Journal of Immersion and Content-Based Language Education - Online First

Dual language and immersion (DLI) teaching requires knowledge and pedagogical skills focused on language and content integration (e.g., Cammarata & Tedick, 2012; Lyster, 2007; Tedick & Cammarata, 2023). Recent scholarship has begun to articulate how best to prepare DLI teachers with such knowledge and skills (e.g., Cammarata & Haley, 2017; Tedick et al., 2024; Tedick & Zilmer, 2018). This study adds to this work by exploring how a DLI-specific teacher assessment rubric mediates the learning process. Researchers created a DLI-specific rubric to aid pre-service teacher candidates (TCs) in developing skills related to content and language integration. The case study explores one TC and one supervisor’s experiences with the rubric. Data sources include audio “diaries” and video-recordings of post-observation conferences between the two participants. Qualitative inductive analysis led to sociocultural concepts (Vygotsky, 1978) as explanatory tools for understanding the role of the rubric in the TC’s learning and supervisor’s mentoring.

The present quasi-experimental study explores the effects of instruction on secondary students’ scientific argumentative writing in a Basque medium of instruction program. Secondary students (N = 105) completed written tasks before and after a unit on energy in their science class as part of this investigation. The experimental group (n = 61) additionally took part in three, one-hour sessions focused on scientific argumentation via instruction in cognitive discourse functions (Dalton-Puffer, 2013), while the control group (n = 44) completed the unit on energy without the additional instruction on argumentation. The final corpus of 210 texts was analysed using Toulmin’s Argumentation Pattern (1958). ANOVAs showed that the experimental group’s use of argumentation strategies increased significantly, while the control group’s use of such strategies did not increase. Thus, the results show that instruction on argumentation helps students to write better argumentative compositions. These findings suggest that instruction in the use of Cognitive Discourse Functions allows for academic language learning in bilingual education contexts. The pedagogical implications and future research directions of this study’s findings are discussed.

This contribution aims to explore the bilingual strategies of students producing the bilingual Basque-French “Grand Oral” (GO) text genre in the only Basque immersion high school in Northern Basque Country (NBC henceforth) (France). 20 immersion students’ Basque-French GO productions are analysed. Previous research with similar text genres in the Basque Autonomous Community (Spain) shows that even if immersion students successfully manage linguistic alternation, they scarcely adapt Basque terminology when using English. The GO is an explanatory-argumentative text genre, addressed to a jury involving a monolingual French speaker. The analysis shows that students alternate languages with no lexico-grammatical difficulties. However, when they refer to Basque terms in French, they hardly include any clarification for the non-Basque-speaking member of the jury. These findings could shed light on a better understanding of Basque immersion students’ oral bilingual strategies and could contribute to the development of plurilingual teaching approaches in NBC multilingual education, which remain unexplored.

This study investigated the relationship between foreign language (FL) oral proficiency development and teachers’ pedagogical practices in content and language integrated learning (CLIL). A one-group pretest-posttest design was employed to analyze changes in Japanese university students’ FL proficiency over time, alongside classroom observations and interviews that captured their teachers’ classroom pedagogies in CLIL courses. The results generally indicated that students improved their capacity to achieve communicative goals but failed to exhibit progress in oral linguistic competence. The former outcome was attributed to predominantly meaning-focused instruction, the use of dialogic pedagogy, and ample opportunities to practice FL speaking. In contrast, the absence of explicit language instruction and limited practice of fluency development tasks was perceived to lead to the latter outcome. These findings not only contribute to understanding the effects of CLIL on FL learning, but also shed light on the specific pedagogy-related factors that contribute to FL proficiency development.

Cognitive benefits have been reported in early bilinguals as well as in children attending a Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) school programme. Recent findings, however, show divergent results. These inconsistent findings seem to be attributable, among other factors, to the divergent tasks applied. This study aimed to determine whether a two-year CLIL programme has positive effects by applying the same tasks for which advantages were shown previously and to examine whether potential gains might impact children’s academic performance. Thirty 7-year-old French-speaking pupils who had been enrolled in a CLIL programme since the age of 5 and 30 French-speaking monolinguals following a traditional school programme were compared on different attentional and executive tasks after being matched on potential confounding variables. No attentional and executive differences were observed, but a significant effect was observed in favour of monolinguals on a task assessing mathematical skills. The implications of these results are discussed.

Des bénéfices cognitifs ont été rapportés chez des bilingues précoces ainsi que chez des enfants suivant un programme scolaire d’enseignement d’une matière par l’intégration d’une langue étrangère (EMILE). Cependant, des résultats récents montrent des divergences. Ces résultats incohérents semblent être attribuables, entre autres facteurs, aux différentes tâches appliquées. Cette étude visait à déterminer si un programme EMILE de deux ans a des effets positifs en appliquant les mêmes tâches pour lesquelles des avantages ont été démontrés précédemment et à examiner si les gains potentiels peuvent avoir un impact sur les performances scolaires des enfants. Trente élèves francophones de 7 ans inscrits dans un programme EMILE depuis l’âge de 5 ans et 30 monolingues francophones suivant un programme traditionnel ont été comparés sur différentes tâches attentionnelles et exécutives après avoir été appariés sur plusieurs variables confondantes potentielles. Aucune différence attentionnelle et exécutive n’a été observée, mais un effet significatif a été observé en faveur des monolingues dans une tâche évaluant les compétences mathématiques. Les implications de ces résultats sont discutées.

In bilingual education programs, students learn content knowledge through an additional language (L2). Their content knowledge is also assessed through their L2, which raises concerns about underestimating their actual learning. This study addresses such concerns by investigating the cognitive processes and strategies of bilingual learners when being assessed in their L2. 49 university students, divided into more proficient and less proficient L2 learners, participated in an eye-tracking experiment which captured their eye movements when attempting a biology assessment. They then reported their thinking processes and strategies during the assessment process in a stimulated recall. In general, the participants engaged in more cognitive processes when attempting questions that were more cognitively demanding and required productive language skills. The less proficient group had more and longer fixations and regressions than their more proficient counterparts, but the two groups reported similar strategies. These findings have implications for assessment design in bilingual education programs.