1. Engelsk som undervisningspråk i andre fag - teori, empiri, historie
Førsteamanuensis
Glenn Ole Hellekjær

2. What is CLIL?
CLIL – is an umbrella term describing the teaching of non language subjects – such as History, Geography or Physics – in a foreign language, with both language learning and content learning as goals.
Bilingual instruction
Extended language learning
Content based language instruction
TCFL- teaching content in a foreign language
FLAC- foreign languages across the curriculum
Foreign language/English medium instruction
To start with then, what are we talking about?
CLIL – is an umbrella term describing the teaching of non language subjects – such as History, Geography or Physics – in a foreign language, with both language learning and content learning as goals.
Actually, instruction can alternate between the foreign language and the learners’ mother tongue, which is why the term bilingual instruction is often used- and CLIL is still called bilingualer unterricht in Germany. In Norway, when the first mainstream CLIL classes started up in 1993, it was – and still is – referred to as bilingval undervisning.
Of the many other terms I have seen used one is extended language learning– solving the problem of crowded timetables by “extending” foreign language instruction into subject matter classes. Others are content-based language instruction, teaching content in a foreign language (TCFL), and FLAC – the acronym for foreign languages across the curriculum. In European higher education – the term foreign language medium instruction – or in practice, English medium instruction – is used to refer to the thousands of university level content programs taught in a foreign language to domestic and/or foreign students.

3. Immersion
At least 50% of the curriculum is taught through the foreign language
Total and partial immersion
Early, delayed, and late immersion
Immersion is a question of degree – a question of how much the foreign language is used for instruction. A rough and ready definition of an immersion program is when at least 50% of the curriculum is taught through the foreign language.
There are different types of immersion. Total immersion and partial immersion indicate how much the target language is used. Next, depending upon when the programs start we have early, delayed, and late immersion. To exemplify, the perhaps best known form of Immersion is early total immersion in Canada, where children from English speaking areas start in a French language kindergarten, continue with instruction in French at the primary level until instruction in and using English is gradually phased in during the third and fourth grades (see Figure 1).
Genesee, 1987, p.21

4. Principles of CLIL organization
theme-based courses:
“modules”, FL or subject-matter teachers
sheltered-instruction:
a subject matter course, separate class,
subject matter teacher
adjunct-instruction:
linked subject-matter and language courses
used for language development/enhancement
successful for French/German CLIL classes
See LK06 syllabus - opens for cooperation between language and content subjects

5. Why CLIL?
Have your cake and eat it too - extended language instruction
Brinton, Snow & Wesche (1989) claim that “probably the strongest argument for content-based [bilingual] courses comes from research in second language acquisition” (p 3).
Krashen’s Input Hypothesis
Why CLIL?
A more than good enough reason is that CLIL offers one of those rare opportunities to “have your cake and eat it too.” This is because CLIL offers a solution to the perennial mismatch between what parents, teachers, and authorities feel pupils should learn, and the time available to learn it in. In fact, the possibility of freeing up time by moving language instruction into other subjects – might in itself be good enough reason for introducing CLIL. I will, however, focus on language learning.
Brinton, Snow and Wesche (1989) claim that “probably the strongest argument for content-based [bilingual] courses comes from research in second language acquisition" (p 3). This brings us to the perhaps best known proponent of language learning though acquisition, Stephen Krashen, His Input Hypothesis provided an early rational for immersion programs, and although I am sure most of you are quite familiar with it, I can mention that according to the Input Hypothesis, the main element in the language learning process, "the one essential ingredient" for language learning, is what Krashen calls comprehensible input. This can be described as linguistic input just beyond the learner’s level of competence with regard to unfamiliar vocabulary and structures, but still within their ability infer the meaning of and understand from context. This makes providing comprehensible input into one of the main tasks of the language classroom, and language production – speech or writing – the result of the building of competence from sufficient comprehensible input.

