Soft CLIL and English Language Teaching

Understanding Japanese Policy, Practice and Implications

Makoto Ikeda, Shinichi Izumi, Yoshinori Watanabe, Richard Pinner, Matthew Davis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780429628191
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Teaching Languages

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is a transformative and powerful approach to language education and has had a significant impact on educational pedagogy in recent years. Despite burgeoning literature on the efficacy and implementation of CLIL, there remains a gap between CLIL and English Language Teaching (ELT). Many practitioners wonder how they can 'do CLIL' if their main classes are focused on English as a Foreign Language (EFL). This volume addresses these concerns by examining the experiences of various CLIL practitioners in the EFL context of Japan.

Chapters outline the CLIL methodology, the differences in 'hard CLIL' (subject led) and 'soft CLIL' (language-oriented) before focusing on the EFL interpretations of soft-CLIL. Although the distinction of hard CLIL and soft CLIL has been mentioned in several publications, this is the first book-length exploration of this issue, featuring chapters examining expectations, challenges, material support, implementation, and even motivation in CLIL classrooms. All of this culminates in a review of the potential and future of CLIL in EFL contexts, paving the way for more widespread and well informed implementation of CLIL all over the world.

1 “How would you like your CLIL?”: Conceptualising Soft CLIL

1 Introduction

The world of English language education is flooded with acronyms. Simply talking about “teaching English,” ELT (English Language Teaching), TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language), TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) are used interchangeably without paying much attention to their historical, geographical, and conceptual connotations. This phenomenon continues through the sub divisions of English language education, and a content-oriented language teaching approach is no exception: different researchers and practitioners use different terms and abbreviations such as EMI (English Medium Instruction), CBI (Content-Based Instruction), and, of course, CLIL, perplexing and misleading even their language education colleagues. This confusion is recognised by many specialists in the field, and numerous articles and book chapters have been written to clarify and differentiate individual terms. Based on the foregoing literature, this chapter tries to locate, conceptualise, and define Soft CLIL in comparison with other seemingly similar but potentially distinct content and language combined pedagogies.

2 Locating CLIL in ELT methodologies

Although effort has been made to realise “integration” in pedagogical skills and learning processes (e.g., Llinares, 2015; Nikula, Dafouz, Moore, & Smit, 2016), CLIL, as a “dual-focused educational approach” (Coyle, Hood, & Marsh, 2010, p. 1), always has two distinct dimensions in its goals and outcomes: subject-matter learning and language competence mastery. The chart below tries to locate CLIL on a continuum which comprises the two components of learning as well as different language learning/teaching environments and various ELT methodologies in order to see how second language learning takes place (Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1 CLIL in ELT methodologies (Ikeda, 2012).

The guiding principle of arranging diverse approaches and methods here is whether they are intended to be language learning, content learning, or both. Then, typical SLA (Second Language Acquisition) settings are allocated to them: to the former, EFL (English as a Foreign Language), where the target language is rarely used in the community and therefore “learnt” deliberately in schools; to the latter, ESL (English as a Second Language), in which the target language is encountered everywhere in everyday life and as such naturally “acquired.” This is based on Krashen’s classical dichotomy (1983, pp. 26–27), but the reality is not that simple: language “learning” is also conducted in the ESL environment (e.g., taking lessons at a language school in London) and natural “acquisition” is also possible in the EFL context (e.g., studying curricular subjects in English at an International Baccalaureate school in Tokyo; using English for non-educational activities on the Internet such as video binge watching and online gaming).

Turning our attention to ELT methodologies, the EFL context has traditionally provided structure-based instructions, employing methods such as the Grammar Translation Method, audiolingualism (oral repetition and substitution drills), or “PPP” (i.e., the target grammar and vocabulary are “presented” at the beginning of the lesson, then students “practice” the grammatical forms through oral drilling, and finally they “produce” spoken language to communicate with their classmates, using the newly learnt grammatical and lexical items; Byrn, 1976). In the opposite pole, the ESL setting, learners are not actually taught in ELT pedagogy but “submerged” in English as the dominant vehicle language to study school subjects and socialise with their friends and neighbours (Harley, 2008, p. 159). In between these two extremes exist CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) types of pedagogy including TBLT (Task-Based Language Teaching) and content-oriented approaches like CLIL, CBI, immersion, and EMI. The next section examines in what ways these content-driven approaches are similar and different.

3 Differentiating various content-driven approaches

Generally speaking, when similar places, objects, or ideas are available, outsiders, newcomers, and novices see what they have in common, whereas insiders, old residents, or experts tend to accentuate how they differ. Taking the United Kingdom as an example, casual visitors may feel that, apart from some conspicuous regional characteristics, England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland look similar, but locals (particularly those who were born and raised there) most likely think that their “country” is geographically, historically, culturally, and linguistically “totally” different from others. This general observation may also be true of what are grouped together as content-based language education. They do share a lot (novices’ main perceptions) and yet differ somewhat (from experts’ perspectives), so numerous researchers have worked on the conceptualisation and classification of content-driven methodologies. The following diagram by Hanzawa (2017) seems to well represent the overall picture of different terms used by different researchers (Figure 1.2).

Figure 1.2 CBI-CLIL-EMI continuum (adapted from Hanzawa, 2017).

What she depicts here is that the same terms are used by some in broad senses and by others in narrow senses: taking the broad view, CBI/CBLT (Content-Based Language Teaching), CLIL, and EMI are often used interchangeably, but adopting the narrow and more contextual view, they are distinctive and specific. In the former approach, typically, one of the three acronyms functions as an umbrella term. For example, Lightbown (2014, p. 3) regards CBLT as a representative term and gives it a generic definition:

Content-based language teaching (CBLT) is an approach to instruction in which students are taught academic content in a language they are still learning. CBLT is inherent in second language contexts, where immigrant or minority-language students must learn both a new language and academic subjects at the same time. In foreign-language settings, CBLT may be introduced as an enrichment program to give majority-language students more time and more varied opportunities for using the language.

Likewise, Met’s well-known continuum (1999) uses CBLT as its overarching concept and arranges content and language mixed programmes, courses, and classes from “content-driven” to “language-driven” (i.e., “total and partial immersion” → “subject courses taught in L2” → “subject courses plus language instruction” → “language classes based on themes” → “language classes with frequent use of content for practice”). In general, researchers based in North America tend to prefer CBLT/CBI (e.g., Brinton & Snow, 2017; Cammarata, 2016; Lyster & Ballinger, 2011). For Mehisto, Marsh, and Frigols (2008, p. 13), however, CLIL is the head word which does not only include language learning in the classroom (i.e., “double-immersion,” “two-way immersion,” “total immersion,” “partial immersion,” “one or more subjects,” and “modules”), but also language experience outside the school (i.e., “work-study abroad,” “family stays,” “international projects,” “local projects,” “student exchanges,” “CLIL camps,” and “language showers”). Macaro (2018, p. 298) prefers EMI as a general term because it is not “value-laden,” meaning it has the least presuppositions, assumptions, and claims regarding content and language integration, explicit language instruction, literacy acquisition, etc., though some researchers argue that EMI has value-laden connotations too...