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Self Study Research Action Table (data collection procedure)

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Self Study Research Action Table (data collection procedure)

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Literature Review 1: CLIL theory Literature

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Literature Review 1: CLIL theory Literature

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Reflection:

From the CLIL theories, I acknowledged the importance of using the Coyle's 4C frameworks and key principles to design my CLIL lesson (Bower et al., 2020; Costa & D’Angelo, 2011; Meyer, 2013). The specific demands of the content subject are at the heart of every CLIL lesson and the starting point for material construction (Meyer, 2013). The type of material chosen for instruction (such as texts, charts, maps, video clips, etc.) and the student's level of familiarity with it indicate the amount and type of support required (Meyer, 2013). This also highlights the specific subject-related study skills that students should practice to effectively engage with the material (Meyer, 2013).

Tasks must be designed to trigger higher-order thinking skills and lead to authentic communication/interaction in different interactive formats (solo work, pair work, group work, etc.). Together, students can perform the desired output (poster, presentation and map, etc.) and output scaffolding is necessary.

Reference List:

Bower, K., Cross, R., & Coyle, D. (2020). CLIL in multilingual and english-background contexts. In K. Bower, R. R. Cross, D. Coyle, & G. Chambers (Eds.), Curriculum Integrated LanguageTeaching: CLIL in Practice (pp. 3–21). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108687867.003

Costa, F., & D’Angelo, L. (2011). CLIL: A suit for all seasons. Latin American Journal of Content and Language Integrated Learning, 4(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.5294/laclil.2011.4.1.1

Meyer, O. (2013). Introducing the clil-pyramid: Key strategies and principles for CLIL planning and teaching. In Basic Issues in EFL Teaching and Learning. Universitätsverlag Winter.

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Reflection:

I reviewed some current Secondary CLIL programmes in Australia based on the report by Cross (2013). They documented CLIL teaching and learning experiences that hurdle invaluable lessons for emergent CLIL teachers like myself to experiment with the pedagogical strategies.

The keynotes from the case study inform potential activities and considerations to avoid in my lesson planning. This includes using Visual Aids in my lesson design while incorporating more group work to facilitate students in the communicative learning inquiry. These provide them opportunities to support each other in actively using the second language. Also, using Bloom’s (1956) framework for cognitive processes can be helpful for the lesson objectives and activities, and also helps scaffold students within the lesson by using different types of questioning.

Cross, R. (2013). Research and evaluation of the content and language integrated learning (CLIL) approach to teaching and learning languages in victorian schools. In minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au [Research]. http://hdl.handle.net/11343/55778

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Reflection:

From the CLIL case study note and the curriculum objectives, I designed this first draft of the lesson accordingly based on the previous literature review findings and the Case study practices. While drafting the first lesson, I acknowledged the importance of making meaningful linkages between Content and language Curriculum in Victoria using the 4C frameworks in the CLIL planning. It facilitates the design of the lesson so that I am clear about the lesson learning objectives. However, contextualising the Visual Art and Chinese Secondary curriculum is also crucial for CLIL teachers to closely examine.

Personally, the designing process is challenging as there are limited high-quality resources available online in the subject areas that I am designing. It requires a careful selection of learning materials and topics that match CLIL curriculum objectives, similar to the findings in the case study (Cross, 2013).

During my brainstorming process, I originally considered the lesson of teaching 'paper-cutting' in Chinese, yet it was time-consuming and had higher risks to perform within 1 lesson time. I also struggled when I was considering how much content or knowledge I expected students to be able to gain throughout the class. It is complicated to balance both content learning and language learning at the same time in just 1 class.

Reference List:

Cross, R. (2013). Research and evaluation of the content and language integrated learning (CLIL) approach to teaching and learning languages in victorian schools. In minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au [Research]. http://hdl.handle.net/11343/55778

Meyer, O. (2013). Introducing the clil-pyramid: Key strategies and principles for CLIL planning and teaching. In Basic Issues in EFL Teaching and Learning. Universitätsverlag Winter.