6. Krashen on immersion
“What immersion has taught us is that comprehensible subject matter teaching is language teaching -- the subject matter class is a language class if made comprehensible. In fact, the subject matter class may be even better than the language class for language acquisition. In language classes operating according to the principle of comprehensible input, the teachers always face the problem of what to talk about. In [subject matter classes] the topic is automatically provided, it is the subject matter. Moreover, since the students are tested on the subject matter, not the language, a constant focus on the message is assured.“ Krashen 1985, p.16
In this light, it is hardly a surprise when Krashen argues that immersion, or the CLIL content classroom, is in fact an optimum situation for language learning though acquisition. Krashen puts this as follows:
What immersion has taught us is that comprehensible subject matter teaching is language teaching -- the subject-matter class is a language class if made comprehensible. In fact, the subject matter class may be even better than the language class for language acquisition. Krashen 1985:16
Krashen’s claims about the importance of comprehensible input for language learning have not been contested. However, his claim that formal language instruction is not necessary for the development of spoken and written proficiency and for grammatical correctness, that this will appear by itself as the result of sufficient comprehensible input, has been challenged by the work of Merril Swain in particular. I will return to this later.

7. Research evidence Does it work? Mother tongue development
Subject matter learning
Foreign language learning
Norwegian, Canadian, Finnish, and Swedish studies:
Research evidence
As mentioned above, in my review of research evidence on the advantages and disadvantages of CLIL/immersion I decided to focus on three core areas:
1) mother tongue development.,
2) subject matter learning, and
3) foreign language learning
While immersion programs are extensively researched in Canada and the USA, to the point that I in this lecture can only scratch the surface, less has been doe in Europe. That is to say, I found a large number of German and Austrian studies, many on the acquisition of lexis and syntactic structures in CLIL settings, but have not been able to get hold of them in the time available. I have therefore decided to focus on Canadian research on French immersion programs. I will then contrast these findings with Swedish research on CLIL and immersion, using Sweden – so to speak –as a case study. One reason for this is purely practical, a number of critical and illustrative studies proved easily available. The second reason is because the Swedish experience with CLIL offers useful insights for Norway. After all, our cultures are languages are closely related, and our educational systems are fairly similar. But first, lets move to the other side of the Atlantic, to Canada.

8. A Norwegian study-Hellekjær 2005&8
217 students from 7 upper secondary schools (General Studies branch)
178 students had EFL instruction only, 25% Foundation Course, 17% 3 or 5 lessons in second year, 56% Advanced English Course
39 students had a single CLIL subject Modern History or Physics taught in English
Tested with the IELTS Academic Reading Module (24 out of 38 points required)

9. RESULTS
The EFL sub-sample
Band 6 level

10. The CLIL sub-sample
Band 6

11. Immersion in Canada French Immersion in Canada
Several factors lead to the start of French immersion in Canada. After 1969 Official Languages Act introduced an official policy of bilingualism in Canada, parental demand, coupled with dissatisfaction with traditional French as a foreign language instruction, lead to the first immersion programs in the Anglophone areas. In the years to come, a large number of studies, many large-scale, investigated the efficacy of this approach to language instruction. Given the amount of research, I have, for the sake of simplicity, based my presentation of research on advantages and disadvantages to two key studies, Fred Genesee’s Learning Through Two Languages, from 1987, and Elaine Day and Stan Shapton’s 1996 Studies in Immersion Education. Both present large scale, long-term studies that compare immersion students with English and French language control groups, and take care to compare like with like - that is to say - students with comparable socioeconomic backgrounds. Their main tools are the comparison of student grades along with the standardized test scores.

12. First language development 1
Genesee - early total immersion students often lag behind in skills such as reading and spelling during the first phase of the program when all teaching is in French.
They catch up within a year of receiving some instruction in English,
Approach parity with the English language control groups by their third year even though spelling can remain a problem for a year or so
4 & 6th graders - write at least as well as the English control groups
First language development
To start with first language development, Genesee found that early total immersion students often lag behind in skills such as reading and spelling during the first phase of the program when all teaching is in French. However, they catch up within a year of receiving some instruction in English, and by their third year approaching parity with the English language control groups even though spelling can remain a problem for a year or so. Genesee also cites a number of studies of writing indicating that for instance immersion 4th and 6th graders come to write at least as well as the control groups students, In fact, the studies indicate that their writing even displayed a more varied vocabulary and sensitivity to word meaning, used more complex sentences, and had no more morphological, orthographic and syntactic errors than did the texts of their English control group counterparts.

