Learning non-language subjects through English: the role of language and beyond

(1)

Learning non-language subjects through English:

the role of language and beyond

Gail Forey, Associate Professor Department of English, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University gail.forey@polyu.edu.hk

with John Polias, Adjunct Assistant Professor Department of English, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University john@lexised.com

Sharing Session on the English Enhancement Scheme and Refined English Enhancement Scheme – From Implementation to Sustainability

Kowloon Technical School, Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong

10 May 2014

(2)

Outline

•  Knowledge & language

•  Pedagogy

•  Maximal resources suppor9ng maximal learning

As illustrated through data from the following subjects:

–  PE – language accompanying ac9on

–  Science – ac9on accompanying language –  Science – register con9nuum

•  The role of the teacher

•  The importance of language & pedagogy

2

(3)

Commonsense Knowledge

(Prototypical Knowledge)

home everyday

language

Educa9onal

Knowledge school academic

language

Technical

Knowledge workplace speciﬁc language

Knowledge & Language

accu mu la te s

3

(4)

Language Development

accu mu la te s

Simple ‘ commonsense ’

Congruent grammar -‐ simple aMtudinal expression (early childhood)

‘

Commonsense’

elaborated as grammar expands -‐ gramma9cal metaphor emerges (late childhood to early adolescence)

Knowledge becomes more ‘ uncommonsense ’

extended as gramma9cal resource are further ampliﬁed -‐

aMtudinal expression expands (mid-‐adolescence)

Uncommonsense knowledge

expressed as non-‐congruent grammar, expressing abstrac9on, generaliza9on, value judgment & opinion

(late adolescence +)

4

(5)

Teaching about English

Teaching through English Teaching English

5

(6)

Teaching through English

Apart from English teachers, most teachers have not been specially trained to teach in English and their performance in the classroom could be characterised as the following:

Less successful

Teachers are aware of the students’ language needs in English but they

overcompensate – simplifying the content too much or not teaching enough content.

Some imitate the role of the English teacher but some9mes teach English wrongly.

Least successful

Teachers are not aware of the students’ language needs and teach in the same way as they would teach in Chinese, resul9ng in students not being able to learn eﬀec9vely.

(Li King Chia-‐Chin, 2012)

Most successful

Teachers teach the subject well because they have a good knowledge of their subject and an eﬀec9ve pedagogy which allow them to overcome any English language

concerns and so students are s9ll able to learn eﬃciently in English.

6

(7)

Zone of Proximal Development

7

(8)

Support Challenge

Demands too high:

Possible failure

Demands too low:

Boredom / behaviour problems

Extension of learning

Comfortable / easy li`le learning likely

Mariani, L. (1997) Teacher support and teacher challenge in promoting learner autonomy.

Perspectives: A Journal of TESOL-Italy. 23(2).

Accessed 30 Aug 2013 from http://

www.learningpaths.org/papers/papersupport.htm

Challenge versus Support

Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

8

(9)

Ongoing development

A Teaching and Learning Cycle Typically shared teacher and student responsibility

Maximum teacher responsibility Maximum student

responsibility

Independent construction

Setting the context

Guided construction

Modelling deconstruction and Ongoing

development of the knowledge

Shifting responsibility from teacher to

students

9 From: Polias, J & Forey, G.

(forthcoming) Teaching through English: Maximal Input in Meaning Making. In Miller, D. & Bayley, P. (eds).

Permeable Contexts and Hybridity in Discourse. London: Continuum.

(10)

Human Breathing Mechanism

SC IC

SeMng the Context

Modelling & Deconstruc9on

MD IC

Joint Construc9on SC

IC

Independent Construc9on

Students in small groups, or individually, report their ﬁndings from the ac9vity in Joint Construc9on stage

Teacher explains the aims of the unit, ‘Understanding human breathing

mechanism’.

Teacher asks students ques9ons on air pressure &

human respiratory system

Teacher introduces sentence pa`erns to express cause and eﬀect.

Teacher also introduces key concepts involved in breathing.

MD

Teacher asks students to try taking a deep breath together and ask students to:

•  describe the movements of rib cage and abdomen

•  describe the feeling as the air is breathed in

JC

Teacher introduces the breathing model (bo`le + balloon)

SC

Teacher introduces ac9ons involving the changes of the bo`le and balloon volume.

MD

Students, in pairs, write a temporal explana9on of the human breathing

mechanism.

Teacher refreshes students’

memory of cause & eﬀect pa`erning; and introduces text type “temporal

explana9on”.

