material has been made available at: https://englishpolyu.wix site.com/renialopez/academic-writing. Teacher are encouraged to modify the presentations and exercises, adding specific samples from their disciplines.

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Acknowledgements This study is based on the proposal won by Dr Gail Forey and funded by the Teaching and Learning Fund of the Hong Kong University Grants Committee (2017). It is supported by the Research Centre for Professional Communication in English (RCPCE) of the Department of English of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Thank you to all the participants who have made this study possible, in particular to students who gave us access to their writing and the colleagues who agreed to be interviewed. I am also grateful to colleagues from the ELC, Dr Julia Chen and Dr Grace Lim and Dr Josephine Csete from EDC and to the members of the project team: Dr Eric Cheung, Mary Johannes and Cyril Lim.

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Part III Content and Language Integrated Learning

CLIL and Literary Education: Teaching Foreign Languages and Literature from an Intercultural Perspective—The Results of a Case Study Josep Ballester-Roca and Camilla Spaliviero

1

Combining CLIL and Literary Education: Teaching Literary Content in the Foreign Language

In recent decades, numerous studies have addressed the benefits of using literature in the foreign language classroom (Carter 2007; Carroli 2008; Paran 2008; Parkinson and Reid Thomas 2010; Balboni 2018; among others). Indeed, improving language competence is one of the multiple aims of literary education (Kern and Schultz 2005; Ballester and Ibarra J. Ballester-Roca (B) Universitat de València, València, Spain e-mail: [email protected] C. Spaliviero Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Venice, Italy e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2021 M. L. Carrió-Pastor and B. Bellés Fortuño (eds.), Teaching Language and Content in Multicultural and Multilingual Classrooms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56615-9_9

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2009; Ballester 2015; Caon and Spaliviero 2015). In addition, the use of literary texts provides an opportunity to combine CLIL and literary education since works in a foreign language can be used to study stylistic, historical and intercultural contents.

Linguistic Contents One of the main aims of literary education is to improve language skills (Di Martino and Di Sabato 2014). The study of literary works makes it possible to reinforce receptive (reading and listening), productive (speaking and writing) and integrated (discussing, summarizing, paraphrasing, etc.) language skills, which are essential for literary comprehension and production. In addition, it allows students to further their knowledge of literary language, which, unlike the language used in everyday situations, is endowed with greater expressive variety, semantic sophistication and connotative capacity. This last feature, which defines the ambiguity of literary language, affects the readers’/students’ emotional sphere and evokes subjective and original associations that justify the polysemy intrinsic to the works.

Stylistic Contents Recognition of the formal features that characterize literary texts is another indispensable aim of literary education. Teaching people to read literary works means teaching them to recognize the rhetorical features that qualify them (Balboni 2018). Through analysis it is possible to reflect on the textual aspects (such as the characteristics of literary genres), phonological aspects (such as the expressive redundancy of phonemes (Fónagy 1983)), morphosyntactic aspects (such as the choice of word categories and sentence structure) and lexical aspects (such as language registers and geographical influences) that differentiate literary texts from other texts.

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Historical Contents Once the works have been understood at the linguistic and formal levels, another goal of literary education is historical-cultural enrichment (Ballester 2015). The contextualization of literary texts in the period in which they were written and disseminated makes it possible to further our understanding of their meaning, relate them to the historical, social and cultural dimension of reference, associate them with the author’s biography, and develop a critical sense directed towards facilitating the understanding of present reality in the light of past events (Manguel 2005). Today, the role of literary historiography is still a complex issue. In any case it can be stated that, for literary education to be a training experience based on a full understanding of the meanings of the works, it is necessary to consider the texts above all (but not solely) from the point of view of the past and from a diachronic perspective (Luperini 2013).

Intercultural Contents Foreign literary works are cultural testimonies that may reflect stereotypes and prejudices, but at the same time offer the opportunity to carry out intercultural reflections to overcome these simplified visions (Bredella 2003; Byram 2008; Ballester and Ibarra 2015). In addition, by expanding the literary canon, it becomes possible to introduce both non-Western works (to combat the risk of developing ethnocentric visions due to the exclusive study of Western literary texts) and recent works produced by second-generation foreign authors that reflect the dynamism of today’s globalized world. In addition, teaching foreign literature from an intercultural perspective can be proposed through the use of social mediation methods (such as peer tutoring and cooperative learning) to discuss the meanings of the works, thereby fostering the development of relational skills that are typical of intercultural communication (Savviduo 2004; Gómez Rodríguez 2012; Gonçalves Matos 2014; Caon and Spaliviero 2015). In this way, students can become more aware of both themselves and the world and acquire the ability to relativize, communicate emotionally

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through empathy, suspend judgement, etc. (Balboni and Caon 2014) in order to defend their opinions, respect the ideas of others and build common discourses through the negotiation of meanings. Likewise, in our opinion, one of the most appropriate approaches for teaching literature from an intercultural perspective is hermeneutics, which is based on the centrality of the reader (intentio lectoris) and is subsequent to the approaches related to the centrality of the author (intentio auctoris) and of the literary text (intentio operis). On the one hand, it preserves some aspects of the preceding stages (such as attention to the historical context, author’s biography and formal elements) but, on the other, it introduces the innovative importance of students’ literary interpretation. Consequently, the hermeneutic approach consists of two stages: (a) Textual commentary, with semantic comprehension and formal analysis; and (b) Interpretation, which is in turn divided into three phases: (i) Historicization, with the identification of past meanings from the author’s perspective; (ii) Updating, with the identification of present meanings from the students’ perspective and (iii) Valuation, with the development of a personal, critical and argued judgement: “I (do not) like this work because… in verse/line…” (Luperini 2013). As can be seen, all the above-mentioned aims of literary education can be included in the hermeneutic approach since the linguistic and stylistic contents are examined in the textual commentary stage, and the historical contents (historicization) and intercultural contents (updating and valuation) are considered in the interpretation stage. Despite the fruitful interactions between linguistic, literary and intercultural education, at the didactic level there is a mismatch between the theoretical formulation of the hermeneutic approach and its operative application because the didactics of literature follows the evolution of literary education with constant delay (Luperini 2013). At the same time, at the empirical level, research on the role of literature in linguistic education from the intercultural perspective is still scarce (Carter 2007; Carroli 2008; Paran 2008; Gómez Rodríguez 2015; Ballester and Ibarra 2015) and there are also few studies on CLIL, literary education and intercultural communication (González Rodríguez and Borham Puyal 2012; Vourdanou 2017).

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On this basis, the objective of this study is to investigate the didactics of foreign literature from an intercultural perspective at both a theoretical and an empirical level. On the one hand, we present a model aimed at developing communicative, literary and intercultural competences that bring together the formal, historical and intercultural linguistic contents that are combined in CLIL and literary education. On the other hand, thanks to empirical research, we discover whether teachers teach these contents from an intercultural perspective and, if so, how they do it, what the students’ perceptions of this purpose are and how they would like foreign literature to be taught to them. The goal is to provide suggestions for improving the didactics of literature from an intercultural perspective and to find out whether the data confirm this model.

2

A Model of Literary and Intercultural Communicative Competence

Communicative, literary and intercultural competence makes it possible to communicate effectively in communicative events where the foreign language is spoken in order to understand and produce literary texts, to identify the past meanings related to the author and to the historicalcultural context of reference, to discuss the meanings present in the students’ current perspective and to formulate critical judgements about the works. The hermeneutic approach favours the development of a dialogical relationship between the literary text and the students. Such an operation, however, requires not only adequate linguistic and literary competence but also the ability to employ the relational skills of intercultural communication (Balboni and Caon 2014) during the interpretive debate. In addition, a command of the language skills and the development of an intercultural awareness are essential if foreign literary works are to be able to represent different language uses, value systems and historical-cultural traditions. We used the goals of literary education, the hermeneutic approach and the relational skills of intercultural communication to draw up the following model of literary and intercultural communicative competence.

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As can be seen (Fig. 1), different competences can be developed in the mind of each person that represent “knowing the literature”. Thanks to the mastery of different skills, which correspond to “knowing how to do literature”, these skills become the ability to act in the world that defines “knowing how to do with literature”. The white icons represent the mental competences related to the linguistic components of literary education, one of the most notable being competence in the literary variety of the language, which differentiates literary texts from those that are not literary. These competences are transformed into the ability to understand and produce literary texts thanks to the mastery of comprehension and production skills, which allows for the development of the ability to analyze works at a semantic and formal level as well as to carry out creative activities involving written production. The brown icons are used to show the literary elements associated with the historical-cultural competence which, thanks to the mastery of the ability to contextualize, allows the development of the capacity to situate the works in the historical-cultural era of production, to relate them to

Fig. 1 Model of literary and intercultural communicative competence

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the author’s biography and to interpret them by identifying the meanings attributed by the author and by the readers of that era. At this point in the model, it becomes obvious how important it is to master the relational skills of intercultural communication in order to identify with the author and try to reconstruct the perception of reality from their point of view. In this regard, Armellini (2008) refers to the need to train the convergent thinking that, based on knowledge of the historical-cultural circumstances, allows the works to be interpreted from the perspective of the era and to recognize their specificities and differences in comparison with everyday reality. At the same time, the communicative exchange implicit in interpretation allows the training of integrated interactive language skills of an interactive nature, such as discussing the original meanings of the works, and a manipulative kind, such as taking notes about interpretation from the past perspective during activities carried out in pairs or groups. The pink icons contain literary elements referring to intercultural communication, which correspond to the following competences: (a) Ethics, with respect to the encounter with the works, which are possibly based on different value systems, and with other readers/students, representatives of multiple interpretations of the same literary text from today’s perspective; (b) Psychology, related to the opportunity to improve their knowledge of themselves and of the world thanks to reflection on relevant themes from different points of view and (c) Aesthetics, referring to the development of the critical thinking needed to value the works. Thanks to a mastery of the relational skills of intercultural communication applied to linguistic and literary education, ethical, psychological and aesthetic competences become the capacity to interact with the texts and with the class, to interpret them from the perspective of today, to acquire a more complex perception of themselves and of reality and to express a critical judgement. In this way, students are given the opportunity to develop divergent thinking (Armellini 2008) through the formulation of original and unpredictable interpretations. Again, interaction with the works and with other students facilitates the improvement of integrated language skills of an interactive nature, such as discussing the current meanings of literary texts, and a manipulative type, such as summarizing the ideas of peers during activities in pairs or groups.

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The connection between mastery of the relational skills of intercultural communication and linguistic and literary actions is confirmed when students: (a) Are aware of the historical, social and cultural position from which they read and interpret the works (know how to observe); (b) Recognize the bias in their reading and interpretation so as to establish a dialogue that enables them to understand the reasons underlying the different opinions (know how to relativize); (c) Accept the existence of different interpretations of the same work, as long as they are justified in the text (know how to suspend judgement); (d) Explain their reasons and understand those of their companions, making the cultural implications clear through communicative strategies such as summarizing, reformulating and paraphrasing (knowing how to listen actively); (e) Use emotional resources (such as empathy) to identify themselves with the author, the characters and their companions (know how to understand emotionally) and (f ) Express their interpretation of the works, compare it with that of their companions and are willing to modify it, either partially or completely, based on their knowledge of the reasons of others. The aim is not to arrive at a single shared interpretation of the same work but to construct a common discourse in which the linguistic and cultural implications that may compromise literary communication are clarified (know how to negotiate meanings). In this regard, foreign literature can represent fertile ground for interculturality because it makes it possible to overcome the (linguistic, cultural, ethical, etc.) limits that are not so easily addressed in everyday life.

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Research in Italian Secondary Schools

The empirical research was conducted in the final three years of Italian secondary education and explores: (a) How teachers teach foreign literature (English, Spanish, German and French); (b) What students think about the teaching delivered to them and (c) How students would like foreign literature to be taught to them.

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Table 1 Participants in the research Schools Teachers

Students

English Spanish German French English Spanish German French LS LL1 LL2 Total

3 1 1 5 13

– 1 2 3

– 1 2 3

– – 2 2

55 58 67 180 180

– 58 38 96

– 31 23 54

– – 51 51

Context and Participants The study was carried out in the third, fourth and fifth classes of three upper secondary schools (liceo) in the Veneto Region (Northern Italy) between February and May 2018. To understand why this final threeyear period and type of school were chosen, it is important to point out that in Italy secondary education is divided into lower (11–13 years) and upper (14–19 years) stages. With the reform promulgated by the Presidential Decree of 15 March 2010,1 it was established that the three main orientations of upper secondary school would be professional school (service sectors, industry and crafts), technical school (economic and technological sectors) and liceo (various specializations: art, classical languages, foreign languages, music and dance, applied sciences and human sciences). Foreign literature is taught only in the last three years of the licei (English in all of them; German, Spanish and French in the licei linguistici). In this scenario, the three schools involved in the research are one liceo scientifico (code LS, English literature as first foreign language) and two licei linguistici (codes LL1 and LL2, English literature as first foreign language; Spanish, German and French literature as second or third foreign language according to the programme of study offered at each school). The participants are a sample of 13 foreign language and literature teachers and 180 students aged 16–18, whose distribution can be seen in Table 1. 1 For

further information on the reform of the Italian Secondary School, please consult the website: http://archivio.pubblica.istruzione.it/riforma_superiori/nuovesuperiori/index.html and the legislative references in the bibliographical references.

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As can be seen, the foreign language and literature teachers are distributed evenly. The majority (n = 5) teach English, a common discipline in all three schools, followed by those teaching Spanish and German (n = 3, in both cases) and French (n = 2), which is only offered in LL2. The programme of study offered by LL1 includes German as a second foreign language (and only in the last two years because it is considered that by the third year, students have not yet developed the skills needed to study mediaeval literature in German) and Spanish as a third foreign language (for the entire three-year period). Conversely, in LL2 students can choose which foreign literature to study (among Spanish, German and French) during the three-year period and which to consider as their second and third foreign languages, dividing themselves into groups during those hours. All the students (n= 180) must study English literature. Among them there are those who study Spanish literature (n = 96) and German literature (n = 54), which are taught in both LL1 and LL2, while a minority of them study French literature (n = 51) in LL2.

Methodology The research was designed in keeping with the qualitative paradigm, based on a collective case study (Yin 2018), since it refers to multiple cases (three schools) in which the data collection procedure is repeated in order to explore in depth the teaching of foreign literature in different limited school contexts; it also uses a variety of data collection strategies, i.e. semi-structured interviews with teachers and questionnaires answered by students. In this respect, Creswell (2007: 74) writes: “As a general rule, qualitative researchers are reluctant to generalise from one case to another because the contexts of cases differ. To best generalise, however, the inquirer needs to select representative cases for inclusion in the qualitative study”. The purpose of the research is both descriptive and exploratory (Marshall and Rossman 2006; Creswell 2014) since it aims not only to give a detailed picture of the phenomenon, by determining the effectiveness of teachers’ teaching methods, but also to have the

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opportunity to learn from students and suggest possible transformations to improve the teaching of foreign literature. Therefore, we perform a qualitative analysis of both the qualitative data collected through interviews and open-ended questions from questionnaires and the quantitative data obtained through closed-ended questions from the questionnaires. In this regard, Crocker (2009: 9) states that in qualitative research, various instruments can be used to collect information leading to a dataset consisting mainly of text, although “That is not to say that numerical data is not used, but that its purpose is supplementary not central”. For the analysis and interpretation of qualitative data, the NVivo software package was chosen, given the usefulness of its support instruments (Bazeley and Jackson 2013), and Creswell’s content analysis procedure (2014: 197) was followed, specifically in the phases of: (a) Data collection; (b) Organization and preparation of data for analysis; (c) Data reading; (d) Data codification by reducing them to significant segments; (e) Combination and restriction of codes in topics and (f ) Interpretation of results. The quantitative data are analyzed and interpreted following the indications of Dörnyei (2010: 84–87), which are divided into the following phases: (a) Codification of the data; (b) Transcription of the data in an Excel spreadsheet and (c) Representation of the data by means of tables and graphs.

Research Questions The research questions concerning the teaching of foreign literature and addressed to teachers are: (1) Do you propose reflections on works from an intercultural perspective? and (2) How do you structure the foreign literature class? Although there are 13 informants, if for the first question a homologous number of answers is collected, 15 will be obtained with the second question, since the teachers who teach in more classes vary their didactic

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proposals. For example, the answer of TLL1_GER_4.52 refers to both topic D (present interpretation) and topic F (past and present interpretation) since this teacher differentiates between the fourth class, in which they feel freer to experiment (topic F), and the fifth class, in which students take the State Exam, perhaps with different foreign literature teachers (topic D). Unfortunately, we are conditioned by the idea that students in class 5 will be judged by another teacher. Until we know whether or not we are on the Examination Board, we think “What if they are to be judged by an ‘old’ teacher or one who, in general, prefers a traditional method?” I think it’s important that I give them the resources they need to proceed in that manner, although it’s not usually my favourite way.

The research questions associated with the study of foreign literature and intended for students are: (3) What is it about foreign literature that makes you like studying it? and (4) What would you suggest to improve the teaching of foreign literature? Although there are 180 informants, 245 suggestions for improving the teaching of foreign literature were obtained with the fourth question because the same answer can contain up to three indications related to the same number of topics. For example, the answer given by S13123 refers to topics concerning the request to increase interpretation (topic G) and interaction (topic H): “Leave more room for the students’ interpretation so that it can give rise to a collective discussion about the topics developed”. 2 All

quotes by teachers (T) are indicated by codes as the interviews are anonymous. The first two letters refer to the school (LS, LL1, LL2), the next three letters refer to the discipline (ENG, SPA, GER, FRE; that is: English, Spanish, German, French) and the last number(s) refers to the classes where they teach (third, fourth or fifth). For example, TLS_ENG_3 represents the teacher of liceo scientifico who teaches English literature in class 3, while TLL1_SPA_3.4.5 represents the teacher of the first liceo linguistico who teaches Spanish literature in classes 3, 4 and 5. 3 All quotes by students (S) are indicated by codes as the questionnaires are anonymous. The first number refers to the school (1 = LS, 2 = LL1, 3 = LL2), the second refers to the class (third, fourth or fifth) and the last two refer to the order in which the students returned the questionnaires. For example, S1502 represents the student from liceo scientifico who attends class 5 and was the second to return the questionnaire.

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Results

In the following we analyze the responses from teachers and students separately

Teachers of Foreign Literature (1) Do you propose reflections on works from an intercultural perspective? The aim of the first question is to understand whether teachers encourage intercultural reflections on foreign literature texts and, if so, how they do it. As can be observed (Fig. 2), most teachers (n = 7, 53.8%) claim to “always” teach foreign literature from an intercultural perspective (topic A). To justify their answer, teachers refer to: (a) The type of school (liceo), which favours discussion among different languages, cultures and literatures (especially in the liceo linguistico); (b) The particular make-up of the class, where there may be first- and second-generation foreign students who play the role of “bridges” between literary content and their life experiences; (c) School trips and language exchanges that allow for real meetings with the “other” and (d) Universal themes (such as love, death, family, etc.) that are developed in all literatures, in order to establish

Fig. 2 Teachers’ answers to question one

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comparisons between different works. In this respect, TLL2_FRE_4.5 states At this point the study of literature has this [intercultural] function, also because we travel quite a lot and it is important that they understand that they do not study just the language, which is an instrument, but above all the culture. Moreover, in the class where I teach there are foreign students who were born in Italy, i.e. second generation, but whose origins are Moroccan, Tunisian… so then I prefer an intercultural comparison also with Francophone literature. For example, one of the writers I present most frequently is Tahar Ben Jelloun, Racism explained to my daughter.

In turn, TLL1_SPA_3.4.5 says When we talk about the crisis of the individual – I am thinking about Unamuno’s The prayer of the atheist – I ask: “Do you know any similar authors who you have studied in other foreign literatures?” I have not studied German literature, for example: “Do you know…? Does it remind you… ?” Yes, I give them the freedom to make comparisons.

This is followed by the teachers (n = 4, 30.8%) who admit to “sometimes” teaching foreign literature from an intercultural perspective (topic B). As they state, this depends on: (a) The literary themes, adding that last year’s contemporary literature syllabus is the most conducive to this type of reflection; and (b) The time available, which is very often reduced by the density of the syllabus and the many activities that need to be carried out during school hours. On this matter, TLL2_GER_5 considers We have dealt with the topic of immigration in Germany and we have watched the film Almanya about Turkish immigration, examining the prejudices of the Turks towards the Germans and relating them also to Italian immigration and the prejudices that the foreigner may have about us. Sometimes I also refer to second-generation German authors. So yes, I try to develop literary and intercultural reflections.

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Finally, a minority (n = 2, 15.4%) replied that they “rarely” propose foreign literature from an intercultural perspective (topic C) because: (a) They would need more time; (b) Students do not spontaneously carry out this type of reflection and (c) Only the most recent works belonging to the previous year’s syllabus are considered adequate. (2) How do you structure the foreign literature class? The aim of the second question is to discover how teachers structure their foreign literature class and to understand what methods they use to teach the contents. As can be seen (Fig. 3), most teachers (n = 6, 40%; n = 3, 20%) opt for traditional approaches based, respectively, on the centrality of the author (topic A), giving priority to historical contextualization and the presentation of the author’s biography, and on the centrality of the text (topic B), most of the class being devoted to stylistic analysis. Therefore, although the succession of the phases varies, what remains constant is the exclusion of the stage of hermeneutic interpretation since neither of the two structures envisages students’ participation in the search for the meanings of the works. Students are asked, however, to associate information about the historical context and life of the author with

Fig. 3 Teachers’ answers to question two

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the contents and formal elements of the text, as stated, for example, by TLL2_SPA_4.5 in relation to topic A. First I explain the historical context then I present the literary current and the life of the author and finally I consider the text and carry out the analysis. In the oral tests I would like students to be able to make connections, based on the works, with the historical and biographical concepts introduced at the beginning. However, I have realized that it is not always easy for them because they have a tendency to learn by heart and do not easily and autonomously relate text to context.

These are followed by teachers (n = 2, 13.3%; n = 1, 6.7%; n = 1, 6.7%) who get students more actively involved by introducing the interpretation stage (topics C, D, E). On the one hand, however, the succession of phases varies and, on the other, the hermeneutic approach is not applied in a complete way in any structure since students are asked to interpret works from the past (historicization, topic C) or present perspective (updating, topics D and E) without proposing the two operations in successive phases. Only one teacher (6.7%) structures the foreign literature class adhering closely to the hermeneutic approach since he introduces the analysis of the text at a semantic and formal level, refers to the author’s biography and to the historical context and ends up getting the students involved in the interpretation of the work from both the past and present perspectives. As TLL1_GER_4.5 explains I begin directly with the work and ask the students to look for the elements that allow us to go back to the contextualization and understanding of the author’s thinking, that is, the connections among the literary theme, the historical moment, and the dominant culture. After the comprehension stage, we move on to the interpretation stage. I ask students to identify what the author’s message might be and how it might relate to the time in which they are living. For example, in studying the poems written by Goethe in his youth, we investigate whether the feelings the author expresses when he talks about his love for Friedrich may resemble those students feel in their everyday lives. However, I think that it is more difficult for teachers of foreign literature than for those who

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work with Italian literature because we realize that students would like to say more in the foreign language than they are actually capable of producing.

Another teacher (6.7%) structures the foreign literature class in a totally variable way according to the type of work and class. In addition, he explains that he does not usually give much importance to the author’s biography unless it has had a fundamental impact on his vision of the world, on his style and on his literary production. He tries to get students involved by having them carry out activities in pairs, in groups or as a whole class, thereby reducing the modes of transmitting the contents.

Students of Foreign Literature (3) What is it about foreign literature that makes you like studying it? The objective of the third question is to understand what aspects of foreign literature students prefer to study out of: (a) The historical context (topic A); (b) The author’s biography (topic B); (c) Textual analysis (topic C); ((d) The past meanings of works from the author’s perspective (topic D) and (e) The present meanings of works from the perspective of the students themselves (topic E). To answer this question, for each topic students use a numerical rating scale to choose from “not at all”, “a little”, “moderately” and “very much”, corresponding to the numerical values 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively. As can be seen (Fig. 4), what students prefer about foreign literature classes is above all discovering the current meanings that works may be covering in their present (topic E). In second place, they like studying the past meanings originally attributed by the author (topic D). This is followed by a rather high interest in delving deeper into the historicalcultural context of production and diffusion of the works (topic A). Finally, the students show little appreciation for the study of textual analysis (topic C) and even less for studying the biography of the author (topic B).

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Fig. 4 Students’ answers to question three

(4) What would you suggest to improve the teaching of foreign literature? The aim of the fourth question is to find out what indications the students would give to improve the didactics of foreign literature (see Fig. 5). With the exception of topic A, which is general and cross-cutting, topics B–D refer to literary contents while topics E–M refer to the methods that the students would like the teachers to use. Topic A, “more participation” (n = 13, 5.3%): students wish to participate in more stimulating foreign literature classes and express this desire both with generic suggestions, for example by asking for “greater participation” (S2506), and with specific indications related to literary contents and didactic methods, for example by asking to participate in “more interactive classes that get us engaged through activities conducted in pairs and groups and by updating contents” (S2410).