13. First language development 2
Day & Shapton - about French immersion students in British Columbia - domain referenced curriculum tests of English reading, mathematics, and science show that the immersion students’ performance is higher than the average performance of non-immersion students in the same districts.
“French immersion students performed better than students in samples specifically chosen to control for general academic and socio-economic background differences” (p. 12).
Day & Shapton’s findings, which are based on the about French immersion students in British Columbia, reflect Genesees’ findings. On the basis of domain referenced curriculum tests of English reading, mathematics, and science, they found that the immersion students’ performance was higher than the average performance of non-immersion students in the same districts. In fact, they found that “French immersion students performed better than students in samples specifically chosen to control for general academic and socio-economic background differences” (p. 12).

14. Subject matter learning
Genesee - early immersion students and late immersion students with core French instruction throughout the elementary grades experience no lags in achievement as a result of receiving academic instruction in French.
There is some evidence that late immersion students with limited prior exposure to French experience some “underachievement” in academic subjects, but that this is rectified rather quickly (p. 43).
Subject matter learning
Day & Shapton’s positive findings with regard to subject matter learning mentioned above are corroborated by Genesee. He sums up his results as follows:
The results of standardized testing in mathematics and science indicate that early IM students and late IM students with core French instruction throughout the elementary grades experience no lags in achievement as a result of receiving academic instruction in French. These results are confirmed by locally devised achievement tests in geography, history, math and science. There is some evidence that late IM students with limited prior exposure to French experience some “underachievement” in academic subjects, but that this is rectified rather quickly (p. 43).
Before continuing to foreign language learning I would like to mention a 2005 Finnish study, by Aini-Kristiina Jäppinen. It is called “Thinking and Content Learning of Mathematics and Science as Cognitional development in Content and Language Learning (CLIL): Teaching Through a Foreign Language in Finland.”

15. A 2005 Finnish study Jäppinen 2005
669 Finnish students aged 7 to of these were taught in English, French, or Swedish.
Mathematics and Science
“The main conclusion of the study is that a demanding and language-enriched environment has, in general, a positive effect on the Finnish mainstream learner’s cognitional development” (p. 163).
Strictly speaking, Jäppinen’s study does not examine how well content, in this case mathematics and science, is taught in CLIL programs. Instead, it looks at cognitional development in these two subjects, that is to say the students understanding, use, and application of concepts and conceptual structures taught through a foreign language. Her sample comprises 669 Finnish students aged 7 to of these were taught in English; French, or Swedish. The control group was, of course, taught in Finnish.
Jäppinen sums up her findings as follows:
… Finnish CLIL learners seem to attain, over time, the necessary abilities and cognitional level. The main conclusion of the study is that a demanding and language-enriched environment has, in general, a positive effect on the Finnish mainstream learner’s cognitional development (p. 163).
Well, lets go back over the Baltic and Atlantic for a moment and look at foreign language development.

16. Foreign language proficiency
Genesee - “Evaluations of late [immersion] students’ French language proficiency have tended to find the same pattern of results as in the case of early total immersion students; namely, they score consistently better than [English control] students on all measures of French, and they are more likely to attain native levels of proficiency in comprehension skills and less than native levels in production skills or in their mastery of discrete aspects of French, be they phonological, lexical, or syntactic” (p. 49).
Foreign language development
Both Genesee and Day & Shapton, as well as most other studies I have come across, are unanimous in that all forms of immersion lead to gains in foreign language proficiency. Genesee sums up the findings of his and other studies as follows:
Evaluations of late IM student’s French language proficiency have tended to find the same pattern of results as in the case of early total immersion students; namely, they score consistently better than EC students on all measures of French, and they are more likely to attain native levels of proficiency in comprehension skills and less than native levels in production skills or in their mastery of discrete aspects of French, be they phonological, lexical, or syntactic (p. 49).

