Designing Multilingual and Multimodal CLIL ...

Special Issue: Designing Multilingual and Multimodal CLIL Frameworks for EFL students – Introduction International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 18(3), 261-269.

Yuen Yi Lo* and Angel M. Y. Lin Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong *Corresponding author: [email protected]

Special Issue: Designing Multilingual and Multimodal CLIL Frameworks for EFL students – Introduction Learning and using (an) additional language(s) apart from one’s mother tongue seems to be a norm around the world today (Li Wei 2007). And with the global spread of English arising from a host of historical, political and socioeconomic factors (Phillipson 2009), it is apparent that English, often recognised (or misrecognised if we adopt a critical perspective) as the global ‘lingua franca’ or ‘international language’, is one of the most popular languages to opt for as an additional language in non-English speaking countries (i.e. EFL contexts). Many European and Southeast Asian societies, with their desire to participate and compete in the globalised economy, regard English proficiency as one of the essential skills to be developed among the workforce. However, in EFL contexts, the linguistic capital English is often unevenly distributed across different social sectors in society (Lin 2006). Hence, how to enable students to cross the English divide and how to make English linguistic capital accessible to more of the school population have become important issues in language policy and education programmes (Lin and Man 2009). To facilitate the learning of English in EFL contexts where students usually lack exposure to the target language, policy makers and educators have been attracted by a model of bilingual education in which a second, foreign or additional language is used as the language of instruction in non-language content subjects (e.g. history, science, mathematics). For instance, in many Southeast Asian countries (e.g. Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore), serious government attention is given to promoting Englishmedium education, whereas in many countries in continental Europe, the implementation of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is in full swing (Pérez-Cañado 2012). The underlying principle shared by these programmes is to

integrate content and language learning so that students are likely to be exposed to more language input and output opportunities within the authentic contexts of content subjects. Despite such a common principle, there has been debate over which umbrella term to use to describe these programmes, which will be illustrated in greater detail below.

Content-based instruction, immersion, CLIL or …? It is not easy to come to consensus about which term is broad enough to refer to the whole array of diverse programmes which all adopt an additional language (be it second, foreign or third language) as the medium of instruction in content subjects as an attempt to facilitate language learning. Different terms have been used, including content-based instruction (Stoller 2008), content-based language teaching (Lyster and Ballinger 2011), immersion (Genesee 2006) and CLIL (Coyle, Hood, and Marsh 2010). Each of these terms originated from an educational context with its own historical background and purpose (e.g. content-based instruction from the US, immersion from Canada, CLIL from continental Europe). These programmes then spread to other parts of the world and were slightly adapted to suit the diverse local contexts. Hence, regardless which of these terms is used as an umbrella term to represent all similar programmes or variants, there are indeed differences in the goals, languages involved, profiles of teachers and students, pedagogical approaches, etc. There have been attempts to differentiate these programmes, including such recent ones as Lyster and Ballinger (2011), Lasagabaster and Sierra (2010), and Cenoz, Genesee, and Gorter (2014). Lyster and Ballinger (2011) use the umbrella term “content-based language teaching” to refer to a continuum of programmes which can be differentiated based on their orientation towards language and/or content. While their discussion is comprehensive, encompassing various programmes around the world, the

only criterion of ‘language-content orientation’ may not be sufficient to unravel the complexities involved in different programmes. With reference to the educational context of Spain, Lasagabaster and Sierra (2010) argue that there are some important differences between CLIL and immersion programmes. Those differences include the language of instruction, teachers, students, language objective and teaching materials. However, such a discussion was later challenged by others as not clear or “universally tenable” (Somers and Surmont 2012, 113). Approaching the issues from a slightly different perspective, Cenoz et al. (2014) critically examine some misguided differentiation between CLIL and immersion. More importantly, they call for clarifying the characteristics of CLIL in Europe so that researchers and educators can further improve the effectiveness and pedagogy of CLIL while learning from the experience of similar programmes in other parts of the world. In this special issue, we follow Cenoz et al.’s (2014) argument and conceptualise CLIL as the umbrella term, which incorporates a variety of programme alternatives sharing the view that “authentic content that extends beyond language be used as a vehicle for L2/foreign language teaching and learning” (13). We believe such a choice suits the purpose of this special issue in two ways. First, since 1990s, CLIL has been commonly used in contexts where the target language is the foreign language, and so we have the impression that it is likely to be more representative of the contemporary global spread of this type of programme (including Hong Kong, where all the studies in this special issue were conducted; see more details below). Second, as its name suggests, the thrust of CLIL is to achieve content and language integration, where both content and language learning are the stated objectives. We believe that should be more realistic and appropriate for EFL learners.

Multilingual and multimodal practices in CLIL Coupled with the spread of CLIL is, however, a deep-rooted ideology of ‘linguistic purism’ (Lin 2006; 2013) or ‘bilingualism through parallel monolingualisms’, which underlies much of the traditional TESOL pedagogical and immersion education principles. As the name suggests, these principles simply disapprove of the use of teachers’ and students’ first language (L1) resources in L2-medium classrooms (which encompass L2 learning classrooms and CLIL classrooms). Such an ideology ignores the potentially effective roles that L1 may play in bilinguals’ cognitive functioning and sociocultural identity development (Cummins 1979; Kroll et al. 2002), and this often results in (painful) dilemmas faced by teachers in their effort to scaffold students’ learning of the required content in L2 through using some of the students’ existing linguistic and cultural resources. This dilemma is especially acute in EFL contexts where the cultural capital of L2 proficiency is not necessarily evenly distributed among students and communities (Lin 2013). The notion of linguistic purism has aroused heated debates over the past several decades, particularly in the field of second language acquisition. In recent years, with the growing influence of the ongoing work of scholars in different parts of the world (e.g. Cenoz 2009; Cook 1995, 2001; Cummins 1979; Lin 2006; 2013; Macaro 2009; Swain, Kirkpatrick, and Cummins 2011; Turnbull and Dailey-O’Cain 2009), there seems to be a growing consensus on the potential value and functions of using (a) local language(s) other than the target language in L2 learning classrooms. For instance, Tian and Macaro (2012) provided empirical evidence that the use of L1 facilitated L2 vocabulary learning, whereas other scholars have further put forward paradigm-shifting concepts of ‘translanguaging’ and ‘code meshing’ (e.g. Canagarajah 2011; García, Flores, and Woodley 2012; Young and Martinez 2011). In a similar vein, in the CLIL

environment, Lin (2013) has consistently argued for the potential of L1 as bridging resources to help students coming from families with limited L2 capital to access the often socioeconomically important L2; Turnbull and his colleagues (2011) have demonstrated a positive correlation between the use of L1 and students’ learning of both science content and L2. In view of the increasing importance of these developments in the field of bilingual education, this special issue is dedicated to further exploring how multilingual and multimodal classroom practices can be developed to scaffold students’ learning of both content and language in CLIL classrooms. Compared to the great amount of attention given to the potential of multilingual practices in CLIL, the benefits of multimodality appear to be underexplored. The linguistic mode is arguably only one of the various modes of communication. Other modes include visuals, sounds, gestures, facial expressions and the like, which very often complement and coordinate with the linguistic mode in the process of meaning making (Kress et al. 2001). The use of multimodal and various semiotic resources has been discussed more widely in subject- or field-specific registers, such as in science and mathematics teaching (Kress et al. 2001; O’Halloran 2000), and it seems to hold great potential in CLIL classrooms too. In this regard, Lin (2012, 93) has proposed a framework (the ‘Rainbow diagram’ in Figure 1) which highlights the importance of integrating various communicative resources which teachers and students can draw upon in CLIL classrooms. These resources include L1, L2, everyday and academic, oral and written language varieties and registers, visuals and other modalities. It is of utmost importance for teachers to develop pedagogical practices to scaffold students’ learning to enable them to become comfortable shuttling between L1 everyday oral registers and L2 academic oral and written registers (while recognising the porous boundaries between these varieties and registers). In other words, teachers have to assist students in

accessing L2 academic literacies not only without denigrating, but also through actively building and capitalising on, other kinds of resources in their communicative repertoires.

Figure 1. Bridging Multiple Resources – Ultimate Goal: Expanded Repertoire (Lin, 2012, 93)

Based mainly on Lin’s (2012) framework, this special issue aims to contribute towards developing viable multilingual and multimodal curriculum frameworks and practices for CLIL in EFL contexts, which may eventually enhance the effectiveness of CLIL in equipping students in other contexts where the need to scaffold students’ learning of both content and language is urgent, often given the keen parental desire for children to acquire a socioeconomically important L2. Throughout this special issue, a

strong balance between the need to help students access L2 and the need to value students’ L1(s) both in their own right and as bridging resources is maintained.

Contextualising this special issue Apart from the overarching theoretical framework, another thread pulling the papers in this special issue together is the context of Hong Kong. Being a former British colony with a largely homogenous Chinese population (93.6% of 7.07 million) (Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department 2011), there has been an endless debate over whether to use students’ familiar language varieties (spoken Cantonese and written Modern Standard Chinese) or L2 (English) as the medium of instruction in secondary schools (Tsui 2004). There have been significant changes to the medium of instruction (MOI) policy in Hong Kong over the past thirty years, which can be divided into three phases. With Hong Kong being a former British colony, the pre-1997 government followed a largely laissez-faire policy allowing schools to make their own choices in MOI. Since the discourse of English an international language and the ‘lingua franca’ in the world and since its role as the dominant language in the government and business sectors to maintain Hong Kong’s status as a global economic centre is widely accepted in Hong Kong (Li and Lee 2006), over 90% of parents opted for English-medium education for their school-age children with the belief that such schools produced elites (Choi 2003). The government’s non-intervention, however, led to the prevalence of code-switching in some of these schools (Johnson 1983) to cater for the wide ability range among students. As the use of ‘mixed code’ was often cited in government discourses as a reason for the alleged declining English language standards of local students (Education Commission 1992) (but see Lin’s (2000) analysis of how the official discourses constructed ‘mixed code’ as a scapegoat for educational problems) and with the rhetoric of restoring mother tongue (Chinese) learning, the Education

Commission of Hong Kong initiated the dual language streaming policy in the early 1990s. This led to the second phase of the MOI policy. The streaming policy, which was fully implemented from September 1998 (Poon 2010), mandated a clear-cut division in the secondary schools in Hong Kong into either English-medium (EMI) or Chinese-medium (CMI) schools, at least at the juniorsecondary level (Secondary 1 to 3 or Grade 7 to 9), depending on the students’ performance in a public aptitude assessment taken at the end of primary education. Yet studies showed that this 1998 policy brought about a number of negative effects on schools with three of these outcomes leading to further considerations for change. First, the soaring number of parents wishing to enroll their children in EMI schools imposed overwhelming pressure on both schools and teachers since the learners’ English proficiency had not always reached the threshold level for them to cope with the learning of academic subjects in English (Hoare and Kong 2008). Second, the strict categorisation of schools into EMI or CMI schools caused a strong labelling effect – EMI being seen as first-rate schools and their CMI counterparts perceived to be second class (Tung, Lam, and Tsang 1997). Third, it was reported that students in CMI schools had a generally lower level of motivation, thus accentuating parents’ demand for places in EMI schools. With all this, the third phase of the MOI policy emerged. Starting from the 2010-11 academic year, the Education Bureau of Hong Kong (EDB) announced the relaxing of the demarcation between EMI and CMI schools with its new ‘fine-tuning MOI’ policy. This policy, which has been in place since then, gives secondary schools the autonomy to go for EMI or CMI in different classes, and for different groups of students and subjects. It was recommended that school-based decisions be made based on students’ ability to learn a subject through English, teachers’ readiness and competence to teach the subject using English as MOI and the

corresponding supporting measures at school (Education Bureau 2009; 2010). Under this policy, schools originally labelled as CMI ones could choose to adopt English as MOI at the junior secondary level in not more than two subjects or could use English in teaching a particular portion of any subject [termed ‘extended learning activities’ (ELA)], on condition that the time allocated for ELA does not exceed 25% of the total lesson time. This flexibility has given rise to a range of models across schools in Hong Kong. A rough estimation based on the Secondary School Profile in 2010-11, around 30% of secondary schools use English as their “official” MOI throughout all the grades, and another 40% use English as the MOI for at least one content subject. Johnson (1997) characterised EMI education in Hong Kong as late immersion. Nonetheless, according to Lasagabaster and Sierra’s (2010) differentiation between immersion and CLIL, EMI education in Hong Kong indeed shares some characteristics with both types of programmes. For instance, as in the CLIL in other countries, the target language in Hong Kong is English, which can be regarded as a foreign language not frequently spoken by students in their daily life; also, most of the teachers in EMI schools are not L1 speakers of English and most EMI starts in secondary education. On the other hand, the curriculum and teaching materials in EMI schools in Hong Kong are the same as those used by CMI schools, and students need to take the same public examination, a practice which is similar to immersion programmes. As discussed above, CLIL is conceptualised as an umbrella term encompassing a variety of programmes in this special issue. Hence, the EMI education in Hong Kong is treated as a variant of CLIL. However, a brief review of the Hong Kong context reveals the fact that studying the EMI education in Hong Kong can provide interesting insights for a wide range of education contexts in the rest of the world (e.g. post-colonial societies, Asian EFL contexts, European countries).

Organisation of this special issue This special issue brings together four research papers which address issues ranging from language-in-education policies and practices, discourse analysis of L2 textbooks to teachers’ multilingual and multimodal strategies for scaffolding students’ learning of both content and language. The four papers also approach these issues with a variety of research methodologies. The first paper by Lo highlights the debate over the role of L1 and L2 in CLIL classrooms and seeks to answer the intriguing question whether CLIL teachers use L1 judiciously in lessons. To do so, the paper examines teachers’ language use in CLIL classrooms to evaluate if their multilingual practices can be regarded as judicious and principled. Using both quantitative and qualitative analytical frameworks to analyse 30 Grade 10 lessons in Hong Kong secondary schools, this paper demonstrates how teachers used L1 in different quantities and for different purposes to cater for the situated but diverse needs of their students. With these findings, Lo argues that whether teachers’ use of L1 can be regarded as judicious may not be subject to a certain threshold level (e.g. percentage of L1 use out of the total lesson time), but one may need to take into account the specific educational contexts and profiles of students in question. While the first paper sets the scene by giving a broad quantitative-oriented overview of the practices in various CLIL lessons of different content subjects and from different schools, the remaining papers in this special issue focus on the subjects of science and mathematics, which a significant number of secondary schools in Hong Kong choose to teach through the medium of English (i.e. through CLIL). The second paper by Lin and Wu presents a fine-grained analysis of a 5-minute excerpt in a Grade 7 science lesson. Using the conversation analytic method of sequential analysis, Lin and

Wu reveal that in the teacher’s effort to engage her students in the co-construction of a scientific proof, the students’ familiar everyday discourses need to be allowed to play a significant role. It shows how translanguaging can be well-coordinated with multimodal practices (using blackboard drawings, gestures) to facilitate students’ meaning-making in the inquiry-based teacher-student dialogue. This paper offers interesting insights into CLIL pedagogy using multiple linguistic and multimodal resources. Papers 3 and 4 then turn to mathematics. Chan’s paper presents a discourse analysis of mathematics textbooks in an attempt to pinpoint the linguistic challenges embedded in the language of mathematics at the word, phrase, clause and discourse levels for L2 learners. Chan then proposes and exemplifies some multilingual and multimodal teaching strategies which have good potential to help EFL learners overcome such challenges. After paper 3 has contextualised the linguistic challenges of learning mathematics through an L2, paper 4 by Tavares zooms into one resourceful teacher in her Grade 10 mathematics classroom. It reports on the findings of a qualitative case study which analyses the strategic attempts made by the bilingual teacher to mediate and facilitate students’ learning. The paper discusses how creating opportunities for informed and judicious L1 use where appropriate, complemented by questioning, scaffolding and vocabulary-building strategies, promotes learners’ internalisation of both the language and concepts of mathematics. The paper also attempts to theorise the classroom teaching practices and introduce how L2 can be reinforced in traditionally numeracy-based lessons. These four research papers are then commented on by two discussion papers written by Li and Cenoz. As one of the pioneering researchers to examine the issue of code-switching in Hong Kong, Li summarises the four research papers in this special

issue and discusses their significant implications for languaging and translanguaging practices in bilingual classrooms. Cenoz, who has researched extensively into multilingual education in Europe, then highlights some potential lessons that can be learned from examining the CLIL experience in Hong Kong. She concludes the contribution of the four papers with the argument of paradigm shift from the old one of language isolation, native speakerism and second language acquisition to the emerging one focusing on multilingualism and multilingual speakers. Through addressing the complex CLIL-related issues using data-driven, classroom-based empirical research, we believe this special issue will contribute to the growing research on CLIL or other bilingual programmes, especially concerning how the underlying principle of ‘content and language integrated learning’ can be realised in teachers’ multilingual and multimodal pedagogical practices. We hope this issue will provide useful insights for researchers in bilingual/multilingual education, policy makers, teacher educators and practitioners.

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How much L1 is too much? – Teachers’ language use in response to students’ abilities and classroom interaction in CLIL International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 18(3), 270-288.

Yuen Yi Lo Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong [email protected]

How much L1 is too much? – Teachers’ language use in response to students’ abilities and classroom interaction in CLIL In Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) classrooms where students’ L2 proficiency has not reached the threshold level, teachers have been observed to use L1 to assist students in grasping specific technical terms and abstract concepts. It is argued to be a ‘realistic’ approach to the learning problems caused by students’ limited L2 proficiency, particularly in EFL contexts. Nonetheless, researchers have also warranted ‘judicious’ and ‘principled’ use of L1, so that both content and language learning is facilitated. The question thus remains is whether teachers can use L1 appropriately to suit their students’ needs. This study seeks to address this question. It includes data from 30 Grade 10 lessons in Hong Kong CLIL classrooms, where students’ L2 proficiency varied considerably. Using both quantitative and qualitative analyses, this study shows that when teaching students with limited L2 proficiency, teachers used a significant proportion of L1 in lessons to explain the subject content, interact with students and develop students’ L2 metalinguistic awareness. In contrast, with students highly proficient in L2, teachers used little L1, mainly to provide translation equivalents for L2 subject-specific vocabulary items. This study thus shows that teachers seemed to be sensitive when making use of students’ existing linguistic repertoires. Keywords: content and language integrated learning; classroom interaction; codeswitching; bilingual education

Introduction Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL1) is defined as “an education approach in which various language-supportive methodologies are used which lead to dual-focused form of instruction where attention is given both to the language and the content” (Coyle, Hood, and Marsh 2010, 3). Such a definition of CLIL highlights one very important feature – the dual goal of both content and L2 learning. The stated aim of CLIL is that students will benefit in their L2 development while being on par with those studying in non-CLIL programmes in their academic achievement. Although CLIL can theoretically target at any language, in recent decades, English as an international language is usually chosen in CLIL in many English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) contexts such as the European continent and Asian countries (where CLIL is implemented in the form of English-medium education) (Dalton-Puffer, Nikula, and Smit 2010). In these contexts, the potential socio-economic benefits associated with English command result in an overwhelming preference for CLIL among parents and students. Nonetheless, many students do not reach the threshold level of English proficiency to benefit from the programmes (Lin 2012). Consequently, while they enjoy certain benefits in L2 learning, they may lag behind in academic and cognitive development, when compared with their peers learning through the first language (L1) (Lo and Lo 2014). To assist students in overcoming the language barrier when learning academic content, teachers have been observed to use students’ first language (L1) in CLIL lessons (Wannagat 2007). The use of L1, or code-switching2, has long been a controversial issue in the field of second language acquisition. As one major goal of CLIL concerns L2 learning, the use of L1 in CLIL lessons is also debatable. In early years, some researchers maintained the immersion

principle and oppose using L1 in bilingual programmes (Swain 1986). In recent years, there seems to be a certain degree of consensus among researchers on the functions of L1 in facilitating classroom interaction, and helping students to learn abstract concepts and even L2 (Turnbull and Dailey-O’Cain 2009). Despite such recognition of the values of L1, there are still concerns about its practice, i.e. teachers may use ‘too much’ L1 injudiciously, which may in effect undermine the effectiveness of CLIL. Using Hong Kong as a context, this paper thus seeks to examine the extent to which teachers use L1 to achieve the dual goals of CLIL.

Literature Review The prevalence of CLIL and its challenges Starting from the Canadian immersion programme, using the target language as the medium of instruction (MOI) has been an appealing alternative to traditional isolated language classes to facilitate L2 learning. While the immersion programme has been found to put less emphasis on form-focused instruction (Lyster 2007), CLIL in Europe appears to stress a dual focus on both language and content teaching (Coyle et al. 2010). This feature is essential in two perspectives. First, in some EFL educational contexts where CLIL is implemented (e.g. some European and Asian countries), students have limited exposure and opportunities to use the target language in their daily life. Therefore, some explicit form-focused instruction will benefit students’ L2 development (Llinares, Morton, and Whittaker 2012). Second, it has been found that the academic language required to access academic content is different from the language that students learn in language lessons or that they use in daily communication (Schleppegrell 2004). Language is used to construct meaning and realise different cognitive processes in specific ways in academic subjects (Leung 1996), which may not be transparent for native speakers, not to

mention L2 learners. Hence, incorporating more systematic language teaching or at least raising students’ awareness of language use can facilitate L2 learning, on top of incidental learning via massive exposure to L2 input (Rose and Martin 2012). Despite the popularity of CLIL, it encounters several challenges, namely students’ L2 proficiency level on the onset of CLIL, teacher education, and curriculum and assessment design (Mehisto, Marsh, and Frigols 2008). The first two aspects are directly relevant to this paper and hence will be discussed in greater detail. In his seminal work discussing factors affecting the effectiveness of bilingual programmes, Cummins (1979) proposed that students have to attain a certain threshold level of L1 and L2 proficiency when being admitted to those programmes. Otherwise, they may suffer in their academic and cognitive achievements. As aforementioned, CLIL is usually implemented in EFL contexts and it may be doubtful whether students enrolling in the programme have reached the threshold level of English proficiency to enjoy the benefits of CLIL. For instance, before 1997, over 90% of secondary schools in Hong Kong claimed to be English-medium schools where CLIL was practised (Tung, Lam, and Tsang 1997) but it was found that only the top 40% of students would truly benefit from and succeed in those schools (Education Department 1992). The issue may become more severe considering the fact that most CLIL programmes start in secondary education, where the academic knowledge has become increasingly abstract and cognitively more difficult for L2 students. It is then more challenging for students to acquire the required threshold level to access the academic content (Johnson and Swain 1994). As Coyle et al. put it (2010), there may be a gap between students’ L2 and cognitive levels. The second major challenge to CLIL is teacher education. The preference for CLIL creates a high demand for qualified teachers. Most CLIL teachers are non-native speakers of the

target language (Lasagabaster and Sierra 2010), and this has raised some concerns about teacher education in CLIL. CLIL teachers not only need to be knowledgeable in their specialist academic knowledge, they also need to be proficient in the target language, as well as be able to scaffold students to learn the academic language associated with the subjects (Llinares et al. 2012). The job of CLIL teachers is therefore very challenging and teacher preparation or in-service training is the key to the effectiveness and sustainability of CLIL (Coyle et al. 2010). One pedagogical implication of both the students’ limited L2 proficiency and teacher education in CLIL is teachers’ language use in CLIL lessons. Facing students’ limited L2 standard and the abstractness of concepts in academic subjects, many CLIL subject teachers have been observed to use L1 in order to avoid sacrificing students’ academic achievements (e.g. García and Vazquez 2012; Wannagat 2007). This is regarded as a ‘realistic’ approach and ‘pragmatic’ solution to the learning problems caused by students’ limited L2 proficiency (Lin 2006). However, whether or not teachers should use L1 in CLIL is still under debate.

Debate over L1 and L2 in CLIL As previously noted, CLIL involves teaching of both L2 and content knowledge. Therefore, the arguments over the use of L1 in CLIL classrooms represent a juxtaposition of these two components. From the perspective of L2 learning, one major aim of CLIL is to promote more effective L2 learning via greater exposure to L2 input. Such a principle is in line with Krashen’s (1982) Input Hypothesis, which stresses the importance of plenty of comprehensible language input for L2 acquisition. This hypothesis implicitly excludes the use of L1 in classrooms. Also, under the influence of some second language teaching methods (e.g. direct methods, audiolingualism), it occurs to some that different languages should be kept separate so as to avoid negative transfer (Corder 1983).

