Obstáculos sobre su desarrollo familiar 141

Another way in which L2 interaction in CLIL classrooms can be seen as a mediating tool for learning is to consider the ways in which content-based classrooms have been characterised in the SLA literature as spaces for the promotion of L2 development. Section 3.4 in this chapter will examine in more detail the different conceptions of learners’ L2 competence and how it may develop in L2 content classrooms. Here, the focus is on the CLIL and content-based classroom as an interactional space for

engagement and participation in ways that may encourage L2 development. In general, studies from an SLA perspective on content-based classrooms have been rather

sceptical about the benefits of interaction in these classrooms for second language acquisition, as can be seen in the studies reviewed below.

In studies on French immersion classrooms in Canada, doubts have been expressed as to whether the kinds of interaction found in content classes are favourable for L2

development. In an influential early study, Swain (1988) made a strong claim that good content teaching is not necessarily good language teaching. She found that in French immersion classrooms:

• The language used by the teachers was functionally restricted (for example in terms of sociolinguistically approprate uses of ‘tu’ and ‘vous’ and in verb tenses);

• Correction of content was given priority over correction of form in order to maintain the flow of communication;

• The messages the students receive about form-meaning relationships are inconsistent;

Swain’s conclusion is that content teaching needs to be ‘manipulated’ in certain ways so that L2 interaction in these classrooms can address the problems she identifies and so that content teaching can be better language teaching. Among her suggestions are the engineering of contexts which demand the use of specific, otherwise infrequent uses of language, the use of strategies which encourage learners to reflect on what they say and help them to choose more accurate and appropriate L2 forms, and using content

learning activities which ‘demand longer, more complex, and coherent language from the learners’ (Swain, 1988: 81).

Swain’s criticisms of immersion classes as interactional contexts for L2 development have been echoed in studies of other content-based L2 learning contexts. In a study of an Italian content-based classroom, Musumeci (1996) was critical of the lack of opportunity for negotiation in teacher-learner interaction that the context afforded:

The data reveal that the teachers in the third semester content-based Italian course speak more, more often, control the topic of discussion, rarely ask questions for which they do not have answers, and appear to understand absolutely everything the students say, sometimes even before they say it! One might conclude from these findings that teachers are a loquacious, manipulative, power-hungry bunch of know-it-alls…

(Musumeci 1996: 314)

Pica (2002, 2005) reflects a common criticism of content-based instruction, that is, that it does not provide a context in which students can modify their output syntactically or receive feedback on their grammatical accuracy. In her 2002 paper she gives this description of the shortcomings in this respect of content-based instruction:

Subject-matter content (…) provided a meaningful context for students’ exposure to the form and meaning relationships they had yet to master. However, the discussion, as the most frequently implemented interactional activity in these classrooms, did not promote the kinds of interaction that could draw attention to these relationships. Instead, it provided a context for the

students to sustain lengthy, multi-utterance texts, whose comprehensibility of message meaning provided little basis for negotiation, form-focused

intervention, and form-focused instruction.

(Pica 2002: 16)

Interestingly, Pica’s criticism of the kind of discourse found in the content-based classrooms she studies is in many ways the opposite of what Swain criticised in her 1988 study. For Swain, interaction in the immersion classrooms provided few

opportunities for extended discourse in the L2, with only 14% of utterances produced by students in grade 6 classrooms being longer than a clause (Swain 1988: 70).

However, for Pica the problem is that the learners produce too much meaning-focused discourse, which, echoing Musumeci’s point, was too easily understood by all.

Findings concerning a lack of negotiation and extended responses from learners are mirrored in a study carried out in another context in which subject matter is taught through the medium of a second language. In a study of English as an additional language (EAL) pupils in mainstream secondary subject classes in England, Cameron, Moon and Bygate (1996) found that pupils often produced minimal or superficial responses in language that was not cognitively complex, did not use appropriately precise vocabulary, or did not use appropriately complex language in contexts that required negotiation such as group work tasks. These findings can be linked to later studies by Leung (2001) and Creese (2005) of the practice of ‘mainstreaming’ EAL learners in the UK in ordinary subject lessons in which there is little or no attention paid to their language learning needs. Leung’s criticism of the L2 in these contexts as a ‘diffused curriculum concern’ is taken up in the next section, where the focus is on the L2 as an integrated part of the CLIL curriulum.

Overall, then, the literature review in this section suggests that L2 interaction in CLIL and other content-based classrooms may afford a promising setting for the development of a wider range of pragmatic functions and the expression of meanings that are more relevant to the here-and-now reality of the students. However, from an SLA perspective, L2 interaction in CLIL and other content-based classrooms may have severe limitations in terms of offering a context for language growth in the sense of strengthening form- meaning relationships. Pedagogical options for integrating a focus on L2 forms with

content-based instruction, particularly Lyster’s (2007) ‘counterbalanced approach’ are discussed in section 3.3, where the focus is on the L2 as a curriculum concern.

Meanwhile, we turn our attention to an alternative way of looking at language as a mediating tool for learning in CLIL and other content-based approaches.

3.2.4 An alternative approach to the mediation of content and language