17. SPRINT in Sweden
“språk och innhållsintegrerad inlärning och undervisning”
The Swedish National Agency for Education, Skolverket
2001 Skolverket report on SPRINT in Sweden
SPRINT in Sweden
First, I would like to introduce another name for CLIL – SPRINT. This is an acronym based on “språk och innhållsintegrerad inlärning og undervisning”, a literal translation of CLIL to Swedish. The first Swedish mainstream SPRINT class started up as early as 1977, at the upper secondary level. It and was joined by about ten more during the eighties, and after a 1992 school law increased school autonomy the numbers skyrocketed. A 1999 survey showed that the numbers had increased to 122 upper secondary schools (23%) and 169 (4%) compulsory schools (Nixon 2000). About 75% used English, 8% German, and 6% French. Expansion has continued, but no recent figures are available.
All in all, the experience with SPRINT in Sweden is, and has been, positive. The many small-scale studies that have been carried out, summarized in a 2001 Skolverket report, indicate that the programs are popular, and that they tend to attract more ambitious and academically inclined students, to the point that Swedes worry about elitism. The general impression is, like in Canada, that SPRINT improves language proficiency, although there, as yet, is no empirical backing for this impression. Second, there is much to indicate that content learning is not impaired, or at least not much, and the majority of studies indicate that Swedish does not suffer. What does seem to be a problem is the content teachers’ language proficiency. Nixon (2000, 2001) mentions that students often feel frustrated by the uneven quality of the content teachers’ English, while the content teachers often feel constrained by having to use a foreign language and that this reduces the quality of their teaching- something I will get back to. First, however, I will present what I consider to be four of the more interesting, and at the same time, critical studies.

18. Vocabulary Acquisition
Liss Kerstin Sylvén (2004). Teaching in English or English Teaching? On the effects of content and language integrated learning on Swedish learners' incidental vocabulary acquisition. Ph D thesis.
longitudinal study - whether CLIL students acquire a larger and more varied English vocabulary than the traditional student
pre and posttests along with control groups, with a sample comprising 363 students from four schools.
Sylven on incidental vocabulary acquisition
Another Ph D I would like to mention is Liss Kerstin Sylvens thesis Teaching in English or English Teaching? On the effects of content and language integrated learning on Swedish learners' incidental vocabulary acquisition. This is a longitudinal study that examines whether CLIL students acquire a larger and more varied English vocabulary than the traditional student. Sylvén uses an approach with pre and posttests along with control groups, and her sample comprises 363 students from four schools. Classes were tested three times, each test including four different lexical tests.

19. Sylvén - Results
the CLIL groups scored significantly higher in the pretest
both controls and CLIL students show improved results - CLIL less than expected:
Students who receive English input elsewhere than school are those who score the best, regardless of group. This is especially true of students who read English texts on their own, outside school (p. 224).
Sylven reports that the CLIL groups scored significantly higher in the pretest, not unexpectedly since CLIL courses tend to attract motivated students who are confident of their English proficiency.
Over time, both controls and CLIL students show improved results, the latter most clearly. However, Sylven admits the difference was smaller than she expected, and that the questionnaires showed that other factors than CLIL, extracurricular reading in particular, also contributed:
Students who receive English input elsewhere than school are those who score the best, regardless of group. This is especially true of students who read English texts on their own, outside school (p. 224).
Again, keep in mind that this is a well - designed but, still somewhat small study. The next, and error analysis study is roughly comparable in size, and has bearing on the development of the mother tongue.

20. Error Analysis no 1- Swedish
Alvtörn (2000) Språk- och innhallsintegrerad undervisning under gymnasiet – en fallstudie.
Compares comparable texts of 3 CLIL classes with 2 control groups
SPRINT classes differed significantly from the controls with regard to errors in word division, grammatical errors, word choice, and semantic and stylistic errors.
Many errors were due to interference from English
This first error analysis study, an undergraduate paper, examines the frequency and type of errors made in written Swedish. Lovisa Alvtörn (2000) compares the Swedish texts of three CLIL classes from three different upper secondary schools, with those of two control groups. All respondents are senior classes from the Swedish Gymnasieskola – comparable to Norway’s General Studies branch. The essays analyzed were from National tests of Swedish developed by Skolverket, the Swedish National Agency of Education.
Alvtörn, started by selecting essays with comparable grades, and controlled for this by analyzing linguistic and conceptual complexity. She ended up with essays of comparable quality for four of the classes. The Swedish texts from the fifth class, an IB class, were not comparable and had to be analyzed separately. Alvtörn’s analysis showed that the SPRINT classes differed significantly from the controls with regard to errors in word division, grammatical errors, word choice, and semantic and stylistic errors. Further analysis also revealed that many of the errors made by the Sprint classes, the IB class in particular, were due to interference from English.