Although the Input Hypothesis emphasises the importance of L2 input, it has been argued that more L2 input does not necessarily imply more comprehensible L2 input, as learners are often unable to process some L2 input effectively (Slimani 1992). This problem is particularly acute in CLIL as L2 academic language and abstract content knowledge impose considerable difficulties on L2 learners. Hence, it has been observed that teachers code-switch to L1 to provide translation equivalents for L2 academic terms, or to provide examples from students’ daily life in order to explain difficult concepts (Lin 2006). In addition, it is also argued that using L1 can serve social and affective functions, especially in CLIL classrooms where both teachers and students share the same L1 (Nikula 2007). It can also facilitate teacher-student interaction. When teachers receive no responses to questions in L2, they are more likely to elicit students’ responses if they code-switch to L1 (Then and Ting 2011). Moreover, contrary to the argument that different languages should be kept apart, recent studies show that different languages actually share some common underlying skills and processing capacity (Cummins 2000), and the use of L1 can actually facilitate, instead of hindering, L2 learning (Jiang 2004). For instance, in bilingual classrooms, teachers may highlight the difference(s) between L1 and L2, thereby fostering students’ metalinguistic awareness and L2 literacy development (Garcia and Vazquez 2012). L1 is also found to be an important tool to mediate students’ mental processes (e.g. tackling cognitively demanding problems, complex tasks) (Swain and Lapkin 2000). Therefore, rigidly maintaining the exclusive use of L2 is likely to deprive students of a tool for mental processing and the pedagogy thus results would be in less cognitively demanding (McMillan and Turnbull 2009). Given the potentials of using L1 in bilingual or CLIL classrooms, several researchers have recently put forward ‘translanguaging’ pedagogies, which encourage the free use of

students’ multiple language repertoires to facilitate the learning processes and outcomes in bilingual education (García, Flores, and Woodley 2012). However, some researchers maintain that the use of L1 must be ‘limited’, ‘judicious’ and ‘theoretically principled’ (McMillan and Turnbull 2009). Yet, how should the word ‘judicious’ be defined? Macaro (2005) suggested a threshold of 10-15% use of L1 in L2 learning classrooms, beyond which the purpose of using L1 (to facilitate interaction and/or L2 learning) changes and L2 learning may be adversely affected. However, the actual use of L1 varies considerably in different bilingual classrooms. For instance, studies on Canadian immersion or European CLIL classrooms revealed that teachers used none or very limited L1, and such amount would decrease when students’ L2 develops (McMillan and Turnbull 2009; Nikula 2007). On the other hand, studies on English-medium classrooms in some post-colonial countries or cities found teachers used as much as 85% of L1 in lessons with English being the ‘official’ medium of instruction (Probyn 2006; Wannagat 2007). Such a discrepancy can be explained by the teachers, who may mediate between the official policy and classroom practices (Li Wei and Martin 2009), based on their own L2 learning experiences and students’ levels of abilities (McMillan and Turnbull 2009). However, teacher education or training tends to play a less important role in teachers’ decision on language use, partly because of a lack of such training and partly due to teachers’ own beliefs and perceptions (McMillan and Turnbull 2009). As the debate over ‘judicious’ use of L1 goes on, there are still concerns that once teachers open the ‘floodgate’ of uncontrolled and excessive use of L1, it would be difficult for them to keep the gate (Turnbull 2001). This may be a particular concern in CLIL, considering the fact that content subject teachers usually prioritise delivering subject knowledge and do not possess the same language awareness or perceived role of language teaching as L2 teachers (Lo

2014). Will it be more difficult for CLIL teachers to keep the ‘gate’? This study seeks to address this important question by investigating the language use and teacher-student interaction patterns in several CLIL classrooms, thereby inferring whether or not the teachers used L1 and L2 in a judicious way in response to students’ needs and the dual goals of CLIL. The overarching research question of this study is hence ‘To what extent do CLIL teachers use languages (L1 and L2) in lessons?’, with the following specific questions: (1) What is the pattern of language use in CLIL lessons? (2) For what purposes do teachers use L1 and L2 in CLIL lessons? (3) Do the amount and purposes of using different languages in CLIL lessons vary according to students’ abilities and pedagogical needs?

Method Research design The data reported in this paper come from a larger-scale study investigating the classroom interaction patterns and teachers’ language use in CLIL classrooms in Hong Kong (see Lo and Macaro 2012). This is a mixed-method observation study, employing a cross-sectional design where the classroom interaction patterns of Grade 10 CLIL lessons were observed and analysed.

Participants The school The participating schools in this study included five secondary schools, located in three districts with similar demographics. These sampled schools were selected purposively according to the

medium of instruction (MOI) adopted, geographical location, and students’ academic performance. This was to ensure that they were representative of Hong Kong secondary schools and were also closely matched. Under the government’s policy, Schools A, B and C were MOI-switching schools. That is, they used Chinese as the MOI for Grades 7 to 9, but when students proceeded to Grade 10, nearly all content subjects were taught in English, and students took public examinations in English. On the other hand, Schools D and E were EMI schools throughout – they adopted English as the MOI for nearly all subjects (except Chinese history and literature) in all grades. The decision on the MOI was linked to the ability of students admitted to the schools, and it is typical that students with good academic results choose to enrol in EMI secondary schools. According to the information on the school websites and the researcher’s conversation with the school principals and teachers, among the five participating schools, the academic ability of students in the two EMI schools D and E was the highest (all Band 13 students). They were closely matched by School A (with nearly all Band 1 students), then followed by School C (with majority Band 1 and some Band 2 students) and School B (with majority Band 2 students). As a result, even though the ‘official’ MOI in Grade 10 for all the participating schools was English, the teachers and students had different experiences of CLIL and students were of varied academic abilities (refer to Table 1 for a summary of the participating schools).

Table 1. Summary of the participating schools and lessons observed in the study School A School B School C School D School E T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6 T7 T8 T9 T10 T11 T12 Characteristics District District A District B District A District C District A located MOI adopted

Student ability

Chinese in Grades 7-9; English in Grade 10-13* 100% Band 1#

Majority Band 2 + some Band 1&3

About 90% Band 1 + some Band 2

English throughout Grades 7-13

100% Band 1

100% Band 1

#Note: Primary school leavers in Hong Kong are categorised into three bands, with Band 1 being the highest band. *Note: The education system in Hong Kong has changed to 6-year secondary education (Grade 7-12) since 2012.

The teachers 12 teachers (seven females and five males) teaching content subjects (e.g. biology, geography, history), identified as T1-T12, took part in this study. Their teaching experience ranged from 3 over 20 years. There is no standardised English assessment for content subject teachers in Hong Kong. The researcher did not ask the participating teachers about their English proficiency, and this constitutes a potential limitation. However, from the lessons recorded and the illustrative samples provided, it is evident that all teachers in the sample were adequately proficient in English to teach their subject in Grade 10. The teachers were ensured that the lesson observations would only serve research purpose so that they would conduct the lessons as usual, instead of altering their teaching (especially their language use) for the researcher.

The students 12 classes of Grade 10 students (aged around 15-16) were involved in the study, with approximately 480 students. The class size ranged between 38 and 42 students. All students used

Chinese (or Cantonese to be more specific) as their mother tongue. Students’ pass rate in English language in the public examination which all students took at the end of Grade 11, was 99% in School A, 79% in School B, 97.4% in School C, and 100% in Schools D and E. Such observable discrepancies in students’ standard of English across schools may help explain the differences, if any, in teachers’ language use. In addition, given the similar profile of Schools D and E, they are grouped together (identified as EMI schools) when presenting and discussing the data in the following sections.

Data collection A total of thirty 35 to 40-minute lessons were observed in 20 visits. All lessons were video and/or audio recorded. The researcher was always present during lesson observations and additionally took field notes. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with the teachers and students. These interviews served to ensure that the teachers and students behaved as usual in the lessons observed on one hand, and to explore teachers’ and students’ opinions about the MOI policies and language use in lessons. Most of the teachers and students regarded the observed lessons as normal, thereby confirming the validity of the data collected. As teachers’ and students’ opinions were out of the scope of this article, they are not reported in this paper.

Data analysis Analysis of teachers’ language use The lessons observed were analysed with several measures to present a picture of the patterns of language use in the various schools.

Proportion of L1 and L2 use in lessons. Timed Analysis was adopted to estimate the proportion of teacher/ student talk, as well as the proportion of L1 and L2 use. It was done by sampling the lesson every five seconds and then coding it according to the speaker and language being used (Macaro 2001).

Patterns of language use. If the teachers in the sampled schools were found to use a noticeable proportion of L1, the lesson transcripts would be analysed in detail to examine if there were certain patterns of using the two languages in the lessons. Lesson excerpts would be presented to illustrate these patterns.

Functions of language use. Based on a taxonomy of functions (Table 3) derived from previous studies (e.g. Canagarajah 1995; Lin 2006), the functions of the instances of L1 use found in the observed lessons were coded and the proportions of those different functions in a lesson were calculated. The teachers in some schools were found to use L1 as the main MOI in the lessons, or code-switched between L1 and L2 frequently (see the first two sections in Results). The purposes of using different languages in those schools were then analysed separately.

Analysis of teacher-student interaction patterns In addition to analysing teachers’ language use in lessons, the study also examined the classroom interaction patterns in those lessons, to see if there was any potential relationship between teachers’ language use, classroom interaction and the school contexts. The classroom interaction patterns of the observed lessons have been reported in greater detail elsewhere (Lo and Macaro 2012). For the purpose of this study, the classroom interaction patterns were operationalised in two ways: first, proportion of teacher and student talk, which was measured with Timed Analysis

as aforementioned; second, mean lengths of teacher and student turns.

Results Proportion of L1 and L2 use in lessons The estimated proportions4 of L1 and L2 use are shown in Table 2. Table 2. Proportion of L1 and L2 used in the observed lessons School L1 use L2 use Mean % (SD)

Mean % (SD)

A

20.7% (23.3)

79.3% (23.3)

B

80.2% (7.4)

19.8% (7.4)

C

61.9% (14.2)

38.1% (14.3)

D&E

96.8% (4.5)

3.26% (4.5)

Table 2 shows that teachers used different amounts of English and Chinese in different schools, despite English being the ‘official’ MOI in Grade 10. Teachers in Schools D & E used English almost exclusively in their lessons (over 96% of interaction time). Teachers in School A also attempted to stick to English, which occupied around 80% of the interaction time in lessons. On the other hand, teachers in School B used mainly Chinese, and so the proportion of English used was less than 20%. Teachers in School C used about 60% Chinese and 40% English, roughly half L1 and half L2. If one considers that students in Schools D & E were more able, followed by those in School A, C and B, it seems that the proportion of L1 use in the observed lesson negatively correlated with the students’ ability (i.e. teachers tended to use more L1 when the students were weaker).

Patterns of L1 and L2 use Since it was found that teachers in Schools A, B and C used at least 20% of L1 in their lessons, it would be worth exploring the patterns of language use to see if there are any differences. In School A, teachers used English for most of the time, but on a few occasions, they would switch to Chinese. This can be illustrated by lesson excerpt 1, where the teacher (T1) inserted one Chinese sentence (Line 8) during her explanation. (In all excerpts in this paper, English is represented in capitals and Chinese in lower case; refer to the other transcription conventions in the appendix) Excerpt 1: (School A, biology) This lesson was about food substances. T1 was trying to explain the results of emulsion test, a test for fat/oil. 1 T1: … SO THE WATER MAKE THE FAT BECOME OIL DROPLET, OKAY, WHICH IS VERY VERY TINY, SO IT BECOMES MILKY. BUT AFTER I ADD SOME WATER INTO IT, NOW, ON TOP OF THE TUBE, OKAY, ON THE TOP OF THE SOLUTION, WE CAN FIND A BIG DROPLET OF FAT. [pause; T demonstrating] NOT VERY 5 CLEAR. CAN YOU SEE THE SMALL CIRCLE IN THE MIDDLE? OKAY, THAT IS OIL, OKAY, FLOATING ON THE TOP OF THE SOLUTION. OKAY, BECAUSE THE WATER WILL DISPLACE THE FATS, OKAY, FROM THE ALCOHOL AND THE FATTY MIXTURE. That means it separates the oil from the mixture. OKAY? BECAUSE FATS CANNOT DISSOLVE IN WATER. IT ONLY DISSOLVES IN ETHANOL. BUT 10 WATER AND ETHANOL CAN MIX TOGETHER. OKAY?

In School B, teachers mainly used Chinese, but at the same time switched to English quite often. This is because though they explained the content knowledge in Chinese, they still needed to use the English technical terms of the subjects, such as “respiration”, “carbon dioxide” and “energy” in except 2.

Excerpt 2: (School B, biology) This lesson was about respiration. T3: Right, that means from this, from these two experiments, we know that mouse will CARRY OUT RESPIRATION, then will PRODUCE CARBON DIOXIDE out. Is that right? Then those (…) SEED, will also PRODUCE CARBON DIOXIDE. That means we know it is one of the PRODUCT of RESPIRATION. Then, what are the other PRODUCT? You said ENERGY just now. Then we have to talk about it in detail …

In School C, the teacher also used quite a lot of Chinese, but when he used English, it would be sustained for a certain period of time, instead of the isolated patches (representing only words or short phrases) as evident in School B. This can be demonstrated in excerpt 3, where T5 switched between Chinese and English sentences. Excerpt 3: (School C, Biology) The lesson was about food substances. The teacher was talking about carbohydrates. T5: … OKAY, THE LAST ONE, POLYSACCHARIDES. POLYSACCHARIDES ARE IN THE FORM OF A LONG CHAIN, LONG CHAIN OF MONOSACCHARIDES. MAYBE SOME TYPES, IT IS THE BRANCH. It may have some branches. Then some branches may link together. FOR EXAMPLE, STARCH IS AN EXAMPLE. IT IS A BRANCH POLYSACCHARIDES, COMPOSED OF TWO, TWO DIFFERENT KINDS. There are two kinds, two kinds of BRANCH. But concerning (…), there is no need to know. CELLULOSE IS AN EXAMPLE, AND GLYCOGEN IS AN EXAMPLE. (pause) OKAY, IN GENERAL, SUGAR IS WATER SOLUBLE, BUT EXCEPT FOR POLYSACCHARIDES. Polysaccharides are not soluble in water. Generally speaking, monosaccharides, disaccharides are both WATER SOLUBLE.

Functions of using different languages This section presents the purposes of using English and Chinese in the participating schools. As School A and the two EMI schools D & E used English as the major language of instruction in

the lessons, they would be compared and discussed first. On the other hand, Schools B and C used mainly Chinese and code-switched between the two languages very frequently, and so they will be presented separately.

Purposes of using L1 in School A vs Schools D & E In both School A and Schools D & E, the teachers used English for most of the interaction time in the lessons, but switched to Chinese occasionally. Based on the taxonomy derived from previous studies, the proportions of different functions of code-switches in a particular lesson were calculated from the total number of code-switches in that lesson. This allows a comparison of the proportions of different functions of using L1 between School A and Schools D & E, which are presented in Table 3.

Table 3. Functions of teachers’ use of L1 in the observed lessons in School A and Schools D & E Major categories

Social or affective functions

Sub-categories

1. referring to shared cultural norm or social value 2. building up warmer and friendlier atmosphere or

School A

Schools D & E

Mean %

Mean %

0% 0%

0% 4.1%

building up rapport to students (0%) Pedagogical functions: Classroom management

3. managing discipline 4. comments on students’ behaviours (i.e. praise and reprimand) 5. giving instructions or commands

3.9% 0%

0% 18.5%

2.8%

0.7%

6. encouraging class participation

2.8%

0.4%

7. arousing students’ attention or focus

21.6%

12.4%

(30.8%) Pedagogical functions: Content transmission

(4.1%)

8. explanation of difficult concepts 9. parallel translation (i.e. providing the L1 equivalents for L2 vocabulary) 10. providing annotations or examples in students’ daily

(32.0%)

25.5% 43.6%

0% 58.8%

0%

5.2%

life to explain an unfamiliar topic or concept to students (69.1%) Note: The percentages in brackets represent the sub-total percentage of a particular category.

(64.0%)

Table 3 reveals a similar pattern of the functions of code-switching in School A and Schools D & E. Approximately 60% to 70% of teachers’ code-switching was content-related (i.e. to help deliver the content of the subjects to students), and around 30% of the code-switches were used for classroom management to facilitate teaching and learning. Very few code-switches served social or affective functions. There was only one instance of T11 in School E using L1 to joke with the students. One noticeable difference in the functions of using L1 lies in the pedagogical function ‘Explanation of difficult concepts’. About a quarter of the instances of codeswitching in School A served such a purpose, but there was none in Schools D & E. It was observed that the teachers in School A switched to Chinese to explain difficult or abstract concepts in lessons, as illustrated in excerpt 4 (and also excerpt 1 above). Excerpt 4: (School A, geography) This lesson was about fluvial processes. T2: … OKAY, WHEN YOU LOOK AT EROSION AND TRANSPORTATION, YOU CAN PAIR UP THEM. EROSION, WHEN ENERGY INCREASE, EROSION, THE FORCE OF EROSION WILL INCREASE. MOREOVER, THE FORCE OF TRANSPORTATION ALSO INCREASE. We have mentioned before, that energy flows from upper course to lower course. If its energy is great, the river flow will be faster. When it is faster, transportation, the transportation ability of river will be higher, higher. OKAY, DEPOSITION, REMEMBER DEPOSITION? Deposition, deposition. OKAY, WHEN THE ENERGY, RIVER ENERGY INCREASE, WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE DEPOSITION?

In excerpt 4, the teacher first explained the positive relationship between river energy and transportation. Then she switched to Chinese for a few sentences to explain that again. It was obvious that using L1 here served the purpose of explaining difficult concepts, which was often found in School A.

On the other hand, the teachers in Schools D & E seldom switched to Chinese for explaining concepts. Instead, they tended to elaborate more in L2 to explain, or to interact more with students so that students could grasp a better understanding of the concepts. Excerpt 5 helps to illustrate such an attempt in Schools D & E. Excerpt 5: (School D, history) This lesson was about post-war recovery in Europe. The teacher was comparing the United Nations and the League of Nations. T8: … WHEN WE TALK ABOUT MEMBERSHIP, BESIDES MEMBERS, YOU 1 CAN ALSO LOOK AT ANOTHER THING. BESIDES YOU TRIED TO FIND OUT WHO THE MEMBERS ARE, YOU SHOULD ALSO THINK ABOUT THE ____? WHAT? (pause) COMPARE, OKAY, LET’S COMPARE THE CLASS ASSOCIATION OF FOUR B, THE CLASS ASSOCIATION OF FOUR B. HOW 5 MANY MEMBERS DO YOU HAVE? (pause) FOUR B, HOW MANY MEMBERS IN FOUR B? HOW MANY STUDENTS? Ss: FORTY ONE. T8: FORTY ONE, SO FORTY ONE MEMBERS. HOW ABOUT THE SA (Student Association) (pause) OF (THE SCHOOL NAME)? YOU KNOW HOW 10 MANY STUDENTS ARE IN THE SCHOOL? ABOUT ____ Ss: ELEVEN … T8: ELEVEN? Ss: SA (Student Association)? T8: SA, YES. SO HOW MANY STUDENTS ARE THERE IN (THE SCHOOL 15 NAME)? (pause) AGAIN. YOU ARE WEAK IN MATH. DO YOU KNOW HOW TO DO IT? FORM ONE, WE HAVE FIVE CLASSES. OKAY? SO EACH CLASS HAS ABOUT ____ S1: FORTY STUDENTS. T8: FORTY STUDENTS, OKAY. DO THE CALCULATION QUICKLY. 20 S2: TWO HUNDRED. T8: TWO HUNDRED? WHOLE SCHOOL! S3: ONE THOUSAND AND SOMETHING. T8: ONE THOUSAND AND SOMETHING. SOMETHING. ONE THOUSAND AND ONE HUNDRED OR ONE THOUSAND. 25 Ss: (…)

T8: OKAY, OVER ONE THOUSAND. OKAY. SO WHAT CAN YOU SEE, WHEN WE COME BACK TO THE UNITED NATIONS AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS? (pause) WHICH ONE HAS MORE MEMBERS? Ss: THE UNITED NATIONS. T8: SO THE UNITED NATIONS HAD A ____? WIDER ____? (pause) MORE MEMBERS, MORE ____? (pause) MORE MEMBERS, MORE ___? S4: STORIES T8: STORIES? I TOLD YOU LAST TIME. [pause; T wrote “RE” on the blackboard] Ss: RE … (pronounced as /ri/) T8: RE ___? RE WHAT? NOT RE (/ri/). S5: RESOLVED. T8: RESOLVED? NO. MORE MEMBERS! SO FOR EXAMPLE, LET’S HAVE 35 A PICNIC TOMORROW, AND I JUST ASK THE CHAIRMAN AND THE VICE-CHAIRMAN. OKAY? IT IS JUST LIKE THE CLASS ASSOCIATION. BUT IF I ASKED THE WHOLE CLASS, MORE STUDENTS CAN MAKE THE DECISION. SO WHAT CAN YOU SEE? (pause) WIDER ____? (pause) I CAN’T HEAR. LOUDER. MORE ____? 40 Ss: REPRESENTATIVE … REPRE … T8: THE DECISION IS NOT MADE BY ONE OR TWO PERSON! Ss: REPRE … REPRESENTATIVE … REPRESENTATIVE … T8: YES, RE ___ Ss: PRE … 45 T8: PRE Ss: SEN … T8: SEN Ss: TA … TATIVE … T8: REPRESENTA 50 Ss: TIVE … [pause; T wrote on the blackboard] T8: OR YOU CAN SAY THE UNITED NATIONS HAS A WIDER REPRESENTATION. OKAY? WIDER REPRESENTATION. …

In excerpt 5, T8 was asking the students to compare the two peacekeeping bodies. At first, the students did not get the idea that when talking about membership, one could focus on both the actual number of members and the representativeness of the

members. The teacher tried to help by asking the students to consider their own “student association” (Lines 5-27). However, the students were still unable to grasp the point. Instead of resorting to Chinese, the teacher interacted more with the students and provided a further hint (by writing two letters on the blackboard, Lines 34-35) and an example (organising a picnic, Lines 39-43). Finally, the students seemed to get the idea and the word “representative”, and T8 then went even further by providing the nominalised form “representation”. It was also observed that about half of the instances of using L1 in both School A and Schools D & E served to provide parallel translation (i.e. providing the L1 equivalents of English vocabulary so that students could grasp the meaning immediately). This function was in fact commonly found in previous studies (e.g. Lin 2006), where the researchers justified it by suggesting that it was more time-efficient and effective for explaining the meanings of difficult vocabulary. Excerpt 6 is one of the many examples found in the lessons observed. Excerpt 6: (School D, History) T8: …ACTUALLY WHAT DID THE USSR THINK? WHAT DID THE USSR THINK? S1: SHE THINK IT WAS A CONSPIRACY. T8: YES, RIGHT. SHE THOUGHT THAT IT WAS A CONSPIRACY. [pause; T writing on the blackboard] DO YOU KNOW THIS WORD? DO YOU KNOW THIS WORD? Conspiracy.

Purposes of code-switching in School B Probably due to the lower English proficiency of the students, teachers in School B maintained L1 as the MOI for most of the time in the lessons. Therefore, most codeswitching was from L1 to L2. As presented above, the purpose of code-switching to L2

was largely to teach English academic language (e.g. some subject-specific technical terms or phrases). Apart from that major purpose, it was also observed that teachers code-switched to L2 quite often to draw students’ attention to different aspects of L2 (e.g. morphology, vocabulary, parts of speech and verb forms). Excerpt 7 is an example of T3 analysing morphology to help students understand or remember the subjectspecific word “cellular” more easily. Except 7: (School B, biology) T3: … This one, so why do we call it CELLULAR RESPIRATION? It’s because of this. In fact here, when you see this word, it looks unfamiliar, but actually we know it. Can you see, we separate this part, this PREFIX CELL, it is ____? Ss: Cells T3: Cells. The meaning of CELLULAR here actually means connected to the cells.

In other words, teachers’ code-switching from L1 to L2 in School B sometimes served the purpose of language teaching.

Purposes of code-switching in School C The situations in School C were a mixture of those in Schools A and B. There, the teachers taught in English for a while, usually at the beginning of the lessons, or when talking about some factual information. Then they switched to Chinese with English lexical items inserted when they had to explain something more difficult or abstract, or try to elicit responses from the students. Therefore, there were code-switches from both L2 to L1 and from L1 to L2, serving similar functions to those code-switches observed in Schools A and B. Similar to their counterparts in School B, teachers in School C also codeswitched from L1 to L2 to draw students’ attention to English. However, instead of

explicitly teaching different language aspects or skills, one interesting way of switching to L2 observed in School C was providing L2 translation as a form of “recast”, which is an implicit form of corrective feedback (Lyster 2007), to students’ Chinese answers. This in turn demonstrated the appropriate way of expressing the meaning in English to students. Excerpt 8 shows how T6 of School C did that. Excerpt 8: (School C, geography) T6: When plates move, why will it shake? (pause) How can plates move? S1: That way, that way, that way. [hands gesturing] T6: That way, that way, that way. THEY MAY MOVE APART. (pause) OR ____? (pause) In addition to moving apart, what are the other ways? S2: Towards each other T6: Towards each other, TOWARDS EACH OTHER. …

In excerpt 8, T6 first accepted the students’ answer in Chinese. She then provided the English phrases (e.g. towards each other) for the students. Compared with the explicit language teaching shown in the previous excerpt, the language teaching in the form of ‘recast’ to students’ answers was more subtle.

Teacher-student interaction patterns The proportions of teacher and student talk in the observed lessons are presented in Table 4, whereas the mean length and number of teacher and student turns are shown in Table 5.

Table 4. Proportion of teacher and student talk in the observed lessons School

Teacher talk

Student talk

Mean % (SD)

Mean % (SD)

A

96.0% (1.7)

4.6% (1.8)

B

91.0% (4.1)

9.4% (4.3)

C

89.5% (4.2)

10.7% (4.0)

D&E

91.7% (4.4)

8.8% (4.2)

Table 5. Total and mean length of teacher and student turns in the observed lessons School

Mean length of Teacher turns

A

36.4s (SD= 41.2)

B

No. of Teacher turns

Mean length of Student turns

No. of Student turns

226

2.6s (SD= 2.0)

171

12.8s (SD= 20.4)

873

1.8s (SD= 1.1)

738

C

13.6s (SD= 20.0)

622

1.9s (SD= 1.6)

497

D&E

20.1s (SD= 29.4)

652

2.3s (SD= 2.2)

524

All the observed lessons were indeed teacher-centred, as teacher talk occupied at least 90% of the interaction time and there were much more teachers’ turns than students’. The lessons observed in School A seemed to be the most teacher-centred, as teacher talk occupied over 95% of the interaction time, and the teachers on average held the floor for over 35 seconds before distributing the turn to students. On the other hand, lessons in Schools B and C were more interactive as teachers there talked comparatively less and their turns were considerably shorter than those in the other schools. Schools D

& E were somewhere in the middle between School A on one end and Schools B and C on the other. It is worth noticing that despite the fact that the statistics related to teacher talk/ turns show that lessons in School A were more teacher-centred, the mean length of student turns there (2.6 seconds) was the longest among the schools. Nonetheless, it has been found that those longer student turns consisted of quite a lot of fillers, pauses and false starts, as students in School A mostly spoke in English. When student turns were measured in syllables (so as to reflect the actual richness in the content), those in School A were actually shorter than those observed in Schools D & E, where students also mainly spoke in English (Lo and Macaro 2012). The findings about teachers’ language use and classroom interaction patterns, together with the information about student ability, are summarised in Figure 1. In School A, the teachers tried to maintain English as MOI, and they sometimes codeswitched to Chinese to explain difficult concepts. The lessons there appeared to be very teacher-centred. In School B, teachers mainly used Chinese, with English academic terms inserted. More teacher-student interaction was observed. In School C, teachers switched between English and Chinese, and similar to School B, more teacher-student interaction was found. Finally, in Schools D & E, the teachers largely used English in the lessons, sometimes complemented with Chinese translations of difficult English words. The lessons there appeared to be more interactive than those in School A but less so than those in Schools B and C.