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Fig. 5 Students’ answers to question four

Topic B, “expansion of the canon” (n = 7, 2.9%): students ask to expand the literary canon by including contemporary works so as to be able to compare them with traditional literary texts, to feel more motivated to study and to become familiar with current literary language. In this regard, S1512 writes: “focus more on modern works that students find fascinating” and S2516 adds: “study above all contemporary authors to improve our knowledge of the foreign language spoken today”. Topic C, “simplification of the syllabus” (n = 8, 3.3%): students suggest lowering the number of exercises and reducing the syllabus, especially if the foreign literature texts belong to periods far removed from their daily lives. For example, S2516 advises the proposal of “a limited number of works written by the main authors of the past”. Topic D, “interdisciplinarity” (n = 14, 5.7%): students wish to relate foreign literature to other subjects, such as art history, Italian literature and the other foreign literatures they have studied. Being aware that the development of comparative literary reflections favours the discovery of different points of view on the same subject and allows the study of foreign literature from an intercultural perspective, they would like “to know how the same subject is developed by different cultures” (S1310), “to focus on the comparison between works belonging to different

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cultures” (S1406) and “to relate the themes of foreign literature with those of Italian literature in order to identify similarities and differences” (S1514). Topic E, “more historical context” (n = 6, 2.4%): students asked for a deeper study of the historical era associated with the production and diffusion of foreign literary works. For example, S2512 states: “pay more attention to the historical-cultural context, which is perhaps less known with respect to that of the country itself ”. Topic F, “more textual analysis” (n = 1, 0.4%): one student would like to work more on the linguistic and textual analysis of the works. Topic G, “more interpretation” (n = 27, 11%): students are interested in the didactic application of the hermeneutic approach. On the one hand, they suggest reducing the amount of attention paid to literary historiography, the author’s biography and textual analysis if they are proposed as sterile lists of dates and notions. On the other hand, they call for an increase in the exchange of ideas about the past (historicization) and present meanings (updating) of works and critical judgements of texts (valuation). Regarding the first stage, historicization, they wish to study the author’s vision of the world: “go deeper into the author’s thinking without dwelling too much on stylistic aspects” (S1504). With regard to the second stage, updating, they want to relate the works to their everyday lives and discover their possible present meanings: “try to update the themes developed in the texts, to make comparisons with the present situation” (S1315). Regarding the third and last stage, valuation, they are interested in putting themselves to the test with the formulation of personal, critical and argued judgements about literary texts: “the teacher should encourage students to appreciate literature by allowing them to express their opinion, even when it is not positive” (S2406). One interesting response, in our opinion, is that of S1416, which reproduces the succession of the stages of the hermeneutic approach by asking for “presentations and debates on current events, leaving the explanation of the work to the teacher so that the students are able to develop more up-to-date reflections”. Topic H, “more interaction” (n = 36, 14.7%): students ask to be more involved by means of critical debates and comparisons carried out with pair activities, group activities and creative writing. First, they express the

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desire to participate in less transmissive classes where the sterile repetition of knowledge learned by heart is not required thanks to the use of more dynamic and collaborative methodologies between teachers and students that favour the discussion of literary themes in the foreign language: “not only read and repeat; the teacher should encourage us to participate actively” (S1322), “more presentations by students” (S1407), “make students work as hard as possible” (S1416). Second, they wish to increase the number of activities carried out in pairs and groups because they recognize the socio-constructivist value that characterizes them and the possibility of improving literary skills. Topic I, “new teaching profile” (n = 30, 12.2%): according to students, the ideal foreign literature teacher should be competent both in literary content and in the foreign language, be keen on the subject and teaching, be interested in students’ opinions and literary preferences, be innovative with regard to teaching methods and be an expert in technology. In relation to the last two characteristics, students call for: “classes that vary and are not always conducted in the same way” (S1319), “changes in teaching methods by adapting them to modern times” (S2408), “teachers with computer skills” (S3417). Topic J, “integrative instruments” (n = 52, 21.2%): students suggest using learning resources that integrate textbook proposals and act as a bridge towards the literary works, such as films, songs and ICTs. From their point of view, these resources are “more stimulating” (S2317) compared to the exclusive use of the classbook, they are useful for improving the understanding of literary content: “viewing videos to better understand works” (S1314) and they are effective for consolidating language skills: “improve the knowledge of the foreign language by watching films related to the syllabus” (S1314), “integrate explanations of works with multimedia resources (films) in order to develop comprehension skills in the foreign language” (S1516). On the use of ICTs, S2504 stresses the need to reduce the gap between literary texts and the multimedia reality in which students live: “incorporate the use of social networks and technologies in general; literature must be brought closer to our daily lives”. Topic K, “alternative activities” (n = 18, 7.3%): students wish to participate in more extracurricular and school activities that include

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educational outings, such as organizing school trips abroad, visiting museums “where there are works of art related to literature” (S2403), going to the theatre, attending conferences by contemporary writers; listening to recordings with the works being read “to improve language skills” (S2320); the use of diagrams and concept maps and reading the works in their entirety. Topic L, “improvement in the foreign language” (n = 26, 10.6%): when studying literary texts, students ask to revise the morphosyntactic and lexical aspects of the foreign language in order to strengthen language skills. In this respect, they want “teachers who constantly propose grammatical and lexical revision” (S1308), “to stop taking knowledge of grammar and vocabulary for granted” (S1511) and “to increase activities on the use of the foreign language” (S1404). Topic M, “textbook improvement” (n = 7, 2.9%): students want to adopt foreign literature classbooks that are “more accurate” (S3318), “more ordered and structured” (S3416) and “with fewer illustrations and a wider selection of texts” (S3417). Other answers: 39 answers are not taken into account and belong to students who: (a) Do not answer (n = 25, 64.1%); (b) Are satisfied (n = 2, 5.1%) and (c) Give very generic answers (n = 12, 30.8%), such as “go deeper into the subjects dealt with by poets” (S2306) and “more attention to teaching” (S3513).

5

Discussion and Conclusion

With regard to the results obtained with the data from the teachers, a relevant aspect of the responses on teaching foreign literature from an intercultural perspective (question one) is that, although the majority of teachers claim to propose constant intercultural reflections based on the works, all of them are limited to the sphere of expanding the canon by referring, for example to the texts of second-generation foreign authors. Moreover, nobody mentions the teaching methods that can be used for the development of communicative, literary and intercultural competence through literary interpretation and the exercise of relational skills, such as the didactic application of the hermeneutic approach and the use

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of social mediation methods (peer tutoring and cooperative learning). Regarding the structure of the foreign literature class (question two), it is interesting to note the coherence between the answers to question one and the fact that only one teacher employs the hermeneutic approach by getting students involved in the identification of the meanings of texts. In contrast, most teachers continue to use traditional methods that focus on the historical context, the author’s biography and textual analysis. Therefore, with respect to the teachers involved in the case study, it can be stated that the combination of CLIL and literary education occurs above all at the level of linguistic, stylistic and historical contents, while at the intercultural contents level, its development is limited by the use of methods that do not stimulate students’ interpretation and the exercise of relational skills. As regards the results obtained with the students’ data, the answers on what they prefer to study in foreign literature (question three) show that their favourite aspects, namely, the interpretation of present (topic E) and past meanings (topic D), coincide with the phases of historicization and updating of the hermeneutic approach. In contrast, aspects of medium and low interest, associated with the historical-cultural context (topic A), textual analysis (topic C) and the author’s biography (topic B), characterize approaches based on the centrality of the author and the literary text that the majority of teachers claim to use most frequently. Regarding suggestions on how to improve the teaching of foreign literature (question four), apart from the use of integrative instruments (topic J) and the characteristics of the new teacher profile (topic I), which were highlighted as the first and third suggestions, requests to deliver classes with more interaction (topic H) and with more interpretation (topic G) stand out in the second and fourth suggestions. These last two topics relate respectively to the exercise of relational skills of intercultural communication and to the didactic application of the hermeneutic approach and are coherent with the preferences expressed in the answers to question three. Consequently, with respect to the students involved in the case study, it can be argued that the connection between CLIL and literary education is appreciated above all at the level of intercultural content, and it therefore refers to the interpretation of the works and discussion about their meanings. In fact, among the most notable suggestions for

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improving the teaching of foreign literature, students stress the need for increased interaction and interpretation. In conclusion, on the one hand, it has been demonstrated that there is a mismatch between the contents of foreign literature and the methods used by teachers to teach it and to develop communicative, literary and intercultural competence; on the other hand, however, the students’ opinions support a literary and intercultural teaching methodology at the level of both contents and methods. It is necessary, then, to undertake new reflections on how to address the literary contents of foreign literature so that the students are more motivated, do not learn only the stylistic and historical notions, and also develop the capacity to discuss interpretations and to make personal, critical and reasoned judgements. In this respect, a solution could lie in the use of social mediation methods based on the principles of socio-constructivism, such as peer tutoring and cooperative learning. Finally, it can be stated that the model of literary and intercultural communicative competence, based on the hermeneutic approach of literary education and on the exercise of relational skills of intercultural communication, is confirmed by the data since the most preferred topics in both student responses are consistent with their objectives. We believe it would be necessary to extend the research to other school settings to find out whether the results vary and, if so, how, but also to create and experiment with teaching units based on the model of literary and intercultural communicative competence to see how they are received by students.

References Armellini, G. (2008). La letteratura in classe. L’educazione letteraria e il mestiere dell’insegnante. Milano: Unicopli. Balboni, P. E. (2018). A theoretical framework for language education and teaching. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Balboni, P. E., & Caon, F. (2014). A performance-oriented model of intercultural communicative competence. Journal of Intercultural Communication,

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35. Available at https://immi.se/intercultural/nr35/balboni.html. Accessed 12 June 2019. Ballester, J. (2015). La formación lectora y literaria. Barcelona: Graó. Ballester, J., & Ibarra, N. (2009). La enseñanza de la literatura y el pluralismo metodológico. Revista OCNOS, 5, 25–36. Ballester, J., & Ibarra, N. (2015). La formación lectora y literaria en contextos multiculturales. Una perspectiva educativa e inclusiva. Teoría de la educación, 27 (2), 161–183. Bazeley, P., & Jackson, K. (2013). Qualitative data analysis with NVIVO. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Bredella, L. (2003). Afterword: What does it mean to be intercultural? In G. Alred, M. Byram, & M. Fleming (Eds.), Intercultural experience and education (pp. 225–239). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Byram, M. (2008). From foreign language education to education for intercultural citizenship: Essays and reflections. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Caon, F., & Spaliviero, C. (2015). Educazione letteraria, linguistica, interculturale: intersezioni. Torino: Loescher/Bonacci. Carroli, P. (2008). Literature in second language education: Enhancing the role of texts in learning. London: Continuum. Carter, R. A. (2007). Literature and language teaching 1986–2006: A review. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 17 (1), 3–13. Creswell, J. W. (2007). Qualitative inquiry & research design: Choosing among five approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Creswell, J. W. (2014). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage. Crocker, A. (2009). An introduction to qualitative research. In J. Heigham & R. A. Crocker (Eds.), Qualitative research in applied linguistics: A practical introduction (pp. 3–24). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Di Martino, E., & Di Sabato, B. (2014). Studying language through literature: An old perspective revisited and something more. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press. Dörnyei, Z. (2010). Questionnaires in second language research: Construction, administration, and processing. New York and London: Routledge. Fónagy, I. (1983). La vive voix. Essais de psyco-phonétique. Parigi: Payot. Gómez Rodríguez, L. F. (2012). Fostering intercultural communicative competence through reading authentic literary texts in an advanced colombian EFL classroom: A constructivist perspective. Profile Journal, 14 (1), 49–66.

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Gómez Rodríguez, L. F. (2015). La influencia del texto literario en el aprendizaje del inglés como lengua extranjera: de la teoría a la práctica. Forma y función, 28(2), 83–109. Gonçalves Matos, A. (2014). Narrative matters in intercultural learning— Contributions from Jerome Bruner. Revista Lusófona de Educação, 28, 43–54. González Rodríguez, L. M., & Borham Puyal, M. (2012). Promoting intercultural competence through literature in CLIL contexts. Journal of the Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies, 34 (2), 105–124. Kern, R., & Schultz, J. M. (2005). Beyond orality: Investigating literacy and the literary in second and foreign language instruction. The Modern Language Journal, 89 (3), 381–392. Luperini, R. (2013). Insegnare la letteratura oggi. Quinta edizione ampliata. San Cesario di Lecce: Manni. Manguel, A. (2005). Vicios solitarios: Lecturas, relecturas y otras cuestiones éticas. Madrid: FGSR. Marshall, C., & Rossman, G. B. (2006). Designing qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Paran, A. (2008). The role of literature in instructed foreign language learning and teaching: An evidence-based survey. Language Teaching, 41(4), 465– 496. Parkinson, B., & Reid Thomas, H. (2010). Teaching literature in a second language. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press. Savviduo, C. (2004). An integrating approach to teaching literature in the EFL classroom. The Internet TESL Journal, 10 (12). Available at http://iteslj.org/ Techniques/Savvidou-Literature.html. Accessed 2 July 2019. Vourdanou, K. (2017). Integrating the CLIL approach: Literature and Wikis in the Greek EFL classroom as a means of promoting intercultural awareness. Research Papers in Language Teaching and Learning, 8(2), 103–119. Yin, R. K. (2018). Case study research and applications: Design and methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Legislative References Decreto del Presidente della Repubblica 87/2010, 15 marzo, a norma dell’articolo 64, comma 4, del decreto-legge 25 giugno 2008, n. 112, convertito, con modificazioni, dalla legge 6 agosto 2008, n. 133. (10G0109) (GU n. 137 del 15-6-2010—Suppl. Ordinario n. 128).

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Available at http://archivio.pubblica.istruzione.it/riforma_superiori/nuoves uperiori/index.html. Accessed 15 June 2019. Decreto del Presidente della Repubblica 88/2010, 15 marzo, a norma dell’articolo 64, comma 4, del decreto-legge 25 giugno 2008, n. 112, convertito, con modificazioni, dalla legge 6 agosto 2008, n. 133. (10G0110) (GU n. 137 del 15-6-2010—Suppl. Ordinario n. 128). Available at http://archivio.pubblica.istruzione.it/riforma_superiori/nuoves uperiori/index.html. Accessed 15 June 2019. Decreto del Presidente della Repubblica 89/2010, 15 marzo, a norma dell’articolo 64, comma 4, del decreto-legge 25 giugno 2008, n. 112, convertito, con modificazioni, dalla legge 6 agosto 2008, n. 133. (10G0111) (GU n. 137 del 15-6-2010—Suppl. Ordinario n. 128). Available at http://archivio.pubblica.istruzione.it/riforma_superiori/nuoves uperiori/index.html. Accessed 15 June 2019.

Meta-CLIL: When Methodology and Aim Meet in Initial Teacher Training Anna Marzà

1

Introduction

This article analyses a CLIL experience in initial teacher training in the bilingual Valencian region (Spain). The educational legislation in this region incorporates English in the early years and mentions CLIL as a preferred methodology for the teaching of content areas mediated in that language. English is taught as a foreign language, and constitutes the third language of most students, Spanish and Catalan being the main languages of instruction. At Jaume I University, all Early Education students receive training in the use of English as the medium of instruction for content areas. At the same time, this course is taught in English and, therefore, the methodology and the aim of the course merge, providing a unique opportunity for students to experience the A. Marzà (B) Department of Pedagogy, Social Sciences and Language Didactics, Universitat Jaume I, Castelló de la Plana, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 M. L. Carrió-Pastor and B. Bellés Fortuño (eds.), Teaching Language and Content in Multicultural and Multilingual Classrooms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56615-9_10

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strategies they are learning to implement. The objectives of this study aim at exploring this meta-approach to CLIL from the perspectives of the students and the trainer: [O1.1] Describing the background of the students as English learners and the anxiety levels their linguistic experiences may have contributed to. [O1.2] Describing the students’ present experience of a subject mediated through English. [O2.1] Analysing the strategies deployed in the course to address the affective factors towards English in a CLIL setting. [O2.2] Reviewing the most effective CLIL strategies used in the course.

2

CLIL in the bilingual Valencian region (Spain)

Jaume I University is located in Castelló, in the Valencian region. This is one of Spain’s bilingual regions, although the population’s knowledge and use of Spanish and Valencian is not balanced. According to the latest linguistic survey (Generalitat Valenciana 2016), the knowledge of Valencian, the minority language, among the age range of 15–24 (which corresponds to the average age of the students who took the course under study) is shown in Table 1. This level of knowledge, even though it proves the aforementioned imbalance, is the highest among all interviewees. This is in part due to the educational system. The linguistic situation in the Valencian primary Table 1 Knowledge Valenciana 2016)

of

Valencian

among

15–24

year

olds

(Generalitat

Understands quite

Can read quite

Can speak quite

Can write quite

well or perfectly

well or perfectly

well or perfectly

well or perfectly

Women

84.5%

82.1

69.9

70.1

Men

80.2

72.2

60.9

60.8

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and secondary school system is a complex one and has undergone several changes (for a historical review, see Tasa Fuster and Bodoque Arribas 2017). The law that still regulates the use and teaching of Valencian (Llei d’Ús i Ensenyament del Valencià) was published in 1983, and it stated that students should reach an equal proficiency of Spanish and Valencian, both oral and written, by the end of secondary school. However, the law considered the sociolinguistic situation of the historically Spanishspeaking areas of the Valencian region and established an exemption to this rule. As a result, 30 years later, the Valencian school system is still regarded by some researchers as a dual one in which only the students in the historically Valencian-speaking areas attain a similar proficiency in the two official languages (Torró 2012). The figures in Table 1 seem to support this conclusion since the numbers shown correspond to the only segment of the population so far that has been able to take some form of Valencian instruction since primary school by following any one of the different programmes: Valencian only as a subject (undertaken in 2016 by 12.4% of Valencian students), Valencian as the main language of instruction, with some subjects being taught in Spanish (30.3%), or Spanish as the main language of instruction, with some subjects being taught through the medium of Valencian (57.3%) (STEPV 2016: 4).1 However, figures show that the higher the educational level, the lower the percentage of students who attend lessons through the medium of Valencian: 46.9% in pre-primary education, 39.9% in primary education, 36.4% in secondary education and 20.2% in baccalaureate; vocational training is not currently offered in Valencian (Generalitat Valenciana 2019: 114). With regard to the teaching of English, the Order of 30 June 1998 paved the way for the introduction of English as a subject and a vehicular language from the first year of primary education (Tasa Fuster and Bodoque Arribas 2017: 137). Since then, two more legal documents have regulated plurilingualism in schools, incorporating English in the early preschool years (Decree 127/2012, of 3rd August) and, finally,

1The different programmes in use during the last 30 years have been merged into these three broad groups.

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mentioning CLIL as a preferred methodology for the teaching of foreign languages (Law 4/2018, of 21st February). In order to conduct ecological research on CLIL, Sylvén (2013) proposes the analysis of 4 factors: policy framework, teacher education, age of implementation and extramural exposure to the target language (TL). Her research incorporated Spanish data (from the Basque country, Madrid and Andalusia), but since education is one of the areas that partly falls under regional government, the specificities of each autonomous region’s school system call for an analysis of such factors in the Valencian context. Policy framework and research: As seen in the previous paragraphs, the linguistic legislation in the Valencia region is prolific, with the current law stating the amount of time that should be dedicated to each language and the compulsory use of English both in language and content areas (see the section Age-year of implementation). As stated before, it is worth noting that the most recently approved law includes the explicit mention of CLIL as a methodological reference (Law 4/2018, of 21st February). Furthermore, Order 17/2013, of 15th April required a specific diploma for the teaching of content areas in a foreign language in pre-primary, primary and secondary education. The competences that aspiring teachers must prove to achieve the diploma include “approaches, concepts and terminology related to CLIL”. Since the recent publication of Order 2/2020, of 6th February, no specific diploma is required, but the methodological competences are still expected to be addressed during pre-service training. Research in CLIL in this area is extensive (to mention just a few: Carrió-Pastor 2009; Carrió-Pastor and Perry 2010; Fortanet Gómez 2013; Carrió-Pastor and Tamarit Vallés 2015; Guillamón-Suesta and Renau Renau 2015; Temirova and Westall 2015; Bellés-Fortuño and Ferrer-Alcantud 2016; Recatalá 2016; Ibáñez and Polyakova 2019; Nightingale and Safont 2019; Salvador-García et al. 2019) and CLIL practice also benefits from well-known research conducted in other sociolinguistically similar regions in Spain, such as the Basque country, with Jasone Cenoz, David Lasagabaster and Yolanda Ruiz de Zárobe being widely respected for their research in this area.

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Teacher education (pre- and in service): Training in CLIL methodology appears in the curricula of the three public universities that offer degrees in Education (Universitat de València, Universitat Jaume I and Universitat d’Alacant). These universities also offer professional courses in the specific diploma for the teaching of content areas in a foreign language required by legislation. On the other hand, there are centres called CEFIRE dedicated to in-service training for primary and secondary teachers run by the regional government. During the academic year 2018–2019, the CEFIRE specializing in plurilingualism coordinated nine different courses dedicated to various aspects of CLIL methodology, reaching more than 1000 participants in total.2 Furthermore, since 2017, the Valencian Government has offered a range of formative language experiences for in-service teachers.3 So far, 2900 teachers have taken one-month upgrade courses abroad, an initiative that, according to Pérez Cañado (2016: 284), could redress the deficiencies in language and practical CLIL aspects of teacher training; 700 teachers have attended one-week immersion methodology courses and more than 5000 have attended free English courses in the Official Language Schools (EOI) of the region. However, these apparently promising figures should be taken with caution. Fajardo Rico’s study about the implementation of CLIL in the province of Alacant (Fajardo Rico 2018), where he combined quantitative data from 31 questionnaires and qualitative data from 4 in-depth interviews, raises some concerns as 23% of the participants in the questionnaires and 66% of the interviewees started teaching a non-linguistic subject in English with no prior CLIL training, and 68% of the participants in the questionnaires and all the interviewees feel they have not had good training in CLIL. These data are not representative of all Valencian CLIL teachers but they are consistent with Pérez Cañado’s stance that “teachers of early educational stages would particularly benefit, together with content teachers, from an MA degree in CLIL in which linguistic 2 Information

received by e-mail from the CEFIRE specializing in plurilingualism. Press: Educació duplica les estades formatives d’anglés per a professors i crea una modalitat d’immersió lingüística. Retrieved 13/8/2019, https://www.europapress.es/valencia/not icia-educacio-duplica-les-estades-formatives-dangles-per-professors-crea-modalitat-dimmersio-lin guistica-20190208120142.html.

3 Europa

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aspects are accorded explicit and extensive attention” (2016: 284). All in all, the situation seems to be changing towards a more comprehensive pre- and in-service training in the Valencia region, and further research could shed light on the results of the formative initiatives being implemented in the last few years. Age—year of implementation and amount of CLIL exposure: The current legislation on plurilingualism (the Law 4/2018, of 21st February will be fully implemented during the academic year 2021–2022) establishes that English should be present in pre-primary education (3– 5 years) in at least 10% of the total curricular time. From primary education up to baccalaureate (6–18 years), English must cover a minimum of 15% and a maximum of 25% of both language and content sessions. This means that, in addition to the English language class, at least one subject will be taught in English. The approach of an early implementation of English and the varied amount of exposure depends on the school board’s decisions, which, according to the law, should consider the use and status of languages in the specific context of the school. Extramural English—types and amount: As Sylvén points out (2013: 310), exposure to English outside school is very low in Spain due in part to the dubbing tradition and the abundant cultural production in Spanish. The Valencian community is no exception, having a regional television that prioritizes dubbed programmes for children and a productive theatrical and musical scene in Valencian. However, Law 4/2018, of 21st February states that the Regional Ministry of Education will promote subtitled programmes and audiovisual material in English to foster its learning among youngsters.4 The analysis of these four factors reveals that the Valencian region is indeed a fertile ground for the implementation of CLIL and students may benefit from foreign-language environments at school that counter the lower extramural exposure to English. On the other hand, summing up the sociolinguistic and educational context presented in this section, it could be stated that the most common situation in Valencian nontertiary education is partly comparable to that described by Cenoz (2015: 4The streaming service of the regional television currently offers programmes in English for kids: https://apuntmedia.es/va/la-colla/angles.

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10–11) with regard to the Basque Country: at least part of the teaching is done through the medium of two additional languages that are not the average student’s L1. In this case, and following Valencian legislation, quality training in both language learning in multilingual contexts and some form of content-based instruction is thus essential for teachers-tobe and in-service teachers.

