Content and Language Integrated Learning as TBLT. The Brussels

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Content and Language Integrated Learning as TBLT.
The Brussels Experience

• Piet Van de Craen Katrien Mondt

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Multilingualism in Belgium

• Forbidden by a body of legislation (1962-1963)
• Politically highly sensitive
• Yet, the language laws get undermined by new
  initiatives in
• Wallonia (the decree Onkelinx,1998),
• Brussels (STIMOB schools, 2001) and
• Flanders (a decree on early language learning,
  2004)
• These initiatives are related to European ideas
  on language learning and teaching.

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The Research

• Carried out in CLIL schools
• Long-term project in Dutch-speaking primary
  schools in Brussels
• The emphasis is on
• Cognitive development and
• Neurolinguistic aspects of language learning in a
  CLIL contect

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What CLIL is?

• A generic term referring to teaching and learning
  whereby content is taught and learned through a
  language preferably -but not necessarily- by a
  native speaker of that language
• The focus of this approach refers to
• meaning rather than form
• learner- centered rather than teacher- centered
• simultaneous acquisition of both content and
  language
• learning rather than teaching
• non-remedial aspects of teaching and learning.

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Implications of CLIL learning

• Two kinds of implications can be distinguished
• Aspects with respect to the outer learning
  environment
• such as the neighbourhood, the schools, the
  stakeholders (e.g. pupils, parents, teachers, )
• Aspects with respect to the inner learning
  environment
• such as learning and learning strategies,
  cognitive and neurolinguistic development,...

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Hypotheses related to CLIL

• Previously hypotheses were stated as follows
• instructional approaches that integrate content
  and language are likely to be more effective than
  approaches in which language is taught in
  isolation
• the use of instructional strategies and academic
  tasks that encourage active discourse among
  learners and between learners and teachers is
  likely to be especially beneficial for second
  language learning
• language development should be systematically
  integrated with academic development in order to
  maximize language learning (Genesee 1994).

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New hypotheses related to CLIL

• Learning content through a language rather than
  learning a language has
• important cognitive implications for the learner
  since this kind of learning is a more of a
  challenge than traditional (language) learning
• influence on brain organization in the sense that
  more brain areas are involved especially in the
  left pre-frontal area.
• CLIL research aims at liberating language
  pedagogy from its pre-scientific status...

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The Research Context

• Three Brussels Dutch-speaking primary schools
  have been followed for the last four years N
  67...
• /- 10 of the curriculum is taught in French,
  e.g. either arithmetic, environmental issues or
  crafts...
• Pupils middle to lower class...
• Control school with comparable SES and language
  spread...
• Arithmetic test Dudals Leerlingvolgsysteem

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Arithmetic test

• The test consists of nine sub-tests varying from
  simple calculations to decimal fractions and to
  more complicated problems that are verbally
  phrased.
• Examples
• 632 205
• 2/5 out of 100
• 500 tickets are available at a music festival.
  386 have already been sold. How many tickets are
  left?
• It is hypothesized that CLIL pupils do at least
  equally well as controls.

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Results for the arithmetic test

• Results for three CLIL schools and one comparable
  control group after 4 years...

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Discussion

• For nearly all sub-tests CLIL pupils
  outperform -CLIL pupils.
• This is also true for schools that have NOT used
  arithmetic in the CLIL curriculum.
• Arithmetic is a language related activity.
• Differences between experimental and control
  groups tend to be smaller if tasks are less
  language related.
• The more verbally a task is phrased the bigger
  the difference between experimental and control
  groups.
• The more difficult tasks are -as in the case of
  fractions- the larger the difference between
  experimental and control groups

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Brain organization 1

• 32 children (age 8-9 years old) were scanned
  under three conditions
• - verb generation test with visual stimuli
• e.g. food ----gtto eat.
• - an arithmetic test
• e.g. 4 3 6 2
• The Stroop test
• measuring selective attention
• Results there are differences in brain
  organization between early bilinguals, early late
  bilinguals and monolinguals.

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Bilinguals in L1
Bilinguals in L2
More lateral premotor (in green) and
middle-superior temporal (in blue) activation in
L2

• Bilinguals differ while processing languages
• there is additional articulatory and speech
  programming
• activity (green)
• more semantic processing (blue)

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Brain organization 2

• Brain activity involving L1 in a bilingual
  population (N12)

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Brain organization 3

• Brain activity involving L2 in a bilingual
  population (N13)

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Brain organization 2

• The interpretation of these results is as yet
  unclear. Reference is made to
• better brains (cf. Scientific American, Sept.
  2003)
• positive learners effects (cf. OECD, section
  on learning and the brain)
• added cognitive effects (cf. Fabbro 1999 and
  others).
• In any case there is no evidence that CLIL
  teaching has negative effects for the learner nor
  that any knowledge is hampered on the contrary.

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Conclusion

• Content and language integrated learning can be
  considered an improved form of TBL.
• CLIL leads to positive cognitive added- values
  and increased learning aptitudes.
• CLIL teaching influences brain organization but
  as yet it is unclear in what way this might be
  applied in teaching practice.
• Systematic studies of teaching practices,
  cognitive development and brain organization
  seems a fruitful paradigm for future research.