Cross-curricular collaboration and teachers’ language awareness in bilingual education

Abstract

In bilingual education programmes, teachers, particularly content subject teachers, play an important role in helping students master content knowledge and the target language simultaneously. In this regard, teachers’ language awareness, which will affect their pedagogical practices, is crucial. Collaboration between content subject and language teachers is argued to be effective in enhancing teachers’ language awareness and strategies of integrating content and language teaching. This study explored this by investigating 12 secondary schools in Hong Kong which implemented partial or full English Medium Instruction, with a specific focus on how cross-curricular collaboration was implemented, and whether this may have promoted teachers’ language awareness and practices. With questionnaires, interviews, classroom observations and artefacts, the study observed that teachers were generally aware of the difficulties students encountered when learning content subjects through English, and content subject teachers tended to recognise their roles of incorporating language teaching into content lessons. Such self-reported language awareness was corroborated by the various strategies integrating content and language teaching in the observed ­lessons. These findings demonstrate a cyclic relationship between cross-curricular collaboration and teachers’ language awareness – teachers’ language awareness is essential to make cross-curricular collaboration happen, and it is further reinforced after teachers collaborate with each other.

ABSTRACT IN CHINESE

在雙語教育課程中, 教師, 尤其是學科教師, 在幫助學生同時掌握學科知識和目標語言方面發揮著重要作用。在這方面, 教師的語文認知至關重要, 因為這將影響他們的教學實踐。學科老師與語文教師之間的跨學科協作被認為可以有效地提高教師的語文認知以及內容與語文結合的教學策略。本研究通過調查香港12所實施部分或全部英語授課的中學來探討它們如何實施跨學科協作, 以及這是否可以促進教師的語文認知和教學實踐。通過問卷調查、訪談、課堂觀察和收集學校文件, 本研究發現教師普遍意識到學生以英語學習學科時遇到的困難, 學科教師一般認同他們將語言教學融入學科課程的角色。這種自我報告的語文認知也展現在課程中整合內容和語言教學的各種策略。這些研究發現表明, 跨學科協作與教師語文認知之間存在相輔相成的關係, 換言之, 教師的語文認知有助推動跨學科協作, 並且在教師協作後會進一步加強。

PLAIN LANGUAGE SUMMARY

In bilingual education programmes, it is important for teachers to help students master content knowledge and the target language at the same time. In this aspect, teachers’ language awareness, which will affect their teaching practices, is crucial. Such awareness could be enhanced through collaboration between content subject and language teachers. This study explored this by looking into 12 secondary schools in Hong Kong which used English to teach some or all content subjects. We focused on how cross-curricular collaboration occurred, and whether this may have promoted teachers’ language awareness and practices. We found that teachers were generally aware of the difficulties students faced when learning content subjects through English, and content subject teachers tended to recognise their roles of integrating language teaching into content lessons. These findings are important because they show a close relationship between cross-­curricular collaboration and teachers’ language awareness. In other words, teachers’ language awareness is essential to make cross-­curricular collaboration happen, and it is further reinforced after teachers collaborate with each other.

Keywords:

• Bilingual education
• content and language integrated learning
• cross-curricular collaboration
• English medium instruction
• teacher language awareness

Acknowledgments

The intellectual property rights of the data reported in this study are owned by the Hong Kong SAR Government. The authors would like to thank the schools, teachers and students who provided support for this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 For anonymity purposes, random school codes are used to represent different case schools.

2 For anonymity purposes, random teacher codes are used to represent different teacher interviewees.

Additional information

Funding

The study has been approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee of the University of Hong Kong [Reference no. EA1912014], and informed consent has been secured from all the participants.

Notes on contributors

Yuen Yi Lo

Dr. Yuen Yi Lo is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education, the University of Hong Kong, China. Her research focuses on bilingual education programmes such as English-medium instruction (EMI) and Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). She is particularly interested in cross-curricular collaboration, assessment and teachers’ professional development in these programmes.

Weijun (Tim) Liang

Dr. Weijun (Tim) Liang is currently an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, City University of Macau. His research interests include content and language integrated learning (CLIL), technology-enhanced English learning, and critical thinking cultivation in English language education. He has published 11 international refereed journal articles in eight different journals and one scholarly monograph.