3

From language learners to teachers: affective factors, linguistic autobiographies and CLIL training

The experience of learning a foreign language can lead in many cases to foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA), which is situationspecific and, therefore, distinguishable from more general anxiety types (Teimouri et al. 2019). In their recent meta-analysis, which included a total of 105 independent samples from 23 countries, these authors found that anxiety has medium-to-moderate effects on achievement both in second language (SL) and foreign language (FL) contexts, with higher values than in similar disciplines (2019: 379). These effects are stronger among elementary students; from that point on, college students appear to suffer from a higher anxiety than high school or senior high school students (2019: 380). The authors attribute the ups and downs of anxiety to the age of the students and the inherent features of the context. Along a complementary line, Masgoret and Gardner’s meta-analysis (2003) found strong correlations between second language learning and motivation from 75 independent samples of data. However, it must be noted that, according to Ohlberger and Wegner (2019), the relationship between anxiety and motivation is not a simple one and a further examination on how anxiety levels in language learning vary is still needed. In fact, while anxiety has been proven to undermine intrinsic motivation, it also seems that it can induce extrinsic motivation to avoid failure (Pekrun, Goetz, Frenzel, Barchfeld and Perry 2011, cited in Ohlberger and Wegner 2019). In any case, the role of affective factors in second or

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foreign language learning seems to be agreed upon (Liu 2015: 145), especially when it takes place in a multicultural society with an obvious lingua franca such as English, where the inherent negotiations, tensions and contradictions affect students’ socialization, identity and achievement (Guasch 2010: 25), and can also affect ELL teachers’ stance on English as “the only legitimate linguistic capital for school success” (Coleman 2012: 19). Research on affective factors and CLIL shows that this methodology has a positive impact on students’ confidence and willingness to speak the language (Pihko 2007; Dalton-Puffer et al. 2009), their attitudes and motivation (Dalton-Puffer et al. 2009; Lasagabaster 2011), and perceived language improvement (Lasagabaster and Doiz 2016). In general, Lasagabaster and Doiz affirm that “students in secondary and tertiary education regard the CLIL experience as positive” (2016: 3). However, Heras and Lasagabaster analysed the effects of a CLIL module on motivation and self-esteem, and they found “no main differences between CLIL and non-CLIL students with regards to the affective factors” (2015: 82). The authors consider their results, inconsistent with previous research, may be due to the small size of the sample or the CLIL programme being low-middle intensity. Focusing specifically on anxiety, Thompson and Sylvén (2015) conclude that non-CLIL students have higher English class performance anxiety than CLIL students, and Ohlberger and Wegner’s study (2019) on the affective impact of CLIL on secondary school students with high English anxiety and low self-efficacy shows that CLIL helps lower anxiety and increase self-efficacy. In the field of CLIL’s effect on students, qualitative methods provide a complementary view to quantitative data by giving voice to the subjects of study. In previous research, interviews (Coyle 2013; Dalton-Puffer et al. 2009) or open-ended questionnaires (Lasagabaster et al. 2014) have been used. For the present study, the subjects’ double condition as language learners and as future teachers called for an approach that could capitalize on both identities. Previous studies have explored the potential of linguistic autobiographies to stir reflection among teacher trainees and bring to light specific beliefs, representations and knowledge that foster a more conscious connection between experiences and

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practices as language teachers in a multilingual context (Perregaux 2002; Carrasco 2013; Birello 2014). As Molinié puts it Parce qu’elles permettent de penser les langues comme les éléments inter – reliés dans l’histoire, le répertoire culturel et le bouquet plurilingue du sujet, les biographies langagières contribuent à nourrir la réflexion menée actuellement en didactique, sur le plurilinguisme. (2006: 8)

Ramsdell, referring to literary pieces, defines linguistic autobiographies as “autobiographical narratives that focus on the relationship between language and identity in order to acquire a new ‘language’, meaning a text that represents the self ” (2004: 167–168). In an educational context, linguistic biographies or autobiographies follow the spirit of the European Framework of Reference for languages that encourages students to reflect on the situations that have contributed to their language learning (Molinié 2006: 9), and can be defined as textual instruments where authors “are asked to think about their linguistic repertoire, the codes, languages, the means of expression and communication that play a role in their lives” (Busch 2012: 511). Research with linguistic autobiographies seems to especially fit the study of plurilingual competence and widely explores the link between language and identity mentioned by Ramsdell (Cummins et al. 2005; Carrasco and Tresserras 2013; Palou Sangrà and Fons Esteve 2013; Armand et al. 2014; Ellis 2016; Fons et al. 2018). Beyond written texts, the stories have been delivered by way of multimodal formats such as portraits (Busch 2012; Prasad 2014; Cabré 2016) or music (Garrido and Moore 2016). In linguistic autobiographies, the process of language learning is explained through experiences which may have taken place in a school, family or social context (Carrasco 2013: 205). This aspect is central for the present study since there is evidence of the importance of prior language learning on language teachers’ practices (Borg, 2006). According to Westrick and Morris (2016: 156–157), “the apprenticeship of observation serves as a powerful barrier which affects the degree to which preservice teachers are open to learning new ideas about the enactment and complexity of teaching”. However, evidence has also been found that the apprenticeship of observation may be disrupted

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by the effective tools and practices of teacher education (Wright 2010; Westrick and Morris 2016), mostly directed at raising awareness of “how their experience as learners shapes their beliefs so that they may move beyond them” (Moodie 2016: 30). In a related study, Moodie found what he called the anti-apprenticeship of observation since all participants “described the influence of L2 learning on teaching as either having no impact or compelling them to be different from their teachers” (Moodie 2016: 34). Despite that, their present practices were not based on the disciplinary knowledge of ELT but on their perspective as learners and, therefore, they prioritized activities “that are fun to do” rather than activities “that support language acquisition”. According to the author, the lack of experiential models of “different” practices could lie at the core of this phenomenon. Quality CLIL practices in a teacher training module are therefore essential since they are an opportunity to provide that kind of experience to students as well as a sound theoretical background. Extensive research has proven that training in teaching methodology is deficient, especially in Spain (Pérez Cañado 2016: 281). The European Framework for CLIL Teacher Education provides a comprehensive set of Target Professional Competences to assist in the planning of a specific CLIL training course (Marsh et al. 2011). However, teacher training in CLIL should include not only theoretical concepts but also practical techniques and observations of real and successful examples (Hillyard 2011). Mehisto, Marsh and Frigols’ list of CLIL core features (2008) provides a very practical framework with which to plan and adapt CLIL activities: multiple focus, cooperation, scaffolding, safe and enriching learning environments, authenticity and active learning. Complementarily, Meyer (2010) calls for a holistic methodology that transcends the traditional dualism between content and language teaching and focuses on the strategies that should be present in a CLIL classroom. Based on Coyle’s 4 Cs framework, he proposes six quality principles: rich input, with meaningful, challenging and authentic materials; scaffolding learning, to support the access to materials and facilitate skill learning; rich interaction and pushed output, through the creation of task-based activities, especially communicative situations that provide gaps to ensure authentic interactions, and other cooperative formats; adding the (inter-)cultural

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dimension; aiming at higher order thinking skills; and promoting a sustainable learning or, in other words, making sure “that new knowledge becomes deeply rooted in our students’ long-term memory” (2010: 22). These documents were treated as quality standards for the preparation of the teacher training course.

4

Method

The Course: English Language Teaching for Early Education The course under analysis is an obligatory 6 ECTS module for all Early Education students in Jaume I University during the third year of a four-year bachelor’s degree. It usually takes place from September to February. There are two calls for evaluation, one in February and the other in June. The contents of the subject deal with the teaching of English in multilingual contexts, the legal framework for the teaching of English and through English during preschool, and all aspects of the CLIL approach: methodological foundations, material design, assessment and project planning. The main language of instruction is English and the methodology used to deliver the lessons is CLIL.

Participants During the academic year of 2018–2019, 177 students were enrolled in this course (170 female and 7 male). The age range of the students is between 21 and 35—20.42% of them have a B1 Common European Framework of Reference (CEF)-level in English. The rest have either not reached this level or not entered their English level in their personal information files. The lecturer-researcher has been responsible for this course for four academic years. Before that, she taught a parallel course in primary education for two academic years. Due to her formative background, she has the double role of content and language lecturer (Fortanet Gómez,

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2013: 162–163) and, therefore, is able to introduce the students to the discipline and its literary practices.

Instruments This is a qualitative case study in which different data collection strategies have been implemented. Linguistic biographies of students. During the first two sessions of the course, the teacher presented the concept, sharing her own linguistic biography and analysing other examples. The students were encouraged to describe some of their experiences as language learners and a short discussion followed. After that, the students were asked to take some time to write or record their own linguistic life stories over the course of two weeks. No specific prompts were given other than the idea of reflecting on their relationship with languages. A total of 130 students uploaded their stories to the virtual classroom and these texts were analysed to retrieve data about their background as English students and their anxiety levels related to this language [O1.1]. The software QDA Miner Lite was used for coding and analysing either the texts or the transcripts. Questionnaire. An online questionnaire (see Annex) was prepared to gather information about the students’ present experience and learning of a subject mediated through English [O1.2] (Questions 2-A, 2-B, 4-A and 4-B), their anxiety levels [O1.1] (question 3) and also to complement the analysis of the teaching strategies [O2] (questions 5–11). The items required both Likert-scale multiple choice and open responses. Since the questionnaire had items aimed at evaluating both the methodology and the contents of the subject, it was considered best to deliver it when all grades had been issued so that students could analyse their experience and not feel that this test could affect their marks in any way. As stated before, the course has two different calls, one in February and another one in June, so the questionnaire was sent via the forum of the virtual classroom as soon as the second call final grades were uploaded. Thirtyseven students answered the questionnaire. Specific materials developed for the course. Analysis of the materials included in the Moodle Virtual Seminar, which constitute the core

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contents of the course. These materials provide information on the trainer’s practices to comply with the conceptualized standards and the strategies used [O2.1 and O2.2]. Observations of the researcher-trainer. The trainer’s reflections on her methodological approach, her teaching style and planned strategies give further insight into the second objective of this study.

5

Results

Linguistic Biographies From the qualitative analysis of the linguistic biographies, twelve themes emerged: eight related to the students’ background as learners of English and four to their anxiety levels.

Background as English Learners The first salient pattern that emerged from the stories was that most students (56.9%, see Fig. 1) had enrolled at least once during their lifetime in a language school or have had private tutors. Forty per cent of the students report having participated in these extracurricular activities for at least more than three years. The motivations underlying the decision to enrol in English courses outside school are, mainly, three: a parental decision (no further explanation is given, in most cases); the need to complement the English lessons at school, usually because they needed assistance to follow the lessons and neither the teachers nor their family could provide it; and wanting preparation for specific English qualifications. Being asked to reflect on their background as English learners, the students describe many specific experiences, both negative and positive. These have been classified according to their taking place within the school context or outside of it. A total of 55.4% of students recall negative experiences in school, which fall under different categories. On one hand, there are experiences that describe “bad” teachers, an adjective

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Fig. 1 Themes under “Background as English Learners” (% of cases)

that includes teachers whose linguistic level is low, who “did nothing in class”, who appeared uninterested about the students’ progress, who used little English in class, or who failed to adapt their lessons for those who fell behind their peers. There are also reports of unfair, severe or even fearsome teachers who shouted or labelled students as being incapable of learning English. On the other hand, some students focus on the methodological aspects they did not enjoy, such as grammar-focused lessons, monotonous lessons, the use of memorization and repetition, or little attention to oral skills. Some negative experiences also include very vivid descriptions of stressful moments, such as not being able to utter a word when being directly asked questions and feeling the looks of their classmates on them. The last two recurrent experiences are not being able to follow the pace of the class and failing tests repeatedly. In contrast, 31.5% of students recall positive experiences in school . Again, these experiences are linked either to “good” teachers or to methodology. “Good” teachers are described as motivational, helpful or supportive people, who instilled a love for the language in their students or were patient enough to explain what was not understood. The most

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repeated positive methodological aspects are the teaching of oral skills and conversation, the use of hands-on activities, the systematic use of English as the main language of communication in the class, and encouraging interaction among classmates; some students also define the lessons with single adjectives, such as “dynamic”, “practical” or “fun” lessons. A combined analysis of these two factors reveals that 39 students (30%) report only negative experiences in their biographies; 33 both positive and negative experiences (25.3%) and 8 only positive experiences (6.1%). Outside school, the positive experiences outnumber the negative ones. Twenty-six students (20%) recall episodes connected to English that left a positive impression on them. Most positive experiences (14% of all students) are related to travelling abroad, either to English-speaking countries to attend intensive language courses, for work, or taking part in exchange programmes; or to non-English-speaking countries where they enrol in intensive English courses, use English as a lingua franca or discover their love of languages through a second foreign language. The other two relatively common memories are of language schools where they encounter teachers and methodologies they enjoy (3% of all students) and spending free time watching films or series and listening to songs in English, thus voluntarily increasing the amount of extramural exposure to the language (3% of all students). In contrast, 10 students (7.7%) described situations outside the school which were disappointing, such as travelling abroad and realizing they did not know enough English to communicate, or situations (in out-ofschool academies or abroad) where their interlocutors were judgemental about their English. When recalling their positive experiences, 23 students explicitly state that a specific situation or thought changed the way they felt towards the language (17.7% of the total student count). The types of experiences that triggered this shift towards a more positive view of the language are the use of new, engaging methodologies mostly by teachers in language schools, the consumption of popular culture in English, travelling abroad, meeting foreign people with whom they become friends, reflecting on their linguistic life story, studying English on their own initiative, and, after their decision to become teachers, realizing they do

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not want to be like their own English teachers (anti-apprenticeship of observation). Finally, as part of their experience as ELLs, 30.8% of students express their future plans or expectations, which are either becoming proficient in English or learning other languages. In the biographies, the desire to improve their language skills is linked to passing a specific test, being able to communicate, enjoying the language or being able to teach it.

Anxiety Levels The biographies were also analysed to extract segments of text that could contribute to defining the affective factors associated with the participants’ experience as ELLs. Four such factors were found, pictured in Fig. 2. In order to distinguish the experiences, analysed under “Background as English learners”, from the emotions, analysed here, segments were only coded as emotions when a specific expression or adjective

Fig. 2 Distribution of categories under “Anxiety levels” (% of cases)

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defining the student’s feelings towards the language was found, as opposed to a report of experiences. A total of 56.9% of students report negative emotions related to English at some point in their lives. The range of emotions is wide, some sort of uneasiness at making mistakes being the most common (in 18.9% of the students). Students describe this feeling with words such as fear or being afraid, nervousness, panic, rejection, terror, suffering or mental block. In 17.7% of the cases, the words students use convey low selfesteem, stating they are not good or bad at the language, even incapable of learning it, or that they feel insecure, silly or stupid. Frustration is also a common feeling, described by 17% of all students. A very specific type of frustration comes from the feeling of having wasted their time since they report having studied English for a long time and the results are much lower than expected. Struggling to follow the lessons or when trying to learn the language is reported by 11.2%, and rejection of the language due to considering it an imposition is present in 10.6% of the biographies. Finally, disappointment, embarrassment and boredom are also mentioned, although in much lower percentages (under 2.2%). Positive emotions related to English are present in 41.5% of the biographies, although these are not highly detailed. They mainly express their love for the language, as well as satisfaction at their own achievements (usually achieving specific qualifications) or the joy of learning about another culture. Again, a combined analysis of these two factors reveals that 42 students relate only negative emotions in their biographies, which represents 32.3% of all biographies. Thirty-two students relate both positive and negative emotions (24.6%) and 22 students only positive emotions (16.9%). Almost half of the students (48.5%) explicitly mention a social requirement related to English, such as the use of English as a lingua franca when travelling, the integration of English in the Spanish curriculum, perceiving English as the most important language in the world, or joband degree-related qualifications. In fact, mentioning English qualifications is a recurrent issue since 43.8% of students refer to either the CEF B1 or B2 exam. However, these social requirements are only singled out as being the cause of their negative feelings on seven occasions (5.3% of all students).

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Based on their experiences with languages, 35 students (23.8%) express opinions on foreign language learning that are later addressed in the syllabus of the course. Though these opinions are highly varied, three notions recur: firstly, the notion that the best (or even only) way to learn a foreign language, in this case, English, is through an immersion experience in an English-speaking country (6.1%); secondly, the idea that foreign language instruction should begin at an early age for it to be successful (3%); and finally, the idea of motivation being the necessary basis for learning (3%).

Questionnaire Student’s Present Experience and Learning of a Subject Mediated Through English Students were asked to qualify their experience with the English language or content courses, distinguishing between the experience in the course under analysis and their general previous experience (Questions 1 and 2A). In Fig. 3, nineteen students (51% of the total 37 who answered the questionnaire) qualified their previous experience as “bad” or “very bad”, 25 20 20 15 15 9

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Fig. 3 Students’ qualification of their experience with English courses (in number of students)

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and 9 (24.3%) either “good” or “very good”; in contrast, 29 students (78.3%) considered their experience with the course under study either “good” or “very good”, which constitutes an increase of 222.2% with respect to previous positive experiences. Students cite three ideas as responsible for their positive experience (Question 2B): the teacher’s attitude (59.4%), the novelty of using English in a content class (21.6%), the interest and applicability of the contents, and specific aspects of CLIL methodology (18.9% in both cases). Regarding the teacher’s attitude, students highlight her patience at repeating explanations, the fact that they were encouraged to use English without being forced to, that their initial reluctance to use of the language was respected and that mistakes were regarded as part of the learning process. Furthermore, knowing they could use their L1 as a resource made the students feel more confident. The 7 students (18.9%) who considered their present experience average pointed at the difficulty of understanding complex contents in a foreign language. The student who qualified the experience as very bad had expected student’s effort to have a higher role in the evaluation after the learning and application of the contents. A total of 70.3% of students admit to exceeding their own expectations during the course by performing an activity in English they had considered themselves incapable of (questions 4A and 4B). Being able to speak in front of the class was unexpected for 51.3% of the participants; writing content texts, such as the exam or the didactic unit, for 27%; and understanding complex oral texts in English, such as content explanations, was surprising for 8.1% of students.

Anxiety Levels When specifically asked whether the methodology or the teacher’s attitude helped them solve negative affective issues related to English (Question 3), 89% of students agreed or strongly agreed with respect to the attitude and 86.4% to methodology (see Fig. 4).

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30 26 24

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Fig. 4 Methodology or teacher’s attitude helped reduce negative affective issues related to English (in number of students)

CLIL Strategies The students were asked to name the methodology that was used and taught in class (Questions 5 and 6). For this question no answer options were provided in order to assess whether the students could recognize it as CLIL. A total of 45.9% used the specific acronym to describe the methodology used in class, and 59.7% to name the methodology taught in class. The other expressions the students used were, mainly, “active” and “cooperative”. The following question was more explicitly addressed at considering to what extent the strategies used in class corresponded to CLIL methodology (question 7), and all but one of the students answered “a lot” or “completely” (97.3%). In question 8 the students were asked to name the strategies deployed by the teacher that scaffolded their access to contents and language the most. No closed options were given, and they were encouraged to name more than one if applicable. Visual aids such as images, diagrams and videos are the most helpful strategy, according to 37.8% of students, followed by repetition and the reformulation of unclear content (27%); the use of cooperative activities in which peer-to-peer assistance is promoted (24.3%); giving practical examples (24.3%); speech-related strategies such as pauses, enunciation or pace control (21.6%); gestures

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(18.9%); activities related to real teaching practice (18.9%); allowing the use of the L1 (Catalan or Spanish) as a cognitive tool (16.21%); chunking and repackaging of the research articles (16.21%); the teacher’s attitude, specifically the attention to individual needs (16.21%); and encouraging the use of English through debates, oral presentations and written projects (13.5%). Question 9B addresses more specifically the strategies that assisted the students to understand academic articles. The contents of original articles written in English are part of the core curriculum of the subject (see next section), and given the language level of the students, reading these papers is a great challenge. In fact, 78.4% of the students recall not having been able to read these articles without assistance (question 9A). From a given list of options (more than one could be picked), the most helpful strategies to scaffold the comprehension of academic content are the explanations of the teacher (35.1%), repackaged versions of the articles (24.3%), listening to oral explanations by other classmates through Aronson’s jigsaw technique (21,6%) or having to prepare and give such explanations (16.1%), group or pair reading of the articles (13.51%), the use of diagrams representing the concepts of the articles (10.81%) and supplementary videos focusing on specific aspects of the texts (10.81%). Finally, a vast majority of students either strongly agree (62.2%) or agree (35.1%) that having experienced the CLIL methodology as students will be useful for their future teaching practice (question 10).

Specific Materials Developed for the Course The course under study is hosted in a Moodle Virtual Seminar. Its contents include: a. basic important information about the course, such as the programme, exam dates, evaluation itineraries, tasks where voluntary and obligatory essays or activities must be uploaded, and, at the end of the course, the grades; b. a forum for communication and news; and

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c. documents created by the teacher, research articles and other resources that cover the curriculum of the course. In this section, the documents that cover the curriculum, the voluntary and obligatory tasks and other oral activities that are not documented in the virtual seminar will be described.

Documents and Resources The documents and resources presented here cover two aspects: language learning in multilingual contexts and CLIL methodology and practice. The Valencian legislation on language teaching is left out because this part of the subject is not mediated through English and so CLIL methodology does not apply. Research articles. The basic contents of the multilingual approach to education are developed through the analysis of and reflection about three articles: • Ríos García (2005). Les llengües en una societat i una escola pluriculturals • Mc Laughlin (1992). Myths and misconceptions about second language learning: What every teacher needs to unlearn • Cummins (2007). Rethinking monolingual instructional strategies in multilingual classrooms The first article that students are required to read (Ríos García) is in Catalan. This allows for the students to build some preliminary concepts about multilingualism and language learning which are later tackled in English. The academic English used in McLaughlin’s and Cummins’ articles is beyond the level of most students in the course; nevertheless, they are asked to try and read them before they are presented in class so that they experience the difference between trying to access content with and without scaffolding. After this, the contents are scaffolded. The contents related to CLIL are approached from three original texts: • Marsh (2000). Using Languages to Learn and Learning to Use Languages

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• Mehisto et al. (2008). Uncovering CLIL (excerpt of Chapter 2) • Coyle (2005). Planning Tools for Teachers These texts do not belong to the genre of academic articles, they are more informational. Nevertheless, the access to their contents is also scaffolded. Adaptations of the articles. As indicated, scaffolding techniques are essential for the students to access the content of the texts in English. Likewise, as the final exam will be in English, the contents of Ríos García’ article are reviewed in English by presenting the corresponding terminology. Other than the explanations of the teacher and the activities designed to access content, the following documents are used to scaffold the original texts: • A chunked and repackaged version of McLaughlin’s article, with added sub-headings, definitions and highlighting of important passages. • A partially filled diagram of Cummins’ article. • A dossier with chunked and repackaged excerpts of the CLIL articles. • A Power Point summary of each of the articles. • Power Point extensions of specific concepts. Multimedia. • Videos on the concepts of BICS and CALP, Translanguaging and CLIL’s 4 Cs. Transcripts of all videos are provided. • Links to websites containing further insight into specific notions that generated doubts among students. Complementary resources. To assist students in the tasks done in class, complementary resources are provided, such as Celic and Seltzer’s Translanguaging: A CUNY -NYSIEB Guide for Educators (2013), a list of expressions for discussion and debate, videos to reflect on an active approach to preschool, a list with types of questions to foster critical thinking, and a grid of the revised Bloom’s taxonomy, with verbs, situations, potential activities and products for each level of thinking.

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Tasks One of the main objectives of the course is for students to actively use English in academic content-related texts. Spontaneous participation in class is encouraged (see next section), but there are also specific formal tasks that are either requested or required. The first of the voluntary activities that students are requested to do is write or record their linguistic biography. Considering that this may create some affective issues, this is the only formal task where students can choose the language in which to deliver it; even so, 81.4% of students chose English. The article by McLaughlin (1992) described in the previous subsection is the basis of two more tasks; on one hand, the group preparation and individual oral explanation of one of the myths to another group of students, using Aronson’s jigsaw strategy; on the other hand, each group performs an oral presentation to the whole class of one of the myths, using visual aids. After the analysis of specific multilingual activities proposed in Celic and Seltzer (2013), students, in pairs, are encouraged to prepare another oral presentation, using comprehensible input techniques about one of the strategies provided in the book. A formal debate on a topic related to the contents of the course is organized, following debate league rules. CLIL main contents are approached through a group activity on which students themselves ask preliminary questions about the topic and, then, need to find the answers by extracting information from a chunked and repackaged dossier. This activity is followed by a coral review of the answers to adjust to academic writing. Finally, an essay regarding the theoretical aspects of the course is requested to be written in pairs, and collectively corrected. Most of these voluntary activities focus on oral language for two reasons. Firstly, activities related to oral skills are highly demanded by students, as seen in the subsection Background as English learners; and secondly, an oral presentation is part of the evaluation of the subject and, therefore, suitable training and feedback on this issue are deemed important. There are four obligatory activities included in the evaluation itinerary: a written project with a detailed planning of 3 CLIL activities based on a given content (arts, the human body or transports); an oral presentation of an activity designed for their project, in which the use

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of comprehensible input techniques and visual supports is essential; an essay discussing a given question, where the most appropriate theoretical aspects of the curriculum need to be addressed; and answering multiple choice questions (these two last activities are part of the final exam).

