Topics and concepts that form the syllabus of a subject

Contributor(s): Matthew Haughn

Web 2.0 is the current state of online technology as it compares to the early days of the Web, characterized by greater user interactivity and collaboration, more pervasive network connectivity and enhanced communication channels.

One of the most significant differences between Web 2.0 and the traditional World Wide Web (WWW, retroactively referred to as Web 1.0) is greater collaboration among Internet users, content providers and enterprises. Originally, data was posted on Web sites, and users simply viewed or downloaded the content. Increasingly, users have more input into the nature and scope of Web content and in some cases exert real-time control over it.

The social nature of Web 2.0 is another major difference between it and the original, static Web. Increasingly, websites enable community-based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration. Types of social media sites and applications include forums, microblogging, social networking, social bookmarking, social curation, and wikis. 

The History of Web 2.0
The foundational components of Web 2.0 are the advances enabled by Ajax and other applications such as RSS and Eclipse and the user empowerment that they support.

Darcy DiNucci, an information architecture consultant, coined the term “Web 2.0 In her 1999 article, "Fragmented Future”:

Tim O'Reilly is generally credited with popularizing the term, following a conference dealing with next-generation Web concepts and issues held by O'Reilly Media and MediaLive International in 2004. O'Reilly Media has subsequently been energetic about trying to copyright "Web 2.0" and holds an annual conference of the same name. 

Web 2.0 controversy
Critics of Web 2.0 maintain that it makes it too easy for the average person to affect online content, which can impact the credibility, ethics and even legality of web content. The extent of data sharing and gathering also raises concerns about privacy and security. Defenders of Web 2.0 point out that these problems have existed ever since the infancy of the medium and that the alternative -- widespread censorship based on ill-defined elitism -- would be far worse. The final judgment concerning any web content, say the defenders, should be made by end users alone. Web 2.0 reflects evolution in that direction.

Web 2.0 technologies
Most of the technologies used in delivering web 2.0 are rich Web technologies, such as Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight and JavaScript (in addition to Ajax, RSS and Eclipse).  Web 2.0 applications are often based on the decentralized download methodology that made BitTorrent so successful, in which each downloader of content is also a server, sharing the workload and making heavily demanded content more accessible that it would be in the centralized model where demand can lead to overwhelmed servers and pages.

Manufacturing 2.0
The integration of Web 2.0 communication and collaboration applications into traditional manufacturing practices and processes has been dubbed Manufacturing 2.0. Manufacturing 2.0 takes typical Web 2.0 apps and services and incorporates them into every stage of development and production. The use of these technologies and tools facilitates greater collaboration and sharing and referencing of information in a business, ideally leading to better thought out design and more efficient production.

Enterprise 2.0
Similarly, the inclusion of Web 2.0 technologies into an enterprise’s business processes, intranet and extranet is sometimes referred to as Enterprise 2.0. Most enterprise 2.0 followers use a combination of blogs, social networking and social collaborative tools as well as free, paid and homegrown technologies. The term Enterprise 2.0 was coined by Harvard Business School Associate Professor Andrew McAfee in an MIT Sloan Management Review he named "Enterprise 2.0: The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration."

Web 2.0 suicide
So synonymous with Web 2.0 is social networking that the deletion of one’s social networking presences throughout the Internet is referred to as Web 2.0 suicide. There are web applications designed to facilitate the process, such as the free service Web 2.0 suicide machine. The application attempts to purge user info on some of the most common social networking presence points: Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter before adding the user to the Social Network Suiciders group on Facebook and signing them out.

The future of Web 2:0: Web 3.0
Some industry pundits are already claiming that Web 2.0 is merely a transitional phase between the early days of the World Wide Web's existence and a more established phase they're calling Web 3.0, also known as the Semantic Web.

The creator of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, suggests that the Web as a whole can be designed more intelligently to be more intuitive about how to serve a user's needs. Berners-Lee observes that although search engines index much of the Web's content, they have little ability to select the pages that a user really wants or needs. He suggests developers and authors, singly or in collaboration, can use self-descriptions or similar techniques so that new context-aware programs can better classify the information that might be relevant to a user. Web 3.0 will involve the publishing of web resources in languages intended for data (such as XML, RDF, OWL and XHTML) to supplement them with metadata that will allow software to analyze, classify and deliver content for more personal relevance. The Semantic Annotations for Web Services group at W3C is defining the specifications for the Web 3.0.

