5.2. Language immersion and CLIL

Week 5 Part 2 will help you

• to become familiar with key concepts of language immersion and Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL);
• to understand the main features and objectives of language immersion in schools.

To reach these goals you are expected to

• watch the introductory video lecture explaining the main aims and features of language immersion and CLIL;
• read the text below about the origin as well as the main purposes of language immersion programmes;
• do the activities based on the videos of some examples of immersion programmes in different parts of the world.

 Video

Reading

The origin of immersion bilingual education

Modern immersion bilingual education, which is often seen as the most effective form of second language learning in an institutional setting, originated in Canada in the 1960s. In Québec, in an area where French is the dominant language, some parents of the English-speaking minority wanted their children to become proficient in the majority language, French.

As a result, an experimental kindergarten was set up in St. Lambert, a suburb of Montreal, in 1965. The experiment pursued three main goals:
1) bilingualism in French and English,
2) biculturalism, i.e. that children would develop positive attitudes towards the culture of French-speaking Canadians and
3) academic achievement that were similar to monolingual speakers, i.e. that the gain in language competence would come at no cost to the curricular achievement.

All three goals were achieved to a large extent, and as a result of the well-researched success of the early immersion programmes, the idea spread to other parts of Canada, to the U.S. and to many other parts of the world, including Europe. The approach has continued to attract support since it was developed more than 50 years ago. In Europe, immersion programmes were initially implemented, above all, in Scandinavia, in Spain and France, but can nowadays be found in most countries.

Immersion bilingual education can fulfill a number of different purposes. It may be used to promote the learning of

• a) an indigenous language to keep the language alive (e.g. Welsh in Wales or Hawaiian in Hawai‘i)
• b) a minority language in a bilingual country (e.g. French for English-speaking children in French-speaking regions in Canada)
• c) a majority language by an ethnic minority group (e.g. Estonian for Russian speaking children in Estonia)
• d) an international language (e.g. English in Germany or Switzerland)

Apart from the highly significant status of the second language, immersion programmes can differ with respect to several features. Potential differences may be the result of the following factors, for example:

• the learner’s age or grade at which immersion is introduced (Is immersion introduced at an early or at a later stage?),
• the duration of immersion (Is immersion continued after elementary school, for example?),
• the intensity of immersion and the balance between both languages (Is it a matter of ‘total’ immersion or just ‘partial’ immersion?),
• the amount of language support given to learners, especially in the beginning,
• the subjects which are taught in each language, and
• the materials and resources provided.

Despite these potential differences, immersion programmes also appear to share many features.
Based on Swain and Johnson (1997) and Swain and Lapkin (2005) Colin Baker (2011: 242) presented the following list of common essential features:

Core features of immersion programmes

1. The immersion language is the medium of instruction.
2. The immersion curriculum is the same as the local first language curriculum.
3. The school supports development in all the child’s languages.
4. Additive bilingualism occurs.
5. Exposure to the immersion language is largely confined to the classroom.
6. Students enter with similar (limited or nonexistent) levels of proficiency in the immersion language.
7. All the teachers are bilingual.
8. The classroom culture needs to recognize the cultures of the diverse language communities to which the students belong, including immigrant communities.

In the last few decades many different models of immersion bilingual education have been  developed – often even within the same country – as a result of different contexts, needs, political situations and different educational frameworks. Nevertheless, immersion bilingual education has proved to be so effective that this form of language learning is likely to attract more and more support in Europe and worldwide.

Sources:

Johnson, Robert K. & Swain, Merrill (1997): “Immersion Education: A Category within Bilingual Education”. In: K. Johnson & M. Swain (eds.): Immersion Education: International Perspectives. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p. 6-8.

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Reading (Part II)

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)

Like immersion, Content and Language Integrated (CLIL) is also considered to be a ‘strong’ form of bilingual education. Both approaches are based on the fact that foreign languages are best learnt ‘naturally’ and implicitly, i.e. by focussing on the content which is transmitted through language and not so much on the language itself, i.e. its forms and structures, which is often rather associated with traditional foreign language teaching.