Figure 1. Summary of findings

Discussion This study attempted to explore whether and how teachers made use of different linguistic resources to help students overcome the potential barriers of learning L2 and academic content simultaneously in CLIL in the Hong Kong context. It did not seek to evaluate the schools, teachers or students, and the findings are by no means an indicator of the quality or effectiveness of the schools. One major conclusion from the findings is that teachers’ language use in lessons was framed by several factors. The first one is the MOI policy adopted by the school. The influence of this factor is particularly prevalent in Schools D & E, the EMI schools throughout, and School A, a school switching to English as the MOI in Grade 10. In those schools, teachers appeared to be aware of the need to maintain the ‘official’ MOI, even though that may result in limited interaction between teachers and students (as in School A). Such a pressure to conform to the government or school policy, as well as the expectations of stakeholders (e.g. parents) is similar to other contexts like Canada (McMillan and Turnbull 2009).

However, the official policy was sometimes mediated by other factors, especially students’ English proficiency, when teachers chose the actual language of instruction in lessons (Li Wei and Martin 2009; Probyn 2006). In Schools A, D and E, teachers largely adhered to the official MOI policy probably because the students there were more able and more proficient in English. They at least could understand the academic content delivered in English, though some may not be able to respond or participate in interaction actively. In contrast, students in Schools B and C, particularly the former, possessed lower English proficiency, and hence teachers there spoke in Chinese rather often. Otherwise, students may not be able to understand the academic content, thereby sacrificing their academic achievement in CLIL. In addition to the overall language pattern that teachers followed in their lessons, this study also observed some different functions of L1 and L2 in the various school contexts. While teachers in Schools A, D and E code-switched to Chinese to manage the class, to translate English words and to explain abstract concepts, their counterparts in Schools B code-switched to English to do some form-focused teaching, and teachers in School C used English to provide ‘recasts’ to students’ Chinese utterances, thereby teaching the target language at the same time. In this sense, it may be reasonable to argue that CLIL teachers, despite the school contexts they were working in, were sensitive to adopt different languages to try to achieve both content and language learning, given the school policy and students’ learning needs. Though it seems that teachers’ language use took into consideration their contexts and students, some teachers in this study did appear to use quite a large amount of L1. For example, the teachers in School B used around 80% of Chinese in the lessons, which far exceeded the 10-15% threshold proposed by Macaro (2005). Such practices resemble what García et al. (2012) called “translanguaging” in bilingual

education. However, there may be concerns whether students would be able to express their understanding of content knowledge through English academic language, which has been shown to be significantly different from everyday communicative language (Schleppegrell 2004). Thus, for schools which implement CLIL but where students are not sufficiently equipped with L2 proficiency, what are some implications of this study? First, the school may need to provide extra support to enhance students’ L2 proficiency, especially related to academic language. This can be done by providing some small-class intensive bridging courses before or at the beginning stage of CLIL, if school resources permit (Johnson and Swain 1994). If students can follow what teachers say in L2 in lessons and participate in interaction, teachers will in turn be less inclined to use L1, and hence strike a more proper balance between content and language learning. Second, teachers can try encouraging or maintaining teacher-student interaction in L2 as much as possible, and perhaps treat L1 as the last resort. Facing the tight syllabus and time constraint, content subject teachers were observed to switch to L1 quite frequently for explanation. Sometimes, they also seemed to get frustrated by no student responses or limited interaction. However, some strategies observed in Schools D & E in this study appeared to facilitate L2 interaction. For instance, the teachers provided some time for students’ individual, pair or group work before nominating students to give responses. Such a ‘Think, Pair, Share’ strategy is very common in language lessons and can be adopted in CLIL content subject lessons as well (Tavares’ paper in this volume also demonstrates this). Also, teachers were found to engage students in prolonged interactional exchanges (e.g. in excerpt 5) to explore difficult concepts, instead of switching to L1. This was achieved by teachers’ skills in asking and

modifying questions, such as providing clues, using Socratic questioning, making the topic more salient, etc. (Tsui 1995). Third, even though the teachers do code-switch to L1 for pedagogical purposes, it might be better if they would reinforce the concepts in L2 again. As observed in School C, the teachers sometimes discussed difficult concepts or elicited students’ responses in L1. Yet, they would follow that up with L2 explanations or illustration. This not only serves as reiteration or reinforcement of the concepts, but also a kind of feedback to facilitate students’ language learning. Therefore, this study yields an important implication for teacher education in CLIL – teachers should be aware of their role in enabling students to make the best use of their linguistic repertoire so as to move strategically between L1, everyday L2 and academic L2, instead of resorting primarily to L1 most of the time (see the Rainbow diagram proposed by Lin 2012, 93; also in the Introduction paper of this volume). Conclusion The spread of CLIL to EFL contexts, where students enrolling in CLIL may not be equipped with sufficient English proficiency, creates a dilemma for teachers – using L1 can help students better understand the abstract content knowledge, but it reduces L2 input and may go against the rationale of CLIL to facilitate L2 learning. Hence, whether teachers should use L1 in CLIL lessons is still an unresolved issue. Though researchers have suggested ‘judicious’ use of L1, it remains unclear how to define ‘judicious’. Should it be defined as a certain threshold percentage out of the lesson time? Or should it also take into account the diverse contexts, teachers’ and students’ needs? The 30 lessons observed in different CLIL classrooms in Hong Kong in this study show that teachers were rather sensitive in their language use, considering the MOI policy, students’ L2 proficiency and academic ability. Nevertheless, whether such use of L1

can help students grasp the content knowledge and whether students can then express their understanding through academic L2 remains unexplored. Future research may examine if there is any trade-off between using L1, access to content knowledge and L2 learning in CLIL lessons. Notes: 1. As discussed in the Introduction paper, CLIL in this paper (and throughout this special issue) is used as an umbrella term to incorporate a variety of programmes which use L2 as the medium of instruction for content subjects. Hence, this paper includes references to the research on different variants of CLIL implemented in different contexts (e.g. CLIL implemented in Europe and immersion programmes in Canada). Although it is acknowledged that these variants may be different in a number of ways, as Cenoz, Genesee, and Gorter (2014) argue, referring to relevant literature in various educational setting can further enhance the effectiveness and practice of CLIL. 2. Code-switching is broadly defined as the use of more than one language by a single speaker in the course of a conversation. From the second language acquisition perspective, the phenomenon of code-switching often concerns the use of L1 when the teacher shares the same mother tongue with the students in classrooms where the L2 is the default medium of teaching. However, as the research later unfolded, some teachers did frequently alternate between L1 and L2, and so the term ‘code-switching’ is also used in this study. 3. Band 1 is the highest band in the three-tier categorisation system of Primary 6 school-leavers in Hong Kong. 4. The percentages shown in this paper, unless otherwise specified, represent the percentage of time out of the interaction time (i.e. total lesson time minus non-interaction time)

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Appendix Appendix. Transcription conventions T1, T2, etc. =Teacher 1, Teacher 2 etc. S1, S2, etc. =single student Ss =more than one student (. . .) =inaudible utterances (italics) =words added to make the utterances comprehensible [ ] =nonverbal actions or author’s comments ___ (at the end of questions) =short pauses indicating blank filling questions.

“May I speak Cantonese?”— Co-constructing a scientific proof in an EFL junior secondary science classroom International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 18(3), 289-305.

Angel M. Y. Lin* and Yanming Wu Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong *Corresponding author: [email protected]

“May I speak Cantonese?”— Co-constructing a scientific proof in an EFL junior secondary science classroom In this paper an excerpt of teacher-student interaction in an EFL junior

secondary science classroom in Hong Kong is analysed using the conversation analytic method of sequential analysis (Heap 1985; Lin 2007). The finegrained analysis reveals that in the teacher’s effort to engage her students in the co-construction of a scientific proof, the students’ familiar everyday discourses (e.g. students’ examples and experiences as expressed in their familiar language) need to be allowed to play a significant role. It also shows how translanguaging can be well-coordinated with multimodal practices (using blackboard drawings, gestures) to facilitate students’ meaning-making in the inquiry-based teacher-student dialogue. Keywords: Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL); conversation analysis, multimodalities; thematic patterns of science; translanguaging

Teaching science is apprenticing students into science discourses The seminal study, Talking Science, by Lemke (1990) is especially relevant in this context with his insights into the nature and functions of science classroom talk. Talking science does not simply mean talking about science but rather it means doing science through the medium of language. Talking science thus means “observing, comparing, classifying, analyzing, discussing, hypothesizing, theorizing, questioning, challenging, arguing, designing experiments, following procedures, judging, evaluating, deciding, concluding, generalizing, reporting, writing, lecturing, and teaching in and through the language of science” (Lemke 1990, 9; italics added). Talking science in the classroom is in a sense analogous to engaging students in performing what Dalton-Puffer (2013) has recently called cognitive discourse functions (CDF). From Lemke (1990) to Dalton-Puffer (2013), there has been a growing recognition among education scholars that mastery of the content of a discipline is in large part mastery of the discipline’s specific ways of using language, or discipline-specific discourses. Here, ‘discourse’ is understood in the sense of not just ways of talking but also ways of thinking, reasoning, arguing, evaluating, etc. While CDFs are proposed as generic to different disciplines, the specific ways in which CDFs are performed in a discipline are shaped by the discipline-specific discourses. For instance, the ways a historian argues and reasons will not be the same as the ways a scientist argues and reasons although there can be some generic overlap (e.g. the use of generic logical, rhetorical structures such as syllogism). Traditional science pedagogy, however, tends to privilege the notion of ‘concepts’ and views mastery of science chiefly as mastery of science concepts. However, concepts are mediated by discourse and Lemke argues that the mentalism underlying the traditional

science pedagogy is not helpful as it tends to ignore the role that language and thematic patterns play in the teaching and learning of science or any subject: I will argue… that for the most part ‘concepts’ are just thematic items and their customary semantic relationships, that is, they are just bits of thematic patterns. We never use them one at a time; their usefulness comes from their connections to one another. So it is really the thematic patterns that we need and use. Purely ‘mental’ notions of what a concept is tend to mystify how we talk and reason. They ignore the essential role of language and semantics in teaching and learning any subject. (Lemke 1990, 91; italics in original)

Lemke argues that what science teachers typically do in the classroom is in fact exposing students repeatedly to the thematic patterns of science. To illustrate this, let us look at an example from Lemke (1990, 88; italics original): [March 19:]

Teacher: What happened was, more than likely is, the crust was pushed up. OK, and when we say the crust was pushed up, we say that it’s uplifted. And that’s why we find these marine fossils up on high mountaintops. [March 20:]

Teacher: I’d like to go on with what we were talking about. And we were talking about fossils, that are used as evidence, that the earth’s crust has been moved. Now what did we say about these fossils, how do they help us… know that, uh, the earth’s crust has been moved? Student: Like, if y’find, fish fossils on top of a mountain, you know that once there was water… up there, ’n the land moved or somethin’. Teacher: OK, and what else besides. ...

In terms of science content, these two examples have only two words in common: crust and fossils. However, as Lemke delineates, the above two lesson excerpts have at least three more thematic items in common: MOVED (pushed up, uplifted, moved), MARINE (marine, fish), and HEIGHTS (high, mountaintops, top of a mountain), apart

from CRUST (earth’s crust, land) and FOSSILS. Among these five thematic items, the two lesson excerpts construct the same semantic relations: CRUST—medium/process—MOVED MARINE—classifier/thing—FOSSILS FOSSILS—location—HEIGHTS

These individual semantic relationships are further joined to each other to make up a full thematic pattern in each of the two lesson excerpts: [MARINE—classifier/thing—FOSSILS]—location—HEIGHTS & CRUST—medium/process—MOVED

The above two sets of thematic units are made to relate to each other in a specific way: Evidence/Conclusion. With this example and many others, Lemke (1990) shows that mastery of a subject entails mastery of the thematic items and their semantic relationships (i.e. thematic patterns) which constitute the discourses specific to the subject. While the teacher can make use of more or less monologic (e.g. teacher expositions/lecturing) or dialogic pedagogical strategies (e.g. student debates, student inquiry projects, pair/group work, teacher-student dialogue), teaching science ultimately entails enabling students to make meaning using these thematic items (e.g. subject-specific words, phrases made to relate to each other in a certain semantic relationship) in subject-specific thematic patterns (e.g. what counts as evidence to a certain conclusion). Lemke’s argument echoes the sociocultural turn in education starting from the 1970s with the growing influence of Vygotskian theories of language, thinking and learning (Vygotsky 1978; 1986). In the field of language education and Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), the sociocultural turn has led to keen insight into how one

learns and constructs meaning (i.e. what is commonly called ‘ideas’, ‘concepts’) through language. This is captured in the notion of languaging; as Swain and Lapkin delineate: When one languages, one uses language, among other purposes, to focus attention, solve problems and create affect. What is crucial to understand here is that language is not merely a means of communicating what is in one person’s head to another person. Rather, language serves to construct the very idea that one is hoping to convey. It is a means by which one comes to know what one does not know. (Swain and Lapkin 2013, 105; italics added) … languaging, in the form of collaborative dialogue or private speech, constitutes part of the process of formulating the idea; it mediates the formulation of the idea. Indeed, it is when language is used to mediate conceptualization and problem-solving, whether that conceptualization or problem-solving is about language-related issues or science issues or mathematical ones, that languaging takes place. (Swain and Lapkin 2013, 106-7)

Much of what students are required to do in the classroom, however, might just involve mouthing or reciting/reproducing subject-specific wordings in worksheets or test/exam items without much languaging taking place. However, in a rare moment of dialogic inquiry impulse of the teacher, the whole situation can be made different. In the next section, we shall illustrate through our analysis of a 5-minute excerpt of interaction in a science classroom how the notion of thematic patterns (Lemke 1990) and the notion of languaging (Swain 2000; Swain and Lapkin 2013) can help us understand what seems to be transpiring in the classroom and the role played by students’ everyday discourses and familiar linguistic resources in making science learning a meaningful inquiry process.

Context of analysis The excerpt to be analysed was taken from a science class in a school, which had been a band 11 CMI school before adopting EMI in all non-Chinese language related subjects starting from junior secondary one (Grade 7) in 2010 under the fine-tuned MOI policy of Hong Kong (see Introduction to this special issue). After the switch, the school has maintained its status as a band 1 secondary school in Hong Kong. In the 2013-2014 academic year, it was perceived by the school administration that some students seemed to need extra support in their learning of science. From March to May 2014, an extra tutorial class (somewhat like an adjunct, sheltered instruction class) was set up on Saturday mornings for 10 weeks, and an additional science teacher was hired part-time to give extra lessons (each of 90 minutes) to 20 students pulled out from different Grade 7 classes. These students had all scored below average in their regular form tests in science in the school. It is expected that the extra tutorial sessions will give extra support to these students to help boost their science learning and test results in the school. The part-time teacher, Jenny2, studied biology in English in a local university and is a fully certified science teacher with a Postgraduate Diploma in Education majoring in the teaching of science subjects. She has taught science in secondary schools in Hong Kong for 4 years before taking up her full time job in an international school in Hong Kong at the time this study was conducted. She was also about to complete her part-time Master of Education (Science) programme when our Language Across the Curriculum (LAC) project started (a project to offer LAC support to science teachers). Jenny is young, energetic, engaging, open to ideas and highly proficient in English. Upon knowing she would be teaching these tutorial classes part-time, she sought our support from March to May 2014.

During this period of time, the second author of this paper regularly met with Jenny and codesigned materials with her to help her build some language support into her science materials. However, the second author’s input could not always be incorporated due to the short lesson preparation time Jenny was given and the school's need to include exercises that prepare students for the science tests. The particular page of the lesson worksheet used in the episode we are going to analyse below was designed by Jenny. Appendix I shows Jenny’s version of the first page of the lesson worksheet from Lesson 6--Matter and Its Properties, with the answer keys filled in. The students, according to Jenny, are largely cooperative but seem to lack confidence in their science learning through English. The fact that they have been pulled out from their regular classes for this additional Saturday morning tutorial session also means that they are not familiar with many of the other students in this pull-out class, thus affecting the general classroom atmosphere. The second author of this paper, who observed and videotaped some of these sessions, found that the students largely listen passively to the teacher as she rushes through the lesson materials. This is, however, beyond the control of Jenny, as before each session, she was given by the school administration a list of topics and asked to cover all of them in the tutorial session, which makes the lessons usually very packed, although the school also mentioned that they hoped Jenny could also teach the students how to apply and explain the science concepts. Oftentimes, Jenny was given very little time to prepare the lesson materials on these topics (e.g. just a few days before an upcoming session) and the second author of this paper worked closely with Jenny to support her during this period of time. It is also important to note that the students had attended their regular science classes in which the same set of topics had been covered by

their regular science teachers and Jenny’s role was to re-teach or revise these topics using her own materials based on the contents of the science textbook that is used in the school.

Detailed analysis of a lesson excerpt This excerpt was chosen for analysis because the rich bilingual and multimodal resources involved hold great potential in generating fruitful discussions and insights into CLIL pedagogy. Actually, in Jenny’s science sessions, much of what she seems (to have been made by the school administration) to do is to go through the worksheets (mainly comprised of blank-filling exercises and some short answer questions) with students to show them what should count as model answers. Each tutorial session is structured similarly with the following stages: It begins with a review of the answers to the quiz the students did in the last lesson for about 15 minutes. Then students are given a new quiz of about 30 minutes to check their learning of the last lesson. After these procedures, Jenny will begin her teaching of a new lesson following the lesson materials and worksheets she has prepared. The lesson excerpt (see Appendix II) occurs in the middle of the sixth session (among 10 consecutive Saturday morning sessions from March to May 2014). In this session Jenny begins the topic on Matter and Its Properties by asking the students to complete page one to three of the worksheets themselves. She then checks the answers with them by projecting the worksheet onto the screen via a visualiser. The fill-in-the-blank exercise on page one of the worksheet (Appendix I) seems to aim at familiarising students with the definition of ‘matter’—i.e. its two defining characteristics: ‘takes up space’ and ‘has mass’. Jenny has spent some time explaining to students what ‘take up space’ means by showing to students some realia and what ‘mass’ means by contrasting it with ‘weight’.

After this episode, Jenny moves on to check the answers of the exercise with the students just like what she has done prior to this episode, occasionally with some further explanations but mostly in a lecture format. In what follows, we shall do a turn-by-turn sequential analysis of this lesson excerpt. Further points of interest will also be discussed. Appendix I shows the first page of the lesson worksheets (with model answers underlined) in the session focusing on matter. On the first page under the heading ‘What is matter’ is a fill-in-the blank type of task: Everything that ___________ and _________ is matter. Students can just rote-memorise and reproduce the wordings without doing much languaging. Then the second task on the worksheet is for students to put an X next to items that do not qualify as matter. At the end of going over this part (i.e. checking answers with students), in a rare moment of Scientific inquiry impulse (against the institutional imperative to cover as many test/exam type items as possible in a session), Jenny starts off a series of Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) triadic dialogues (Heap 1985; Lin 2007; Mehan 1979; Nassaji and Wells 2000; Sinclair and Coulthard 1975) to engage students in explaining how one can prove that air takes up space and has mass. In Turn 1 (in the excerpt; see Appendix II) we notice that the teacher makes the statements, “Gravity is an attractive force, acting on the object by the earth. So it does not take up space. Force does not take up space and does not have mass. You can’t see it.” At the end of Turn 1, the teacher initiates a question, “Well, can you see air?” This question seems to be asked with an implicit built-in contrast of ‘Air’ to ‘Force’ and ‘Gravity’ (Force and gravity are not matter, while air is matter). Her question is responded to in Turn 2 by many students with a definite answer, “No.” This implicit comparison between force and air (both we can’t see) seems to necessitate some explanation on the part of the teacher. In this split-second, in the interest of time, the teacher could have made the decision to do a

monologic lecturing about how one can design an experiment to prove that air takes up space and has mass and thus one can conclude that it is matter. However, the teacher ‘digresses’ into a series of IRF triadic exchanges to engage students in explaining how one can prove that air takes up space and has mass3. In Turn 3 the teacher asks the class, “But does it take up space?” and again this question is responded to by the class with a definite “Yes.” The logical connector “But” hints at some kind of logical contradiction emerging: We cannot see air (like force) but air takes up space (unlike force); how can one prove that air takes up space? Thus in Turn 5, the teacher asks the class, “How can you prove to me that air takes up space? Prove it. You can’t see it. You can’t feel it. How do you know it takes up space?” The teacher smiles invitingly to the students, like giving them a puzzle and encouraging them to solve it. This is responded to in Turn 6 by Ray, a boy sitting at the back of the classroom with his candidate solution, “Because Mr. Lee tell us.” (Mr. Lee is their science teacher at the school). As the tone does not sound sarcastic and there is no audible laughter from other classmates following this response, we cannot say that Ray is being cheeky or trying to poke fun. Quoting an authority as an explanation to the teacher is quite acceptable, at least in the culture of many Hong Kong classrooms. But the teacher seems to have entered into an inquiry-oriented pedagogical mood and insists on the students giving her an evidence that she can see; in Turn 7, the teacher demands, “I want (.) an evidence that I can see.” The short pause before “an evidence” might indicate that the teacher is taking some time to formulate her task to the students. Alice (a girl at the front) immediately responds with another candidate explanation, “Because there is (.) air particle.” Since the task (in Turn 7) has been formulated as giving an evidence that the teacher can see, Alice is thus implicitly held accountable to giving evidence that one can see, and this seems to have shaped the

focus of the teacher’s follow-up question (Turn 9), “Can you see air particles?” Alice is quick to answer “No, but (.) the motion” (Turn 10); the short pause might indicate her searching for an evidence that one can see, and she comes up with “motion” and waves her hand to gesture motion. Alice’s candidate evidence (motion) is not taken up by the teacher, who then reformulates the question as “How can I observe air?” (Turn 11). Notice that the teacher now introduces a more formal, academic word, “observe”, in the place of the more everyday word “see”, which she has used four times in the preceding exchanges in this excerpt. As we shall see later, the word “observe” is a key thematic item in thematic patterns closely associated with the scientific method. Then immediately, Alex, a boy in the front, responds (Turn 12), “Use the jam-tung. To have some air.” “Jam-tung” is a Cantonese word for syringe. The teacher responds encouragingly, “Ha ham” (Turn 13), seemingly wanting to hear more elaboration of this. Alex continues to elaborate (Turn 14), “Use to (.) Try to (.)” and just as Alex seems to be searching for words to complete his sentence, his utterance is continued by Ray (the boy at the back, who earlier in Turn 7 has quoted Mr. Lee the school science teacher as a response to the teacher’s initiation) with the word, “compress”; however, this word is noticeably quieter than surrounding talk and might not have been heard by Alex in the front. Immediately the word “compress” is used by the teacher with her accompanying hand gesture of compressing (Turn 16) and immediately Alex uses the word “compress” to continue to finish his unfinished example, “compress it. And then if you can’t compress it out, because you use your finger to cover the mouth. And then (.) it takes up space.” (Turn 17). Notice that even though Alex seems to be struggling to language in English, he does seem to succeed in getting his idea across to the teacher. He also seems to be following the teacher’s implicit thematic pattern by ending his response (to the teacher’s earlier initiation

of “how can you prove to me that air takes up space”) with the sentence, “And then (.) it takes up space.” The short pause before this seems to indicate his thinking/searching for the right words, and he hits upon the right thematic unit—“it takes up space,” which serves as a conclusion following his “evidence” (the syringe example). Alex’s response is immediately affirmed, rephrased and elaborated by the teacher both in words and with accompanying blackboard drawings and gestures in Turn 18-20: “Right. One very good evidence, say if I use a syringe= [T draws on the blackboard as she speaks] =and I block it with my finger [T draws on the blackboard a big and cute hand beside the syringe. Ss laugh, probably at her funny drawing. See Figure 1.]. And then I compress the syringe. You will find that finally you can’t compress it anymore. In other words, you can see the space cannot be further compressed because of the air inside. Or another example. When you blow a balloon= [T draws on the blackboard as she speaks]=you can see the balloon getting bigger. What do you blow into the balloon?”

We notice that apart from rephrasing and elaborating it in English, the teacher also draws a syringe and the associated hand/finger on the blackboard (see Figure 1), thus providing a visual image together with her words and gesture to illustrate fully the example contributed by Alex. We also notice that the teacher uses the word “block” (instead of the word “cover” which is used by Alex). In contrast to the student’s wording, “cover the mouth,” the teacher’s wording, “block the syringe,” seems to be a thematic unit that fits better into the thematic pattern of the implicit science experiment being discussed. In the same turn the teacher introduces another example (the balloon example), drawing it on the blackboard, and makes another initiation, “What do you blow into the balloon?” To this many students respond, “Air.” In Turn 22, the teacher provides the argument, “If it doesn’t take up space, how can the balloon get bigger? So, you can see that air takes up space.”

By now we can draft a tentative 3-part representation of the implicit thematic pattern that seems to be co-constructed and repeated throughout the teacher-led IRF interaction in this excerpt: Aim (To prove that air takes up space) Observable Evidence (Syringe example, balloon example) Conclusion (“Air takes up space”)

The above thematic pattern resembles a simplified version of the experimental report genre in school science, which typically consists of the following stages: Aims of Experiment Materials Procedure Observation Discussion & Conclusion

Although a bit simplified, the oral thematic pattern that is being co-constructed in the above teacher-student exchanges has the 3 key stages of a scientific inquiry that illustrate the logic of the scientific method; i.e. to prove a hypothesis, one needs observable evidence, which then warrants a conclusion. This thematic pattern is one of the many thematic patterns that constitute the discourses of science. Even though the word “experiment” is not mentioned explicitly in the above exchanges, the students are in fact being apprenticed into the logic and pattern of doing scientific experiments. For instance, one cannot just quote an authority to justify a conclusion (e.g. “Because Mr. Lee tells us.”) and an evidence counts as an evidence only when it is observable (“an evidence that I can see”). Only observable evidence can warrant a conclusion (“So you can see that air takes up space”). We notice that Alex has not used the explicit logical connector “So” and in its place he uses temporal sequencing words, “and then,” which is common in everyday storytelling. With engagement in more

classroom exchanges like this (“repetition with variation”, see Lemke 1990, 113), he might be able to pick up the explicit logical connectors (e.g. so, therefore) which are central in the science thematic patterns (discourses).