Ubiquitous Computing
The model of Web 3.0’s machine-classified, data sharing world creates a basis for ubiquitous computing. Ubiquitous computing, also known as pervasive computing, is a scenario in which embedded processing in everyday objects enables intercommunication and unobtrusive data sharing throughout the user’s environment. The concept overlaps with that of the Internet of Things (IoT), in which almost any entity or object imaginable can be outfitted with a unique identifier (UID) and the ability to exchange data automatically. A modest example of this concept is a fridge that sends a grocery lists to one’s smartphone.

Teachers who teach their subject in a second language often have to collaborate. Of course we know that all teachers need to collaborate for one reason or another, but CLIL teachers need it more than most. I’d like to list the people they need to collaborate with and the reasons they need to do so.

1) Firstly, subject teachers need to collaborate with other subject teachers who are teaching in L2. The reason is that they are often not sure that they are doing the right thing. Teaching a subject in a second language is not easy: it requires a specialist pedagogical expertise. Teachers have to think about things which they don’t have to think about when working in their L1. They have to know how to talk in an especially comprehensible way, how to support learners when they listen to them, how to teach a lot of academic vocabulary, how to help learners talk back to them in the plenary classroom and talk in English in groups, how to read complex subject textbooks and write about new subject concepts in L2. Few subject teachers are trained to do this and they often feel the need to talk through with a colleague what they do in the classroom. Collaboration between subject teachers working in L2 can be very helpful: teachers can exchange ideas, trial techniques, report back to each other, develop strategies which are seen to work. Within the framework of formal school policy on raising achievement in L2-medium subjects, this kind of working together can develop official school practice and increase effectiveness – and ultimately grades – in L2-medium teaching.

Secondly, schools may wish to collaborate with each other for similar reasons. Schools differ widely in their capacity to attain high levels of achievement in subjects taught through L2. Some are clearly good at it; others not. It’s normally a matter of expertise: some schools have accumulated, documented and sustained it; others are new to it. In the absence of teacher-education in CLIL – which is rare – it is crucial to go to the best schools to find out how to do it. Schools and teachers which feel the need to get experience will do well to form a collaborative partnership with other schools in the neighbourhood – or even further afield, perhaps via the internet or by means of international partnerships – in order to become better at what they are doing.

Thirdly, the most crucial form of collaboration is between subject teachers and language teachers. Where both learners and subject teachers are adequately fluent in English, it is possible that neither needs help from an English language teacher. This situation may occur in countries with high ambient levels of English language ability. However, it often happens that in English-medium education programmes where levels of language ability amongst both teachers and learners are dangerously low, English language teachers have not been involved with the programme. They are not active either in helping subject colleagues with their teaching or in orientating their English curriculum to the language demands of English-medium subject learning. This can happen even in large-scale, system-wide, English-medium subject programmes. For example, there is evidence that in the Malaysian EM maths and science programme, the English curriculum, English language textbooks and English language teacher-training were not re-orientated to the language demands of EM science and maths. To neglect the crucial positive influence of English teaching on English-medium subject teaching, where that influence could contribute to raising EM subject achievement, is to put the success of such a project at risk.

In smaller, selective EM/CLIL projects such as are found in Europe, the role of English teachers can be crucial. Some forms of CLIL, for example, low-risk projects which may only offer one out of three hours of EM subject teaching per week over 20 weeks, it is common for English teachers to be full collaborative partners with a subject teacher in the project. They may be its instigators. In addition, the subject teacher may feel sufficiently unconfident in their English language ability so that the project can only run if an English language teacher in centrally involved. In this case, both teachers collaborate on a range of functions: co-planning of a scheme of work, co-planning of lessons, co-construction of materials, co-assessment of performance, co-evaluation of the project as a whole. Sometimes both teachers co-teach in the same classroom, though expense normally precludes this. This kind of project is especially common in Italy; the extent and rich professional rewards of this form of collaboration are a hallmark of this kind of CLIL.

