Dear Rob
I don't think Keith's saying what you suggest he's saying. I don't
think he's saying that you have to teach language in a particularly
explicit or deductive way. And he's certainly agreeing with Adrian that
an inductive approach to the learning of subjects in L2 is good.
The point about teaching subjects in L2 is that learners have to have
the L2 language skills to learn them. If learners in CLIL/English-
medium subject lessons don't possess the language skills to meet the
language demands which the subject lesson makes on them, they don't
learn the subject effectively. What happens then is that English-medium
teaching over time becomes a less effective means of teaching subjects
than teaching in L1. Standards in L2-medium subject teaching fall; the
community gets worried and soon, as in Malaysia, education in L2 gets a
bad name.
The same is true of ES/AL. Learners from linguistic minorities in
industrialised countries underperform in school. There are lots of
social reasons for that, but one simple reason is that they don't have
the language skills to learn subjects effectively in mainstream
classrooms, which is where they are for most of the time. Nobody is
teaching them those skills effectively enough.
One reason why we are not teaching these skills effectively enough is
that we don't ourselves have a clear enough idea of the cognitive
academic language proficiency which learners need to learn subjects.
I've been working in CLIL/EAL/L2-medium education for years and I still
don't have a good description of the academic language skills which
learners need to learn say science or history. I have to work it out
myself lesson by lesson. So it is very important that teachers teaching
subjects in L2 have at least an idea of the language skills which they
are (normally fairly implicitly) requiring their learners to use. Many,
perhaps most, in ES/AL, CLIL, L2-medium education, don't. And if they
ask me where they can go to find this, I can't point them in the
direction of a book which will do it for them, because I don't know of
one.
Another eeason we are not teaching these CALP skills well enough is
that in L2-medium subject teaching, we don't quite know how to do it.
But there is ceratinly no way round teaching learners the language
skills for learning a subject that they are learning in L2, and subject
teachers - the key agents in this - have to know that. Anyone teaching
a subject in L2 has to be able to analyse the langauge demands of
lessons and predict at what points the learners will have trouble
meeting them. Then they can provide learners with language and learning
support at those points so that they do meet them. This ability is a
key professional skill that L2-medium subject teachers have to have. If
they're extremely lucky they might have a L2-medium subject textbook
which does this work for them but they are few and far between.
Quite how you provide this support as a subject teacher is another
matter: you can of course provide it inductively and implicitly. That
may be the most effective way to do it. After all you want you
learners' attention to be on subject concepts most of the time and not
too much on language. On the other hand if there's one thing which
immersion studies are saying at the moment, it is that immersion
learners' language development plateaus. And the way to keep it
developing so that it keeps up with the expanding subject curriculum is
to ensure that there is some explicit attention to language - of what
SLA people call the 'noticing' variety (see Lyster, Swain, Genesee
etc). I'm not sure how far I would want a subject teacher to go with
explicit attention to language, but in L2-medium subject teaching it
does have a good pedigree at the moment.
Ignoring language can have crucial consequences in L2-medium
programmes. Unless I'm mistaken there was no serious national attempt
to train maths and science teachers in the Malaysian EM maths and
science programme to teach their subject to learners with low English
language skills. How could they have omitted this? Very easily: it
happens throughout the world of English-medium education: authorities
think you don't need to do it. It's a crying shame.
Best wishes
John Clegg
I don't think Keith's saying what you suggest he's saying. I don't
think he's saying that you have to teach language in a particularly
explicit or deductive way. And he's certainly agreeing with Adrian that
an inductive approach to the learning of subjects in L2 is good.
The point about teaching subjects in L2 is that learners have to have
the L2 language skills to learn them. If learners in CLIL/English-
medium subject lessons don't possess the language skills to meet the
language demands which the subject lesson makes on them, they don't
learn the subject effectively. What happens then is that English-medium
teaching over time becomes a less effective means of teaching subjects
than teaching in L1. Standards in L2-medium subject teaching fall; the
community gets worried and soon, as in Malaysia, education in L2 gets a
bad name.
The same is true of ES/AL. Learners from linguistic minorities in
industrialised countries underperform in school. There are lots of
social reasons for that, but one simple reason is that they don't have
the language skills to learn subjects effectively in mainstream
classrooms, which is where they are for most of the time. Nobody is
teaching them those skills effectively enough.
One reason why we are not teaching these skills effectively enough is
that we don't ourselves have a clear enough idea of the cognitive
academic language proficiency which learners need to learn subjects.
I've been working in CLIL/EAL/L2-
don't have a good description of the academic language skills which
learners need to learn say science or history. I have to work it out
myself lesson by lesson. So it is very important that teachers teaching
subjects in L2 have at least an idea of the language skills which they
are (normally fairly implicitly) requiring their learners to use. Many,
perhaps most, in ES/AL, CLIL, L2-medium education, don't. And if they
ask me where they can go to find this, I can't point them in the
direction of a book which will do it for them, because I don't know of
one.
Another eeason we are not teaching these CALP skills well enough is
that in L2-medium subject teaching, we don't quite know how to do it.
But there is ceratinly no way round teaching learners the language
skills for learning a subject that they are learning in L2, and subject
teachers - the key agents in this - have to know that. Anyone teaching
a subject in L2 has to be able to analyse the langauge demands of
lessons and predict at what points the learners will have trouble
meeting them. Then they can provide learners with language and learning
support at those points so that they do meet them. This ability is a
key professional skill that L2-medium subject teachers have to have. If
they're extremely lucky they might have a L2-medium subject textbook
which does this work for them but they are few and far between.
Quite how you provide this support as a subject teacher is another
matter: you can of course provide it inductively and implicitly. That
may be the most effective way to do it. After all you want you
learners' attention to be on subject concepts most of the time and not
too much on language. On the other hand if there's one thing which
immersion studies are saying at the moment, it is that immersion
learners' language development plateaus. And the way to keep it
developing so that it keeps up with the expanding subject curriculum is
to ensure that there is some explicit attention to language - of what
SLA people call the 'noticing' variety (see Lyster, Swain, Genesee
etc). I'm not sure how far I would want a subject teacher to go with
explicit attention to language, but in L2-medium subject teaching it
does have a good pedigree at the moment.
Ignoring language can have crucial consequences in L2-medium
programmes. Unless I'm mistaken there was no serious national attempt
to train maths and science teachers in the Malaysian EM maths and
science programme to teach their subject to learners with low English
language skills. How could they have omitted this? Very easily: it
happens throughout the world of English-medium education: authorities
think you don't need to do it. It's a crying shame.
Best wishes
John Clegg
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