Figure 1. Picture of the teacher’s drawings on the blackboard (taken at the end of the excerpt)

In the rest of the lesson excerpt the teacher continues to engage students in IRF exchanges about how one can prove that air has mass (the second defining characteristic of matter). At the end of Turn 22, the teacher re-initiates, “How can you prove that air has mass?” Alice (notice that she has previously responded in Turns 8, 10, with candidate answers that are not affirmed by the teacher) attempts again to respond, “Eh (5) You (.) you (.) you (.) May I speak Cantonese?” (Turn 23). The long 5-second pause after “Eh” and the

three consecutive short pauses after “You” gives us evidence that she seems to be struggling hard to language in English (i.e. to construct her ideas in English) before finally bursting out into a request to the teacher to allow her to speak Cantonese. Remember earlier another student, Alex, has just used a Cantonese word (jam-tung) in the middle of his utterance (Turn 12) without first asking for permission to use a Cantonese word. Alice, in contrast, seems to be oriented towards the institutional norm (and the government policy) that only English should be used in EMI classes. Interestingly, we see Alex immediately says, “Yes, I can use Cantonese.” (Turn24). Alex starts his turn with “Yes,” as if answering Alice. We can thus see that even under the same institutional English-only policy, there can be diverse takes on this policy, as evidenced by the different orientations of Alex and Alice. In Turn 25, the teacher says, “Yes, go ahead.” With this permission, Alice immediately comes up with an extended utterance in Cantonese (Turn 26), which is in sharp contrast to her struggling effort to language (to construct meaning) in English only (Turn 23). Alice’s example in Turn 26 seems to be drawn from her everyday observation (possibly on a TV documentary) of a diver carrying a tank of compressed air. Notice that even in Cantonese, she does not seem to know the field-specific vocabulary of yeung-heitung ‘oxygen tank’ in Cantonese: she calls it ‘air’ instead of oxygen and refers to it literally as ‘that which a diver brings [under water]’. However, she does employ the Cantonese word for ngat-suk ‘compress’, which is not an everyday Cantonese word, but a formal Cantonese word. We can see that Alice seems to be languaging across languages (i.e. translanguaging): she picks up the English word compress from the on-going discussion and finds the Cantonese equivalent for compress. As the words ‘oxygen tanks’ do not get into the conversation and both the English and Chinese versions of this do not seem to exist in Alice’s vocabulary, she seems to be expressing the example with a mixture of both

everyday words and field-specific words (e.g. compress) which exist in both her L1 (Cantonese) and L2 (English). She is drawing on all her existing and evolving linguistic resources (both Cantonese and English, both everyday and academic wordings), to actively construct meaning (i.e. to language about how the diver carries compressed air which is heavier after compressing) to show to the teacher her own understanding of how she can observe that air has mass. We see that if allowed to do translanguaging, to draw on one’s existing multiple linguistic resources (Creese and Blackledge 2010), even a student with basic, fledging L2 resources can construct an extended and meaningful response to the teacher’s initiation drawing on her L1 resources (in contrast to producing only one or two words in her L2 if she is not allowed to use her existing resources). Notice that although Alice constructs her response in Cantonese, her Cantonese response not only bears similarity to the syringe example discussed in the preceding exchange between the teacher and Alex (Turns 11-20) (both examples involve compressing air), but also involves words that are direct translations of the academic English words (e.g. compress); that is, her L1 response has been shaped by her attentiveness, and also shows her responsiveness, to the preceding L2 exchanges in the unfolding classroom discussion between the teacher and the students. Thus, based on this situated, contextualised example of classroom discourse, a cogent argument could be made that allowing students to translanguage in the CLIL classroom does not necessarily lead to students closing their ears to exchanges in the target language (L2) but can in fact open up and capitalise on the rich mean-making repertoires that L2 learners possess to enable them to make better connections with their prior experiences and learning. Immediately after Alice’s Cantonese response, the teacher continues to speak in English to give feedback (Turn 27), “You are talk (.) okay, how do I know it is heavier?

What do you use to measure?” The teacher’s midway pause seems to show her taking some time to think of how to repair her feedback, and her subsequent re-formulation of her feedback into a new initiation, asking how one knows that it is heavier, shows us that she is leading her students to think like a scientist. A scientist cannot just say something is heavier; a scientist has to show what kind of reliable instrument is used to measure and to give the measurement as an evidence. She is thus apprenticing her students into the scientist’s way of talking/thinking/acting/reasoning, in short, apprenticing them into science discourses. To the teacher’s initiation, Alex responds, “Use Micro (.)” (Turn 28) but while he is pausing (probably searching for the right word), his speaking turn is interrupted by another boy, Ray, who speaks noticeably much more loudly (probably in order to gain a speaking turn from where he is sitting—at the back of the classroom) (Turn 29): “For example↑, er(.) potato chips has many air. Then(.) But when we open it, it just has steam. It just has very few potato chips. The(.) the(.) But it is very hea: vy when we have not (.) em(.) em(.)opened it.”

Ray might be making some grammatical mistakes (e.g., “many air”) and have multiple hesitations (short pauses, indicating that he might be searching for the right words) but he is languaging in English (constructing his example totally in English) and manages not only to gain a speaking turn (by raising his voice and using the signaling words, “For example,” to interrupt a fellow student’s speaking turn), but also to hold an extended speaking turn with an utterance completely in English (following the institutional norm of using only English and also showing his ability to participate in discussion in English). Notice that he is not responding to the teacher’s immediately preceding question (i.e., how one can measure the compressed air); he is instead responding to the teacher’s earlier question of how one can prove that air has mass. While Alice has responded with her “diver

and compressed air” example, Ray seems to be eager to grab a chance to respond with his own different candidate example. And he seems to have constructed this example from his everyday experience and observation of what happens when one opens a packet of potato chips: it is heavier before one opens it. We notice that instead of relying on an authority (see Turn 6 when he says, “Because Mr. Lee tell us”), Ray seems to have now become an active thinker trying to come up with his own way of proving that air has mass. It shows that he might be trying to think like a scientist, and this seems to be what the teacher is trying to get the students to do through her way of formulating her feedback to her students’ responses in this unfolding series of IRF triadic dialogue. By now we can predict what the teacher is going to say as feedback: she will be insisting on getting the students to say just how one can measure that it is heavier. Indeed in Turn 30, the teacher says, “How can you prove it is heavier? What device do you use to measure it? Heavier, lighter, what do we use to measure it? What apparatus do we use?” Notice that the teacher has now introduced more field-specific words: device, apparatus. These words are highly frequent in experimental reports (e.g. in the procedure stage of this genre). Now, we can predict what a student’s response might be—the name of a measuring device/apparatus. Indeed we see that Alice comes up with the name, “Balance.” (Turn 31). To this the teacher affirms and elaborates (“Exactly. Use a weight balance”) while simultaneously drawing the device on the blackboard (Figure 1) and continues with her feedback: “Say you talk about a pack of potato chips. Or I talk about a balloon [T draws on the blackboard a not yet blown up balloon next to the blown up balloon drawn before and then the weight balance as she speaks; see Figure 1]. Put it on the weight balance, before, and after. Say if you talk about a pack of potato chips, before I open it (.) [T

points to the balloon drawing. Some students murmur.] Shh (.) Say(.) [T draws a pack of potato chips and points to it]”

In the above part of this speaking turn, we see the teacher sliding to and fro between the student’s example (potato chips) and her own model example (balloon) using words and hand gestures. Interestingly, when the teacher says, “Say if you talk about a pack of potato chips, before I open it”, she does not draw a pack of potato chips on the blackboard but actually points to the balloon drawing. Some students are very engaged and paying careful attention to the teacher's talking and drawing that they murmur about this mismatch (as observed by the second author who was in the classroom), and the teacher needs to say “Shh” to indicate to the students to keep quiet. She then seems to feel the need to keep her words and drawing matched for the students and draws a pack of potato chips, points to it and then starts another initiation using the potato chips example, “Do you expect, the potato chips [packet], have a higher or lower mass before I open it?” (Turn 32; “packet” added). Alice responds, “Higher.” (Turn 33). The teacher affirms it and follows this affirmation with an elaborate exposition, which starts off with Ray’s potato chips example and ends with her own model example of the balloon (Turn 34): “Right, because of the air inside that makes the pack heavier. But when I open it, the air escapes and the mass should be slightly lower. If you (.) you are not convinced, go to another example that is exactly the same. Before the balloon is being blown, put it on the weight balance. Blow some air, tie it and measure it again. You will see (.) [T draws a ribbon] Of course you have to have a ribbon on the same weight balance to compare the mass of the two. Would you expect before or after blowing to be heavier?”

We can see that by interweaving the students’ words (balance, potato chips) and her own words (weight balance, balloon) into her speaking turns, the teacher seems to be leading her students towards, and trying to focus her students’ attention on, her ultimate

model example (the balloon example: blowing air into it, tying it with a ribbon, measuring it on a weight balance before and after blowing, both with the ribbon). In an informal chat after the lesson, the teacher told the second author of this paper that she had wanted to stay with the student’s potato chip example but she thought the balloon example is more neat as there are fewer intervening variables (just the balloon and air, without the potato chips). We might agree with the teacher that the balloon is a better example from the scientist’s perspective, while the potato chips packet example is a more everyday life example (from the student’s perspective) and the teacher is trying to ‘move’ students from their everyday examples (everyday perspectives/thematic patterns) to the scientist’s examples (scientific perspectives/thematic patterns) through her guidance in the unfolding interaction. She has not preplanned these exchanges with her students but she seems to be offering timely guidance to her students (about how to speak/reason/prove like a scientist) through grasping the teachable moments emerging in the unfolding teacher-student(s) dialogue. She seems to be accomplishing this mainly by constructing her feedback in certain ways, which include affirming, repeating, rephrasing, completing, translating, elaborating her students’ everyday (both L1 and L2) wordings/examples and interweaving these into her own science fieldspecific (L2) wordings/examples. The point of this series of IRF exchanges seems to be that of ‘moving’ her students from their everyday discourses into the science discourses.

“Guidance through interaction in the context of shared experience”: translanguaging and trans-semiotising in the CLIL classroom In the above analysis we see that the teacher seems to have been successful in engaging students in co-constructing an exposition (epitomised in her final exposition in Turns 3436) on how one can prove that air takes up space and has mass. She has done this through

the use of the IRF discourse format (Heap 1985; Lin 1999) and by selecting, modifying, and interweaving some of the students’ contributions/wordings in their Response (R) into her own Feedback (F) and (re-)Initiation (I). She has not, however, facilitated students in expressing this exposition flexibly themselves; as Lemke puts it: … there need to be ways for teachers to help students abstract from any one particular wording of the relations of a thematic pattern to the pattern itself. Only in this way can they become free of parroting back fixed wordings and begin to use thematic meanings flexibly to answer questions, talk their way through problems, and so on. (Lemke 1990, 113)

The fundamental way to help students to do this, according to Lemke, is the use of “Repetition with Variation” (Lemke 1990, 113; Lin forthcoming a). This can be illustrated with an example quoted from Painter’s (1999) analysis of a family interaction (the father, mother and child are travelling in a rented car instead of their own family car): Father: This car can’t go as fast as ours. Child: I thought--I thought all cars could--all cars could go the same--all cars could go the same (.) fast… Mother: The same speed. Child: Yes, same speed. (Painter 1990, 121, quoted in Rose and Martin 2012, 80)

In the above example the child is guided through the mother-child interaction in the context of shared experience (both sharing the here-and-now context) to develop mastery of the linguistic contrast between “fast” and “speed” within the linguistic system of lexicogrammar (i.e. the contrast between an adjective and a noun). At the same time, the child is also immersed in the shared social context of interaction (i.e. engaging in co-constructing the unfolding conversation text). Prior to the mother’s provision of the right word speed, the child seems to be struggling to find the appropriate thematic item (from his fledging

language system) to express his meaning, hence the pause before his coming up with the word “fast”, which has got the semantic meaning right but not the lexico-grammatical contrast (permitted by the language system) right (i.e. fast is an adjective rather than a noun). This struggling effort seems to be reflected in his shifting extra conscious effort to find the right linguistic structure from the linguistic system (e.g. of English) in order to instantiate a meaning that he is struggling to contribute to the on-going conversation or argument (that all cars can go the same speed—that the father’s statement needs to be corrected or qualified). We see that L2 learners (e.g. Jenny’s students in her science class), likewise, have this experience of struggling to find the right linguistic structure or contrast (from their fledging mastery of the L2 English system) to construe a meaning which is often important in the context of on-going interaction (e.g. syringe, compress; see analysis above); i.e. they are struggling to language (Swain 2000) in English (their L2). At this point, if they are allowed to translanguage, they can draw on their familiar linguistic resources (e.g. L1) to construct their meanings. Notice that the mother’s linguistic scaffolding (provision of the right linguistic structure) is just in time and just in need (Gee 2003). The teacher in our science classroom could have also provided more linguistic scaffolding. For instance, in Turn 13, instead of just giving an encouraging “Ha ham,” to acknowledge Alex’s contribution (Turn 12, “Use the jam-tung…”), she can also say, “Yes, use a syringe to…”, like the mother helping the child who is struggling to express himself. Drawing on Halliday’s (1975; 1993) and Painter’s (1986; 1991; 1996; 1999) work, Rose and Martin propose that successful language learning depends on “guidance through interaction in the context of shared experience” (2012, 58). In the same vein, the following remark of Lemke (1990) is also useful in our CLIL contexts: “Of course, just listening to the teacher do this

is not enough; they need practice at doing it themselves, at putting things into ‘their own’ or ‘different’ words.” (113). In other words, students need to be provided with ample opportunities to be engaged in making meaning through practising languaging in the L2 science discourses.

Conclusion In conclusion, we propose that successful CLIL depends on guidance through interaction in the context of shared experience, with the additional principle that (struggling) learners should be allowed to translanguge and trans-semiotise (Lin forthcoming b) by drawing on whatever familiar semiotic resources they have at their disposal: e.g. L1/L2 everyday wordings, L1/L2 academic wordings, as well as visuals, drawings, gestures, etc. (i.e., multimodalities) (see the Rainbow diagram proposed by Lin 2012, 93 or Introduction, this volume). In this excerpt, we see three particularly active students, Ray, Alex and Alice. However, Ray and Alice, were actually not so active and engaged in previous lessons (from the second author's observations). Alice tended to be shy and seldom spoke up in class. Ray and Alice each had had instances of dozing off or lying on the desk in previous lessons. The fact that these two students responded actively during this episode in contrast to previous lessons seems to indicate that changes in the teacher’s teaching style (from lecturing to engaging students in an inquiry-based dialogue and allowing students to translanguage) hold great promise in activating students’ interest in science learning in English in an L2 context. There is also evidence that other students were attentive to the teacher. For example, in turns 2, 4, 21 and 35, several students responded to the teacher's questions. In Turn 19, students also laughed at the teacher's funny drawing of a hand beside the syringe

showing their engagement (See Figure 1). The results of our end-of-course survey also indicated students’ uptake in terms of understanding the teacher's use of English and explanations in English: 19 of the 20 students agreed or strongly agreed that “The teacher's use of English and explanations in English are simple and clear. I can understand it.” Furthermore, 19 of the 20 students indicated that the teacher's strategy of “using Chinese to explain some difficult science contents while using English for key academic terms and expressions” was effective or very effective in helping with their learning of science and English. While Rose and Martin (2012) do not focus on translanguaging per se, their principle is compatible with our proposal in the context of L2 CLIL classrooms. We see that Jenny our science teacher seems to be successful in allowing her students to translanguage in this lesson excerpt and encouraging them to express their meanings (by drawing on their familiar linguistic resources) and in providing drawings on the blackboard and using accompanying gestures to help her students to access the L2 science discourses (e.g. wordings, thematic patterns). She could have been further assisted to give more language support in her CLIL classroom. How to do this seamlessly in the unfolding lesson dialogues without interrupting the flow of the discussion will require further design intervention research in CLIL classrooms instead of just naturalistic observation research. Notes: 1.

Secondary schools in Hong Kong are divided into 3 bands according to their students’ academic results, with band 1 representing the highest and band 3 the lowest respectively.

2.

All teacher and student names used are pseudo-names.

3.

To better understand Jenny's thinking during this episode, the second author conducted a postlesson interview with Jenny, with one of the questions being why she decided to interact with the students in this excerpt. Jenny retrospectively reported that the decision was made on the

spot without much planning before the lesson, but two considerations crossed her mind at that time which prompted her to try out questioning: (a) She felt that other than blank-filling and lecturing, questioning and eliciting students' responses may also be needed so as to know if the students have really understood the science concepts accurately, after observing that in the previous blank-filling exercise that some students wrongly wrote “Everything that has space and mass is matter.” (see Appendix I for the worksheet), i.e. “Something has a space (of ...)” and "Something takes up space" represent two different concepts and only the latter can accurately represent one of the defining features of matter. For example, we can say, ‘An empty box has a space of 1 cm3 inside it’, but this sentence cannot accurately represent one of the defining features of matter. (b) Some science literature Jenny had read flashed back to her at that moment which suggests that the sequence of scientific investigation (observation-hypothesis-experiment-conclusion) sometimes may need to be adapted in school science teaching, as some experimental procedures and observations may have diverse rationales and interpretations and pose too high a cognitive load for students if they have to follow the procedures and think simultaneously; students may be confused and distracted from drawing sensible conclusions. Jenny thus thought it might be a good alternative to work backwards from a statement/conclusion and guide students to think about the experimental procedures needed to prove the statement/conclusion so that the students may understand both the key ideas of the statement and the experimental procedures better. At that particular moment when she finished off the exercise, she realised that the items can be described and turned into a statement/conclusion in relation to the properties of matter and it may be a good opportunity to try out her idea of working backwards from a statement/conclusion and guiding students to think about the experimental procedures needed to prove the statement/conclusion.

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Lin, A. M. Y. forthcoming a. Language Across the Curriculum: Theory and Practice. Dordrecht: Springer. Lin, A. M. Y. forthcoming b. “Egalitarian Bi/Multilingualism and Trans-semiotizing in a Global World.” In Handbook of Bilingual and Multilingual Education, edited by W. E. Wright, S. Boun, and O. Garcia. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. Mehan, H. 1979. Learning Lessons: Social Organization in the Classroom. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Nassaji, H., and G. Wells. 2000. “What’s the Use of ‘Triadic Dialogue’? An Investigation of Teacher-student Interaction.” Applied Linguistics 21 (3): 376-406. Painter, C. 1986. “The Role of Interaction in Learning to Speak and Learning to Write.” In Writing to Mean: Teaching Genres Across the Curriculum, edited by C. Painter and J. R. Martin, Occasional Papers 9, 62-97. Applied Linguistics Association of Australia, Painter, C. 1991. Learning the Mother Tongue (2nd ed.). Geelong, Vic: Deakin University Press. Painter, C. 1996. “The Development of Language as a Resource for Thinking: A Linguistic View of Learning.” In Literacy in Society, edited by R. Hasan, and G. Williams, 5085. London: Longman. Painter, C. 1999.Learning through Language in Early Childhood. London: Cassell. Rose, D., and J. Martin. 2012. Learning to Write, Reading to Learn: Genre, Knowledge and Pedagogy in the Sydney School. Sheffield, U.K.: Equinox. Sinclair, J. M., and R. M. Coulthard. 1975. Towards an Analysis of Discourse: The English Used by Teachers and Pupils. London: Oxford University Press. Swain, M. 2000. “The Output Hypothesis and Beyond: Mediating Acquisition through Collaborative Dialogue.” In Sociocultural theory and second language learning,

edited by J. P. Lantolf, 97-114. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press. Swain, M., and S. Lapkin. 2013. “A Vygotskian Sociocultural Perspective on Immersion Education: The L1/L2 Debate.” Journal of Immersion and Content-based Language Education 1 (1): 101-129. Vygotsky, L.S. 1978. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes (M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner and E. Souberman, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vygotsky, L. S. 1986. Thought and Language (A. Kozulin, trans.). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. (Original work published in 1934)

Appendices Appendix I. Lesson Worksheet S1 Integrated Science Name: _____________________ ( Lesson 6

)

Class: ______

Date: ___________

Unit 17 Matter and its properties

A. B. C. D.

Definition of matter Three states of matter The changes of state Measuring the melting point and boiling point& Determining the states of matter from the melting and boiling points

A.

What is matter?

Everything that takes up space and has mass is matter.

Put a “X” in the box next to the items of NON-MATTER. Smoke Rainbow

Air X

Light

X

Heat

X

Sound

X

Microwave

X

Force

X

Gravity(地心引力)

Water

Why are some of the items above NON-MATTER? This is because they do not take up space and do not have mass.

Appendix II. Lesson Excerpt 1

T:

2 3 4 5

Ss: T: Ss: T:

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Ray (boy at the back): T: Alice (girl at the front): T: Alice (girl at the front): T: Alex (boy at the front):

[T crosses out the last item of the exercise on the worksheet "Gravity", indicating it is not a matter] Gravity is an attractive force, acting on the object by the earth. So it does not take up space. [T moves from the projected worksheet to the blackboard] Force does not take up space and does not have mass. You can’t see it. It doesn’t (.)Well, can you see air? No. But does it take up space? Yes. How can you prove to me that air takes up space?(.)Prove it. You can’t see it. You can’t feel it. How do you know it takes up space?[T smiles to challenge Ss] Because Mr. Lee [their science T at the school]tell us. I want(.)an evidence that I can see↑. Because there is (.)air particle. Can you see air particles? No, but(.)the motion[Alice moves hands]. How can I observe air? Use the 針筒 ((trans: syringe)). To have some air.

13 14

T: Alex (boy at the front):

Ha ham Use to(.)Try to (.)=

15

Ray (boy at the back):

16

T:

17

Alex (boy at the front):

18 19

T: T:

20 21 22

T: Ss: T:

23 24 25 26

Alice (girl at the front): Alex (boy at the front): T: Alice (girl at the front):

=°Compress° [seems not heard by Alex at the front] =Compress [gesturing the action of compress] =compress it. And then if you can’t compress it out, because you use your finger to cover the mouth. And then(.) it takes up space. Right. One very good evidence, say if I use a syringe= [T draws on the blackboard as she speaks] =and I block it with my finger[T draws on the blackboard a big and cute hand beside the syringe. Ss laugh, probably at her funny drawing. See Figure 1.].And then I compress the syringe. You will find that finally you can’t compress it anymore. In other words, you can see the space cannot be further compressed because of the air inside. Or another example. When you blow a balloon= [T draws on the blackboard as she speaks] =you can see the balloon getting bigger. What do you blow into the balloon? Air. If it doesn’t take up space, how can the balloon get bigger? So you can see that air takes up space. How can I prove that air has mass? How can I prove that? (.) You can’t even see it, feel it. How can you prove that air has mass? Eh (5) You (.)you(.)you(.) May I speak Cantonese? Yes, I can use Cantonese. Yes, go ahead. 好似果 D 潛水員帶果 D, 將果 D 空氣壓縮左噶嘛，但系重左噶嘛，本來毋野，但壓縮左之後就重左噶嘛

((trans. Like what the diver carries. The air is compressed, but it is heavier. Initially here there is nothing, but it is heavier after compression))

27 28 29

T: Alex (boy at the front): Ray (boy at the back):

30

T:

31 32

Alice (girl at the front): T:

33 34

Alice (girl at the front): T:

35 36

Ss: T:

You are talk(.) OK, how do I know it is heavier? What do you use to measure? Use micro(.)= =For example↑, er(.)potato chips has many air. Then(.)But when we open it, it just has steam. It just has very few potato chips. The(.) the(.)But it is very hea: vy when we have not (.) em(.) em(.)opened it. How can you prove it is heavier? What device do you use to measure it? Heavier, lighter, what do we use to measure it? What apparatus do we use? Balance. Exactly. Use a weight balance [T writes "weight balance 磅 "on the blackboard].Say you talk about a pack of potato chips. Or I talk about a balloon. [T draws on the blackboard a not yet blown up balloon next to the blown up balloon drawn before and then the weight balance as she speaks. See Figure 1.] Put it on the weight balance, before, and after. Say if you talk about a pack of potato chips, before I open it(.)[T points to the balloon drawing. Some students murmur.]Shh(.)Say(.)[T draws a pack of potato chips and points to it] Do you expect, the potato chips [packet], have a higher or lower mass before I open it? Higher. Right, because of the air inside that makes the pack heavier. But when I open it, the air escapes and the mass should be slightly lower. If you (.) you are not convinced, go to another example that is exactly the same. Before the balloon is being blown, put it on the weight balance. Blow some air, tie it and measure it again. You will see (.) [T draws a ribbon] Of course you have to have a ribbon on the same weight balance to compare the mass of the two. Would you expect before or after blowing to be heavier? After. After blowing, because there is some air inside. So I can prove that air takes up space and has mass.

Transcription Conventions =

(a) Turn continues below, at the next identical symbol; (b) If inserted at the end of one speaker’s turn and at the beginning of the next speaker’s adjacent turn, indicates there is no gap at all between the two turns

↑

Rising intonation

(3)

Interval between utterances (in seconds)

(.)

Very short untimed pause

e:r the: : :

Lengthening of the preceding sound

°°

Utterances between degree signs are noticeably quieter than surrounding talk

[T writes]

Nonverbal actions or author’s comments

針筒 ((tr.: syringe.)) Non-English words are italicised and are followed by an English translation in double parentheses

T:

Teacher

S/Ss:

Unidentified student/several or all students simultaneously

Linguistic challenges in the mathematical register for EFL learners: linguistic and multimodal strategies to help learners tackle mathematics word problems International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 18(3), 306-318.