Observations of the Researcher-Trainer There are four underlying principles that inform the researcher-trainer’s decisions regarding methodology, teaching style, classroom organization and activity planning. a. Multilingual approach to CLIL. Following Fortanet Gómez (2013) and Jessner (2008), the use of L1 as a cognitive tool is planned throughout the course. Thus, several combinations may occur (Celic and Seltzer, 2013). These are some of the translanguaging situations that take place in the course: the lecturer speaks English and students take notes in any chosen language; in pairs or groups, students discuss, reflect and negotiate content in any language from a text written in English and share out, also in English; students preview content in one of their languages (Catalan) and the corresponding class is delivered in English; or they research and plan in any language and present their work orally in English. b. Making sure to use CLIL strategies that are also taught as part of the contents so that students experience their effectiveness. The following are some of the most used strategies: chunking and repackaging of authentic texts; use of speech-related comprehensible input techniques when delivering oral speeches, including monitoring the pace, enunciating, repeating, reformulating and pausing; creating situations for meaningful interaction and pushed output (Meyer, 2010), such as jigsaw reading or project work; negotiation of meaning in variable groupings (individual, pairs, small groups, big groups, whole class); use of any kind of visual aid, such as images, diagrams, gestures and videos; and collaborative activities.

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c. Fostering reflection on teaching practices. The double-layered aspect of the course is exploited by asking students to recognize the practices that take place in the classroom and situate them within the conceptual map of the contents of the course. The two-way journey is completed when they are asked to design and apply these practices in the project work. Students are also encouraged to reflect on their own experience as receptors of a CLIL teaching situation, anticipating sympathy and understanding towards their future pupils. d. Attention to linguistic attitudes. During the first sessions of the course, many students express their concerns about the use of English as the language of communication. The creation of a safe learning environment is regarded as essential to encourage these students to use the language and several strategies are deployed to ensure it, which include two of the aforementioned principles. (a) The multilingual approach and the use of scaffolding techniques may provide the students with the feeling that they can cope with academic content mediated through English. (b) Acceptance of the students’ translanguaging. (c) Acceptance of the difficulties that accessing content in a foreign language entails. (d) Considerate treatment of mistakes by way of reformulation. (e) Dissuasion from any mocking or disregarding behaviour towards the linguistic level of any classmate. (f ) Open discussions about the role of English as lingua franca and notions related to linguistic prejudices (Tuson 1988). (g) Careful introduction of oral presentations. Previous experience with this course has demonstrated that oral presentations in English in front of a big group of classmates can be an issue for most students. Therefore, oral presentations are planned to be delivered in pairs, then to small groups and, progressively, to bigger groups. The final presentations are in front of the whole class.

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Discussion

The data presented in this study correspond to a group of Early Education students at Jaume I University and, therefore, this research does not pretend to be representative of the Valencian experience. However, the following reflections provide insight into specific areas that could be of interest for further research and even strategic areas for stakeholders. An analysis of the participants’ background as English learners [O1.1] profiles two types of student itineraries, very similar in numbers and overly majoritarian: those who had positive and negative experiences and, therefore, can resort to both during their formative periods as future teachers, and those who only recalled negative experiences. The considerable number of students who had negative experiences (55.4%), paired with an also relatively high number of strong negative emotions such as low self-esteem, being afraid of mistakes and frustration, conveys the idea, consistent with previous research, that the majority of students start the CLIL class with low to moderate anxiety levels towards the language (Teimouri et al. 2019: 17). However, the attitude and strategies deployed by the researcher-trainer appear to be transformative and help almost 90% of the students who answered the test disengage from the affective factors that affect their learning negatively [O2.1]. Starting the course with linguistic autobiographies and a constructive reflection about their experiences and feelings related to languages seems to pave the ground for this shift for some students, since reflecting on their linguistic life story changed the way they felt about the language. The formative value of linguistic biographies, explored by Perregaux (2002), is supported within the context of this study. Similarly, the actions deployed to attend to linguistic attitudes (see Observations of the researcher-trainer ) are highlighted by students as having had an impact on their positive experience, especially the acceptance of mistakes, translanguaging, and encouraging a safe environment for oral activities. Another approach adopted in the course that seems to create a positive atmosphere is the type and planning of oral activities in English. The teaching of oral skills—or the lack of it—is singled out in linguistic biographies as being a cause for good—or bad—experiences and, therefore, the fact that oral skills are addressed contributes to that atmosphere.

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Moreover, the most vivid descriptions of stressful moments in their past experiences correspond to the oral use of English in class. After this course, more than 50% of students who filled in the questionnaire exceeded their own expectations regarding oral presentations in front of the class. Students recall the approach to oral interactions as “being encouraged to use English without being forced to”. This may have been accomplished, as argued before, by the teacher’s attitude, but also with the careful planning of oral activities that progressively expand the type and size of the audience being addressed, as described in the sections Tasks and Observations of the researcher trainer. These results suggest that strategies to unveil, analyse and reflect on past experiences and how to address present affective factors related to languages are necessary competences for a CLIL or language teacher and, therefore, should also be present in training courses. Marsh et al. (2008) already describe relevant competences in this area (being able to support students in managing the affective side of learning through an additional language), but related resources such as the Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters are still little known by European in-service teachers (Pérez Cañado 2016: 280). The approach presented in this study can be a starting point for a more in-depth investigation on the specific attitudes and strategies that could contribute to a positive experience in language learning and, thus, could be included in CLIL training. The gap between the amount and detail of the descriptions of positive (31.5%) and negative (55.4%) experiences suggests that the Valencian educational system still needs to invest further efforts in the training of in-service teachers. The logistic structure of in-service training exists, and both methodological and linguistic courses are being organized (see Context ), which are the two areas pointed out by students to describe “bad” teachers (low English level and old-fashioned methods). However, more resources may need to be invested in this area. As noted, stakeholders could greatly benefit from research aimed at assessing the quality and effects of the recently enhanced in-service training. The habit of enrolling in a language academy or hiring private tutors found in this study is consistent with previous research. Heras and Lasagabaster (2015: 71) highlight that this requires great commitment from students and may pose strains on household expenditure, and these

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are in fact issues mentioned in some biographies. Teacher trainees have the very specific social and legal requirement of passing a B1 exam, and this is one of the reasons they enrol in these courses. However, despite the high numbers of students attending extracurricular private English lessons, only a few of these are connected to positive experiences. The most valued experiences outside the school are intensive language courses abroad or in Spain, and the number of households that can afford this type of course is limited. Extramural exposure to English in the Valencian region is low (see Context ) and the students’ biographies do not show a tendency to favour contact with the more affordable products that are offered in English, mainly popular culture (films, series and music). However, when this happens (3%), it is an enjoyable and even cathartic experience that can reconcile them with the language. Fostering the use of these products among Valencian students of all ages could be an initiative that would not generate rejection. As mentioned, the Valencian government is starting to cooperate with the local television stations to offer products for young children in English, and there exists ample research that connects the consumption of subtitled media with language learning among kids (d’Ydewalle and Van de Poel 1999; Koolstra and Beentjes 1999; Marzà and Torralba Miralles 2015), as well as the use of audiovisual translation in language teaching (Incalcaterra and Lertola 2011; Ibáñez Moreno and Vermeulen 2013; Talaván 2013; Marzà et al. 2018). Research that connects school projects and extramural exposure to media to learn English could be a fruitful avenue of research in the Valencian context. Consistent with previous research (Lasagabaster and Doiz 2016), the experience with CLIL [O1.2] is regarded as positive by the vast majority of students, which contrasts with their previous experiences in English. The strategies the students felt more effective at scaffolding their learning [O2.2] mainly correspond to the trainer’s principles and tasks, especially the use of visual, audiovisual and gestural aids; cooperative activities that demand meaningful interaction and require output in English (as Coyle, 2013, already noted); the use of speech-related comprehensible input techniques by the teacher; a multilingual or translanguaging approach to CLIL; and chunking and repackaging techniques to access authentic

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texts. Yet, there are still some students who would benefit from further assistance since they have difficulty understanding contents (18.9%). This fact, paired with the comment of a student with a good proficiency of English that lessons were too slow, points to the need to improve the diversification of tasks in order to attend to a broader range of students’ needs and abilities. Furthermore, there are two areas that are an essential part of the subject that the students did not mention: reflecting on teaching practices and managing academic English. It could be that these aspects do not appear to be straightforward strategies to access content but considering the two-layered objectives of this course, in which CLIL is used to learn the CLIL methodology, these meta-strategies are highly relevant for their future practice and act as bridges to the content. The data suggest that students realize these aspects have been addressed in class since more than 97% of students consider experiencing a CLIL course as students will be useful for their teacher practice, and 70.3% admit to having exceeded their own expectations at using academic language both in the production of oral or written academic genres and the reception of oral academic genres. Still, further explicit emphasis on both areas could be beneficial, especially considering the following: on one hand, personal reflection has been highlighted as an essential competence of CLIL teachers (Pavón Vázquez and Ellison 2013); on the other hand, poor academic discourse has been found among CLIL recipients in previous research (as summarized in Meyer 2010) and mediating academic language is pointed out by some authors as an important CLIL teaching strategy (Fortanet Gómez 2013). Two more modifications to the course could be applied from this analysis. The linguistic autobiographies were asked to be written (or recorded) without specific prompts; however, stating an outline of what is expected could provide longer and more detailed biographies as in Park (2011: 161), where the prompts were discussed and decided collectively, and Perregaux (2002), where 10 specific ideas to be developed in the biographies were provided. A prompt to elicit information on the anti-apprenticeship of observation would shed some light on that concept since results in this study contrast with Moodie’s in that only three students mentioned wanting to be different from their teachers

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compared to almost all the participants in Moodie’s research. Secondly, the explanations of the teacher seem to be a strategy on which students greatly rely to access the content. However, the course can also be followed through a distance-learning itinerary and, therefore, strategies to compensate for these explanations should be developed for distance-learning students. Finally, as far as the research methodology is concerned, the questionnaire was answered by only a portion of the students who took the course. This is possibly due to the time that had elapsed between the end of the course and the passing out of the questionnaire and the fact that it was online. Passing out a paper questionnaire in the last class may have yielded more answers.

7

Conclusion

All in all, this study shows that the school experiences of many participants were not entirely positive with regard to English, which led in many cases to affective issues that could hinder their ability and willingness to participate in an English-mediated class. This could be regarded a priori as an obstacle for the consecution of a course whose objective is the didactics of this language, but the use of linguistic biographies, a translanguaging approach, and careful planning of CLIL strategies and tasks that promoted both the oral and written use of academic language seemed to revert the situation. However, further attention to different needs and a more explicit reflection on CLIL strategies and the use of academic language could be invested in the future. Moving beyond the walls of the course where this study took place, some results have highlighted specific areas that could benefit from the attention of both researchers and administrators. Positive experiences in Valencian schools are considerable, but bad experiences with English teachers are still a reality that needs to be addressed from various perspectives. Stakeholders need to take note and invest further efforts in the training of in-service teachers. This training should include specific attitudes and strategies that contribute to a positive experience in language learning, an area that would also benefit from further research. Finally,

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collaboration between the media and formal education could even the exposure to extramural English that provokes such inequalities between the families that can afford private lessons or courses abroad and the households that cannot.

Annex Questionnaire 1. Before joining this course, how would you define your experience with language or content subjects in English? Very bad – bad – average – good – very good 2-A. How would you define your experience with this course regarding the use of English? Very bad – bad – average – good – very good 2-B. Could you specify with two or three examples what made you qualify your experience with this course as you did on the previous question? 3. Please state your level of agreement with the following affirmations (strongly disagree – disagree – neutral – agree – strongly agree – I had no issues): • The methodology in this course helped me reduce negative affective issues related to English • The teacher’s attitude helped me reduce negative affective issues related to English 4-A. Is there anything you did in English for this course that you did not think you were capable of? Yes / No / N/A 4-B. What was it? 5. Which methodology is used in class? 6. Which methodology is taught in class? 7. To what extent would you say the strategies used in class correspond to CLIL methodology? Not at all – very little – a little – a lot – completely

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8. Which of the strategies used by the teacher assisted you the most in accessing the content of the subject and in understanding the language? Name as many as you want. 9-A. In this course, you had to read academic articles in English. Were you able to read them without any assistance? 9-B. Choose the strategies deployed by the teacher that helped you understand the texts. You can choose as many as you want. • • • • • • • •

Text editing (underlining, definitions, summaries…) Diagrams Complementary videos Reading segments of the articles in pairs or in groups Listening to classmates’ explanations of the contents Preparing an explanation for my classmates about the contents Explanations of the teacher Other…

10. Having experienced as a student the methodology I will have to use as a teacher will be useful for my future job. Strongly disagree – disagree – neutral – agree – strongly agree.

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CLIL Assessment: Accommodating the Curricular Design in HE Begoña Bellés-Fortuño

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Introduction

The internationalization of European universities after the Bologna Declaration (1999) as regards the English language has resulted in an increasing concern to introduce tuition in English in both undergrad and postgrad courses. There has been a growing interest in the learning of several languages, including minority ones, due to the efforts of the European Commission to generate a multilingual education (European Commission 2014) in contrast to an older educational tradition of monolingual language policies and where English emerges as a lingua franca. As a result, higher education institutions in Europe have increasingly offered programmes taught in English, totally or partially, according to institutions’ possibilities and resources. However, there does not seem to B. Bellés-Fortuño (B) English Studies Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 M. L. Carrió-Pastor and B. Bellés Fortuño (eds.), Teaching Language and Content in Multicultural and Multilingual Classrooms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56615-9_11

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be a generalized existing official policy about the Content and Language Integrated (CLIL) programmes offered in European universities, nor a consensus in the language requirements necessary for students and lecturers involved in these programmes (Lasagabaster 2019; Weinberg and Symon 2017). This situation might suggest a sense of discontent for those actors involved in CLIL programmes, who might claim for additional institutional support to reach the objectives of these content-based instruction programmes (Brinton et al. 1989). In Spain, universities have enlarged the offer of content modules taught in English (Maljers et al. 2007). The Board of Rectors of Spanish Universities, in a joint effort to develop clear and homogeneous guidelines for the Spanish tertiary level, published in 2017 the Framework Document of Language Policy (Bazo et al.) in which all the members of the university community are considered: lecturers, students and administrative staff, as regards the local and foreign language requirements and training programmes and incentives to motivate and ensure content-based language tuition and the internationalization of Spanish universities. Despite the progress made in this respect, the adaptation of the curricular design to these content and language programmes has barely been done or left to lecturers’ individual initiatives; the new methodologies which are to be adopted are not usually broadly explained or clearly stated. Learning any subject content in a language that is not the L1 for any of the process participants (students and lecturers) is undoubtedly challenging. It is about developing knowledge and understanding evidence, facts, processes and structures as well as interpreting, comparing, contrasting and evaluating sources, and being able to explain the causes and consequences of those facts and processes. All of this must be done through the use of manuals, documents and materials produced in a language that is not the mother tongue. In the CLIL approach, content materials need to be accommodated, understanding accommodation of the curriculum to be the extra support to level the playing field for the students with changes in factors such as timing, setting and format but always keeping the goals and objectives of the subject/course (Harrison et al. 2013). One of the aspects of CLIL programmes that has aroused and is still arousing controversy is assessment. This is probably one of the least

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developed areas of CLIL (Massler 2011) compared to classroom delivery and implementation of activities, and it does not have clear institutional regulations or these vary from one organization to the other. CLIL assessment should follow a dual focus on language and content and take into account the goals, competences and objectives of two elements, language and content. For this to happen, both the content teacher and the language teacher should work together on a team-teaching approach (Darn 2006), which means they should have a close collaboration and a clear distribution of roles and the tasks to be covered. This organization should be established in advance, prior to any classroom exposure, and include considerations that involve the assessment of the CLIL programme (Llinares et al. 2012). The current study presents a CLIL teaching model applied to the Computer Science classroom at a Spanish university based on the dual focus approach and a team-teaching model. The distribution of ECTS and the hours of English language exposure, the assessment rubrics developed for the final task, and the inconveniences encountered are described in the chapter. Reflections regarding the preparedness of content teachers and university students to a CLIL teaching model are discussed. The analysis shows the need to accommodate content syllabuses to CLIL practices and examines the evaluation controversy about CLIL programmes. I aim to provide an organized and progressive CLIL programme integration in and evaluation of the university curricular design in Computer Science.

2

The Study

This chapter focuses on the description of CLIL practice in a university in the Valencian Community (Spain), where collaboration between content and language teachers is a reality and where joint criteria for content and language evaluation are taken into account to achieve a balanced assessment. In this study, CLIL is understood as “a dualfocussed educational approach in which an additional language is used for the learning and teaching of both content and language” (Maljers et al. 2007: 8). In every CLIL teaching practice, both language and

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content should be priorities with clearly established goals. The methodology followed needs to accommodate teaching and evaluate both language and content. In this line, a strict collaboration between content and language specialists should take place to offer a complete learning experience. This envisages a multidisciplinary context where lecturers need to reshape their attitudes about the way they teach as well as reflect on language issues that are usually ignored in regular content classes. Some of the common questions about CLIL teaching practices have to do with the English level requirement for content lecturers and for students. In the context of the current chapter, the university incorporating CLIL has published a document called Language Level Requirements for Researchers and Lecturers in Order to Enhance Teaching in English (2020), in which it can be read that the minimum level required to teach in English is a C1 level according to the CEFR. Content lecturers have up to five years to achieve this requirement if they did not have it when recruited as staff and they intend to teach their content subjects in English. C1 should be considered a sufficient level to teach lessons in English; however, initially, not many of the university lecturers in Spain have this level. When it comes to students, the institution provides a Guide for Multilingual Teaching (2017), in which it can be read that students enrolled in a content subject taught in English are recommended to have a B1.2 English level when the subject is in the first cycle (1st and 2nd years) and a B2.1 if the subject is offered during the second cycle (3rd and 4th years). In contrast to the teachers, however, the language level for students is not a requirement but a recommendation. The language level of the students varies and this is why universities worldwide have developed training programmes and English courses for their lecturers and students in order to guarantee the internationalization of universities. The university where the CLIL teaching practice presented here takes place, introduced measures to enhance multilingual teaching through a Guide for Multilingual Teaching approved in 2017. This document urges the inclusion of content subjects taught in English in every degree up to 5% of its total credits, excluding the English language subject that all degrees generally offer to first-year students. That is, all degrees should provide content subjects taught in English, effectively and with

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guarantees until reaching the 5% of credits. Which subjects to implement in English, or which cycle they should be in is up to each degree commission. The document also recommends collaboration between the language and the content lecturers in the CLIL subjects offered. Published literature on CLIL has largely supported the idea of teaching practices and full collaboration between language and discipline specialists (Greere and Räsänen 2008; Lester and Evans 2009; Pavón et al. 2014; Baeten and Simons 2014; Carpenter et al. 2007). The language and content lecturers should agree on how much English is going to be used and what is going to be taught in class. Content subject understanding can be affected by students’ limited language knowledge, which may eventually affect the final output; this is why assessment must be accurately planned and tasks and activates carefully selected. To overcome this and other problems, a dual focus team-teaching approach is fundamental in the CLIL classroom. By and large, educational institutions and governments worldwide have developed various multilingual and internationalization policies that serve as guidance for the educational community. However, they are not enough to guarantee that the content-based lessons are being taught accurately and that the teaching process is successful. Moreover, content lecturers involved in CLIL programmes see how their teaching time preparation increases, not only because they need extra time for the selection and accommodation of activities and teaching materials but also because the number of students’ queries, doubts and sometimes complaints regarding the use of English as the vehicular language increase too. The section that follows describes the CLIL practice context for a group of Computer Science Engineering students in their last year at a Spanish university in the Valencian Community where English is the additional language coexisting with two official languages, the local language (Valencian) and the national language (Spanish).

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Context and Participants The following study takes place at a public European university located in the Valencian Community for the Computer Science Engineering degree where some of the curricular subjects, following university institutional policies, need to be taught in English, totally or partially, using the CLIL approach. The subjects under study are included in the 2nd cycle of the degree in their 4th and last year. The subjects, both of them electives, take place in the academic year; the first subject Networks and Mobile Devices is a first-term subject whereas Software Engineering Workshop takes place during the second term. There are not many students, an average of 12 students per subject, in either of the two subjects due to their elective profile. This is, without a doubt, a decisive factor for the CLIL methodological approach and an advantage for language and content lecturers who can personalize their teaching and revise the learning process more closely. The Computer Engineering degree at the university under study is delivered in four academic years and lessons in English gain importance over the years. In their first year, students have a compulsory subject called English for Computer Science Engineering, which is taught by an English lecturer. This is an ESP subject whose contents have the primary objective of providing students with terminology, texts and situations related to their field of study in English. This subject is considered essential; the contents are fundamental and lead to future content subjects taught in English. In this respect, some authors have pointed out the vital role of ESP lectures in the implementation of content-based programmes since “the integration of content and language is inextricably linked to ESP” (Arnó-Macià and Mancho-Barés 2015: 64). ESP course designers can help to adapt courses and make them relevant to the discipline needs of students and, at the same time, they can provide assistance to develop undergrad students’ proficiency in English. This model is the one observed in this teaching experience, and the ESP teacher collaborates with the Computer Science content lecturer when making decisions on the practical issues involving the CLIL lessons: activities, standards and assessment criteria. The presence of English in later content lessons is done progressively and organized

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according to the four skills: Reading, writing, listening and speaking, in that order, during the academic years. Thus, apart from the ESP subject English for Computer Science Engineers in the first year, some of the content subjects in the following years include activities and tasks which have to be delivered and done in English in the students’ final evaluation. In the second year, two subjects introduce readings (research article journals, popular science texts, technical texts, etc.) in English that students have to read and work with; a final task is also required which involves technical writing in English. In the third year of the degree, two content subjects include in their syllabus activities and tasks to be evaluated that include listening abilities in English as well as English texts, being the summation of the English learnt during the years of study. In the fourth and last year of the degree, the two subjects already mentioned and studied in this chapter are offered to students: Networks and Mobile Devices and Software Engineering Workshop in the first and second term, respectively. These fourth-year subjects include a final task consisting of a project presentation in English, putting much emphasis at this stage on speaking fluency. Students have been trained in the English terminology and functional language in their field of study, that is, Computer Engineering, and have read field-specialized texts in English. They have produced English written texts as well as practised their English listening abilities in contextualized Computer Science situations. Finally, in their fourth year, they put everything they have learnt together to practice their language delivery in English by developing a project according to the subject content learnt in class and presenting it to their classmates using English as the vehicular language. To guarantee the adequacy of the English activities selected, the suitability of the English level, the number of hours of work required for students, the evaluation criteria and other important pedagogical aspects in all the subjects described above, the English lecturer works hand in hand with the content lecturer. Unlike other content-based instruction practices where the language and content teachers’ collaboration is voluntary and an individual personal initiative, here the Computer Science Engineering curriculum shares the number of teaching credits (ECTS) between the two lecturers following the institutional language policy mentioned above albeit the English lecturer is assigned a minor part of the total subject credits allotted within the subject evaluation.

