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Spoken and Written Language in CLIL-Some Theory

This document discusses the importance of writing in CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) contexts. It notes that while oracy is emphasized, writing is also valuable for learning. Writing allows students to reflect on what they know and don't know, and helps develop language skills through the challenges of expressing ideas in a foreign language. The process of writing leads to deeper learning of content. Additionally, writing requires different linguistic choices than speaking. The document recommends scaffolding techniques like sequencing activities from spoken to written modes and reformulating student speech, to support CLIL students in developing writing abilities.

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73 views

Spoken and Written Language in CLIL-Some Theory

This document discusses the importance of writing in CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) contexts. It notes that while oracy is emphasized, writing is also valuable for learning. Writing allows students to reflect on what they know and don't know, and helps develop language skills through the challenges of expressing ideas in a foreign language. The process of writing leads to deeper learning of content. Additionally, writing requires different linguistic choices than speaking. The document recommends scaffolding techniques like sequencing activities from spoken to written modes and reformulating student speech, to support CLIL students in developing writing abilities.

Uploaded by

AlexanderBarrera
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Developing CLIL students’ writing: From oracy to literacy

(From: Llinares, A., T. Morton and R. Whittaker (2012). The roles of language in CLIL.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chapter 8, pp. 244-245)

Introduction

The role of writing as part of learning in CLIL contexts is, at present, largely
unrecognised, with much more interest being shown in the development of oracy, being
able to talk about subject content. Teaching and learning in the classroom are mainly
carried out through talk, though support from other modes is brought in as the teacher
turns to the use of board or screen, or students consult textbooks and other print
materials. Support from the written mode is especially important, since it provides the
students with both information and models of subject-specific language as they read.
While the process of understanding text written in a foreign language demands
considerable effort, that of writing a text in a foreign language requires much more.
Writing involves decision making at different levels, form what is the purpose of writing
– the genre – to what is the right word or structure for the meaning we want to make –
that is, choices at the level of register. It also allows reflection, since it leaves a
permanent trace for the writer to examine. The inclusion of writing tasks in CLIL classes
can be seen as a way of enhancing the learning process. This is because the activity of
creating written text in the foreign language is an exercise which as value for a number
of reasons.
Writing is not only useful to show what has been learned, but the process of
writing leads to discovery and knowledge creation, as all writers know. Writing about
content is, on the one hand, a way for students to find out what they know and don’t
know about what they have studied. It is also a way to develop and expand language
resources in the foreign language. This has been shown in detailed studies of L2 writers
during the actual process of writing a text. Researchers have analysed the points at
which these students struggle with the foreign language, looking for lexical items, a
grammatical structure or a reformulation which will really express the writer’s ideas
(e.g. Manchó n et al., 2009; Roca et al. 2006). Their results have convinced them of the
role of writing in learning a foreign language. Psychologists have found, too, that the
effort involved in expressing meaning in a foreign language leads to deeper processing
of content (Heine, 2010). This means writing is also especially effective for the learning
of content when this takes place in a foreign language.
Writing about subject content requires different choices from the linguistic
system from those used for spoken classroom interaction. Even in L1, many students
need help to learn the written registers of their subjects when they move into the
disciplines at secondary school, and this is even more true for students studying in a
foreign language. To support CLIL students in the transition from the spoken to the
written mode in school subjects, there are different types of register scaffolding which
can have beneficial effects on students’ performance. On the one hand, there is planned
register scaffolding at the macrolevel, or task scaffolding (Llinares and Whittaker, 2009),
in which the activities are sequenced, so that first work in the spoken mode, building up
knowledge of a topic area –that is, building a stable knowledge base from which to move
into the more difficult written mode (Bereiter and Scardamalia, 1988) […] Besides this
type of planned scaffolding, teachers can use spontaneous register scaffolding, at the
microlevel […] reformulating the students’ spoken production to make it represent
knowledge in more effective and academically acceptable ways.

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