Simon Chan Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong [email protected]

Linguistic challenges in the mathematical register for EFL learners: linguistic and multimodal strategies to help learners tackle mathematics word problems In learning mathematics through English, one of the major challenges facing English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners is understanding the language used to present word problems in mathematics texts. Without comprehending such language, learners are not able to carry out the targeted calculations no matter how familiar they are with the mathematical concepts behind. As many researchers (e.g. Halliday 1993; Wallace and Ellerton 2004) have pointed out, distinctive combinations of certain vocabulary and grammatical structures are often found in the mathematical register. It is therefore important for teachers to discover, analyse, and provide guidance on how learners can best tackle those linguistic challenges. This paper attempts to achieve this goal by first identifying and classifying, from word problem examples, the potential linguistic challenges at the word, phrase, clause and discourse levels. It then proceeds to suggest specific linguistic and multimodal strategies with good potential to help EFL learners overcome such challenges, with reference to the relevant literature and examples. It concludes by reiterating the importance of mathematics teachers’ active engagement with the language used in word problems and suggesting possible collaboration between them and English language teachers in promoting EFL learners’ awareness of the language of mathematics. Keywords: CLIL, mathematics word problems, linguistic challenges, multimodal support

Introduction In the past two decades, there has been a bloom in the development of content and language integrated learning (CLIL). Resulting from this, English has been adopted as the medium of instruction in more and more mathematics lessons across the globe. In Hong Kong, for example, following the government policy on ‘fine-tuning on medium of instruction for secondary schools’ in 2010, schools with learners of different ability levels introduce English as the medium of instruction to different extents. While some schools (usually with more able learners) adopt English as the sole medium of instruction, others still expose the less able counterparts to English instruction for certain mathematics topics. In line with the rationale behind CLIL, it is hoped that by exposing learners to English in mathematics lessons they will acquire both mathematics and language concepts simultaneously. For those EFL learners, learning mathematics through English often involves both mathematical and linguistic challenges. As Schleppegrell (2007) observes, since the mid1980s researchers have extensively identified ways in which linguistic structures are used in mathematics differently from when they are used in everyday life. Thus, even for those learners who have developed a proficient command of the English language, including ‘balanced’ bilingual speakers of English, it can still be a misconception to assume that they can automatically master the use of the language in spoken and written mathematical contexts (Cirillo, Bruna, and Herbel-Eisenmann 2010; Ron 1999), and thus ‘mathematics teaching and learning transcends linguistic considerations’ (Khisty 1995, 295). Among such linguistic considerations, those found in the context of word problems can be regarded as one of the most challenging for EFL learners. On the one hand, word problems are often found in tasks assigned to learners as in-class and/or homework exercises or even

assessment tasks in situations where no external help is given. On the other hand, although textbook writers usually try to draw some relevance between the targeted calculations and real-life situations by contriving a context for fitting in such calculations, in fact, such a context often does not address the everyday experience of most learners (Veel 1999). What can possibly further increase the level of linguistic challenges posed by word problems is that often complex grammatical and vocabulary patterns are hidden in such context descriptions directing the targeted calculations (Schleppegrell 2007). In view of the above, this paper attempts to address some of the linguistic challenges faced by EFL learners in attempting word problems. It first describes potential sources of linguistic challenges existing at the word, phrase, clause and even discourse levels, as informed by some analysis of the language used in setting the word problems. Next, it suggests some linguistic and multi-modal strategies that teachers can employ to help their learners tackle such challenges. To operationalise the above processes, the paper attempts to provide a demonstration of how teachers can analyse the linguistic challenges posed by a word problem and identify strategies accordingly to facilitate learners’ successful completion of targeted calculations. While the above stages can by no means be regarded as comprehensive, the paper sets out to encourage mathematics teachers to actively engage themselves (and possibly their colleagues from the English panel where appropriate) with all these processes so as to help their learners with specific learning needs to overcome specific linguistic challenges in word problems. Linguistic challenges in word problems Owing to the distinguishable linguistic features found in terms of lexis and syntax patterns, some researchers (e.g. Pimm 1987; Usiskin 1996) have regarded mathematics as a language

itself. As early as in 1978, Michael Halliday coined the influential notion ‘mathematics register’, which he defines as “…the sense of meanings that belong to the language of mathematics (the mathematical use of natural language, that is not mathematics itself), and that a language must express if it is being used for mathematical purposes” (195). From this definition, we understand that, first, natural language (here English) plays a significant role in the expression of mathematical meanings; second, like other natural languages, the mathematics language carries its own specific features when used to achieve mathematical purposes, and those features may need to be acquired or learnt or they will pose challenges in learners’ grasping of the meanings being expressed. It is under this line of argument that the specific features of the mathematics language found in word problems and thus the potential linguistic challenges faced by EFL learners are identified at the word level and beyond. To begin with, at the word level, there exists a subset of ‘technical vocabulary’ that is rather uniquely used in mathematics contexts (e.g. equilateral, equiangular, isosceles, isometric). Learners, therefore, cannot usually activate their schemata and everyday life experience in making sense of the meanings represented by those words. When these words appear in the explanation sections of textbooks, there may be some contextual clues or even explicit definitions to allow learners to familiarise themselves with the mathematical concepts represented. However, when they appear in word problems in which the language is used in the most concise manner possible, seldom would there be such help no matter how important they are for the targeted calculations. In that case, learners who either do not know or have forgotten those words are unlikely to perform the targeted calculations as instructed. In addition, to make the mathematics language/register a very objectified discourse (Sfard and Lavie 2005), as Schleppegrell (2007) notes, there is a tendency of

presenting ‘processes’ which are typically denoted by verbs in the form of ‘nouns’ as if they are ‘things’ instead (i.e. nominalisation), thus causing potential confusion between, e.g. factor, factorise and factorisation. As L2 vocabulary learning research has found out (e.g. Schmitt and Zimmerman 2002), even advanced learners who know one form of a word family (e.g. factor) do not necessarily know the other members (e.g. factorise, factorisation), and in mathematical texts, the relationship among such word family members is often not explicated, as if each appears to be an independent vocabulary item for the learners. In fact, mastering these vocabulary items which are ‘centrally mathematical’ may be relatively less challenging on the part of learners when compared with words that they have come across in everyday life contexts but are used to express specific meanings in mathematical sense (Halliday 1978; Robertson 2009; Schleppegrell 2007). A common category of such words are those action verbs which pinpoint the specific operations targeted (e.g. expand, find, give, convert, simplify, evaluate). Learners who have understood the meaning of such action verbs in daily life contexts may not be able to identify the exact operation denoted by the same words in mathematics discourse, which may in turn adversely affect their performance in such operations. What further complicates this phenomenon is the use of different action verbs to represent the same concept. Cirillo et al. (2010), for instance, use the concept of addition as an example, pointing out that it can be represented through terms like plus, combine, increased by, etc. Apart from action verbs, other words that are used in word problems to express specific meanings that can be quite different from everyday language use include prepositions (e.g. ahead/behind, about, over), and words that function like conjunctions (e.g. assume, given, see Schleppegrell 2007). Challenging as the words above may appear to EFL learners of mathematics, we should note that more often than not such words are combined to form phrases. This

potential phrase complexity can be well illustrated with excerpt 1, which is extracted from a Secondary 2 (Grade 8) level Hong Kong mathematics textbook. Excerpt 1: John’s walking speed is 2.3 km/s. If this measured value has a percentage error of 2%, write down one possible actual walking speed to satisfy this requirement. (Wong and Wong 2009b, 36)

The underlined phrase marks one single entity that is being elicited as the answer to this particular word problem, yet identifying what that entity is requires a certain amount of linguistic processing. First, learners have to identify the head noun “speed”, then the three adjectives that pre-modify it (i.e. “possible”, “actual”, “walking”), and an infinitive phrase that post-modify it (i.e. “to satisfy this requirement”). To work out the meaning of such post-modification, learners need to identify the referent of the pronoun ‘this’, thus interpreting ‘this requirement’ as the measured value having a percentage error of 2%. Finally learners link the quantifier ‘one’ with the rest of the noun phrase to determine that they have to write only one ‘speed’. Seldom would the same learners encounter such complex phrase constructions even in their English language textbooks, and any misinterpretation of any of the above aspects may lead to wrong calculations. In addition to word and phrase level challenges, Schleppegrell (2007) argues that we have to “expand our understanding of language issues in mathematics classrooms beyond a focus on vocabulary or specialised terminology” (146). Veel (1999), in particular, points out the significance to address those challenges existing at the clause level. Excerpt 2 is one section of a word problem in a Secondary 1 (Grade 7) Hong Kong textbook which consists of a complex clause structure:

Excerpt 2: If an e-mail is sent from Japan at 3 p.m. local time to the Netherlands, what is the local time in the Netherlands when the e-mail is received immediately? (Wong and Wong 2009a, 51)

There is only one sentence in this word problem section, with the subordinate ifclause preceding the main clause which takes the form of a question. In other words, the question which pinpoints the targeted calculation is embedded in a conditional sentence of which the structure may not be known to novice EFL learners. The question clause directly elicits “the local time in the Netherlands…” using a typical question syntax pattern which should be familiar to the learners, yet within this main clause there is another subordinate clause “when the e-mail is received immediately” which is constructed in the passive voice and may thus make the whole clause even more difficult to process. To fully understand the meaning of this single sentence, therefore, learners need to be able to identify the entity being elicited in the question main clause which occupies the middle position and relate it to the fulfillment of two conditions stated in the subordinate if-clause and when-clause which occupies the initial and final positions respectively. Explaining such a meaning structure to novice EFL learners may be considered a challenging job even by English language teachers. Finally, we cannot overlook the linguistic challenges existing at the discourse level. As Morgan (2004) notes, there are characteristic ways in which mathematical concepts are presented, defined and developed in mathematics texts that learners read. Learners therefore need to go beyond the units of individual clauses and sentences to understand how information is organised at the discourse level if they are to grasp those concepts. Excerpt 3 is a word problem from a Secondary 3 (Grade 9) Hong Kong textbook which illustrates

such demand: Excerpt 3: Sirius is the brightest star in the sky at night. The distance between Sirius and the Earth is about 8.6 light-years. In other words, it takes 8.6 years for light from Sirius to arrive at the Earth. It is known that the speed of light is 3 X 105km/s. Take 1 year = 365 days. Calculate the distance, in km, between Sirius and the Earth, correct to 2 significant figures. (Wong and Wong 2009c, 42)

There are six sentences in this word problem text. The first five present the topic and context for the targeted calculation on the concept “distance between Sirius and the Earth”; introduce and define another concept “light-years” and relate it to “distance” by stating that the former is a unit of the latter; introduce and provide the value of a third concept “speed of light”; and present the assumption that there are 365 days in one year. Finally the instruction for the calculation is stated in the sixth sentence. Regardless of the potential word, phrase and clause level challenges existing within the individual sentences, any failure in linking up the above pieces of information may make the calculation inaccurate or even impossible on the part of the learners. In addition, writers often make use of various devices to achieve cohesion and coherence in texts constructing word problems, like the use of conjunctions which often mark the logical relationships among sentences (e.g. “in other words” in the above word problem), repetitions of words and phrases (e.g. “Sirius” and “the Earth” above), and pronoun referencing which can appear confusing (e.g. the two “it” above actually not referring to anything mentioned before). Apart from these explicit linking devices, a further challenge to learners is the typical implicit way in which logical reasoning and operations are constructed in mathematics texts (Chapman 1995; O’Halloran 1999; 2000). In other words, learners may have to read between the lines to bridge the surface meanings

represented by the individual sentences and thus make sense of the whole logic flow involved in the word problem. In fact, the discourse level challenges in word problems may lie not only in the receptive domain of learners’ comprehension, but also in the productive domain of learners’ answers to those word problems. This may be illustrated by the two word problems taken from a Secondary 1 (Grade 7) Hong Kong textbook shown in Excerpt 4: Excerpt 4: Write a short story in less than 50 words that can be represented by each of the following algebraic expressions. 24. 7x + 3

25. (y-60) / 2

(Wong and Wong 2009a, 89)

To answer these two word problems, learners not only need to contrive a ‘setting’ as well as ‘character(s)’ for fitting in the valuables ‘x’ and ‘y’ together with the operations represented by the algebraic expressions, but also to use appropriate cohesive devices (e.g. conjunctions, pronouns, etc.) to link the individual sentences to form a text. Ideally, they should include features of the narrative genre (e.g. the use of past simple, adjectives describing the ‘setting’ and the ‘character(s)’) to make their text appear like a story. One may therefore reckon that the linguistic demands of word problems of this kind may actually exceed their cognitive/mathematical demands. Linguistic help for facilitating learners’ coping with linguistic challenges in word problems The identification of potential sources of linguistic challenges which may inhibit EFL learners’ applying their mathematical understanding in attempting word problems above may well suggest a need for teachers to help their learners overcome such challenges. Much research to date (e.g. Leung, Low, and Sweller 1997; O’Halloran 2000; Veel 1999) has provided evidence that this can be effectively and efficiently done through teachers’

explicitly focusing of learners’ attention on the linguistic features found in word problems and providing spoken mediation to help learners interpret such word problems accordingly. Ideally this is done in the form of CLIL lessons collaboratively planned and conducted by both mathematics and language teachers, with the subject and language content well integrated. Even in contexts where such lessons are not always feasible, teachers of the two subjects may still communicate the linguistic challenges fully and realise some of the help measures in their respective lessons accordingly. In this section I would like to first share an experience of engaging myself in such cross-subject collaboration and next discuss some possible strategies that teachers may find useful to provide linguistic support to learners tackling mathematics word problems. To begin with, within all rounds of an in-service teacher training course for mathematics teachers I have been actively involved in over the past three years, my coteacher and I, both coming from an English language teaching background, allocated one three-hour session working with the course participants in small groups on a set of word problems selected from local Hong Kong textbooks. We would first identify examples of the linguistic challenges discussed above, together with their potential sources, and next suggest some ways that mathematics teachers can adopt to mediate those word problems to make them fully accessible to the target learners. Both my colleague and I have been very impressed by the outcomes of such collaborative work. While the mathematics teachers are in the position to validly identify the potential linguistic challenges in the word problems through recalling their extensive experience in guiding students to tackle similar problems, we language teachers would then provide the linguistic rules of thumb (with minimum terminology used) needed to address such challenges, together with some teaching ideas on how we normally deal with the language points concerned in English language lessons. The

two parties would then examine such ideas together with a view to adapting them for use in mathematics lessons even by mathematics teachers on their own. In fact, among the tens of lesson observations I have conducted as a measure for providing post-course support to those mathematics teachers, I have had the opportunities to observe their attempts in realising some of such teaching ideas. My general perception is that while those teachers may still have concerns about such factors as the extra time needed, they would appreciate the higher degree of comprehension of the word problems on the part of their own students, and are thus developing a more positive attitude towards providing linguistic mediation for at least the more challenging word problems. In the following, reflecting on my own engagement with the above and other teacher development work, I would like to discuss some specific strategies that teachers can consider to help their students to tackle linguistic challenges in the word problems. To begin with, at the word level, quite a number of words that belong to the ‘technical vocabulary’ in mathematics are formed by combining certain common prefixes (e.g. ‘iso-’, ‘poly’, ‘equi-’) and/or suffixes (e.g. ‘-or’, ‘-tion’) with the word roots. By familiarizing learners with the meanings of such affixes and the roots, mathematics teachers may help them make informed guesses of the meaning of the vocabulary items even if they have not come across them before, as well as remember the meaning of partially known words (Schmitt 2007). In addition, since action verbs like ‘calculate’, ‘find’, ‘construct’ and ‘solve’ are commonly found in word problems across different mathematics topics, yet the specific operation required can vary from topic to topic, mathematics teachers may first identify the action verbs that their learners are going to encounter and highlight the specific operations denoted by those verbs before they assign word problems containing them. Also, since those verbs, together with some prepositions, often exist in everyday language use,

English teachers may activate learners’ existing knowledge of the word meanings in daily life contexts covered in their English language curriculum and contrast such meanings with those in the mathematics contexts. Possibly learners can be guided to make use of their understanding of the former to consolidate that of the latter. Specifically, some commonly used verbs like ‘assume’ and ‘take’ are often used in the same imperative structure as ‘find’ and ‘calculate’ in word problems but are used to denote an assumption or a condition for the targeted calculation rather than giving instructions for that calculation. While all those common verbs are expected to be covered in the English curriculum, mathematics teachers may need to highlight their specific roles in the word problems so as to avoid any learner confusion. To maximise the effect of the above vocabulary support, teachers should expose their learners to those vocabulary items in a repeated manner in the context of mathematical texts, as repetition is crucial to the acquisition of L2 vocabulary (e.g. Nation 1990; Schmitt 2007). Ideally such repeated exposure is to be provided in the form of a review session soon after the session when the targeted vocabulary items are first introduced, as most of the learners’ forgetting of vocabulary knowledge occurs soon after the learning session (Schmitt 2000; 2007). At the phrase and clause levels, teachers may help to unpack the structure of complex noun phrases as well as clauses and next reconstruct the meanings expressed to make them more accessible to their learners. To do so teachers of the two subjects may draw on their respective expertise and develop a protocol for guiding learners to identify the levels of meanings embedded in each phrase or clause. The first step can be identifying the head noun or main clause which carries the central meaning, then unpacking the meanings of the pre- and post-modification, and finally interpreting the full meaning

concerned. For more able learners, teachers may want to guide them to develop such unpacking and repacking skills themselves. To achieve that, teachers need to familiarise learners with the grammatical patterning that vocabulary items and clauses typically bring forth in the context of word problems. For instance, as Schleppegrell (2007, 143) identifies, there are three common types of ‘language chunking’ at the phrase level for modifying head nouns, i.e. ‘prenumerative phrases’ presenting an ‘abstract but quantifiable mathematical attribute’ (e.g. the area of the triangle, the width of the rectangle)’; adjectives pre-modifying head nouns (e.g. odd, even integers); and post-noun modifiers (e.g. a triangle which has equal angles, the polygon with equal sides). Learners who have been guided to identify the meanings expressed and the functions performed by these three types of chunking, the respective geographical position they occupy in the phrase structure as well as the grammar items commonly used to construct those chunking (e.g. adjectives, relative clauses, prepositional phrases) should be in a better position to interpret or at least make informed guesses of the overall meaning expressed by the complex noun phrases that they encounter in future word problems. In addition to the internal structure of phrases, another challenge at the phrase level for learners is word collocations. For instance, according to different cohorts of Hong Kong mathematics teachers whom I have met in a teacher training course in the past three years, the distinction between the verb-preposition collocations ‘increased/decreased to’ and ‘increased/decreased by’ has been one of the most problematic concepts to their learners. While those teachers have repeatedly pointed out the meaning difference between the two, their learners may still misinterpret the meaning of one for the other, thus resulting in inaccurate calculations. In fact, L2 research (see for example Schmitt 2007) has pointed out that acquiring more advanced word knowledge aspects like collocation does not effectively

result solely from teacher instruction. Rather, extensive exposure to those aspects in different contexts can be crucial. Teachers may therefore design some awareness raising activities in which learners encounter various collocation patterns repeatedly in context, then differentiate between possible from impossible ones, and the meaning differences among those possible ones. In addition, they may highlight occurrences of the common collocation patterns in the word problems they assign to their learners so as to make those patterns more salient and hence increase the likelihood of them being noticed by the learners. Furthermore, to help learners tackle clause-level challenges, mathematics teachers may identify the clause patterns that are commonly found in word problems and, together with their English colleagues, match them with the typical functions they serve. Examples of those matches include the use of conditional ‘if’ or ‘when’ clauses for delivering conditions and/or assumptions for the targeted calculations, that of imperatives or question clauses for pinpointing the specific calculations required, and that of passive clauses for describing in an objective style development or phenomena which often constitute background information for the calculations. Then they can present such pattern-function mappings to the learners with plenty of examples from word problems. If learners recognise those clause patterns and the functions they serve in the word problems they read, they may better interpret the interactions among various components of a complex clause and may thus unpack the layers of meanings expressed in those components and reorganise such meanings in ways which make sense to them. Finally, at the discourse level, English and mathematics teachers may make the word problem texts more accessible to their learners by unpacking and presenting the overall meaning structure constructed by the constituent sentences of the texts. To achieve

this, teachers can identify with the learners the cohesive devices that are used to link ideas expressed in the individual sentences, together with the layers of meaning and the relationships among the sentences thus signaled. In particular, as Schleppegrell (2007) notes, teacher has a significant role to play in ‘making explicit what might have been left implicit in the formulation of the problem[s]’ (152). In other words, if there are any steps within the logical reasoning required in processing the word problems that are not explicitly stated in the language used, teachers may help learners bridge those gaps so that their calculations are not hindered by their lack of comprehension of what they are being instructed to do. Repeated practice in doing these explicitly with the learners may gradually make such processes automatic on the part of them when they encounter word problems on their own, say during assessment occasions. In addition, as discussed above, contexts that writers have adopted for setting word problems may be representing authentic real life situations but still not be relevant to the learners’ own experience. In view of that, teachers may consider familiarizing their learners with the situational context behind some selected word problems, thereby either instilling or activating their existing world knowledge relevant to that context, which they can then apply to understand the specific details presented in the word problems through a top-down approach. Multimodal support for learners’ coping with challenges in word problems To make the linguistic support discussed above more effective and to facilitate its uptake by learners, teachers may consider complementing its use with that of other multi-modal strategies. This is to respond to the observation that ‘mathematics draws on multiple semiotic (meaning-creating) systems to construct knowledge: symbols, oral language, written language, and visual representations such as graphs and diagrams’ (Schleppegrell

2007, 141). As Lemke (2003) argues, it is only through ‘cross-referencing and integrating thematically’ all such systems that we can make and share mathematical meanings (229). One such strategy that has been widely advocated in the literature is the use of graphic representations (e.g. O’ Halloran 1999; Robertson 2009). Among all the semiotic systems stated above, graphs and diagrams may be relatively more accessible to EFL learners because of their lower linguistic demand and that learners can visualise the meanings conveyed. Teachers may therefore construct graphs or diagrams to unpack and repack meanings in word problems if appropriate, or strategically adapt the existing ones provided, and use those as a thread to help their learners master how the semiotic systems interact to construct meanings. O’Halloran (1999, cited in Schleppegrell 2007) provides an example how this can be done through an example of a trigonometry problem. In addition, for word problems in which complex grammatical patterning is found, teachers may use such graphic organisers as mind maps, tree diagrams and flow-charts to unpack the phrases, clauses or even discourses and thus help learners comprehend the layers of meaning conveyed. Furthermore, teachers may make use of information technology resources to help learners cope with the linguistic challenges identified at different levels. To teach and revise targeted vocabulary items, for instance, Cirillo et al. (2010) recommend creating crossword puzzles via the www.puzzlemaker.com webpage. With the ‘Arcade Game Generator’ function of the www.classtools.net webpage, likewise, teachers can generate five types of interactive online quizzes targeting word, phrase and even clause level challenges simply by inputting chunks of target language for the questions and answers as instructed. Those quizzes are displayed in the format of computer games with animations and sound effects, which may provide a relatively more interesting context for engaging EFL learners directly

with mathematical language. Apart from the resources on the Internet, Robertson (2009) recommends the use of such other technology tools as an electronic whiteboard or even a Nintendo video game to provide mathematical linguistic training to learners. Finally, to maximise learners’ awareness of the language features in word problems and other mathematics texts, teachers may, drawing on principles of cooperative learning, design more pair work or small group activities. For instance, learners can transcribe and translate meanings across the various semiotic systems to their partners, say from written language to symbolic expressions as in word problems involving mathematics formulas and vice versa (Rubenstein and Thompson 2001). Actually, the graphic representation and information technology strategies discussed above can be applied with learners collaborating with each other as well. They can, for example, work with their peers and design a graphic organiser to represent their understanding of the layers of meanings within a given word problem. They can also research the definitions of mathematical terms and use that to construct a crossword puzzle or online quiz for their peers. Whatever mode of collaboration among learners is adopted, the rationale behind it is to create more opportunities for engaging them with the language typically used in mathematics texts and for their expressing mathematical understanding using the English language, possibly with some help of their first language. An attempt to mediate a word problem for EFL learners Obviously not all of the linguistic and multimodal strategies suggested above are applicable for every single word problem. To appropriately mediate a given word problem for a target group of learners, therefore, teachers should first fully analyse the nature of the word problem and identify the potential linguistic challenges it brings forth. This in turn informs

our selection of relevant strategies to make the language embedded in the word problem more accessible. The following is an attempt to mediate a word problem taken from a Secondary 2 (Grade 8) Hong Kong textbook (Excerpt 5) that I have co-developed with a colleague for the teacher training course mentioned above: Excerpt 5: Wendy’s initial weight was 50 kg. Her weight first decreased by 20% due to an illness and then increased by 20% when she recovered. (a) What was Wendy’s final weight? (b) What was the overall increase or decrease in her weight when compared with her initial weigh? (Wong and Wong 2009b, 29)

The word problem in itself comes with a simple meaning structure at the discourse level, with the first two sentences providing the context for the targeted calculations which are respectively listed in parts (a) and (b) which follow. However, there can still be linguistic challenges at other levels. First, the word ‘weight’ which appears five times within the short text is the central topic for the whole question and thus needs to be understood by the learners. The high density of appearance within the short text may suggest that there is not much contextual clue for the learners to guess its meaning from context. To introduce this term to learners who do not know it yet, teachers can make use of their existing knowledge and everyday encounters related to it, e.g. stating that the unit of “weight” is “kg” or showing them a picture of a weighing machine and recalling the learners’ experience in measuring their weight using it. Further, teachers can make use of the contrastive word relationship between members of the two pairs of antonyms: initial and final, and increase and decrease to explain the meaning of each. They can then introduce the collocation between these two pairs of antonyms with the central concept “weight” to help the learners understand the changes being observed in the given context,

which are also crucial for the targeted calculations. Research (e.g. Nation 2001) has suggested that grouping word pairs can result in learning of a large amount of words and such learning can be durable. Second, at the phrase level, some learners may be trapped by the two occurrences of the prepositional phrase “by 20%” (which follows the verb phrases “decreased” and “increased” respectively), and may therefore interpret that “Wendy’s weight” first decreased and then increased by the same amount, i.e. no change. In fact, this can be an example of possible confusion resulting from “blurred distinction between the concepts of difference and proportional comparison” between everyday and mathematical language use (MacGregor 2002, 4). To avoid the learners’ being confused, teachers may have to highlight not only the individual language items used to construct meanings in word problems (in this case the verb phrases “decreased by 20%” and “increased by 20%”), but also the way in which they are used (i.e. reporting the same proportional change in opposite directions based on different initial values) (Pimm 1987, Schlepprell 2007). In fact, by developing an awareness of the roles individual language items play in mathematical word problems, teachers can guide learners to ignore some of the items they do not know. In mediating word problems like the one above, for instance, teachers can pinpoint that prepositional phrases led by “due to” and subordinate “when” clauses usually serve to provide the background conditions or causes of certain changes, which are usually not key information for the targeted calculations. Learners who do not know the words “illness” and “recovered” can ignore them and still be able to carry out the calculations. When looking at those roles, however, teachers should advise learners to pay attention to where the language items are found. For example, the second “when” clause in the word problem, unlike the first counterpart found in the background description section, appears in one of the two

main question stems and should therefore be taken into account while doing the corresponding calculation. Finally, teachers can make use of an appropriate form of graphic organiser to help learners visualise the sequence of changes in “Wendy’s weight” described in the word problem text, like Figure 1.