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The Teaching Experience The subjects described in this chapter are offered to future Computer Science Engineers in the second cycle of the degree, concretely in their last year (4th year). According to the language policies described above, this means that undergrad students at this point are recommended to have a B2.1 Level (CEFR) to be able to follow the lessons in English. Materials and lessons are provided to students in English, although Spanish or the local language (Valencian) can be used in the classroom in case any clarification is needed and to avoid misunderstandings. One of the advantages of CLIL is the maintenance of multilingualism in contexts where more than one language coexists, as is the case with dominant and minority languages (Serra 2007). The students read and listen to the lecturers’ explanations in English and try to discuss in English to stimulate their cognitive and linguistic skills under the guidance of the content lecturer, who should have a C1 level of English (or at least a B2) at the moment of teaching. The ESP language teacher supervises the materials given to the students and revises their level adequacy as well as provides support to the content teacher to meet their needs. Both subjects have a total number of 6 ECTS credits, which means 150 working hours, most of the credits being allotted to the content lecturer and distributed among different activities. The syllabuses for the two subjects are distributed according to theoretical and seminar sessions, sessions focused on the evaluation of the outcomes, individual work and practical sessions delivered in the laboratories. The credits assigned to the English lecturer correspond to the evaluation process (see Tables 1 and 2 for subject activities and hours distribution). EI1057 Networks and Mobile Devices

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Table 1 Types of activities and hours distribution for the subject Networks and Mobile Devices Activities Theory Seminar Evaluation Individual work Exam preparation Practical sessions (lab) TOTAL hours

Teaching hours (face-to-face)

Distance or Autonomous learning

28 4 4

– – – 72 20

22 58

92

EI1049 Software Engineering Workshop Table 2 Types of activities and hours distribution for the subject Software Engineering Workshop Activities

Teaching hours (face-to-face)

Distance or Autonomous learning

Theory Seminar Evaluation Individual work Exam preparation Practical sessions (lab) TOTAL hours

6 7 2 – – 31 46

– – – 104 – – 104

As can be seen in Tables 1 and 2, the subjects under study, despite having the same number of working hours, require different hour distribution depending on the activity to be developed. The first-term subject, Networks and Mobile Devices, is quite balanced as regards the number of theoretical and laboratory sessions in contrast to the second-term subject, Software Engineering Workshop, which is basically a practical subject where mainly individual work, derived from the practical laboratory sessions, is required. The hours committed to evaluation processes are very similar in the two subjects, with 4 and 2 evaluation hours, respectively. This information is included in the course syllabus, which is an essential and official document that attests to and warrants the quality of the educational process and subject delivery. It must be a detailed and

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public document that includes an extensive description of the subject distribution as well as all the details related to teaching procedures and assessment. In the case of a CLIL teaching practice, the syllabus must be very specific as to the competences students should gain and the expected outcomes, including subject content and language learning. Looking at the official syllabuses of the subjects analysed here, we can observe that in the case of the first-term subject, Networks and Mobile Devices, a competence regarding the English language has been included: Ability to communicate orally and to write in English in the field of information and communication technologies. As for learning outcomes, it is clearly stated that students must write and present in English a computer application manual for mobile devices and networks that will be evaluated. The following table describes the competences and learning outcomes displayed for Networks and Mobile Devices; the first competence and learning outcome number 1 corresponds to the English language (see Table 3). As regards the second-term subject Software Engineering Workshop, Table 4 shows that the first competence coincides with the previous subject, urging students to be able to communicate and write specific texts in English. Accordingly, the first learning outcome insists on developing a project and prepare an oral presentation in English to be delivered to the rest of the class (see Table 4). Table 3 Competences and learning outcomes for the subject Networks and Mobile Devices Competences 1. Ability to communicate orally and to write in English in the field of information and communication technologies 2. Ability to design and implement system and communication software 3. Ability to design, deploy, administer and manage computer networks Learning Outcomes 1. Understanding the computer applications that can be developed with mobile devices 2. Knowing the computer architectures that allow the design of a mobile device system (embedded system) 3. Knowing how to design applications on mobile devices and networks 4. Writing and presenting in English a computer application manual for mobile devices and networks

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Table 4 Competences and learning outcomes for the subject of Software Engineering Software Competences 1. Ability to communicate orally and to write in English in the field of information and communication technologies 2. Teamwork ability, respect for diversity, equity and gender equality 3. Ability to assess customer needs and specify software requirements to meet these needs 4. Ability to solve integration problems based on available strategies, standards and technologies 5. Ability to identify and analyse problems and design, develop, implement, verify and document software solutions based on adequate knowledge of current theories, models and techniques 6. Ability to identify, evaluate and manage the potential associated risks that may arise 7. Ability to design appropriate solutions in one or more application domains using software engineering methods that integrate ethical, social, legal and economic aspects Learning Outcomes 1. Work on and present in English the development and main results of the project 2. Perform the planning, execution and control of a software development project, subject to temporary, economic, technological restrictions and the availability of human resources 3. Select, apply and integrate the methodologies, techniques and software engineering tools appropriate to the requirements analysis, design, implementation and evaluation of a software system 4. Teamwork in a software project development, and assume the different roles necessary to execute them

As seen, the CLIL teaching practice presented through the two 4th year subjects in the Computer Science Engineering degree is an example of the integration of language and content subject issues for tertiary education. The distribution of language and subject contents follows university policy but adapts the teaching practice to the subject credit distribution and type of activities exposed. The curricular design is the result of cooperation between the ESP language lecturers and the content teachers. Alternatives were examined and selections made according to lecturers’ experience, subject knowledge and language use. The success of the teaching experience can probably be observed in the final step of the process, that of assessment. The joint collaboration when assessing students and the right distribution of the evaluation criteria

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between content and language learning will show the achievements of the teaching experience. The next section describes the assessment followed in each of the subjects according to the competences and learning outcomes seen.

Assessment CLIL assessment is a complex process. There are two assessment processes involved where the language and the subject should be “assessed at the same time and through the same task and activities” (Kiely 2009). Some of the most common problems encountered when assessing CLIL practices are related to which type of assessment to choose and whether traditional types of assessment are suitable to measure students’ content and language achievements (Hönig 2010). Another worrying issue is how to reach a balanced assessment between subject and language contents. The objective of this teaching practice is to present an integrated assessment of students—a single instead of two separate assessment processes. The teachers’ skills and collaboration are essential in the pursuit of this aim. The Guide for Multilingual Teaching (2017), which applies at the university under study, introduces a section for evaluation in CLIL practices by noting In the case of English, evaluation in content and language integration contexts is not easy or unique. It will often be inevitable that content teachers need to evaluate linguistic aspects related to comprehension of texts and oral speech. (…) in terms of skills in written and oral production, it would be better to have the collaboration of expert English teachers, not only for their ability to correct but also for the possibility of making comments and recommendation to improve students’ linguistic level. Ideally, as far as possible, it would be advisable to use the same products (tasks and/or activities) in order to evaluate linguistic (specific English language) and content (subject taught in English) knowledge. (2017: 13)

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Thus, the same assessment for language and content seems to be the right option, but which type of assessment to choose appears to be a slightly more difficult task. Teachers can opt for assessment as a measurement or assessment for learning. The former has been described as summative assessment where “the goal is to determine either the level of a student or the extent to which specific content language has been learned” (Kiely 2009: 3). This type of assessment usually takes place at the end of the course or the academic year. The second type, assessment for learning, also called formative assessment and aims at developing students’ learning opportunities. In Ross’s words: Assessment episodes are not considered punctual summations of learning success or failure as ongoing formation of the cumulative confidence, awareness and self-realisation learners may gain in their collaborative engagement with tasks. (2005: 319)

The assessment proposed in the two subjects under study here aims at emphasizing the role of the students and enhancing learning rather than determining their level. However, the evaluation procedures have to fit into the institutional policy and therefore a final joint evaluation is proposed. Both content and language lecturers aim at observing learners’ progress through their performance on specific outcomes. Observation of students is essential based on teachers’ experience and understanding. One of the advantages of this CLIL teaching proposal is that the language focus is on the target language and language use rather than the language level proficiency; the students are not provided with English level certificates. Instead, the aim is to provide a meaning context for the use of language so that students can gain confidence in and motivation for content and language. To pass Networks and Mobile Devices, students must cover the following parts. The oral presentation of a project in English corresponds to 15% out of the total assessment. As shown in Table 5, the first-term subject combines summative assessment with formative assessment. Summative assessment is realized through a final exam and a presentation in English. The oral presentation in English is strictly linked to the practical laboratory sessions where the students have developed a project by designing network applications on

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Android devices. The project, which has already been written in English, is eventually presented in class through an English oral presentation. Continuous formative assessment includes the realization of activities related to the theoretical and practical contents completed during the term. When possible, time flexibility is provided to students. The final grade is obtained from the global weighted average of all the parts, defining a minimum of 5 out of 10 for the global assessment. In some of the parts considered in the final assessment, a minimum result of 4 out of 10 has been set; these are, according to Table 5, continuous assessment, laboratory sessions and exam. No minimum is defined for the oral presentation in English. In the case of Software Engineering Workshop, the evaluation grid is reduced to two main parts. Students must develop a software project that will later be implemented and evaluated; this part corresponds to 85% of the total assessment. A final oral presentation based on the project developed will be presented in English; this is 15% of the total evaluation (see Table 6). Content knowledge and language abilities are evaluated; students have been observed in the laboratory session while developing their projects, and English is present all along the process. To pass the subject, the Table 5 Assessment type in Networks and Mobile Devices Assessment type Continuous assessment Exam Oral presentation in English Laboratory sessions Total

30% 30% 15% 25% 100%

Table 6 Assessment type for Software Engineering Workshop Assessment type Software project Oral presentation in English Total

85% 15% 100%

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global weighted average, including the project and the English presentation grades, needs to be equal or above 5 (out of a maximum of 10), and where a minimum of 4 is established for the project. As in the first-term subject, no minimum is defined for the English presentation. In short, both subjects include projects to be developed and presented in English. The students are distributed along several days and allotted 15 to 20 minutes to present their projects. These have been prepared in groups where a minimum of two and a maximum of four members are allowed. During the term the content lecturers explain what is expected from the students’ projects and give guidelines, describing how they should be developed. It is here that the ESP lecturer also comes in. In both of the subjects, the English lecturer delivers at least two face-toface class sessions. These sessions aim to get to know students personally and to provide them with the necessary materials to succeed in their final oral presentations in English. The materials the English lecturer provides students with include: (1) guidelines for effective presentations in English, (2) Tips with dos and don’ts for oral presentations and (3) Linguistic resources such as specialized and general on-line dictionaries, glossaries of specialized terminology, discourse makers for structuring speech and strategies for oral presentations. Pronunciation and fluency are stressed in class and students are asked to audio check the correct pronunciation of words with the tools provided. In essence, the aim is to provide students with procedural strategies for the presentation and tools for the use of language, which will enhance their proficiency. Some students with a low English proficiency see how their final assessment can be affected by their low English performance, and this generates anxiety. The English lecturer tries to motivate students and increase their selfconfidence. It is in these English sessions that the evaluation rubric used for the final presentation is introduced (see Appendix). In order to assess the final oral presentation in English, the ESP lecturer has developed an evaluation rubric that has been negotiated with the content lecturer. Aspects regarding language proficiency are included but also aspects related to how the presentation is performed and students’ social abilities along with the adequacy of the contents learnt in the content lessons. The evaluation rubric (see Appendix) is graded in a continuum: excellent, good, fair and poor, for a total of eight

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items, including language issues such as pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar, content, body language, eye contact, use of visual material and creativity. As can be observed in the rubric, some items assess necessary linguistics abilities, these items (pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary) have a significant substantial weight compared to the other items. However, as the intention is not to perform just a summative assessment but to take into consideration other aspects of students’ enhanced learning, also items related to non-verbal communication and social skills have been introduced in the rubric—body language and poise, and creativity. Content is also evaluated according to the adequacy of the topics and guidelines given for the project development. It is essential to highlight that the assessment of the English oral presentation is done in collaboration with the content and the language lecturers, although the linguistic items are mostly evaluated by the English lecturer. The students’ presentations are audio recorded—they are informed of this beforehand and understand this is an evaluative task so it must be that way, following norms. The recording enables a better assessment and is useful in case of later student revisions. The presentation (PowerPoint, Prezi or other formats) is also observed and the organization of information, the accuracy of writing, spelling mistakes and the correct use of visual materials are evaluated. Up to now, the rubric presented and used for the CLIL practices in the subjects Software Engineering Workshop and Networks and Mobile Devices in the Computer Engineering degree has proven useful. Clear and unbiased results have been given. The students have accepted this rubric, which is given to them in advance of the presentation, to adapt their presentations for a successful result. Other types and possibilities of joint assessment in CLIL practices can be assumed; however, the assessment organization described in this chapter is an example of a dual-focused CLIL practice where teamwork between content and language lecturers is effective and real, the model of integration is plainly developed and the outcomes clearly stated and understood.

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Conclusion

In this chapter, I have described a CLIL teaching practice at a Valencian university (Spain) through the description of two 4th year subjects in Computer Science Engineering. The subjects, taught in English, render an example of a CLIL dual focus approach where teamwork between content and language teacher is a reality and where criteria for content and language evaluation are collaboratively chosen to achieve a balanced assessment between content and language. Some authors have indicated that interaction between content and language lecturers is not frequent in CLIL lessons, probably due to a traditional lack of interaction between disciplines (Räisänen 2009); however, in the teaching experience described, this does not occur. The collaboration between the ESP lecture and the Computer Science lecturer is neatly described in the curricular syllabus and the distribution of ECTS credits and amount hours per task detailed. The results of this CLIL teaching practice seem positive as to the outcomes pursued and the assessment processes established. The institutional policy reviewed and in force has helped as a guide for the enhancement of the CLIL practice; however, if close collaboration between language and content lecturers does not take place or if this collaboration is unsatisfactory, it would be difficult to design a clear syllabus with specific outcomes and a successful assessment process. Although unable to discard summative assessment due to the university institutional policy and curricular scheduling, the CLIL assessment proposed in this chapter has aimed more at assessment for learning, as evident in the evaluation rubric displayed (see Appendix). The students must demonstrate their skills and abilities and show the knowledge and understanding gained and learnt. Content and language lecturers together observe the students’ performance and the processes are assessed according to the lecturers’ experience and judgements integrating language and content subject assessments. The teaching practice described here can aid future content and ESP lecturers who wish to explore CLIL lessons and do not know how to. Language policy on multilingualism, whether international, national or local, can sometimes be wordy and unclear. The real CLIL classroom

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involves many challenges and complicated concerns that need to be illustrated to shed some light on the process. Teaching experiences such as the one illustrated here can support lecturers designing or accommodating the university curriculum for a successful CLIL experience.

Appendix Evaluation Rubric model

The presentation has no grammar mistakes

Addresses all or more of the topics on the assignment sheet Student displays relaxed, self-confident nature, with no mistakes

Vocabulary and grammar 25p

Grammar mistakes and types (slides) 20p

Content 15p

Eye contact 10p

Holds attention of entire audience with the use of direct eye contact

Pronounces all words correctly and speaks clearly. Appropriately uses correct vocabulary and grammar Appropriately uses correct vocabulary and grammar

Pronunciation 25p

Body language and poise 10p

Excellent (10-9)

Category

Displayed minimal eye contact with audience

Addresses between 40 and 50% of the topics on the assignment sheet Displays some level of inflection throughout delivery

Sometimes appropriately uses correct vocabulary and grammar The presentation has 3 grammar mistakes

Appropriately uses correct vocabulary and grammar most of the time The presentation has no more than 2 grammar mistakes Addresses most of the assigned topics on the assignment sheet Makes minor mistakes, but quickly recovers from them: displays little or no tension Consistent use of eye contact with audience

Speaks clearly; mispronounces some words. Uses some correct vocabulary and grammar

Fair (5-4)

Pronounces most of the words correctly and speaks clearly. Uses some correct vocabulary and grammar

Good (8-6)

No eye contact with audience

Addresses less of 40% on the topics on the assignment sheet Consistently uses a monotone voice

Difficult to understand, is struggling or mispronounces most words. Does not use correct vocabulary and grammar Rarely uses or does not appropriately use correct vocabulary and grammar The presentation has 4 or more grammar mistakes

Poor (3-0)

(continued)

Comments

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Use of graphics, tables and images 20p

Total score: 150

Creativity 15

Excellent (10-9)

Includes visual elements such as tables, illustrations and graphs. Images are relevant to the topic, have the right size, are of good quality and increase the readerâe™s interest Presents the material creatively and spontaneously

Category

(continued) Good (8-6)

There is some kind of originality, with good choice of text and graphics

Includes visual elements such as tables, illustrations and graphs. Images are not relevant to the topic or do not have the right size

Fair (5-4)

Little or no variation; little originality and interpretation

The visuals are poor and do not help the presentation. The images are randomly selected, are of poor quality and distract the reader

Poor (3-0)

Repetitive with little or no variety

No visual elements

Comments

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Llinares, A., Morton, T., & Whittaker, R. (2012). The roles of language in CLIL. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Maljers, A., Marsh, D., & Wolff, D. (Eds.). (2007). Foreword: Windows on CLIL. In Content and Language Integrated Learning in the European Spotlight (p. 178). Alkmaar: The European Platform for Dutch Education. Massler, U. (2011). Assessment in CLIL learning. In S. Ioannou-Georgiou & P. Pavlou (Eds.), Guidelines for CLIL implementation in primary and preprimary education (pp. 114–136). PRO-CLIL Project. Socrates-Comenius. EU Education and Culture. Pavón, V., Ávila, J., Gallego, A., & Espejo, R. (2014). Strategic and organisational considerations in planning CLIL: A study on the coordination between content and language teachers. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 18, 409–425. Ross, S. (2005). The impact of assessment method on foreign language proficiency growth. Applied Linguistics, 26 (3), 317–342. Räisänen, C. (2009). Integrating content and language, in theory…in practice: Some reflections. In E. de Otto & A. López de Vergara Mendez (Coord.), Las lenguas para fines específicos ante el reto de la Convergencia Europea. 8th International AELFE Conference (pp. 33–41). La Laguna, Spain: Servicio de Publicaciones. Serra, C. (2007). Assessing CLIL in primary school: A longitudinal study. The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 10 (5), 582– 602. Universitat Jaume I. (2017). Guia per a la docència multilingüe de la Universitat Jaume I/Guide for Multilingual Teaching at Universitat Jaume I . Retrieved from: https://documents.uji.es/alfresco/d/d/workspace/SpacesStore/7fc db455-e8e7-40d2-9469-02e1cd110f19/manual+multilingue+vincles.pdf? guest=true. Universitat Jaume I. (2020). Nivells linguistics del personal docent I investigador de la Universitat Jaume I per a impulsar la docència en valencià o en anglès./Language level requirements for researchers and lecturers in order to enhance teaching in English. Retrieved from: https://ujiapps.uji.es/ade/rest/ storage/VSWEECXBEMRYOQGAEWDOQ720KSAWQWU5. Weinberg, L., & Symon, M. (2017). Crossing borders: The challenges and benefits of a collaborative approach to course development involving content and language specialists in different countries. In J. Valcke & R. Wilkinson (Eds.), Integrating content and language in higher education: Perspectives on professional practice (pp. 135–150). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.

Essential Framework for Planning CLIL Lessons and Teachers’ Attitudes Toward the Methodology Francisco J. Álvarez-Gil

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Introduction

The main objective of this study is two-fold. On the one hand, we offer an overview of the essential concepts linked to CLIL methodology and how to put them into practice when creating a CLIL module. The reason for this is that in the survey and interviews of the primary teachers who participated in this study, most of them stated that they had difficulties when trying to apply the theoretical aspects they had learnt in formative courses dealing with CLIL methodology in their didactic programming. On the other hand, we carried out a survey on primary teachers working with CLIL in order to discern the main struggles they face when employing this methodology in primary school lessons; their attitudes towards the methodology are also scrutinized. F. J. Álvarez-Gil (B) Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Las Palmas, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 M. L. Carrió-Pastor and B. Bellés Fortuño (eds.), Teaching Language and Content in Multicultural and Multilingual Classrooms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56615-9_12

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The principal reason for conducting this study is that we hypothesize that the CLIL training that teachers are receiving in different educative levels, although in this case, we have focused on primary education, is not enough and, therefore, teachers have difficulties implementing this methodological approach in their lessons. The structure of the study is as follows: firstly, we talk about how bilingual education is being promoted in the European Union. Secondly, the essential concepts of CLIL methodological approach are presented in a literature review. Then, through the use of a survey completed by primary school teachers, we analyse the most frequent struggles they face when employing CLIL and their attitudes towards this methodology. Finally, the results are presented and discussed, and we end with concluding remarks and possible further research due to the limitations of the present study.

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Bilingual Education in Europe

The Cambridge Online Dictionary defines the concept of bilingualism as “the fact of being able to use two languages equally well”.The European Union and the Council of Europe pursue bilingualism through different policies on language aimed at promoting unity among the nations belonging to the European Higher Education Area. The European reality indicates that, unlike other regions in Europe, many languages are spoken within short distances and, therefore, the promotion of bilingualism is a way of creating closer ties among neighbouring countries. It is in this spirit that they decided to develop tools such as The European Language Portfolio and The Common European Framework of Reference, among others. The European Council created the Common European Framework of Reference as a response to some needs of the European Union in which a large number of languages were used. This framework is a way of defining different levels of linguistic competence as well as the different skills that should be evaluated at each level. Nevertheless, the most relevant aspect is that it could be applied to any of the diverse languages employed

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in Europe. The skills are divided into reading comprehension, listening comprehension, written expression, oral expression and oral interaction. Before the introduction of this framework, the linguistic levels were established randomly by academies, printing houses, etc. without the standard criteria that make the validation of studies in other places possible. The scale used in the CEFR classifies users into Basic User, Independent User and Proficient User according to their level. In order to identify users’ command of a specific language, a six-level scale is employed: beginners and basic level (A1 and A2), intermediate and upper-intermediate level (B1 and B2), and finally, advanced and proficiency levels (C1 and C2).1 One of the main reasons for the implementation of this methodology relates precisely to the European policies concerning the promotion of multilingualism among the European Union member states. This promotion has been carried out through diverse programmes, the most well-known being the Erasmus Programme, which is directed to tertiary level students enrolled in graduate, postgraduate and doctoral studies as well as vocational training pupils. Moreover, nowadays, in some European countries, such as Spain, intermediate knowledge of the English language is required in order to have access to formal postgraduate studies. Due to this interest in training students to be bilingual, numerous studies dealing with different methodologies to achieve this objective have been carried out during the last decades. Studies focused on CLIL methodology include Coyle (2006), Coyle et al. (2010), Deller and Price (2007), Eurydice (2006), Julián (2013), Karim and Rahman (2016), Marsh (1994), Mehisto et al. (2008), Naves and Muñoz (2000), Pavón and Gaustad (2013), Pérez-Vidal (2009), and Savic (2010). There are other studies more focused on teaching specific subjects using CLIL, such as the study conducted by Fernández (2009) related to the teaching of physical education in a foreign language. Additionally, there is a new tendency to analyse the teachers’ perspectives, attitudes, expectations, etc. and thus, several studies deal with this 1The

CEFR Levels: https://www.coe.int/en/web/common-european-framework-reference-langua ges/level-descriptions.

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aspect and concern the implementation of CLIL methodology at diverse educative levels, from school education to higher education. Some examples are Alcaraz-Mármol (2018), Fernández-Fernández et al. (2005), Fleta (2016), Fortanet-Gómez (2012), Johnson (2012), McDougald (2015), Pavón and Rubio (2010), and Sancho-Esper et al. (2016), among others. Other works have made a more extensive analysis as they have focused attention not only on the teachers’ beliefs and attitudes but also on those of the learners and parents: Dafouz et al. (2007), Massler (2012), and Yassin et al. (2009). Finally, works which focus on the training of teachers in CLIL methodology have also been recently carried out, such as the ones by Hillyard (2011) and Martín del Pozo (2015). The countless studies which are more focused on the participants than the methodology itself reflect the importance of auto evaluation by the learners as well as the teachers. Actually, one of the essential objectives of all these studies is to analyse how this methodology is being put into practice and to look for the aspects that are not efficient so as to enhance the teaching-learning processes.

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Essential Concepts and Taxonomies Related to CLIL

CLIL is a dual-focused educational approach in which an additional language, generally English, is used for the learning and teaching of both content and language. Therefore, in this methodological approach, a foreign language is employed to convey the content of a determined nonlinguistic subject such as, for instance, technology or natural sciences. In fact, in the teaching and learning processes, there is a focus not merely on either the content or on language but on both of them. Each is intertwined, even if it is true that sometimes the emphasis is higher on one or the other at a given time. CLIL should not be seen as a new way of teaching a foreign language, and it is not a new form of subject education either. Actually, it is considered an innovative combination of both (Coyle et al. 2010). In the field of bilingual methodologies, which is continuously evolving, there are many other methodological approaches, but it can

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be claimed that CLIL, at least in Spain, is the most well-known of all of them. However, it is frequently confused with others due to the fact that, as Cenoz et al. (2013) claimed, “the scope of CLIL is not clearcut and, as a consequence, its core features cannot be clearly identified” (p. 247). Content-based instruction is one of the methodologies with which it is often confused, but we should clarify that in the case of this content-based instruction, the teaching process is focused solely on content learning and not on the learning of the language, which can be frequently considered almost as supplementary or minor. When preparing a CLIL module of any non-linguistic subject, there are some theories we should take into consideration. The most extended and reputed is the 4Cs conceptual theory developed by Do Coyle (1999). This author introduced the 4Cs Conceptual Framework: content, cognition, communication and culture, which are considered by many scholars to be the fundamental pillars of the correct practice of CLIL methodology and thus should be taken into account by teachers who employ this methodology. Apart from the 4Cs of the original framework, another one has been added as it has proved to be essential for any communicative act—context.

Content The content of a specific subject has not only to do with the acquisition of knowledge but also with the promotion of the creation of one’s own learning by the students, enabling them to understand and develop their own learning strategies. The main objective is that they develop a personalized way of learning.

Culture Whenever a foreign language is taught, in this case, English, it is positive to include in our programming some socio-cultural aspects of the countries where that language is spoken, but in a consistent manner and not merely in a sporadic way since cultural issues constitute an essential part of the context in which communicative acts take place.

