Discourse in content and language integrated learning (CLIL) classrooms (review)

In recent years, an increasing number of second language researchers, many of them based in North American immersion programs, have called for a greater focus on language learning goals within content-based language instruction programs. They argue that these programs have stagnated since their inception, neither adapting to evolving theories about the delivery of communicative language instruction nor shifting their program structure to accommodate changing student demographics (Cummins, 2007; Fortune, Tedick, & Walker, 2008; Lyster, 2007). Dalton-Puffer's new book extends this criticism to Austria's content and language integrated learning (CLIL) programs and contends that they continue to rely heavily on outdated implicit language learning theories and to emphasize content goals at the expense of language acquisition goals.

The book is based on a study analyzing classroom discourse in CLIL programs. It casts a wide net regarding the quantity of data gathered, the approaches to discourse analysis used, and the aspects of classroom discourse analyzed. The study comprises audiotaped classroom interactions recorded over 15 months from 10 teachers' classrooms at 7 public secondary schools. Dalton-Puffer employs the structural functional model, conversation analysis, and speech act analysis approaches to discourse analysis. Finally, she analyzes her data for teachers' and students' use of questions, academic language functions, politeness practices, repair, and feedback.

Chapter 1 introduces Austrian CLIL programs. Dalton-Puffer notes that there has been little academic research on CLIL conducted outside of North America and states that her study's aim is to further the development of explicit curricular language goals within CLIL programs where such linguistic goals remain unspecified.

Chapter 2 examines the classroom as a discourse space and clearly explains how and why Dalton-Puffer used three frameworks of analysis in her study. This chapter also challenges the view that differences between classroom and non-classroom discourse make classroom discourse inauthentic. Rather, Dalton-Puffer argues that classroom interaction styles, such as the pattern of teacher initiation, student response, teacher feedback, serve a pedagogical purpose, a theme she returns to in Chapter 4, where she examines the general patterns and mechanisms of interactive talk in content teaching.

Chapters 5 to 8 discuss the study's findings, which include the observation that neither teachers nor students engaged in extended discourse in their interactions. Teachers used questions to convey content and to structure classroom discourse, but the majority of their questions targeted facts without creating opportunities for students' extended output. Meanwhile, students asked few questions, rarely requested clarification of content, and produced very little academic language in the form of definitions, explanations, or hypotheses. Finally, in terms of error correction, most teachers' classroom behaviour contradicted their stated beliefs about error correction.

Chapters 9 and 10 extend the study's findings to practical classroom applications. Dalton-Puffer notes the strong hold that passive input models of communicative language teaching still have on CLIL teachers' language learning theories. For instance, the teachers in her study ranked listening as the most important method for language learning. Judging by the teachers' theoretical perspectives, along with students' lack of exposure to or engagement in varied linguistic forms within CLIL classrooms, Dalton-Puffer concludes, 'CLIL classrooms have no discernible advantage over EFL classes' (p. 286). She therefore argues that CLIL language goals should focus on the development of academic language or other forms that communicative, content-based language instruction is uniquely capable of promoting.

This book acts as a good introduction to classroom discourse analysis in that it is accessibly and engagingly written and offers a comprehensive overview of basic concepts in classroom interactional discourse and analysis approaches. Its arguments in favour of increased linguistic emphasis in CLIL are highly relevant to a wide range of communicative language programs. However, one of the book's unique strengths – the breadth of analytic approaches and linguistic forms it investigates – is also its weakness, and the analysis of these linguistic forms is at times rather uneven.

In addition, although the book's stated aim is to set out...