Figure 1. A graphic organiser illustrating the word problem in Excerpt 5

As discussed, the beauty of using a graphic organiser is that it allows teachers to present the interaction among the multiple semiotic systems in which mathematical meanings are conveyed, thereby increasing the degree of comprehension on the part of learners. The above organiser, for instance, involves the use of symbols, formulas, pictures and words. Teachers of more able learners, of course, can leave parts of the organiser empty and ask the learners to complete it, or they can guide the learners to design their own graphic organisers collaboratively in pairs or trios, thereby motivating more verbal interaction among them. Conclusion Under no circumstances can the above identification of linguistic challenges in mathematics word problems and that of strategies helping EFL learners cope with those

challenges be regarded as comprehensive. This paper, however, hopes to join the existing literature in arguing for the significance of both processes if mathematics teachers are to help their learners to fully tackle such linguistic challenges. Ideally, as suggested above, in accomplishing those processes collaborative effort as well as expertise of both mathematics and English language teachers should be drawn. The collaboration can start at a small scale. For instance, individual mathematics teachers can first analyse a certain number of word problems from different topics so as to identify the common communicative functions expressed (e.g. providing background, indicating conditions for the targeted calculations, delivering instructions for such calculations, etc.); then their English language colleagues can work on the same word problems and map up the specific phrase, clause and even discourse patterns used in the word problems to realise those functions. They can then provide corresponding teaching on those function-pattern mappings. Ultimately, institutions can formally establish a mechanism for facilitating collaboration between the two subject panels and together they can tailor-make a language across the curriculum (LAC) framework which fits the specific needs of their learners.

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How strategic use of L1 in an L2-medium mathematics classroom facilitates L2 interaction and comprehension International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 18(3), 319-335.

Nicole Judith Tavares Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong [email protected]

How strategic use of L1 in an L2-medium mathematics classroom facilitates L2 interaction and comprehension There has been an increasing interest in and hence a growing number of research studies on Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) over the past two decades. One of the ongoing debates in CLIL is on bilingualism versus monolingualism, or the role of the first language (L1) in subject teaching. So far very few research projects have been carried out in Asian L2-medium classrooms where there are significant differences in the learners’ L1 and L2. Adopting an exemplary case study approach, this study investigates a bilingual teacher’s strategy use in a mathematics L2-medium classroom in Hong Kong. Through analysing classroom observation data, teacher and student semi-structured interviews and artifacts, it was noted that the teacher made strategic use of L1 to mediate her students’ gradual adaptation to the shift in medium of instruction. Methods that the teacher used included ones that resemble what L2 teachers would employ in language teaching: noticing, syllabification, morphological cues, think-pair-share, vocabulary-building strategies, questioning techniques, immediate correction and others. Results of the current investigation support as well as extend the findings of previous studies and have important reference value for bilingual teachers, teacher educators, policy makers and CLIL researchers. Keywords: medium of instruction (MOI) policy, mathematics, Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), bilingual(ism), Language across the Curriculum (LAC)

Background to the study This study is situated within the context of Hong Kong which has undergone significant changes to its medium of instruction (MOI) policy over the past thirty years, as reviewed in the Introduction paper of this volume. The latest ‘fine-tuning MOI’ policy, which has been in place since 2010-11 academic year, gives secondary schools the autonomy and flexibility to go for English-medium (EMI) or Chinese-medium (CMI) in different classes, and for different groups of students and subjects. This policy has fuelled an interesting but sometimes unjustifiable situation whereby most schools would choose mathematics as one of the subjects to be taught through EMI. When the learners in this present case-study school were asked if they could understand why their school has opted for mathematics as one of the two subjects taught in English, one learner loudly exclaimed “I want to know too”. The policy in this school is for all lessons to be delivered in Cantonese, the learners’ first language (L1), in Secondary 1 and 2 (equivalent to Grade 7 and 8) but for one class, the elite group of learners, to be taught science and mathematics lessons via EMI starting from Secondary 3 (Grade 9). In other words, CLIL, which is characterised by using a second/foreign language as a tool in the teaching and learning of both the content and language in content subjects (Coyle, Hood, and Marsh 2010), is being practised in the casestudy school (and actually many other schools in Hong Kong). While there seems to be evidence showing the effectiveness of CLIL in enhancing students’ linguistic competence in continental Europe (e.g. Dalton-Puffer 2007, 2008), CLIL studies have actually revealed inconsistent results. This can be accounted for by the considerable divergence in the foreign language or second language (L2) involved and the different models under the umbrella term CLIL. For instance, Lo and Lo’s meta-analysis

(2014) about the effectiveness of EMI/ CLIL in Hong Kong has revealed that while learners have experienced gains in their L2 proficiency, their knowledge of content subjects has suffered. Cenoz, Genesee and Gorter (2014) have proposed factors causing discrepancies between learners’ improvement in language proficiency and subject learning. To date, it is still questionable if a language policy that promotes growth in language proficiency at the expense of academic content learning is desirable. How teachers’ pedagogical skills can be honed to scaffold learners’ understanding of an academic subject in their L2 thus merits further investigation. This has stimulated the author’s interest in investigating what strategies the case-study teacher used to help her students overcome the challenges and how this was perceived by them.

The ongoing debate: linguistic purism or bilingualism – the role of L1 in L2 classroom Lo (this volume) has highlighted the debate over the use of L1 and L2 in CLIL classrooms. This section will further extend such a debate. For a long period of history, policy-makers in the field of education and education practitioners have succumbed to the long-held belief of ‘linguistic purism’ (Lin 2006, 2013). In Blackledge and Creese’s words, “moving between languages has traditionally been frowned upon in educational settings” (2010, 203). It seems to have become an established “normalising mission” (Rampton et al. 2002) to keep L1 away from a classroom environment when L2 is learnt with the beliefs that this is more conducive to learners’ L2 development and that L1, if drastically different from learners’ L2, may hinder rather than facilitate L2 learning (Cook 2001). This appears to be in line with what the Education Bureau of Hong Kong (EDB) firmly advocates: that the use of English – L2 in this context – should be the “sole medium of instruction” in an English-

medium classroom. EDB has also attributed a higher rate of success in the English Language paper in the Hong Kong Certificate of Education examination1 to teachers’ sole use of English in the classroom (Education Department 1992). Nevertheless, as Lemke (2002) sharply remarks: “Could it be that all our current pedagogical methods in fact make multilingual development more difficult than it need be, simply because we bow to dominant political and ideological pressures to keep ‘languages’ pure and separate?” (85). Putting this in more precise words, could it be that the teachers’ struggle to adhere to the official discourse of linguistic purism that has hindered learners’ content and language skills development? Lo and Macaro (2012) observe that this is a reality faced by teachers in Hong Kong that needs to be dealt with urgently. In an average local EMI or CMI classroom, it is not at all uncommon to find content and/or language teachers switching to the learners’ L1 Cantonese to translate difficult concepts. Hoare and Kong (2008) documented the difficulties Hong Kong teachers encountered, and stated that teachers admitted finding it particularly challenging to have to cover the examination syllabus within the tight schedule while still being expected to provide sufficient support in scaffolding learners’ understanding of the content in their L2. As a teacher educator of both pre-service and inservice teachers for 13 years, the author of this paper has conducted over 700 lesson observations so far and can confirm not only the struggle mentioned but also the use of L1 as a practice largely shared by many teachers, especially those teaching linguistically weaker learners or in CMI contexts. For quality teacher education, instead of evading the issue, it is high time we confronted this problematic and prevailing scenario to examine if and how L1 can be used in planned, judicious and strategic ways to cast a more powerful

and positive influence on bilinguals’ cognitive functioning, socio-cultural identity and language development (Kroll et al. 2002; Turnbull, Cormier, and Bourque 2011). Some recent attempts have been made in this direction. For example, to exemplify how L1 and L2 can be used functionally in a Biology CLIL class2 in Germany for complementary and comparative purposes, Laupenműhlen (2012) cited an example from her study to show how the noun phrase “red blood cell” in English can be presented in contrast to its German equivalent “Rote Blutkörperchen” to offer “a fruitful learning opportunity” (245) if the difference in the scientific concepts expressed by the words and their accuracy in meaning is juxtaposed. Apart from science lessons, Laupenműhlen also quoted Gajo and Serra’s (2002) project conducted in Italy (Italian L1 and French L2) to prove that learners in a bilingual learning environment were found to be stronger in mathematical operations than their counterparts instructed in a monolingual classroom. Lo (this volume), with her analysis and findings of 30 CLIL lessons of different subjects from different schools, also argues that CLIL teachers have demonstrated sensitivity to their own language use to cater for their students’ needs while helping them to master both content knowledge and L2. In fact, Laupenműhlen (2012) has pointed out another realistic fact: the natural tendency for learners themselves to be activating their own existing resources in L1 when being presented with tasks and concepts in L2. Thus, instead of avoiding L1, guiding teachers in valuing learners’ first language resources and making judicious choices in the deployment of L1 in the classroom, can be a productive pedagogical solution. This is an example of “translanguaging” (see also Canagarajah 2011; García and Sylvan 2011), and involves using L1 as a rich resource in linguistic scaffolding to facilitate learners’ comprehension and interaction in the target language (L2). This is also specifically what is

being put forward in the ‘Rainbow diagram’ proposed by Lin (2012, 93; also shown in the Introduction of this volume). The diagram is illustrative of the importance of bilingual teachers possessing an extended communicative repertoire, thereby enabling them to have various modes of communication at their disposal. This allows for linguistic support to be integrated with semiotic resources (e.g. visual aids, gestures) for teachers to make informed and judicious rather than haphazard choices and to take active steps in their shift to L1 in the everyday oral register when deemed helpful to ultimately facilitate learners’ acquisition of L2 academic literacies in both the oral and written form. How this is achieved by the teacher in this study will be examined in the results and discussion section of the paper.

Mathematics as a unique academic register To probe into how the bilingual mathematics teacher’s strategic use of L1 and mobilisation of communicative resources in her pedagogical practices help mediate, scaffold and facilitate learning, it is vital to first have a deeper understanding of mathematics as a register and language in its own right. Mathematics is an academic subject with its unique ‘Mathematics Register’ (Halliday 1978) that distinguishes itself from one’s everyday use of the same lexis, grammar (Halliday 1993) and structures (Adams 2003) with linguistic challenges in the everyday classroom yet to be fully defined. Although one may be aware that it is “crucial for teachers’ and students’ talk to apprentice learners into the technical language of mathematics” (Huang and Normandia 2008, 142–143), studies on mathematics discourse in the English language have mostly been conducted in English-as-a-first-language countries such as in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom with a focus predominantly on the written language with word problems receiving major attention (Schleppegrell

2007). In Hong Kong, one of the most recent investigations into mathematics as an academic genre was carried out by Li (2012) but this was on textbooks most commonly used by schools in the territory. Nevertheless, how the textbooks are used, how mathematical concepts are verbally explained to learners, how the teacher acquaints them with the field-specific and academic lexis, grammar and structures of mathematics still remains an under-explored area. Chan’s paper in this volume analyses mathematics register with examples extracted from Hong Kong textbooks and further proposes some practical multimodal strategies for teachers (mathematics and English language teachers) to assist students in grasping the language of mathematics. Lai’s (2013) study, which involved classroom data from an Asian context and the teacher’s use of metaphorical meaning and models to aid learners’ understanding of the mathematics register was potentially very relevant. But as Lai noted it was heavily “teacher focused” (43), for student voices were missing. In fact, classroom research on mathematics has often looked into teacher questioning as a main strategy (Mohan 1986, cited in Huang and Normandia, 2008) used to encourage learners to sound out their thinking but there has been limited data presented on learner responses. Rose (2010) has also stressed the importance of teachers “carefully planning how (they) will say the oral texts” with specific examples given in the lesson plan of a mathematics teacher in his work. However, what happens in the classroom, that is, the teacher-student interactional discourse, is largely organic, spontaneous, dynamic and sometimes unpredictable, therefore making teachers’ sensitivity to ‘Maths Talk’ essential and their conscious, informed and skilful strategy in response to learner needs of vital importance. So far very little has been reported in the literature to enable teachers to visualise, concretise and theorise classroom interactional discourse in the subject of mathematics.

As Wallace and Ellerton (2004) have precisely stated, “mathematics is a means of communicating” (285), but sadly this is the facet of mathematics that has often been overlooked. Coupled with the need to examine the teacher’s role and L1 strategy use in a L2-medium mathematics classroom, this study will hopefully give teachers and teacher educators some new insights into how L1 and other strategies can be deployed to provide scaffolding and language support to supplement mathematics teaching and learning.

Methodology This study has a qualitative orientation and follows an exemplary case study approach (Yin 1989). The data collection methods used included classroom observations, video-recorded lessons for analysis of teacher-student and student-student interactional discourse, semistructured interviews with the teacher and her learners, stimulated recall when deemed appropriate, and artifacts. The participants of this case study are a bilingual teacher Miss Sitt and her group of average-ability students in a mainstream all-girls secondary school in Hong Kong adopting Cantonese, their L1, as MOI. Under the ‘fine-tuning MOI’ policy, there is one class in the school having lessons in mathematics using English, their L2, as MOI as from Secondary 3 (Grade 9) and in mathematics and science subjects from Secondary 4 to 6 (Grade 10 to 12). Miss Sitt has been teaching mathematics for over twenty years, first in a highbanding EMI school and recently in the CMI case-study school. She voluntarily took part in a 24-hour professional development course for mathematics teachers using English as the MOI. Miss Sitt was identified through the classroom-based observation data of the videotaped lesson in the post-course support stage by the author and her colleagues for her good

practices. Her mathematics lessons with the Secondary 3 class on video were then continued to be video-recorded for a one-year period in the learners’ Secondary 4 studies. At the beginning of the study, Miss Sitt was interviewed for her teaching philosophy, attitude towards the use of English as MOI in class, the school’s MOI policy and her general strategy use. Before classroom observations, she was asked about her intended learning outcomes and strategies she planned to use to achieve those outcomes. After the lessons she was invited to reflect on the extent to which the outcomes were perceived to have been met and strategies effective. Two rounds of focus group interviews were conducted with her students in teams of 3–4, once at the beginning of the study and again at the end of the study. The first set of interviews enabled attention to be centred on the strategies which the students claimed were effective. The final interviews allowed the students to reflect on their learning experiences and questions to be targetted at observed learning gains. The fourteen students traced over the year were selected from a class of forty learners based on the author’s observations of their performance and interaction in class. An attempt was made to include learners from varying levels of ability, motivation and participation; the teacher was invited to make further suggestions on the given list of interviewees and did her best to arrange for the chosen learners to be interviewed. All teacher and student interviews were semi-structured, lasted between 30 and 60 minutes, and carried out in the learners’ L1, unless otherwise desired by individual learners, to allow for greater ease and precision in their responses. Stimulated recall (Gass and Mackay 2000) was employed during the interviews when deemed appropriate. Questions were based on a protocol developed to address the following key research question central to the inquiry:

What strategies does the bilingual teacher employ to mediate and facilitate her learners’… (a) comprehension of the mathematical concepts (b) learning of the language of mathematics (c) internalisation of the language of mathematics in a classroom-learning environment with the learners’ L2 (in this case, English) as MOI? All interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim when English was used and translated from Cantonese into English by a research assistant who is well-versed in both languages. Transcriptions were sent to the research participants for verification to ensure quality in the translation and that nothing of salience was lost. A final interview was then administered to report on the data obtained from the students and the authorresearcher’s interpretations and to elicit Miss Sitt’s views and responses. Data analysis began with open coding using NVivo 10 at the beginning of the school year, followed by several rounds of recoding and categorisation that involved constant comparison within categories and between categories (Strauss and Corbin 1998) until matching patterns were detected. This was confirmed via follow-up interviews with the teacher and students. During the entire data-collection process, artifacts representative of classroom learning tasks and activities of the lessons observed were gathered and analysed. It was hoped that a multi-method, multi-source approach would ensure triangulation and enhance the reliability of the findings.

Permission to conduct the study was granted by the Human Research Ethics Committee for Non-Clinical Faculties (HRECNCF) at the author’s institution prior to the data collection and ethical consent was obtained for all the procedures entailed.

Results and discussions As a starting point to the presentation of the findings, it is worthy of note that there is strong evidence that the teacher Miss Sitt’s input was much appreciated by her students. As exclaimed by a learner whose voice is largely representative of the general student population in the class, “… I want to know too (why the school has such a policy of not having EMI classes until Secondary 3)! It’s so difficult to change a lot. Bio(logy), chem(istry), maths is (are) in English in Form Four suddenly, but not (the) Form One to Form Three… If I didn’t have Miss Sitt in Form Three, it would be really really difficult to adapt.” Two messages here are clear: First, in the learners’ eyes, the rationale for the school’s choice of the MOI policy is beyond their understanding. Second, their teacher Miss Sitt has played an influential role in helping them adjust to the “sudden” shift to and in their learning of the subject mathematics using English as MOI. This is the impetus for an in-depth investigation into what approach and strategies Miss Sitt used to make the L2 learning experience a positive one for her students.

Supportive classroom atmosphere in an L2-medium setting Overall, Miss Sitt’s approach was geared towards preparing her students to overcome the challenges of learning mathematics in their L2 English. For this reason, all the strategies that were identified were developed from an L2 learner’s perspective. An overriding principle that Miss Sitt held was the importance of cultivating a “safe” and supportive

classroom learning atmosphere. To achieve this, ample opportunities were created in a lesson for learners to engage in student-student interaction to collaboratively work out a solution or come up with a response. In a typical 35-minute lesson, there were six thinkpair-share instances as illustrated in Excerpt A below: Excerpt A Instances of think-pair-share within a lesson on ‘Trigonometric Identities’ (time within the 35-minute lesson indicated in the left column) 1:15

You can discuss with your neighbour first. [2 minutes later] Anyone still needs a bit more time. Put up your hand, please. Yvonne, ready now? Okay, let’s start!

11:07

Now, for the whole class. I give you two minutes there. You look at the solution there. Try to understand what they are doing there. I will ask you back two minutes later.

14:20

1 minute’s time. Talk to your neighbor. How do you say this?

17:18

Okay, one minute. Sit down first. Discuss with your neighbour.

20:39

Why do we need to change Cosine into Sine? 1 minute’s time. Discuss it with your neighbour.

22:05

Listen to me carefully first. I want you to do three things. First, which way has Bella used? Okay? Second, is it the same as the book?... Third, now listen to me carefully. I would like to ask you: If I don’t want to use the Book’s way for these two, I can have the third way… Not using Identities. I would like you to think back about what have you learnt 2 or 3 sessions ago. Could we use the third way?... Two minutes.

As shown by the excerpt of the teacher Miss Sitt’s speech, since the beginning of the lesson, learners were encouraged to work cooperatively and supportively on the questions presented to them. Comprehension of mathematical concepts Through activating ‘Maths Talk’ via questioning and peer interaction

Through establishing a “participatory classroom culture” (Schleppegrell 2007, 151), Miss Sitt activated her students’ ‘Maths Talk’ on the word problems, mathematical operations, concepts, solutions or questions being discussed, thereby enabling them to work closely with their peers to clarify their doubts, deepen their understanding of the concepts and arrive at a collective decision. This is further promoted and reinforced by Miss Sitt’s questions which, upon examination, move from simpler ones of a literal type requiring knowledge of the subject and language “How do you say that?” to cognitively more challenging “Why?” questions calling for understanding, application and analysis to varying degrees depending on the exact question, and later to the final set of questions in 22:05 (Excerpt A) involving analysis, synthesis and evaluation, using the stages in the wellestablished Bloom’s (1984) taxonomy. The implication behind the use of questions on the understanding of mathematical concepts is obvious and heavily discussed over centuries; its implication on the learning and internalisation of the language of mathematics is to be studied in a more in-depth fashion in a later part of this section in conjunction with the teacher’s strategy use in maximising learner talk. Through skillfully handling mistakes at the conceptual level In an L2-medium classroom constructed around ‘Maths Talk’ through a range of think-pairshare tasks, how the responses shared with the class are handled is critical. As learners expressed after taking part in pair work of this type, not only does it help generate answers of a higher quality, “(a)ctually to speak like this can help (them) become more confident… To become more sure of the answer.” One of them said: “If I answered the question myself, I would be very scared, scared of making mistakes. But after discussing with my classmates, I feel much more confident.”

What was prominent in the learners’ words was their increased level of confidence through working with their classmates and articulating their responses, and the notion of ‘mistakes as learning opportunities’. Echoing the importance of a safe and supportive learning environment, Miss Sitt constantly reiterated, “all successes come from failures. You make mistakes and then you learn and next time you become better.” In her view, “(i)f they have the confidence, they will just carry on.” To explore how this positivism in Miss Sitt’s approach was operationalised in the mathematics classroom, how learner anxiety was reduced in the learning process and how conceptual understanding was mediated using the learners’ L1, the third instance in 14:20 of Excerpt A is zoomed into for a more microscopic look at the teacher’s as well as the learners’ discourse. (In all the transcripts in this paper, the students’ L1 is indicated with Chinese characters. This is then translated into English and presented within brackets for readers’ easy reference.) Excerpt B Promoting ‘Maths talk’ and learner comprehension through L1 mediation T – Teacher (Miss Sitt); S – Student (S1 – Jenny; S2 – Candy)

Move 1

2

3 4

5 6

T:

[Miss Sitt referring the learners to a particular page of the textbook.] Look at the solution there. How many ways are shown in the book? What’s the first way about, Jenny? S1: [Jenny slowly rose from her seat, murmured a response in a very low voice while continuing to look at the book and gesturing as she gave the answer] Err… Use Tangent Ɵ equals Sine Ɵ over Cosine Ɵ. She… err… [using a lot of hand gestures suggesting hesitation] T: No, I mean on the… in Example 11… Solution there. Are you sure? T: [Jenny continued to hesitate.] The first line. She used Tangent Ɵ equals Sine Ɵ over Cosine Ɵ in the first line? In the solution? S1: Err… Put the Cosine Ɵ… [Struggling to come up with a word, she looked at Miss Sitt and said in L1] 即係… (That means…) T: Okay, you try to speak in Chinese first.

