New Perspectives in Science Education

This article discusses the use of redundancy talk strategies in relation to science education when a Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is adopted. CLIL is the acronym adopted in Europe to identify programmes that provide the teaching and learning of non-linguistic school subjects through the medium of a foreign language. The perspective of this research is to empirically examine CLIL through the lens of science education research. In particular, we focus on redundancy strategies which are here understood as discourse strategies that comprise restatements (i.e. verbatim repetitions), and reformulations (i.e. repetitions with variation or paraphrases). In particular, the research question is concerned with the following: in what ways are redundancy strategies implemented in a CLIL classroom setting to foster opportunities for learning science? Teaching and learning are here framed within a sociocultural perspective and language is conceptualized as a resource instead of a barrier. As part of an on-going multiple case-study research project, this paper incorporates a qualitative approach to investigating science classroom talk at upper secondary level in science classrooms that implemented a CLIL approach. The empirical data consists of observations and audio recordings of 34 science class periods in German and Italian schools adopting a CLIL approach for learning biology through English. First, thematic analysis of the transcripts and field notes was used to discern redundancy strategies. Second, a fine-grained discursive analysis revealed how, with what purpose and with what effects those strategies were implemented. The outcomes suggest that redundancy strategies in science CLIL classrooms are implemented both by students and teachers. Mainly, students use repetitions unconsciously as a stalling communicative strategy. By contrast, teachers use them deliberately and extensively with different purposes. In dialogues, reformulations and restatements are a common feature of both teachers’ questions and feedbacks. Reformulations, in particular, were observed to support the development of academic language. In monologues, paraphrasing and repetitions were observed to foster both content understanding and language use. Overall, redundancy strategies were a common feature of the observed science CLIL classrooms and a versatile and powerful tool to promote opportunities for learning science.

Keywords: CLIL, classroom talk, language as resource, redundancy strategies;