In more high-risk CLIL programmes where the whole of a subject is taught in English, perhaps for some years, collaboration with an English teacher is also important. There are two main ways in which the expertise of the English teacher can be brought to bear on the EM subject programme. The first is by helping learners. English teachers can do this by orientating the English language syllabus – in respect of the CLIL programme – partly to the language demands of the subject curriculum. Subject-teaching makes language demands on learners. Some of these demands are specific to the subject and can only be met by the subject teacher. Subject-specific vocabulary is a case in point, as are some aspects of subject-specific written and spoken discourse and learning activities. Some subject language demands, however, are not specific to the subject but specific to school learning; that is, they are cross-curricular in their application. This is the case with a lot of cross-curricular academic vocabulary at a middle level of specificity; it is also true of some more generic forms of formal written discourse and of language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) for school use. Language teachers can teach these skills better then subject teachers; and subject teachers feel burdened by the necessity to teach them. The language curriculum can thus be re-orientated to accommodate these academic language skills and English teachers can accustom themselves – or indeed be trained – to teach them. This orientation of language teachers to the subject curriculum is at the heart of the way English language support for minority language users in the UK curriculum, for example, defines itself. EAL (English as an Additional Language) is largely a form of language support for subject learning, and EAL teachers are specialists in providing learners with the means of meeting the language demands of the subject curriculum. Language teachers within CLIL projects have not yet got used to seeing themselves in this role, but there is every reason why they should.

The second way in which language teachers can influence good practice in CLIL projects is by helping their subject colleagues. They have some of the skills to do so. They can, for instance, advise subject teachers on their own language use, on the language demands of their subjects and on the kinds of language support practice which the subject teachers can incorporate into their lessons. They can also work with them on planning schemes of work, making materials and assessment. Language teachers, however, are not used to doing this and they do not by training possess all the skills necessary. They have to be open-minded, undaunted by subject contents and learn some new tricks. In addition, this kind of collaboration has to be paid for: it must be accounted for in teachers’ timetables.

Collaboration can be an informal, bottom-up process: teachers work with each other if they get on well and if the enterprise is professionally interesting. However, this form of collaboration is rather hit-and-miss. A school with ambitious CLIL pretensions will wish to instigate formal administrative frameworks for collaboration which set out the purposes, means and requirements of the collaborating parties and acknowledge this formally and even contractually. School policy on CLIL development will require collaboration to take place and set out objectives and performance indicators which aim to raise EM subject achievement in specified ways. Formal collaborative planning agreements of this kind are also common in the UK EAL sector where they go by the name of ‘partnership teaching’. These collaborative frameworks are not yet common in CLIL contexts, but they are necessary wherever schools need to maintain standards in subjects taught through the medium of L2.

Collaboration in CLIL is not as common as it should be. In low-risk, language-led projects - often started by a language teacher - collaboration is widespread. But in subject-led CLIL, where a relatively high language level of teachers and learners is crucial in order that subject standards be maintained, it is too rare. In system-wide programmes in which every child in the school may be learning maths or science through L2, and where the language ability of both teachers and learners may be dangerously low, you need to use every weapon in your armoury to achieve acceptable levels of subject knowledge. In these contexts, English language teachers need to play as full a part as possible.

Experts such as Jim Cummins differentiate between social and academic language acquisition. Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) are language skills needed in social situations. It is the day-to-day language needed to interact socially with other people. English language learners (ELLs) employ BIC skills when they are on the playground, in the lunch room, on the school bus, at parties, playing sports and talking on the telephone. Social interactions are usually context embedded.
1) They occur in a meaningful social context.
2)They are not very demanding cognitively.
3)The language required is not specialized.
These language skills usually develop within six months to two years after arrival in the U.S.

Problems arise when teachers and administrators think that a child is proficient in a language when they demonstrate good social English. 

Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency
 CALP refers to formal academic learning. This includes listening, speaking, reading, and writing about subject area content material. This level of language learning is essential for students to succeed in school. Students need time and support to become proficient in academic areas. This usually takes from five to seven years. Recent research (Thomas & Collier, 1995) has shown that if a child has no prior schooling or has no support in native language development, it may take seven to ten years for ELLs to catch up to their peers. 

Academic language acquisition isn't just the understanding of content area vocabulary. It includes skills such as comparing, classifying, synthesizing, evaluating, and inferring.
Academic language tasks are context reduced. Information is read from a textbook or presented by the teacher. As a student gets older the context of academic tasks becomes more and more reduced.

The language also becomes more cognitively demanding. New ideas, concepts and language are presented to the students at the same time.
Jim Cummins also advances the theory that there is a common underlying proficiency (CUP) between two languages. Skills, ideas and concepts students learn in their first language will be transferred to the second language.