In contrast to immersion, however, CLIL is usually found at ‘regular’ state schools and exposure time to the second language is typically more restricted than in an immersion class. In CLIL classrooms normally only a few subjects are taught in the second language whereas in an immersion most subjects are taught – in some cases almost exclusively – in the target language.

In the past it was quite common for CLIL classes to be conducted more or less in the same way as traditional foreign language classes. The content of the typical foreign language was simply replaced by content related to specific subjects (e.g. in History or Geography) while the teaching methodology was adopted from foreign language teaching. This situation has changed considerably in recent years and many teachers and educationalists nowadays insist that an independent CLIL methodology should be developed (Wolff 2011: 556). The following aspects are concerned with some methodological differences between both areas:

a) Skills

In contrast to traditional foreign language teaching, in which oral skills are emphasised, Content and language integrated learning also focuses very much on written skills since learners often have to deal with written materials in their content subjects and may also have to document their results at a very early stage.

b) Teaching subject-related terminology

Cummins (1987) made a useful distinction between “Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills” (BICS) and “Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency” (CALP). Foreign language teaching is typically associated with BICS, i.e. words and phrases which are often found in everyday speech and everyday topics like hobbies, pets, directions, means of transport etc. While the CLIL classroom may also provide learners with language related to BICS, it also equips them with special terminology and phrases on an academic level (i.e. CALP). In order to understand or produce CLIL texts (e.g. on topics such as industrialization, electric circuits or the life-cycle of a butterfly), more abstract and less frequently used vocabulary is needed.

It is often believed that the most important aspect of content-based lessons is to provide learners with long vocabulary lists with specific terminology related to a specific content subject (e.g. parts of the human body, weather phenomena) to facilitate the comprehension of texts. While this lexical dimension remains an important issue, it is also seen as crucial to to provide them with general academic skills and knowledge about relevant text genres (e.g. manuals or reports) in their content subject.

c) Discourse skills

Another aspect related to Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) is the development of discourse skills when talking or writing about subject-specific topics. It is crucial that learners become familiar with so called “operators” such as “identifying”, “classifying”, “defining”, “explaining”, “describing”, “comparing” or “evaluating”. In addition, there are several more specific operators like “describing experiments” or “explaining graphs, tables or diagrams”.

d) Language in the classroom

In contrast to traditional foreign language teaching (or to immersion classes), where the foreign language is used as frequently as possible, perhaps even almost exclusively, the learners’ native language may play a more significant role in a CLIL classroom. This is partly due to the fact that it is essential that academic language competence is built up in both languages, but it might also be useful to analyse certain topics from different perspectives. For example, in a History CLIL lesson about WW I it might be interesting to read texts written in different languages (e.g. German, French or English) in order to compare the different perspectives. As far as the learners’ output is concerned, there is often a relatively great tolerance for code-switching in the classroom since the focus is, above all, on content and on conveying messages.

References:

Coyle, Do, Hood, Philip & Marsh, David (2010): CLIL: Content and Language Integrated Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Cummins, Jim (1987): “Bilingualism, language proficiency and metalinguistic development”. In: Homel, Peter, Palij, Michael & Aaronson, Doris (eds.): Childhood Bilingualism: Aspects of Linguistic, Cognitive and Social Development. Erlbaum: Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 57-73.

Wolff, Dieter (2011): “Content and Language Integrated Learning”. In: Knapp, Karlfried & Seidlhofer, Barbara (eds.): Handbook of Foreign Language Communication and Learning. Mouton De Gruyter: Berlin/New York, 545-572.

Activity

Watch the following three videos where different schools present their immersion schools.
After watching the videos complete the activity below.

Video No. 1: French Immersion Programme (Edmonton Public School, Canada)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB1i_yk3zpo

Task 1: 

Video No. 2: Navajo children in native language immersion school (Length: 3:01)

Task 2:

Video No. 3: Chinese Immersion (elementary school in the US)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY-E7a9SMes

Task 3:

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