Teacher explains the structure of a temporal explana9on and its lexico-‐gramma9cal features (tense, verb types, etc.)

MD

Teacher and students construct a one or two sentences

together; OR

Teacher and students work out the process of breathing mechanism with diagrams with arrows

JC

Teacher asks students about the similari9es shared between the model and human

breathing mechanism.

SC

Students ﬁnish the ac9vity, working out how to decrease the balloon size.

Teacher presents the cause and effect sentence paèrning and asks students to share their findings using the paèrns.

IC

Teacher introduces human breathing mechanism with the technical items.

Students use the terms and the cause & eﬀect sentence pa`ern to explain the analogy of the breathing model.

JC Teacher guides students with ques9ons to help students understand the change of the volume of the chest (how), the change in pressure inside the chest and the size of lungs (what).

With the breathing model, teacher asks the students to relate the changes between the volumes of the bo`le and the balloon, and the air pressure inside and outside of the bo`le.

Release pressure from bo:le sides > bo:le size increases > pressure inside bo:le drops > P_in higher than P_out> air in > balloon size increases

JC

10

(11)

teacher maximizes the access points

mul9semio9c resources

systems of neural networks become

stronger

(Deacon 2012)

Maximizing learning: Eﬀec9ve Learning

11

(12)

Resources

Student

Teacher

Providing Mul9semio9c Resources

Teacher talk Ac9on

Manipula9on of task Experiment

Image

Textbook PowerPoint

Ac9vi9es

Wri`en language

Textbook PowerPoint

Body language &

gesture, etc Student talk

People Place

Time

12

(13)

How language varies along the register con9nuum

13

Everyday

Commonsense

Personal

Familiar people

(action with some language) Spoken

Technical Abstract

Impersonal Unfamiliar people

(language as reflection) Written The language for expressing ideas:

what the subject matter is and how abstract or technical it is

The language for interaction: what roles, relationships, status and attitude the

people communicating have

The language for structure of the message and organisation: the mode of

communication—spoken or written What

Who

How

Education

(14)

Shining along the register con9nuum:

moving from concrete to abstract

14

(15)

T2: …You might want to put some arrows in to show us the direction of flow … and you might want to give us the general names as well, in brackets, so amylase is your…

SS&T: Enzyme.

T2: OK, fantastic.

SS: Thanks, Miss.

S3: So, that’s starch. Is that a …? Sub…substrate…

S1: Wait, isn’t…

S3: Yes, substrate…that is starch.

S1: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

S2: Do the arrows go in towards the enzyme?

S3: Is that how you spell it?

S1: Yeah. … So then that and the arrows go … S2: … Wait, do we go like that or…?

S3: Yeah, you go [points with her hand]

S1: (sarcastic) No, you go like up and down and….

S3 …and just go around like that [points again].

S2: (not discernible)

S3: Done!

S1: Oh, you just put in like brackets…

Cons: Can you show me?... That’s really good.

Classroom language

15

(16)

T: So, can you identify the enzyme?

Which one’s the enzyme?

S3: Lipase.

T: Lipase. Right. Which one is it in the diagram?

S1: Is it the dark one?

T: Yep, that’s correct. OK, and your substrate?

S1: Lipid.

T: Lipid. Where’s the lipid there?

S1: This one. No, this one.

S3: We don’t have any.

T: Yes you have. There’s your lipid.

What have you actually formed there?

S1: It’s the lock and key so they fit.

T: Yeah.

S2: (not discernible)

T: What do you call that specifically? … S3: …We call that…

T: …where they’ve locked in together, what do you call that?

S3: …the lipase-lipid complex.

T: Well done. And what’s a general term we use for that?

S3: Substrate complex.

T: No. Enzyme…

S3: Enzyme substrate complex.

T: Excellent. And what have you formed there?

S3: Lipase and fatty acid (complex?) and glycerol.

T: Well done. Has the actual enzyme changed?

S1&3: No.

T: No. That’s a really important thing about

enzymes, isn’t it? All right, so glue it down and label it.

S2: So that’s right?

16

(17)

S1: This chemical reaction is a catabolic reaction as it broke down um the substrate. And um It’s a biochemical reaction, too.

S2: Our enzyme is cellulase.

S3: Our substrate is cellulose.

S1: So, in the reaction, the cellulase and the cellulose become the cellulase–cellulose complex, which was the enzyme substrate complex.

S4: And the product of our reaction was glucose and the enzyme remained unchanged.

1

S1: Our … was a catabolic reaction. Our substrate was lactose and our enzyme was lactase.