21. Error Analysis no 2- Swedish
Hansson(2000) Språk- och innhallsintegrerad innlärning och undervisning - very similar to Alvtörn’s study
Compares the texts of 1 SPRINT class with 1 control group
The SPRINT class does not differ significantly from the controls with regard to errors in word division, word choice, and semantic and stylistic errors, and they produce markedly fewer grammar errors than the control group
But -the SPRINT group wrote more advanced essays with more varied language
Hansson does not control for background variables or grades
Since SPRINT students are usually volunteers, and highly motivated students, parity can mean that SPRINT does lead to more errors since better students would be expected to make fewer
Hansson’ 2004 undergraduate paper, Språk- och innhallsintegrerad innlärning och undervisning - is almost identical to Alvtörns.
However, she compares the texts of only 1 SPRINT class with 1 control group. Furthermore, Hansson concludes that the SPRINT class does not differ significantly from the control group with regard to errors in word division, word choice, and semantic and stylistic errors, and they actually have markedly fewer grammar errors than the control group.
But - Hansson mentions the SPRINT group wrote more advanced essays with more varied language. Since she does not control for background variables or grades, an entirely different conclusion to her paper might be merited.
This is, sinceSPRINT students are usually volunteers, and fairly select, parity can mean that SPRINT does lead to more errors. Wouldnt it be reasonable to expect better students to make fewer errors?
In fact, I feel that the slect nature of the SPRINT students is methodological issue that few of the Swedish studies, with the exception of Alvtörn’s, addresses.

22. What about Norwegian/L1?
Norwegian teachers often feel threatened by CLIL
Canadian and Swedish studies show little or no negative impact on L1 proficiency
Canada - an initial slowdown in L1 development in early immersion
Sweden - a marginal increase in errors in L1 writing, often interference errors, spelling, word division etc.

23. Summing up CLIL is not harmful It improves language learning
Works for weaker as well as stronger pupils (language majority!)
Requires the rethinking of how you teach your subjects
Requires the rethinking of how you teach EFL courses to CLIL students
Often leads to school innovation/development
It is fun teaching!!

24. Reserve slides

25. Starting up with CLIL ORGANIZING
Information to parents, pupils, colleagues
Long preparation time, start early
Important to find good textbooks, consult schools with CLIL programs
My experience --> initial skepticism - recruit from several classes, later you can use “survivors” for recruiting
Continuous need for comforting-troubleshooting

26. Teaching CLIL is more than just teaching through a foreign language
Language constrains both teachers and pupils
Necessary to maximize redundancy, in particular through good visual aids
Do not expect them to be able to take notes during instruction

27. Bridge the FL proficiency gap
Student FL proficiency
generally inadequate
generally insufficient, BICS not CALP, disguises proficiency gap
Swain and Richardsen 1997
Conceptually new X
Linguist-ically new
Linguistically familiar x
Conceptually familiar

28. How did I taught CLIL History
Go slow to start with
Standardized lessons, glossaries
Pre-reading
Study skills/ reading skills necessary- read for meaning
Group work as follow up
Tests - let them choose language, encourage use of FL but do not insist, particularly in writing
Prepare/drill for examinations
my experience with a History examination
DRAMATIC LANGUAGE LEARNING GAINS and FUN TEACHING!

29. Goals – and for who?
Additive immersion - majority language students - bilingualism as goal
Submersion - subtractive immersion - language minority - assimilation and monolingualism as goal
Maintenance/heritage language programs- Sami in Kautokeino
Colin Baker (2001) Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, chapter 9.
To categorize according to goals for the programs – early, total, French immersion is an example of what is called additive immersion, immersion where children from the language majority learn an additional language and where bilingualism is the goal.
Submersion, on the other hand, also referred to subtractive immersion, is used to describe programs where children from minority groups are to learn the majority language and where the goal is monolingualism and assimilation. This can be contrasted to the maintenance or heritage language immersion programs, for instance in Kautokeino municipality in Finnmark County, where schools use a % mix of Sami and Norwegian with a goal of maintaining- even reviving- the Sami language.
I would like to end this description of different types of immersion programs to move on to Europe. For those who are interested in further detail I refer to chapter 9 in Colin Baker’s 2001 book Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism.