Abstract
This chapter addresses academic disciplinary literacy, the ability to use disciplinary discourse to formulate and learn discipline-specific ideas correctly, and also use condoned ways of languaging to share disciplinary knowledge eloquently. Disciplinary literacy also concerns L1 content education; however, the existence of “foreign language” within the EMI/CLIL instructional milieu further amplifies this challenge. This chapter addresses this challenge by evolving traditional EFL-models of language-learning into an “EMI/CLIL-concept-language-complexity model,” which correlates complex disciplinary concepts with complex disciplinary discourse with complex foreign disciplinary discourse. Using this three-dimensional model, translanguaging materials were designed so to make “foreign language” a conduit that seamlessly chaperones students through disciplinary knowledge coded in L1-BICS, L1-CALP, FL-BICS, and FL-CALP. Translanguaging materials are presented plus case-study results confirming not only students' comprehension of disciplinary concepts but also their assimilation of complex disciplinary discourses.
TopIntroduction
To prepare university graduates for increasingly more internationalized professional realities, increasingly more universities in non-Anglophone contexts are offering disciplinary coursework in English (Doiz, Lasagabaster, Sierra, 2013; Dearden 2015), whereby English-speaking content-experts adopt English as the medium of instruction – EMI. Whether we call it CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning), ICLHE (Integrating Content and Language in Higher Education), or EMI, we cannot ignore the fact that disciplinary notions at upper secondary and tertiary are already difficult to grasp in the mother tongue. Clearly then, we must ensure that the use of a foreign language to teach content at these upper levels does not transform what is already difficult into the impossible. Despite these and other concerns regarding the learning of complex content through a foreign language, EMI/CLIL1 is nonetheless moving forward at a rapid pace (Jenkins 2014). There is therefore urgency to delineate concrete instructional strategies which ensure that complex content is not sacrificed for the sake of learning a foreign language (Ting & Ciadamidaro 2016; Ting 2017). At the same time, suggestions related to EMI/CLIL instruction should address existent shortcomings which already plague content instruction in L1. This short article addresses two such issues pertaining to literacy in L1-content instruction. The first regards the deep-reading of complex texts and thus the ability to understand and learn from discipline-specific academic textbooks, i.e. receptive academic literacy. The second issue regards productive academic literacy, the ability to produce well-written texts which respect conventionalized discipline-specific norms for “languaging about” (Swain & Lapkin, 1982) disciplinary knowledge. This chapter discusses these issues and presents translanguaging strategies which allow content teachers to deploy a foreign language such as English, to facilitate students’ reading of and learning from, L1 textbooks. In particular, Section 2 discusses general concerns regarding receptive and productive academic literacy, even in L1-instruction while Section 3 delineates how the process of learning complex content through a foreign language further increases the challenge of “academic literacy instruction” and proposes how traditional EFL-models of language learning can evolve into an EMI/CLIL-model which accommodates the learning of complex disciplinary discourse through a foreign language. Section 4 not only illustrates how the EMI/CLIL-model proposed in Section 3 can be used to guide the design of translanguaging instructional materials, but also briefly presents learning outcomes from three case-studies which confirm the efficacy of using such materials for the learning of discipline-specific content and discourse.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Translanguaging: A term coined by Cen Williams in 1994 and made popular by Garcia (see References above), which describes the process whereby speakers of various languages (English, Italian, Spanish, etc.) utilize multiple languages simultaneously so to facilitate communication and comprehension between them.
CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency): Coined by Cummins, describes the language preferred and used in “schooling”, by teachers, textbooks and such academic, “non-everyday” contexts.
CLIL (Content and Language-Integrated Learning): Instructional contexts in which students are learning non-lingua content through a foreign language: such as students in a Scottish school learning chemistry through French. Instruction attends to both the learning of content as well as the foreign language.
BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills): Coined by Cummins, describes the language used in everyday social contexts and interpersonal interactions. This is contrary to CALP.
Disciplinary Literacy: The ability to manage discipline-peculiar semiotics for communicating discipline-specific knowledge, which, in most cases, involves text.
EMI (English Medium Instruction): Non-Anglophone contexts in which English is the vehicular language of instruction: such as physics taught in English at a university in Italy where Italian would normally be the “language of instruction”. Attention is focused on Content-education with the learning of English hopefully coming about via “exposure.”
ICLHE (Integrating Content and Language in Higher Education): Tertiary instructional contexts whereby content is taught through a foreign language. Compared to EMI (see above), ICLHE instruction also attends more to foreign language-learning, as CLIL.