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Many scholars and researchers, such as Byram and Grundy (2003), De Mingo-Izquierdo (2016), Stern (1992), Bennett and Bennett (2004), and Migdadi (2008), among others, have highlighted the close relationship between language and culture and the need to integrate cultural components in the teaching of a foreign language as it brings numerous benefits for students; obviously, CLIL is not an exception. In order to understand the importance of integrating the cultural element into the teaching of English as a foreign language, it is essential to analyse the relationship between culture and language. The Cambridge Dictionary defines language as “the words and way of speaking, writing, etc. usually connected with a particular group of people, etc.”. The terms culture and language are interrelated as has been claimed by many scholars, such as Hoang-Thu (2010) and Wardhaugh (2010), who includes in his work some of the different positions adopted with regard to the relationship between culture and language over the years. One of the perspectives argues that the structure of a language can determine how speakers of that language conceive reality. Another position on the relationship between culture and language states that the structure of the language predisposes speakers of that language to adopt specific views on reality, thereby softening the previous view. Finally, a third position affirms that there is no relationship between language and culture. However, this latter position is not widely supported. The perspective followed in this study is the one of linguist’ Douglas Brown (2007), who states that learning a foreign language also means learning a new culture, and expressed the relationship between the terms culture and language in the following way: It is apparent that culture, as an ingrained set of behaviors and modes of perception, becomes highly important in the learning of a second language. A language is a part of a culture, and a culture is a part of a language: the two are intricately interwoven so that one cannot separate the two without losing the significance of either language or culture. The acquisition of a second language, except for specialized, instrumental acquisition (as may be the case, say, in acquiring a reading knowledge of a

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language for examining scientific texts), is also the acquisition of a second culture. (2007: 189–190)

The awareness of how essential it is to promote the learner’s cultural competence is not new; in fact, in Spain, it was recognized by the Spanish government by means of a Royal Decree 1631/2006, on 29 December in which the objectives of the secondary education level were established, and among others, we can find the following: • To develop the necessary skills in the use of information sources in order to acquire new knowledge with a critical eye. To acquire a basic preparation in the field of technologies, especially those of information and communication. • Develop entrepreneurial spirit and self-confidence, participation, critical thinking, personal initiative and the ability to learn how to learn, plan, make decisions and assume responsibilities. • Understand and express themselves in one or more foreign languages in an appropriate manner. • Know, value and respect the fundamental aspects of one’s own and others’ culture and history, as well as artistic and cultural heritage. The need for students to acquire a range of basic skills in order to develop their competences not only professionally and socially but also personally is becoming increasingly noticeable. Therefore, the education of students must adapt to the new demands of society. In the case of secondary education in Spain, there are seven key competencies: linguistic communication, mathematical competence and basic competences in science and technology, digital competence, learning to learn, social and civic competences, sense of initiative and entrepreneurial spirit, and, finally, cultural awareness and expressions. These key competences should be integrated into the different subjects of the curricular proposals. The greatest difficulty when including the cultural elements in these lessons is to select the most relevant contents to be taught due to the quantity of material. As scholar Nieto (2010) explains in her book Language, Culture and Teaching: Critical Perspectives:

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Culture is complex and intricate; it cannot be reduced to holidays, foods, or dances, although these are of course elements of culture. Everyone has a culture because all people participate in the world through social and political relationships informed by history as well as by race, ethnicity, language, social class, sexual orientation, gender, and other circumstances related to identity and experience. (2010: 9)

Therefore, the cultural contents selected must be relevant, varied, motivating and up to date. Showing students untrue information, for instance, aspects that are actually cultural stereotypes, which is a common mistake in numerous didactic materials, is to be avoided. The cultural content given to students cannot be based, under any circumstances, on unfounded ideas or cultural stereotypes. Furthermore, De Mingo-Izquierdo (2016) affirms that: […] teaching culture in the EFL classroom means not only teaching about those products of the English speaking culture such as literature or history, but also about the system of values from which they come and how the members of the societies that possess them socially interact. (2016: 81)

Cognition The relevance of the cognitive dimension in CLIL methodology lies in the principle that students build their knowledge; in any class, this generally takes place when they interact with other students as well as with their teachers. However, not all the mandated tasks request the same level of cognitive demand, and that is why it is so relevant to distinguish between lower-order thinking skills (henceforth, LOTS) and higher-order thinking skills (henceforth, HOTS). Several studies have analysed and identified the thinking processes that can be involved in classroom tasks; one pioneering work in this respect is that carried out by Bloom et al. (1956). In Bloom et al.’s proposal, the different learning tasks have been organized gradually according to their level of cognitive demand. Other studies, such as the one published by Anderson and Krathwohl (2001), have revised Bloom et al.’s theory. The objective of

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the studies mentioned above is basically the same, that is to say, to establish which abilities belong to the so-called group of LOTS, because they are considered to be less cognitively demanding, and which ones belong to the group of HOTS as they are more cognitively demanding. Moreover, within the two groups, there are also different levels of difficulty, as can be seen in the following graphic in which they are organized from the less demanding ones in the base to the most demanding at the top of the pyramid (see Fig. 1). Anderson and Krathwohl’s (2001) proposal is obviously based on the one created by Bloom et al. (1956), and it is the one that we employed for the creation of the teaching proposal presented in this paper. In this case, the taxonomy indicates the order of the abilities from the one that requires the least amount of cognitive effort to the one that requires the most; the first one is to remember; once they remember the contents, they have to understand them. Once they have understood the information, they have to be able to put it into practice, then to analyse and evaluate it, and, finally, create, the ability considered to be most demanding. This organization is necessary to create a coherent and efficient didactic unit. In addition to the cognitive dimension, we would also like to highlight the importance of promoting metacognitive consciousness among

EvaluaƟon

Create

Synthesis

Evaluate

Analysis

Analyze

ApplicaƟon

Apply

Comprenhension

Understand

Knowledge

Remember

Fig. 1 Bloom et al. (1956) and Anderson and Krathwohl (2001)

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our students, especially at higher educative levels, such as tertiary level or students in their last course of secondary education and baccalaureate. This ability to process the thinking about the learning process can motivate students that are frustrated because they are not able to acquire the competences they need in order to evolve as well as bridge the gaps some students have in their learning processes since they can become aware of them and employ the appropriate tools to solve them.

Communication The communication section refers to the different types of language according to their functions, namely, language of learning and for learning following the triptych approach (Fig. 2) developed by Coyle et al. (2010). Within this triptych, there are three main concepts:

Language of learning

Language development

Language for learning

Language through learning

Fig. 2 Triptych approach developed by Coyle et al. (2010)

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• Language for learning: refers to the language that students need to understand a second language in the classroom. • Language of learning: makes reference to the language students need to have access to basic and essential concepts and strategies related to specific content. • Language through learning: although it is a language which can be considered as secondary, it is necessary within the mental processes for the correct acquisition of any content. All these aspects are essential when planning a CLIL lesson and should be taken into account since there are activities which are linguistically or cognitively more demanding than others. Thus, in order to stimulate and not frustrate the learners of any foreign language at any level, the scaffolding and distribution of activities through the modules must be carefully planned to attend to the number of contents, the cultural elements that are conveyed and the cognitive difficulty of the tasks proposed; teachers should also be conscious of the different communicative elements they should teach their students, that is, the language of learning, language for learning and language through learning.

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Example of a Teaching Proposal

These theoretical aspects should be taken into account when preparing a CLIL module independently of the level for which it has been designed. One problematic issue for the primary teachers surveyed is to know how to design a CLIL module in which they can put into practice these theoretical aspects. Thus we have outlined a CLIL module intended for the subject of natural sciences in the fourth grade of primary education in Table 1. We have included an example of an activity for this unit that would be included in the sequencing of activities of the module in Table 2. In the sequencing of any CLIL module, there are different phases, namely: introduction, research, consolidation and creation. When planning the activities within each of these sections, we should consider

Aims • Identify specific organisms as living beings and be able to justify the response through observation of basic life functions • To know and describe the basic characteristics and functions of living beings • To know the essential structure in which a living being can be divided: cells, tissues, organs and systems • To identify the parts of a cell • To classify living beings according to the kingdom to which they belong (animal, vegetable, mushrooms, protists and monerans) according to their specific characteristics • To employ an appropriate vocabulary for this block of content. Vocabulary that has been studied in the classroom • To explain the contents orally in a clear and organized manner • To develop strategies to access information from scientific texts effectively Assessment Criteria Assessment criteria for contents The student can: • Distinguish living beings from inert beings according to the presence of the three vital functions • Know the structure of living beings (cells, tissues, organs and systems) and identify their main characteristics and functions • Know the different levels of classification of living beings considering their characteristics and types Assessment criteria for the use of language The student can: • Integrate the information collected through direct and indirect observation • Consult basic sources and communicate the results • Obtain information relevant to previously defined facts or phenomena and make predictions about natural events

CLIL module Title of the module: Living beings Level: 4th-grade primary

Table 1 Example of CLIL module

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(continued)

Teaching objectives Content • Parts of a cell • Comparison of living beings and inert beings • Vital functions of living beings • Classification of living beings in the different kingdoms Cognition • To provide students with opportunities to understand key content and apply it in different contexts • Identify the different parts of a cell • Identify the basic characteristics of living beings to classify them into different kingdoms (animal, vegetable, mushrooms, protists and monerans) • Encourage the use of the English language as much as possible • Understand the vital functions of living beings Culture • Show respect for living things • Understand the great diversity of living beings that exist and be able to classify them according to their characteristics • Understand that it is possible to learn, in this specific case, about living beings and their characteristics and composition independently of the language of instruction Communication Language of learning • Essential lexicon on living beings and the realms in which they can be classified • Basic lexicon on the parts of a cell • Basic lexicon on the essential vital functions of living beings as well as their composition: tissues, organs, etc. Language for learning • Vocabulary related to the content seen in this topic • Classroom language to be able to express opinions, ideas, doubts, etc. • Ask both teacher and classmates questions Language through learning • Identify the language, both the lexicon and the linguistic structures needed to carry out the proposed activities • Understand and learn new concepts and vocabulary from the activities done in class

CLIL module Title of the module: Living beings Level: 4th-grade primary

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Students’ self-assessment At the end of the module, I am able… 1. To define what a living being is… 2. To describe the basic functions of living beings… 3. To make an outline indicating the different kingdoms in which we can classify living beings… 4. To name and identify the parts of a cell… 5. To indicate the composition of living beings: cells, tissues, organs and systems… Teacher’s self-assessment 1. The fulfilment of the objectives and contents established in the programming will be evaluated. 2. The scope of the teaching given and the programmed activities will be evaluated in order to improve the level of the students, in terms of both language and content. 3. Classroom control or tutoring. 4. The problems encountered during the teaching process will be analysed, both those we have encountered at a linguistic level in the dimensions of expression and comprehension, and at a content level. 5. Proposals for improvement will be made, such as the inclusion or elimination of activities according to the results obtained during this course.

CLIL module Title of the module: Living beings Level: 4th-grade primary

Table 1 (continued)

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Table 2 Example of activity ACTIVITY: Classification of information—tree structure This activity will consist of developing a tree scheme in which students identify the different kingdoms in which living beings are classified: animal, vegetable, mushrooms, protists and monerans. They should include in this scheme the basic characteristics of the different kingdoms of living beings and include some examples of living beings belonging to each of the kingdoms. The information for completing the conceptual map will be obtained from the unit devoted to living beings in the textbook, although they should also use iPads with internet access to add additional examples from each realm that are not in the book At the end of the session, the teacher will show on the digital screen the scheme with gaps and each student will voluntarily go out to the board to fill in the gaps and also review the new examples that have been added to each kingdom so that the rest of the class can add them to their schemes. By revising the exercise in this way, they cooperate to create knowledge

Support TICs Multiple intelligences Intrapersonal Linguistic Visual-spatial Learning styles Visual Auditive Kinesthetic Materials Notebook Textbook iPads Access to the internet LOTS/HOTS LOTS: recognize, identify HOTS: compare, differentiate

aspects such as support, TICs employed, the different types of intelligences (following the multiple intelligences theory developed by Gardner, 1999) involved in each activity, the style of learning, the materials used, and, finally, the LOTS and HOTS processes implicated. For example: In addition to the sections mentioned in Table 1, adding complementary activities is recommended, and apart from the auto evaluation of the students, which seeks to develop their capacity to autoregulate their learning process, and the auto evaluation of the teachers, it is essential to evaluate the module as well in order to identify possible weaknesses of our use of the methodological approach and also to promote its improvement.

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Survey

After this general revision of the essential concepts of CLIL methodology and the presentation of a model to create CLIL modules, we present a survey of a group of primary education teachers who follow CLIL methodology in their classes. After this, the results obtained from the survey will be discussed. The sample is made up of about forty teachers from various subjects, namely, natural sciences, mathematics, physical education, mathematics and social sciences. The questions raised in the survey focus on the difficulties encountered by these teachers in their teaching work within CLIL programmes and related to linguistic issues such when do they use L1 in the class, methodological aspects, formative matters and the efficiency of the programme.

Participants The average age of the survey participants is thirty-four years old, and as far as the formative level is concerned, all the participants have university studies at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Following the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, all the participants have an advanced level of English (C1/C2). Finally, with regard to the CLIL training received, half of the participants have taken part in methodological courses; primarily, distance courses taught by the Consejería de Educación y Universidades of the regional government of the Canary Islands, which is responsible for the management of the education system in the autonomous community. The rest of the participants learnt about this approach on their own. Therefore we consider it pertinent to differentiate the results obtained from the surveys of the teachers with a CLIL formative background and the ones without previous training.

Data Analysis The data collected from the surveys of primary teachers are presented in a series of graphics so as to show the aspects they consider more

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problematic when teaching a non-linguistic subject following CLIL methodology. The survey was a combination of multiple-choice and development questions so as to delve more deeply into the teachers’ perceptions.

Results The first aspect of the survey concerns the need to implement a new system to promote CLIL teachers’ training. One hundred per cent of the respondents stated that it is imperative to provide courses in this methodology because even the teachers who had already taken the courses provided by the Department of Education considered that they are not sufficient. While they are rich in theory, there are few opportunities to put the theory into practice. In the first question of our survey, we wanted to know if teachers had known about the essential concepts of CLIL methodology and check if they were conscious of what they were doing in their teaching practice. The results in Fig. 3 show that the teachers who had received specific training in CLIL are aware of the essential theoretical concepts, have more biographical resources to CLIL essential concepts 20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 Knowledge of the theoretical concepts

Have bibliographical materials Teachers trained

Use on the concepts in the Put those concepts into didactic programming practice Teachers without training

Fig. 3 Basic concepts put into practice by CLIL teachers

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consult and not simply the textbook, and more frequently use the CLIL basic concepts in their didactic programmes, putting them into practice keeping in mind, for example, the cognitive demands of the activities and the type of language the students have to learn, following the triptych (Fig. 3) developed by Coyle et al. (2010). The main difficulties and challenges faced by teachers during the development of their teaching work are shown in the following graphics. The greatest obstacle is the low language level of the students, which frequently means they cannot follow the explanations given, and that is why teachers find it almost impossible to teach a whole lesson completely in L2 without translating anything. Although, as is shown in Fig. 3, the majority of the teachers surveyed try to provide the theoretical explanation of the topics studied in class in L2 and then, if the students have doubts, they solve them using L1. In fact, almost the whole group surveyed affirmed using L1 when solving students’ queries (Fig. 4). Finally, half of the educators stated that they frequently employ L1 when they have to explain the exercises to be done in order to ensure that the pupils have correctly understood the task and will not make mistakes in its accomplishment. Another relevant question, which has been extensively discussed when implementing the CLIL approach in primary education, concerns its effectiveness. In general terms, the teachers consulted consider that when the foreign language is employed as the language of instruction quite Use of L1 during the lesson 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Doubts

Theoretical explanations

Fig. 4 Use of L1 during the lesson

Do exercises

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frequently, the contents have to be simplified so students can understand what they are explaining. Some concepts are really demanding, and some students have difficulty comprehending them even when they are explained in their mother tongue. Thus, the majority of the teachers consulted considered that the employment of CLIL methodology affects the lesson contents (Fig. 5). Keeping in mind the results concerning the simplification of the contents, it is reasonable to ask if the teachers consider the CLIL approach efficient, and this implies that the objectives concerning content and linguistic learning are being achieved; and if the response is negative, how do they think the weaknesses of the approach can be resolved. The majority of the teachers surveyed claimed that it is an efficient approach for both purposes (Fig. 6); 37% considered it an efficient way to learn a foreign language but not for content learning and finally, only 5% considered that it is inefficient for both the learning of content and foreign language learning. Lastly, we asked the primary education teachers surveyed what aspects must be implemented in the functioning of this approach to make it more efficient and, therefore, resolve the different drawbacks they identified. This was the only open question of the test. The main aspect that should be promoted according to the teachers is the training of CLIL methodology because the options offered are not varied enough. Moreover, the courses do not present an in-depth analysis of the methodology; in fact, even the theoretical concepts presented in this paper, which are Contents have to be simplified in CLIL instruction 20 15 10 5 0 Agree

Disagree

Fig. 5 Content is affected when we use CLIL methodology

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Efficiency of CLIL approach for the learning of content and foreign language 25 20 15 10 5 0 Both

Only foreign language

Neither

Fig. 6 The efficiency of the CLIL approach

essential to be able to put a CLIL didactic proposal into practice, are not covered or extensively explained in the courses proposed to educators. The second aspect that should be implemented is the students’ command of the English language since if they have deficiencies in the language of instruction; it is highly probable that they will miss much of the content explained in class. Thirdly, a wider variety of materials for teachers and more support are required, in the sense that for some teachers, some of the material is monotonous and not motivating for the students. Finally, as regards the evaluation, some teachers consider that it is quite difficult to determine whether the students have achieved the objectives proposed because sometimes students have acquired the contents they were expected to, but they are not able to communicate appropriately in L2. In conclusion, what the respondents find difficult is how to evaluate content and foreign language performance separately.

6

Conclusion

Summarizing what has been just seen in the different sections of this study, we can conclude that before preparing a CLIL module, teachers should know the essential theoretical concepts and especially how to integrate them into the module and in the sequencing of activities. Teachers often need to invest more time in preparing activities that are stimulating and adapted to a determined level concerning the use of the language

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of instruction without leaving contents aside, because we cannot forget that CLIL is a dual-focused educational approach in which the language is an instrument of instruction to teach a determined set of contents. In other words, it is a blending of language and content instruction. Moreover, we must pay attention to the cognitive demands of the activities proposed, the skills needed and the time to process the information since it is more complicated for teachers as not only are the contents commonly unknown for the vast majority of the students but they also need to learn them in a foreign language. From the survey, two fundamental conclusions can be drawn. On the one hand, that a greater command of the language on the students’ side would be desirable so they can follow the lessons and acquire the contents provided properly since the language of instruction is frequently considered as an obstacle. On the other hand, that specific training for teachers concerning CLIL methodology is needed before they start teaching CLIL lessons. Teachers need to know about the essential aspects of the methodology, such as the capacities involved, the types of language used, the ways in which they should plan the objectives proposed or the evaluation plan in a two-fold approach: one for the contents and another one for the aspects regarding the use of L2, among other aspects. Without this knowledge, it would be quite tough to design an efficient CLIL module that can be put into practice at any education level, and it is at this point that teachers start considering this methodology as not efficient to convey the specific contents of a non-linguistic subject.

References Alcaraz-Mármol, G. (2018). Trained and non-trained language teachers on CLIL methodology: Teachers’ facts and opinions about the CLIL approach in the primary education context in Spain. LACLIL, 11(1), 39–64. https:// doi.org/10.5294/laclil.2018.11.1.3. Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching and assessing: A revision of bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives (Complete ed.). New York: Longman.

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Bennett, J. M., & Bennett, M. J. (2004). Developing intercultural sensitivity: An integrative approach to global and domestic diversity. In D. Landis, J. M. Bennett, & M. J. Bennett (Eds.), Handbook of intercultural training (pp. 147–165). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Bloom, B., Engelhart, M. D., Furst, E. J., Hill, W. H.; & Krathwohl, D. R. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. New York: Longman. Brown, H. D. (2007). Principles of language learning and teaching. New York: Pearson Education. Byram, M., & Grundy, P. (2003). Context and culture in language teaching and learning. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Cenoz, J., Genesee, F., & Gorter, D. (2013). Critical analysis of CLIL: Taking stock and looking forward. Applied Linguistics, 35, 1–21. Council of Europe. The CEFR levels. Retrieved from https://www.coe.int/en/ web/common-european-framework-reference-languages/level-descriptions. Coyle, D. (1999). Supporting students in content and language integrated contexts: Planning for effective classrooms. In J. Masih (Ed.), Learning Through a Foreign Language – Models, Methods and Outcomes (pp. 46– 62). London: Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research (CILT). Coyle, D. (2006). Content and language integrated learning: Motivating learners and teachers. Scottish Languages Review, 13, 1–18. Coyle, D., Hood, P., & Marsh, D. (2010). CLIL—Content and language integrated learning. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Dafouz, E., Núñez, B., Sancho, C., & Foran, D. (2007). Integrating CLIL at the tertiary level: Teachers’ and students’ reactions. In D. Wolff, & D. Marsh (Eds.), Diverse contexts converging goals: Content and language integrated learning in Europe (pp. 91–102). Frankfurt, Germany: Peter Lang. Deller, S., & Price, C. (2007). Teaching other subjects through English. Oxford: Oxford University Press. De Mingo-Izquierdo, N. (2016). The role of culture in the EFL classroom. In E. Bonal-Martínez (coord.), EFL teaching and learning II . Madrid: Centro de Estudios Financieros. Eurydice. (2006). Content and language integrated learning at school in Europe. Retrieved from http://www.indire.it/lucabas/lkmwfile/eurydice/CLI LEN.pdf. Fernández, E. (2009). La secuenciación de contenidos lingüísticos dentro de la educación física bilingüe. Revista Digital Innovación Y Experiencias Educativas, 23, 1–9.

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Fernández-Fernández, R., Pena-Díaz, C., García-Gómez, A., & Halbach, A. (2005). La implantación de proyectos educativos bilingües en la Comunidad de Madrid: las expectativas del profesorado antes de iniciar el proyecto. Porta Linguarum, 3, 161–173. Retrieved from https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/ articulo?codigo=1153792. Fleta, M. T. (2016). El aprendizaje de lenguas extranjeras en educación infantil en la Comunidad de Madrid: perfil, percepciones y metodologías de los docentes. Didáctica. Lengua Y Literatura, 28, 87–111. Fortanet-Gómez, I. (2012). Academics’ beliefs about language use and proficiency in Spanish multilingual higher education. Aila Review, 25, 48–63. Hillyard, S. (2011). First steps in CLIL: Training the teachers. Latin American Journal of Content & Language Integrated Learning, 4 (2), 1–12. Hoang-Thu, T. (2010). Teaching culture in the EFL/ESL classroom. San Diego, CA: Alliant International University. Johnson, M. (2012). Bilingual degree teacher’s beliefs: A case study in a tertiary setting. Pulso Revista de Educación, 35, 49–74. Julián, C. (2013). La coordinación docente en modelos AICLE. Revista Padres Y Maestros, 349, 21–24. Karim, A., & Rahman, M. (2016). Revisiting the content-based instruction in language teaching in relation with CLIL: Implementation and outcome. International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, 5, 254– 264. Marsh, D. (1994). Bilingual education & content and language integrated learning. In International Association for Cross-cultural Communication (Eds.), Language teaching in the member states of the European Union (Lingua). Paris, France: University of Sorbonne. Martín del Pozo, M. (2015). Teacher education for content and language integrated learning: Insights from a current European debate. Revista Electrónica Interuniversitaria de Formación Del Profesorado, 18, 153–168. Massler, U. (2012). Primary CLIL and its stakeholders: What children, parents and teachers think of the potential merits and pitfalls of CLIL modules in primary teaching. International CLIL Research Journal, 1, 36–46. McDougald, J. (2015). Teachers’ attitudes, perceptions and experiences in CLIL: A look at content and language. Colombian Applied Linguistic Journal, 17, 25–41. Mehisto, P., Marsh, D., & Frigols, M. (2008). Uncovering CLIL: Content and language integrated learning and bilingual and multilingual education. Oxford, UK: Macmillan.

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Migdadi, M. H. (2008). The teaching of english and its culture in EFL contexts: A case study of english language instructors and students in the language centre at Al Al-Bayt University, Jordan, International Islamic University, Institute of Education (Master’s thesis). Malaysia: Unpublished PhD thesis. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, Competencias Clave, 10 de febrero de 2016. Retrieved from http://www.mecd.gob.es/educacion-mecd/ mc/lomce/el-curriculo/curriculo-primaria-eso-bachillerato/competenciasclave/cultura.html. Naves, T., & Muñoz, C. (2000). Implementation of CLIL in Spain. In D. Marsh & G. Langé (Eds.), Implementing content and language integrated learning (pp. 145–158). Jyväskylá, Finland: ER-paino & Jyväskylänyliopistapaino. Nieto, S. (2010). Language, culture, and teaching: Critical perspectives. New York: Routledge. Pavón, V., & Gaustad, M. (2013). Designing bilingual programmes for higher education in Spain: Organizational, curricular and methodological decisions. International CLIL Research Journal, 2, 82–94. Pavón, V., & Rubio, F. (2010). Teachers’ concerns and uncertainties about the introduction of CLIL programmes. Porta Linguarum, 14, 45–58. Pérez-Vidal, C. (2009). The integration of content and language in the classroom: A European approach to education (the second time around). In CLIL across educational levels (pp. 3–16). Madrid, Spain: Richmond. Sancho-Esper, F., Ruíz-Moreno, F., Rodríguez-Sánchez, C., & Turino, F. (2016). Percepción del profesorado y alumnado sobre la docencia en inglés: aplicación AICLE en la UA. In M. T. Tortosa, S. Grau, & J. D. Álvarez (Eds.), Investigación, Innovación y Enseñanza Universitaria: Enfoques Pluridisciplinares (pp. 353–368). Alicante, Spain: University of Alicante. Savic, V. (2010). Are we ready for implementing CLIL in primary language classrooms? Retrieved from http://www.britishcouncil.org/ro/serbia-elta-new sletter-2010-may.htm. Stern, H. (1992). Issues and options in language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wardhaugh, R. (2010). An introduction to sociolinguistics. Malden: WileyBlackwell. Yassin, S., Marsh, D., Tek, O., & Ying, L. (2009). Learners’ perceptions towards the teaching of science through English in Malaysia: A quantitative analysis. International CLIL Research Journal, 1, 54–69.

