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Article published In:
Research on EFL learning by young children in Spain
Edited by María del Pilar García Mayo
[Language Teaching for Young Learners 3:2] 2021
► pp. 337–362

What is an ecosystem?

Defining science in primary school CLIL contexts

| Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
| Universidad Politécnica de Valencia

In Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) contexts, students are expected to express disciplinary knowledge in a second/foreign language. One construct that has proven useful for the identification and realization of language functions in disciplinary knowledge is Dalton-Puffer’s (2013) model of cognitive discourse functions (CDFs). Additionally, Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) has already been proven useful for distinguishing lexico-grammatical features that characterise different CDFs in CLIL students’ productions (e.g., Nashaat-Sobhy & Llinares, 2020; Evnitskaya & Dalton-Puffer, 2020). In this article, we use SFL to analyse the oral and written realisations of the CDF Define by 6th grade students participating in a CLIL program in Madrid, Spain. A total of 83 students responded to the same prompt (on science) in writing (in the form of a blog) as well as orally (in the form of an interview). In the oral interviews the co-construction of definitions by the students with the interviewer (researcher) and another peer are explored using the notion of Legitimation Code Theory and the concept of semantic waves (Maton, 2013). The analysis of students’ definitions is also related to primary CLIL teachers’ evaluations using comparative judgement.

Keywords: CLIL, systemic functional linguistics, semantic waves, oral and written definitions, comparative judgement
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The language of science in CLIL
  • 3.Defining as a cognitive linguistic operation
    • 3.1Definitions across languages
    • 3.2Definitions across modes
    • 3.3Students’ definitions and pedagogy
  • 4.The present study
  • 5.Context, data and procedures
    • 5.1Data
    • 5.2Procedure
  • 6.Findings
    • 6.1Students’ written definitions across languages
    • 6.2Students’ definitions across modes
    • 6.3CLIL teachers’ judgements of students’ definitions
  • 7.Discussion and conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 27 July 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ltyl.20010.lli
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