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Teaching, Learning and Scaffolding in CLIL Science Classrooms
Edited by Yuen Yi Lo and Angel M.Y. Lin
[Benjamins Current Topics 115] 2021
► pp. 17–42

Language focused episodes by monolingual teachers in English Medium Instruction science lessons

 | Purdue University Fort Wayne
 | University of Oxford
 | University of Oxford
This study is situated in a newly emerging EMI setting in China where an Anglophone high school curriculum is taught by predominantly foreign teachers through English to local Chinese students. These teachers are termed ‘monolingual teachers’ in the sense that they cannot use the students’ L1 as a resource in their teaching should they wish to, as opposed to the typical bilingual teachers commonly explored in the existing EMI literature. Through quantitative and qualitative analysis of 30 video-recorded EMI science lessons taught by 15 monolingual teachers we identified and explored the language-focused-episodes (LFEs) where students’ attention was explicitly diverted from the content plane to the language plane. We found very limited explicit language instruction, with non-technical vocabulary being the main type of LFEs, and only a narrow range of grammatical features being attended to. The implications for this lack of focus on language are discussed in the context of monolingual teachers but also with reference to the potential for bilingual teachers to use both L1 and L2 for LFEs.
Keywords: bilingual education, classroom interaction, content-based instruction, discourse analysis
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Growth of EMI
    • 2.2Teachers in EMI settings
    • 2.3Distinctive features of Chinese bilingual schools
    • 2.4The language of science and science explanations
    • 2.5Research on language focused episodes in SLA and in content contexts
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Study design
    • 3.2The population
    • 3.3The sample (schools, teachers and students)
    • 3.4Data collection
    • 3.5Data analysis
  • 4.Findings
    • 4.1The proportion of the total interaction and the different types of LFEs
    • 4.2Examples of the different types of LFEs
      • 4.2.1Vocabulary-focused LFEs
        • a.Meaning of non-technical vocabulary
        • b.The non-science meaning of technical vocabulary
        • c.Pronunciation
        • d.Spelling
      • 4.2.2Grammar-focused LFEs
        • a.Morphemes
      • 4.2.3Idiom-focused LFEs
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1The extent of LFEs
    • 5.2The variety of linguistic features focused on
    • 5.3L1 vs L2
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Note
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 13 May 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.115.02an
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