Cognitive discourse functions: a bridge between content, literacy and language for teaching and assessment in CLIL
Author
Morton, Tom
Publication date
2020ISSN
2604-5893
Abstract
As Bilingual Education programmes which adopt a CLIL approach grow, there is an ever-increasing need for conceptual and practical frameworks to help teachers integrate content, literacy and language in teaching and assessment. This article proposes that the construct ‘Cognitive Discourse Function’ or CDF (Dalton-Puffer, 2013) has clear potential for achieving a deeper integration of content, literacy and language than what is common in current practice. Cognitive discourse functions refer to how cognitive processes involved in learning academic content (such as describing, defining, explaining or evaluating) are realised in recurring linguistic patterns in the classroom. As the article argues, these linguistic patterns create a ‘bridge’ to link content, literacy and language and thus avoid the artificial separation of content and language that still pervades much CLIL practice. Reporting on a research study which examined 6th year primary CLIL students’ production of one CDF (definitions) in a Spanish bilingual programme, the article suggests guidelines for how CDFs can inform CLIL practice at the levels of curriculum development, materials design, classroom teaching and assessment.
Document Type
Article
Document version
Published version
Language
English
Subject (CDU)
37 - Education
Keywords
Educació bilingüe
CLIL
Funció del discurs cognitiu
Alfabetització
Valoració
Educación bilingüe
CLIL
Función cognitiva del discurso
Alfabetización
Evaluación
Bilingual education
CLIL
Cognitive discourse functions
Literacy
Assessment
Pages
11
Publisher
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Collection
3; 1
Is part of
CLIL Journal of Innovation and Research in Plurilingual and Pluricultural Education
Citation
Morton, Tom. Cognitive discourse functions: a bridge between content, literacy and language for teaching and assessment in CLIL. CLIL Journal of Innovation and Research in Plurilingual and Pluricultural Education, 2020, 3(1), p. 7-17. Disponible en: <https://revistes.uab.cat/clil/article/view/v3-n1-morton>. Fecha de acceso: 12 sep. 2024. DOI: 10.5565/rev/clil.33
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Rights
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/