S2: As you can see, the enzyme substrate complex, which is a lactase-lactose complex, is shown as a binding and

provides the active site and it produces the products. Oh, it breaks down the products of the disaccharide lactose into the lactose and glucose.

T1: Well done, girls.

T2: So what was your enzyme again?

SS-T2: Lactase!

2

S1: Ours was also a catabolic reaction and biochemical. And our enzyme was maltase and our substrate was maltose.

S2: And the enzyme substrate complex was maltose…maltase-maltose complex.

S3: And the product was glucose and the enzyme remained unchanged.

3

S1: Oh, I forgot what to say.

T1: That’s all right, … we’ll guide you.

S1: The lipid was the substrate and the lipase was the enzyme.

S2: This was the lipase-lipid complex.

S3: And the products were the lipase fatty acid…no, no, fatty acid and glycerol and the enzyme remained unchanged.

4

S1: Our enzyme was amylase and our substrate was starch.

S2: Then we got amylase-starch complex.

S3: Then the products, once the enzyme worked, the product was glucose.

S1: And it’s a biochemical reaction.

5

17

(18)

Scaﬀolding: Register

Everyday, commonsense, personal, familiar, action, language accompanying meaning

Technical, abstract, impersonal, unfamiliar, language constituting meaning Register continuum

Sequence Abstraction

Context 3: student groups presenting to class Context 2: teacher

guiding students Context 1: students work

in small groups

18

(19)

Medium of Instruc9on decision-‐making

Which teacher?

Which subject to move to EMI?

Which class?

What professional development (PD) is needed?

19

(20)

We suggest…

Teaching THROUGH English: Language construing knowledge

Maximize teaching & learning: mul9-‐semio9c resources

Recycling: strengthens the brain – ac9vi9es that are pa`erned, repeated and carried out with moderate challenge

Language = knowledge / knowledge = language

Pedagogy – extremely important considera9on

20

(21)

The limits of my language means the limits of my world.

Ludwig Wi`genstein

Die Grenzen Meine Sprache Sind Die Grenzen Meiner Welt”, Tractatus Logico-‐Philosophicus (1922)

21

(22)

Language Across the Curriculum Professional Development

22

h`p://www.lacpd.net/

(23)

References

•  Cope, B & Kalan9zis, M. (Eds) 2000. Mul@literacies: Literacy learning and the design of social futures. London: Routledge.

•  Hammond J (2001). Scaﬀolding. Newtown, Australia: PETA

•  Halliday M.A.K. 1985 Language, context and text.

•  Mariani, L. (1997) Teacher support and teacher challenge in promo9ng learner autonomy.

Perspec@ves: A Journal of TESOL-‐Italy. 23(2). Accessed 30 Aug 2013 from h`p://

www.learningpaths.org/papers/papersupport.htm

•  Mar9n, J.R. 2011. Con@nuum Companion to Discourse Analysis. London: Con9nuum.

•  Mar9n. J.R. & Rose, D. 2008. Genre Rela@ons. London: Equinox.

•  Mar9n. J.R. & Rose, D. 2012. Learning to Write, Reading to Learn: Genre, Knowledge and Pedagogy in the Sydney School.

•  Painter, C. Unsworth, L. & Mar9n, J.R. 2013. Reading Visual Narra@ves. London: Equinox.

•  Polias J (forthcoming) Appren@cing Students into Science: Doing, Talking, Wri@ng and Drawing Scien@ﬁcally. Stockholm: Hallgren & Fallgren

•  Polias, J. & Forey, G. (forthcoming) Teaching through English: Maximal Input in Meaning Making. In Miller, D. (Ed). Permeable Contexts & Hybridity in Discourse. London: Con9nuum.

•  Polias, J. h`p://www.lexised.com

₂₃

(24)

Other references…

•  Special edi9on of Language Educa9on – Legi9ma9on Code Theory

•  Special edi9on of Second Language Wri9ng – Genre based pedagogy

•  Special edi9on of JEAP – SFL in ter9ary educa9on

•  Special Edi9on of JALPP – SFL applied

Web resources

•  Aiton, J. (2011) Genres and stages h`p://aitonenglish.com/?p=1034 retrieved 15 Jan 2014

•  Dury, H. (1997) h`p://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/perth97/papers/Drury/Drury.html

•  Polias, J. (2003) ESL Scopes and Scales h`p://www.lexised.com/wri9ng/

•  Rose, D. h`p://www.readingtolearn.com.au

24

Learning non-language subjects through English: the role of language and beyond