Pedagogical implications
An implication emerging from this experience is related to the systematic training in lexical inferencing in the language classroom. This should be carried out by the teacher's modeling of her own mental processes when encountering an unknown word, followed by instances of students' practice. In this way, students will be able to enrich their repertoire of lexical inferencing strategies. Teachers should also alert their students of the problem of verifying their guesses through context, and encourage them to double-check word interpretations even when they think they know the word. Moreover, students should be shown how to use not only local context clues but also larger discourse-level clues to infer meanings
Since these metacognitive skills are an important part of reading itself, helping students to develop such skills would benefit them not only in vocabulary building but in reading as well (Huckin and Bloch, 1993).
References
Brown, G., & Yule, G. (1983). Discourse Analysis. Cambridge. CUP.
Green, A. (1998). Verbal protocol analysis in language testing research: A handbook. Cambridge. CUP.
Haastrup, K. (1991). Lexical inferencing proceedings or talking about words: receptive procedures in foreign language learning with special reference to English. Tubingen, Germany: Gunter Narr.
Huckin, T., and Bloch, J. (1993). Strategies for inferring word-meanings in context: A cognitive model. In T. Huckin, Haynes and Coady (Eds.). Second language reading and vocabulary learning (pp.153-180). New Jersey, USA: Ablex Publishing Corp.
Kintsch, W. (1988). The role of knowledge in discourse comprehension: A construction integration model. Psychological Review, 95: 165-82.
Li, S. and Munby, H. (1996). Metacognitive strategies in second language academic reading: a qualitative investigation. ESP 15, (3), 199-216.
Longhini, A., and Martinez, I. (1997). Reading Together: The joint action of teacher and student on the text. Editorial de la Fundación UNRC.
Nassaji, H. (2006). The relationship between depth of vocabulary knowledge and L2 learners' lexical inferencing strategy use and success. The Modern Language Journal, 90, iii
Description of the Workshop
The workshop was divided into four parts:
a) Theoretical background b) Sample class
c) Analysis of sample class
d) Analysis of project “A Trip through the Twenties”
Firstly, I defined what I understand by C.L.I.L. and stated its underlying principles. Then I analysed the main characteristics of adult learners and the difficulties teachers encounter when teaching these learners. Secondly, I borrowed from Tessa Woodward the technique of “loop input” by means of which
“the content of the session will be carried by the process, but the process is part of the content.” (1991:13). I asked participants to become learners of English at an advanced level for twenty minutes. In the role of language learners, the participants experienced a series of tasks that had been designed to engage real learners through a project called “A trip through the Twenties”. Thirdly, participants readopted the role of teachers and we analysed what we had done. I described how the tasks that we had experienced fit into the whole thematic project that lasts twenty four classes and that was implemented at an oil and gas company in the city of Buenos Aires during 2004. Afterwards, I showed how the material that had been used in the sample class was adapted to work with adult students at an intermediate level. I also showed samples of oral and written production.
Theoretical Background
After defining C.L.I.L. and mentioning the four elements in a CLIL lesson:
content, communication, cognition and culture, I exhibited the following characteristics of a CLIL lesson:
?Listening and reading provide the main source of input
?The language skills are integrated
?Language is functional and dictated by the context of the subject
?The language lesson does not consider structural grading language and non-language content and that focuses mainly on 'meaning'. I mainly
concentrated on the Language Dimension of C.L.I.L. which emphasises the introduction of a target language, the improvement of the target language competence, the development of communication skills, the awareness of both mother tongue and target language and the development of plurilingual interests and attitudes.
One of the aims of the presentation was to show the impact of C.L.I.L. on adult intrinsic motivation and its effect on the target language competence. By motivation, my understanding is of a sense of empowerment in being able to do something for the sake of doing it without thoughts of reward such as praise or grades. According to Dörnyei, Z. (2000: 8) motivation concerns the direction and magnitude of human behaviour and it is responsible for why people decide to do something, how long they are willing to sustain the activity and how hard they are going to pursue it.
Content is motivating. As mentioned by Carmen Muñoz (2002, as cited in Marsh 2002: 36) ”Motivation to learn content through the foreign language may foster and sustain motivation towards learning the foreign language itself.” In the case of adult learners who have reached a plateau in the process of learning a foreign language, learning content (besides language) provides them with a feeling of achievement that raises their self-esteem.
My second aim was to point out the relevance of prior knowledge in the search for meaningful learning. David Ausubel (1968, as cited in Brown 1980: 79) defines meaningful learning as the process of relating and anchoring new material to relevant established entities in the cognitive structure. Human learning is seen as an active process of construction in which perceptual stimuli and the learner´s prior knowledge are involved. The result of a learning process will be different for each learner because the learner´s prior knowledge is always subjective knowledge and is unique to each learner. Meaningful learning will bring about meaningful language. According to Muñoz (2002, as cited in Marsh 2002), C.L.I.L.
stretches the learners' language and language learning potential through pushing learners to produce meaningful and complex language.
motivation, but I felt that it was not enough to sustain their interest for a long time.
Working with traditional textbooks did not seem to help either, so I decided to start adding extra material.
After doing some research on my students´ interests, I found out that many of them liked history. It was then that I decided to devote 25 percent of the weekly hours assigned to analysing a historic figure that was of their interest. Soon, I realized that my learners were more involved in what they called “history class”
than in the textbook.
In 2004, I decided not to use textbooks at all and started designing a project on The Twenties, integrating the four skills. After collecting all the material available I decided to divide the project into four parts:
a) Historical Background – Society – Technology – Prohibition
b) Relevant people: Al Capone, Sacco and Vanzetti, Maurine Watkins, S.
Fitzgerald, Charles Lindbergh, Louis Armstrong, Sophie Tucker, etc.
c) Analysis of the movie “Chicago” and exploitation of the songs.
d) Reading of “The Great Gatsby” (novel written by S. Fitzgerald)
The project was carried out in 15 courses, 3 of which were group classes of 3 students each. The rest were one to one classes. It lasted 24 classes and it was divided into three levels: pre-intermediate, intermediate and advanced (post First Certificate students). Once the project was finished, learners were asked to write an article on the decade and prepare a monologue using a mind map to scaffold production. Both samples were kept in their portfolios for future assessment.
Conclusion
Through the session, participants experienced the power of C.L.I.L. to engage learners and its clear effect on the target language competence and the development of oral communication skills. They were also exposed to an example of how C.L.I.L. has actually been implemented with adult learners.
?Language is approached lexically rather than grammatically
?Speaking focuses on fluency.
References