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Cambridge Language Teaching Library
The Roles of Language in CLIL (Cambridge Language Teaching Library) by Ana Llinares
An examination of how language functions in CLIL, based on a corpus of classroom interactions. Drawing on their wide experience as CLIL educators and researchers, the authors explore data collected in real CLIL classrooms from two interrelated the CLIL classroom as an interactional context for developing language and content, and the genres and registers through which the meanings of the different academic subjects are enacted. From the analysis of this corpus of data, the authors provide a rich description of how CLIL students' language works and may be expected to develop. Also available separately as a hardback.
- GenresLinguisticsEducation
Paperback Bunko
First published March 15, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 12, 2022
Where this is the right book for you will really depend on what you are looking for. The book uses a corpus of transcripts from CLIL classrooms in a variety of countries across Europe. Extracts from these transcripts are analysed to investigate the roles which language is used for in these CLIL classrooms. The analysis is interesting and often leads to some advice for practitioners. The advice almost never extends to 'how' a teacher could actually put things into practice in their classroom, however. If you are looking for a 'how to' manual, this is not the book for you. For example, one piece of advice is that "students should be introduced to different ways of presenting logical connections". This is important advice, but there are no indications at all as to how this might be done effectively.
The analysis is carried out with reference to a number of very useful models of language. Occasionally, however, this makes the book overly theoretical in the sense that more time is expended on classifying uses of language into typologies than on analysing what really works to support student learning.
It is also important to note that because the book is based on a particular corpus of actual practice rather than ideal practice, there is a tacit assumption emerging from the corpus or practice used that classrooms are places where a 'transmissionist' approach to pedagogy is the norm. Though there are places where group work is examined ( in a very undifferentiated way), the authors largely ignore how language roles might change in a more constructivist, inquiry-based classroom.
The analysis is carried out with reference to a number of very useful models of language. Occasionally, however, this makes the book overly theoretical in the sense that more time is expended on classifying uses of language into typologies than on analysing what really works to support student learning.
It is also important to note that because the book is based on a particular corpus of actual practice rather than ideal practice, there is a tacit assumption emerging from the corpus or practice used that classrooms are places where a 'transmissionist' approach to pedagogy is the norm. Though there are places where group work is examined ( in a very undifferentiated way), the authors largely ignore how language roles might change in a more constructivist, inquiry-based classroom.
February 28, 2016
Though it was refreshing to read a technical book on education (bringing back fond memories of teacher school), this book had similar problems to the last CLIL book I read. Jargon can be very useful and this is exactly the kind of place where it belongs, but there were some things that seemed entirely unnecessary to jargonize. This feeling was supported by the fact that much of the advice it gives is, frankly, obvious. Couched in very technical language with lots of references, many things sounded like they meant a lot more than they did. Most of the points were incredibly generic but the complicated language served to create a sense of authority or profundity that it didn't actually have.
At one point, when talking about types of questions, it said "However, display questions in the classroom do have, in fact, a real purpose, and are genuine questions in the educational context." It went on to elaborate, as though it was a surprising revelation that teachers should check students' understandings by asking questions to which we already know the answers.
Much like the last book I read on CLIL, I came away with a feeling that this was not a particularly unique form of education. It failed to really differentiate CLIL from immersion in any meaningful way. Insisting that there was a marked difference, that CLIL was more focused on content, doesn't fit with any of the real-world examples I've seen involving language/subject classes.
At one point, when talking about types of questions, it said "However, display questions in the classroom do have, in fact, a real purpose, and are genuine questions in the educational context." It went on to elaborate, as though it was a surprising revelation that teachers should check students' understandings by asking questions to which we already know the answers.
Much like the last book I read on CLIL, I came away with a feeling that this was not a particularly unique form of education. It failed to really differentiate CLIL from immersion in any meaningful way. Insisting that there was a marked difference, that CLIL was more focused on content, doesn't fit with any of the real-world examples I've seen involving language/subject classes.
September 25, 2014
The strength of this book is that it is based on a corpus of real learners and teachers using English as a foreign language to learn content subjects. There were a lot of great ideas that we can apply in our program to help our students master academic English.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews