PRI MARY SCI ENCE 117 March/April 2011 5 B efore you skip past this article in bemusement at the idea of teaching science through French, take a few moments to read about how this innovative integrated approach works in a primary school in Oxfordshire. The project involves Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). CLIL is a method whereby a curriculum subject is planned and taught partly or fully through the medium of a foreign language. What are the benefits? ‘Why make things harder?’ you might ask. This approach can have motivational and even cognitive benefits, as the learning is said to be ‘slower and deeper’ in both the language and the subject. In an evaluation in Canada (Day, Shapson and O’Shea, 1988) it was found that a CLIL approach produced an equal or bigger learning gain in both the science and the foreign language than when science was taught in English. There are many suggestions as to why there are gains for the subject. Perhaps the language used is carefully targeted and the teachers make more use of language-learning strategies than they do in monolingual science teaching. Perhaps the foreign language restricts the teacher in terms of their use of more complex, subject- specific vocabulary and so their communication is clearer and easier to understand. Conversely, we believe that science also has a particular benefit for the language learning, possibly because the curriculum subject offers a ‘real’ context for use of the language. We are always teaching children the ‘language of science’ in our lessons. Science has a mixture of subject- specific language, such as the word ‘force’, as well as general language used in a particular way in procedural steps, explanations and analogies, as in ‘the table is I N C L U S I V E P R A C T I C E Juliet Edmonds and Pippa Jacobs explain why integrating the teaching of science and French is not as ridiculous as it may at first sound APPRENEZ LA SCIENCE EN FRANÇAIS? Figure 1 Using a parachute to explore wind strengths
Transcript
Pri mary Sci ence 117 March/April 2011 5
Pri mary Sci ence 117 March/April 2011
Before you skip past this article in bemusement at the idea of teaching
science through French, take a few moments to read about how this innovative integrated approach works in a primary school in Oxfordshire. The project involves Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). CLIL is a method whereby a curriculum subject is planned and taught partly or fully through the medium of a foreign language.
What are the benefits?‘Why make things harder?’ you might ask. This approach can have motivational and even cognitive benefits, as the learning
is said to be ‘slower and deeper’ in both the language and the subject. In an evaluation in Canada (Day, Shapson and O’Shea, 1988) it was found that a CLIL approach produced an equal or bigger learning gain in both the science and the foreign language than when science was taught in English.
There are many suggestions as to why there are gains for the subject. Perhaps the language used is carefully targeted and the teachers make more use of language-learning strategies than they do in monolingual science teaching. Perhaps the foreign language restricts
the teacher in terms of their use of more complex, subject-specific vocabulary and so their communication is clearer and easier to understand. Conversely, we believe that science also has a particular benefit for the language learning, possibly because the curriculum subject offers a ‘real’ context for use of the language.
We are always teaching children the ‘language of science’ in our lessons. Science has a mixture of subject-specific language, such as the word ‘force’, as well as general language used in a particular way in procedural steps, explanations and analogies, as in ‘the table is
INC
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SIVE PRACTIC
E Juliet Edmonds and Pippa Jacobs explain why integrating the teaching of science and French is not as ridiculous as it may at first sound
APPRENEZ LA SCIENCE EN FRANÇAIS?
Figure1Usingaparachutetoexplorewindstrengths
6 Pri mary Sci ence 117 March/April 2011 Pri mary Sci ence 117 March/April 2011
You might wonder how this affects children who are already being taught in a language that is not their first language. They do not seem to be disadvantaged by CLIL teaching. As one child pointed out, they still only need to take one step of translating into their mother tongue.Putting CLIL into practiceTwo key principles of CLIL are not to lower the conceptual level of the science studied and to have clearly focused leaning outcomes for the language and the science. When Pippa Jacobs, an experienced CLIL teacher, and Sarah-Jane Dawes, a specialist (non-language) class teacher of 9- and 10-year-olds, started planning a unit of work on flight and forces, they called on Juliet Edmonds, a primary science education lecturer, for advice on the
concepts involved in the science. Together they produced a scheme that had a clear conceptual ladder in the target language. The language in this case was French, and the unit would culminate in a visit to the Berck-sur-Mer International Kite Festival in France, held in April.
Pippa began by naming
some of the forces and adding directional arrows to diagrams using ‘gravité’, ‘trainée’, ‘portance’, and so on. Pippa and Sarah-Jane then developed the idea of whether there might be more than one force at play, and which might be the greater: ‘plus grand’, ‘moins grand’. The comparatives were thus introduced in a very natural way, relevant to a definite context.
Unveiling the first lesson in a unit like this is always exciting. The children have to listen and concentrate to get on the right wavelength, but they really enjoy the challenge. They were especially encouraged when they were called ‘language detectives’, as they tried to decode the new words assisted by diagrams and pictures.
Investigations on air resistance using flat, folded and screwed-up paper were conducted in much the same way as they normally are in science. But armed with the comparatives in French (Box 1), the children were quickly able to say which dropped first because ‘la force de gravité est plus grande que la résistance de l’air’ or ‘il y a plus de la résistance de l’air’. Making paper spinners was also a popular investigation to illustrate air resistance, providing another chance to use a defined set of phrases to describe our findings when we changed just one variable. The children were learning how to conduct a fair test but, at the same time, this suited our language use too!
The class then went on to study the Beaufort scale. In the school hall they acted out the wind strengths with a large parachute, using numbers and expressions in French (Figure 1). Movement and role-play really help with remembering words and vocabulary as well as making the learning experience more fun.
The last task was to construct kites using a simple template and instructions – all in French of course! Student teachers from Oxford Brookes University were invited to help small groups of children construct their kites. It was quite challenging for the trainees to communicate with primary-aged children entirely
Box 1 One of the
supporting worksheets
Figure2Acompletedkiteisproudlydisplayed
resisting the force’. Practising and understanding these words and clusters of words is important for conceptual understanding as well as language development. Science is also a stimulating practical subject, which gives a concrete context and motivation for communication.
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Pri mary Sci ence 117 March/April 2011
in French, but the children thoroughly enjoyed it. With lots of gestures and visual help, every child in the class made and flew a kite (Figure 2)!
The final event of the unit was visiting the kite festival on a beautifully sunny day, with the long beach at Berck full of kites and inflatables of every kind. For some of the children this was their first trip abroad and they had the chance to speak French when they ordered food or an ice-cream. Going to France and hearing French spoken all around them left a lasting impression, and certainly gave real meaning to the language-learning process.
Using a personalityPippa and Sarah used three personalities in the investigations to give children a chance to use their oral French as much as possible, Mme Prédiction (Miss Prediction), M. Pourquoi (Mr Why) and M. Parceque (Mr Because), thus clearly underlining the scientific sequence of thought (Figure 3). Before an investigation, Mme Prédiction would predict what she thought was going to happen (a chance to use a simple future tense in French). Then after the investigation M. Pourquoi would ask M. Parceque ‘pourquoi?’ (why) we obtained the result we did. Finally, M. Parceque would have the chance to sum up the investigation with a simple explanation. The fortune-teller’s scarf and earrings and the lab coats and science glasses that the characters wore when they were in role made everything a bit more exciting too!
Outcomes from the approachThe children gained a huge amount of enjoyment and confidence from this work and the visit to the kite festival. The approach involved a large range of teaching and learning strategies, including actions, tone of voice, repetition, drama and role play, songs, practical investigations, writing and talking frames for the children to practise their language, and animation and pictures on the interactive whiteboard. The teachers managed to keep
practical first-hand experiences prominent in the science work, rather than using too many secondary experiences. There was a clear focus on the key language of forces, such as ‘upthrust’ and ‘air resistance’, as well as the non-science-specific use of words and connectives commonly used in science, such as ‘because’. The children were given many opportunities to practise their oral French and to discuss their ideas. This is often a part that teachers find difficult to integrate, although it is vital for children’s conceptual and language development.
The teaching happened more slowly than usual, as concepts were rehearsed in order to provide opportunities for the language to be rehearsed. This meant that the slower learners found the CLIL lessons more accessible.
ConclusionPippa’s school’s approach is just one way of integrating languages into science. We are not suggesting that all subjects are taught through a language or that all languages are taught through a curriculum subject. Many experienced CLIL teachers do a bit of both. Teachers could try teaching the parts of a plant in French or even morning ‘wake and shake’ commands.
When it comes to practical science activities, integrated teaching comes into its own as there is a real point to the use of the language; in this case to express the outcome of the investigation – ‘Which object will fall first?’ The children are learning the language, not ‘just in case’, as in ‘just in case’ we ever go on a day trip to France, but ‘just in time’, because the need for the language is immediate as they need it to answer the question or to decode the task (Mehisto, Frigols and Marsh, 2008). Every
primary school In England now has to teach one or two modern foreign languages; teaching science through a language would seem to have benefits both for the language and for science learning and teaching.
AcknowledgementsThanks to the TDA and staff of East Hagbourne Primary School, Oxfordshire.
ReferencesDay, E. M., Shapson, S. M. and O’Shea, T. J. (1988) The British Columbia French immersion assessment, 1987: General report. Victoria, BC: Ministry of Education.
Mehisto, P., Frigols, M. J. and Marsh, D. (2008) Uncovering CLIL: content and language integrated learning and multilingual education. London: Macmillan.
Juliet Edmonds is a senior lecturer in primary science at the University of the West of England. Email: [email protected]
Pippa Jacobs is a primary languages specialist, who teaches in a rural primary school part time, works for Oxford Brookes University as an associate tutor and helps support the start up of languages in primary schools in Oxfordshire. She is also a national trainer for Links into Language. Email: [email protected]