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Reflection from Critical Friend Review of Draft 1 Design

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Reflection from Critical Friend Review of Draft 1 Design

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From the first round of critical friend review with my research supervisor, a non-CLIL specialist, I have more confidence in CLIL lesson planning and teaching, particularly around embedding the 4Cs framework as well as based on my review of the CLIL literature (Meyer, 2013; Turner, 2013). Cultural considerations are vital when deciding the materials. Meaningful cultural materials can engage students in active discussion, widening their perspectives about different cultures. It is also inclusive, making students feel included in the journey of CLIL.

The use of Bloom's taxonomy significantly helps to design the lesson sequence (Meyer, 2013). I acknowledged that it is challenging to learn the subject content and language together. Therefore, the tasks shall be curated from the lower level of cognitive skills to the higher level to facilitate and scaffold students' learning.

I also reshaped my understanding of talking in the classroom, particularly in the case of the CLIL where 'Communication' is one of the 4Cs framework (Coyle et al., 2010). Even though many teachers argue that talking is bad behaviour in the classroom, there is a need to encourage them to talk in the target language, giving trust and control to students. An approachable solution synthesized from the discussion feedback and the case study literature is assigning a 'chat buddy' (Cross, 2013). They can help each other in tasks in text coding and develop target language conversations using syntax and words.

Lastly, it is worthwhile to mention that the making and documentation of the portfolio are crucial. I can organise my reflections for lateral analysis; and how it may support my professional portfolio for lateral in-school teaching practices as well as a platform to share with other CLIL professionals.

Reference List:

Coyle, D., Hood, P., & Marsh, D. (2010). CLIL : content and language integrated learning. Cambridge University Press.

Cross, R. (2013). Research and evaluation of the content and language integrated learning (CLIL) approach to teaching and learning languages in victorian schools. In minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au [Research]. http://hdl.handle.net/11343/55778

Meyer, O. (2013). Introducing the clil-pyramid: Key strategies and principles for CLIL planning and teaching. In Basic Issues in EFL Teaching and Learning. Universitätsverlag Winter.

Turner, M. (2013). Content-based japanese language teaching in australian schools: Is CLIL a good fit? Japanese Studies, 33(3), 315–330. https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2013.846211

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Reflection:

A major modification of the lesson plan from the 1st draft is refining the tasks into order based on the previous discussion of Bloom's taxonomy and time management of tasks (Meyer, 2013). I acknowledge that the classroom time is limited and fusing the language and content learning in just 1 lesson can be problematic. Therefore, each task shall be timed and developed cognitively to scaffold students' knowledge construction. The next step is to refine these tasks in the PowerPoint presentation to visualise the learning with visual aids and prepare scaffolding printed materials to finish the CLIL tasks.

Reference:

Meyer, O. (2013). Introducing the clil-pyramid: Key strategies and principles for CLIL planning and teaching. In Basic Issues in EFL Teaching and Learning. Universitätsverlag Winter.

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Reflection from Critical Friend Review of Presentation Design

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Reflection from Critical Friend Review of Presentation Design

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For the second round of critical friend review, I had a meaningful conversation with a CLIL researcher and teacher. It facilitates me in sharpening my CLIL understanding and scrutinising the lesson design. The following are some key notes:

1 Making CLIL learning inductive and engaging

The conversations remind me that learning can be inductive, where language learning and content acquiring are synced in a student-centred inquiry. My first draft of the Google slides tends to rely heavily on the teacher-led explicit teaching activities, which loses the great potential of CLIL to be engaging. Communication and doings should have been empowered by using pair work. Just as suggested in Lo (2015), using the 'think, pair, share' strategy can provide some time for students' individual, pair or group work before nominating students to give responses in L2.

