Classroom Discourse in Language Learning: Week 8 Response
The first article of this week’s topic on classroom discourse and FL strategies in other countries looks at the interaction between young students in a foreign language and CLIL setting in Europe. The tasks at hand were picture placement and a guessing game where negotiation of meaning strategies were analyzed and it was argued that the younger learners (4th graders) would participate in this more frequently than the older learners (6th graders). In addition, the environment as well as age, as mentioned previously, had an effect on the way in which the learners negotiated meaning in these activities. Depending upon the task, different types of negotiation patterns were used such as comprehension checks or repetition. Although the study would have been more useful if the ages were slightly further apart while still keeping to the primary school age. This is useful for further research as it shows the effects that different factors have on the activity process completion done by EFL children. This gives insight on the amount of use of the L2 in slightly different settings but a greater variety can provide researchers with much more useful information regarding the L2 use in such activities in a range of settings using differing ages. Overall, I think this is useful to study the effects of different programs/strategies such as EFL versus CLIL environments in other countries where this type of comparison is not quite common.
Intriguingly, there are noticeable similarities between CLIL programs and bilingual classrooms. Although, CLIL settings use solely the target language for the medium of instruction. This article demonstrates a study done on a CLIL primary school in Madrid and focuses on the discursive styles of the main teacher and the language assistant. It is argued that this team-teaching style is effective because it facilitates a shared learning community and sets up the success for students’ involvement in the classroom. The methodology includes an initial questionnaire consisting of questions about the overall experience and thoughts of the CLIL program. This was then followed by classroom observation in order to identify the roles of both the MTs and LAs, including the discourse patterns they used during instruction by recording videos or watching the class live. The results of the study show that in this back and forth interaction, each teacher uses differing discourse strategies in order to enhance or repeat the first utterances made by the MT. Overall, this study is interesting to take note of when considering my final paper as most discursive studies in my course have been classrooms with one teacher. The literature is good to consider when looking ahead at foreign language education in the U.S. compared to other countries that implement such programs.
Another reading from this week discusses the differences between CLIL and EFL learners and the use or avoidance of the L1 while narrating stories over a period of time. The discourse markers used are also analyzed while taking into account the language medium used for self-repair during narration. The study was conducted twice over a period of 2 years which consisted of interviewers who spoke English as their L1 where they listened to the story narration of the bilingual students in either a CLIL program or an EFL program of the high school age. The results show that the CLIL students seemed to have been more advanced and had developed their use of English when compared to the EFL students. Although, there was the more frequent use of discourse markers in the L1 by CLIL students which was explained to be due to the experience of interacting with English teachers more frequently. On the contrary, when EFL students did not know how to say something, they simply stayed silent as an indication for help from the interviewer, thus leading to a higher percentage of repair sequences and a decrease in repair sequences in CLIL students over time. A better tactic would be to incorporate classroom observation in their methodology but overall has laid an interesting groundwork for CLIL studies compared to EFL programs.
Azkarai, Agurtzane, and Ainara Imaz Agirre. “Negotiation of Meaning Strategies in Child EFL Mainstream and CLIL Settings.” TESOL Quarterly, vol. 50, no. 4, Dec. 2016, pp. 844–870.
Dafouz, Emma, and Abbie Hibler. “‘Zip Your Lips’ or ‘Keep Quiet’: Main Teachers’ and Language Assistants’ Classroom Discourse in CLIL Settings.” The Modern Language Journal, vol. 97, no. 3, 2013, pp. 655–669.
Ibarrola, Amparo Lázaro. “Are CLIL Learners Simply Faster or Also Different? Evidence from L1 Use in the Repair Sequences and Discourse Markers of CLIL and EFL Learners.” Vigo International Journal of Applied Linguistics, no. 13, Jan. 2016, pp. 127–145.
