Impact of genre-based pedagogy on students’ academic literacy development in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)

Abstract

With increasing globalisation in recent decades, the status of English as the lingua franca has been widely recognised. CLIL, which is characterised by using a second/foreign language (L2) as the language of instruction in content subjects, has emerged as an appealing approach which enables students to learn an L2 (very often English) and content knowledge simultaneously. However, it has been shown that the academic language involved in learning content subjects poses difficulties for L2 learners. Therefore, it is essential for CLIL teachers to provide more explicit instruction and scaffolding with regard to academic language. Grounded on systematic functional linguistics, genre-based pedagogy emphasises contextualised language learning and use to achieve social purposes. Such an approach has been widely applied to L2 writing instruction, English for Specific Purposes courses and teaching school genres to disadvantaged students in Anglophone countries. Recently, CLIL researchers in Europe have also adopted genre-based pedagogy to design curriculum and scaffold L2 learners’ academic literacy in content subject lessons. This study aims to apply such an approach to CLIL contexts in Asia (Hong Kong) and investigate its impact on students’ learning of both content knowledge and academic literacy. One Integrated Humanities teacher and two Grade 9 classes in an English-medium school in Hong Kong participated in this study. The teacher used the materials designed based on the genre-based pedagogy to teach one unit, in which students were expected to write an argumentative essay. Comparing the essays collected before and after the intervention, the students, particularly those who were relatively weaker in English, produced better argumentative essays in terms of logical development of ideas and use of academic language. Analysis of lesson observations and interviews also showed that students seemed to welcome such an approach. These findings therefore demonstrate the effectiveness of genre-based pedagogy in facilitating content and language integrated teaching.