The topic introduction can evolve into a mysterious finding journey, where learners conduct vocabulary learning out of curiosity. I, as a teacher, shall facilitate this learning process by embedding connections and learning points to be exploited and elaborated in class. Syntax learning can be modelled in activities like 'I Spy with My Eyes' where the sentence instructions in the game becomes the prompt for students’ visual arts analysis.

2 Balancing the CLIL learning by doing

The discussion also reminds me that I tend to focus on language learning in the draft design without balancing the Visual art content learning. This is something worthwhile paying attention to as initial CLIL teachers. Rather than prescribing a drawing task, it can be divided into smaller steps of art technique experiments with some Chinese instructions, thereby honing on the Visual art understanding embedded in the language scaffoldings. It also makes the learning more engaging.

3 Making CLIL fits for you

During the process of building my resource for my CLIL lesson, I struggled and was unconfident about my Google slide, as I felt uncertain about whether it met the criterion for CLIL or not. This includes self-questioning: Are the tasks fit for their purpose? Does the learning sequence make a good CLIL? Is this not CLIL or just conventional language teaching and content learning? To some extent, this hinders my development of the CLIL teaching plan.

This critical discussion broadened my perception of CLIL learning and the way we teach CLIL. I don’t have to worry about these ‘whether it fits or not’ questions, because different CLIL teachers might have different approaches For my approach, I realised that CLIL is about learning about makings and reinforcements, no matter if it is meaning-making in languages or experimenting with art techniques. It is about making a desirable CLIL that accommodates you and your learners (the best CLIL for your context).

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CLIL Lesson Presentation Draft 2 (Final draft)

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CLIL Lesson Presentation Draft 2 (Final draft)

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Reflections:

This final draft of the presentation slide is modified based on the 2nd critical review feedback and reflection. I also tried it out on my friend before teaching in the classroom. After the trial, I recognised a need to scaffold the learning inquiry by providing more hints and prompts, particularly when introducing new words. Accordingly, when encouraging them to interact and communicate, prompts are designed to help them ask each other questions and answer.

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CLIL Scaffolding material: Conversation script

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CLIL Scaffolding material: Conversation script

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Reflection:

To scaffold the dialogue construction, I decided to design this table and print it out to help the students in their presentation in class. The words in the sentences are colour-coded and labelled in pinyin and English translation to facilitate better pronunciation and meaning-making.

It is revised based on my reflection from the 2nd critical review to scaffold students to develop more communicative expressions when describing the artworks. The sentences included are to be open-ended to allow them to use the structures with different words to express different ideas.

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Reflection:

Overall, the lesson went far better than what I expected. To examine the CLIL teaching and learning experience, I reflected upon the following 5 aspects: (1) activities planning, (2) teaching instructions, (3) learning materials,(4) Assessment and (5) future implications of CLIL teaching:

(1) Activities planning

The CLIL lesson proceeded smoothly, with all learning tasks completed on time. The structured sequence of activities was effective and appropriate in accomplishing the lesson's objectives, which included creating a Chinese landscape painting and presenting the underlying concepts of the artwork.

Most activities effectively maintained student engagement throughout the learning process. The introduction activity, inspired by the game "I Spy with My Eyes" and adapted into the format '你看到了什么？ 我看到了...', were engaging in teaching Chinese landscape painting and introducing the artist Wu Guanzhong. The repetition and visual associations succeeded in facilitating the understanding of new vocabulary. Additionally, the drawing chain tasks encouraged creativity in the visual art practices aspect while strengthening vocabulary retention through instructional connections in the language aspect.

While the CLIL lesson experience is satisfactory, there's an opportunity for enhancement. When introducing new syntaxes in the activity, it's valuable to consider integrating them with existing knowledge in the target language. This approach fosters deeper meaning-making by establishing connections. The engagement of the introduction can also be improved. I may also consider a short video or asking a stimulating question when introducing the topic in my future CLIL lesson.