7 8 9 10

11

12

13

14 15 16

S1: 將個 Cosine Ɵ … 另外除 … (Use Cosine Ɵ… Divide it by… ) T: Example 9.11… Are you sure? S1: 唔係 … 即係… 將佢地兩個都除返 Cosine Ɵ (No… That means… Divide both of them by Cosine Ɵ) T Very good! Okay, can you repeat again in English? Try. [Jenny continued to look at her book and hesitated. She scratched her hand, looked to a classmate on the right and said “Err…”] T: Okay, sit down first. 1 minute’s time. Talk to your neighbour. How can you say it? [Many learners immediately flipped open their notebook as they began their discussion. They turned to their neighbor and began talking while pointing to the page in the textbook or to their notebook. During the oneminute time, Miss Sitt circulated the room to monitor the learners’ interaction and support the weaker ones.] T: [saying to learners as she moved around the room] Remember, you have your notebook to follow if you can’t remember how to say… how to say it in English. T: [Miss Sitt asking a pair of students seated in front] Where’s your notebook? [They picked up their notebooks from their desks, starting to find the right page.] T: [After a minute] Okay, let’s start. Cynthia now. Cynthia. T: 亞唔好啦. (Oh, better not.) Candy! Candy! [Candy rose from her seat. She is Jenny’s neighbour] Solution for the first way. What is the first step? S2: Err… Divide both… both the nominator and denominator by Cosine Ɵ. Miss Sitt’s judicious and informed decision has played an integral part in Candy’s

answer in Move 16. Her allowing Jenny to use L1 in Move 6 to articulate the initial response and her strategies in encouraging learners to verbalise their thinking before Move 13 also has a role to play in facilitating their conceptual gains and strengthening their confidence to produce an answer in English. This answer reveals deepened mathematical understanding but, at the same time, also Candy’s lack of lexical knowledge of how “nominator” should be expressed. How Miss Sitt continued to make strategic use of L1 and other pedagogical methods to correct this language mistake and help her students over other linguistic challenges, learn and internalise the mathematics register will be discussed

in detail with Excerpt C and in later sections after her overriding principles and approach are looked at. Learning and internalisation of the language of mathematics Particularly notable in Miss Sitt’s lessons and evident in the example of teacher-student interactional discourse in Excerpt B is her tolerance and acceptance of her students’ use of their L1. Through using L1 to scaffold entry into L2 As Swain, Kirkpatrick and Cummins (2011) put it in most candid terms based on their experience of observing second-language learners, “(i)t is a waste of time to tell students not to use Cantonese (L1) when working through cognitively/emotionally complex ideas, as they will do so covertly if not allowed to do so overtly” (15). Echoing this view, Miss Sitt proudly added, “even if they speak in Chinese, I won’t mind… you can ask your neighbour in Chinese. But when you try to answer, you answer me in English. Some of them can; some of them can’t. If I know they can’t, I’ll just say ‘Okay, you can answer me in Cantonese’. I won’t mind.” Such a practice was acknowledged by her students as reflected in the group interviews. In the same vein, exploiting the use of L1 as a learning opportunity, Miss Sitt decided to first point Jenny in the right direction by eliciting from her responses in L1 (Moves 6–9). With the certainty that Jenny’s answer in L1 was correct, she was then guided to translate her answer into the target L2 English with the help of a peer (Move 11), their “notebook” (Moves 12–13) and the teacher’s intervention during their one-minute interaction. During the lesson as an observer, it was indeed enlightening for the author to witness how Miss Sitt’s responsiveness to the learners’ needs and the combination of the

three strategies had an impactful effect on the quality of Jenny’s neighbour Candy’s answer in Move 16. When inquired why Candy was invited to answer the question instead of Jenny, Miss Sitt explained: “If I just re-ask Jenny, I think she is very nervous… I think it gives her too much pressure… So that’s why I ask Candy… After pair work, they’re all involved… if Candy can answer my question, it means that Jenny can also answer my question. So at that point they found that they build up their own trust and culture… for their later-on discussion.” This reference to the “culture” endorsed the notion of a trustful classroom atmosphere previously mentioned. Similar to the L1-L2 functional interplay depicted in Laupenműhlen’s (2012) work, there were noticeable steps in Miss Sitt’s deployment of the two languages in her classroom. Miss Sitt held the belief that “concepts already attached to words in the first language will easily be transferred into the second language” (Baker 2006, 309-310) and if accurate understanding was ensured in L1, this would form the “linguistic basis” (Laupenműhlen 2012, 249) for further advancement. Miss Sitt saw L2 language use as the focus of output which in turn facilitated consolidation of existing concepts and allowed for her progressive conceptual input in their L2. Unlike the teachers in Laupenműhlen’s (2012) study, Miss Sitt attached a lesser proportion of her teaching in the introduction phases to the use of L1 and did not incorporate the comparative function of the learners’ L1 in her lessons. She made serious attempts to limit her own production of L1 to translation of the target vocabulary, as is seen in Excerpt B and further exemplified in Excerpts C and D. What may be interesting to note too is Miss Sitt’s use of L1 at the beginning of Move 15 which can be perceived as a gesture for cultural identity and establishment of group solidarity. Through noticing subject-specific lexis in mathematics

In facilitating their learning of subject-specific and academic vocabulary in L2 such as ‘trigonometric identities’ and ‘replace’ in the lesson in focus, both Miss Sitt and her students mentioned ‘highlighting’ as a strategy. In the final step of the lesson, after students were asked in 22:05 if there was a “third way” in solving the problem, they were led to evaluate “which (of the three) way(s) (they) like more?” and “Why?” with the given prompt “You have to look at the question very carefully”. This enabled Miss Sitt to get them to ‘highlight’ “using trigonometric identities” in the question, after which they were reminded to “copy this into (their) notebook”. Two of the learners listed this as a strategy they learnt from her, acknowledging that it helped them remember the “things (they) need to pay attention to” so they “won’t miss it”. Highlighting is a strategy promoted in Rose’s (2010) Reading to learn series. Through promoting vocabulary-building During the observed lessons, Miss Sitt was noticed constantly reminding her students to refer to their “notebook” which, to her, is “the most important thing” for them as a learning resource to “relate back” to what they have learnt when needed. This notion of “maths as a spiral” in Miss Sitt’s words is recognised by her students as two of them discussed how her teaching helped them “relate the new chapter back to the old” and recycle vocabulary they learnt such as “variation” and “inversion” in the topics of both ‘ratio and percentage’ and ‘variation’. Majority of them had their notebook readily available every lesson and took the initiative to look words up and jot down new vocabulary. Figure 1 is a page from a learner’s notebook which clearly reflects Miss Sitt’s recommended use of L1 translation of the subject-specific and academic vocabulary, her

encouraging students to organise the vocabulary they were taught over the years and two other strategies, syllabification and use of morphological cues.

Figure 1. A page from a learner’s notebook

Through syllabification and use of morphological cues In the lesson discussed, following Candy’s reply with “nominator” and “denominator” in Move 16 in Excerpt B, in fact Miss Sitt continued to show how syllabification was brought into the classroom in Moves 17–20 in Excerpt C: Excerpt C 17

T:

18

T:

19

T:

20

T:

The teacher’s use of syllabification, translation and visual representation Very good! Now, divide both the… Look at the board. Divide both the numerator and the denominator by Cosine Ɵ. [putting the two words on the blackboard – ‘numerator’ on top and ‘denominator’ below it, using strokes to divide them into syllables] Okay? [pauses for 3 seconds] Now have a look! Would the whole class please read this word out? [pointing to this on the board] nu/me/ra/tor This one: [pointing to this word] de/no/mi/na/tor [gesturing the positioning of the two words when written in a fraction. Students read chorally as a class after the teacher.] Right! Now, in this case, ‘numerator’ 分子 (numerator), ‘denominator’分母 (denominator), okay? The writer has divided both the numerator and the denominator by Cosine Ɵ. Okay, now we carry on. Now after this one, you look at Step Two. The second line. Now, then they split the fractions into two. 分數 (fraction). Split the fractions into two, okay?

Here Miss Sitt can be seen making use of the blackboard as a teaching aid to help her students visualise how the two target vocabulary “numerator” and “denominator” can be divided into syllables to aid their pronunciation. This was picked up by five out of fourteen interviewees as another strategy Miss Sitt employed to guide them in “reading” and learning “to chop (words) up by (them)selves”. Although not demonstrated in the lesson, Miss Sitt’s students also talked about how they learnt to “simplify the words” with her teaching them the meaning of prefixes or word

parts like ‘tri-’ as in words such as ‘triangle’, ‘tripod’ and ‘trisect’ and how this would be useful in their learning of other subjects like Integrated Science and biology. Miss Sitt believed that “if they know the meaning behind, then they can mix and match like dressing up” as in ‘bisect’, ‘trisect’. All this served to show some of the instructional methods recommended by Kovarik (2010) for building a vocabulary bank in mathematics, such as categorisation by types, understanding word parts and teaching break-apart strategies. Miss Sitt’s idea of “mix and match” also illustrates her view that it is every teacher’s responsibility to help students visualise the cross-curricular links in the subjects they are taking and hence opportunities to review what they are learning. This is an example she cited: “In Geography (students) have learnt ‘bearings’, also (they) have learnt about ‘contour lines’, how to see (the) ‘slopes’. That means I always relate maths with their daily life. Even their History, even their Chinese lessons, their Geography lessons, they are all related. And then they found it quite interesting. But I think this is the way for you to show the magic to the students… They find it happy learning maths. They find enjoyment in learning maths.” An additional subtle but equally vital and consistent strategy used is Miss Sitt’s repetition of noun and verb phrases, as in Moves 18–20, in a paced and clear fashion. Through tactful immediate correction of L2 use What is remarkable is Miss Sitt’s immediate but tactful covert correction method. Instead of explicitly pointing out that S2 Candy made a mistake by saying “nominator” instead of “numerator” in Move 16 (Excerpt B), she performed a recast in Move 17 (Excerpt C) and continued to teach and reinforce learners’ knowledge of the pronunciation and meaning of the words in Moves 18–20. Similar instances can be found in the lesson with the usage of

“equal” when a learner gave as an answer “Sine Ɵ over Cosine Ɵ is equal… is equal 1” and Miss Sitt’s subsequent move was “is equal to 1”. In the interviews, her students talked about her “fix(ing) (their) grammar”, citing “equal” as an example, stressing that this form of immediate but gentle correction aided their retention and was welcomed. Through staged questioning, scaffolding and language modelling As an extension to what has been discussed when handling mathematical concepts, the following teacher-student interactional discourse before 20:39 in Excerpt A is a further illustration of a large number of strategies at work and an exemplification of a final and salient strategy – questioning – used not only to facilitate the learning of the content but also the mastery and internalisation of the language. Excerpt D The teacher practising questioning, scaffolding and language modelling T – Teacher (Miss Sitt); S – Student (S3 – Alice) Move 1

T:

2

T:

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

S3: T: S3: S3: T: S3: T:

10

S3:

11

T:

12

S3:

… replace Tangent Ɵ by 2. Look at the board. replace Tangent Ɵ by 2. [writing ‘replace by’ on the blackboard and repeating the phrase] [looking at the class] replace by 代替咗佢 (replace by), okay? What about the second way? [pausing for 2 seconds] For this second way, what have they done here, Alice? At first he use the Sine Ɵ over Cosine Ɵ … err... equals Tangent Ɵ And then? And then… err… [Alice’s gestures suggesting uncertainty] That means change the Tangent Ɵ equals Sino Ɵ over Cosine Ɵ What happens on the third line? [open-mouthed, remaining silent, looking at the teacher] The third line. Alternative solution. The third line. What have they done here? [looking back at her book] Err… he put the Cosine Ɵ on the right. [gestures to the right] Right! Put the Cosine Ɵ on the right hand side. It becomes like that. How about the fourth line? What have they done? Err… Put the… Because Cosine Ɵ equals 2.5 metre, so the 2.5 metre… [inaudible] [her hand gesture suggesting that she was trying to come up

13 14 15

T: S3: T:

16 17 18 19 20 21

S3: T: S3: T: S3: T:

with the word] to replace the… to replace the Sine Ɵ Very good! Okay? Now, therefore, afterwards… Okay, Alice, one more question. Sorry. Why she needs to replace it? Because they have the same… They have the same [pausing for 1 second] unknown. unknown And then? Why we need to have the same unknown? [remaining silent] Okay, now sit down first. Why do we need to change Cosine into Sine? 1 minute’s time. Discuss with your neighbor.

Viewing the interaction in Excerpt D from a language perspective, “replace” is a good example to illustrate how Miss Sitt’s use of L1 for initial linguistic scaffolding in Move 1 and her use of questions first at the knowledge and understanding levels “What have they done?” and “What happens…?” (Moves 2, 7, 9 and 11) succeeded in activating Alice’s articulation of mathematical terminologies “Sine Ɵ”, “Cosine Ɵ”, “Tangent Ɵ”, other subject-specific vocabulary “over”, “equals” and “unknown”, and the target verb “replace” in her description of the procedures. This was followed by Miss Sitt’s “Why?” questions at the application and analysis levels encouraging higher-order thinking as well as the explanation of mathematical concepts in more sophisticated L2 language use syntactically. This interaction process also enabled not only Alice to use the verb “replace” in Move 14 but also Miss Sitt to model it in Moves 13 and 15 and to consolidate learners’ knowledge of the noun “unknown” in Moves 17 and 19. Moves 13 and 17 are further instances of Miss Sitt’s sensitivity in providing lexical support. Schleppegrell (2007) argues that “(t)he technical language has to be practiced and developed along with the mathematics concepts” (250). Through using questions as a vehicle, the learners get to

speak ‘mathematically’, and activate, revisit, recycle and consolidate their knowledge of both the concepts and language. Conclusions and implications The findings of the present study have shed light on productive bilingual teaching strategies, which have good pedagogical implications and reference value for bilingual teachers, teacher educators and teacher education providers, policy makers at schools and in official government bodies, and researchers interested in bilingualism and CLIL. For teachers in an L2 classroom First and foremost, bilingual teachers in an L2-medium setting, be they content or language teachers, need to hold the firm belief that the use of L1 will have a positive impact on student learning provided that classroom pedagogical practices are sound. Taking Miss Sitt as a model of good practice, it is imperative, at the outset, to welcome instead of avoid the use of L1 in student-student interaction (Swain, Kirkpatrick and Cummins 2011; Laupenműhlen 2012) and to grasp this as an opportunity to mediate learners’ use of L2. Echoing Lin’s (2012) ‘Rainbow Diagram’, Miss Sitt has demonstrated how ‘L2 academic oral language’ and comprehension of the ‘L2 academic written language’ can be facilitated via effective use of L1 and a range of other strategies such as questioning and think-pairshare. For teacher educators and teacher education providers Predominant emphasis in conventional teacher education in the subject of mathematics has been placed on equipping teachers with pedagogic content knowledge. More recently, Lai (2013) has purported that it is pertinent also for mathematics teachers’ oral language use to be trained in traditionally numeracy-based lessons. It is indeed encouraging to see studies in

mathematics going into the classroom and focus being extended to the spoken word, suggesting that teachers’ pedagogic language awareness should be prioritised too. Nonetheless, learner talk should be equally important as teacher talk, if one is convinced by Wallace and Ellerton’s conceptualisation of “mathematics (a)s a means of communicating” (2004, 285) as cited earlier. However, how much about language is emphasised in the inservice teacher education programmes in Hong Kong and how ready teachers currently are to reflect on their own language use in the mathematics classroom is questionable. More effectively, perhaps some concrete “language awareness raising measures” (Vollmer 2007) need to be in place in teacher education programmes as well. For language-in-education policy makers and others Alongside mathematics teachers’ lack of pedagogic language awareness, this study is of particular relevance to the Hong Kong education scenario with Language across the Curriculum (LAC) being advocated by the Education Bureau (EDB) since the fine-tuning of the MOI policy was implemented. A close investigation into EDB-published materials to promote LAC in mathematics, however, shows that this occupies a comparatively small proportion, with the focus being placed primarily on the written form of the language. Examples of teaching ideas in the LAC workbooks (EDB 2010b) related to mathematics are limited, including a paired reading-and-writing activity for learners to articulate expressions about “Inequalities”, a lesson plan on “Solids” with paired oral practice and with the suggested use of syllabification to learn the pronunciation of subject-specific vocabulary such as “pri/sm” and “cu/boid”. Other than phonological aspects, structured speaking activities and the teacher’s classroom language, there is a variety of strategies, as discussed in this paper, that the teacher can employ in the mathematics classroom to

develop learners’ content knowledge and language skills. This restricted coverage points to the need for more input even from the official discourse, especially on how lessons can be conducted with language more naturally integrated into the teaching content, how more communicative tasks can be designed to “apprentice students in the technical language of mathematics” (Huang and Normandia 2008) and other practical recommendations enabling mathematics teachers to work with other teachers in developing LAC activities. In addition to the support provided for mathematics teachers, the deep-rooted ideology of linguistic purism, which is upheld by the government official discourse, may need to be challenged and effort may need to be put into critically reviewing and, in the long term, legitimating the functional use of L1 to support L2 content learning if this, as a core principle of CLIL, is deemed potentially viable. The need for ongoing investigation To bring the discussion in this paper to a close, the current study being reported offers ample room for further investigation. As this is a case study with findings not generalisable to classrooms as a whole, for researchers keen on CLIL as a framework, it may be worth analysing the teaching practices of a broader range of potentially effective teachers identified to attempt to discover common methodologies conducive to successful learning and to theorise good practices and pedagogies for CLIL in L2/EFL contexts. As this study is situated within a school where all lessons in Secondary 1 and 2 are in the learners’ L1, it may also be interesting to observe the differences in the teacher-student interactional discourse across a three-year period from Secondary 2 to 4 or more. As for the limitations of this study, one can claim that it had as its participants learners from an elite class as is the case in most CMI schools with the linguistically stronger learners selected to be taught

via English as the MOI. These participants were also from a single-sex school. So the findings will be even more revealing if learners of the two genders, with diversified language abilities and levels of motivation, and from schools of different bandings are included in a larger-scale study. All in all, this study and further research in the area is believed to be able to provide more insights to teachers at schools for more effective implementation of their MOI policy for L2 learners. For teacher education institutions, these findings should guide them to better understand if L1 can be used in consistently pedagogically sound ways to support and enhance L2 development in the subject of mathematics and in other subject areas, thereby impacting on the design and structuring of teacher education programmes. For curriculum developers at schools and government bodies responsible for language-ineducation policy-making, such results are expected to aid the enhancement of the overall curriculum through finding ways of enhancing teachers’ language awareness and helping students to learn through an L2. Notes 1. This public examination has been officially replaced by the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education with effect from 2012. 2. The teacher in this class adopted a relatively new approach called ‘Bilingual Reconstruction of Biology Concepts’ (BiRBiC) which aimed at deepening learners’ cognitive processing of science concepts through engaging them in explicit contrastive analysis of biological terms in their L1 and L2.

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Discussion: L1 as semiotic resource in content cum L2 learning at secondary level: Empirical evidence from Hong Kong International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 18(3), 336-344.

David C. S. Li Department of Linguistics and Modern Language Studies, The Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong [email protected]

Discussion: L1 as semiotic resource in content cum L2 learning at secondary level: Empirical evidence from Hong Kong

In Hong Kong, classroom code-switching (CCS) has been a socially contentious issue for decades since the early 1990s. Before 1997, secondary schools were allowed to claim English-medium status, there being tremendous demand in society for schooling through English. As part of the education reform in postcolonial Hong Kong, CCS, generally referred to pejoratively as jung-ying-gap-jahp (中英夾雜, ‘code-mixing’), is discouraged and dismissed as unacceptable, even though plenty of anecdotal evidence shows that banning mixed code does little to prevent bilingual teachers from resorting to this illegitimate yet arguably unavoidable practice. The impact of the government’s anti-CCS stance and policy on the teaching profession, in particular those teachers who are expected to deliver their lessons in English, is tremendous. As mixed code is deemed pedagogically undesirable at the policy level, teachers find it difficult to determine under what circumstances students’ L1 should (not) be used. Worse, when this happens, as often it cannot be helped, using mixed code may generate a lingering feeling of guilt (Swain, Kirkpatrick, and Cummins 2011), which is not at all conducive to effective teaching and learning. In many multilingual education contexts, what appears to be arbitrary, unprincipled use of students’ L1 in class has been found to be pedagogically sound

and viable relative to the goal of effective content cum L2 learning, provided this is done judiciously (see review in Lo’s paper in this volume). Content-based L2 instruction in non-language subjects, more commonly known today as Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL, Colye, Hood, and Marsh 2010), has very much the same objectives as language across the curriculum (LAC). As models or curriculum design principles of bilingual education, both are getting more and more popular internationally. There is extensive empirical evidence showing that, when certain conditions are met, students’ use of L1 engages them in higher-order thinking in L2, which is more productive than learning L2 as a separate subject. One perennial challenge, however, is learners’ L2 proficiency. Plenty of research indicates that those learners whose L2 proficiency has not reached a threshold level may not be able to benefit from CLIL or LAC through L2, resulting in a discrepancy of progress in age-relevant academic and L2 development (Cenoz, Genesee, and Gorter 2014). To help those students who are unable to cope with content learning in L2, teachers often feel the need to switch to their L1, resulting in CCS. Whereas CCS used to be seen as undesirable and counterproductive, recent research in translanguaging (Canagarajah 2011; García, Flores, and Woodley 2012; García and Li 2014) shows that some practices of CCS can be pedagogically sound and viable. It is against this background that the four studies in this special issue have

made a valuable contribution to the broadly defined field of bilingual education. Reporting on their classroom-based research findings, Angel Lin and her research team have shed some light on the types of pedagogical concerns leading EMI content-subject teachers in Hong Kong to switch to their students’ L1, Cantonese, when teaching Geography, History, Science or Mathematics to secondary students. Below, I will highlight the specific research questions, methods and findings of each of the four studies, before drawing implications and assessing the significance of their respective contribution. Paper 1 (Lo) Paper 1 first contextualises the background to the rise of content-based learning and CLIL after reviewing the relevant literature, with special reference to the development of CLIL in Western Europe, the twin objective being content and L2 learning. The main challenge, however, is what happens when L2 learners are not quite ready linguistically to benefit from content-based L2 instruction. In a context like Hong Kong, where the current education policy stipulates that secondary schools must meet certain conditions before they could teach students through the medium of English, EMI teachers are confronted with one perennial problem: How do we help students learn both the content and L2 effectively? Lo and Macaro (2012) found that the transition from CMI (Chinese-medium of instruction) to EMI (English-medium

instruction) from Grade 9 to Grade 10 resulted in lessons being markedly more teacher-centred, while scaffolding and negotiation of meaning with and among students became more difficult. Facing students whose L2 proficiency is below the threshold level, therefore, EMI teachers are often under pressure to resort to a more realistic and pragmatic solution, namely to switch to the learners’ L1 as a way to attend to (some or all) their learning needs (Lin 2006). Previous research shows that teachers’ code-switching to Cantonese may be motivated by various concerns, and yet for a long time, CCS has been discouraged and labeled by local education authorities as unacceptable, on the grounds that precious opportunities for meaningful exposure to English would be lost (Li 2008). More recently, however, international research in other bi- and multilingual education contexts has shown that translanguaging in the classroom, if used judiciously, has good potential to meet the twin goal of content and L2 learning. What remains unclear, as Lo (this volume) makes clear, is what ‘judicious’ means, and how it could be calibrated. The goal is to find out, where students’ L2 proficiency is limited, whether teachers would use students’ L1 and, if so, how appropriate or ‘judicious’ it is pedagogically to meet their students’ content and L2 learning needs. To address this question, both quantitative and qualitative methods were used. Lo analyses Grade 10 classroom interaction data collected from twelve classes (ca.

480 students aged 15-16) in five schools (Band 1 or 2, labeled A – E respectively), each either being an established EMI school throughout all grade levels, or switching to EMI since Grade 10 onwards. Three content subjects were involved: biology, geography, and history; all participating teachers were qualified and proficient in both Cantonese and English. Through conducting Timed Analysis of classroom interaction patterns, the proportion of teacher and student talk, and the mean lengths of teacher and student turns were obtained. The results show that in those schools with a strong EMI tradition and the students’ English proficiency is high (Schools D and E), teachers rarely felt the need to switch to Cantonese (96% in English); if they did, it was mainly to translate technical terms into Cantonese. By contrast, in those schools where students’ proficiency was not as high (especially School B), teachers found it necessary to switch to Cantonese more frequently for a variety of reasons (up to 80% in Cantonese; CLIL objective open to doubt), for example, to explain the content, or out of a concern for classroom management. Occasionally, teachers would try to raise students’ linguistic awareness through form-focused teaching (e.g. to elicit the meaning of ‘cellular’ from students who already knew the word cell). In sum, the key finding is that EMI teachers rarely code-switch to Cantonese when students’ English proficiency is high; conversely, where students’ English proficiency is low, EMI

teachers often have no choice but to switch to L1 to ensure that the content be delivered effectively. Despite the relatively high percentage of L1 use in some cases, Lo concludes that Hong Kong teachers do make judicious use of Cantonese to facilitate their students’ learning, taking into account their linguistic abilities. Drawing implications from the good practices of some participating teachers, Lo makes the following recommendations as alternatives to code-switching to students’ L1: (a) recasting or paraphrasing the student’s Cantonese response in English with a view to providing the English expression needed for that meaning; (b) using the strategy of think-pair-share to encourage peer learning and boost students’ confidence before asking them to respond to teacher-led questions; (c) Socratic questioning to provide clues and modify questions to scaffold and facilitate students’ uptake of the target L2 expressions; and (d) consolidating students’ understanding by reiterating or illustrating the key concepts in English. Paper 2 (Lin & Wu) Based on the analysis of a 5-minute classroom discourse in an adjunct sheltered EMI science class, Lin and Wu report how a skillful teacher Jenny (pseudonym), under ‘the impulse of dialogic scientific inquiry’, improvised this teaching strategy to activate her students’ everyday language (Cantonese) as an effective means to scaffold their access to the language of science in English. The pulled-out science class

consisted of 20 Grade 8 below-average students, who mostly lacked confidence and who were given extra 90-minute tutorials on Saturday over 10 weeks. Being a part-time biology teacher, Jenny’s objective was to re-teach the science topics taught in the regular classes. She was expected to go through the exam syllabus under a packed time schedule and provide additional support where necessary. Through engaging her students in ‘languaging’ (Swain 2010; Swain and Lapkin 2013) in Cantonese when responding to teacher-led questions in English, mostly following the IRF schema, Jenny guided them step-by-step to discover the thematic pattern of scientific discourse (here: experiment) orally (see Lin and Wu, this volume, xx):

 Aim (To prove that air takes up space)  Observable Evidence (syringe example, balloon example)  Conclusion (“Air takes up space”)

As suggested in the emblematic title of Lin and Wu (this volume, “‘May I speak Cantonese?’...”), that student who asked for permission to answer in Cantonese demonstrated what a difference it would make between her stuttering and struggling in English and her eloquence when languaging in Cantonese (Swain 2010). This is thus another fine example illustrating the Vygotskian insight that classroom learning consists of (co-)constructing meaning through the medium of language. Such languaging may take place dialogically through collaborative dialogue (as in this

example) or monologically in the form of private speech (cf. Swain and Lapkin 2013). Indeed, the learning of L2 science is arguably incomplete without students being able to construct meaning on their own using lexico-grammatical resources required of them in L2 science discourse. Without a correct understanding of the content, here achieved via L1, the other half of the CLIL task – mastering that content in L2 – could hardly proceed. While the dialogic scientific inquiry excerpted here was enlightening and successful – at least with regard to the three more vocal students Alice, Alex and Ray – the real challenge for Jenny was to ensure how the pulled-out students could be empowered to express that insight accurately in English (i.e. offering scientific proof that air takes up space like scientists would). While unplanned, Jenny’s deployment of the dialogic scientific inquiry strategy has proved to be viable and enlightening pedagogically. By allowing that low-proficiency student to contribute her class discussion input in L1 and guiding the whole class to discover the equivalent meaning in L2, Lin and Wu argue convincingly why bilingual teachers should create space for translanguaging and ‘trans-semiotising’, which is instrumental for a solid linguistic and semantic basis for students to master the same expression in L2. This fine example, while unplanned, certainly has reference value for other teachers who are routinely faced with a similar challenge in their teaching contexts.

