Academic Language Proficiency: basis for all language and literary education
Submitted by:
Johannes Vollmer
Abstract:
The paper will first demonstrate and explain why academic language proficiency is of such importance for subject learning and success in school. It will look at the different approaches and dimensions of describing academic language underlying all comprehension and production across the curriculum, not just in the teaching and learning of L1 (e.g. Beacco et al. 2105; Thürmann/Vollmer, 2017). In particular, it will focus on the use and the teachability of Cognitive Discourse Functions (CDF) as a central part of thinking and meaning-making and of building up overall genre competence in the L1 and L2 classroom – empowering students as active participants and future democratic citizens.
The research presented will deal with the issue of how relevant the handling of discourse functions for success in school is. In trying to answer this question, basic types of CDFs will be illustrated that have been identified, naming the specific functions they serve (such as Explaining, Evaluating or Hypothesizing; cf. Vollmer 2011, Dalton-Puffer 2016). Based on data from L1 or L2 classes in Germany/Austria, we will argue that CDFs are the major tools for structuring and acquiring new knowledge on the part of the learner (be that knowledge literary or non-literary, be it subject matter based or (meta)linguistic in nature). They also serve to organize exchange about specific aspects of knowledge in meaningful terms.
Finally, we will show that CDFs can best be comprehended and acquired by students when the specific content of a lesson is made very clear and can be followed by everyone. It can be empirically supported that the spontaneous use of some types of CDFs is inherent in all L1 classes, whereas others (more complex types of CDFs) will have to be explicitly addressed and taught within courses of L1, especially in writing.
Beacco, J.-C., Fleming, M., Goullier, F., Thürmann, E. & Vollmer, H. J. (2015). The Language Dimension in all Subjects. A Handbook for Curriculum Development and Teacher Training. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. See http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/Source/The%20Language%20Dimension%20in%20all%20Subjects.pdf (15.2.2017).
Dalton-Puffer, Christiane (2016). Cognitive Discourse Functions: Specifying an Integrative Interdisciplinary Construct. In Tarja Nikula et al. (eds.), Conceptualising Integration in CLIL and Multilingual Education (pp. 29-54). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Thürmann, Eike & Vollmer, Johannes (2017). Sprachliche Dimensionen fachlichen Lernens. In: Becker-Mrotzek, Michael & Roth, Hans-Joachim (Hrsg.) (2016), Sprachliche Bildung – Grundlagen und Handlungsfelder (pp. 299-320). Köln: Mercator-Institut für Sprachförderung und Deutsch als Zweitsprache/Münster: Waxmann.
Vollmer, Helmut Johannes (2011). Schulsprachliche Kompetenzen: Zentrale Diskursfunktionen. http://www.home.uni-osnabrueck.de/hvollmer/VollmerDF-Kurzdefinitionen.pdf [15.12.2016].