(2) Teaching Instruction

The CLIL teaching instruction is my weakness, synthesised from my reflection during the teaching. There is a need for me to polish my written and oral instructions.

I acknowledged that I need to enhance the modelling when delivering new words and syntaxes in Chinese, such as '大家跟我一起读一读 - Everyone read after me '. I shall also adopt more feedback in Chinese, such as '很好/非常好 - very good' or ‘马马虎虎 - so so’, to reduce the time to switch back to L1. This would help more effective communicative learning in L2. I shall also make the instructions clearer when using the English Hints. For instance, "Guess the art element is in English 'D_t' " to make learners realise that I would like them to think in English now.

In the delivery aspect, I shall enhance the delivery of new words and sentences, as I tend to rush quickly with instructions in the class. According to (Chi Kim Pham et al., 2023), second-language learners' silence is not emptiness or nothingness, but a learning mode that promotes critical thinking and deeper understanding. Therefore, I shall slow down when introducing new words and sentences, giving students more time to digest the new meanings and concepts. I shall also cue the word when I encourage students to speak words or sentences in the target language. This gives them more confidence and effective in modelling their speaking practices.

(3) Learning Materials

The Google slide's visual presentation was engaging, featuring a range of visual aids such as pictures, effectively enhancing vocabulary acquisition. The colour-coded sentences helped model the grammar practice during the CLIL lessons. Additionally, the repetition of new words throughout the slides facilitated targeted language drills, effectively aligning with the learning objectives.

However, it is noteworthy for teachers to carefully inspect the fonts of the characters, particularly in printouts. There may be wrong character writing that would mislead the learner. The font 'Fangsong' would be more suitable for Chinese learning materials. Otherwise, the teacher might need to spend more time correcting their character writing mistakes in the long term.

Also, reflecting on the teaching experience, the conversation prompts may need to be broken down so it is easier for the learner to use. The format might still be confusing and complicated, especially when the words involved are newly learnt. It might be more effective to scaffold this process by providing the target sentence in fragments and instructing learners to match to construct the sentences.

(4) Assessment

In this CLIL lesson, my focus was on evaluating students' proficiency in understanding and producing a Chinese Landscape painting as well as describing their artwork using newly acquired vocabulary and syntax in Chinese. Accordingly, I integrated formative assessments into the learning tasks to foster a less stressful and more engaging learning environment.

Reflecting on my experience, I recognised that the drawing chain activity effectively assessed students' comprehension of the new vocabulary while also offering opportunities to evaluate their ability to apply art elements in Chinese Landscape painting through creative drawings. This approach highlights the potential for CLIL assessments to be implicitly woven into activities, addressing objectives in both language and content.

To assess the language output, I conducted 1 to 1 verbal check-up during the conversation. It was effective for me as the CLIL teacher to check whether they have mastered the words through speaking.

Additionally, the feedback tickets I designed also helped me evaluate my CLIL teaching from the learner's perspective. The tickets are very useful in informing the effectiveness of my activity planning, showing which parts of the learning are still challenging to comprehend.

(5) Future Implications of the CLIL Teaching

Reflecting on my experience, I acknowledged that this mode of teaching and learning can be beneficial in Chinese teaching in a more authentic and meaningful way. I can adapt this model using the VCAA curriculum to construct a whole-term CLIL sequence aligning with the curriculum requirements.

As the lesson only focused on limited language skills (mostly listening and speaking with a little bit reading), there are also opportunities to experiment with this pedagogy with reading and writing and investigate how to form activities to teach these two skills using CLIL pedagogy.

Reference:

Chi Kim Pham, Su Li Chong, & Wan, R. (2023). A phenomenographic research study of students’ conceptions of silence in face-to-face english as a foreign language learning. SAGE Journal, 13(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440231216343

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EDX707 Self Study Research Research Entry Keynotes Table

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EDX707 Self Study Research Research Entry Keynotes Table