Thinking Skills in Exam Models for CLIL Primary Subjects: Some Reflections for Teachers María Ángeles Martín-del Pozo and Débora Rascón-Estébanez

1

Introduction

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is advancing into its third decade. Practice and research have developed from the early phases. The majority of research aimed to understand language learning outcomes and language use (De Graaff 2017: xv) and was carried out by applied linguists. In comparison, studies from the vantage point of subject pedagogy and learning outcomes are still scarce. “CLIL invites investigation which draws on a much wider field of research than is associated with language learning per se” (Coyle et al. 2010: 165). This chapter aims to shed light on the pedagogical process of teaching non-linguistic content in CLIL contexts, specifically on the M. Á. Martín-del Pozo (B) · D. Rascón-Estébanez Universidad de Valladolid, Valladolid, Spain e-mail: [email protected] D. Rascón-Estébanez e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 M. L. Carrió-Pastor and B. Bellés Fortuño (eds.), Teaching Language and Content in Multicultural and Multilingual Classrooms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56615-9_13

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most frequent final moment of the teaching process: summative assessment. This is one of the identified future paths for CLIL research: assessment and how it may account for both content and language concerns (Dalton-Puffer and Nikula 2014). The chapter analyses how summative assessment is presented in the exam models provided by primary education textbook publishers, specifically the thinking skills identified in Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy.

2

Theoretical Framework

This section of the chapter provides a discussion of issues in the difficult question of assessment in CLIL and potential approaches to answer it. Special attention is paid to the object of study in this chapter: the assessment of thinking skills. The section concludes with some considerations about the context in which these thinking skills are analysed: commercialized CLIL materials.

Assessment in CLIL At the opening of the section it becomes necessary to make explicit how the terms assessment and evaluation differ in CLIL contexts. Coyle et al. (2010: 112) reserve the term evaluation for “programme evaluation”, with connotations of judging the effectiveness of the programme. In contrast, the term assessment is used to refer to classroom context and students’ gains. Assessment is a repeated concern for those working within the CLIL approach. Thus it is often a major area of teacher uncertainty in CLIL contexts. The following paragraphs will provide an overview of the main points in which assessment in CLIL presents challenges. A first issue is the types of assessment processes and the classical major division of formative and summative. The former connects with assessment for learning (Assessment Reform Group 2002); the latter focuses on the assessment of learning since the main purpose of summative assessment is to make a judgement on a certain capability of the learner at

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a particular point in time. This final result usually serves as information to others, apart from the learner (parents, school managers, for instance). This chapter will focus on summative assessment. A second relevant issue connects to the two key linked questions asked by the majority of CLIL teachers (Coyle et al. 2010: 114): 1. The what question: what to assess—language, content or both. 2. The how question: what methods can provide assessment information that is reliable because neither of the elements (language and content) impede the other. The what and how questions can be itemized into more specific inquiries, as Coyle et al. (2010: 114) report teachers tend to do. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

What do we assess—CONTENT or LANGUAGE? What language do we assess? Can students answer in their L1? What tools can we use for assessment? How can we assess previous knowledge and progression? How can I deal with learning difficulties? Provided we assess in English, how can we minimize the effect of the language in the content assessment? 8. How can we evaluate the skills/processes? Example: planning an investigation/designing a work of art/reaching conclusions. 9. How can/should we assess group work? The nine questions in this list make evident the already mentioned uncertainty surrounding assessment in CLIL. Classroom-based research could shed light on each one of the issues. This chapter aims to focus on questions 1 and 8: the assessment of content and skills. Content should not be understood only as “knowledge acquisition” but rather as “the knowledge, skills and understanding we wish our learners to access” (Coyle et al., 2010: 53). Consequently, the delineation of which aspects of content are being assessed becomes necessary. The following aspects could be considered (ibid., p. 114):

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– Factual recall (detail). – General understanding (major points). – Ability to manipulate the content, using higher-level thinking skills such as interpretation, analysis, synthesis, and application. – Ability to research more independently and extend the topic knowledge beyond what has been presented by the teacher. An attempt to respond to the challenge in the context of CLIL programmes in Germany and Switzerland was the model by Massler et al. (2014). According to this model, assessment should comprise the dimensions of subject-specific themes (i.e. content knowledge), subject-specific skills and competencies (i.e. cognitive skills such as observing, describing and explaining) and foreign language communicative competencies. This connects to another dimension of the 4Cs CLIL framework— cognition, which relates to learning and thinking processes. “In order to be effective, CLIL must challenge learners to create new knowledge and develop new skills through reflection and engagement in higher order as well as lower order thinking” (Coyle et al. 2010: 54). Cognition, apart from knowledge, involves the development of intellectual or thinking skills. In the next section, we detail these categories of cognitive processes.

Thinking Skills in Bloom’s Taxonomy According to Banegas (2014), regarding the balance between linguistic and cognitive complexity in CLIL, authors employ Cummins’ BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills) and CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency), and Bloom’s revised taxonomy (Anderson and Krathwohl, 2001). This chapter explains the latter in depth. The original taxonomy was created by Bloom in 1956 and revised in 2001 by Anderson and Krathwohl. The basis of the taxonomy, a double entry table, was maintained by the latter authors. The horizontal part focuses on the cognitive process dimension whereas the vertical

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column focuses on the knowledge dimension (which is the dimension used in this research). There are two reasons for this update: it was necessary “to refocus educators’ attention on the value of the original” document, and because there was a “need to incorporate new knowledge and thought into the framework” (Anderson and Krathwohl 2001, XXI– XXII) as research in education had led to new data that could improve and complete the taxonomy. One of the most visible changes was the names of each category: Anderson and Krathwohl used verbs instead of nouns (see Fig. 1). The reason for this change is that the taxonomy classifies objectives, and “they contain a verb and a noun. The verb generally describes the intended cognitive process” (Anderson and Krathwohl 2001: 4). “The continuum underlying the cognitive process dimension is assumed to be cognitive complexity” (Anderson and Krathwohl 2001: 5). Thus, the lower categories are less complex than the higher: it is easier for a student to remember data than to analyse it, for instance. This will be reflected later in the difference between LOTS (lower-order thinking) and HOTS (higher-order thinking) (see Table 1). Whereas the goal of instruction in the category “remember” is promoting the retention of the presented knowledge, the rest of the categories focus on promoting the transfer of this knowledge.

EvaluaƟon

Create

Synthesis

Evaluate

Analysis

Analyze

ApplicaƟon

Apply

Comprehension

Understand

Knowledge

Remember

Fig. 1 Comparison between the original taxonomy and its revision

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Table 1 HOTS and LOTS in Bloom’s taxonomy TAXONOMY

HOTS & LOTS

REMEMBER UNDERSTAND APPLY ANALYSE EVALUATE CREATE

LOTS

HOTS

In the next paragraphs we explain the new categories related to the cognitive process following Anderson and Krathwohl (2001). a. Remember It happens “[W]hen the objective of instruction is to promote retention of the material in much the same way as it was taught […] it involves retrieving relevant knowledge from long term memory” (Anderson and Krathwohl 2001: 66). The student is only required to retrieve information previously studied and memorized. According to Dale and Tanner (2012: 32), the question can be summarized as “Can learners remember?” Assessment in this category is uncomplicated because “the student is given a recognition or recall task under conditions very similar to those in which he or she learned the material” (Anderson and Krathwohl 2001: 66). When planning the exam, the teacher is going to prepare questions like: What is…? When did…? etc. The student can write down or say literal words from the textbook. Even though this is the most basic category, it is significant because all meaningful learning needs to be based on previous knowledge, what they remember. Two cognitive processes are included in this category (see Table 2). Firstly, recognizing or identifying—students retrieve “long-term memory in order to compare” (ibid.: 69); secondly, recalling or retrieving— knowledge is retrieved “from long-term memory when given a prompt to do so” (idem), such as a question.

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Table 2 Category: Remember REMEMBER

Alternative names

Possible assessment

Recognize Recall

Identifying Retrieving

True-false, match, multiple choice Questions

b. Understand This refers to building “connections between the ‘new’ knowledge to be gained and prior knowledge” (ibid.: 70). There are different cognitive processes in this category, summarized in Table 3, but they can all be classified as “Can learners explain?” (Dale and Tanner 2012: 32). Examples of these verbs are: – Interpret: change the form of representation (example: paraphrasing, or changing other codes like numbers, etc.). – Exemplify: the student gives an “example or instance of a general concept or principle” (Anderson and Krathwohl 2001: 71). – Classifying: “occurs when a student recognizes that something (e.g., a particular instance or example) belongs to a certain category (e.g., concept or principle)” (ibid.: 72). A similar term is exemplifying, which involves the opposite (give the example and the student has to find the principle or concept). – Summarizing: “involves constructing a representation of the information, and abstracting a summary from it” (ibid.: 73). Other ways of referring to it are generalizing and abstracting. – Inferring: “involves finding a pattern within a series of examples or instances” (ibid.: 74). It “occurs when a student is able to abstract a concept or principle that accounts for a set of examples or instances by encoding the relevant features of each instance and, most important, by noting relationships among them” (idem). Other cognitive tasks are extrapolating, interpolating, predicting, and concluding. – Comparing: “involves detecting similarities and differences between two or more objects, events, ideas, problems, or situations” (ibid.: 78). Alternative terms are contrasting, matching and mapping.

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Table 3 Category: Understand UNDERSTAND

Alternative names

Possible assessment

Interpreting

–

Exemplifying

Illustrating, instantiating

Classifying

Categorizing, subsuming

Summarizing

Generalizing Abstracting

Inferring

Extrapolating Interpolating Predicting Concluding Contrasting Matching Mapping Constructing models

Paraphrase Constructed response: supply an answer Selected response: choose an answer (But some information is new) Constructed response: create an example Selected response: select an example Classify, group, circle the elements that belong to one category Constructed response: given the instance, produce the concept or principle Selected response: given the instance, select the principle Summarize Constructed response: read a passage and write a title Selected response: read a passage and select the best title Completion tasks, analogy tasks, oddity tasks (circle the odd one)

Comparing

Explaining

Mapping, compare

Explain, construct a cause-and-effect chain of events, reason why, troubleshooting (diagnose something that is wrong), redesigning, predicting

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– Explaining: “occurs when a student is able to construct and use a cause-and-effect model of a system” (ibid.: 75). Another term is constructing. c. Apply “It involves using procedures to perform exercises or solve problems” (Anderson and Krathwohl 2001: 77). Two cognitive processes are included in this category: executing (the task is a familiar exercise) and implementing (the task is a problem; not familiar). Alternative names are carrying out or using (see Table 4). Dale and Tanner (2012: 32) pose the question that can summarize all the possible questions as “Can learners use the information in another situation?”: the knowledge students have needs to be transformed a little. d. Analyse It “involves breaking material into its constituent parts and determining how the parts are related to one another and to an overall structure” (Anderson and Krathwohl 2001: 79). Dale and Tanner (2012: 32) summarizes all the possible questions as “Can learners break the information into parts and see the relationships?” Alternative names (see Table 5) are differentiating—“distinguishing the parts of a whole structure in terms of their relevance or importance” (Anderson and Krathwohl, 2001: 80), organizing—“identify the elements of a communication or situation and recognize how they fit together into a coherent structure” (ibid.: 81), and attributing—being able to determine the underlying message of the author. Table 4 Category: Apply APPLY

Alternative names

Executing Implementing

Carrying out Using

Possible assessment Solve a problem using a formula Solve an unfamiliar problem, specifying the process

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Table 5 Category: Analyse ANALYSE

Alternative names

Possible assessment

Differentiating

Discriminating Selecting Distinguishing Focusing

Organizing

Structuring Integrating Finding coherence Outlining Parsing Deconstructing

Attributing

Circle or select specific items, read a text about a process and divide the main steps Constructed response: given some material, show the most important parts Selected task: given some material, choose the most relevant parts For and against reasons Constructed response: write an outline from a passage Selection task: given a passage, select the best graphic diagram Determine the point of view or purpose of the author

e. Evaluate It “is defined as making judgements based on criteria and standards” (ibid.: 83). It involves checking—“testing for internal inconsistencies or fallacies in an operation or a product” (idem), and critiquing—“judging a product or operation based on externally imposed criteria and standards” (p. 84) (see Table 6). The key question can be: “Can learners justify a position?” (Dale and Tanner 2012: 32). f. Create Table 6 Category: Evaluate EVALUATE Checking

Critiquing

Alternative names Testing Detecting Monitoring Coordinating Judging

Possible assessment Detect inconsistencies in a message; check whether a conclusion follows from the observed data Critique his or her own (or others’) hypothesis or creations based on different criteria

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Table 7 Category: Create CREATE

Alternative names

Generating Planning

Hypothesizing Designing

Producing

Constructing

Possible assessment Produce alternatives or hypothesis Submit the outline of a paper, develop worked-out solution plans or select solution plans for a given problem A design task: create a product that corresponds to certain specifications

It “involves putting elements together to form a coherent or functional whole” (Anderson and Krathwohl 2001: 84). In contrast with the rest of the cognitive processes, it “involves the construction of an original product” (ibid.: 85); that is, something new is going to be produced with the knowledge the person has. Alternative terms (see Table 7) are generating—“representing the problem and arriving at alternatives or hypothesis that meet certain criteria” (ibid.: 86), planning—“developing a plan for solving a problem” (ibid.: 87), and producing—it “involves carrying out a plan for solving a given problem that meets certain specifications” (idem).

Bloom’s Taxonomy Used to Evaluate Assessment in CLIL Bloom’s taxonomy has served as an analytical framework for studies related to the present investigation of assessment in CLIL. Special attention is paid to two of them. Both studies come from school contexts in Hong Kong during the implementation of the medium-of-instruction (MOI) initiative, which could be considered equivalent to the CLIL approach. Chan (2016) evaluated all the test items in the examination papers in the dimensions of cognitive and knowledge categories using the revised Bloom taxonomy. In the investigated corpus, assessment questions with lower-level cognitive processes (e.g., the categories of “remember”, “understand”, “apply”) were more prominent than those with a higher level (categories of “analyse”, “evaluate”, “create”). Students presented a

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decrease in score proportions of questions assessing higher-level cognitive processes. A second study analysed over 4900 questions in science/biology textbooks, workbooks and examination papers in Hong Kong (Lo and Fung 2018). This study focused on both language demands and content demands, including cognition. The framework used (Lo and Lin 2014) was based on BRT. Results revealed that low-level cognitive (i.e. recall of knowledge) and linguistic (i.e. no production or word-level production) demands had the highest frequency in junior secondary assessment. However, higher-order thinking skills (i.e. application and analysis of knowledge) were required in senior secondary assessments. These results evidence a big leap in both cognitive and linguistic demands from junior to senior secondary education in the investigated context.

CLIL Commercialized Materials Literature has repeatedly advocated the relevance of materials as a factor for successful CLIL implementation (Clegg 2007; Dalton-Puffer 2007; Coyle et al. 2010; Kelly 2014; Czura 2017; Ball 2018, inter alia). European teachers have frequently reported difficulties because of the scarcity of suitable CLIL materials (Morton 2013; Ball 2018), even in one of the leading countries in CLIL education, Finland (Mäkiranta 2014). Commercially produced CLIL course books are quite a recent phenomenon and many countries still lack them (Morton 2013; Kelly 2014). This is not the case in Spain, where the implementation of bilingual sections and bilingual programmes by a concerted top-down policy generated demand for specifically designed materials. This need has resulted in a wide range of commercially available textbooks and materials. Publishers found a niche in the market. A glossary of marketing terms defines the niche market as: “A small, specialist area of the market. A niche market is a specific, focused, portion of a market. A segment of the market that has different preferences or needs from the mainstream audiences.” This expansion does not necessarily correlate with quality, as marketed materials present assets, pitfalls and challenges (Ball 2018). In a study conducted in the region of Castile and León (central Spain),

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teachers acknowledged a continuous improvement in published materials, though criticism on behalf of the users (these same teachers) is still extensive and harsh (Durán-Martínez and Beltrán-Llavador 2017). The publishers’ commercial websites evince how thoroughly these editorial professionals are targeting the niche market. The textbooks and materials intend to provide numerous resources for teachers so that their effort is minimized. The supplementary materials accompanying textbooks include teachers’ guides, posters, visuals, flashcards, digital resources, online resources, extra activities, revision and reinforcement activities and exam models. These textbooks and materials are becoming the foci of research in Spain. Some questioned the real implementation of the dual focus of CLIL (Martín del Pozo and Rascón Estébanez 2015) and the contribution of multimedia supplementary resources to language learning (Martín del Pozo and Rascón Estébanez 2017). More pertinent to this study, the analysis of four international UK-produced series with a CLIL component marketed in Argentina (Banegas 2014) revealed that the type of activities according to the procedures and cognitive skills only involved lower-order thinking skills—“remember” in particular—in the books targeted to students with the lowest level of English. Similar findings were obtained in the study of 193 activities in natural science textbooks in the six years of primary education (Carrasco and Criado 2019). The analysis by Santo-Tomás González (2011) sheds light on the presence of HOTS and LOTS in science books for second-grade primary Spanish students. The detailed analysis of 53 activities and their correspondent texts revealed that the skills activated by the analysed textbooks fall mainly into the categories of Remember and Understand. An interesting finding of this study was that the only book that somehow promoted HOTS was a translation from the Spanish book. Her suggestions for publishers to improve a dynamic pedagogy should not be disregarded either. Another investigation of six natural science textbooks for sixth-year primary school students designed by different publishing houses revealed that 66% of the analysed materials do not promote the necessary HOTS for the proper implementation of the CLIL approach (Romeu Peyró et al. 2020).

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These studies are examples of the attempts to respond to the challenge that “coursebook evaluation needs to be a systematic activity, […] an activity based on informed and supported views that make room for inter-subjectivity rather than personal feelings or random perceptions” (Banegas 2018: 22). To continue with this suggested research line of “[S]pecially written CLIL course books with a European audience in mind” (Banegas 2018: 24) and undertaking the challenge of making textbook evaluation a systematic activity, this paper will focus on a component of the textbooks that has not been approached to our knowledge: the exam models included as supplementary material. These exam models may serve the teacher as summative assessment at the end of a unit or at the end of the term.

3

Research Questions, Corpus and Methodology

Research Questions The previous sections presented an overview of the issues related to assessment in CLIL, some considerations and studies of marketed materials and of the classification of the thinking skills used as an analytical framework for this research. This paper connects these three aspects by investigating thinking skills in exam models provided with textbooks. Specifically, the main research questions are the following: R.Q.1. How is summative assessment presented in the exam models provided by textbook publishers? R.Q.2. How are thinking skills considered when content is being assessed?

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Table 8 Corpus description PUBLISHER

COURSE

SUBJECT

Number of EXAMS

Publisher 1

5th

Publisher 2

6th 4th

Natural Science Social Science Social Science Natural Science

9 9 9 15

Corpus of Study The corpus of analysis comprises 42 exams of three courses: 4th, 5th and 6th years of primary education, the last courses of this educational stage. The exams are from two different publishers, and the subjects are natural science and social science. These subjects were chosen because of their high status in Spanish bilingual sections. Table 8 provides the distribution of the exams across subjects and years. These exams come with the textbook as supplementary material in a digital format. The three final years of primary education were selected because students are expected to be quite familiar with the English language, in both the oral and written forms, at this stage. Moreover, students’ cognitive development is becoming more capable of abstract thinking. On the other hand, the contents are somehow familiar as they already know about most of the topics, and subject progression entails learning more complex aspects about them. In the 42 exam papers, a total of 1953 verbs were found and classified according to the methodology described in the following section.

Methodology of Analysis The methodology used in the analysis is mixed. In the first stage, the qualitative methodology was the most appropriate: based on the six categories created by Bloom, all the exercises were analysed and revised in order to place them in the suitable category. The key element in the exercise statements was the verbs. Different verbs can relate to the same category. For example, in the case of the category Remember, Figs. 2 and 3 show two different possibilities.

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Fig. 2 Example of a natural science exercise

Fig. 3 Example of a social science exercise

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In the natural science exam on plants (4th grade), one of the exercises is as follows. The verb “match” corresponds to the Remember category: students only have to recognize the definition and the word defined. Figure 3 presents a 6th-grade exercise in social science to test the geosphere. Students have to recognize the definition and the word defined but in this case, they also have to remember the exact word because there are three different possibilities for each definition. Atlas.ti was used at this stage to create and organize the classification. In the second stage, quantitative methodology was necessary in order to measure the different categories. To organize the data and create the figures, the researchers used the SPSS programme. A mixed methodology was considered convenient to target the dual aim of the research— observing the manners in which the categories occurred as well as their frequencies.

4

Results

The results are similar for all courses and publishers, as can be seen in Fig. 4. The four following graphics (one per textbook) show that most of the verbs correspond to the Remember category (1495 occurrences in the corpus). Understand is the second in frequency (233 occurrences in the corpus), followed by Apply (175 occurrences in the corpus). One or the other appears in the majority of topics, although it seems that if the category Apply appears, the same will happen with the category Understand, except for three topics. In a few cases, other categories are found, such as Analyse (three books) and Create (only one book). Evaluate is the only category totally absent from the corpus. Figure 5 shows the frequency of verbs that occur in each of the textbooks. Some types of exercises are found in all the books (circle the correct word, match, complete, label, classify, differentiate, tick, or true/false sentences). They all belong to the Remember category. It can also be observed that, in contrast, there are some types of exercises that are present only in one book: Fill in, give examples or mark

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Fig. 4 Total results of the different categories in each textbook

Frequency of verbs 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Social S. 5º

Social S. 6º

Natural S. 5º

Natural S. 4º

Fig. 5 Total frequency of verbs

on the map are found in the social science book (6th), and writing, free writing and word games appear in the natural science book (4th). Next, the categories with the highest frequencies (remember, understand, apply) will be analysed in detail. Figures 6, 9 and 12 show all the

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Remember. Total value 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0

Fig. 6 Results of the category Remember

verbs connected to the categories in all the courses.

Category: Remember The type of activities involved in this thinking skill relates to repeating the information exposed in the unit. There is a great variety of exercises, all dealing with identifying the correct information; for example, circle the odd element (208 exercises, the most frequent one), order events, mark on a map the places mentioned in the text, and identify the true or false sentences. This latter exercise can also add a second part in which students have to correct the false sentence so they actually prove their knowledge and do not choose randomly. In all these cases, these exercises merely require the recognition and retrieval of the information presented in the class/unit. Some other types of exercises in the exam models require: 1. Matching different words: implies that the students remember different associations, such as countries and continents. 2. Listing requires repeating all the words that have something in common, such as the elements that are representative of the Romanesque style.

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3. Identify: can be with an illustration (the map of a city, picture of a plant/animal, photos of different styles of medieval art, etc.). 4. Word games: unscramble letters in order to obtain the main terms studied in the topic, for example. 5. Label: based on an image, and students have to add the correct words in the exact place (see Fig. 7). 6. Complete: This type of exercise may present a variety of formats: – A table (containing some information but other elements are missing and students have to complete them). – A text in which they may have to add the defined word or add different words to a paragraph (Fig. 8). – A diagram. – A timeline (the terms may appear in a table and students have to place them at the appropriate moment on the timeline, or the students may have to remember the terms themselves).

Fig. 7 Example of a Label exercise

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Fig. 8 Example of a complete exercise

Depending on the course and the level of difficulty, the words to be added could be provided in a dialogue box or (in this case it is more difficult) students have to remember them. Another more complex possibility is offering extra words that are not directly related to what appears in the exercise (Fig. 8): – Identify countries and the continent they belong to. – Order: it can refer to chronological order (in the case of historical events or the steps followed in a natural process, for example). – Writing a definition implies that the students know some data by heart (though they may not understand anything but at least they can repeat all the words).

Category: Understand The number of verbs in this category is rather inferior. This is the case of classify (103, the most frequent exercise), explain or differentiate (Fig. 9). Students need to make connections with the information they know. The most frequent verb is Classify. The different types of exercises are: – Explain (for example, explain what two different climates have in common, or a phenomenon such as lunar eclipse). This exercise can add some extra data (a graph or a map) and students have to explain what they see according to what they have studied previously.

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Understand. Total value 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 classify

explain

differentiate

Fig. 9 Results of the category Understand

Fig. 10 Example of a Classify exercise

– Classify: photos according to the period they belong to (in history), words in a pyramid to explain Feudalism; characteristics according to the style, etc. Figure 10 is an example of an activity requiring this skill.

Category: Apply In this category there are four different types of exercises (see Fig. 11): draw, give examples, calculate and answer questions. The highest frequency is found in the category “answer questions” (90 exercises). This does not have to do with exercises in which students have to answer a question related to information literally presented in the book (for example: When was America discovered? as in the category Remember).