Paper 3 (Chan) Papers 3 and 4 are devoted to problems related to the teaching of mathematics in English. Using concrete examples extracted from course books, Chan (this volume) draws attention to the L2 lexico-grammatical challenge faced by Grade 7 students, in that their conceptual understanding could be undermined by action verbs used typically in imperative mood (e.g. calculate, find, construct, solve), prepositions (e.g. ahead/behind, about, over), and grammatical structures commonly used as pre- or post-modifiers of head nouns (e.g. adjectives, relative clauses, prepositional phrases). Further, many verbs in the “mathematics register” such as expand, find, give, convert, simplify, and evaluate are indistinguishable from their everyday use, and yet their precise meaning in mathematics may not be clear to L2 learners (Schleppegrell 2007). More challenging still are lexico-grammatical problems at the syntactic and discourse levels. As exemplified in illustrations adapted from mathematics textbooks, some questions are embedded with a complex conditional clause and a main-subordinate clause structure: If an e-mail is sent from Japan at 3 p.m. local time to the Netherlands, what is the local time in the Netherlands when the e-mail is received immediately? (cited in

Chan, this volume, xx) Such a structure, Chan contends, would probably be structurally too complex for Grade 7 students. At the discourse level, cohesion/coherence problems may arise

when, for example, the function and reference of dummy ‘it’ may not be clear to L2 learners, making it cognitively challenging for them to complete the task at hand: …In other words, it takes 8.6 years for light from Sirius to arrive at the Earth. It is known that the speed of light is 3 X 105km/s…. (cited in Chan, this volume,

xx ) To facilitate L2 students’ learning, there is thus a need for teachers of mathematics to help them deconstruct and overcome such lexico-grammatical problems. To this end, Chan encourages teachers of L2 mathematics to go beyond language (oral or written) by using multimodal resources and teaching strategies, drawing on multiple semiotic systems to facilitate the deconstruction of mathematical knowledge. These include: symbols, graphs and diagrams, mind maps, tree diagrams, flow-charts, crossword puzzles (web resources available), technological tools like electronic whiteboard, video games, etc. Used in any combination, these semiotic resources have good potential to help L2 learners unpack the phrases, clauses or even discourse patterns typical of the mathematics register. As for classroom instruction strategies, Chan advocates creating opportunities for cooperative learning through pair work or small group activities, for example, to encourage L2 learners to search and refine the definitions of key terms in mathematics, and use them as input for creating a crossword puzzle or online quiz for their peers. Students may also be guided to discover the meanings of high-frequency, semantically related words such as

antonyms (e.g. ‘initial’ vs. ‘final’; ‘increase by 20%’ vs. ‘decrease by 20%’). Graphic organiser, where available, may be used as it helps students visualise symbols, formulas, pictures and words more conveniently. Paper 4 (Tavares) Driven by the goal of “[enabling] teachers to visualise, concretise and theorise classroom interactional discourse in the subject of mathematics,” (this volume, xx), Tavares adopts a grounded approach to collect video-recorded class interaction and audio-recorded semi-structured interview data from the experienced bilingual teacher of mathematics, Ms Sitt, and her students (n=14) over one year from Grade 9 to Grade 10. Qualitative analysis of class observation and interview data was carefully triangulated, with recurrent themes being progressively identified through iterative coding of interview transcriptions. The methodological rigour of data processing and analysis is impressive. Interviewees were requested to review draft transcriptions for comments before being coded; through stimulated recall, interviewees were requested, in their L1, to explain the rationale behind specific teaching strategies (Ms Sitt) and the perceived usefulness of such strategies (students). The analysis has revealed a number of exemplary pedagogical practices. Consonant with her educational philosophy, Ms Sitt’s teaching strategies are guided by the motto of and the need for creating a safe and supportive learning environment

when interacting with (e.g. soliciting answers from) her students. This was achieved through a number of skills, of which think-pair-share (typically one to two minutes) has proved to be very effective, in that it helps activate and maximise students’ ‘Math Talk’ by fostering peer interaction and learning in their L1, Cantonese, before individual students volunteer or are nominated to verbalise their answers in English. As shown in the students’ feedback, while being puzzled why the teaching and learning of mathematics was conducted in English, they all agreed that Ms Sitt’s teaching was instrumental in their smooth transition from Cantonese-medium to English-medium instruction. Apart from constantly referring to the key points in their notebooks – essentially a bilingual glossary of important terms in mathematics – that they were advised to keep and update, collaborative learning in L1 significantly reduced their anxiety, clarified any doubt that they might have, and boosted their confidence when called upon to answer questions. This is how they managed to crack and internalise abstract mathematics concepts in English. Occasionally students would feel more secure giving their answers in Cantonese. If correct, their Cantonese answers were accepted, followed by more manageable questions in English step-by-step, from simple (what? / which one?) to challenging (how? / why?), before the whole class was guided to discover the English versions of those correct answers. In accordance with the insights of languaging (Swain 2010; Swain and Lapkin

2013) and translanguaging (Canagarajah 2011; García, Flores, and Woodley 2012; García and Li 2014), the students’ L1, Cantonese, plays an important mediating role as their teacher provides scaffolding step-by-step to facilitate their uptake of the academic discourse of mathematics in L2. Where students feel unsure or insecure, think-pair-share allows them to check and clarify their understanding with their neighbour(s) in Cantonese and consult their personal bilingual notes. With enhanced confidence, the students’ answers in English are often qualitatively better, in part because any vocabulary problems they might have will have been overcome (e.g. ‘nominator’). In short, by consolidating the ‘linguistic basis’ of the correct answers by engaging students to think through collaborative learning in their L1, the transfer of conceptual input to L2 is greatly facilitated (cf. Laupenműhlen 2012). No wonder the empowering potential of Ms Sitt’s teaching strategies is gratefully appreciated by her students, as shown in their interviews. Other good practices include raising students’ linguistic awareness by providing corrective feedback through recast, and highlighting key vocabulary to facilitate noticing of spelling (including morphological cues, e.g. the meaning of the prefix tri-) and syllabification by “chopping up” or segmenting polysyllabic words on the board (e.g. ‘nu/me/ra/tor’ and ‘de/no/mi/na/tor’). As for classroom language choice, Ms Sitt has exemplified how the teacher’s switching to L1 could be minimised

by limiting its use to providing translation of key vocabulary in L2. When this happens, Ms Sitt would remind her students to write them down in their notebook to support independent learning (see individual bilingual glossaries and excerpts B, C and D in Tavares’ paper in this volume, xx). Discussion and conclusion English in Hong Kong is widely perceived as a form of linguistic and symbolic capital, and yet for Cantonese-dominant learners, mastering it is anything but obvious (Li 2009). One of the main challenges is the tremendous typological distance between Chinese (spoken Cantonese, modern written Chinese) and English, such that hardly any linguistic aspects of the students’ knowledge of Cantonese – from phonology to lexico-grammar to orthography – have any reference value in the process of learning English. Quite the contrary, research shows that students are typically prone to the pitfall of negative transfer, for example, the misplacement and misuse of the adverb/intensifier very (Chan, Li, and Kwan 2003a), the overuse of the topic-comment structure (Kwan, Chan, and Li 2003), and using the independent clause as subject (Chan, Kwan, and Li 2003b). Further, given that Chinese-Chinese out-of-class interaction seldom takes place entirely in English, the majority of Chinese Hongkongers’ exposure to English tends to be limited to the classroom and the domain of schooling. Meanwhile, Hong Kong being ‘Asia’s World City’, societal

expectation for the level of English attainment is high; ‘good English’ is routinely listed as an employment condition or requirement for practically all white-collar positions. As a form of linguistic and cultural capital, English is unevenly distributed in society. Students from socioeconomically modest families are those most in need of support. Each of the subjects has its own discipline-specific thematic patterns (Lemke 1990, e.g. science, see Lin and Wu, this volume) that are constructed using specific lexico-grammatical resources in the target language. Their English proficiency often falls short of the threshold level to allow them to benefit from English-medium instruction (Lin 2012; 2013). This presents a major challenge to their teachers, who need to find ways to provide the necessary support in order to scaffold students’ entry to L2, and to help them develop their cognitive academic abilities in English. In this regard, Lo (this volume) has found solid empirical evidence how, when faced with students with limited English abilities, Hong Kong teachers of EMI content subjects would switch to L1 strategically to meet their content cum L2 learning needs. In contrast, where students’ level of English proficiency allows them to learn through English, teachers were able to maintain English-medium instruction up to 96 per cent of the class time, with L1 being used merely to provide translation equivalents of discipline-specific vocabulary in L2. In a similar vein, Lin and Wu (this volume)

make a cogent case that, to facilitate transfer of discipline-specific content knowledge from L1 to L2, students should be encouraged to (co-)construct or ‘trans-semiotise’ their own understanding using examples familiar to them in their L1 lifeworld. This offers an exciting direction for further research, where the pedagogical potential of languaging and translanguaging may be further explored. The two studies that focus on the English-medium teaching of mathematics have generated sound pedagogic insights each in their own ways. Chan (this volume) makes a convincing case why the pedagogic potential of an array of linguistic and paralinguistic, especially multimodal communicative resources should be exploited to enhance students’ noticing of the meanings of and linguistic features associated with mathematics jargon (see also Lin’s Rainbow diagram, 2012, 93; Introduction of this volume, xx). Tavares (this volume) reports on the exemplary practices of one bilingual teacher, Ms Sitt, who empowers her students by guiding them to grasp content knowledge through a variety of teaching strategies: clarifying students’ doubt and boosting their confidence by using think-pair-share for them to ‘language’ in Cantonese before verbalising the answer in English; Socratic questioning techniques to make complex questions cognitively more accessible and answerable in English (see also Lo in this volume); encouraging students to take notes and create their own bilingual glossary to facilitate independent learning; allowing low-proficiency

students to respond in Cantonese and providing scaffolding step-by-step to enable them to verbalise the correct answers in English, etc. All four studies are consistent with Weber’s (2014) plea for ‘Flexible Multilingual Education. Putting Children’s Needs First’ (book title), which is supported by an insightful review of the respective language-in-education policies, challenges and practices in over a dozen multilingual contexts from Brazil to Japan and from Canada to Australia: … Flexible multilingual education is informed by the assumptions of the

multilingual mindset. It builds on students’ home linguistic resources (...), provides high-quality access to both local, indigenous languages and global languages such as English, and hence access to the best possible educational opportunities for all children, including migrant students.” (6, emphasis in original) In short, the four studies in this special issue have made an important contribution to bilingual education, locally and beyond. Without empirical evidence of good practices of translanguaging – a term which is clearly more appropriate than classroom code-switching (CCS) – teachers are left to cope with the routine problem in a pragmatic manner, at the risk of violating education authorities’ guidelines governing classroom language choice, some feeling guilty for doing so. With the empirical insights in these four studies, good languaging and translanguaging practices with sound pedagogical outcomes are emerging, sowing the seeds for more in-depth investigation and experimentation. The direction is clear; there is an urgent

need for knowledge transfer to let research-based good practices to inform ELT teacher training programmes targeting bilingual teachers of English (cf.: Lasagabaster and Sierra 2010).

References Canagarajah, S. 2011. “Codemeshing in Academic Writing: Identifying Teachable Strategies of Translanguaging.” The Modern Language Journal 95 (3): 401-417. Cenoz, J., F. Genesee., and D. Gorter. 2014. “Critical Analysis of CLIL: Taking Stock and Looking Forward.” Applied Linguistics 35 (3): 243-262. Chan, A. Y. W., D. C. S. Li, and B. S. C. Kwan. 2003a. “Misplacement and Misuse of Very: Helping Students Overcome the Very + VERB Problem.” The English Teacher 6 (2): 125-132. Chan, A. Y. W., B. S. C. Kwan, and D. C. S. Li. 2003b. “Tackling the ‘Independent Clause as Subject’ Problem.” Asian Journal of English Language Teaching 13: 107-117. Coyle, D., P. Hood., and D. Marsh. 2010. CLIL: Content and Language Integrated Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. García, O., N. Flores., and H. Woodley. 2012. “Transgressing Monolingualism and Bilingual Dualities: Translanguaging Pedagogies.” In Harnessing linguistic variation to improve education, edited by A. Yiakoumetti, 45-75. Bern: Peter Lang. García, O., and Li Wei. 2014. Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Kwan, B. S. C., A. Y. W. Chan., and D. C. S. Li. 2003. “‘According to X, X said…’. A Consciousness-raising Approach to Helping Cantonese Speakers Overcome Problems in Topic-comment Structures.” Asia Pacific Journal of Language in Education 5 (2): 87-94. Laupenműhlen, J. 2012. “Making the most of L1 in CL(1+2)IL.” In Quality Interface: Examining Evidence and Exploring Solutions in CLIL, edited by D. Marsh and O.

Meyer, 237-251. Eichstaett, Germany: Eichstaett Academic Press. Lemke, J. L. 1990. Talking Science: Language, Learning and Values. Westport, CT: Ablex. Lasagabaster, D., and J. M. Sierra. 2010. “Immersion and CLIL in English: More Differences than Similarities.” ELT Journal 64 (4): 367-375. Li, D. C. S. 2008. “Understanding Mixed Code and Classroom Code-switching: Myths and Realities.” New Horizons in Education 56 (3): 17-29. Li, D. C. S. 2009. “Learning English for Academic Purposes: Why Chinese EFL Learners Find EAP so Difficult to Master.” Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses 59: 33-46. Lin, A. M. Y. 2006. “Beyond Linguistic Purism in Language-in-education Policy and Practice: Exploring Bilingual Pedagogies in a Hong Kong Science Classroom.” Language and Education 20 (4): 287-305. Lin, A. M. Y. 2012. “Multilingual and Multimodal Resources in Genre-based Pedagogical Approaches to L2 English Content Classrooms.” In English – A changing medium for education, edited by C. Leung and B. V. Street, 79-103. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. Lin, A. M. Y. 2013. “Towards Paradigmatic Change in TESOL Methodologies: Building Plurilingual Pedagogies from the Ground up.” TESOL Quarterly 47 (3): 521-545. Lo, Y. Y., and E. Macaro. 2012. “The Medium of Instruction and Classroom Interaction: Evidence from Hong Kong Secondary Schools.” International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 15 (1): 29-52. Schleppegrell, M. J. 2007. “The Linguistic Challenges of Mathematics Teaching and Learning: A Research Review.” Reading & Writing Quarterly 23 (2): 139-159. Swain, M. 2010. “Talking it through: Languaging as a Source of Learning.” In Sociocognitive Perspectives on Second Language Learning and Use, edited by R.

Batstone, 112-130. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Swain, M., A. Kirkpatrick, and J. Cummins. 2011. How to Have a Guilt-free Life Using Cantonese in the English Class. A Handbook for the English Language Teacher in Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Research Centre into Language Acquisition and Education in Multilingual Societies, Hong Kong Institute of Education. Swain, M., and S. Lapkin. 2013. “A Vygotskian Sociocultural Perspective on Immersion Education: The L1/L2 Debate.” Journal of Immersion and Content-based Language Education 1 (1): 101-129. Weber, J. J. 2014. Flexible Multilingual Education. Putting Children’s Needs First. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Discussion: Some reflections on Content-based education in Hong Kong as part of the paradigm shift International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 18(3), 345-351.

Jasone Cenoz Department of Research Methods in Education, The University of the Basque Country, Spain [email protected]

Discussion: Some reflections on Content-based education in Hong Kong as part of the paradigm shift This special issue is about multilingual education in Hong Kong. All the articles report studies conducted in schools in Hong Kong in educational contexts in which English is used as one of the languages of instruction. The Hong Kong situation has some specific characteristics linked to its historical and social context but it is extremely interesting for multilingual education in other parts of the world for several reasons. The first is that Hong Kong is a multilingual region with Cantonese as the first language for the majority of the population, English as a widely spread language in business and commerce and an increasing presence of Mandarin. Being one of the most densely populated regions and one of the most important financial centres in the world, many other languages are also used in Hong Kong by locals, foreign workers and visitors. It is certainly one of the most multilingual regions in the world. A second reason why Hong Kong is very interesting is the learning of English in school settings. The prestige of English and its spread in education in countries where English is not the first language of the majority of the population is common all over the world. English is nowadays the language of international communication and it is widely used as an additional language of instruction for content subjects in many countries. For example, Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) has become a very popular approach in Europe and other parts of the world. This approach is a type of content-based learning that combines the learning of English and academic content (Coyle, Hood, and Marsh 2010). English is very often used as the language of instruction in Hong Kong schools and not only in English medium instruction (EMI) schools but also in Chinese medium Instruction (CMI) schools as we can see in some of the articles in this special issue. This experience is not limited to some specific projects

but it is much wider. According to the Hong Kong Education Bureau (2014) there were almost 400,000 students in secondary school in Hong Kong in the academic year 201314. According to Lo and Lin (Introduction of this volume) around 30% of secondary schools are enrolled in English medium instruction and another 40% have at least one subject through the medium of English. These figures are quite impressive and imply that the findings of research in Hong Kong reflect a situation that is well established and can be a reference for scholars and educators in many parts of the world where Englishmedium instruction has not developed to the same extent. There is a third reason to focus on Hong Kong, which is general achievement in education. The results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) indicate that Hong Kong is among the five highest-performing countries of the 65 countries taking part in the assessment in 2012 in the three areas evaluated (mathematics, reading and science). The results of Hong Kong compared to the average for the OECD (2014) can be seen in Table 1.

Table 1. PISA scores results 2012 Mathematics

Reading

Science

Hong Kong

561

545

555

OECD average

494

496

501

Hong Kong is not only among the countries/economies with the highest scores in PISA but according to the OECD report, these scores have even improved since its first participation in 2003. These excellent results are linked to a large number of factors but it is interesting to notice that they take place in a region where English, which is not the first language for the majority of the students, is extensively used as language of instruction.

A fourth reason that makes this volume on Hong Kong interesting is that it discusses the role of the first language in content classes in which English is the language of instruction. This is a relevant topic not only for multilingual education in different parts of the world but also for any second or additional language learning situation. The authors in this special issue consider that at least in their context the use of the first language has many advantages mainly linked to its scaffolding function. This discussion is very timely because there is an important trend to adopt a multilingual focus and to go beyond monolingual views that keep languages in separate compartments.

The old paradigm In the field of language education, even when the goal is the development of multilingual competence, the dominant paradigm for many years can be considered monolingual. The “old” paradigm is monolingual in nature because of the following reasons.

1. Efforts to isolate the target language The old paradigm has focused only on the target language avoiding all reference to and use of other languages spoken by learners. As Lo (this volume) points out, this monolingual bias has been influenced by some second/foreign language teaching methods such as the direct method, audiolingualism and the natural approach (Krashen and Terrell 1983; Richards and Rodgers 1986). These methods do not share the same philosophy and do not propose the same teaching strategies but they have in common the idea of avoiding the use of the learner’s first language. Boundaries between languages are hard and the use of the first language has to be avoided because it is believed that the first language is a source of interference or it is believed that second

language acquisition should follow the conditions of first language acquisition. These proposals have lost much of their strength over the years but the idea of avoiding the use of the first language has remained. It is a widespread conviction that learners should leave their languages and knowledge about languages outside the classroom and get maximum exposure to the target language. In some situations learners also have to leave their identities outside the classroom and adopt new names and identities.

2. The reference to the ideal native speaker of the target language as a model This is another crucial element of the old paradigm. The aim of language learning in the old paradigm is to acquire native competence in the second/foreign language. Obviously this is an unreachable goal for most learners. A substantial part of research in second language acquisition has focused on the differences between the learners’ “imperfect” language and the ideal native speaker’s “perfect” language (see for example Doughty and Long 2005). However, the idea of the native speaker as a goal has also been questioned (see for example Cook 1992).

3. The use of “Second Language Acquisition” as an umbrella term As learning a second/foreign language is seen as a new start there has been very little interest in the learner’s linguistic repertoire and previous language learning experiences. The general label “Second Language Acquisition” has been used even when the target language is not the second language: “Sometimes, the term even refers to the learning of a third or fourth language. The important aspect is that SLA refers to the learning of a nonnative language after the learning of one’s native or primary language” (Gass, Behney, and Plonsky 2013, 4). The old paradigm is widely spread all over the world but it poses problems. Its spread is linked to traditions in second/foreign language research and teaching as it has

already been pointed out. The old paradigm is also linked to the characteristics of specific contexts. Most developments in research and teaching proposals in the last decades have emerged in English-speaking contexts. In these contexts English is learned by immigrants who have left their countries of origin in order to have better life conditions or students who want to improve their language skills by living temporarily in an English-speaking country. In these situations, many language teachers are monolingual in English and as learners have different L1s there is no other common language. Therefore, it is difficult to use the L1 as a scaffold and it is easier to ignore the learners’ linguistic repertoires which are often left “outside the classroom”. The situation in Hong Kong is different. English is a school subject and in many cases a language of instruction for students who share the first language or even more languages. Teachers are usually local and multilingual. Taking into account the spread of English in the world, it is very likely that English language learners in Hong Kong and many other parts of the world will often use English to communicate with other non-native speakers rather than with native speakers in their future professions. Even though the development of a monolingual bias can be understood in the case of English as a second language in English-speaking countries, this does not mean that it is unproblematic. The effort to isolate the target language may prevent learners from developing their metalinguistic knowledge when acquiring an additional language. Studies on metalinguistic awareness generally report that it is higher in multilinguals than in monolinguals (see for example Hermanto, Moreno, and Bialystok 2012). However isolating the target language potentially prevents multilingual children from using their own knowledge about how languages work. Another issue is that the old paradigm does not take into account the way multilinguals communicate in real life by using and mixing resources from their linguistic repertoires.

The reference to the ideal native speaker of the target language as a model is also problematic. Cook (1992) considers that multicompetence is qualitatively different from monolingual competence and Grosjean (2008) considers that bilinguals are fully competent and have a unique linguistic profile. Block (2007) also considers that multilinguals are hyperlingual rather than semilingual because of their linguistic sophistication. Studies on the acquisition of third and additional languages clearly show that the use of “second language acquisition” as an umbrella term is problematic. Learners of third and additional languages use their linguistic resources when acquiring an additional language and develop specific strategies that are not shared by second language learners (Cenoz 2013; Cenoz and Hoffmann 2003; Todeva and Cenoz 2009). By saying “second” the multilingual speakers’ competences in other languages remain hidden.

Towards a paradigm shift In the previous section we have seen some of the difficulties inherent in the old paradigm. In the last years there have been a series of proposals that have an alternative view when conducting research on language learning and multilingualism. As multilingualism is a complex phenomenon, the proposals have emerged from different areas and focus on cognitive, sociolinguistic and educational issues. The use of the L1 in content-based education in Hong Kong, which is discussed in this special issue is within the trends that are becoming part of the shift towards a new paradigm. The development of the new paradigm is building up and one of the key concepts that is gaining currency is “translanguaging”. Translanguaging is a concept that refers both to pedagogical strategies that use two or more languages and to

spontaneous discursive practices with shifting boundaries between languages (Cenoz and Gorter 2015). Both pedagogical and spontaneous translanguaging can take place in school settings but there are some differences between them. Pedagogical translanguaging refers to practices that focus on the learning of languages or content and language integrated learning. Translanguaging as a pedagogical strategy has its origins in Wales, where Welsh and English are often used in the same lesson. According to Lewis, Jones, and Baker (2012, 5) translanguaging can promote “a deeper and fuller understanding of the subject matter”. In Wales it is common to use one language for input and another for output in the same class. The use of Cantonese in Hong Kong English-medium schools as it is discussed in this volume is also an example of pedagogical translanguaging. As we can see in the different articles the use of the L1 has different functions (see for example Lo, this volume; Tavares, this volume). One of the main roles is the scaffolding function to support the learning of content and classroom interaction (see also Cummins 2007; Lin 2012; 2015; Swain and Lapkin 2013). The articles in this volume show the advantages of using the L1 for certain functions in the English-medium classroom. Pedagogical translanguaging can also take place when the aim is the development of metalinguistic awareness so that learners benefit from their own multilingual repertoire when learning additional languages (Cenoz and Gorter 2015). This does not necessary imply the direct use of the L1 and can also refer to crosslinguistic comparison that can contribute to the development of metalinguistic awareness and enhance the acquisition of the additional language. Cenoz and Gorter (2011; 2014) propose “Focus on multilingualism” as an approach that looks at learners as multilingual speakers who use their whole linguistic repertoire in a social context. The idea of using the multilingual speaker’s resources to their full extent is also shared

by Lin (2015) who proposes the Rainbow diagram (see also Lin and Wu, this volume). In this model the interaction between everyday oral language in the L1 and L2 and academic oral and written language in the L1 and L2 is highlighted so as to bridge multiple communicative resources including semiotic resources. The term “translanguaging” can also refer to spontaneous multiple discursive practices and has been defined as “the process by which bilingual students and teachers engage in complex discursive practices in order to “make sense” of, and communicate in, multilingual classrooms” (García and Sylvan 2011, 389). Research on translanguaging highlights the hybridity of multilinguals’ practices and how boundaries between languages are blurred. According to Jørgensen (2012), languages are sociocultural constructions and do not represent the behaviour of multilinguals. Spontaneous translanguaging can take place both at school and outside school and is a characteristic of multilingual speech. Therefore it is just natural for students to use resources from their whole linguistic repertoire. Adopting a multilingual view that considers learners as multilingual speakers who use their multilingual repertoire according to the characteristics of the social context as proposed in “Focus on Multilingualism” (Cenoz and Gorter 2011; 2014) not only has implications for multilingual education but also for second language acquisition (see also May, 2013). A new paradigm is emerging and as Kramsch (2012, 109) says it is “revolutionary, as it puts into question the whole monolingual foundation of theoretical and applied linguistics”.

Conclusion This volume shows how the use of the first language in foreign language and contentbased classes can be positive when it is used as a pedagogical strategy (see also Rui and

Chew 2013). This does not imply that learners do not need to be exposed to the target language. It is obvious that input in the target language both in the classroom and outside the classroom will enhance the acquisition of competences. In this volume the terms “judicious” and “principled” are used but at the same time the role of the first language as a powerful tool to mediate learning and provide confidence in contentbased education is highlighted (Lin, 2015; Swain and Lapkin 2013). The use of the first language in content-based classes in this way is not just a pedagogical strategy. It also reflects the deeper changes that are taking place in multilingual education. The old paradigm of language isolation, the native speaker and the “second” language is in crisis because it does not respond to new situations in a globalised world. A new paradigm that focuses on multilingualism and multilingual speakers is emerging.

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