Languages Across the Curriculum (LAC)

1. Languages Across the Curriculum (LAC) Helmut Johannes Vollmer University of Osnabrück, Germany Strasbourg, October 16-18, 2006

2. Language Education in School • Language(s) as School Subjects- National/Official Language of Country: LS- Foreign Language Education- Second/Heritage Language Education • Language(s) as a Medium of Teaching and Learning Across the Curriculum (LAC)- Subject-specific language use/discourse comp.- Bilingual Education/Content and Language Inte-grated Learning (CLIL): a special case of LAC

3. Languages Across the Curriculum • Extending skills and competences from LS (basis) • Specifically new language requirements 1. Acquiring/Using Subject-specific terminology2. Learning new ways of looking at the world, of thinking and of communicating about it3. Observing specific thematic patterns, rhetorical structures+comm.conventions of discourse commun. • Widening the concept of communication into the whole range of semiotics

4. Modes of communication • Listening: comprehending oral input/intake • Speaking: constructing meaningful utterances • Reading: understanding written texts • Writing: producing written texts/discourse • Viewing: attending to non-verbal signs/ information • Shaping: using graphical/visual means of expression • Watching: attending to movements/bodily developm. • Moving: using the whole body/person/multi-medial expression

5. Content, Language and Thinking • Language is a tool for content , for conceptualizing, for constructing and linking subject-specific information • Language is linked to the thinking process/is used in it • Language supports or even carries mental activities and precision in cognition; it is self-reflexive • Language helps to bridge between tasks, their internal processing and the explicit formulation of solutions • Language materializes in different discourse functions like naming, defining, describing, explaining, evaluating

6. A Model of Subject-Specific Competence Procedural Competence Content Knowledge Discourse Competence Discourse Competence

7. Components of Subject-Specific Discourse Competence • Comprehending, identifying, selecting and/or integrating new information/Restructuring inform. • Expressing reconstructed knowledge as well as new insights / linking them into (existing) networks • Constructing and communicating cohesive and coherent pieces of information (Texts/Graphs) • Negotiating perceptions/insights/meanings/positions with others (=subject-specific interaction)

8. Linguistic Indicators of Subject-Specific Discourse Competence • Expressing subject-specific concepts in the right terminology (register: single+ multi-word expr.) • Using a rational, formal, explicit academic or pre-scientific style of expression • Logic+Structuring of whole utterances/texts • Communicating the right discourse functions • Giving reasons or evidence/supporting one‘s findings or views/using argumentative structures

9. Cognitive-Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) • Language of school /acedemic subjects/ of science • requires the performance of other speech acts and discourse functions than in BICS (personal topics) • requires the transition from everyday language use to academic or pre-scientific language use • leads to the development of academic literacy = being able to use language for content purposes(TRANSFERABLE between subjects)

10. Example from Chemistry: Developing the notion of Reaction • Starting with everyday concepts/understandings • Setting up experimental conditions for own observations and recordings • Summarising+interpreting the data, • Formulating possible rules or regularities • Developing, testing + negotiating own hypotheses • Defining REACTION in subject-specific terms

11. Example from Mathematics • Developing the concept of numbers as representing aspects of observed reality • Ordinal numbers (1, 2, 3,......n) • Cardinal numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd,........last) • Relating numbers to other (observable) features like colour, shape, function, gender, money) • Experiencing numbers as a secondary system or tool for communication (NUMERACY)

12. Example from Geography: Chinese Agriculture-a success story? • Time line / Duration • Definitions: ...is/means/can be defined as ... • Modality: Permission versus Obligation • Contrast: Winners - Loosers • Realistic Conditions: focus on if-clauses (type 1) • Causal chains:conjunct.+sentence linking adverbs • Giving reasons and explanations

13. Obstacles to be overcome • (1) Lack of a precise understanding of what LAC means and requires • (2) Attitudes of teachers as subject teachers: Lack responsibility for language learning • (3) Absence of an agent for cross-curricular planning and coordination • Consequences for T.E.: Every learning is language learning, every teaching is language teaching, every teacher is a language specialist!!!

14. LAC: a way towards Plurilingualism • LAC leads to a first/basic form of plurilingualism= acquiring new varieties of language use of LS (or L1) in different subjects • Foreign or second language learning leads to a second form of external / explicit plurilingualism= a new language/a new language repertoire is ac- quired and thus a new means of communication • Bilingual education or CLIL leads to both types

15. A Whole School Language Policy • relating language education in LS to subject-specific language learning and competencies across all subjects • integrating content and language learning (CLIL) by using foreign language(s) for subject-matter teaching • relating education in LS to foreign or second language learning • relating the learning of the first foreign language to that of other foreign languages • relating foreign language education to heritage language education.