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Apply. Total value 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 draw

give examples

answer questions

calculate

Fig. 11 Results of the category Apply

These questions require elaboration of the information. For example: What are the similarities and differences between a medieval city and a city of Al-Ándalus? In the case of Calculate, given some data, students have to solve a problem using a formula. See Fig. 12 for an example.

Fig. 12 Example of an exercise requiring the Calculate skill

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Fig. 13 Example of a Create exercise

Category: Analyse Only four verbs related to this category were found in the corpus: differentiate, write advantages, solve problems and calculate. The last two refer to topics in which students have to use formulae to reach conclusions.

Category: Create Only one exam in publisher 2 includes an exercise that can be classified in this category. The exercise requires free writing (Fig. 13). There are 50 of these exercises in total. Students have to write a short essay that reflects what they have learned.

5

Discussion

As already mentioned, the aim of this chapter is to analyse the thinking skills required in exam models. This section endeavours to answer the research questions posed as guidelines of the research according to the results obtained in the analysis. The category with the highest frequency is clearly Remember. As described previously, it involves reproducing what has been explained, read or said. Remembering includes practising memory but not comprehension. If students are only asked to remember, they will not employ the language for uses such as creativity or knowledge construction. On the one hand, this practice is contrary to some CLIL principles that defend the need for more challenging tasks.

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In order to be effective, CLIL must challenge learners to create new knowledge and develop new skills through reflection and engagement in higher order as well as lower order thinking. (Coyle et al. 2010: 54)

This and many other practices seem to indicate that, though the CLIL theoretical framework is clear, practice and materials are still in an experimental phase. On the other hand, CLIL classrooms are at risk of becoming classrooms where thinking is not promoted, as Ritchhart, Church and Morrison (2011: 9) explain. Classrooms are too often places of “tell and practice.” The teacher tells the students what is important to know or do and then has them practice that skill or knowledge. In such classrooms, little thinking is happening […] Retention of information through rote practice isn’t learning; it is training.

Regarding the prevalence of the categories of thinking skills, our results are in accord with all the previous studies on marketed textbooks (Santo-Tomás González 2011; Banegas 2014; Romeu Peyró et al. 2020; Carrasco and Criado 2019). The first and the last two investigated natural sciences. Our study includes 18 units from social science and 24 natural sciences, and LOTS predominate in both. Santo-Tomás González (2011) centred on second-year primary school students; our study, Romeu Peyró et al. (2020) and Carrasco and Criado (2019) selected the final years of primary school. These studies refer to the tasks presented in the textbooks; ours focuses on the suggested evaluation tasks, which, in theory, should be in alignment with the content taught. The results of the four studies seem to indicate that the commercialized textbooks and materials used in Spanish primary education tend to promote LOTS more than HOTS and, in consequence, summative assessment is aligned and also makes a choice for LOTS tasks. Though Banegas (2014) did not study CLIL textbooks but only the CLIL component in English as a Foreign Language books, his finding of the frequency of LOTS is also significant to our study because, as he concludes, “in this respect, students with a low level of EFL are treated as students with low cognitive

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abilities” (Banegas 2014: 252), a statement that seems to be supported by the findings in all the studies, including ours. This fact is counter to what Genesee and Upshur (1996) forewarn; the content objectives assessed in contexts of second-language education (such as CLIL) should be identical to those who receive instruction in their L1, and “lower standards of achievement should not be established for second language speakers” (Genesee and Upshur 1996: 47). In a similar vein, our results coincide with studies which focused on examination questions (Chan 2016; Lo and Fung 2018). Questions seem to be placed low in the continuum in the cognitive domain. The remote contexts, and thus the much potential dissimilarity these contexts may present, raise an imperative question: if whenever and wherever an L2 is used as a medium of instruction the cognitive challenge of the content should decrease. This discussion section closes with a quote from experienced and authorized teacher trainers. It seems to indicate the (undesirable) frequency of HOTS in CLIL classrooms and the corresponding requirement to move towards LOTS: When learners find the input first, firstly use questions which appeal to lower-order thinking skills (LOTS), such as remembering and understanding. However, since analysis of teachers’ questioning in the classroom has shown that 70-80% of classroom questioning focuses on these skills of remembering and understanding (Wragg and Brown, 2001), it is important to challenge learners’ thinking behaviors too. (Dale and Tanner, 2012: 32)

Though it was not one of the main research questions in this study, the analysis of the tasks permitted the observation that their formats require little language knowledge in most of the cases. Thus, content recall is not language-challenging (grids, matching information, labels) as can be observed in the activities in Figs. 2, 3, 7, 8, and 10. The activities adhere to Coyle’s et al.’s recommendation for quality: “It is important to allow learners to express their responses to tasks in the most direct way possible so that language is not a barrier to demonstrating understanding of content” (Coyle et al. 2010: 123).

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Conclusions

The chapter opened with reflections on some issues related to the assessment of content in CLIL contexts. BRT has been described and proposed as a convenient analytical framework in which to evaluate the cognitive dimension of content. The description of the different stages in the continuum of BRT could encourage teachers to reflect, as indicated in the title of the chapter. Some considerations on commercialized textbooks and materials were presented. Studies reviewed indicated that the tasks and questions in these materials tend to be low on the cognition continuum proposed by BRT. The findings in the present investigation are in concurrence with previous studies. As a whole, studies like the present chapter and those in accord could serve to: 1. Raise CLIL teachers’ awareness of their existing assessment practices. 2. Increase teachers’ awareness of the potential influence of cognitive and linguistic demands on students’ performance. 3. Support teachers in the recognition of strengths and weaknesses of textbooks. 4. Assist teachers in the development and fostering of HOTS and, in consequence, move beyond tasks that only require retention and understanding. As final considerations, if assessing content is potentially very challenging, the complexity increases when students are concurrently learning a language and learning content in all their dimensions, including thinking skills. The introduction to the chapter underlined the need for research that moves beyond examining CLIL students’ L2 competence. We hope to have contributed further to the understanding of how content and language are integrated in CLIL practices, specifically in the aspect of assessment and thinking skills.

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References Anderson, L., & Krathwohl, D. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. Longman. Assessment Reform Group. (2002). Assessment for learning: 10 principles. Research-based principles to guide classroom practice. Available at http://www. qca.org.uk/libraryAssets/media/4031_afl_principles.pdf. Accessed 27 April 2009. Ball, P. (2018). Innovations and challenges in CLIL materials design. Theory into Practice, 57 (3), 222–231. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2018.148 4036. Banegas, D. L. (2014). An investigation into CLIL-related sections of EFL coursebooks: Issues of CLIL inclusion in the publishing market. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 17 (3), 345–359. Banegas, D. L. (2018). Evaluating language and content in coursebooks. In M. Azarnoosh, M. Zeraatpishe, A. Faravani, & H. R. Kargozari (Eds.), Issues in coursebook evaluation (pp. 21–29). Brill: Leiden. Bloom, B. S. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives, Handbook I: The cognitive domain. New York: David McKay. Carrasco, J. A., & Criado, R. (2019). Investigating CLIL textbooks in Spanish primary education. Spanish Association of Applied Linguistics, Bilingualism: languages in contact. Valladolid, 27–29(4). Chan, J. Y. H. (2016). The fine-tuning medium-of-instruction policy in Hong Kong: A case study of the changing school-based test papers in science subjects. Education Journal, 44 (1), 159–193. Clegg, J. (2007). Analysing the language demands of lessons taught in a second language. RESLA, 20 (1), 113–128. Coyle, D., Hood, P., & Marsh, D. (2010). CLIL: Content and language integrated learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Czura, A. (2017). Translation is not enough—The need for pedagogical adaptation in CLIL textbook development. Porta Linguarum, 27, 35–46. Dale, L., & Tanner, R. (2012). CLIL activities: A resource for subject and language teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dalton-Puffer, C. (2007). Discourse in content and language integrated learning (CLIL). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Dalton-Puffer, C., & Nikula, T. (2014). Content and language integrated learning. The Language Learning Journal, 42(2), 117–122. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/09571736.2014.891370.

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De Graaff, R. (2017). Foreword: Integrating content and language in education: Best of both worlds? In T. Nikula, E. Dafouz, P. Moore, & U. Smit (Eds.), Conceptualising integration in CLIL and multilingual education (pp. xiii–xvi). Multilingual Matters. https://doi.org/10.21832/978178 3096145-003. Decreto 26/2016, de 21 de julio, por el que se establece el currículo y se regula la implantación, evaluación y desarrollo de la Educación Primaria en la Comunidad de Castilla y León. http://bocyl.jcyl.es/boletin.do?fechaBoletin=25/07/ 2016 Durán-Martínez, R., & Beltrán-Llavador, F. (2017). Key issues in teachers’ assessment of primary education bilingual programs in Spain. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. https://doi.org/10.1080/136 70050.2017.1345851. Foran, D. (2008). Evaluación en CLIL. Aula de Innovación Educativa, 15 (168), 38–44. Genesee, F., & Upshur, J. A. (1996). Classroom-based evaluation in second language education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kelly, K. (2014). Ingredients for successful CLIL. British Council, Teaching English. Available at http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/keith-kellyingredients-successful-clil-0. Accessed 25 April 2019. Lo, Y., & Fung, D. (2018). Assessments in CLIL: The interplay between cognitive and linguistic demands and their progression in secondary education. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. https://doi. org/10.1080/13670050.2018.1436519. Lo, Y. Y., & Lin, A. M. Y. (2014). Designing assessment tasks with language awareness: Balancing cognitive and linguistic demands. Assessment and Learning, 3, 97–119. Mäkiranta, P. (2014). CLIL teachers as materials designers. (Master’s thesis). Faculty of Education, University of Jyväskylä. Marketing Association of Australia. Glossary of marketing terms. Available at http://www.marketing.org.au/. Accessed 2 September 2014. Martín del Pozo, M. A., & Rascón Estébanez, D. (2015). Textbooks for content and language integrated learning: Policy market and appropriate didactics? Foro de Educación, 1, 123–141. Martín del Pozo, M. A., & Rascón Estébanez, D. (2017). Recursos multimedia de los libros de texto CLIL (Natural Science): ¿qué aportan al aprendizaje de la lengua? Actas del III congreso de Educación Mediática y competencia digital. Facultad de Educación, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Jurídicas y de la Comunicación, UVA. 2688–2702.

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Martínez López, J. A., & Cantero García, V. (2014). In search of an effective model for assessing learning in bilingual education: The authentic assessment. Porta Linguarum, 21, 137–150. Massler, U., Stotz, D., & Queisser, C. (2014). Assessment instruments for primary CLIL: The conceptualisation and evaluation of test tasks. The Language Learning Journal, 42(2), 137–150. Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Available at https://www.merriam-webster.com/ dictionary/think. Accessed 11 July 2019. Morales, M. Y., & Restrepo, I. (2015). Hacer visible el pensamiento: alternativa en educación para el aprendizaje. Infancias Imágenes, 14 (2), 89–100. Morton, T. (2013). Critically evaluating materials for CLIL: Practitioners’ practices and perspectives. In J. Gray (Ed.), Critical perspectives on language teaching materials (pp. 111–136). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Ritchhart, R., Church, M., & Morrison, K. (2011). Making thinking visible: How to promote engagement, understanding, and independence for all learners. New York: Jossey-Bass. Romeu Peyró, M. C., Cerezo Herrero, E., & Llamas Pérez, E. (2020). Thinking skills in primary education: An analysis of CLIL textbooks in Spain. Revista Porta Linguarum, 33, 183–200. Santo-Tomás González, M. (2011). From low to high order thinking skills in CLIL science primary textbooks: A challenge for teachers and publishers (Tesis de Máster). Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Wragg, E. C., & Brown, G. (2001). Questioning in the primary school . Abingdon: Routledge Farmer.

Concluding Remarks on Teaching Language and Content in Multilingual Classrooms: CLIL and EMI Approaches María Luisa Carrió-Pastor

This volume is addressed to researchers involved in teaching Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) at primary schools, secondary schools and universities, with the aim of comparing both approaches and reflecting on their application in educational institutions. This project is a matter of interest for researchers and teachers as the chapters of the book show the implementation of new methods to teach specific uses of English in different countries and contexts. This book is also of interest for instructors in charge of designing specific material for CLIL and EMI subjects as well as for educational authorities. Additionally, this book can be of interest for the teachers enrolled in the university qualification for teaching in English, which offers theoretical and practical training in order to prepare teachers, graduates and students for teaching in plurilingual education programmes. M. L. Carrió-Pastor (B) Departamento de Lingüística Aplicada, Universitat Politècnica de València, Valencia, Spain e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. L. Carrió-Pastor and B. Bellés Fortuño (eds.), Teaching Language and Content in Multicultural and Multilingual Classrooms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56615-9

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Both approaches are based on content-based instruction, a way to study content through a foreign language, with the aim of improving language while acquiring content (Lightbown 2014). The selected researchers that, after an initial and exhaustive evaluation and review of the chapters by the editors of the volume and the editorial board, contribute to this volume explain, in detail, the way CLIL and EMI are implemented in several countries and institutions. The objective of this volume is to delve into CBI programmes such as Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) as these approaches are increasingly popular in many countries, being supported by educational authorities to promote internationalization and plurilingual education. Some researchers indicate that CLI and EMI are not CBI programmes, as, for example, Dalton Puffer et al. (2014: 215), who state that there are three prototypical characteristics of CLIL in its present state: • CLIL languages are mostly major or minor international linguae francae (in Europe English, French, Spanish, German). The reasons for the dominance of English in CLIL programmes cannot be sought in the vested interest of researchers but in current society-wide language ideologies that scaffold the hegemony of English. • CLIL does not happen instead of foreign language teaching but alongside it. • CLIL is timetabled as content lessons. Consequently, it is taught by content-trained teachers who also assess it ‘as content’. This, we argue, makes it impossible to bona-fide classify CLIL as a type of ContentBased Instruction (CBI). Subject educators would rightly find that paradoxical. In this volume we do believe that both CLIL and EMI are a type of CBI as the methodology used is the same as well as their teaching objectives. Chapter “Focus on Language in CBI: How Teacher Trainees Work with Language Objectives and Language-Focused Activities in Content-Based Lessons” focuses on this aspect that we consider important to establish the theoretical background of CLIL and EMI.

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CLIL and EMI have allowed for extensive experimentation in the realm of second or foreign language teaching and learning. They have been at the centre of many research agendas (Dalton-Puffer 2005; Barwell 2005; Ruiz de Zarobe 2007; Pérez-Cañado 2012; Doiz et al. 2012; Graham et al. 2018; Macaro et al. 2019; Carrió-Pastor 2019, 2020). As a consequence, English has gained an important role in different spheres of life over the last decades. Because of this, EMI and CLIL teaching in secondary and higher education are of interest for many researchers focused on language teaching. The truth is that the concepts of CLIL and EMI have enhanced the innovation of classroom pedagogies in content subjects alongside language teaching. In this vein, this edited volume seeks to take up a broad approach, both illuminating the potential of CLIL and EMI to address longstanding challenges in foreign language teaching and mobilizing research on teaching. Its main aim is to expand the theoretical and methodological repertoires of CLIL and EMI. The research selected for this volume, thus, submitted proposals focusing on teacher education and professional development for immersion and content-based language education. The topics for submissions are broad, that is, the challenges of content-based instruction, the implications of teaching CLIL and EMI, the need for teacher training and new practices in the teaching of CLIL and EMI in the classroom, and intercultural experiences in multilingual programmes. The chapters compiled in this volume show that both EMI and CLIL are beneficial for plurilingual education although some aspects should be improved, such as a need to balance the possibility of success and minimize the uncertainty factors such as considering students’ background and their language proficiency as well as improve teacher training and the collaboration of content teachers and language teachers in the design of material and teaching programmes. In the EMI section, the different research carried out in different educational institutions and countries state the potential of EMI to strengthen intercultural awareness and the needs in teacher training; more specifically, the challenges that the EMI lectures face, which may be directly linked to their confidence in their own language skills, to their pedagogical approaches when teaching through English, and to their

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perceptions of their roles in the classroom. Additionally, some chapters focus on strategies for improving the methodology and second language writing in EMI subjects. In the CLIL section, attention is paid to how foreign literature is taught from an intercultural perspective, establishing quality standards for CLIL training and the need to accommodate content syllabuses in CLIL subjects and in the assessment to be applied. Also, the need to train teachers in CLIL methodology and emphasize their role in the success of this approach and how several thinking skills are considered when content is being assessed are investigated in this volume. This book is distinctive as it offers a wide variety of CLIL and EMI experiences in Spain and in other countries. The academics involved in this project are experts in EMI and CLIL, and this means that the experiences described in the different chapters can help other CLIL and EMI practitioners. The particular benefits of this volume are the educational features described in the different chapters. The reader can observe the chapters related to CLIL practices and also the chapters related to EMI approaches. In the book the two approaches are compared and differences and similarities are highlighted and discussed. The key benefits of this project are to give evidence of the successful use of EMI and CLIL at universities, secondary schools and primary schools, to show the different advantages and disadvantages of EMI and CLIL, and, finally, to identify the key aspects when implementing EMI and CLIL. Regarding future directions of research on CLIL and EMI, some authors have mentioned in the different chapters that EMI alone is not sufficient to enhance intercultural knowledge among learners and may need to be supported, that there could be different levels of success in implementing CLIL and EMI depending on the institution, so causes should be addressed. Additionally, the impact of CLIL and EMI on the internationalization of different countries could also be a matter of interest, comparing the practices and processes used across different institutions, as well as the effect of the implementation of translanguaging in CLIL and EMI (Kim et al. 2018). Also, the method used by CLIL and EMI teachers should also be studied and analysed, as only vocabulary acquisition does not contribute to subject comprehension. Content

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teachers should overcome any challenges concerning EMI and CLIL approaches, thereby ensuring teaching content in a foreign language runs more smoothly and efficiently. Likewise, research is needed to identify if teachers implement true CLIL and EMI methodologies and to identify if institutions interpret language policies on multilingualism correctly given that they can sometimes be wordy and unclear. Taking all these future directions of research into account, further teaching experiences such as the ones illustrated in this volume can support lecturers designing or accommodating the university curriculum for successful CLIL and EMI experiences.

References Barwell, R. (2005). Critical issues for language and content in mainstream classrooms: Introductions. Linguistics and Education,16, 143–150. Carrió-Pastor, M. L. (2019). The implementation of content and language integrated learning in Spain: Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. In Peter Mickan & Ilona Wallace (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of language education curriculum design (pp. 77–89). London: Routledge. Carrió-Pastor, M. L. (Ed.). (2020). Internationalising learning in higher education: The challenges of English as a medium of instruction. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Dalton-Puffer, C. (2005). Negotiating Interpersonal meanings in naturalistic classroom discourse: Directives in content-and-language-integrated classrooms. Journal of Pragmatics,37, 1275–1293. Dalton Puffer, C., Llinares, A., Lorenzo, F., & Nikula, T. (2014). “You can stand under my umbrella”: Immersion, CLIL and bilingual education. A response to Cenoz, Genesee & Gorter (2013). Applied Linguistics, 35 (2), 213–218. Doiz, A., Lasagabaster, D., & Sierra, J. M. (Eds.). (2012). English-medium Instruction at universities: Global challenges. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Graham, K. M., Choi, Y., Davoodi, A., Razmeh, S., & Dixon, L. Q. (2018). Language and content outcomes of CLIL and EMI: A systematic review. LACLIL,11(1), 19–37. Kim, J., Kim, E. G., & Kweon, S.-O. (2018). Challenges in implementing English-medium instruction: Perspectives of Humanities and Social Sciences professors teaching engineering students. English for Specific Purposes,51, 111–123.

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Lightbown, P. M. (2014). Focus on content-based language teaching. Oxford: Oxford, UK. Macaro, E., Jiménez-Muñoz, A., & Lasagabaster, D. (2019). The importance of certification of English Medium Instruction teachers in higher education in Spain. Porta Linguarum,32, 103–118. Pérez-Cañado, M. L. (2012). CLIL research in Europe: Past, present and future. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism,15 (3), 315–341. Ruiz de Zarobe, Y. (2007). CLIL in a bilingual community: Similarities and differences with learning English as a Foreign Language. Vienna English Working Papers, 16 (3), 47–52. van Kampen, E., Mearns, T., Meirink, J., Admiraal, W., & Berry, A. (2018). How do we measure up? A review of Dutch CLIL subject pedagogies against an international backdrop. Dutch Journal of Applied Linguistics,7 (2), 129– 155.

Index

A

B

Accommodate content syllabuses 295, 372 Approaches 3, 4, 8, 14–17, 21–25, 31, 34, 39, 40, 45, 48, 51, 67, 97, 99, 125, 131, 133–136, 140, 147, 148, 152, 159, 193–195, 228, 239, 247, 256, 318, 340, 369–373 Assessment 7, 17, 20, 24, 34, 42, 45, 70, 104, 142, 144, 146, 159, 166, 170, 172, 207–209, 263, 294, 295, 297, 298, 302–306, 308, 309, 340–342, 344, 347–350, 365, 372 Attitudes 5, 20, 36, 67, 73, 161, 166, 173, 260, 278–280, 283, 296, 315–318

Beliefs 4, 5, 20, 39, 66–68, 76, 84, 89, 103, 113, 124, 125, 129, 130, 136, 138, 140, 148, 150–152, 161, 165, 194, 260, 262, 318

C

Challenges 4, 5, 7, 20, 23, 25, 32, 33, 35, 42, 46–48, 50, 53, 54, 66, 70, 83–85, 98, 101, 114, 129, 131, 136, 137, 140, 145, 148, 152, 159–161, 165, 166, 170, 173, 175–177, 179, 180, 182, 183, 193, 273, 310, 332, 340, 342, 350, 352, 363, 364, 371, 373 CLIL methodology 7, 218, 257, 271–274, 282, 284, 315,

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. L. Carrió-Pastor and B. Bellés Fortuño (eds.), Teaching Language and Content in Multicultural and Multilingual Classrooms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56615-9

375

376

Index

317–319, 322, 330, 331, 333, 335, 372 CLIL programme 2, 3, 8, 32, 41, 53, 260, 294, 295, 297, 330, 342, 370 Confidence 5, 101, 142, 170, 174, 179, 192, 193, 199, 207, 209, 210, 215–218, 260, 305, 371 Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) 1, 3, 13, 15, 31, 97, 123, 193, 339, 369, 370 Content-based lessons 297 Content knowledge 306 Content teachers 18, 24, 115, 197, 373

E

Early Education teachers 6 English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) 2, 3, 13, 15, 19, 31, 33, 35, 369, 370 English in a non-English speaking country 31 Exam models 7, 340, 351, 352, 357, 362

I

Implementation of EMI policies 124 Improve academic writing 218 Initial teacher-training 6 Intercultural competence 1, 4, 43, 66, 67, 69, 72, 90, 91, 229, 246, 248 Intercultural perspective 6, 227–229, 235, 237–239, 243, 246, 372 Internationalisation of European universities 65, 72, 87, 91, 293 International students 20, 21, 24, 37, 41, 47, 50, 52, 66, 69, 75, 76, 79, 84–86, 88–91, 126–128, 135, 137, 138, 164, 177, 193 Interviews 3, 5, 33, 36, 40, 72, 74, 85, 89, 125, 131–134, 136, 138–140, 143, 145, 146, 149, 151, 152, 160, 161, 165, 166, 168, 169, 174, 182, 192, 198, 203, 210, 234, 235, 257, 260, 315 Italian secondary schools 232

L F

Foreign language teachers 66

H

Higher education institutions (HEIs) 5, 65, 71, 124, 139, 147, 157, 159, 164, 178, 193, 197, 293 High-order thinking skills 7, 48, 263, 322, 350

Language knowledge 4, 100, 103, 105–107, 110–112, 297, 364 Lecturing behaviour 79 Levels of confidence 161, 210 Literary canon 6, 227, 243 Literary education 6, 225–231, 247, 248 Literature teachers 6, 233, 234, 236, 245 Low-order thinking skills 7, 322, 351, 364

Index

377

M

S

Multicultural classrooms 4, 84, 90 Multilingual context 6, 19, 259, 261, 263, 274

Social Science 7, 40, 45–50, 52, 202, 330, 353–356, 363 Stylistic, historical and intercultural content 6, 226, 228, 247 Suggestions 5, 106, 160, 161, 229, 236, 242, 247, 351 Summative assessment 105, 305, 308, 309, 340, 341, 352, 363

N

Natural Science 7, 49, 318, 325, 330, 351, 353–356, 363

P

T

Practices and processes 5, 125, 128–134, 136, 137, 139, 141, 142, 146–148, 151, 152, 372 Pre-service teachers 4, 103, 104 Primary school teachers 316 Programmes in post-Soviet countries 5

Teacher training 2–4, 7, 37, 39, 48, 178, 257, 262, 263, 371 Team teaching approach 20 Textbooks publishers 351 Thinking skills 7, 340, 342, 352, 357, 362, 363, 365, 372

R

Verbs used in the questions and tasks 110

V

Risk factor management 4, 32